Runes of Truth (A Demon's Fall #1)(32)
“Didn’t your brother ever hear the human saying ‘curiously kills the cat’? Because that would be a good lesson for him,” I remark, but they all ignore me.
“Then your brother has to die,” Trex coldly remarks.
“I can deal with one of my brothers at a time, and possibly kill him. That’s only if Roth hasn’t gotten the help of any of my other brothers.”
“We need to get to them quickly then, if your brother is going to be doing weird tests on them or something,”
“Yes, we do,” Trex answers, and the door Cody left through opens at the end of his words. Cody walks out first followed by his brother. His brother just looks like a slightly older version of Cody. He has a full red-haired beard that matches his trimmed hair, and black eyes that watch us all for a brief second.
“You want entry? You sure?” the bearded man asks in a deep voice.
“Yes,” Azi says simply, no need for messing around.
“Let’s get this out of the way, then,” Cody says, clapping his hands together and stepping up to the door. I watch as he gets the necklace his brother gave him out of his pocket and places the trianglular, metal symbol in a space on the door for it. It glows red as Cody’s brother pulls a bracelet off his wrist, with a metal circle symbol in another gap and it glows red, too. Cody finally pulls a ring off his finger, and it has a square symbol on it. The moment it touches the space where Cody puts it down, it glows red.
“Patentibus,” Cody almost growls out and presses his hand to the door. The glass just melts away into smoke, the smoke still holding the shape of the door. Cody steps back, waving a hand at the door.
“Time to go,” he says and looks over at me, trailing his eyes over my body slowly. “Though, you are always welcome back.” Azi whacks Cody on the head as he passes him and walks into the smoky door.
“Ouch, dickhead! That’s not how you say thank you!” Cody shouts as Trex walks into the smoky door, and Nix follows him. Connor just waits, crossing his arms.
“I’m not leaving him alone with you, go on,” Connor states. Cody laughs, “Smart man.”
“Later, boys,” I say, walking forward and stepping into the smoky door. The smoke smothers me for what seems like a few seconds, making me cough before the third layer of hell appears.
“Watch out!” Trex shouts, just as a dagger comes flying through the air towards me.
Evie
I fall to the ground, watching the dagger fly over my head, and disappear into the smoky door behind me. I hope Connor is okay. I quickly jump up, looking around and seeing Azi holding a demon in the air by his neck, and there isn’t anyone else around. The dagger distracted me for a second, but now I can’t help but look around. It is beautiful. There are fields and fields of green grass, trees with large red apples hanging from them for as far as you can see. I spot a building in the far distance, and I can hear the sound of running water in the distance, too. This place reminds me of the Garden of Eden that I read about as a kid. Where the first humans were said to have come from. I look up at the sky, seeing thousands of stars, which is impossible because there can’t be stars down here. There are so many that it’s bright enough to look like it’s day.
“Who threw the dagger? It missed me by an inch!” Connor exclaims as he comes through the portal, holding the dagger up in his hand.
“He did,” Trex points at the man Azi is holding in the air. The man, well demon, has red skin and hair, and leather clothes. His cloak is on the floor, as it a range of weapons that Azi has clearly taken off him.
“Why did you wait for Evie?” Azi demands, shaking the demon as we all walk over.
“Sent. Kill,” the demon coughs out. Azi grabs his head, snapping his neck, and letting the demon’s body drop to the ground before anyone can ask anything else.
“I don’t get why he waited for you,” Azi growls.
“If you didn’t kill him straight away, we might have been able to find out,” Connor replies sarcastically.
“He wouldn’t have talked. I could tell,” Azi shrugs.
“The demon clearly knew to take out the deadliest opponent first,” I say, and each one of them turn to glare at me.
“That is not the reason,” Nix states firmly, and the others nod.
“It is, and you all know it,” I say with a wide smile, leaning down, and taking off my bag. “We might as well have a food break. It looks safe here, and you’ve already killed the danger.” I don’t wait for the guys to agree or not before putting my bag down, and grinning at Star, who is still sleeping in the bag.
“You like to sleep a lot, huh?” I ask, and she also yawns as I pick her up and take her out of the bag. I pull my last water bottle out, drinking half and then pouring the other half in the small box I kept my food in. She happily drinks away as Azi comes over, kneeling down next to us. Star watches him, almost narrowing her eyes at him until I stroke her back, and she goes back to drinking her water.
“You like her, so I like her,” he tells me as he places a small box full of broken up jerky and what looks like bacon rasher crisps. “It’s all we have that she might eat, but we can get real food when we are out of hell.” I look over to see the others watching, but they all quickly look away when I see them, making me smile.