Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(35)
Several of the chairs held well-dressed demons or other creatures who were drinking and talking quietly—just as if they were businessmen discussing deals. Well, maybe they were. Only they were more likely to be selling and buying souls than stocks and bonds. I shivered. Several of them glanced at us as we rode the huge horse through the vast black lobby but none seemed to think us worth a second look.
“Wow, it’s huge in here,” I remarked softly. “I mean, the outside is really big but the inside—”
“Is infinite,” Laish murmured in my ear, finishing my thought. “Literally. There are said to be an infinite number of rooms within these walls—enough for all who have the means to stay here.”
“Guess they don’t have to invest in a ‘no vacancy’ sign then,” I said. Not that I could see a place like this having a blinking neon sign anywhere on the premises. The Hotel Infernal was hands down the most imposing and expensive hotel I’d ever been in and that included the Safety Harbor Spa and Resort where my friend, Amanda had married her fiancée who was a very well to do cardiac surgeon.
When we reached the marble desk a demon with pale blue skin looked up and nodded at us. He had elegant spiral horns like an antelope’s on either side of his head.
“Good evening, Sir, Maaadam,” he murmured in a low, polite voice that was only slightly spoiled by sounding like a goat’s bleat. “How may I aaaccommodate you today?”
“We’ll need your finest suite for the night,” Laish said crisply. “And I do mean the finest—one here on the first floor will do.”
The pale blue antelope demon gave him a haughty look.
“The first floor suites aaare reserved for the lords of the realm—the Great Demons. Only a Prince of Night and Shadow may reserve one. I caaannot—”
“Did the doormen not tell you who I am?” Laish’s voice was silky smooth and very, very dangerous. “If you have doubts as to my right to take a first floor suite, please call your master, Druaga.”
“Aaas you wish, Sir. But I warn you—if you do not have the proper staaatus to disturb him, my maaaster will be most displeased.”
“Just call him,” Laish said. “Now.”
The demonic desk clerk picked up a big, old fashioned looking phone and put the heavy black receiver to his ear. It reminded me of Gram’s old house phone—the one I finally convinced her to replace because it had a rotary dial.
The demon spoke softly into the receiver and then nodded once before replacing it.
“My maaaster is on his way, Sir.”
“Very good.” Laish nodded.
I sat quietly in front of him, wondering what was going to happen next. Was he really one of the Great Demons—the seven lords of Hell that answered only to Lucifer himself? If so, I was so completely outmatched that my own magical talents must seem laughable to him. I wondered why he hadn’t told me at once—and why he hadn’t blasted me when I had mouthed off to him on numerous occasions. After all, anyone who can flay demons alive with a single word would have no problem punishing a mouthy witch.
After a long moment in which the demonic desk clerk pretended to be busy with paperwork while watching us from the corner of his yellow eye, a huge creature in a mustard colored hounds-tooth suit suddenly appeared in front of us. I say creature because though he had the body of a man, he certainly wasn’t human.
The head of a wild boar with long, curving tusks poked out of the neck of his immaculate white collar. The tusks were capped in gold but what really caught my attention was the eyes—they, at least, were human. Or sentient anyway—they weren’t animal eyes, is what I’m trying to say. Seeing those normal-looking brown eyes in an animal’s face seemed weird and wrong.
Even wronger was the fact that his immaculately cut suit had an opening in the crotch where his fly should have been. When my gaze finally drifted down from his bizarre face, I had to bite back a gasp. Massive genitals dangled outside the hounds-tooth suit, swinging when the creature moved. Ugh!
I tried not to look but it was kind of like a train wreck—hard to look away. Could anyone actually be that big? He looked like he might give Kurex a run for his money—it was offensive to see something that huge on a human form. Then again, it was offensive for him to have it all out in the open like that—even though it kind of made sense. It was obvious why he’d had to have his pants tailored with a hole in them—there was no way his equipment would fit in a normal pair of trousers.
“Who dares disturb me?” the boar-headed demon with the mammoth dick growled, looking up at Laish. “How dare you demand a first floor suite?”
“It’s me, Druaga,” Laish said mildly. “Laish.”
“My Lord Laish?” The boar-headed demon looked at him uncertainly. “I was going to punish my underling…” He motioned at the antelope-demon who was now cowering against the counter, his earlier superiority forgotten. “But how could anyone recognize you in that form?”
“I am traveling incognito with my new concubine,” Laish explained, as he had before. “We require accommodations for the night, as I was explaining to your desk clerk here.”
“Ah yes of course, your concubine.”
The boar-headed demon turned his attention to me—in more than one way. As those disturbingly human eyes crawled their way over my body, the massive shaft between his legs began to swell. Ugh! I wished I was wearing a parka instead of the thin, red silk dress Laish had made me put on.