Page 32 of To Crave Madly
My feet stopped. A door was open. A thick black line in the rigid monotony of white stood out starkly before me. I peered into the darkness beyond the door. “Hello!”
Still, there was nothing. It was like staring into the maw of a void. Just pitch black—
“Lori?”
A voice whispered out of the darkness. It was faint but it was there. My heart sped up at the thought of escaping this place.
“Can you hear me?”
“Lori…”
Whoever it was, they were definitely in the darkness. There was something familiar about the voice. Did I know them? Should I take a chance in the dark?
A light bulb popped, casting the end of the corridor into darkness. As I stared down the corridor, I could feel something watching me from the shadows. An oppressive weight slithered from the dark corners and a shiver ran up my spine as fear crept under my skin. There was something eerie down there, something malevolent, and it was watching me.
Pop.
Another lightbulb burst. The darkness came closer, swallowing the light.
Pop.
Shit. I needed to make a choice. Stay in the corridor and be eaten by whatever was in the shadows or jump into the darkness and find the voice that felt familiar.
Pop.
My breath quickened and I could feel the sweat on my brow. Fuck. It was now or never.
Pop.
I could hear a growl in the oncoming shadows. A moist licking of lips. This was not good. I was running out of lightbulbs. Electricity hummed through the air and static had the hairs on my arms standing on end. Something about this was familiar but why the fuck couldn’t I remember?
I needed to make a choice.
Fuck it.
I’d rather chase the voice I might know rather than be consumed by whatever was in the shadows.
With my heart in my mouth, I ran through the doorway and prayed to whoever was listening that someone would find me.
***
JASPER
Well, this was the definition of unexpected. I was wandering around Lori’s mind tethered to the Devil. The actual Devil. I was taking a stroll with the King of the Under Realm like it was the most natural thing in the world. I kept shaking my head in disbelief. This was fucking weird.
“Can you sense her?” I asked. We were stuck in a maze of corridors and doors that didn’t open. It seemed that Lori had somehow found a way to block us from accessing any memories and it felt like we were just wandering aimlessly through her mind in the hopes that we might bump into her.
“Yes, I can. But it feels muted. Like something is interfering.”
Lucifer wasn’t what I expected. I had expected a man full of rage and cruelty who only thought of himself but that wasn’t the man I saw before me. I could feel power radiating off him in waves and I knew he was more powerful than I could ever have imagined, but what surprised me was the tenderness in how he handled Lori. I could see how important she was to him and, even though he was quick to anger and seemed to have an unhealthy enjoyment of threatening people, he really did seem to treasure Lori just as much as I did.
Shit. Did I like the guy? A shiver ran up my spine at the thought. I didn’t want to be too hasty in my assessment of his character. He was still an unknown and I was sure he had his own agenda when it came to Lori. Our goals might be aligned right now, but how long was that going to last?
“Lori said you were looking into the attack in the alley. Have you found anything?”
Lucifer turned to me, his dark eyes full of mirth at my attempt at small talk. “I have yet to find anything significant. I do not think demons are involved.”
That wasn’t good. If Lucifer couldn’t find anything in the Under Realm that linked to Lori, it meant we had to look to another group, but I had no idea who that was. We’d already seen vampires trying to get to her and, whoever it was was somehow linked to the witches. They were going missing and we were seeing possessions and powerful magic creeping into the Conclave. This had disaster fucking written all over it. My gut was telling me that someone was manipulating the different factions of supernaturals to get rid of Lori and this prophecy. A prophecy, which according to his fucking majesty over here, was utter horseshit.
