Red Blooded
Page 31

The Prince’s pupils elongated and stayed that way.
Power pinged between us up and down the hallway.
Get ready, I told my brother.
Already there.
“You are outnumbered in force and power,” the Prince raged. “You cannot possibly escape. You will come with me, as you stated, willingly, or you will come harmed. But you will be leaving on my terms one way or another. I am the master here, you will do everything I decree.”
I made a split decision and pivoted in a blur, swinging my leg around and plowing it, along with my demon power, into the door nearest to me. If there were things behind these doors, then they were about to become my newest diversion.
Tyler, hit the doors, I yelled.
He didn’t pause to ask if it was a solid plan, he was already in motion while I arced my foot into the next one. I’d knocked down two, exploding them open with enough force to shatter them completely, before the Prince reacted, physically shaking himself.
“What are you doing?” he boomed. “You cannot win! Leave those doors alone.”
“Whatever you’re keeping locked up behind these doors is about to come out and join us,” I yelled as I moved forward toward another one. “I hope they’re not your pets, because I’m hoping things get nice and ugly for all of us.”
Jess, Tyler whispered in my head, these aren’t his pets.
“You are an absolute menace,” the Prince snarled, moving forward. I had backed away from him as I kicked in the doors, and he was almost to me when something big stepped out of the door I’d just obliterated, coming between us.
I stumbled back to get out of the way. This thing had to duck to get through the doorway. It was gigantic.
The Prince of Hell was forced to come to a standstill in front of it.
This creature wasn’t happy, either. It gave a long groan, which sounded like a roar mixed with a battle cry.
It seemed we’d just freed some of the Prince’s prisoners and they were pissed.
Is that a… troll? I asked Tyler, still backing out of the way, putting more separation between us and them. Why would a troll be in the Underworld? I’d never seen one before.
Beats the hell out of me, but if it stays focused on the Prince I’m all for it. Let’s keep moving backward.
The troll’s skin was sallow and sagging and its pace was sluggish. This was clearly not its normal habitat and it looked like it had been down here for a very long time.
It was also seven feet tall and as wide as the doorway itself.
“Get back.” The Prince shooed it with his hand. “Go back into your cell, you dirty beast. This fight is not yours.”
The troll didn’t move.
Instead it started to keen and rock, the high-pitched sound coming from its throat surprising me. But before the Prince could use any magic on it, a shadow fell on the open doorway a few paces to my right.
I moved away quickly, not knowing what it was, and collided with Tyler’s chest, his hands steadying my shoulders as he walked us both backward.
“What is it?” I whispered, trying not to call attention to us in any way.
He leaned over and murmured, “I think it might be… a ghoul.”
“A ghoul?” I gasped. “Are you sure? I didn’t think they really existed.”
“Me neither, but look at it. What else would it be?”
He was right.
As the thing eased out of the doorway, it appeared to be haunted—as in just-from-the-grave ghostly. Its skin was gray and peeling. It resembled a human, but a very dead one who had come back to life as something else. Ghouls, from myth, were dead bodies reanimated by powerful necromancers. And once a ghoul came back to life, only its necromancer could control it.
“I thought ghouls were like puppets,” I whispered, both of us continuing to take hefty steps away from the brewing melee. “Only controlled by a master, like a zombie on a leash?”
“Who knows,” Tyler said. “I’ve certainly never seen one before and I don’t know much about them.”
The Prince of Hell roared, “Get back, necromancer! You are not needed here. Go back to your cell if you do not want one final death.”
The troll took a giant step toward the Prince, who was now openly clenching and unclenching his fists, just short of losing it completely.
“Well,” I said to my brother. “I guess now we now know what a dead necromancer looks like. They must come back as a ghoul themselves once they die.”
Tyler elbowed me. “When the troll takes a swing, we start running.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
The troll took a swing at the Prince and we both turned.
Straight into a bevy of snarls and howls.
“Freeze!” The demon guard aimed an ugly-looking weapon at our heads. He yelled in heavily accented English, “Put your hands up.” The gun resembled some kind of mini rocket launcher, and to make matters worse, the demons behind this one were juggling two grown chupacabras on straining leashes, snapping their pointy teeth at us.
They were incredibly massive with huge incisors and spiny backs with lethal-looking points.
My brother and I lifted our arms.
Behind us the Prince of Hell shouted once more, and then a shock of power hit the hallway, reverberating around seismic tremor.
We turned around to see the poor troll give a strangled yell as it crashed to its knees, making the floor jump. It fell prone on the ground and lay there unmoving. The ghoul went next in another rush of power. Its body smashing against the wall as it crumpled to the floor like a bag of rotted bones.
With the troll down I could see the Prince’s face clearly. If the Demon Lord could’ve willed us dead, we would’ve been toast. “These creatures didn’t need to die!” he boomed. “They were of use to me! Now you will pay dearly for their deaths along with all the others.”
“I would happily free your prisoners again,” I called. “They didn’t look like they were enjoying their extended stay in Hotel Hell anyway. I wonder if keeping supernaturals prisoner for this long is against High Law? I hardly believe that troll came to the Underworld on its own looking for trouble.”
I noticed now that three of the other occupants had wisely chosen to stay inside their rooms rather than face the angry Prince, even though their doors had been destroyed.
The Prince of Hell stepped over the troll and came straight at us.