and Sophia stood on a tall hill, and a path cut steeply down its sides, rising back up among the stone again to end at the mansion of a Great Demon.
Sophia stared at it, her mouth tightly pursed. But she was the first to take another step forward.
Kim looked at her in surprise. He steeled himself and followed, never taking his gaze off what awaited.
Pythonâs private mansion sat alone. There were no other dwellings or signs of life near it, but perhaps there didnât need to be. The building had enough personality to make up for that tenfold. Whereas Lilithâs and Angelaâs mansions were cut with smooth elegance, Pythonâs reared up into Babylonâs fog with reams of jagged pyramid-shaped spires. Obelisks covered in hieroglyphs and grim mosaics flanked its enormous onyx doors. Statues of Hounds and feathered serpents, carved with terrible precision, sat above eaves and windows.
The gothic city of Luz, ensconced on Earth as if in its own little corner of the universe, had held only a shadow of such dark beauty.
Soon, Kim and Sophia stood at the mansionâs entrance, both of them focused on the glittering eyes of a feathered serpent statue near the door. Kim glanced at Sophia. She raised an eyebrow questioningly. There were no guards, or even beasts to warn of someoneâs arrival.
Kim swallowed nervously.
âThis place is enormous,â Sophia whispered. It sounded like she had to search to find her words. âYouâve never been here before at all?â She turned to Kim for answers again.
He shook his head. âNever. Python hated Mastema. Even when I was a child, it was understood to keep me far away from Python and anything he happened to claim as his own.â
âSo I suppose now Pythonâs making up for the years lost between you two?â
Kim had nothing to say to that. He looked back up at the mansion rearing in front of them, wishing he could seethrough it. âTrust me, we wouldnât be here if there was another way to help Angela. But there isnât.â
âI know,â Sophia said. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened them again and her smooth brow furrowed. âI donât see signs of anyone inside.â
âYou wonât. Python keeps his entertainments as secret as possible. All the better for him to do what he likes without arousing suspicion. As if anyone trusts him any longer.â He ended with a laugh. âHe judges his mother for her parties, but in the end heâs no better than she is. They simply miss what they lost in Heaven.â
Sophia approached the doors. They were the opposite of the door in Luz that Python had used to lure Angela into his deadly maze months ago. That door had been covered in grotesque carvings of hellish creatures, and its knob had been shaped like a snake. These doors were plain stone and had no knobs or handles. Two twining snakes rested atop the lintel, but that was all.
âSophia,â Kim whispered in warning.
But Sophia didnât budge. She examined the doors top to bottom.
Then she touched them.
Six
The doors creaked open so lightly they could have been made of air. Gently, Kim pushed Sophia to the side and peered into the noiseless shadows within the mansion. The building appeared deserted, but they both knew better than that.
Kim beckoned, urging Sophia to follow him.
They stepped into the building carefully. The place truly appeared abandoned. Webs of fine dust littered the furniture that had been left behind. More dust filtered through the air and choked off Kimâs breath. Most of the furniture pieces looked like faded relics, and their construction was too odd and opulent to be made by demons. Kim walked down the long hall with Sophia strolling cautiously behind; he was unable to keep from feeling that most of what he saw had been taken from Heaven as a remembrance of days past, long, long ago.
It felt like journeying through a cathedral. The hall
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