The Dark Blooded Duchess. Ep1

Legend has it that before hell was fire and brimstone, it was first made of ice. And its inmates were frozen in order to keep them from experiencing any kinship, love, or indeed, life itself. Looking out across the sea of lonely grey micro-cubicles, I decide that they are just as effective in keeping slaves from experiencing life as a cold, hard block of ice. If not more.

Yet the eerie, icy mist still hung around as though it brought something important - other than misery of which there was certainly plenty.

The magical walls between slaves were so obscenely high that not God himself could peek over them, let alone jump over it. Of course, keeping other souls out was not the purpose but rather to keep any and all hope out that they could ever see anything but the same cold grey walls, yet any magically born being could see inside.

Each small desk was stacked with a book so large that its written side was taller than any person and behind it sat souls, shaped as pale, sometimes weeping people, crammed into a desk barely tall enough for a child and writing so fiercely by hand that their fingers seemed to be crying blood.

The pens were embedded in their hands by means of dragon thorns and leech vines so that they were never able to put them down. And as a bonus, they used their own blood as ink.

Efficient and cruel. That’s hell, I guess.

Cora shivers beside me, which causes her camouflage mode to deactivate somehow. 33I know it isn’t the cold that bothers her.

Lilith my second shadow whispers all those people.

Yeah, I swallow hard, best not to think about it too much.

I thought it would be better the second time. The shadow replies. It isn’t.

The chill that claws its way up my spine isn’t from the hell’s heart, though. It’s the danger sensors of a human body, being stalked by something demonic and hungry.

We should move on. My first shadow says. It wasn’t wrong.

You two fan out. Find out what’s after me.

My shadows materialize as black smoke before they vanish again. I only feel the rush of dark power as they sore off.

I touch Cora’s side and motion for her to follow me. I remember the first time I saw this place, it was jarring to say the least. But we have to go before someone sees us. Cora turns her gaze away and walks on silently. I can almost see the heavy cloak of misery draped onto her shoulders from what she just witnessed.

We double back just a few feet back into the curved corridor, to the rift in the ice that was really more of an accidentally ominous gap. It was too far off the ground to be obvious as a door and too close for it to be a coincidence, as it were, it was the entrance to the path we were heading for.

But looking at it now, I realize there’s been a serious miscalculation. A flaw in my plan. I’m much too short in human form to reach the rift.

Fuck me.

Cora taps my head and frowns, throwing up her hands in question.

I point up to the rift, it isn’t much of a stretch for her to get there but it’s at least two more of human me.

Cora looks at the rift to me and back again, she whimpers, stifling a laugh.

I roll my eyes at her and mouth for her to help.

She grins the rare fang-flashing smile that she only does when I eventually admit she was right about something she’d previously been bitching about.

Like my human ‘meat’ suit.

I’d be much more annoyed if there wasn’t something gnawing at my stomach. To be fair I don’t know how a human stomach should feel, but I’m thinking it shouldn’t feel like it’s busy digesting sharp bones.

What is taking the shadows so long?

Something doesn’t feel right.

As if to emphasize, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Either that’s a human quirk or we’re in serious shit.

’We need to get through this crevice. I say in the quietest, most demanding way possible, ‘now’

Cora tests if she can pull herself up far enough so she can get a proper hold on it, this involves a series of positioning and repositioning herself, grunting, and generally being giant and clumsy.

‘Would you hurry the fuck up’ I hiss at Cora.

‘Wait I got it’ she mumbles before she hoists herself up, hinges into the crevice by her waist, and sort of flops over. She disappears into the ice and then there’s a thud. Either the ice broke, or she did.

‘You okay?’ I whisper-yell. ‘Answer me’ I order

‘I’m, er,’ she groans ‘ouch’

‘Did you just say ouch?’ I demand ‘demons don’t say ouch. Lilith the fuck up, and help me’

‘Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Coming’ I hear scratches on the surface so she must be getting up, however slowly.

But then… Why does my neck feel hot?

Alarms sound in my head just as my shadows’ voices pierce through some sort of distance barrier.

Morgen, run! They say It’s a hound. Fucking run!!

Unholy shit!

However, from the hot, likely rancid breath in my neck, I’m guessing running isn’t an option. My blood turns to ice. I slowly reach into my bag.

A low, warning growl vibrates through my body.

It’s right behind me. On top of me. One wrong move and my tiny human head is gone.

What would happen to my demon parts? I randomly wonder.

‘Unholy hell’ Cora peeks over the start of icy crevice ‘Morgen. Don’t. Move.’

‘Yeah. Hound, I know’

Another growl sends my hair flying over my face and something thick and warm drips onto my shoulder.

I suppress the urge to shit myself.

Cora is breaking off a piece of ice reports my shadow I think she’s gonna throw it at the thing.

She’s waiting for the right moment. I say. Ok, here’s what we’re gonna do…