The devil's smoldering eyes never blinked. He watched me. I mean, he watched through me—as my mind struggled to make sense of what he had just said. My name was still in the air like a ghost of a breath I hadn't fully exhaled.
"Me?" I repeated again, as if the word would make more sense the second time. My voice sounded hoarse in the vast nothingness of Hell. "You mean... I'm the vessel? The one to... plant the seed?"
A sound rumbled from deep within his monstrous chest. Laughter. It was low, volcanic, and ancient. The kind of laugh that made the floor tremble and the air crackle with embers. The kind of laugh that reminded you there were worse things than death.
"There is much you do not know, Luis," he said at last, his voice wrapping around my bones like smoke and brimstone. "Let me finish my story."
I swallowed hard, sinking deeper into the throne of molten bone beneath me, as if trying to disappear into it. I had a very bad feeling about where this was going.
