* * * *
Two hours after sunset, with his arm around her waist and Cass pressed to his side, Glace walked the garbage strewn streets of Yylse's underside and wished his parents had lived long enough to apprentice him to an honest trade. He wasn’t afraid, exactly. Still, walking down a dark street recently populated by hellkind didn’t fill him with confidence. The hellborn seemed to be growing bolder ever since the king started leaning away from the seven virtuous gods in favor of the two dark ones.
With gentle pressure, he guided Cass around a wyvern chewed body half covered by the remnants of a peddler's cart. Cass paused momentarily, her button nose quivering, her lips drawing back, but then she grinned, leaned over to lick his neck, and allowed him to draw her away. Ignoring the stench of rotting meat, she hugged up close and licked the side of his neck again before delivering a playful nip. “Why are you nervous? You’ve been to the Hole before.”
“Never after dark.” Glace looked carefully around, searching for signs of the wyvern. He didn’t see any, but he did see a severed hand lying near the road’s edge. Its fingers scrabbled and clawed uselessly in the dirt. “Selnac claims the place is safe enough by day, but only fools go there at night."
“Then we must be fools.” Gently rubbing a hand through his hair, Cass cooed. “Don’t worry, pup. I’ll take care of you.” Using her free hand, she unfastened several of her shirt’s buttons, baring her full and firm breasts to the night air.
“Damn it!” Glace snapped, fighting back the urge to grab her shirt and jerk it shut. “This is no place to play your games.”
“Ohhh, but it is,” Cass answered. "This is the perfect place."
Her smile turned wicked, and the smile changed her elfin features into the semblance of a mischievous child. Radiance and allure filled her. Pale moisture, glistening on her aristocratic neck, invited Glace to set his lips to her skin. Something inside him, some secret part of his nature, wanted to bite into her, wanted to feel Cass’s skin stretch and break, wanted to experience the copper salt taste of her blood while his hands stroked her face, ran down to cup her breasts, and gripped them so tight they bruised.
Mostly, he just wanted to pull her damn shirt closed.
Almost as if she read his mind, Cass pulled away. “Remember, puppy, you’re the only man who touches me.” Her voice softened. “Also remember I won’t be bound, not even by you.” She giggled. “Except when we play.”
A young woman's body, badly torn and partially devoured, lay outside the tavern’s door. Dark blood glistening on its black muzzle, a hellhound gnawed on the remnants of the corpse's thigh. Glace shuddered when its thick jaws cracked open a thighbone with the same ease Glace used to bite through an apple's skin. Pausing, Cass patted the huge Hell creature on its enormous head and scratched behind its razor-edged ear while it gulped its last bite down.
“Is Mathew Changer around?” she asked.
Leaving off its feast, the hound looked at them with bright red eyes and opened its mouth in a bloody grin. “Don’t know. Carrid won’t let me in there anymore.”
“I guess we’ll just have to go in and see.”
After scratching the beast one more time behind its ear, Cass pulled Glace up the steps and through the tavern’s door. From behind them, Glace heard the thighbone crack once more. Shuddering, he hoped the hellhound wouldn’t still be hungry when he and Cass left— if they left.
Looking toward Cass, Glace saw her shirt remained barely fastened. As usual, she sought trouble, but this place was too dangerous for her games. At the best of times, the Hellhole Tavern was dangerous. At night? He didn’t know for sure, but he suspected it could get worse than bad. Sweat dampened his pits and forehead as they opened the door and entered.
Once through the door, Glace saw the tavern was full. Raised voices created a jarring rumble. Dim torchlight illuminated packed tables covered in bottles, cards, and sprawled drunks.
The light was not dim enough for his comfort, not with Cass at his side.
Moments after entering, idle eyes turned toward them, stilled, and fastened on Cass’s half naked form. Swallowing, Glace's hands quivered when he saw Cass’s huge grin. Her face and half-bare torso glimmered in the erratic light. With her red hair almost dancing in the air, she appeared strange, feral. Her dark nipples, peeking around the edges of her open shirt, grew erect and hard.
With her green eyes narrowed to half slits, Cass wrapped an arm around his waist, leaned close, and whispered. “Look at them. They want me. They hunger.” Her grin almost became a snarl as the tavern’s noise level lowered. “Don't worry, my sweet love. No man but you.”
Glaring at the watching eyes, Glace fingered his belt knife and wished they were anywhere but here. Only a few faces turned away from his unspoken threat. Most of the expressions became mocking. Glace couldn’t blame them. After all, he was young, lightly armed, and clearly out of his element.
A large figure pushed through the crowd. “Cover yourself,” Carrid Brewer ordered. “Are you trying to start a riot or get your boyfriend murdered?”
Ignoring his order, Cass deliberately unhooked her shirt’s last fastening and opened it wide. “Where’s Mathew?”
After sputtering for a moment, Carrid pointed and turned away. Grabbing Glace by the hand, Cass pulled him through the crowd. Strangely, a way parted for them. Hardened thieves, cons, and murderers shifted to the side. Glace they ignored, but of Cass they seemed wary.
Far too soon for Glace’s comfort, Cass stopped before a table seating only one man. Tall and dark haired, Mathew owned the only male face Glace had ever seen lovelier than Cass’. His face was a mockery of the man, for though he was not yet thirty, Mathew Changer was known to be wicked and cruel, and those were only two of the many character flaws which gained him control of a large part of Yylse’s underworld.
When Mathew saw them, his mouth turned down slightly. He sighed. “Glace, there was a time when I had hopes for you. Can't deny you have talent, boy, but I’m no longer sure of your judgment. Why are you still hanging around with this bitch? She'll get you killed.”
Glace started forward, but Cass held him back.
“I know you love me,” she said to the crime lord, “because I’m the only person in this city who is as fair as you.”
"I hate you," Mathew said calmly, "because your body has made so many of my people bleed."
Cass laid her left hand on Glace's forearm. "They stopped dying more than two months ago, back when I found Glace." She held out her right hand, displaying the stolen ring. “This is what matters, Mathew. Do you recognize it? You should. You’re wearing its mate on your left hand, only this one is real.”
“Far as I know the one I'm wearing is real.” Mathew took the ring and studied it closely. “It’s a good job,” he finally admitted, “but the diamonds are fake.”
“Those diamonds,” purred Cass, “come from the walkways of Hell, and so does the sapphire. Study the band closely, Mathew, because you’ll never see its like again. Athos, himself, covets this metal, and when the lesser god of Hell treasures something you know it’s worth a fortune.” Her eyes glittered emerald fire. “I’m giving it to you for nothing. For almost nothing.”
With a snap of his fingers, Mathew clenched his fist around the ring and leaned forward in his chair to study Cass with dark eyes, hard, dangerous, and knowing. “Tell me, bitch, are you trying to cover me in Hell’s trappings and compromise my soul? I’m not like Carrid. I don’t deal with the dead and the damned, and I don't make deals with the likes of you.”
“It’s almost a gift, Mathew,” Cass whispered softly. “Nothing more than a gift with a couple of strings attached. Glace is getting too old for his simple cons. He needs training, and there’s nobody better for that than you.”
“What else?” Mathew’s voice sounded flat, his face distrusting.
“Sire my children,” she breathed.
“I don’t even like you.”
“And I hate you beyond compare. Your fee
lings don’t matter. It’s time for me to breed.”
Swallowing hard, Glace shifted nervously. Cass’s words had suddenly thrust him into an awkward position. He was young, untried, and relatively unknown. As yet, he had no reputation to maintain, but he did have one to build if he wanted to stay alive for more than another year or three. This meant he was obligated to protest Mathew taking his woman. On the other hand, Mathew was abnormally strong and quick with a blade. Unlike many of those in the Hellhole, Mathew could walk out to the graveyard and point at dozens of burial markers he had caused.
Still, a young con had nothing if he did not have respect.
Knees trembling, Glace pulled his knife. “You’re mine,” he said to Cass, wishing his voice didn’t tremble.
Eyes liquid and warm, she wrapped soft fingers around the sharp-edged blade and leaned into him so her left breast pressed against his side. “I promise you, lover, no man touches me except you.” She moistened her lips and then pursed them in a slight moue. “No man.”
Her expression hardened. After releasing her hold on Glace's knife, she turned her eyes back toward Mathew. “Glace is still a fool. He thinks he owes something to the Brood woman who takes in all the kids, so you have to give him seven rugdles for the ring. It’s a steal, Mathew, and you know it. Seven rugdles and training. It's all I ask.”
“Does anybody else feel confused?” Glace muttered to himself.
Mathew’s expression became distracted. His eyes shifted to the side, narrowed, and then the Hellhole’s din stilled. Twisting, Glace saw Tessla standing in the open doorway, an ever-present cirweed pipe stuck between her lips, a hellhound’s huge head dangling casually from one black-taloned hand.
“Does this belong to anybody?” she asked in a conversational voice, though her eyes glittered black fire. The tips of her long, white hair danced in the still air.
“The beast was a favorite of Krastos,” Carrid called out. “The demon isn’t going to be too happy with you.”
“Its eating habits displeased my god,” Tessla calmly replied. “Krastos is welcome to speak with me if he has a problem.” Smoke rose from her soul-sucking cirweed pipe.
Trembling, Cass pressed herself against Glace. “Don’t let her hurt me.”
“I wonder,” said Mathew to Cass, “which of us her god wants dead.”
Surreptitiously sliding the ring on his finger, Mathew rose to his feet and scowled at Glace. “First lesson. Put your knife away. It’ll do you no good against anybody in here.”
Glace stubbornly shook his head and gripped the knife tighter as Tessla’s eyes swiveled in their direction.
“Ahhhh,” she said, and the rising cirweed smoke turned an angry brown.
“I won’t make it easy for you,” Mathew warned. His hands hovered near his waistline where he openly wore two knives. Somewhere in this crowd, Glace knew, were also three or four bodyguards. They might or might not help the crime lord against Tessla.
Tessla chuckled. “Mathew, I’m not after you— yet. I’m here for the bitch.” Almost casually, she dropped the hellhound’s head. It made a dull thud when it hit the floor.
Growling a low rumble, Cass pulled away from Glace, shrugged her shoulders, and her unfastened shirt fell to the floor. Not knowing what else to do, Glace reached out an arm to block her from confronting Tessla, but Cass pushed it away with contemptuous ease.
With the bitter fragrance of cirweed surrounding her and a thin, mocking, smile on her black lips, Tessla glided through the narrow corridor the Hellhole's patrons created when they moved from between Tessla and her prey. The silence surrounding them had become so complete Glace heard her black leather clothing creak as she drew near.
Tessla stopped six feet away, drew in a lungful of poisonous smoke from the pipe still jutting from between her lips, and stared at Cass. “There have been too many deaths. Trelsar, my god, is unhappy.” She frowned. “Mathew, that was very unwise.”
A small commotion sounded behind Glace. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw Mathew struggling to pull the ring from his finger.
“It won’t come off.” Mathew’s whisper leaked tones of subdued panic. He tugged on the ring harder, but it remained firmly, magically, attached.
Glace looked back toward the assassin and waved the knife he still held. “I won’t let you have her.” Daring a brief glance at Cass, he barely refrained from snapping when he saw she had stripped off the rest of her clothing. Cass had changed. Naked to the room, her head canted at a curious angle while she studied Tessla. Though still lithe and lovely, her once perfect breasts no longer existed. Instead, brown and gray fur covered her chest. A hot metal stench oozed from her body.
Gulping, Glace struggled to keep his attention on both women at once. “Cass?”
When she looked at him, thick fur oozed from her facial pores. Black lips stretched along the length of her muzzle. Cass grinned at Glace, displaying needle sharp teeth. “Sorry, lover, I never felt the time was quite right to tell you.” Falling to her paws, she flexed long claws, digging deep gouges into the wooden floor.
“You’re a hellhound,” Glace said nonsensically.
“She’s a changer,” Tessla corrected, “and she murders without constraint.”
“Ah, well,” Cass stretched her hound’s body. “They wanted to lay their hands on me. They wanted to control me.” Her voice lowered. “Be careful, spawn, or I’ll eat your face just like I did theirs.”
“Gods,” Mathew cursed in a voice too rough to be his own. “I can’t get the damned thing off!”
Uncomprehending, Glace jerked his head around. Mathew’s once perfect face had elongated and was covered with gray fur. Panicked, yellow eyes stared furiously out of deep-set sockets while the crime lord jerked uselessly at the ring Glace had stolen.
“You would have made a wonderful sire,” Cass growled. Her lips curled back, and her eyes glared at Tessla. “Do you remember me, thing? I ate your friend when you were nothing more than a spawn trapped in Hell.”
“Trelsar’s mercy has made me no longer spawn,” Tessla warned. “Return to Hell, changer, or die.”
“I could murder you.” Cass’s eyes glinted. “I like that choice best.” Turning her gaze to Glace, thick drool dripped from her mouth. “As you love me, help me kill her.”
“It hurts!” Mathew cried out.
Shaking, wanting to scream frustration, Glace raised his knife toward Tessla, lowered it, and raised it once more. Indecision tore at him. Biting his lip, he turned to the crime lord and then twisted back to look at Tessla.
Cursing him, Cass leapt. Tessla dodged. Glace had no time to pay them any further mind. Decision made, he turned, jumped on top of Mathew’s table, beat the man’s hands apart, and stabbed down.
Blood sprayed across Glace’s chest and face. Crying out, Mathew staggered backward until his shoulders struck a wall. Clenching his bleeding stub tightly in his right fist, Mathew fell to his knees as his severed finger rolled off the table and struck the floor.
Wet with Mathew's blood, Glace spun around, jumped off the table. Tessla was on the floor with Cass atop her. Razor teeth savaged the assassin’s upper arm and shoulder, ripping and gouging while the assassin's talons sank deep into the changer’s neck and side. Tessla’s almost alien face showed only calm indifference while meat and sinew were torn from her body. With a jerk of her head, Cass ripped a large chunk of flesh free.
Cursing, Cass jerked away. She whimpered, tried to stand, and fell prone to the floor. “It burns,” she gasped through bloody froth and blistered wounds. “Dear Athos, it burns.”
“Dear Athos, indeed,” said Tessla, pushing herself half-erect with her undamaged arm. “My veins are filled with your master’s poisons.” Blood pulsed weakly from her wounds. The bleeding slowed, stopped, and without any sign of healing, the wounds suddenly closed. Tessla retrieved her fallen pipe, stuck it between her black lips, and smoothly rose, drawing in a lungful of smoke. Removing the pipe with steady fingers, she nonchalantly
blew out a cloud of blue smoke and smiled. “Thank Athos for me when your soul once again resides in Hell.”
Cass released a series of coughs so violent they twisted her body into the semblance of a knot. Bones snapped with solid cracks. First one, two, followed by a series of lesser snaps. Cass howled.
Dropping his knife like it was poison, Glace fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around the creature he loved.
“Gods, Cass,” he whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have understood.”
Cass released a pained laugh when her muzzle pressed near his ear. “Understood the killing?” she whispered with a voice thick and coarse. “Understood your flesh smells so sweet even now I want a taste?” She tried to draw in a deep breath. “I come from Hell, human.”
Again, she coughed, and the coughing was so great Glace felt muscles jump beneath her skin. Pulling away, he watched dark ichors trickle from her eyes and ears. Bubbling puss and blood fell from her mouth.
“I would have worn the ring,” he whispered brokenly. “I would have worn it for you.”
“S-sorry,” Cass gasped between coughs. “It was my time. I had to breed…only I can’t…with a human, and the ring can’t be reversed. L–loved you too much…for that.”
“Bitch!”
Steel flashed, and Glace cried out when a knife buried hilt deep into Cass’s side. Horrified, he dropped his lover and staggered to his feet.
Mathew, a half-changed thing, yellow glaring wolf’s eyes and a wolf’s face set above a man’s body, threw another knife into the changer, striking Cass with a solid, meaty thunk. Blood fell from where Mathew's ring finger had once been.
“She loved me,” Glace protested. “She really loved me.”
“No changer can love,” Tessla emotionlessly observed. “At best, they are fond of their human servants. In the end, those servants always become just one more meal.” Her black leather clothing was torn and covered with fresh blood, but the flesh showing through its rents appeared smooth and whole. Not even a scar remained. “Your time was near.”
Drawing close, Mathew dropped his unwounded hand on Glace’s shoulder. His wolf’s face appeared horrid, but something about it, some quality, drew Glace's eye.
“I was wrong about you,” Mathew admitted. “You showed judgment and saved me from completely turning. When you are ready, come to me. I’ll see you get the training Cass wanted.”
Glace violently shook his head. “You murdered her.”
“She was already dying,” Mathew replied. “In a way, what I did was a mercy, but I won’t quibble boy. I wanted her death on my hands.” He grinned a wolf’s grin. “Hate me all you like, but it won’t help you. Today or tomorrow you’ll come to me because you’re a thief, and every thief in this city eventually becomes mine. I’ll claim you, and I’ll train you to be the best this city has ever seen.” He looked at his bleeding hand. “I owe you a debt. I won’t let you escape until it’s fully paid.”
Swallowing, Glace fell to his knees and cried over the dead thing on the floor.