Mathieu by Irene Ferris

looked at him, brown eyes wide. “I am aware of that. Painfully aware of that. But did you think Gadreel was the only one? Did you think that there were no other foul creatures in this world?”
    “We know now there are others…” Marcus started before Mathieu cut him off.
    “They are without number, Marcus. They roam freely between our world and
There
and use humanity to fill their needs—all their needs. Death is nothing to them. Time is nothing. We are nothing. All they care about is power and how to secure as much of it as possible. I can assure you that this world is crawling with them.” He whispered quietly, almost to himself, “It’s almost hypnotic, all that power.”
    Jenn smiled at him. “Well, I feel better knowing that you’re with us then. You can protect us. You know what to do.”
    After a long silence Mathieu answered, “Yes, I do know what to do. Run and hide. Don’t let anyone or anything find you. Ever.”

C hapter Fifteen
    Mathieu was roused from dreams of home and of Yvette’s golden hair.
    “Come on now, time to get up. I’m hungry.” Gadreel smiled before him and yanked on the chain around Mathieu’s neck to force him to his feet. “I’ve spent entirely too much time and energy on you and it’s time you earned your keep.”
    With a wave of its hand, Gadreel summoned forth the black horse with flaming hooves. With another wave, the mule Damonn had been riding. A third, the lurid blood-red armor it’d been wearing when it’d first appeared to Mathieu.
    The Demon Lord preened for a moment and then looked at Mathieu. “Oh. I can’t have you go about like that. I want to keep you pretty.” It made a gesture and agony danced down Mathieu’s nerves. Gasping for breath, Mathieu looked at his arms. The bites, bruises, burns and welts that covered his body were healing before his eyes. He held his hand up and watched as a particularly deep gash closed, turned into a pink line and then disappeared.
    “Hello.” Gadreel waved a hand in front of Mathieu’s face, drawing his attention back to the present. “Draw the Orbis. It’s time to return to your world.”
    “Draw the what?” Mathieu shook his head in confusion.
    The Demon Lord’s smile slid from its face to be replaced with a cruel scowl. “Draw the Orbis so we can leave this dead world. You know how to do it. Just do it.”
    With no conscious thought, Mathieu turned to the blank, grey earth and knelt. Dragging his finger, he made first a circle around Gadreel and the mounts, and then a second circle around that. Characters filled the space between the circles one after another.
    Finally he stepped inside the circle and looked down at what he’d wrought. “What is this?” He shook his head at it.
    Gadreel laughed. “It’s one of the two reasons you’re still alive. I can’t remember all this minutia myself, so you have to remember it for me.”
    Mathieu cocked his head. “But I don’t know what it is.”
    “And you never will. You just hold the knowledge for me. You can’t use it for yourself. That would be disastrous.” Gadreel smiled, its form beautiful and angelic again. Mathieu cringed despite his best efforts. That smile had been a precursor to entirely too much pain.
    At another gesture from Gadreel, the circle glowed around them. A quick shifting feeling that left Mathieu’s stomach behind and the world was suddenly not grey anymore, but green and red and brown. He could smell life, and it was the sweetest thing he’d ever smelt before. It smelled of home.
    “Get on the mule and come with me.” Gadreel’s voice broke through his reverie. Mathieu’s body moved independently of his will and clambered onto the back of the preternaturally still animal. Together they rode for a short distance and came to a bluff that overlooked a walled town.
    On the bluff waited three other beings. Mathieu could tell that they were as Gadreel was, creatures that were not human. Their shapes blurred around the edges as he