“She sent me,” Scratch said.
In the darkness, despite the feeble light of the prince’s penlight, Scratch’s black flesh blended perfectly with the shadows. His teeth shone pearly bright. His eyes glittered, speckled with red flame. His fingernails gleamed. As did his hooves. Those were the only signs that he was there.
“She?”
“Bitty Belina.”
“So even you are her messenger boy,” the prince said.
“Her aide.”
The prince laughed until he was hoarse.
“I fail to see the humor,” Scratch said, scuffing his hooves against the floor of the shaft.
“Belina doesn’t need an aide or aid. If the euphemisms make you feel better, so be it. But all Belina needs are servants, willing to play infantrymen to her general.”
“That’s enough,” Scratch said. He sounded especially mean. His eyes contained more red than they usually did.
“Okay,” the prince said. “What does she want?”
“Nothing. Not from you, anyway. She sent me to kill you:’
The prince rolled quickly to his feet, for he had been made for the role of a fighter. The sword that never left his hip now left it-for the tight grip of his fingers.
“If a death’s her wish,” the prince said, “she’ll have it. Though it won’t be mine.”
“Perhaps.”
The prince held the sword to the side, tipped up and forward. “I would say there is little doubt about it. Your role is stealing souls of heroines and heroes and putting a fright into your audiences. My role is killing. I am equipped for a marvelous performance.”
Scratch applauded, grinning. His teeth positively sparkled. “A wonderful soliloquy ” he enthused. “You’re a fine actor.” This reaction, more than any other could, unsettled the prince.
“I am not acting,” the prince replied. His temper was beginning to get the better of him. He could not afford to give in to it. He had to be cool and calculating. Scratch would be beaten, but he would offer a good battle first. The prince weaved on the balls of his feet, looking for an opening to make his first lunge.
“Neither am I acting,” Scratch said. “Have you ever seen my play, `The Nicksboro Curse’?”
“Of course not.”
“Let me assure you, then, that I did more than steal souls and frighten the audiences. There is one scene, for instance, in which I tackle and defeat a hound my own size. He has fierce teeth and great claws. But I cripple him and dismember him in center stage.”
The prince sneered. “Dismember him? With the help of how many visual deceptions?”
“Mirrors?” Scratch stepped closer. His bare arms appeared to swell. Or was it just that the thickly corded muscles had always been there, hidden beneath a deceptive layer of fat, visible only when they were needed? The prince wished he had paid closer attention to Scratch in the days past.
The devil made his muscles writhe and ripple as if they were alive and sentient beneath his ebony skin. “Give me your sword,” he said, holding out a hand.
Before the prince could refuse, Scratch grasped the wicked blade in his hand, twisted it and tore it free of the hand that held it. He threw his dark head back and laughed. The laughter echoed up and down the pipe with the force of a dozen throats.
The prince grabbed for the handle of his weapon.
Scratch swung the length of steel by the blade, snapped the shaft into the prince’s jaw. There was a sickening crunch. The prince fell to his knees, spitting teeth and blood.
“Was that a visual deception?” Scratch asked. He chuckled heartily, though he no longer laughed out loud. There was a savage tone beneath the humor, a taste for blood and agony.
“Why?” the prince asked.
“Why what?”
“Why does . . . she want me . . . dead?”
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
“It’s obvious to everyone else,” the devil said. “But I can see where it might not be to you.”
“Tell me,” the prince said.
When Scratch began to tell him, he dove for the devil’s ankles, hoping to topple the dark puppet and go for its throat. Scratch kicked him square in the center of the forehead, propelled him backwards where he crashed the back of his skull against the floor.