Page 23 of Interior Design for Demons
Linnea glances down at her tight-fitting ivory gown, and Aghilas strokes the front of his scarlet suit jacket.
We enter the party space like that, our arms entwined—until the violent glory of the gala strikes me like a tsunami, and my hands fall limp at my sides.
The room is so immense I can’t see its end, or its ceiling—just a storm of black shadows and ornate tiered platforms and delicate swirls of scarlet smoke. Chandeliers as big as tennis courts glitter overhead, and there are actual demons perched among the human-sized candles, laughing and knocking back smoky beverages. Tables stretch like runways through the milling crowd, laden with piles of darkly jewel-toned fruit, towering cakes frosted with purple icing and dripping with blackberries, tiers of lamb chops artfully placed and absolutely raw, lying in beds of glistening greens and lakes of bloody sauce. Black candles as thin as my finger and as tall as I am bristle along the tables, between great heaping piles of ruby blooms and purple sprays and ebony leaves.
In the center of the room is an open fire, or a platform of sorts—about a hundred black skulls on a bed of ebony stones, flames licking yellow between them. And there’s music—not weird groaning death metal, but recognizable stuff from the Earthly plane. Hundreds of demons churn between the tables and dance with terrifying grace around the fire pit. My brain can’t even take in the sheer variety of forms and shapes—though most of them seem to have assumed human aspect, maybe to help the contestants feel more comfortable.
Or maybe no one cares if the contestants are comfortable, because the closer I peer at the nearest chandelier, the more certain I am that the candlesarehumans, burning constantly without ever really burning up. And I’m pretty sure that the pearly chains hanging between the candles are actually strings of human teeth.
Instinctively I shrink, and my back bumps into Rath’s broad chest. His hands cup my hips, and a traitorous flare of heat surges through me.
“Are you afraid?” he murmurs in my ear. There’s a sparking heat emanating from him, and when I turn, he’s taller and broader than before, his eyes roiling with flame and twisty golden horns spiking from his hair. The big ashy wings snap wide from his shoulders, while ebony claws slide from his fingertips. When he smiles at me, flames lick between his teeth, and I stifle a scream with my palm. His head tilts back and he sighs with satisfaction, as if he just took a refreshing drink. Which of course he did, because the bastard was feeding off my fear.
Ihaveto remember that while he seems protective at times, he’s not my protector. He’s dangerous. Devilish.
Aghilas wraps an arm around my shoulders, and Linnea moves in close to us. Their sponsor demons have also taken on hellish forms—one has a gaping toothed hole in their stomach, revealing an inner blaze of acid-green fire—and the other has tattered shadow-wings and a long, thick tail with an arrow-shaped spike at the end.
The three demons tighten the circle around us, their grins sharp and their claws sharper. Even though I know they need us, the sight of them, the static charge of their power in the air—it drives a stake of sickening horror deep into my stomach.
An explosion of music and thunder yanks my attention to the center of the room, to the fire pit which is roaring high with crimson flame. A naked figure appears within the translucent veils of fire, a male form writhing, contorting—at first I think he’s twisting in pain but then I realize he’s dancing, sensual and horrifying, bones and limbs arching into shapes that should be impossible. He dances on the black skulls, and his spine curves backward in a half circle before snapping upright. His neck jerks, limbs writhe, hips slither and pop. It’s an obscene and beautiful dance. Every line of the dancer’s figure is proportionally perfect in a way that sings to my artistic soul—yet the movements are so twisted my breath catches because he isbreakinghimself for this performance. No human’s bones and flesh can move like he’s moving.
“Who is that?” whispers Linnea beside me. She’s gripping my arm like a lifeline, but she’s just as fascinated as I am. Everyone in the room is screaming, applauding, obsessed, including all the demons who have probably seen everything sexy and torturous that there is to see. Charisma rolls off this flame-dancer in irresistible waves, and we all want him. I can practically taste the heaviness of the lust in the air.
The flame-dancer keeps twisting, contorting, a sinuous nightmare seduction, and I can’t look away. His hair streams straight up along with the flames, a rippling sheet of red fire—and then two great cerulean dragon-wings spring out, stretching far, far over the heads of the guests, impossibly wide. There’s a roar like a dragon’s scream, a brief vision of a monstrous beast with blue scales—then the flames vanish and the wings shrink to their regular size, and there’s Apollyon, with hair of living, quivering fire. He’s draped in glittering aqua robes that leave most of his chest and his legs bare. He has twin blue horns that sweep gracefully up from his hair.
Of course it was Apollyon. I should have known, should have recognized him. But he seemed so human when he was in the shower with me, and thethingthat was dancing just now is anything but human. He’s a creature of fire and agony, thorns and dragon wings, ripped flesh and cracked bones. Whatever he did to his body during that performance seems to have healed; he steps forward with a triumphant peal of shrill demonic laughter.
“Welcome, my beautiful ones, human and demon alike! Welcome to our kickoff gala for this unprecedented game of design and death!” He lifts both hands, eliciting cheers from the crowd. His fingers and limbs sparkle with gems. As his hair settles, transforming from flame to silken locks, a diadem studded with turquoise stones appears across his brow.
“Lust demons,” says Rath in a tone of disgust. “Such attention whores.”
I can’t resist needling him—a little payback for the earlier scare he gave me. “He’s got a higher rank than you, doesn’t he? What is he, an Abominator?”
“No,” snarls Rath. “He’s only one level higher than me. An Orchestrator. Ishtar is the Abominator in charge of this contest. She outranks him.”
One of my assistant demons, Slate, approaches me. The tattoo across her face is juddering weirdly, as if it’s linked to an actual heartbeat somewhere. Her auburn hair sticks out in impossible spirals like ram’s horns, dripping with black chains.
“They’re giving out wings for the humans,” she says. “I snagged you a pair.” She holds up a set of white-feathered wings that look so real I wonder if they were cut off of an actual angel. Slate guides my arms through the harness and then speaks something over it to make the straps vanish. I can still feel the harness, but it looks as if the wings are growing from my spine. The trailing feathers brush the backs of my arms, soft as cotton.
“They look terrible on you,” says Rath disapprovingly.
“Don’t listen to him,” Slate says. “You look angel-chic. Totally suits you, with all that long golden-brown hair and those big doe eyes.”
I’m not sure if she’s trying to get back in my good graces after the piercing incident, or trying to make me unappealing to other demons. Seems like the whole angel thing is a bit of a taboo here—like furries in the human world. Some are into it, and some just think it’s weird, or wrong. Rath clearly hates anything to do with angels. Which makes me all too happy to wear the wings, just to bother him.
Apollyon is still talking about the contest, throwing glittering veils of beautiful words over the guests. When he pauses, the break in his speech draws my attention to him.
Over the heads and horns of the guests, our eyes meet.
At least, I think they do. I’m far away from him, and he could be looking at anyone in my vicinity. Why should he single me out? He could have any demon he wanted, and probably most of the human contestants, too.
No, he’sdefinitelylooking at me. Is he?
“I believe introductions are in order,” he says. “Linnea Norberg! Come on up here.”
Oh. So he was looking at her then.
Linnea squeezes my arm tighter. Her face tells me that never in all her seventy years has she been as scared as she is right now. But she forces her fingers to unclasp from my arm, and she walks slowly toward Apollyon as the crowd of demons parts for her. She looks like a stately queen in that ivory gown, with her gray hair woven into a soft updo. She’s beautiful, and she’s not an object of desire, but of respect. Suddenly I understand why Rath wanted me to put my hair up tonight. It wasn’t really about the hair at all—it was about presentation, about the appearance of vulnerability versus strength. He might have scared me on purpose earlier, to feed his own power, but I still believe he has my best interest at heart in this competition. Probably because he’ll get something out of it at the end. Maybe he gets a promotion from Enforcer demon to Orchestrator demon, or something.
