Page 110 of Demon Demands

Vaughn

Sunday Afternoon

Riding a pack of hellhounds through Hell was strange. I kept imagining us riding horses through the streets of New York, except Hell wasn’t that tall of a city. It was bustling with demonic activity, though.

The hounds seemed to have a natural formation when it came to moving as a pack, and that kept Lira and Sloane front and center.

Stone was on her right with Briggs behind him, York bringing up the back of their line. I was on her left with Novak behind me, and Palmer was beside the druid.

And the demons stared. They gaped, gawked, pointed, and a few kids hid behind their parents. Sloane paid them little attention as she spoke softly to Lira, but I couldn’t stop noticing the looks we were getting.

“Are Sundays an eventful day here, or is it this busy every day?”

“It’s not called Sunday in the Underworld. It’s always this busy, though,” Lo informed me.

“What day is it here?” I wondered aloud.

“I don’t want to even try to translate. I hate that almost everyone has converted to English, but they’re still hanging on to the harder words,” she grumbled.

Stone said something, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure. It seemed unlikely that he’d growl at her for insulting a language that he never spoke.

“Did you just growl at us? That’s usually Briggs’ thing, not yours,” Novak called from behind me.

“I told you what today is called.” He spoke the word slowly, the gutteral sound of his demon’s voice showcasing a fuck load of consonants and exactly zero vowels.

Briggs tried to repeat him, and Sloane threw her head back to cackle as Stone turned around to glare at him.

“I am not.”

“What’d I say?” Briggs asked the demon.

“You just insulted him. It’s like the equivalent of being called a pussy in old English,” Lo told him, a playful grin splitting her face.

The shifter rubbed his neck as he grimaced. “I was trying to copy him.”

Stone shook his head. “Don’t.”

“Teach me something easier to say,” Briggs nagged Stone, curious to hear more of the ancient language.

“Fuck, no,” the demon retorted.

“Barbie, teach me something.”

Sloane spoke a short demonic phrase, and Stone immediately tensed, facing her as she smirked at him.

The demon twisted his whole upper body so Briggs could see how serious he was as he said, “Absolutely not. Don’t repeat that.”

“What’d she say?” Palmer asked.

“Kitten,” Stone warned, ignoring the mage. “It’s like teaching toddlers to cuss. It’s only funny until they say it to the wrong person.”

“Okay, okay,” she said placatingly, holding her hands up as she tried to stop smiling.

“What’d she say?” Palmer repeated, glancing at Novak.

The vampire was wide-eyed, as perplexed as the rest of us. “How the fuck should I know?”

York grunted. “Read her mind.”