Warm and slightly prickly under my hand, the skin had tiny little hairs all over it. Alex swallowed loud enough that I could hear him. “Can you smell what this is?”

“No, no, no. Alex no knows.”

Shit, if he was reverting back to third person … I turned to see him peeing where he stood. Terrified.

I crouched beside him. “Alex, listen to me. I know you’re scared; I am too. But Pamela and Milly need us, so we have to go in there. We have to get them out and take them home. You understand? We both need to be brave.”

Whimpering, he nodded. “Pamie shouldn’t stay inside the monster.”

Monster, yeah, that was enough for me. I didn’t really need to know what the demons had carved up in order to make their building. In fact, I didn’t really want to know at all.

The first window I came to I peered in. Inside seemed again to be a mockery of an office building with a desk and chairs, a filing cabinet. Very strange. Some of it seemed to be carved directly out of the building, out of the creature. But there were spots where new material had been brought in, nailed and screwed into place. Where I saw the stains of old blood from those anchor points trickling down the walls. How long had this monster been kept like this? I shook my head. What a miserable fucking existence.

I lifted my hand to the window and, before I touched it, it slid open. A welcome to our home sign wouldn’t have freaked me out as much. No matter. We needed in and we were going in.

Alex gave me a boost and then scrambled up the side. The building didn’t shudder, but I almost felt its pain. I peered out to see Alex’s claws dug in to make it up over the ledge. A strange sensation flooded over me and I let it take me and said the words rattling in my brain.

“Sorry. We just need to get our friends out. We mean you no harm.”

The building/monster gave a slight shudder and went quiet and for a split second I almost thought I heard a whisper of words. So low I could easily convince myself I was hearing things. Except for the way Alex’s ears perked up and he tipped his head.

I will help.

But that would be ridiculous. A demon wouldn’t help me, a demon slayer. I pushed the words away and crept across the room to put a hand on the door. From what I could tell, we had to find a way downstairs. Milly and Pamela were way below us.

I did my best not to think about it. But before I opened the door, I waved my blade in the pattern Erik taught me and had Alex do the same with his claws. We were in full on demon territory. Seemed dumb assed stupid not to be as prepared as we could. But again there was no burning light, nothing to indicate the runes worked. Which gave me the willies.

Turning the doorknob slowly, it twisted with a soft creak that made me cringe even though it was pretty quiet. I opened the door enough to peer down the hallway, then put my head out further to peer down the other end. Nothing. Empty.

Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.

You wanted to feel good about being in a place where Orion existed in the flesh? Where demons lived and breathed and bred?

My body froze as the thought hit me. Motherfucking pus buckets. Sweat broke out along my brow and I had to force myself to move. I focused on the details around us and finding a way downstairs. The walls were almost iridescent silver, reflecting small bits of light, making it bright enough to see without any torches or electricity.

My breathing hitched and I fought to keep moving. The strangeness of our surroundings didn’t help keep my mind from producing some seriously bad scenarios. Like walking around a corner and bumping into Orion.

Did I want to kill Orion? Hell yeah, in every possible way. I wanted to string him up and beat him to death with each of his own limbs as I hacked them off.

But I wasn’t stupid. He was here, in the flesh, and I wasn’t ready to fight him. No fucking way.

“Alex. You smell Pam or Milly?”

I looked back and he shook his head, his eyes all but shaking back and forth. His eyes were wild with terror, and it froze him to the spot. I needed him with me if we were going to get through this intact. “Come on, we’ll find them. Then we’ll get ice cream.”

His ears perked up and he sidled up to my leg. “Tiger striped ice cream?”

“Sure. And pizza.”

His tongue flicked out as he licked his muzzle. “Hungry.”

“Sooner we find Pam and Milly, sooner we can get out of here.” The idea of feeding his belly was stronger than his fear. At least for that moment. He put his nose to the ground, breathing deep. I kept my eyes open for any sign of a demon. In some ways, I was more freaked out about their absence than by the fact we could get swarmed by them at any point. In my mind the devil you see is a hell of a lot better than the one you couldn’t see, hiding in wait to ambush you. While I didn’t want to fight any demons if we could avoid it, I hated that we hadn’t run into a single one. That was too fucking weird.

We traversed the first floor, peering into rooms, checking for any way into the lower levels. Nothing.

“Warm,” Alex breathed, then pointed to the bracelet. Fuck a duck. I stared at my feet, an idea forming. Cutting down through the floor would cause the monster building pain, but it might be the only way—

A high-pitched chittering snapped my head up and I stared back the way we’d come. Around the corner stepped a demon. No, not one demon—hundreds of them. They were small bugs, like a large roach, and they clung together to make the semblance of a man walking down the hallway. How did I know this?

The mini demons broke apart and flocked toward us, hissing and chittering, a steady stream of words barely intelligible, but I understood.

“Blood and bones, fresh to eat, we love our meat, sweet, sweet, sweet.”

Yup, not sticking around for that. “Run!”

Alex and I bolted from the horde of mini demons spewing their twisted poetry. Another corner and we ran smack into a large form and for a brief second I thought it was Orion, felt the chill of the possibility nearly take me to my knees.

But no, it was just a regular ass demon. I screamed one of the words Erik taught me, “Dabine!” As I thrust my sword forward into his right eye, surprising him. Or maybe it was a her; I had no idea and didn’t care. Alex snarled and took the demon out at the legs and then we were jumping over the body and dashing down the hall.

Behind us the chittering continued, the bugs singing away as they drew closer and closer, completely ignoring the fallen body. Apparently they only wanted us.