Page 104 of Demon's Heart
They stood in their old quarters inside Lucifer’s fortress. It was a risk to enter here, not knowing what the rooms had become since they’d left, but it was less of a risk than entering the Realm of the Damned elsewhere and having to sneak into Luc’s heavily guarded lair.
Dante turned from the wall, hit with recognition and a sinking sense of déjà vu. The room was unchanged. Their old possessions crowded the space, color muted by time and dust as thick as snow.
This wasn’t what Dante had expected. Forgotten despair threatened to pull him down, clawing at his insides. He took a deep breath and choked. Fuck, even the air was stale and oppressive.
Onyx picked up a tarnished goblet, a detached look in his eye, all his intensity gone. “What…?”
The sitting area was a time capsule, the curtains drawn and moldering. A picture of their old life. Was it exactly as they’dleft it? Had Luc not been in here since Dante, Ash, and Onyx escaped?
“It’s a fucking tomb.” Ash frowned at a pile of clothes on a settee. “I remember dumping these here.”
Dante’s skin crawled. Why hadn’t Lucifer repurposed the space? “We should go. Luc might have sensed us enter like you do in the Human Realm.”
Ash grunted, turning away from his old clothes.
Dante’s footsteps were muffled on the stone floor. So much dust. Centuries worth.
He led the way out through the suite’s foyer. Hinges creaked as Dante pushed the door open, revealing a dim stone corridor. Early morning light filtered through the uncovered windows, doing nothing to chase away the heavy air of abandonment.
Dante stepped into the hall, greeted by more dust. Was the whole floor unused?
“Come on.” Ash pulled Onyx along.
“Why the fuck is everything abandoned?” Onyx whispered.
Ash closed the door behind them. “Luc must not use this wing anymore.”
Dante hurried to the stairs, finding them covered in dust. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and he reached for Ollie’s warm presence. His mate sent soothing tendrils of affection his way, but Dante’s soul remained cold.
“I don’t like this,” he said as he headed downward.
“Look.” Onyx caught his wing, pointing out the window.
Dante turned. The view was unrecognizable. He remembered fields and greenery and the city to the south. Not anymore.
Barren dirt marred the foreground, and in the distance, huge high-rises dominated the skyline, obliterating what had once been rolling hills. Lights blinked, creating colorfuldisplays on the sides of the enormous buildings. The sprawl had a strange formation, nowhere near as dense as a human city, like it was only a few blocks deep, favoring a wide expanse.
“It almost reminds me of the Dawn Cliffs,” Ash said, referring to the capital city in the Eternal Realm, built into cliff faces so high they touched the clouds.
He was right. The buildings seemed divided into two sides with a large gap between them, even though no river flowed there.
The Eternal Realm was all mountains and valleys, huge raging waterfalls and rivers. There was almost no flat land. As winged beings, it suited Eternals perfectly.
The Realm of the Damned was a stark contrast, nothing higher than a gentle slope, created as if to remind everyone of the perfect place they’d lost.
“Good for them.” Onyx turned from the window. “Just because the council tried to ground us didn’t mean we had to stay down here. Demons were always talking about building mountains.”
But why had nothing come of those dreams until recently? For nine hundred years, the Realm of the Damned had hardly changed.
Ash followed Onyx down the stairs. “Interesting that they went with skyscrapers rather than natural formations.” With magic at their disposal, building either would have been equally possible.
“They really are making it like the Human Realm.” Dante turned away from the view. “I don’t think we’re going to find Luc here.”
Every floor of the fortress seemed as deserted as their old quarters. Dust coated everything, and it appeared Lucifer had taken nothing with him when he left. Art hung on the walls.Vases and statues marked the doorways. The courtyard was overgrown and the front gates rusted shut.
Dante looked at the sky. “I don’t sense any protective spells. We can fly out and track Lucifer down.”
It wasn’t ideal. If Luc had sensed their arrival, he’d had plenty of time to prepare, compared to the three of them running through the fortress and bursting in on him.
