Grave Intentions (Darkling Mage 3)

Herald chuckled. “Real cute.”

He grabbed my wrist, then pressed my hand up against the screen. I yelped when something sharp shot out of the glass and slashed my finger. I glared at Herald, pulling my hand away. Ouch. I chewed my lip, correctly rethinking the very gross business of sucking at my bloodied finger after it had been in contact with an incredibly grody ATM screen.

“Step back,” he said.

I was almost a second too late. The machine writhed and screeched into life. It grew as it warped and folded in upon itself. The seam where it should have spit out cash parted to reveal massive fangs of serrated steel, each bigger and crueler than a kitchen knife.

“Well shit,” I muttered, surprised I could hear myself over the agonizing shriek and scrape of rusted metal. The machine had transformed into the gaping maw of some giant beast. I stared warily into the darkness of its throat, and my heart leapt out of my ass when I spotted the first glimmer of fire.

“Oh. Cool. So it’s a dragon. No big deal.”

Herald wrapped his coat tighter around himself, securing it against the howling wind that blasted from the dragon’s throat. “It’s a majo

r demon of greed, which means it can afford fancy security systems.” The dragon shrieked even louder. “Real fancy ones.”

“Oh. Awesome. I thought it was the demon lord of making me shit my fucking pants.”

“There’s one of those, too, but for now, this is the right address. Come on.”

I licked my lips as I watched the flames twirl and dance among the gateway’s serrated fangs. “After you,” I said.

Herald shrugged, pushed up his glasses, and walked straight into the fire without looking back.

“Thinks he’s an action star,” I mumbled. I clenched my teeth, and for some inane reason, took a deep breath, filling my lungs with as much air as they could hold. Then I walked into the flames, too.

They were freezing cold, and somehow almost solid as they lapped against my ankles, their chilling touch licking at my shoes. It was like walking into the meat section of a supermarket. Not the frozen goods aisle, exactly, but the bit behind the thick plastic curtains, where they keep all the carcasses.

I’d worked in one of those places once, and as I walked, the smell of charnel and gore returned to me. I steeled myself, expecting the demon’s domicile to be exactly as the Abrahamic religions described them: furious, merciless, and filled with the flayed, ruined bodies of sinners.

But as I kept walking, the blaze faded. The gouts of fire disappeared into the ground, which was no longer the same rusted metal of the gateway, but a gleaming marble. The smell of dead animals and spilled blood disappeared, giving way to a distant scent of woodsmoke, citrus, and spice.

In some far, unseen room, a piano played something familiar, or perhaps something forgotten. And instead of the butcher’s barrier, in place of the plastic sheets was a grand, gleaming curtain of crimson velvet. Herald was nowhere in sight. I could only assume that he had stepped through, so I ran my hands across the soft, suede-like touch of the curtains, then parted them.

Palatial. That was the only way I could describe the demon’s domicile. Sparkling candelabras burned with brilliant fires from their brassy tips, with no candles to be found. Marble so pure and luxurious filled the colossal hallway and its high ceilings with a rich, yet lifeless white. And everywhere, from picture frames and fixtures and chandeliers and statuettes, shone the perpetual radiance of precious gold, a permanent, absolute aura of wealth and excess.

Paintings of strange men and women watched us from every wall. Each was an immensely beautiful specimen, only with a different feature that set them apart from being truly human. Some had the horns of goats and rams. One smiled to show the teeth of a wolf, and another had a patch of scales on its neck so symmetric and radiant that it looked like a collar made of emeralds. But as captivating as the people in the paintings were, nothing compared to the creature that waited for us at the very end of the hall, standing in a pool of molten gold.

Now I’m not the most fashionable person on the planet, but what I could only assume to be a demon wore a suit so finely tailored and so sleekly cut that it looked uncomfortable, almost painful. Its cloth was the gleaming red of rubies, which, I know, how does anyone even pull that off? And the demon’s face was harder still to put into words. Regal comes to mind. Noble. Beautiful, terrible, so unearthly that it couldn’t possibly be human.

I elbowed Herald gently. “That’s the demon?”

He shook his head, giving me a sidelong glance. “Correction. That’s the demon prince.”

Chapter 21

“Herald Igarashi,” the demon said, in a whisper-soft voice that still somehow boomed about the marble corridor. “And Dustin Graves.” The demon spread its hands and gave a small bow. “Consider yourselves welcome in the palace of Mammon.”

Herald pulled on my jacket, and only then did I realize that I my mouth was hanging open. “Mammon,” he whispered. “The demon prince of greed.”

Mammon laughed in a voice that was at once as sweet as honey and as ominous as the droning of bees. “And of wealth, and treasure, and infinite riches.” The demon beckoned, its spindly fingers tipped with lacquered golden nails. “Come. Let’s dispense with the pleasantries. Mammon does not have the luxury of free time.”

I whistled as we approached, appraising the massive rubies Mammon wore on each finger, on fine chains around its lily-white throat. “I’d have thought that you’d be all about luxury.”

Mammon laughed again, spreading a pair of perfectly manicured hands. “Flattery will get you everywhere, oh thing of shadows. And it will get you everything.” Mammon’s heart-shaped lips lifted into a smile. “For the right price.”

Herald nudged me. “Bring it out. Time for show and tell.”

Mammon snapped its fingers and an ornate, lacquered table blinked into existence. “Your sword, correct? It requires reforging. Mammon can assist you.”