Page 21 of Indecent

“Sinners, darkling,” Chaol reminded him. “All those people are exactly where they’re meant to be. Or, rather, they’re on their way.”

“What—What would happen if I fell in?”

Chaol’s fingers fisted in the fabric of Daniel’s shirt. “Don’t fall in.” He wasn’t sure, to be honest, and he didn’t want to find out. Daniel could be swept away, and Chaol might never find him again.

Daniel pressed closer, his arm cinching tight around Chaol’s back. “Okay.”

“Come on. It’s a long walk through the city, especially since I’m not taking you through the most heavily populated areas. We’ll hang near the outskirts. I don’t imagine you want to walk through the Inner Market.”

“Market? There’s a demon market?”

“There are several.” Chaol gestured to the road on the other side of the bridge, where many booths and stalls were set up on either side of the road. “This is the Outer Market. It’s never as crowded as the ones deeper inside the city. Actually…”

He pulled Daniel over to one of the stalls, manned by a bored looking rybboc. Daniel’s eyes snagged on the volvuroth harnessed to the rybboc’s cart. It had four slender legs and leathery black wings. Its beaked snout turned toward them curiously, and its four eyes blinked in tandem at Daniel. Drool gathered in the corners of its mouth and dripped from its beak, and Daniel inched away, pressing himself closer to Chaol.

“How much for this?” Chaol asked, plucking at a black cloak folded on the rybboc’s cart.

The rybboc’s wide, flat eyes landed on Daniel. “One human soul.”

“Fuck off, he’s not for sale.”

“He’s very bright,” the rybboc growled, leaning toward Daniel. “I bet he tastes spectacular.”

Chaol snarled. Digging in his pocket, he slammed a handful of black coins down on the booth and snatched up the cloak.

“Hey!” the rybboc protested.

Chaol snarled again, baring sharpened teeth as the color leached from his skin. The rybboc jerked away, grumbling as he scooped the coins into a beefy hand, and Chaol dragged Daniel down the street, ignoring the curious looks that followed them.

“Here, put this on,” he said, wrapping the cloak around Daniel’s body and lifting the hood to hide his face.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Daniel said.

“I did. The fabric is made from demon skin. It’ll help hide you.”

Daniel stiffened. “Demon skin?” he hissed.

“Don’t you humans wear the skin of animals?” Chaol asked, lifting the hood up a bit so he could meet Daniel’s eyes.

“Well—yeah. So this is like demon leather.”

“Exactly.”

Daniel’s lip curled. “Still sounds gross.”

Chaol laughed, pulling the hood back down. “You’ll survive.”

“Promise?” came the petulant response from beneath the hood.

Chaol wrapped his arm around Daniel’s shoulders. Now that Daniel had made it clear he didn’t mind, Chaol couldn’t seem to stop touching him. “I promise.”

They clung to each other as they walked amongst the shorter buildings on the outskirts of Pandemonium. Chaol had no intention of letting him out of arm’s reach. He meant it when he said he wouldn’t let Daniel out of his sight again, and he wouldn’t risk anyone getting too close and ripping Daniel away from him, either. As long as other demons were nearby, Chaol didn’t want to let him go.

No, that wasn’t true. He didn’t want to let Daniel go even when they were the only ones around for miles. Touching Daniel felt like finding a puzzle piece he hadn’t known he was missing.

Daniel’s hood swung from side to side as he took everything in, and Chaol followed his gaze, trying to see it as the human did. Most of the buildings were made of black stone. Long ago, when the first demons had carved out the spires, they’d used the stones to create the buildings that surrounded them. Streetlights fed with hellfire from beneath the ground lit the roads, and lanterns hung under awnings and in windows. It wasn’t so different from a human town, Chaol thought, or what human towns might have been a few hundred years ago. Demons had no electricity, but they had no need of it. There was no indoor plumbing or running water, because those things weren’t necessary here. Most of the demons here traversed the Pit, where the human souls were tortured. It was some distance from the city—and not somewhere Chaol intended to take Daniel. The horrors there would warp his mind, and the transformation would be bad enough. He didn’t want Daniel to go insane before they reached the surface. It was one reason most halflings didn’t really remember Hell. Forgetting the worst of it was a survival mechanism. Chaol didn’t want that for Daniel.

“Is that a blacksmith?” Daniel asked lowly as they passed an awning with a scaly-skinned demon hammering a piece of black metal.