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“Fish skin. Yum.” But hey, if it wasn’t rotten, it would actually be the best thing he’d eaten down here, so things weren’t all bad. And it sounded like they were actually going to kill him. He doubted it would be a quick death, but it couldn’t be worse than anything they’d already done to him.

The beasts spoke to each other in a language Arik didn’t understand, until about the tenth word, when his translation ability kicked in. They were discussing how much to tell him about how he’d die. They were also speculating about what would happen to his body afterward. Would they be allowed to eat him, or would his corpse be preserved and displayed somewhere? Maybe his body would be dumped outside of a hellmouth for his colleagues to find.

Right, okay, so Arik didn’t like any of those options.

He watched the two demons lumber away and wondered if prayers could reach Heaven from here. “Whatcha think, Tav? Is my death going to be quick or slow?”

“Slow, definitely.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” Maybe this one time, Arik wouldn’t have minded a little white lie. He ran his hand up and down his chest, wincing at the feel of his rib cage. He’d lost so much weight down here. He’d tried to keep some muscle by doing pushups and sit-ups when he could, but scrounging up the energy wasn’t easy. “At least it’ll be over soon, I guess.”

“Don’t look so relieved, human.” Tavin stared at him, his eyes somber. “Death isn’t a good thing.”

“Spend a day in my shoes—you know, if I had them—and you’ll change your mind.”

The Sem heaved the duffel over his shoulder. “That’s not what I mean. For you, it’s not an escape.”

Man, demons and their tendency to circle an issue. “Straight shoot it, Tav. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that when a human dies here in Sheoul, his soul is trapped. You can’t get out, and the most vile demons in existence will be able to torture you for all eternity. And trust me, what they’ve done to you so far is nothing compared to what they will do to your soul. You think you’re in pain now? Just wait until you’7">until yre dead. The soul is much more sensitive than the physical body.”

More sensitive? Arik eyed the corner, his escape plan taking on a new, desperate note of urgency. Every time an opportunity had arisen, he’d carefully dug the thin, black elastic strings out of the waistband of his pants and stored them, scattered, in the crevices that defined the dark chamber. He didn’t have nearly as many as he’d hoped, but it would have to do.

He waited for Tavin to leave, and then he sat down on the floor with his dozen little treasures and began to braid them together. This had to work.

Or he was worse than dead.

Four

It took Limos an hour to clean up the mess Rhys rudely left on her floor, then shower and change into pink board shorts and a lacy yellow blouse. Every single minute of that hour had been occupied by thoughts of what Arik had done for her, and she couldn’t decide how she felt about it. Her emotions ran the spectrum from overwhelmingly awed that he would protect her that way, to confused about why he would protect her that way, to downright pissed that he thought he had to protect her.

Then there was the anger that she was baffled by any of this in the first place. It wasn’t like her to obsess over someone else’s actions, but here she was… obsessing.

Muttering to herself, she hefted Arik’s torturer in her arms and took a Harrowgate to Thanatos’s Greenland residence. The temperature change between Hawaii and his godforsaken frozen wasteland was marked, and she shivered as she stepped out of the Harrowgate and onto the hard-packed ice near Than’s keep’s entrance.

And, for the record, Rhys weighed a ton.

Without a free hand, she kicked at the wood and iron door, and eventually one of Than’s vampire servants, Artur, opened up. Since it was daytime, the vamp on duty was one of the old breed, the first vampires, who had never suffered an allergy to sunlight. They were rare, pretty much legend to most. How Than had found not just one, but ten, to serve him, she