Azaiel and Kellen arrived in District One in the middle of a storm. Such was the way of it there. The perpetual night sky was a vibrant red, with slashes of black ripping across the horizon as thunder and lightning boomed loudly.
The smell of sulfur was heavy in the air, and Azaiel wrinkled his nose in distaste. The metallic scent of it would forever be ingrained into his mind, imprinted upon his memory.
God how he hated that fucking smell.
The clock tower was where it had always been, there in the middle of the market. He paused for a moment as they emerged from the large structure and glanced down the street. Thick fog swirled lazily along the ground, hiding the cobblestone surface and who knew what else. Tall buildings dressed in shadow lined either side of the street, but it was too dark to see them clearly. Instead they stood like macabre caricatures, spectral and hollow shells of what they were.
He studied them through the cold wind and driving rain, pulling his leather coat up as far as it would go. Most were decrepit, crumbling facades, but some were in use and hid things bet
ter left in the shadows.
He thought he saw something there, reflected in the glass of one of the only windows that wasn’t boarded up. A flicker of light . . . a deviation of the dark.
They couldn’t linger.
To his immediate left was the hotel, Soul Sucker. It looked much the same as the last time he’d seen it. It was a tall building, but the upper floors were cloaked in fog and darkness. The paint was peeling, many windows were broken. It was as old and used as District One seemed to be, and it had stood for millennia.
When Azaiel had been a prisoner here he’d been allowed out of his cage occasionally—like a pet out for a walk—and though he could count those few moments of freedom on the fingers of one hand, all that he’d seen was burned into his memory like a movie playing inside his brain.
Club Doom was at the end of this street—a raucous gathering place where alcohol, drugs, and mayhem mixed all too frequently. The dunes—which was where he was headed—were well beyond that place.
“This looks like some fucked-up version of a Hitchcock film.” Kellen was beside him, his face hard as he took in everything. “Not at all what I expected.” He glanced at Azaiel. “Who knew Hell was as cold as the Arctic?”
“This place is unlike any in the known realms.” Azaiel started forward. “Stick close to me. If anyone or anything gets in your face, do not challenge. If you die here, I won’t be able to bring you back, do you understand? You’ll be bound to this place forever.”
Kellen’s lips thinned. “Got it.” He tucked his jacket up and squinted into the gray mist. The rain had petered off, and the wind had died down, but the mist rode the coattails of fog and created an illusion of depth and movement. “Where we headed?”
“The dunes. It’s where Seth’s compound is located.”
They started forward. “I take it we’re not going to be able to walk through the front door and ask for the grimoire.”
“No.” Azaiel shook his head. “There’s another portal, one that will take us inside Seth’s.”
“And you know where this portal is?”
“I do.” At least he knew where it had been located . . . if it had been moved, he was screwed. He was counting on Seth’s arrogance and the fact that the demon was very much a creature of habit, not nearly as paranoid as Samael. Though he supposed playing for both sides in this war of the realms would make anyone paranoid.
They were nearly upon Club Doom; the pounding beat shook the street beneath his boots, and several demons crowded the entrance. Two of them were wraiths, their flimsy bodies transparent as they flitted back and forth, searching . . . always searching. Their large, almond-shaped eyes were hollow, and maggots squirmed from mouths that were open in a perpetual scream of agony.
In their former lives they’d been human, or demon, or otherworld until a trip below to District Three had changed them forever.
“Do not meet their gaze,” he warned Kellen. “And if they sing, do not listen. Think of anything but the voice in your head.”
A large crowd was gathered in front of the entrance of the club, waiting to get inside. An eclectic assortment of otherworld demons and those from the human realm—vampire, shifter, magick. District One was the most forgiving realm in Hell, and in many ways mimicked any city in the human world—a seedy, destructive, and violent city—but nevertheless it drew many parallels.
Club Doom was the only place in the entire district where one could drink, party, and do all sorts of evil, illicit things. That it was owned by Samael was no coincidence. The demon laid claim to half of District One, but Club Doom was his jewel. It provided him with both intel and entertainment.
The smell of hedonism was rank in the air, and Azaiel grimaced. It was sweet and seductive. It had called to him many a night that he’d passed down here and now . . . it made him ill. Small victory but one he clung to fiercely.
They were a block away. “Aren’t you afraid someone will recognize you?”
Azaiel shook his head. “There’s always a chance, I suppose, but the type of souls who haunt Seth’s compound do not generally mix with the filth that inhabit this place.” His gaze swept the crowd that milled about, and he drew his collar up higher as he nodded to the left. “We’re headed there to Café du Blood.” An alley separated the small shop from the club, a small sliver of darkness between the two buildings.
He paused, about to cross the street, when a whisper of something strange drifted over him. Azaiel glanced back toward Club Doom. A young woman stared at him with wild, beseeching eyes. Long, tangled, blond hair fell to her waist, the dress she wore, something out of Victorian England, was in tatters, and the demon who held her by the shoulders looked like a mean son of a bitch.
She appeared too frail. Too weak. Too human.
For one second their gazes met and held, and Azaiel felt defeated because he knew he couldn’t do anything for her. There was too much at stake. He turned his back, heart heavy, and wished her well.