Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(109)

“What? Eww!” I exclaimed. “That’s awful!”

“No, that’s Hell.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Surely you are not surprised after everything else you have witnessed here?”

“I guess not.” I sighed. “Look, just try not to take too long, okay? It makes me nervous to be out here without you.”

I didn’t like admitting that but I couldn’t help it. Every time we were separated, bad things seemed to happen. And I’d had enough awful adventures in the past few days to last me a lifetime.

“It will be the work of a moment. I already see the one I am here to meet.” He nodded at a huge demon with the head of a bull and the body of a man, leaning against the outer wall of The Hoof. The creature—I guessed it was a Minotaur—had a long black box under its arm. When it saw Laish, it nodded back and lumbered into the tavern.

Laish followed it and I wondered what in the world they were talking about in there. I didn’t have long to wonder, though, because in a matter of minutes Laish came out with the long black box I’d seen the Minotaur holding.

“What’s that?” I asked as he tucked it into Kurex’s saddle bags and swung up behind me again.


“Insurance,” he said shortly. “Come, it’s time to pass through the barrier.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Just ahead at the end of this road. You cannot see it, of course, but in a matter of moments we will pass through and be in the middle of the Sunless Sea.”

“In the middle of it?” I felt a surge of fear. “Now, just hold on a minute,” I said, turning in the saddle to look at Laish. “All this time I thought we were going to be on the shore or the beach or something like that. Nobody said anything about in the middle of the ocean—I wasn’t exactly on the high school swim team, you know. And—”

But just at that moment we reached the end of the street and the entire city of Dis completely vanished. The bright daylight turned abruptly to night and Kurex’s hooves were thunking on sand instead of clopping on cobblestones.

“What in the world?” I looked around, bewildered.

“No, what in Hell,” Laish corrected me. “This, mon ange, is the Sunless Sea, the sixth level of Hell.”

“But…” I shook my head, not understanding. “All I see is sand—where’s the water?”

“Look up.” He gestured directly above our heads.

I did as he said and nearly screamed.

About twenty feet straight up a massive stretch of black water was flowing. Actually, it was all around us, I saw. We were surrounded by water which was held back somehow by an invisible barrier.

The closest thing to it I could imagine was some of the underwater rides and tunnels in Sea World, where you walk through a clear plastic tube and see the sharks and fish swimming all around you. But when you go in one of those tunnels, you can see the plastic or plexiglass or whatever it is they use to build the tunnel surrounding you, keeping the water out. Here, there was nothing—nothing I could see, anyway. The water was just there, flowing silently all around us, with no apparent reason for not filling the space we were in and drowning us.

“It’s Infernal Magic which holds the waters back,” Laish answered my unspoken question. “Do not worry, Gwendolyn—we are quite safe.”

“Are we?” I was still scanning the “roof” of the long tunnel we were in as Kurex kept on walking. My memory of the tunnels at Sea World was renewed as I saw a Great White shark pass directly overhead—only this was a shark the size of a school bus!

“What the Hell?” I muttered, looking up at it.

“A Megaladon,” Laish remarked. “Extinct in the Mortal Realm now for millions of years. Yet it thrives here, along with many of its brethren.”

“Like that thing?” I pointed to something that was even bigger than the enormous shark. It had a long, pointed snout a little like a crocodile filled with razor sharp teeth. It could have used me for a toothpick or swallowed me without even realizing it—it was that big.

“A Mosasaur,” Laish said laconically. “One of the largest predators every to stalk the ocean. I remember when the depths were full of such beasts—long before the Creator turned his attention to man.”

“So you were around during the age of the dinosaurs?” I couldn’t help staring at him. He’d talked more than once about mortals having such a short life span we were like moths or butterflies but it hadn’t really sunk in for me. Somehow knowing that Laish had been around to see these ancient beasts roam the planet seemed to put everything into perspective.

He gave me a mocking little smile.

“Now don’t tell me you’ll let a little thing like age difference get in the way of our relationship.”

Since I didn’t know exactly what our relationship was, I didn’t know how to answer that.

“It’s just weird, that’s all,” I muttered. “I—oh, look—Nessie!”

For just to the right side of us, so close to the invisible barrier I felt like I could go stroke its broad, paddle-like fins, was a creature that looked exactly like what the Lock Ness Monster is supposed to be.

“A long necked Plesiosaur,” Laish said. “I did hear that one of them had escaped back through the dimensional gateway to the Mortal Realm.”