Tempt the Stars

like a drunken frat boy.
    But Caleb just looked down at him impassively. He did impassive well, along with big, black, bald, and intimidating. In fact, I hadn’t seen anything Caleb didn’t do well, except for putting up with Casanova’s histrionics. I guess war mages were made of sterner stuff. At least, war mages willing to go into hell to rescue a buddy were. But even Caleb’s patience was starting to wear thin.
    As a dusty boot to Casanova’s couture-clad posterior made plain. “Get up.”
    Brown eyes that were currently neither rich, nor mellow, nor enticing glared up at him from under a fall of silky dark hair. “If you’d release this infernal spell, I wouldn’t be on the ground to begin with!”
    “A hobble spell doesn’t keep you from walking,” Caleb said, crossing his arms.
    “No, it keeps me from walking properly. Or running, which I might damned well need to do!”
    “It wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d volunteered.”
    “Oh, of course!” Casanova said, fighting with the voluminous robes that we’d bought off a fellow traveler to cover up his Armani. “Of course this is my fault! Of course it is. I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t volunteer to walk into hell!”
    Caleb just continued to look at him. As one of Pritkin’s oldest friends in the Corps, and the only other person besides Casanova who knew who he really was, he’d been a natural addition to the rescue posse. Casanova had been less so—a lot less—but we needed him. Or, more precisely, we needed the camouflage his body provided to our guide.
    Said guide was looking at him in mild reproach at the moment. “I’ve told you—you aren’t in any danger, Carlos,” Rian said, using his birth name. I’d gotten the impression that she found his pretensions a bit trying. “A host is not responsible for the actions of his demon. If we are caught, I will tell them I forced you—”
    “I
was
forced,” he said viciously. “No one in his right mind would be here otherwise!”
    Rian didn’t comment. She did that a lot. It was probably why she and Casanova had managed to maintain their relationship for so long. Of course, the fact that she chose to manifest as a beautiful black-haired, vaguely Persian-looking woman, with huge dark eyes, honey-colored skin, and ruby red lips probably hadn’t hurt.
    And unlike her host, Rian had volunteered to help out. She’d known Pritkin a long time, from his days as a young man at his father’s court, and she’d always been sympathetic to his situation. Which was lucky, since getting into said court was turning out to be more complicated than I’d thought.
    Casanova, on the other hand, clearly felt that he was better suited for lounging around someone’s boudoir than for slogging through hell. Not that he was slogging particularly well.
    But he did finally drag his six feet of outraged litheness off the sand.
    “How much farther?” he demanded.
    Rian glanced at the sky. “Don’t worry, I’ve timed it perfectly. We’ll reach the city by nightfall. I’ll need to merge with you at least an hour before that, or risk being detected.”
    “Yes, and we wouldn’t want that,” Casanova muttered.
    “No, you wouldn’t,” she said seriously. “You’re in no danger, Carlos. But if I am discovered, the master may well revoke my rights to any more time on earth. He feels it has been unfairly extended as it is.”
    “I don’t see why,” I said, grabbing the reins of the camel thing. It seemed to like Casanova. Or his hair, anyway. It kept trying to eat it.
    “To avoid overfarming earth, the demon lords made an agreement,” she reminded me. “Only a set number of each of our races is allowed on earth at one time. We have to take turns.”
    “But you’re still on yours. Aren’t you allowed three hosts?”
    “Yes.” She shot a sideways look at Casanova, who was reacting typically to the camel-slobber cowlick he’d just been graced with. “But I do not think anyone expected me to find an immortal for my last host. I should have been forced to return centuries ago.”
    “But, technically, you aren’t breaking any rules.”
    “I am now,” she said quietly as we merged back into the ragged line of similar groups all heading in the same direction.
    I was actually grateful for them, since the “road” was invisible as far as I could see, just endless miles of reddish clay baked into giant cracked plates by the parching sun. Only an occasional dried-up twig of a tree