Black and Blue

21 - The Demons Get Even More Petty, If You Could Imagine

I wouldn't have gone back to the realm if given the choice. Maybe for a couple sparse healing lessons, though I'd gotten all the basics down a couple weeks ago. But I would have simply avoided any sort of contact with the other demons, most of all Jack's boss. I knew the more frequently I visited, the more he'd want me dead, until suddenly he wouldn't be so powerless to just kill me himself. I, like many other reasonable people, wasn't too into getting killed by an ancient grudge-holding demon. So I kept my distance for a while.

But one day, Chernobog summoned me to the realm. And based on the reactions I managed to catch on the way, you didn't ignore a summons from that guy.

Jack offered to go with me in a heartbeat, and I wasn't stupid enough to refuse. Sure, the most he probably would've contributed to this meeting was tossing up some smug remark and making his boss even more angry, but at least with him I'd be safe around the other demons. Maybe I could just make him wait outside.

I was being led by a strange voice in my head—no doubt Chernobog's—through some winding halls the realm was riddled with, far from its dry and burning center. I figured that he was bringing me to the room he'd confronted Jack in before I was dragged into that failed round of HTA training. The atmosphere of the hall I was currently walking down held the same aura as that, the same dizzying coolness which gave me the impression that I was in some rudimentary outer-space simulation. Chernobog's voice dug into the middle layer of cranium in my skull, winding inside and out like a corkscrew. It felt no less violating than the approximate 1,000 other times he'd done it.

After a while, just as he told me to turn "round the corner and between those two pillars," the noise in my head completely shut off, not even leaving so much as an echo. Like there'd been a disturbance in the radio signal. Like something else had been waiting to cut him off for minutes now. I stopped in my tracks, and Jack did the same with a knit brow.

"Did something happen?"

"Your boss just went AWOL. Tell me this isn't some extremely holy place that'd burn his skin off if he entered?"

"Fingers crossed," he said, folding his arms and staring at the two pillars ahead of us. They were shining, polished marble with dark blue cracks overlapping like spider web across their surfaces. The space around them was pitch black, as was the rest of this hall; I couldn't tell where one wall started and the floor began, how far out I could stretch my arms before I grazed something. There was barely five feet of space between the pillars, and an intricately carved arch connecting them over our heads as a way to seal the entrance. Light seeped out of whatever sort of room this was supposed to be, pooling at our feet but not allowing us to clearly see what was on the other side.

Jack nudged me in the arm.

"Are we stepping inside, or...?"

"Just promise me you'll control yourself if he shows up again," I found myself saying. He scoffed and bit at a lip nervously.

"You don't have to say that. I'm great at control. Never lost it my whole life."

I snickered. "Right. Okay..."

We crossed the threshold hand in hand, stepping into what looked to be an old coliseum—stone pillars worn and toppled, the sky a haunting black, sand and dirt packed down beneath our feet so hard that we barely made any tracks. It was like we were in a whole new dimension. Jack's ears perked up, his left swiveling back towards the entrance.

"This isn't right," he said, more or less to himself. I furrowed my eyebrows.

"What, you think we're gonna get ambushed?"

"Like he's not exactly the type to do that. Just...stay close to me, alright?"

He tightened his grip on my hand, and I ended up practically dragging him to the amphitheater's center in waiting. I frowned when a whole minute passed, uneventful, and cupped both hands around my mouth.