It nodded. “Lily Yu.”
“And his name? The wolf’s?”
“He’s called Rule Turner.”
“Rule.” She said it thoughtfully, as if searching for recognition, some snippet of memory. And looked disappointed. “I know him, though.”
“Sure. You have sex with him a lot. Well, when he’s not a wolf, you do. I don’t know if you have sex when he’s like this.” It tipped its head to one side, eyes brightening—and penis beginning to harden. “I’d like to see that if you do.”
Rule growled.
Lily ignored irrelevancies to focus on her questions. “What do you mean, ‘when he’s not a wolf?”
“He’s lupus. You’re human. And I,” it said, penis and expression drooping once more, “am in so much trouble. Neither of you is supposed to—yipes!”
Rule had heard it, too, and had spun to face the new threat before the demon stopped speaking.
Feet. Lots and lots of running feet, headed their way.
The demon bounded to a tall, nearly vertical rock face. “Get her over here!” it cried. “Get her flat against the rock, or they’ll trample her!”
Some kind of stampede? Making up his mind quickly, Rule pushed at Lily with his nose.
“You want me to do like the creature says? I don’t… what’s that?”
Her ears must have picked it up now, too. Rule pushed at her urgently. Whatever was headed their way was coming fast.
She grimaced, but, by using his back to steady herself, managed to get to her feet.
He’d known she was hurt. Though he didn’t remember those last moments on Earth, he’d smelled it when he awoke. But now he saw her wound clearly, and it worried him. Just below her navel was a puffy blister shaped like a fat cigar, but bigger. The skin around it was bright red and weepy.
Second-degree burn, he thought, alarmed. Were there bacteria in hell?
Stupid question. She’d have brought some in on her skin, and he could only hope her system was able to fight them off. The pain would be fierce, the healing slow. She needed medical treatment, dammit. He couldn’t supply so much as a bandage. He had no shirt to tear into strips.
Neither did she.
That was odd, now that he thought of it. Why hadn’t her clothes arrived with her? The Lady’s token had made the crossing, but not Lily’s clothing.
He had no answers, and damn little help to give. He could only pace anxiously alongside her as she stumbled toward the overhang, then place himself between her and the demon when she sank to the ground, her back against the rock. He heard the pounding of her heart—too fast—and her quick, short breaths.
Seconds later, the wave hit.
TWENTY
THEY cascaded over the edges of the cul-de-sac so fast and in such numbers that Rule couldn’t sort out what an individual creature looked like. He had an impression of endless gray bodies with too many legs, and a pungent smell like mushrooms and grapefruit. They hurtled to the floor of the cul-de-sac in the hundreds and kept running, pouring up the other side in a steady stream.
It seemed to go on and on but probably lasted ten minutes or less. As suddenly as the flood had started it was over, leaving a couple dozen bodies behind. Many had been trampled into bloody pulp—red blood, so maybe their metabolism was oxygen-based. A few still twitched.
The demon didn’t move, so Rule didn’t, either. Seconds later two huge shadows glided across the rocky ground. Rule looked up.
Pterodactyls? Giant birds? They were too quickly gone for him to pick up much detail, and his distance vision wasn’t good in this form. They seemed to be trailing the stampeding creatures. Hunting them, maybe.
The demon heaved a great sigh and, after giving the sky a wary glance, wandered out into the open. Hoping that meant the coast was clear, Rule followed. He wanted to check out one of the creatures.
The body nearest him was almost intact. It looked rather like a roach without the carapace, only the size of a cat and with leathery gray skin. The six thin legs were hinged oddly, but were more animal than insect. He could see bone where the skin and sinew was missing. They ended in small, clawed feet. The head was pure bug, however—small, flattened, with faceted eyes and serrated mandibles.
Revolting to look at, he decided, but they didn’t smell half bad. In a pinch, they would do. For him, anyway. His body would throw off any toxins. He didn’t know if Lily could safely eat them—or if she’d be willing to try, short of starvation.
He hoped with everything in him they wouldn’t have to find out.
“Might as well get to it,” the demon said, resigned. It picked up one of the twitching creatures and bit its head off.
Lily made a choked sound. “You were saying something about how we kill too easily?”
It chewed and swallowed. “I didn’t kill it. I ate it.”
“Why am I not seeing the distinction?”
“It isn’t dead now. It would have been if I hadn’t eaten it, but now it’s part of me. You people eat dead things and keep the physical stuff. We eat live things and keep the life. Not that hirug would be my first choice.” It grimaced at the decapitated body it held and wrenched off one of the legs. “Stupid creatures. But they’re here, and I’m going to need extra ymu.”
When it opened that wide slit of a mouth completely, it looked like the whole lower half of its face was hinged. It crunched down on the leg. “You should have told me you were too weak to travel.”
Lily sighed and leaned back against the rock. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but the burn on her stomach probably made leaning forward worse. “Your little snack won’t help me travel. Unless you’re planning to carry me, and I’m not—”
“Carry you? That would be stupid. Better if I give you a little boost and make your wound go away.”
“You can’t do that. You said I’m a sensitive, and that— that feels right. I can touch magic…” Her hand went to the Lady’s talisman Rule had fastened around her throat when she became clan. “It can’t touch me, though. Can’t affect me.”
“How do you think you got here?” it snapped. “By train?”
Her head jerked as if she’d been slapped, her eyebrows flying up.
“We’re tied,” it told her, impatient. “So I can affect you. I can’t get inside you any more than I already am, but I’m partway there. I can give you… English doesn’t have the words.”
“Find some,” she said tersely.
Its brow wrinkled. “Well, when I eat, I take ymu and assig. Ymu is the energy. Assig is the pattern, the memories and thinking. Not that hirug actually think, but you get the idea.”
Rule did, and he didn’t like it. He moved between Lily and the demon.
“I’m not going to hurt her! I’m going to help her.”
Rule snarled.
“Wait.”
He looked at Lily, startled.
The small frown tucked between her eyebrows reminded him of her mother. “I don’t trust it, either, but he—it—she—” She stopped, frustrated. “What are you, anyway?”
“I’m called Gan. Your dumb language doesn’t have a word for he-and-she, so you can call me it. We don’t settle on a sex right away. Well, some demons never do, but most—”
“You’re… a demon.”
Gan rolled its eyes. “What did you think I was?”
“Then this place is…”
“Dis. Or hell, according to a lot of you people, but that’s a misunderstanding.”
Lily had already been pale. Now she looked shocky. When Gan started to speak Rule growled at it: Shut up.
She closed her eyes and then opened them as if she might be able to change what she saw that way. She looked at the stones, the bizarre sky, the dead and dying hirug, the demon. She drummed her fingers on her thigh. “Okay. You’re a demon and we’re in hell. How did we get here?”