Hell of Earth

Chapter NINETEEN

Proga did his best to come up with a feasible story to tell their curious host about why his prized guest had not returned for breakfast. Corax seemed satisfied although disappointed that they were planning most of the day outside of the house. He promised an extravagant sendoff dinner to make up for it.

"I only left him for a minute. He was waiting for a demon to get done haggling over mint prices and I just walked a few stalls down. He said he would meet me but he never showed. I thought maybe he was still stuck in line but when I went back, he was gone. I walked up and down the stalls five times, I checked all of the open buildings."

"Do you remember any odd demons around the stall? Did any stick out?"

"I don't remember." Proga took a shaky breath. "I didn't think to pay that close of attention."

"It's not your fault."

"No? I recall my entire reason for being in the initial convoy was to protect him. I knew I'd be rusty after three years but..." Opal jumped when he slammed a closed fist into the wall. She was sure of it this time; the shadows movements were not related to anything blocking the light.

"Whenever ya are done blaming yourself and wasting time, I'm ready to look. What? I'm serious, let's go already we don't even know what made him disappear."

"We can't just go." Kait pleaded. "We need a plan first."

"How can we plan if we don't know shit about shit?"

Opal felt chilled. The idea that a demon like Yue could be snatched up made this seems hopeless. "Are we sure he was forced?"

"You think he went willingly with his captors?"

"Or he wasn't captured at all but left us."

"Yue would not leave us."

Opal took a step away from Proga. "I-I'm not saying any of this is what happened but Spark was right. We have no idea what caused him to leave. We need to go back and look more closely- not saying you didn't."

"So, we should go back?" Kait glanced around the room.

"Now? I'm not sure its safe when we are flying blind. Plus, they might be hunkered down until night."

"Even better we might catch them before they move."

"But we don't even know-"

"Can everyone just shut up? If you're going, let's go! Talking isn't helping."

"No- not talking about it is what got us into this in the first place. We rushed getting information instead of being cautious and now they found us." Proga snapped at Spark as he started towards the door.

"But didn't Bloom say they came a few days ago and asked for directions? He made it sound like they left..."

"Old bastard probably tipped them off. If you wanna talk so badly, lets start with that guy. If he doesn't feel like talking I'll be happy to convince him."

"Opal? What do you think." Kait turned to her, hands clenched together. The other two turned to look at her as well.

"I..." What did she think? "I-I don't know." She'd been the one who convinced the other two to try and rush the investigation. She thought that was what Yue wanted but he'd made it clear they'd, that she'd, messed up. Now he was gone.

"Then... then we will consider this the worst case scenario. Let's go talk with Bloom. Even if he didn't intentionally tip off those demons whoever did had to be in there that night." Kait stood up straighter, mouth a hard line. "We have real favors to offer this time."