“Goo goo g’ joob,” I said miserably.

“No fog,” Darius said as we walked along the pier. Was it me, or did I hear relief in his voice?

“I’m apparently pretty powerful, regardless of how well I know my magic, and still you felt a lot of pain going through. How could someone bonded to a lesser-powered demon make it?”

He shook his head and looked back the way we’d come. Mr. Undertaker was still there, staring straight ahead. Waiting. “I can’t say. It might have something to do with age. I doubt Moss would’ve been able to cross, even with the bond, and if he had, he would’ve needed to recoup for much longer.”

Ah. So while I’d been stalling with the chatting, he’d been shaking off the fog burn. Interesting.

“So, maybe Ja was just that much older.” We neared the end of the pier. Oh, goody. Another never-ending beach.

“That’s the thing. She wasn’t much older than I am now when she went into the Dark Kingdom. She didn’t seem overly concerned about the fog when we talked.”

“On average, women do have a higher threshold of pain. Maybe you’re just a wimp.”

He frowned at me as we reached the end of the pier.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. There was no telling how long I’d have the opportunity. “Let’s get through the illusion veil. Once we’re inside, we’ll hunker down and take a look at that map. I need a game plan. Then we’ll run at Agnon and the sect that’s got him, kill them all, and get the hell out of here. And so help me God, if the damn ceiling drips on me in there, I’m going to punch someone.”

“With whose fist?” Darius’s lips quirked into a lopsided grin.

Another thing I would never live down.

I stepped off the pier and jolted as my foot sank into the ground.

Correction: I jolted as I stepped onto hard mud that shouldn’t have had the give of wet straw.

My vision warred with my sensory perception as I forced myself forward. My boots shone at the tread, indicating wetness that went with the soggy feeling of sinking. By sight, we still traversed hard, dried mud.

A few moments later, we stepped through the invisible line. The barrenness of the beach disappeared, and a new scene took its place.

I stopped dead for a moment as my brain tried to adjust. And failed.

Darius didn’t prod me forward, but grabbed me around the waist and hurried out of sight.

Chapter Seventeen

An enormous circus tent rose in front of us, blasting neon from every surface. We had a side view of a gigantic green Ferris wheel with a big grinning face on the spoke, rolling over and over. Flashing lights outlined a loop-de-loop roller coaster, which seemed to emanate screams. Fireworks exploded in the distance, pinks and purples and greens and blues.

The pathway leading up to all this strobed color in little squares, blinking quickly. Above it all, permeating everything, was the bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom of circus music.

“I don’t like this,” I said with a dry mouth.

We stopped behind a camping-sized yellow tent and crouched into freshly layered sawdust. Darius pulled off his backpack and unzipped it.

I crawled to the edge of our cover and peered around. An elephant with shaggy, clumped fur rolled by on four independent beach balls. Its tasseled hat didn’t need a string to remain on its head. Beyond it, strutting around with a big stomach and a weird cackle, was a clown. A clown.

My eyes went wide and I yanked myself back. “Look, I can handle demons. Fire, brimstone, damned souls—all that I can handle. But clowns? I don’t think I can handle clowns. Especially evil-looking clowns like that one.”

Darius unrolled the parchment.

“I mean…” I palmed my forehead. “I expected a dark kingdom, not a circus on crack.”

“You okay?” Darius asked.

I gave him an incredulous look and shoved my finger in the direction of Cirque du LSD. “Are you serious with that question?”

A smile graced his lips. He clearly didn’t have a newly realized phobia of circuses like I did.

“From what I understand, on the outskirts and less-traveled parts of the Dark Kingdom, Lucifer allows the sects free rein. If the sect likes circuses, and they have the magical ability, power, and space to create one, they can. As you see. Also remember that the more powerful demons can change form.”

I knew that, but an elephant with weird fur rolling around on beach balls?

I rubbed my eyes. I needed to stop fighting all this. One thing seemed certain: it wasn’t going to get any better. If anything, it would get a whole lot worse. “Okay, fine. So what’s next?”

Darius turned the parchment so I could see it. Clearly marked was the sect of the demon who’d made the map. That demon had also indicated a preferred point of entry, which was titled South Shore and had a note in Latin pertaining to paradise.

I gave Darius the side-eye. “We could have gone to paradise, and you chose the insane circus?”

He ignored me. “If we had landed there, the demon’s sect would have been on the way to our destination.” He traced a dotted line to a circle in the middle of the map.

“Our destination is very close to the castle, which I assume has my fa—Lucifer in it.”

“We need to use a code name.”

“Grand Poobah?”

He frowned at me. He was doing that a lot lately. If he wasn’t careful, his face was going to get stuck and I’d have to dump him for losing his perfect looks.

I chuckled. He frowned harder…probably because he didn’t hear the joke. “Sorry, I’m still adjusting to the mind-fuckery from the river, and now—” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. The bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom combined with the swirling colors and crackling fireworks in dizzying ways.

“Actually, you look human, so calling him your father is probably better. Anyone overhearing will assume you are trying to track down an incubus or similar. That won’t raise suspicion.”

“Fine. Look, there are no real notes on here regarding which places are okay, and which we should avoid. So without a guide, we should take the shortest path. That’ll get messed up somehow, because it always does, and then we’ll improvise. But sitting here, planning for the unknown, is ridiculous.”

“Do you have the map in your mind?”

I looked away and tried to recall it. The image came to the surface, crystal clear. I looked back to be sure, and smiled in elation. “I wonder if I’ll remember people’s names now, too.” It was something I was notoriously bad at.

“One can only hope.” He rolled up the parchment and stashed it in his backpack. “As you said, we will take the shortest path, yes?”

I suddenly realized what that would require. “We have to go through the insane circus.”

“Yes. Try not to kill anything with your power. Do it with your sword, or not at all. Rumors of you will be circulating already. That’ll bring challenges.”

“Do you think the boat captain will talk?”

“And say what? The Egg Man wasn’t seaworthy, but the Walrus seemed to do just fine?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “It wasn’t the sea that was the problem. Mostly. And I meant where he dropped us.”

“He wouldn’t talk to you, but…under threat, who is to say?” Darius slung the backpack over his shoulders and rose from his crouch. “Any demons following us are the least of our troubles. Ready?”

No, but I’d never be.

I rose, took out my sword, and followed him around the small tent, the cousin of the mammoth big top looming in the distance, moving away from the river and deeper into the circus. More tents, all bright colors, dotted the way. Sawdust littered the ground, some fresh but most older and squishy, like what I’d felt on the beach. Regardless, it was going to get in my socks, and that was the worst.

A tall woman strolled out in front of us with a hairy chest highlighting her large breasts, six fingers on one hand, and a mustache that curled at the edges. It looked like the demon had mixed a few of the “freaks” from the classic freak shows.

She glanced our way before throwing her arms wide and creating claws with her hands. “Hah!” she yelled.