“In other words,” Constantine said aloud as he examined the dark red door before him, “it should look properly spooky. This just looks like something out of an old film.”

No one answered him, which was right and proper, since the mortals couldn’t see or hear anyone who was in the spirit world, even though it occupied the same space as the mortal world. Unfortunately, that also meant that while Constantine could bear items into and out of the spirit world, he couldn’t use anything that had its origins in the mortal world, which meant the notes he’d taken regarding accessing Asmodeus’s palace could only be read if he summoned the energy to switch to a corporeal form.

“As if getting to Spain just to enter the blasted palace wasn’t enough of a drain of my corporeal energy,” he grumbled to himself, moving around the side of the sepia-stained stone walls of the building to what he judged was a relatively concealed position. “Now I have to use up precious energy just to read the notes.”

He stepped into the real world, an act that he always thought of as walking through a slightly translucent curtain, glancing around quickly to make sure no one saw him suddenly appear. Since he was in a small side yard containing trash bins and tall, spiky wrought-iron fence rails with nary a person in sight, he relaxed and pulled out the paper with his notes.

He strolled to the street and compared house numbers. “This is the right location, but it doesn’t look very ‘entrance to hell’ to me. Hmm.” He glanced up and down at the passersby, but none of them looked particularly demonic. “Well, I’ll just have to risk that I wrote down the correct number.”

Getting into the house via the spirit world was easy enough—he simply entered through a slightly ajar window at the back of the house. But once inside, he ceased to be in what was the spirit world version of reality and instead found himself in Abaddon, that hell-like place where demon lords ruled and sorrow abounded.

“What an uncomfortable place. I can’t imagine why anyone would wish to stay here,” he told himself as he wandered down a hallway, noticing that the angles in the Abaddon version of the spirit world were even more askew than in other locations. “Which is why I need to just find the damned talisman and get out as quickly as possible.”

He turned a corner and saw two people standing together, a man and a tall, whiplike, slender woman.

Demons. He froze, waiting to see if they had the ability to see him in the spirit world.

The one facing him glanced briefly in his direction, but gave him no more attention than if he’d been a whisper on the wind.

That didn’t stop Constantine from tiptoeing past them, a fact that made him angry with himself. He was a wyvern, dammit! He was a man who’d battled in countless wars, protected his beloved sept of silver dragons, and fought desperately to save those who were weaker. Wyverns did not tiptoe. And yet when it came to the point where he was brushing by the pair in the narrow hallway, he held his breath.

The demons didn’t stop talking. Constantine let out an inaudible sigh of relief and hurried past them down the hall, then turned into an open space that contained a cluster of doors, each bearing spiked metal bars. Clearly, this was the dungeon area, the last place he wanted to be.

He hurried past the first door, trying hard not to look at the occupant while at the same time deciding where Asmodeus was likely to have his private quarters. Upstairs, definitely upstairs.

Just as he passed the last door, there was a rush of air, and a woman appeared at the bars, yelling at the top of her lungs. “I demand to be released! You, you can tell your boss that he’s going to incur the wrath of not only the dragons, but the Charmer’s League, as well as the officials in the Otherworld. They don’t take the imprisonment of their members light—Hey.”

Constantine, who froze when the woman started shouting, turned slowly to look at her. She was gazing at him with a curious look on her face, part annoyance, part astonishment. She pointed at him. “Hey, you’re not a demon.”

With a glance up and down the hall (thankfully empty), he shifted out of the spirit world and into his corporeal form. “You could see me? How is this possible? No one can see me when I’m in that state. No one but another spirit, and you—” He studied her closely for a moment. “You are not a spirit. Did you say Charmer’s League?”

“That’s right, I’m a Charmer. You’re a ghost? What are you doing in Abaddon? You look like a dragon, but dragons don’t get resurrected.”

“They do if they are exceptional specimens,” he said smugly. “I am Constantine Norka, wyvern of the silver dragons.” He made a formal bow.

Her eyes widened, then narrowed into little slits of glittering blue. “Did Kostya send you after me? He did, didn’t he? I told him that I would be perfectly fine getting the talisman, but he kept insisting that he’d send someone else in to get it. Honestly, you dragons are the stubbornest beings I’ve ever encountered.”

Constantine eyed the woman, then pointedly looked at the bars.

“Pfft,” the woman said, waving a dismissive hand at them. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“I doubt that,” Constantine said with a wry little smile.

“You’re thinking that I was hasty in trying to get the talisman myself, rather than waiting for whoever Kostya came up with to do the job, but that’s unfair. It was just the merest coincidence that those stupid guards were upstairs when I came through the tear.”

“The tear in what?” he asked, wondering if there had been a less arduous way to enter the palace.

“Space, of course. I hired a demon to tear open space so I could sneak in and out without anyone noticing me. And it would have worked, too, if those guards hadn’t chosen that moment to walk into the room.” She sighed. “Oh well, it’s a moot point now. If you’re the man Kostya hired to help steal the talisman, then you can let me out and I can get it and be on my way.”

Constantine thought quickly while absently taking in her appearance. She wasn’t overly tall, but had dark red hair that seemed to move around her as if it had a life of its own. Her eyes were a clear, warm blue that reminded him of the Aegean Sea. She had freckles on skin the color of very milky coffee. He couldn’t make a judgment on her breasts, since the sweater she wore concealed them, but he was willing to bet she had a nice ass.