“But he’s not the god of death. He’s the devil.” How many times did I have to say that?
“Best start thinking of him as Pluto,” Morta said, “for I assure you his actions will conform to your beliefs. You want him cruel, he’ll be cruel. You want his kindness, think of him as capable of it.”
“Here we are,” the fairy said.
When Andre opened his eyes, for a single moment he mistook his surroundings for the afterlife. The whiteness, the soft silence of falling snow—it was such a vast contrast to the vivacity of life as he knew it.
All around him stood tall trees. Cut between them was a snow-covered path marred with several pairs footprints. Several interwoven scents clung to the path. Supernatural beings. At least a dozen of them.
He stretched his senses. In the distance he felt a pulse of life and amongst it …
“Gabrielle.”
He could feel her ahead of him. He almost fell to his knees; even with all his knowledge, he hadn’t been sure she’d be here, and if she was, that she’d be alive.
He pushed forward. “There are at least twelve beings near Gabrielle, and we have to assume all are hostile. You should stay here.”
“Oh hell no—I didn’t come all this way just to be left out of the fun,” the fairy said
Andre turned to give Oliver an appraising look. “This is not a game, fairy. People will get hurt. You will probably be one of them.” Even as he spoke, he could feel his bloodthirsty nature rise.
Gabrielle never again wanted to see Andre massacre people. Tonight he was going to have to disappoint her.
“Argue all you want, Rambo,” the fairy said. “I’ll still be sticking to you like a nymph to a tree.”
Andre didn’t have time for this. He growled in frustration. “Fine,” he said, defeated. “But once we get inside, you’ll follow my orders.”
The fairy’s eyes twinkled with excitement. “Agreed.”
They pressed forward once more, and as they did so, the trees began to thin out, and their destination towered over them. Made of marble and rock, conquests and cruelty, it was the perfect gateway into hell.
Bran Castle.
There was that reminder again, that belief trumped fate. Ironic that a Fate would be the one to tell me this.
“I’m going to cut the bonds around your ankles,” Morta said. “If you try to pull some stunt on me, Lila will knock you out and carry you to your destination, and any remaining questions you have will go unanswered. Understood?”
Lila—I finally had a name for Creepy McCreeps-a-Lot.
I felt Lila stroke my cheek. “Please be difficult,” she whispered in my ear, and I recoiled. I was beginning to think that Lila was here just to ensure my cooperation.
“Fine,” I said to Morta, “so long as you answer more of my questions.”
She knelt down at my feet and unwound the rope that shackled them together. “You do not get to make demands. However, I will entertain a few more questions, so long as it pleases me.”
I didn’t wait for more. “What kind of power would the devil possess by being with me?” I asked. The last of the rope fell away from my ankles, and I shook them out.
In front of me I heard Morta rise. “How does the end of the myth of Pluto and Proserpine unfold?”
Was she asking me? “Persephone’s mother kills everything off until she gets her daughter back.”
“After that,” Morta said. “What is the end result?”
“Persephone gets to live half the year on Earth and half the year in the Underworld.”
Morta took my arm once more. “That is the answer you seek,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
Lila gave my face another caress, and her burnt floral scent assaulted my nose. Her lips brushed my cheek. “It means that you will be a creature that can freely travel between Earth and Hell.”
With every step Andre took, her scent got stronger. The smells of the damned seeped in along with it. Bran Castle had long been a place of pain. History knew the most public examples of it, but there were so many more that went unrecorded. Torture, rape, incest, murder—the place was saturated with it. Blood had fed the soil here. The place was stained with horror.
And somewhere in there Gabrielle was being held against her will. Silently Andre crept up the stairs to the entrance of the castle. His muscles twitched with the need to kick down the doors and unleash his fury, but he’d been in enough battles to know that brute force didn’t often win, especially when outnumbered.
But the element of surprise, that could turn the tables. So rather than kicking down the door, he turned the handle. When he met resistance, he gave a deft yank, breaking the lock.
He pushed the door open, and then he and Oliver were inside.
My back went ramrod straight as a pulse of power thrummed along my skin. Andre was here.
But how? How had he found me when I had no clue where I was?
Morta gave me a yank. “Time to meet your destiny.”
“Who even says that?” I asked, walking forward, but my mind was distracted. Andre had found me!
Together we crossed the room and slipped through the door. The hallway was chillier than the room I’d been in, and familiar dread churned in my stomach.
“No.” I staggered and came to a stop.
“Move.” Morta shoved me forward, but I refused to budge.
This place couldn’t be real, but so help me God, somehow it was. I was back in the devil’s home.
Even with Andre’s soothing presence nearby, I began to shake, and my fangs descended. “Not here—I don’t want to die here!” My voice became frantic.
I tugged on my bindings again, and began to struggle to get away.
“I warned you what would happen if you tried to get away,” Morta said.
I couldn’t die here; I refused to.
Power built along with my panic. At first I thought it was my own, but as the ground began to rumble and the sensation lashed against my skin, I realized it wasn’t me at all.
Someone had officially pissed off my boyfriend.