Page 51 of Interior Design for Demons
What sadistic fiend designed this room for me?
The demons know everything about me. They know all the worst moments of my life, including this one. Apollyon’s voice echoes in my mind, from a time that feels like forever ago:You’re blushing like a virgin, darling. But you’re not a virgin, are you? Let me see—Sam Dodds in tenth grade, yes? He barely got it in before—well. Teenage boys are disappointing in that respect. And then there was Jason Fletcher, freshman year in college—he did the job fairly well. And you cared for him, but he fell in love with someone else a couple months after you started dating. Tragic.
Apollyon. He was particularly well-versed in the details of my life, even back then—seemed to know me better than Rath, even.
Could he have designed this room for me? After he took me to such heights of pleasure last night—bastard.
Gritting my teeth against the maddening, itching pain, I pull myself upright and square my shoulders, my hair dripping with the sprayed venom. I could have gotten it in my eyes. I could have gone blind. If Apollyon did this, I won’t, Ican’tforgive him. I lift both my burning hands and hold up my middle fingers. Wherever he is, if he’s watching, he’ll see my defiance and know he hasn’t beaten me.
Icy water blasts from the nozzles with the force of a fire hose and I scream again, furious and freezing. And then, after a second, I realize that my skin feels a little better. Sure, I might be shivering, and my flesh might be jiggling weirdly under the ongoing pressure of the water, but the burning itch is lessening a bit.
The water stops, and I look down at myself. My skin is flushed red from the icy blasts, with darker red splotches where the ant venom splattered me.
The room goes suddenly pitch black, and then neon lights illuminate, flashing and flecking across the disgusting paint colors on the wall. The bright flashing, the horrific colors—it’s too much. I’m going to get a migraine. I’ve been lucky not to get many so far, and when I’ve felt one starting I’ve sent Slate or Rusala to get me pills. I’m not sure whether they have a stash in Hell or whether someone has to run to the Earthly plane for them, but so far they’ve kept me stocked with Excedrin.
Here, in this torture room, I have no medicine. I shut my eyes, but I can still see the bright flashes. When I cover my eyes with my hands, the flashes get brighter, brighter, shining right through my flesh and skin, beating into my brain. It goes on and on, and then the lights are joined by the sound of a baby crying. I drop my hands for a second, shocked. It’s the exact voice and cadence of Benny, an infant belonging to one of my foster families. Those foster parents let Benny cry himself to sleep every night, and sometimes he’d cry, heartbroken and frenzied, for hours before he dropped into sleep from exhaustion. I don’t like sleep training anyway, but even as a kid I knew instinctively that there was a right way and a wrong way to do it—and that this was thewrongway, the cruel way. Night after night I sat in front of the TV, pretending to watch a show, or lay in my bed pretending to sleep, while my fingernails dented my palms painfully, while I struggled against the deep primal instinct to go to that baby, to hold him, to tell him everything would be okay.
What I’m hearing right now in the torture room is Benny’s exact cry—a thin, high wail, broken occasionally by miserable sobs and choking sniffles. I can’t cover my ears and my eyes at the same time. The lights hammer into my optic nerves, triggering violent agony in my head, while Benny’s cries ratchet up my heart rate, making me sweaty and panicky. My skin still itches and burns, despite my ice bath. By the time the lights finally stop, a migraine is chewing deep into my brain, and when I see those nauseating walls again, I vomit, hard.
Dizzy, sick, tempted to beat my skull against the wall for some relief, I crawl into a corner, trying not to claw at my itching skin. The shag carpet is drenched in ant poison and cold water, and I shiver against the soggy mess. If I could sleep, maybe the headache would go away. But I can’t sleep, because Benny is crying, and crying.
The same torturous cycle repeats more times than I can count—a spray of fire-ant venom, followed by ice water, followed by flashing lights—and Benny’s cries never stop. I throw up again, because of the pain in my head, and because the room is so small and stuffy I can hardly breathe. I have to pee, so I wait until the icy water blasts again and I do it then. There must be some drainage system in here, because though the shag carpet is soaked, the water doesn’t pool in the room.
I’ve screamed myself hoarse—I’m so far past screaming now. My pain is too deep to vocalize. I’m shaking, teeth chattering with pain and cold, when one wall of the room lights up, and footage begins to play—women struggling in the grip of men. Women pleading, screaming, suffering. Men exchanging sums of money. Women, drugged and dazed, submitting to indignities and demands of the worst kind.
These women are sex slaves. And I know without being told that my father was involved in the sale of each and every one of them. He was part of a human trafficking ring—just as guilty as the other men involved, even if he never touched the women himself. I don’t have to wonder where the demons got the footage—demons are everywhere, it seems. They see everything. Like God.
Can God see down into Hell? Does He see me here, my brain blazing with pain and my skin swollen with poison? It’s unlikely. And if He cared, He would have done something.
If Apollyon cared, he would have done—something—
My thoughts are sliding away, merging with the pain. I topple over onto the slick clumps of carpet, my belly heaving hollow because I have nothing left to vomit. I’m empty. The shrill cries of baby Benny drill into my ears, and I twitch, aching, regretting. I should have done something to help him, but I was too frightened of my foster parents.
“Benny,” I mutter through thickened lips. “S-sorry.”
Something clicks and whirs in one of the walls. The door is opening again—the exit—or maybe it’s a trick. If I crawl through it, I’ll probably end up in another room of horror and torment.
“Rath,” I croak. “Rath, please.”
Cool hands pass under my body, and lean arms lift me. Gardenia and lemons—Apollyon’s scent chokes me, and I gag.
“Quiet now, dove,” he says. “We have to be quick.”
“Is it over?” I murmur.
“You were supposed to be in here for twelve hours, and it has been eight,” he says. “But I can’t watch it anymore. I’ve looped your cell feed—it should fool anyone who hasn’t been monitoring you as closely as I have.” He tries to stand up and cracks his head against the low ceiling. “Fuck.” He bends, carrying me awkwardly out of the room. “I’ll take you to my rooms. No one will find you there.”
There’s a rushing, a whirring of air as he speeds us through corridors—I can’t watch or I’ll be sick again, so I keep my eyes shut until we stop moving. He hustles through some doors, and then more doors.
“I have to put you down a minute, dove.” He sets me on my feet, and I collapse immediately, drizzled into a puddle of misery on his carpet. My head pulses with a fresh wave of agony, and I nearly throw up again.
Apollyon swears some more, opens a hidden door in a wall, and drags me through. There’s another hidden door in that room, and a third smaller door beyond.
“Nesting doll,” I whisper.
“What?”
“Your rooms. One inside another, deeper and deeper.”
