10
Hell Hole
The gate sigil had taken Mist to the safety of his cave, where he’d hunkered down to wait as long as possible before making an audience with Paimon. She would’ve been aware the second he arrived, but his delay was a small act of defiance.
He had never bothered to be defiant before. What was the point? Pain and torture followed disobedience. Rule-breakers were punished, and he was far too clever to be one of those.
But now… he had lost his simple conviction, and nothing seemed so black and white anymore.
Finally, he could ignore the summons no longer. He double-checked the lily flower he’d hidden in the crevice with his other possessions, making sure it was safely hidden. The blossom had already died—within minutes of arriving in Hell—but it didn’t matter.
It was his, and he would keep it safe until it disintegrated to dust.
Dissolving to mist, he ghosted through the passages of Paimon’s lair until he was outside the throne room. There, he reformed his body, taking a moment to listen through the door.
The hall was known to play host to any number of nefarious activities, from torture parties, orgies, and fighting rings, to decadent feasts and drugged-out EDM raves. Unfortunately, now he heard only silence.
He’d hoped to arrive while Paimon was too busy to question him on his disappearance, but it appeared luck was not on his side. Upon entering through the towering doors—without banging the gargoyle-head knockers, since they were made of actual severed gargoyle heads—he found the hall mostly empty.
Except for Paimon, of course.
The Queen of Hell sat in all her demonic glory, clad in leather armor and gauntlets with deadly spikes protruding from the shoulders. At her side, her camel rested on the floor.
Her double horns and dark wings completed the forbidding picture, and her hair was wound into a braid and pulled over one shoulder, falling past breasts that were hidden by her armor.
She was not a succubus, and there was no other use for feminine softness in Hell. As a result, she did such a good job disguising any female attributes that most human records listed her as a ‘male with a beautiful face.’
Ignoring his heart’s nervous pounding, Mist approached the throne like he was making his usual report and nothing was out of the ordinary. Paimon was a volatile beast; there was no telling how she’d react. At least his brand had stopped burning now that he’d returned.
“Mishetsu, what a surprise,” she drawled as he halted before her.
Several slaves hovered around, fanning her with some poor wretch’s amputated wings and balancing trays of dark red drinks that were probably blood, complete with straws and tiny umbrellas.
Mist bowed at the waist.
Paimon raised a brow at his failure to greet her as ‘Mistress’ as he normally did. But he couldn’t bring himself to be subservient and willingly play the role of her dutiful Hunter as he had for millennia.
“Care to tell me why you’ve been out of touch for two months?”
“I was hunting my targets,” he replied, straightening.
Every ounce of control he possessed was channeled into maintaining a blank expression and even heart rate. If he so much as breathed unevenly, Paimon could discover his lies, and there would be hell to pay.
“And you couldn’t check in with a progress report in that time?”
“I have no progress to report. Thus far, I have been unsuccessful.”
Her brows climbed her forehead. “I find that hard to believe.”
With good reason. There had never been a target he hadn’t apprehended within a month or two, and the times it had taken that long were few and far between.
The truth was that he’d found Asmodeus only one week after his escape from Hell, shadowed him for another, and then located the others as well. If he’d reported his success to Paimon then, he would likely be out on his next assignment by now.
But he had lied.
Just as he had lied about the fate of Eligos.
“Belial is unlike my usual targets.” That much, at least, was true. “It’s probable he has discovered a way of masking his scent. I have not sensed his presence anywhere.”
