Chapter 18

~~David~~

“I can’t believe she really said that,” he said. “Fate of the world? Are you serious?”

“Everything about you is weird, David,” Jes said between grunts, followed by the heavy crack of a rock rolling down over other rocks.

Moving big rocks was a pain, but they blocked their path in the tunnel, and try as David might, he couldn’t move shit. Rocks were really heavy, and durable as David’s feet and hands had grown over the past week and some, his fingers couldn’t work stone nearly as well as Jes’s strength and her claws. Plus, a bunch of broken ribs didn’t agree with him trying to lift or move anything. He was useless.

“Any idea where we’ll find Dao and Caera?” he asked.

“Assuming they’re alive, back at the cave.”

“Hey, come on, they’re alive.”

“Still optimistic after everything that’s happened?” More rocks cracked, and a few broke apart as they landed on the hard stone. It was a dark tunnel, and few amber veins survived the hellquakes. Maybe Hell would grow new ones?

“I was falling to my death, and Mia’s, straight down toward that weird nothingness, when suddenly a beautiful red angel swooped down from the sky and saved us. I’m feeling a little optimistic, yeah. A little lucky, too.”

She stared at him, laughed, and shook her head as she tore a few more big rocks down from the tunnel path.

“And then a gold bitch showed up and took your sis away.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to not think about that part.”

“But hey, you got the beautiful part right.”

David smiled. Maybe it was the drop in insanity, adrenaline plummeting, or maybe it was all the quiet now that the quakes were over, but he felt like talking. First time for everything. Plus, talking helped keep his mind off just how fucked he was, physically, and how hungry he was getting.

He didn’t want to eat. Eating meant a dose of memories that weren’t his. Easy to catalog and ignore, but last time they’d hit him like a baseball bat to the face and that’s how he expected it to go a second time. It hadn’t happened with a forbidden fruit, though. Maybe they could find one of those? The rider attacking the spire was unlucky. Getting saved by Jes was lucky. The stranger kidnapping Mia was unlucky. If the pattern held, they’d find a withered tree growing some forbidden fruit on the other side of the pile of rocks.

They did not. Just more tunnel. Better than a Cainite ambush.

They walked in silence for a bit. Jes sneaked a few glances David’s way, prowling along beside him with her wings hooked around her shoulders like a cape. He snuck some glances up at her and smiled when she caught him.

“Stop smiling at me.”

“Sorry.”

“I know what you’re thinking. That I flew down to save you because I like you.”

“I mean—ow!”

She whipped him in the ass with her tail, and she was not gentle. Only his leather skirt kept it from drawing blood.

“I told you. Dao was throwing a fit and freaking out, ready to jump down herself like she had wings or something. Caera had to hold her back. I did it for her.”

His smile only grew. “You love her.”

“Yes, I love her, you asshole. Not sure why she’s so into you, though. You’re lucky, some sort of puppy dog that she’s grown super attached to in a single week.”

“I mean, I am adorable.”

She rolled her eyes. “Uh huh.”

“It’s like that Rosa puppy meme.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He couldn’t help but laugh. Which stopped very quickly when pain ripped up through his body from his ribs.

“The fuck has gotten into you? Normally, you can’t open your mouth without tripping over it. Now you sound like your sister; the whole two minutes I got to talk to her.”

“I don’t ... okay, yeah. I guess seeing my sister again really settled my nerves. Helps me talk more normally. Plus, there’s only one of you.”

She raised her black-skin eyebrow. “One of me?”

“Yeah, one of you. One of anyone, really. Talking one on one is a thousand times easier than talking to a group.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Guess I’m just a classic introvert. Talking one on one is fine. It’s when there’s a group, things get difficult. But, if I know the person, talking isn’t so hard.”

“You don’t know me.” After a small snarl, she stepped ahead of him, and matched pace a few feet ahead. That was a small burst of anger he hadn’t seen coming, at all.

So much for mastering socializing.

“I ... I didn’t mean...” Sighing, he jumped ahead to catch up to her. “You’re right.”

“I know.”

It took effort to not frown. Jes did not make it easy.

“We can talk about what to do when we find Caera and Dao. So, in the meantime, tell me about yourself.”

Jes laughed. And laughed. And laughed, to the point she stopped and rested a hand against the wall.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“I ... was. Now I’m not so sure.”

After a few more laughs, she brushed the back of his body a few times with her wing, and got walking again.

“I keep forgetting you’re not like other souls. Literally. No number or anything.”

“And if I had a number?”

“Then I’d assume you were trying to manipulate me, with a ridiculous request like that.”

“Oh.”

She grinned over her shoulder at him, reached out with her wing, and used its thumb claw to hook around his neck and pull him in close to her side. From angry to happy in seconds. Much as David sucked at reading people, Jeskura was all over the place, regardless.

“Told you before, I was born in the hatching pits around sixty years ago.”

“How’d that go? From what you told me, that’s a rough way to start life.”

“Yeah ... yeah it was.” She sighed, let him go, re-hooked her wing on her own shoulder, but didn’t push him away. “You may have noticed me, Dao, Caera, we’re not exactly the type to go around mindlessly killing whoever we can.”

“I did.”

“We have our reasons. Caera saw some serious shit in the horde call. That probably changed her. I knew an asshole in the spire called Kasimiro with a kill count that makes even Caera look like a child, but hates violence, and how much demons love it. I know demons who get pretty attached to their betrayers, like that Adron guy you mentioned. Dao had to deal with that Tacitus fuck. Some of us just ... get exposed to different kinds of stuff, I guess. We turn out different.”

“Sounds pretty human, honestly.”

“Yeah?”

“The whole nature versus nurture argument. How much is a person shaped by the innate biology of their brain and body, versus what their life was like growing up.” He tapped his chin. “I guess, I never really thought demons would be like that. Humans kinda just assume all demons must be horrible, innately.”

“Grow up in a hatching pit and you probably will be, but plenty of us aren’t. The nicer demons get killed and eaten.”

“Eesh.”

“But some of us watched a few too many scrying pools and maybe got a little carried away with some of the stuff in them. I remember sitting around one in the hatching pit with a few other gorgalas, and we were swooning over this big human man, very strong, very handsome. He was saving a girl from a fire.”

David raised a brow. “Was he a ... firefighter?”

She laughed. “He was.” She spun around a couple times in a very un-Jeskura way as she jumped ahead a little. “It was amazing, seeing someone go through flames to save someone’s life. It was the last thing you’d ever expect to see in the hatching pit.”

He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help but laugh. “This was in the 60s, right? Pretty crazy for a firefighter to actually go through flames, back then. Not the best gear.”

“It was crazy.” She flicked her tail back at him and poked him several times as she walked ahead. “And of course, more than a few of those firefighters got some good pussy. That was great to watch, too.”

“Ha. That a normal thing, watching people have sex on the surface with the scrying pools?”

“It is, in the hatching pits. Demons aren’t born babies like humans, not really. More like, a kid adult mix? Whatever, it’s not long before we’re horny as fuck and have no idea what to do with ourselves.”

He gestured down at himself, and her tail that continued to poke and prod his chest and stomach. Ow. Ow.

“Sorry I’m not a two hundred pound, six foot six firefighter made of pure muscle.”

“Ha, fuck me that’d be awesome if you were.”

He frowned. She laughed.

“I guess,” she said, “I did spend too much time watching the scrying pool, but something about the surface really intrigued me. Humans and all their stupid bullshit, the romance, the fights, it’s all so much more ... deep, I guess, than the shit down here. Here we just fight and fuck.” After another chuckle, she continued, eyes now pointed down. “A gremla I knew was absolutely in love with some guy she’d randomly learned about, and she watched him in the scrying pool a lot.”

“A grem? Kinda figured they weren’t ... uh ... didn’t have the mental capacity to really do something like that.”

“Gremla, yeah, and of course they do. Imps and grems might not be the best at talking, and maybe not as smart as your average demon ... Okay yeah they’re pretty dumb. But not hellbeast dumb. But shut up for a sec, let me talk.”

He put up his hands. “Shutting up.”

“So she watched this human in the scrying pool, this guy ... think he was a cop. Good guy, had a wife, treated her well. Active sex life, which this horny little gremla girl fucking loved watching. Caught her masturbating to that shit like fifty times. The wife really had a thing for getting tied up, you know? Full on rape roleplay sorta stuff. And—”

David did his best to tune out the very detailed list of things the mysterious husband did to his wife that she apparently very much enjoyed.

“Then, one day,” she said, “the cop died. Got shot on the job. There was a funeral, lots of crying.” After a heavy sigh, Jes came to a stop and looked down. He recognized the look. She was reliving a memory. “I was pretty sad, but that gremla, it really fucked her up. Like, devastated. She cried.” Jes took another deep breath. “Then some other demons showed up looking for food, and she ... didn’t fight back.”

“What?”

Jes shrugged weakly and shook her head. “Some hungry demons showed up and killed her. Pretty normal in the hatching pit. Grems and imps are damn hard to kill usually, ‘cause they’re so good at getting away. It was the first ... only time I’ve ever seen one of the little rascals just let themselves die. It was quick, no torture or anything, though some demons learned some of that shit from the scrying pools, too.” Growling, she resumed the march, and David followed. “Seeing her die like that really fucked me up, too, I guess. I killed the demons that killed her, even though I wasn’t hungry and didn’t need to. And after that, I just...” She shrugged again, but each shrug got weaker than the last one. “I dunno. I didn’t really get such a thrill when making a kill anymore.”

That was definitely a core memory for Jes. Whether Hell gave a shit about neurology and synaptic pathways, he didn’t know. Probably not. But Mia had gone on a dozen rants about how important early life experiences were in forming who you were as a person. This fit the bill.

“Thanks,” he said, “for telling me about yourself, I mean. Kinda got the impression you were just gonna tell me to fuck off when I asked.”

“I was tempted. But then I remembered you’re just that kinda moron who needs shit direct.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Ha! You really are getting better at this talking thing.” She slowed down until she walked beside him, and again she used her wing to hook his neck and pull him in close to walk shoulder to shoulder. Or, mostly shoulder to shoulder. She had over a foot of height on him.

“Not gonna lie, being with you, Dao, and Caera for over a week straight has been the most socializing I’ve done in that short of time in my entire life.”

“Fucking nerd.”

“Yeap.”

“Heh.”

“And I really like Dao and Caera, too, but holy shit it I am so much more in my comfort zone when talking to just one of you.”

“Yeah yeah.” Chuckling, she leaned down and gave his cheek a kiss. “You got three girls riding your dick, at the same fucking time, and you’re complaining? Last I checked, that ain’t exactly common on the surface.”

“It ... is not.”

“And besides, Dao only bothers to talk in Hellian, so you’re normally talking to what, two and a half girls?”

“I guess. Can Dao speak Estian, like actually talk with it?”

“All eyeless demon breeds can speak Estian, but they say the vibration fucks with their vision. Clicking and chirping are more like blinking to them, while talking Estian makes things constantly blurry. They prefer the clicks.” She gave him a gentle headbutt, suspiciously similar to how cats often do. “So they say, anyway. Don’t ask me, I got eyes.”

“So, if I asked her to talk Estian, she might?”

“Eh, she might, but most riiva prefer Hellian, Dao especially.”

“Ever heard her speak Estian?” he asked.

“Nope. I never pushed her on it, either. She’s got her reasons.”

Reasons. And from the hesitation in Jes’s eyes, those reasons were more than physical, and Jes didn’t want to share them.

He suppressed the overwhelming urge to ask. Look at that, more growth. He could ask a little more about Jes, instead.

“And you worked for Zel?”

“Work is a strong word for anything in Death’s Grip. More like, her enforcers go around and kinda just randomly enforce her rule, you know? Ever since she put in that dueling rule, she wanted to make sure demons obeyed it. I was one of the demons that enforced those kinda rules.”

“You impressed her? To get that role, I mean.”

“Of course I impressed her. I’m awesome.”

“Uh huh.”

Jes put a hand on his shoulder. “That reminds me. If we run into other demons, you should probably avoid mentioning your sister killed Zel.”

“What? Why? Kinda figured that’d earn me some clout, actually. Or at least Mia would earn some.”

“It might. It might also get you killed. Plenty of demons were loyal to Zel. Plenty were looking to be the ones to kill her, and might just take their frustration over getting denied out on you.”

“Wonderful.”

The two of them crouched low. The ceiling made them. Much as Death’s Grip had a lot of tunnels practically designed to be walked through, it also had some not so perfect ones. Bloodgrip vines showed up, and avoiding those was a pain in the ass, but it was the low dips in the ceiling that terrified him. On a couple occasions, he had to get on his stomach to keep going. Painful, and terrifying. Stories about spelunkers getting stuck and dying horrible deaths had been enough to give him a mild case of claustrophobia, and Hell was delighting in making it a full-blown debilitating condition.

“Sure we shouldn’t go back?” he said between some grunts and groans. The pain of crawling on broken ribs had his eyes watering.

“Bloodgrip means the tunnel’s connected to other tunnels. Bloodgrip goes where there’s blood.”

Because of course Hell’s plants didn’t drink water and sunlight. They survived on pain and suffering.

Watching the gargoyle crawl along on her belly from behind was weird, kinda like looking up the ass of a winged alligator. But she did have a great ass and legs. A decent distraction from his pain, and the ever-growing fear of the rocks only inches above his head, about to fall and crush him and doom him to dying of dehydration. No, down here in Hell, he’d die over many months of essence starvation. Months of squirming and screaming in pain while rocks crushed him and—

Jes reached down and pulled him up to his feet.

“Oh thank god,” he said. “Felt like a remnant for a second, there.”

The cave opened up, and resumed being an endless tunnel of thin amber veins, the occasional stalactite, and sneaky bloodgrip vines that demanded he pay attention every step.

“I think I recognize this tunnel.” She gestured back at the section they had to crawl through. “Did that a few times, a few decades ago.”

“Decades...”

“Got a problem with older women?” Grinning, she dragged her tail along his stomach a few times as she walked ahead.

“You sure you’re older?”

“I am the spitting image of maturity, wisdom, and beauty. And—” She cut her voice off, whipped her head around, and pushed him back with a wing. If not for the way her eyes widened, he’d have cursed or yelled with the pain.

Silence.

He opened his mouth, Jes shot him a hard look, and he shut up. Silence for him, but she heard something.

She pushed forward. He followed, but at a distance, and drew his—oh, right, no more broken sword. That Adron vrat had taken it and stabbed the rider in the neck with it, a wound that apparently hadn’t done a damn thing to the bastard. Good note for the future: the rider did not die easy.

So, his shoulder was fucked, his nose hurt like hell, he had broken ribs, and he didn’t even have his useless, broken sword anymore. He’d grown attached to it, the ability to defend himself, if even only a little.

Noises in the distance sent his heart rate up, and he forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. Cainites? Demons? Imps and grems scavenging on remnants, or big demons on the hunt for prey? David probably looked like good prey right about now, helpless and already tenderized.

The curves of the tunnels, like veins through Hell’s underside, made it easy to sneak up on people. A hellbeast could have been waiting around the corner to pounce them, and the only way they’d know was Jes’s ears and nose. He was useless.

That time he’d helped Caera on a hunt, that’d been strange. His aura had changed and flared, grown angry, and violent. For a moment he’d been ready to do something he’d never done before, commit murder, and he had no idea if that was the aura’s doing, or the aura was just putting out what he’d been feeling. Could it help now? What would it even do? Maybe do what the rider’s did, and make everyone nearby go mad with bloodlust.

He felt nothing but anxiety, and fear. So much for that idea.

He closed his eyes, and shining symbols danced behind his eyelids. Potram, royam, batlam. All the strange runes Mia had sent into his mind, all incomplete, but not. They weren’t missing pieces, his brain was, something he needed if he wanted to understand them the same way he understood the ancient language. But potram, royam, and batlam stuck out, almost like they were demanding his attention. He could almost read them, almost understand them.

His heart rate soared as the distant noises grew louder. The batlam rune flared in his mind. White wings. Gold glow. A sword and shield. A spear and a tower shield. A bow.

The noises grew closer. Clop, clop. Hooves? David pressed his back against the inside of the tunnel curve, and Jes did the same ahead of him, wings out and snug to the wall. Closer. Clop clop. Maybe a riiva? Maybe—

Amber veins beyond the curve out of sight cast shadows, and whoever came their way was much bigger than a riiva.

They came around the corner. Jes roared and pounced. The huge demon let out a shriek of her own as she fell back. Spindly, skeletal wings spread, but they couldn’t stop Jes from knocking the tall demon to the ground.

That, was a lot of jiggle.

“Acelina!?” Jes, straddling the demon’s stomach and ready to tear her apart, froze, one hand in the air and claws out. “The fuck?”

“Jeskura?” The huge demon, knocked on her ass and back, stared up at Jes with a big, angry scowl. Or at least, probably stared up at her. She had no eyes. In fact, her whole face was black, her face and her horns and neck and chin, all of it. It made her big sharp white teeth stick out against the black canvas.

Damn, she was tall. And ridiculously busty. Made Dao look flat levels of busty. No matter how hard he tried, David couldn’t help but notice the very naked demon and how her huge breasts squashed and flattened as they conformed to her chest with gravity. Even unaroused and with dark skin, her boobs were big enough they couldn’t escape the pull of their weight. And her nipples were pierced with tiny bones. A lot of her was pierced with tiny bones, or little metal studs, and she wore several metal chain necklaces, and belly chains. More jewelry than on any demon he’d seen yet, by a lot.

“Thought I saw you gliding out of the spire. Get knocked out by the quake?” Jes whip cracked her tail behind her. The tall demon underneath her had a tail too, smooth like Jes’s, but not long enough or thick enough to be dangerous. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t rip your throat out, you fucking bitch.”

“I have done nothing to deserve such treatment!”

“Yeah? You’re a fucking asshole and the worst zotiva in Hell.”

The nine-foot-tall demoness hissed and squirmed, but for all her superior height, she didn’t take a swing at the gargoyle.

“I was hard on the hatchlings. I had to be. Zel wanted—”

“Yeah well, Zel’s dead. Rider got her. And on top of that, you’re stuck on this side of the canyon.” How Jes managed to lie without even the smallest break in her voice, David couldn’t fathom. Might as well have asked him to lift a building than lie smoothly.

“Jes,” David said. “Who is this?”

“This,” Jes said as she got up and off the much taller demon, “is Acelina, one of the spire mothers. A royal bitch. Most mothers are at least a little nice to the hatchlings, and tell them what’s up when they’re old enough to come out. Acelina might as well have been a drill sergeant.”

Acelina hissed a few more times as she stood up. For Jes to let her up probably meant Jes wasn’t scared of her. Surprising, considering how huge Acelina was, and it wasn’t like those claws of hers or her big hooves wouldn’t be able to rip and tear and crush. Or at least, they could definitely rip, tear, and crush David.

“I—” Acelina didn’t get to finish.

“Shut up,” Jes said, and she pointed a claw up at the demon. “I still haven’t decided if I’m gonna let you live. I’m hungry, and David here needs food.”

Acelina slowly turned her head and aimed it at him. If she was anything like Dao, that was her way of letting him know she was looking at him.

“Another unmarked ... Zelandariel was convinced an unmarked girl would be a useful tool.”

“My sister,” he said. “She’s trapped on the other side of the canyon, now.” Which of course earned a quick, harsh glare from Jes. Okay, don’t tell Acelina anymore than she needs to know. Got it.

“So how come you fell out of the spire?” Jes said. “Where’re the others?”

“I don’t know where my fellow zotiva are. Probably still in the spire.” Acelina folded her arms across her chest and set her eyeless gaze on Jes. She was trying to not bare her fangs too much, but having trouble. Apparently, she had trouble controlling her temper. “I had heard Zelandariel was in the dungeon, and was on my down to see her when ... when...” Her shoulders drooped, her wings followed, and her tail dangled behind her. “The rider killed Zelandariel?”

If this spire mother knew nothing about that, she couldn’t have been the demon David saw in the dungeon behind Mia.

“He did,” Jes said. “Turned into a big clusterfuck in the dungeon. I had to swoop in there and get my boy out, and then ... ah what the fuck am I telling you this for?” Shrugging, Jes gestured to David, and resumed the walk down the curving tunnel. “That way just leads you back to the canyon, by the way, and the tunnel pinches tight. Your giant tits won’t fit through.”

Grumbling, Acelina hooked her wings to her shoulders, just like Jes would. With how skeletal and spindly her giant wings were, and the membrane thin, it kinda gave her bat-ish vampire vibes. The insane curves, ridiculous tiny waist, long legs — and arms — and regal set of four giant horns sealed in the image of a regal dominatrix or something. Super tall demon vampire dominatrix?

After a heavy scowl and frustrated hiss, Acelina turned and walked in the opposite direction, ahead of Jes and back the path she’d come from. David stared. Yeap, even the way she walked was like someone on high heels because of the hooves, much more pronounced than Dao. And that ass was—

“David!” Jes spun around and marched up to him. “I can feel that aura. Stop it. You can’t trust this bitch.”

“I didn’t ... I wasn’t...”

Acelina stopped and looked over her shoulder, tail still drooping.

“Jeskura...”

“Save it! You can’t get back across the ravine, and we both know what that means, Acelina. You’re dead. I’m happy to walk away and just let you die.”

“Dead?” David asked.

“Ha, yeah. She’s screwed. Zotiva never leave the spire, and the only things they ever have to fight are some uppity hatchlings. She can pump out some powerful sin auras, but she can’t hunt or fight for shit.”

David raised a brow and looked back at the tall demon. Couldn’t fight? She could probably kick his ass, sure, but if Jes was right, she wouldn’t be kicking other asses very well.

Acelina looked down, her back to them, every part of her drooping.

“Stop it,” Jes said. “Stop acting all pathetic. I don’t care if you loved Zel. Bitch had it coming.”

The spire mother spun around and flared her wings, teeth bared, but one step was all she took.

“Zelandariel brought Death’s Grip back from chaos!”

“And nearly destroyed it trying to kill Alessio for the hundredth time! She—nope, nope, I’m not doing this again. I got out of the spire for a reason. Christ, you’re almost as bad as Diogo.”

“Diogo was a horrible, vile creature!”

“Then why’d you fuck him!”

“That is none of your concern!”

David inched away until his back hit the wall. Uh oh.

“That fucker called for a hunt on my head!” Jes yelled. And the tunnel was happy to make her voice echo.

The spire mother whip cracked her tail behind her.

“You defied Tacitus!”

“He’s just as bad as Zel! Worse! The things he did to Daoka—”

“You defied Zelandariel because of a woman!”

Jes marched up to Acelina and pointed a finger up at her.

“You can’t give me that shit! I saw the things you did because you—”

“Zel—”

“Interrupt me a third time, I fucking dare you!” For all Jes’s declarations of ‘not doing this’, she seemed very intent on doing it.

Acelina flared her wings out until they pressed to the tunnel walls. Jes did the same.

And somehow David ended up between them. Strange. A moment ago, he’d been doing his best to stay out of the way. Now he stood between them, hands up and playing referee. Clearly God had put him between the two ladies, because no way in hell he’d be stupid enough to do that himself. Ah well.

“Okay! Okay, we’re all stressed. Shit has hit the fan and no one knows what to do. But so far, Acelina is one of the few demons we’ve run into actually willing to talk to us, Jes. That’s worth something, right?”

Jes glared at him. Yeap, his life was now in danger.

“And?”

“And, we know she hit a fork in the tunnel somewhere that way”—he pointed down the way Jes and him had been walking—”and came this way. She’ll know which way we shouldn’t go, if we don’t want to end up at the tunnel entrance she’d flown to, right?”

Jes folded her arms across her chest and tapped a foot on the stone as she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Yes.”

“And Acelina is a spire mother. If we run into other demons down here on the way up, maybe she can convince them to leave us alone? Sounds like she was kind of important.”

“Leave us alone!? She’ll convince them to kill us! She’ll...” Jes frowned as she looked up at Acelina and scratched her horns. “Now that I think about ... Demons are stuck on this side of the ravine. No way back to the Spire. The rules are different, and I know a lot of demons want to kill this bitch.”

Acelina folded her arms under her breasts — wowza — and closed her mouth, turning her entire face and head into an onyx mask he couldn’t read at all.

“I am not that despised.”

“You shitting me? You’re that evil step mom everyone hates.”

“I see you continue to watch the scrying pools with obsession.”

Jes’s tail swayed behind her at a frantic pace, like an agitated cat.

“Thing is, Acelina isn’t just screwed because she can’t take care of herself. She’s screwed because other demons will see a spire mother and think free meal, with no repercussions because no one can even get to the Death’s Grip spire anymore. Usually, zotiva are off limits because they’re always in the spire, and under the spire ruler’s protection.” Jes laughed and pointed a claw at the spire mother again. “Lot of demons want a piece of that, for a whole lot of reasons, Acelina especially because she was such a bitch.”

Acelina snarled, showing her big scary shark teeth again, but otherwise didn’t retort. Jes had her.

“Okay,” David said. “So, how about we don’t be one of those assholes, and at least work with her until we’re out of the tunnels?”

“Give me one good reason.”

“Because—”