Tempt the Stars

to like that idea. Jules appeared to have had about enough of us and our ideas. He gave another shriek and dove through the middle of his buddies, careened into some others, spun out of their hold like a football player heading for the goal line, and then ran all out for the door.
    Marco went after him, but changed course halfway and lunged at me instead. Because I’d taken what was likely to be my only shot and dove for the rapidly closing portal. But then a second impossible thing happened, when the huge-but-graceful Marco suddenly tripped and went sprawling on the carpet, hitting down hard enough to rattle the windows and shake all the glasses in the bar.
    I had a second to see what’s-her-name, the initiate I’d spoken all of a few dozen words to, with her leg out. And judging by the angle, it hadn’t been an accident. I looked at her and she looked at me, big-eyed and faintly horrified. And then I was through the flames and gone.

Chapter Twenty-seven
    “Do you know who your mother
was
?” Pritkin demanded, scowling.
    I scowled back, but not because of the attitude. I’d expected that. Actually, that was a lie. I’d expected worse.
    He’d been bad enough when surprised and under fire at his father’s court, or fighting for his life against the council’s guards. But now he’d had time to
think
about it. And, apparently, to work up a massive attitude.
    I seemed to have that effect on the men in my life, I thought darkly, and took another sip of something horrible.
    We were in a bar in the hell known as the Shadow-land, because the demon council didn’t have anything like a normal jail. They had distant worlds where they marooned what they called the “Ancient Horrors,” creatures I wasn’t interested in knowing more about, thank you. And then, on the other end of the spectrum, they had . . . nothing.
    I guess most people who pissed off the council didn’t live long enough to need a holding cell.
    But that meant, instead of visiting Pritkin in some dark, dank cell, I was visiting him in some dark, dank bar. On the whole, I’d have preferred the cell. I was sitting cross-legged in my chair to avoid the floor, which had passed nasty a year ago and was working on horrific.
    Something squelched between my toes anyway, something I’d managed to step in on the way to the table.
    I was trying not to think about what exactly it might be.
    I was trying hard.
    “Bartender!” Casanova called hoarsely, and tried to snap his fingers. But he missed, and then kept on missing, frowning at his long, usually elegant digits as if he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with them.
    Unfortunately, the summons had included everyone who had trespassed on the council’s good graces, i.e., had released a bunch of their former slaves into the ether. That included me and Caleb, as well as Pritkin. Along with one very sorry excuse for a casino manager, who was close to sliding under the table.
    “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” I asked, even as the shambling hulk of a bartender set another bottle down on the sticky tabletop.
    Casanova sent me a helpful gesture that indicated that, no, he did not feel that way.
    I didn’t return it, because I was busy trying not to be obvious about flinching away from the bartender. He had suspicious stains on his apron, and smelled like a slaughterhouse looks. He also kept squeezing Casanova’s shoulder whenever he came over, as if trying to gauge how much meat was under the expensive material. It normally would have skeeved me out, but after today, I was all out of skeeve. And Casanova was too drunk to notice.
    “Did you hear me?” Pritkin demanded.
    I clutched my glass and resisted a strong urge to throw it at him. “Do I know who my mother is? Yes, yes, I do, Pritkin, thanks.”
    “I doubt that.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat.
    “And you do, I suppose?”
    “I’ve had a good deal of free time lately,” he said grimly. “I used it to do some research. And let’s just say, she is not remembered in the hells quite the same way as on earth.”
    “Is this relevant?” Caleb rumbled. “We got bigger problems, John.”
    He pointedly didn’t look at the Rubik’s cube of a city beyond the bar’s dirty windows. I didn’t, either, since I was facing directly away from it, but it was like the elephant in the room. It made its presence felt.
    Behind my back, buildings folded up onto buildings, streets became avenues, became trails, became dead