Page 42 of Not Today, Satan
Sweat drips down my forehead as I push the mirror with all my might. I’m getting my strength back, but only in spurts. There’s a loud clang as the two mirrors smash into each other and become a solid mass, creating a wall between us and the souldiers.
“Where’d they go?” Ferus’s voice echoes through the lot, followed by a low growl. “Don’t just stand there. Find them!”
I slam my hand over my mouth to stop the nervous laughter bubbling out of me.
“Which way?” Nate whispers.
I drop my gaze and scan the floor. A glint catches in the spark of the lamps above us. “There.” I point. “Follow the glass.”
“It’s useless running, Princess,” Ferus calls as we edge around a corner, the fury in his voice chilling me to the bone. “I’m going to find you. And when I do, I’ll— Wait, what’s that? Oh, hello, handsome. What might you want?”
Ferus screams as we reach the exit, the sound more animal than demon. It sends shivers through my entire body.
“Guess Fartus doesn’t like what he sees,” Nate says.
The door slams behind us, mercifully blocking out the screams. I lean against it and take a deep breath as strength slowly returns to my limbs.
“We can’t take the same tunnel as before.” I eye the cliffs to our right and the hundreds of stairs leading to them. “We’ll have to go up.”
“Can you make it?” Nate asks when I grab his elbow to steady myself. “I could carry you, if you needed.”
“No way.” I release his arm and head for the stairs. “The day I need a shadeling to carry me is the day I throwmyselfinto the Ignis River.”
PART TWO: WATER
“We crossed the circle to the other bank,
Near to a fount that boils, and pours itself
Along a gully that runs out of it.
The water was more sombre far than perse;
And we, in company with the dusky waves;
Made entrance downward by a path uncouth.”
-Dante’sInferno, Canto VII
XIX.
We walk for days, sheltering in caves when we spot souldiers on patrol. We take turns sleeping in shadows, huddled close to walls, and gripping our weapons.
Nate doesn’t discuss his time in Lot Thirteen with me, but he relives it every night, thrashing in his sleep and waking up covered in sweat. When I ask about it, he brushes me off, making some joke about perspiring in Hell being the norm.
But I don’t push it. I have my own nightmares of Ferus and my father laughing as they shove me into the Ignis River, or of my altered image in those mirrors. I can’t carry Nate’s pain, too, and I’d never expect him to carry mine.
The water I’d brought disappears quickly, and my dress becomes permanently plastered to my body. I chastise past Devica for not bringing a change of clothes as I stash the now empty bag behind a boulder.
“We’re almost halfway there.” I stand with my toes peeking over the ledge and point below. “See those islands ahead? That’s Aquarum—the city of water. Things’ll get trickier from here. There won’t be as many caves as Lapis.”
“Lapis?” Nate furrows his brows.
“That’s where we are now. The city of stone. Not everywhere in Hell looks like this. Father made a whole world down here.”
Nate plops onto the ground and dangles his legs over the edge. He squints to make out the city in the distance. “It’s so…red.”
“Yeah.” I lower myself beside him, my aching feet tingling gratefully at the break.
