Page 15 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

According to the file from Safadi, her human name is Laila. She’s a neophyte demon who’s been on Earth for less than two weeks, captured by a Sanctum a few states over and shipped to Redwater for further interrogation.

That’s been happening a lot recently. It’s one of the many oddities that Chester is doing his best to hide from Obie.

Usually, if hunters capture a neophyte demon before the Chain does, they’ll keep the demon in their own Sanctum’s prison, but nowadays, it seems like more and more of them are being transferred straight to Redwater .

Chester doesn’t know what they’re doing in this prison that’s so different from the rest of the country, but he has a nagging feeling that the experiments in the purebred-only wing are part of it.

For now, though, this demon is Chester’s responsibility. Her dossier of questions doesn’t include anything too detailed, since she hasn’t been in this dimension long enough to cause trouble. Should be a fairly easy interrogation.

Even so, his palms feel sweaty. Swallowing hard, he wipes them on his uniform pants. Usually, he isn’t nearly this anxious before an interrogation, but usually??—

“Last chance.” Obie’s voice is low and threatening behind him. “Find a way out of it.”

Usually, he doesn’t have Nostringvadha himself watching over his shoulder, either.

A sharp twinge of guilt spikes through Chester.

Much as he doesn’t want to care about Obie’s emotional state, he knows that Obie isn’t going to react well to watching Chester interrogate one of his people.

And, in a twisted way, Chester almost feels like he understands Obie’s reaction.

It shifts uncomfortably close to how Chester felt the two times he was ordered to torture JJ.

But he doesn’t have the luxury of caring about that right now. “It’ll be easier for you if you stay out here,” he says quietly, and he squares his shoulders before pushing open the interrogation room’s door.

Laila’s eyes flicker over to Chester. “Hello.”

Chester smiles tightly back, easing the door shut behind him. A surreptitious glance to the side shows that the video camera?—complete with microphone?—above the one-way mirror is already recording. Perfect. “Hello. My name is Chester. What’s yours?”

“Laila. That is what they tell me, at least.” Her eyes drift back to the fluorescent lights. “You are not here for friendliness, are you?”

She stumbles over the words, just like most neophyte demons do.

Even though they can learn human languages fairly quickly, two weeks isn’t nearly enough time to absorb one as complicated as English.

“I can be friendly, if you want,” Chester says, keeping his voice calm and even. “I just have some questions for you.”

“I may answer your questions,” Laila says, tugging at the straps around her wrists. “Can these be loosened? They are painful.”

“Sure,” Chester says, and he walks over to the interrogation table, loosening the restraints by one hole each. Not enough to make a real difference, but just enough to dial down the pain?—and build rapport. “Better?”

“Yes.” Laila looks up at him again. “If I answer your questions, will you let me go?”

Chester knows that some interrogators make promises like that, but outright lying to his prisoners has never sat right with him. “I don’t have that kind of authorization,” he says instead. “But, if you cooperate, I can put in a good word for you.”

“Hm.” Laila’s eyes slide back to the ceiling. “What are your questions?”

Chester starts with his easiest. It’s not technically on the list, but it usually helps him map out his strategy for the rest of the interrogation. “Tell me why you think you’re here.”

“To answer questions.”

Good answer. “Why?”

“Because I am new to this dimension. To Earth.” Laila fidgets. “I was told that this dimension is cruel, but I did not know how cruel. My own brethren sent me here. I?—I trusted them.”

Chester has heard more than one neophyte say that lately. No honor among demons, apparently. “Trust is hard,” he acknowledges softly. “Tell me about your life in Tamaros.”

“Mm…” Laila hums quietly, closing her eyes. “Free. Fast. Beautiful. We do not exist in these fleshy bodies, you see. We do not even ex ist in what you humans call, ah, ‘true forms.’ We exist as color and light and sound. Energy. Vibration.”

All things Chester has heard before. He nods. “You’re answering my questions really well so far, Laila.”

“Thank you. How many more?”

“Five or six. If you answer all of them, I can send you back to your cell.” He gestures at the straps. “No more of these.”

“Yes, I like that better,” Laila agrees. “More questions.”

Chester takes a deep breath, steeling himself. “Tell me about your gods. The Fourteen.”

“Ah.” Laila attempts to nod, wincing when the motion jostles the corrosive restraint around her forehead. “Our gods would fit well in your dimension. They are capricious and vindictive. Not to be trusted.”

“So you don’t like them.”

“None of us do.” Laila hesitates. “Well. We love Nostringvadha. But he has been banished for eons.”

Chester fights back a flinch. “I know Nostringvadha is on Earth,” he says carefully, trying to ignore the fact that the god himself is currently just outside this room. “But where do the rest of your gods live?”

Laila’s eyebrows pull together. “It is… not a physical location, as such. We cannot access it. Not as color and light and sound, at least.”

The words pique Chester’s interest. Most neophytes just get confused when he asks this question, but Laila sounds like she might know more. “If you can’t access it as color and light and sound, then how can you access it?”

“We were not made for that,” she says, frustration creeping into her voice. “I am sorry. Your questions become more difficult for me.”

“You’re doing well,” Chester assures her. “Can anyone besides the gods go there? Or only them? ”

Laila frowns with concentration. “I… believe others may go there. But only through a special kind of rift?—one that demons are not powerful enough to create.”

Chester snaps to attention. Hastily, he double-checks that the video camera is still recording.

That’s more information than he’s ever gotten from a neophyte demon?—maybe even more than any interrogator has gotten. He hopes the Council is pleased with that. “Do you know how to open this rift? Even if you can’t do it yourself?”

“No.” Laila presses her lips together. “It cannot be opened in Tamaros, I believe. In this dimension, maybe. Nostringvadha might know.”

The words streak through Chester like lightning. “Tell me about Nostringvadha,” he blurts out. Technically, it’s not one of the questions on his list, but??—

Well. Chester would love to hear about other things that Nostringvadha might know.

“He is our favorite god,” Laila says, closing her eyes again. “Our fondest god. Our most beloved god. He is Wanderer and Avenger and Memory-Keeper.”

Nothing that Chester doesn’t already know. “Do you think he could access the gods’ inner realm?”

Laila’s eyes squeeze tighter, like she’s trying to think.

“Perhaps? But perhaps not. It is difficult to say. He cannot return to Tamaros?—the gods made sure of that?—but the inner realm is not in Tamaros. And he must know how to create the rift, even if he can’t use it. After all, he was once one of them.”

Chester’s pulse is racing through his veins. He resists the urge to peek through the one-way glass, over to where he’s sure an invisible Obie is listening to every word.

Because that makes sense. That makes so much sense. Obie is Nostringvadha, and Nostringvadha was one of the Fourteen, so Obie has to know how to create that rift. He has to know where the gods’ inner realm is, has to know how to access it.

Obie probably knows the answers to every question Chester has ever asked a demon.

But that’s something he’ll have to explore in more detail later. For now, it’s time to make good on his promise to send Laila back to her cell. “Laila, you’ve done??—?”

All at once, the overhead lights brighten to a feverish intensity and blink out with a high-pitched snap.

Chester jerks to attention as the interrogation room?—as the entire prison? —goes black, not even the emergency generators picking up the slack.

He blindly grabs a knife off the table next to him, stumbling towards the light switch on the wall. “Laila??—????”

“You’ve done so well, sister.”

Chester’s stomach drops. There’s a figure standing to the side of Laila’s interrogation table, facing away from Chester, its silhouette just barely visible in the darkness, but??—

But it’s not a silhouette that Chester knows. Even if he recognizes the voice, the form is shockingly unhuman, with ram horns curving up from its skull and bat wings spreading out to each side and tentacles coiling out of its spine and??—

“Obie?” Chester stammers.

But Obie was standing outside the interrogation room. Even with the sudden blackout, Chester would’ve noticed the door opening.

Did he somehow manage to rift into here? Past the prison’s anti-rifting spell work?

Laila doesn’t share Chester’s hesitation. “Nostringvadha,” she breathes, her eyes widening in awe. “Nostringvadha, my god, you’ve come for me! You’ve??—?”

Delicately, the figure smooths Laila’s hair back from her forehead. As Chester’s vision adjusts, he can see what look like human eyes blinking from its forearms. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here,” Nostringvadha murmurs. “But you’ve done so well, and I’m here to set you free.”

There’s a wide smile spread across Laila’s face. It makes her look startlingly human. “Nostringvadha, my faithful lord, I am forever in your debt.”

“No debt is required,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to Laila’s forehead. “Simply be well, sister.”

Unexpectedly, Laila’s entire body jerks against her restraints. As Chester watches, frozen in place, a fine mist of purple-gold swirls up from her chest, coiling once in midair before drifting away and slipping underneath the door.

And then Laila goes limp, still and silent with lifeless eyes and that same smile on her face.

Slowly, the silhouette turns around to face Chester. Eyes on his forearms, extra mouths peppering his torso, patches of scales and fur and feathers covering every inch of him, purple eyes that gleam in the darkness??—

At the same time, though, it’s still unmistakably Obadiah Smith. Just brought up from his false humanity and embracing his godhood.

Chester barely resists the sudden impulse to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness. “Nostringvadha,” he whispers.

For a long moment, Obie studies him, his face expressionless.

And then he blinks back out of existence like he was never there in the first place, leaving Chester breathless and shaking as the emergency generators finally whirr to life around him.