Hell Raising and Other Pastimes

wanted to see me?”
Hunter shrugged. “He might figure a good test would be worth it. Anyone who can’t survive a few days journey in hell isn’t someone important enough for him to meet in person. Or maybe he intended for us to get dropped in his Court, but something went wrong. Magic doesn’t work quite right on you.”
“Things aren’t supposed to just go wrong for Lucifer.”
“Then you don’t know Lucifer. Remember the whole fall from heaven thing? He’s had things going wrong right from the start.”
And, again, that made me feel no better. I liked the idea that at least Lucifer had his business figured out. The thought that he was as powerless and fumbling as the rest of us gave me a moment of thinking, If he can’t get shit right, what chance do I have?
I sighed and crossed my legs, leaning forward. Great. We were stuck in hell, had no idea why I was where I there and now even the guy who ran it all didn’t seem to have a good grip on specifics.
The only person happy about our circumstances was Hunter, who grinned as though he couldn’t have planned things any better.
Then again, it was his home.
Grant was still outside, setting wards so we could get a good night’s sleep, or at least the best one could expect in a cave in hell.
Not that there seemed to be any night. It reminded me of the pocket realm I’d met the fae in, except it didn’t get lighter or darker. It remained a constant depressing level of dim, which ranked around the super overcast and rainy level.
When Troy finished cooking the food, he tore free a piece and held it out for me. Instead of thinking too much about it—I was really hungry—I popped it into my mouth, surprised to find it rather good.
As long as I don’t consider what it might have been before being spit roasted or how many legs it might have had.
“Do you think he’ll try to kill me?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” Hunter said. “If he wanted to kill you, he could have done it without this much work. Lucifer doesn’t do anything without a reason. He calls it efficient—I call it lazy.”
“Maybe he just wants to be able to watch me die in person,” I muttered around another bite of food.
“We won’t let him hurt you,” Kase said.
I gave him a withering glare in return. I didn’t get over betrayal so easily. We might have been in an entirely different realm, but I wasn’t ready to forgive him for lying to me, for hiring Grant to figure out what I was, for manipulating me. Maybe his words would have reassured me if I didn’t already doubt his loyalty so much.
He looked as though he wanted to discuss the matter, but a glance around the cave reminded him we had an audience. Kase’s ego would never want to air dirty laundry with others in earshot.
The perfect Kase didn’t want to not look so perfect.
“You know, you all don’t have to be here.” I forced the words out even though I really didn’t want to say them. Still, it was only fair to give them an out.
“What?” Grant asked as he came into the cave.
“Well, you can make portals to and from hell, right? You might have gotten sucked in here on accident, but you don’t have to stay.”
“Actually, we do,” he said.
“Don’t give me that. There’s no reason for you all to risk your lives just because I evidently have an appointment with the devil.”
Hunter shook his head, a smirk across his lips. “No, shadow-girl, what he means is that when Lucifer yanked us here, it placed a tracer on us. All of us. None of us can portal back until Lucifer removes it. The magic just won’t work for a portal. I could cross the boundary, but I couldn’t take anyone with me.”
I blew out a breath, ashamed to admit just how relieved I was by that. Sure, I had to give them an out, but the thought of them leaving, of trying to make my way across hell by myself hadn’t been one I relished. They were stuck with me for now, and it was far more reassuring than I wanted to admit.
“How long until we reach Lucifer’s Court?” I asked, trying to change topics.
Hunter plucked a piece of meat from the creature and ate it with noisy bites. “Three days? Maybe five if we need a lot of stops. We ended up right at the boundary line, so it’s a long walk. If it were just me, I’d make it in a day, but you all couldn’t keep up.”
Troy snorted. “Maybe not them, but I’m quicker than you think.”
Hunter offered Troy a wide grin. “Yeah, but you’d keep up—maybe—if you were in your wolf form. Sadly, you’ve got some performance issues about that one, and on two legs you’re as slow as the mortal.”
Troy narrowed his eyes but didn’t respond.
Fine by me. Honestly, I’d love for them all to shut up.
It was bad enough they bothered me at my house, when they stopped by constantly and threw my life into chaos, but out here, I didn’t even have the privacy of a bathroom or the occasional moments of peace.
It was twenty-four-seven testosterone zone.
So I ate another piece of food before a yawn told me I needed rest.
The cave floor was hard and there wasn’t anything to use as a pillow around. I groaned and twisted, my shoulder sore from where it dug into the ground.
Troy had taken a spot far away, as though he wanted to avoid me as best he could—just like he’d done since I’d saved him.
The ungrateful bastard. Next time maybe I’d let that freaky shadow take him over.
After checking the wards, Grant had leaned himself against the doorway of the cave, his legs stretched out and his eyes closed. He’d picked there, at the threshold, like a guardian.
Funny, since Grant, with his twenty-year-old appearance, massive number of