They climbed up out of the swamp, groaning, snarling, and Adron snapped a growl at some too-near hellfire still burning on the black muck. If it’d touched him, Mia would have jumped down and run to him, but the big vrat threw the muck away and joined them in seconds, Kas right beside him.
“Smart,” Kas said, and set his eyeless glare on Vinicius. “Asshole.”
Vin snarled down at the shark dinosaur, but turned and carried on as if he hadn’t just nearly killed Kas, and Adron, and even Julisa. Would he have cared if he did? God damn it, Vin.
“We can’t stay,” Julisa said. “Those creatures may find us again.”
“But, what about the Damall?” Mia asked. “Romakus, and Yosepha, and Faust and Oudoceus and–”
“Once they see we’re not here, they’ll do the only thing that makes sense. They’ll head toward the center point of the trench.”
“But that’s… over a week away.”
“Two weeks,” Vinicius said. “The swamp slows all.”
Great. Fucking wonderful. Groaning, she half hung from Vin’s spikes and looked down at Adron and Kas.
“You two alright? Adron, you–”
“He didn’t get me this time,” he said, glaring at Vin. “I’m fine.”
Fine. He was fine, except he had that weird determined look again, a gritty and hard look that he’d never had before Hannah died. Before Vin had burned him.
“Hey.”
A new voice cut through the silence and distant screams of remnants, and everyone spun. But relief ran through Mia’s body as a shape came into view.
“Slow down,” Faust said, panting as he yanked his foot out of a deep section of muck.
“Faustinus,” Julisa said, turning. “You were supposed to stay in hiding.”
Mia snapped her glare at the tetrad.
“I thought only you stayed behind to watch us!”
“A foolish idea. I am but one, and there are three of you.”
Mia counted on her fingers. Three? Right, Mia didn’t count. What a bitch.
“So Faustinus–”
“And me,” another voice said, coming out of the black. “And–”
“Me,” another voice said.
“And me,” another voice said.
Mia threw up her hands as Faust, Gallius, Oudoceus, and Locutus all stepped out of the shadow.
“All four of you were watching us!?”
“It’s what we do,” Gallius said, joining them. “We knew you knew Romakus wouldn’t let you stay behind on your own while they go hunting, so Julisa stayed behind. But we knew you also might just ditch her, or eat her, so–”
“So you thought you could help her stop us?” Vin asked, giving the incubus the smallest, most evil smile ever.
Faust and the others were classically handsome, tall, muscular but lean men, while Gallius had a little more size to him, a little more height, and had a scar across his forehead and cheek. Incubi had a couple small horns, long, thin tails that ended in the classic devil spade, and short black claws, but were otherwise very human looking. Dark red skin aside, of course. They were handsome, and hot, but they weren’t exactly the deadly killing machines other demons were.
But Romakus had sent them to keep an eye on Mia and the group. Maybe they were deadlier with their swords than Mia knew.
“Not help,” Faust said, shrugging. “But follow.” Or that.
Kas snarled back at the incubi, but shrugged and continued on. Adron did the same. Even Vinicius only gave a small grunt and rumble before resuming the march. Only Mia had the audacity, the sheer nerve, to actually find it kind of offensive that Romakus had left a secret group to monitor her. To the demons, this was perfectly reasonable.
“So what now?” Gallius asked.
“What do you mean?” Mia said, gesturing to the trench. “We follow the trench back to the big trench. The… Trench, right?”
Oudoceus shook his head. “That’s not one of the trench veins.”
“What?” Oh. Oh fucking fuck no.
“That’s not one of the trenches that connects to the main trench,” Locutus said. “It’s…” He slowly spun around. “Somewhere out there. When that thing attacked, you guys ran in a direction, and we followed as best we could; that monster was only interested in you guys, not us. But, uh, you didn’t follow the right trench.”
Clenching her eyes until she saw stars, Mia took a deep breath, and forced herself to look back out into the swamp. There were other ditches, too, long trenches that cut through the black gore in all directions, and she hadn’t even noticed them when Vin had turned — at her command — to attack the creature. And when they’d run in a panic when those smaller monsters had shown up, they’d followed this trench.
The wrong trench.
“Damn,” Julisa said, snarling and kicking at the muck.
“So, what do we do?” Mia asked.
Faust gestured out at the endless swamp around them, and the black fog that blocked their vision.
“The only thing we can do. We pick a direction and get walking. I think back this way is Death’s Grip.” He gestured behind him. “Anyone disagree?” No one said a thing. “Then I guess we keep going.”
“But we can’t see anything. We’ll start drifting and turning, if this is the wrong trench.” Just saying the words had her feeling heavier and heavier every second, and she buried her forehead against Vin’s back.
“It might be a vein that’ll connect us to the main trench. But probably not. All we can do is keep going, or maybe find some demons that know their way around.”
Right, other demons. She hadn’t seen any yet, or hellbeasts.
“We do not want to run into other demons,” Julisa said.
“No,” Adron said, wincing. “We don’t.”
~
~~David~~
An uneventful day was a good day in Hell.
“You know,” David said, voice low, “I’m kinda surprised.”
Dao clicked once, standing beside him.
“We haven’t run into a single demon. That’s kinda weird, right?”
Jes and Caera prowled ahead, leading the party, while Acelina walked in back. The imps and grems were out exploring the graveyard, the giant headstones, the empty graveyard plots — yes, it had those — and the strange soft ground that was nearly grass but not quite. Their first time out of Death’s Grip, the unfamiliar sights were interesting to them, and problematically, the little critters weren’t all that good at considering the future when making decisions. They were going to get caught at some point, drawn into some encounter by their curiosity. But then again, they’d survived the mountain tunnels full of Cainites for quite a while. Maybe he wasn’t giving them enough credit.