Dark Forsaken (The Devil's Assistant Book 3) by H.D. Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

slowly becoming a time capsule of my past life, but I couldn’t give it up yet. It was where I kept my old life with Jack: the memory of his love, Jack’s ring, the happiness, and a life I’d never have. It wasn’t like I could ever go back to those days. Part of me didn’t want to—my heart now belonged to Thanos in a way it never did to Jack, but I still felt the loss of the idea of that perfect life that I almost had with my first love.
    The roar of the engine brought me back to reality. I couldn’t dwell on what could have been with Jack or focus on what might be with Thanos. I had to replace the curator, sort out this mess in Underworld, and regain my freedom to travel to the fourth realm. Then I could go back to the realm I called home and power up, which was the only way I’d be able to find Thanos and have any hope of being with him. Without the power to walk through time, I’d never get him away from Mab long enough to know if he’d really forgotten me. I didn’t put it past Mab to lock him away in the Deeps for a while. She’d use any means to make him forget me. The Deeps had a way of forcing you to live hundreds of years in a second, and after a few trips there, living other complete lives, how could he still remember me? For five hundred years Mab had thought he was dead, so what was another few hours in her isolation hold to make him forget me? He was already broken in her eyes. What did it matter if she put him through more pain to get a true blank slate?
    Sorrel got us back to the apartment in record time—maybe he was concerned Sage would throw up in his car. I left him to handle his brother and headed up to my five-star prison.
    I had an entire side of the apartment to myself, which consisted of a master-bedroom suite and office. The other bedrooms were all smaller, but still bigger than the apartment I’d shared with Jack.
    Sorrel was cursing as he pulled a half-conscious Sage into the foyer.
    “Put him in one of the spare bedrooms,” I said. “And get rid of all the liquor in the house. I’m holding you responsible if he gets anything alcoholic to drink while he’s here.”
    Sorrel scowled at me. “How the hell do you expect me to keep him away from it?”
    I shrugged and laughed. “Dump it all out. I don’t care, but he better stay sober. Or I’ll tell your father you contributed to the problem.”
    Sorrel muttered something under his breath as he dragged Sage to one of the back bedrooms. I headed for my office, but stopped when I saw my laptop on the couch. Sorrel had obviously borrowed it—again—without permission. I grabbed it, wondering what questionable site he’d left on the screen this time and making a mental note to run the anti-virus software.
    After taking a shower, putting on my pajamas, and fixing an ice cream sundae for dinner—yes, it was one of those days—I sat down at my desk and pulled up the web browser. I wanted to search for Sydney online. She obviously used the internet enough to find the guy that pointed her to me. As I started, it occurred to me that she wouldn’t have found anyone that knew about me on the human internet—her knowledge was limited, but she’d known about the otherworldly among us, which meant she must have access to the Other-Net.
    I closed the normal browser and brought up the Other-Net. It was a special interface that decrypted content from sites owned and operated by non-humans or humans in the know. It was sort of like browsing from a mobile device: any site that supported an Other-Net address routed to the correct content when browsing via the interface. It was eye-opening the first time I stumbled upon it at work years ago. The Tucker Bosh Other-Net site has nothing in common with the human version.
    I googled Sydney’s name, which returned links to Instagram and Snapchat. I scanned the list, quickly moving to the less popular results, but I found nothing more interesting than the first two links. I clicked on Instagram to