Chapter 6 The Nether Has Bin Day

Nora

Tee opens the bedroom door, checks both directions and motions for me to follow.

Kilan clings to every part of my body. When I look down, I can still see myself beneath it, although my hands are blurred around the edges and the borrowed black clothes keep dissolving into shadow.

Apparently, this is as ready as I am going to get.

I follow her into the corridor.

The house is silent, but I still hold my breath as we pass the stairs. Dark stone covers almost everything, softened by thick rugs, heavy furniture and blue flames burning inside the walls. Weapons hang above the fireplace downstairs, right beside a shelf filled with books and four mugs left beside a basin.

Demons have dishes.

Of course they do. I don’t know why that feels stranger than the wall of swords.

Tee pauses at the front door and looks back at me. Two fingers point towards her eyes, then at the floor beside her.

Watch her. Stay close.

I nod, forgetting she probably cannot see my face through the darkness, then move close enough that my sleeve brushes hers.

When the door opens, heat settles over me before I step outside.

The red sky stretches above two suns, with thin black clouds drifting between them. Crimson grass covers the front garden, and pale trees rise along the fence with twisting white trunks and leaves so dark they shine blue beneath the light. Small silver flowers open as we pass, revealing rows of tiny teeth before snapping shut again.

No touching the local plant life. Understood.

Tee closes the door and starts down a black stone path towards the street.

The house beside hers has washing hanging from a line. Shirts, trousers and several long pieces of leather flap in the hot breeze while a horned woman wrestles a smoking metal bin towards the road. Across from her, a man with wings trims a thorn-covered hedge using garden shears.

Apparently, the Nether has suburbs.

It also has bin day.

A creature bounds across the neighbouring yard and slams against the fence. It has the general shape of a dog, if someone gave a dog six legs, black scales and two heads. Both noses lift towards me, and Kilan tightens.

The creature tracks my movement along the fence, one tail wagging while the other ends in a sharp point that strikes sparks from the ground.

Tee steps between us without slowing.

I stay so close to her that another step would put me inside her jacket.

The street beyond the houses is wider than any road near my unit. Black vehicles glide over the stone, blue fire burning beneath them, stopping at glowing marks as pedestrians cross. A demon carrying a stack of boxes checks both directions before hurrying across.

Even hell has traffic rules.

Tee joins the flow of people moving towards the city, and I keep to the space directly behind her shoulder. Most of the demons look close enough to human until I notice horns hidden among their hair, pointed ears, tails slipping beneath coats or wings folded tightly against their backs. Others have scaled faces, clawed hands or eyes that glow without any visible pupil.

Nobody is screaming or being tortured. They are walking to work, arguing beside shop doors and carrying cups that smell close to coffee.

One woman pushes a pram past us. A tiny red hand reaches from beneath the blanket and catches the end of her tail.

The woman sighs and gently untangles it.

This place is doing a terrible job of being hell.

I wonder whether I could stay hidden here. There are houses, shops, food and jobs that do not involve mowing lawns in bikinis. Then a passing demon, dressed like a guard, drags a chained creature behind him, and the thing turns three burning eyes towards where I am standing.

Yeah, Earth still wins.

The shops look familiar beneath the black stone and iron. Clothes fill one window. Bread and dark pastries sit behind another. A butcher hangs strips of green meat from hooks, and whatever animal they belonged to twitches when someone walks too close.

I focus on Tee’s back.

We turn into a crowded square where a fountain pours steaming red water over the carved bodies of kneeling demons. Creatures weave between legs, carrying parcels in their mouths or dragging small carts. One brushes close enough that its rough hide pulls at the edge of Kilan.

I jerk sideways and collide with Tee.

Her hand closes around my wrist before I fall, sending heat through my skin as every shadow around us surges high enough to darken the stones.

Several demons glance over.

Tee releases me and keeps walking at the same controlled pace, although her shoulders have tightened.

I follow, resisting the urge to apologise. Kilan would swallow my voice, but moving lips in the middle of an empty patch of air still seems unwise.

The Council building rises beyond the square.

It is enormous, with black columns, narrow red windows and a broad staircase crowded with demons. Spikes line the roof, because a government building apparently needs to look capable of impaling someone.

Tee climbs the stairs, and I stay close behind her.

Guards stand beneath the entrance in dark armour, each holding a spear tipped with blue flame. Glowing symbols move across the doorway and slide over everyone who passes through.

That seems bad.

Tee reaches beneath her jacket and removes a small metal disc. One guard examines it, then looks over her shoulder.

Directly at me.

I stop breathing.

His eyes narrow as the creature beside him lifts its head. It resembles the six-legged dog from the garden, only this one is large enough to bite me in half. Smoke curls from its nostrils while it sniffs the air around Tee.

The spray. The Kilan. Whatever strange luck dropped five hundred dollars into my lap before throwing me into another realm.

Please keep working.

The creature lowers its head.

The guard returns the disc and steps aside.

I remain close enough to Tee that the edge of her Kilan pulls me through the glowing doorway with her. Heat runs across my skin, followed by a sharp tug beneath my ribs, but none of the symbols changes.

We are inside.

The entrance hall looks like a courthouse swallowed by a cathedral. Demons queue beneath high arches while clerks work behind long counters, stamping papers and directing people towards different corridors. Chains move documents through the air, lift doors open and carry sealed boxes between floors.

The Nether has government paperwork.

That might be the most convincing evidence of hell I have seen.

Tee turns away from the crowds and enters a narrow passage beside the main stairs. We descend until the noise fades and the blue flames become smaller.

At the bottom, two sealed doors wait beneath a carved symbol.

Three curved lines surround a narrow opening, split through the centre by the same mark Tee found in the summoning circle.

She removes the vial from her jacket.

The symbol above us opens like an eye.

And every blue flame in the corridor goes out.