Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
“How was I supposed to know that?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest, giving me a hard look.
“You weren’t,” I said, trying to soften my voice, but it wasn’t exactly something I had any experience with. “Come inside. I will explain all of it. Answer your questions for a change.”
I didn’t think she was going to agree.
But then her gaze shot to the side, and a small smile toyed at her lips, making me look over to see Lenore at the window, bopping her spawn on her hip as he let out a squeal.
“Okay,” she said, exhaling hard, like the presence of a child made her sure she would be safe.
“Okay,” I agreed, moving aside to let her walk in as I tried like hell not to let hope take too much root in my system, knowing how bad it was going to hurt when she left again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Charlotte
I half-expected to see Zeus himself before I expected to see Bael standing in that doorway.
Though, objectively, if I were given the choice between Zeus’s sketchy, sexual assaulting ass and Bael, I guess I had to go with Bael.
My mind raced with possibilities of why I could have felt pulled to him. But once he shot down the whole spell thing, I was kind of at a loss.
What I needed was what he was offering.
Answers.
I definitely had plenty of questions, that was for sure.
“Oh, it’s nice and warm in here,” I said, feeling a shiver move through me as the hot air enveloped me.
“We like things warm,” he said as he led me into the library at the front of the house.
They would.
Seeing as where they hailed from.
“I thought I had a lot of books,” I said as my gaze scanned the bookcases that looked to be stacked two deep, and crammed so tight it would be hard to pull the book you wanted to read out.
“Ace is a big reader. He’s our… boss, for lack of a better word.”
“Boss… as in…” I said, pointing toward the floor.
“The Devil? No,” he said, and his lips twitched a bit at that, as if it was a silly assumption to make. “He’s the oldest of all of us, so he took it upon himself to learn all about this plane and the people, then he shares it with us.”
“How long has he…been here?”
“He got sucked up couple hundred years back, I think.”
“I’m sorry. Sucked up?” I asked.
“Yeah, that part is a little sketchy. We don’t know how Ace and the others came up originally. A Hellmouth must have been opened. That was how my brother and I came through. Not long ago,” I added. “Ace was opening a Hellmouth.”
“But… why?”
“So he could go back home. He had a witch who was powerful enough to pull it off. Then there Daemon and I were.”
“Witches exist too?” I asked, feeling dizzy enough with all this new information that I went ahead and took a seat on the couch.
“They are. All different kinds. The woman with the baby you saw? That was Lenore, a witch.”
“What else exists?” I asked.
“Fuck, I don’t know. Warlocks, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed, but my voice was tight. Warlocks? Seriously?
“Vampires, shifters, demonslayers…”
“I’m sorry. Did you just say vampires?”
“Yeah. They’re a sort of demon. Shifters too, in a way.”
“And the demonslayers are here to kill you?”
“Yes. And no. We can’t be killed,” Bael said as he waved around the house, indicating him and his friends, I guessed.
“I need more than that,” I admitted.
“There are… ranks of demons, I guess you could say,” he told me as he lowered down on the other side of the couch, keeping a whole cushion between us.
Which was good.
Except, some small, base part of me said that the last thing I wanted when it came to Bael was space.
“Okay. That makes sense.”
“You have lower-level demons. They’re the sort to possess and shit like that. Easier to kill. Then there are your vampires and shifters who have to be killed in very specific ways.”
“Right,” I agreed, figuring that all the folklore surrounding them was not lore at all, just fact that became lore when people stopped believing.
Like the myths, it seemed.
“Then there are high-ranking demons. The ones who live in Hell and punish the sinners.”
“That’s you?” I asked.
“That’s me. And the rest of us. And because of that, we’re immortal. We don’t get sick. We can get hurt, but we heal quickly.”
“No wonder,” I mumbled to myself.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s no wonder you’re so worried about the gods then,” I said. “You will have to be around them forever now that they’re back.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding. “Especially if you are right and Hades will take over the underworld once again. There will be no real Hell as I knew it to go back to. Not that I can go back anymore anyway,” he added, and his face twisted up a bit. Almost like he was in pain. But he didn’t seem to be outwardly injured in any way.