Page 67 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

I don’t throw up, but it’s a near thing.

The Forbidden Zone.

I’m actually here. In Hell. The place people spend their entire lives praying to avoid, and I just walked through the back door in my pajamas and a pair of unlaced boots.

A soft meow echoes through the camber and my head whips toward the sound. A small, familiar shape is picking its way across the stone toward us.

“Vesper!?” I whisper-hiss, my heart jumping into my throat.

Malachi freezes, eyes widening as he spots the intruder. “You brought the House-Beast!?”

“No! I did not bring her! Why would I bring my cat to Hell!?”

I scramble on my hands and knees, scooping the warm, solid weight of her into my arms. She lets out a soft chirp and immediately starts kneading my pajama shirt, as if nothing is amiss.

“Oh, baby, why did you come?” I say into her fur, a fresh wave of panic crashing over me. “Why would you jump? Piper was going to find you and take you to her home and⁠—”

“House-Beast!” Malachi snaps, fingers digging into his hair. “Why did you come?! Answer me now, you ridiculous, furred creature! This is not a sanctuary!”

Vesper just blinks at him, completely unimpressed by his demonic posturing. She lets out a long, loud yawn, showing off a set of tiny white teeth that look laughably inadequate against the backdrop of eternal darkness.

“She followed us,” he snarls, stopping mid-pace to glare at us. “She’s spent so much time soaking in our shared filth that she probably thinks she’s part of this whole thing. Great. Fantastic.” He tips his head to the seemingly infinite ceiling, squeezing his eyes shut as if the sheer stupidity of the situation might actually kill him. “We are going to die, and it’ll be because of a creature that licks its own anus for fun.”

Around us, the air continues to cough and pop as screens flicker into existence and snap shut.

“Give her to me,” he orders, his chin jerking vaguely toward a screen where a teenager’s sobbing in the middle a messy bedroom. “I will throw her into one of these. She’ll land on the laundry and be someone else’s problem.”

My grip on Vesper tightens. “Don't you fucking dare.”

“Eden, she’s a liability,” he counters. “She is loud, she sheds, and I do not have the correct food for her.”

“She stays with me,” I say. My voice is trembling, a thin wire stretched to the breaking point, but it’s final.

He looks like he wants to incinerate both of us, his nostrils flaring with a visible, frustrated heat that smells like a forest fire on the verge of erupting.

“Fine,” he snaps. “She cannot stay with us long-term, so I will take her somewhere... safe-ish. For now, put her in the bag.”

He plucks the cat right from my arms and shoves her into my black, crackled-leather tote, his large hands maneuvering her into the cramped space with a strange, delicate efficiency. As she lets out a muffled, indignant mewl, he pushes her head down beneath the flap and leans down. “You are a brave feline specimen. Congratulations.”

Then he reaches out and swipes a handful of thick, black soot from the damp crevices of the stone wall. Before I can even flinch, he smears it across my cheekbones, dragging it down to the line of my neck.

“Hey!” I snap, jerking back.

“Hush,” he drawls, his golden eyes scanning the wall for more filth. “You stand out like a flare in a coal mine, but with the soot, the stupid demons—which is most of them—won’t notice anything amiss.”

He works fast, dragging the grime over my hair, matting the strands, then down my arms and legs until every inch of exposed skin is a dull, wretched grey. I’m smudge in sheep-print pajamas, looking like I’ve been dragged through a chimney and left for dead.

“Besides,” he continues with a smirk. “This is just me returning the favor for slathering me in your beige mud. It’s a disguise, Eden—and it’s a reckoning. One for one.”

He steps back, surveying his handiwork with a grim sort of satisfaction.

“You aren't my little summoner right now,” he says simply. “You’re a miserable, tortured demon who’s just finished her shift. Try to look appropriately soul-crushed. Now give me your teeth.”

I blink, certain I’ve misheard him over the hum of the screens. “Pardon?”

“The guards on the gate. They’re morons, but they’re easily persuaded by calcium. Allow me to remove some of yours—two, maybe three. You don't need them to survive.”

“Fuck off!” I hiss, stumbling back a step. “You are not pulling my teeth!”