Ann Aguirre - Devil's Punch

Chance wrapped an arm around me, his expression grim. By the look in his eyes, he felt it too. I leaned into him, more frightened than I cared to admit. Even the demon knight in Peru had been a foe I could fight. How do you combat cursed demon rock? Yeah, exactly.

I squeezed my eyes shut and ignored the rising impulse to throw myself out of the moving vehicle. Because clearly we were doomed. We couldn’t save Shannon. In the end, nothing I did mattered. My mother had died, and I couldn’t help her. I’d hidden like a coward. My father, shit, he left ages ago, probably because he saw I was worthless. I should’ve let Shannon perish in Kilmer because at least it would have been faster than what awaited her in the hands of the demons.

Heaviness spilled through me, dark as blackberry wine, and I listed, ready for everything to stop. The futility, the struggle, the failure—I wanted it all over. There was no hope. No purpose. No point. I threw myself toward the edge of the carriage, but Chance was there. He caught me.

His arms went around me, tight as steel bands, and he put his face against mine. “Fight it, damn you. You’re stronger than this.”

Stronger than what?

“You don’t know anything,” I said wearily. “I’m a fake and a liar, Chance. Which you’d already know if I wasn’t both those things.”

“Corine—”

“You think I’m a good person, but a good person doesn’t do deals with demons, even to save her own skin, maybe especially then. You remember the demon from Kilmer? In Laredo, I did business with it. I summoned its mate in return for help against the Montoyas.”

Shock tightened his features, but he recovered. “You wouldn’t have done that if you’d had a better choice.”

“Wouldn’t I? After I summoned Dumah, I forced Maury to give me a better bargain. And then, later, I used her true name to summon her. She’s how I defeated Montoya and his sorcerous brother. I fed them to her.” I heard myself saying these things, and I couldn’t stop. The words were poison that had to be lanced, right then, or I would die.

“Do you feel better?” he asked.

But I wasn’t done with my confession. “While you were trying to find a way to win me back, I was with someone else. I slept with Kel in Peru, and—”

He kissed me. It was a time-tested way to shut a woman up, I supposed. Afterward, he held me. Argued with me. Distracted me. Before I could fight him in earnest, we cleared the chasm, and the effects faded. Just enough for me to realize how stupid I’d been, how much I’d told him, and hot color flooded my face. I had meant to come clean with Chance, but not like that. I could’ve chosen my moment and my words better. Greydusk sat like a statue beside me, carefully not looking at either of us.

Gods and goddesses .

“How do you not hate me?” I asked.

He pulled away slowly, and I missed his warmth, his comfort. “This isn’t the time to talk.”

Chance couldn’t be happy about the demon summoning or the destruction of human souls, even bad ones. Who would be? Especially since we were in Sheol, the demon capital of the universe.

“But Kel…?”

His jaw tightened. “Obviously I’m unhappy about that. It’s a knife in my gut, imagining you with him.”

Embarrassment kept my cheeks hot; I shouldn’t have crumbled so fast. Maybe that spoke to my lack of fortitude—or it might be the unholy rock still at work in my head. Surely, though, he couldn’t have imagined I’d abstain. I mean, I never expected to see Chance again, let alone have him devoted to winning me back.

In silence, I linked my fingers together and studied the incredible vista rising before us. The city was…immense. Imagine the biggest human metropolis, like Mexico City or Tokyo, and then multiply it times two. Or four. A sense of spatial relationships wasn’t my strong suit. The point being, Xibalba was an enormous urban sprawl. The demon city looked like a baroque painting with round, classical lines, but a little too vivid, as if it was realer than anything else around it. That impression made me distrust my eyes.

Tall stone towers rose up from the city center, and a dark, sooty pall hung over everything. It might come from industry, I supposed, though that was an odd thought. Demons, working in factories, demon teamsters—and that sent my brain to places I’d better not go. If I started seeing demons as like humans, who had daily lives and went about them the best way they could, I’d lose the only surety I possessed—that they were the evil, the enemy, and must be vanquished at all costs. Shit. The possibility that all demons weren’t one hundred percent wicked was already lodged too deep to shake out. I was in so far over my head.

The carriage took us to the walls, where a guard stopped us. A magickal glow swirled around the stone, layers of protection when glimpsed through my witch sight. I cocked a brow at Greydusk while we waited our turn. There were numerous conveyances ahead of us, many of them Gothic or unlikely, straight out of a Tim Burton movie, and the denizens of said coaches were more exotic still.

“Do you see anything interesting about the fortifications?” the demon asked.

I squinted. The walls were really tall. I shrugged.

“No?” But the question made me wonder what I wasn’t seeing, so I switched to witch sight, and the walls glowed with scintillant color. “What’s that?”

“The light?” it asked.

I nodded.

“The Vortex. It keeps undesirables out.”

By which he meant monsters like the Gorder. I pointed. “And over there?”

It looked like a shantytown, shacks built out of scrap wood and stone. I glimpsed shambling figures, but they were too far away to make out details. Please don’t let that be a human slave labor camp .

“Those are the Xaraz, demons who have been convicted of a crime and stripped of caste status.”

“You don’t have prisons?” Chance wanted to know.

Greydusk seemed puzzled. “What is the purpose of feeding and housing our criminals? Outside the walls, they will fight to live or die. Some perish. What punishment could be worse than that?”

“Our prisons claim they’re striving toward rehabilitation,” I offered.

“And how’s that working out?” The demon scoffed.

I had to admit, I took his point. “Aren’t you worried they’ll get back in?”

“They cannot. The Vortex requires each vehicle or pedestrian to possess a rune of passage, or the energy field destroys them.”

“This one does, right?” I leaned over to look at the front, as if there would be magickal license plate on it.

“Of course.”

Then it was our turn at the gate.

The guard asked something in demontongue; he looked more or less human, except for his tail. It twitched in impatience while he discussed our entry with Greydusk. I could only guess at what they were saying, but the language grated on my ears, simultaneously harsh and sibilant. Then our demon produced some documents and the guard waved us through.

“What did you say?” I asked, once we passed into Xibalba proper.

“That I am an Imaron guide in service to Sybella of the Luren. And here are my contracts, providing provenance for the arrival of two specimens.”

Chance laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”

Me either. But I was too weary to take offense.

In exhaustion, I felt unable to take in all the wonders; the city blurred before my eyes as we clattered over rough stone streets, which seemed to be laid out in concentric circles. After we passed through another set of gates, we were ushered inside a magnificent estate. We waited a while, and then a silent, gorgeous male Luren guided us into a sumptuous chamber to confront Greydusk’s boss.