The Pleasures of Hell

Chapter 01.007

~~Mia~~

"This is a scrying pool?" she asked.

Adron chuckled, and leaned over the big bowl as casually as any human checked their smart phone.

"It is."

She expected something a little more epic, honestly, but a big wide bowl sitting on top of some rocks in Hell would have to do.

"Where it'd come from?" She already knew the answer.

"Hell."

"Uh huh." Groaning, she peeked down over the cliff edge at the rest of the group.

They were taking an early break, a short one. Much as Diogo tried to pass it off as nothing important, she could see the demon didn't like doing this trek, and he'd taken Adron's suggestion to let Mia check out a scrying pool as an opportunity for a breather. Considering how massive he was, it was no wonder he struggled with hiking twelve hours a day. Even the gorgala and two vrats hated it, and they were much smaller. But, much as a little part of Mia wanted to tease them about it, Hannah told her not to unless she wanted pain.

They'd stopped by a big cliff wall with a huge alcove cut into its side. Not deep enough to really be a cave, but deep enough they parked their butts inside it and took a breather. Beside it was a steep, semi-natural semi-Hell-grew-this stairway in the mountainside that went up to a small ledge that reached out over the alcove. On it was the bowl, sitting innocently on some rocks at about hip height. The bowl was three feet wide, only about six inches deep, and the liquid inside was very reflective and silvery. Mercury?

"Mirror mirror on the wall," Adron said, tapping the side of one of his big horns as he considered, "show me... the inside of a random Starbucks."

"What?" Mia stared at him. But before she could laugh at him or express disbelief, the shimmering image in the liquid changed.

That, was a Starbucks, with people inside drinking coffee and checking out news on their smart phones. The camera, or whatever it was Hell used to spy, flowed around naturally, never quick cutting but seamlessly sliding into new perspectives to show Adron, Mia, and Hannah new angles. It was as if Hell herself, or whoever piloted the invisible camera, wanted to make sure the scrying pool's viewers got exactly what they wanted.

"Holy shit," Mia said.

"God I miss coffee," Hannah said. With a nod, she leaned over the bowl. "Show me that blond woman's coffee."

No need to finagle or convince, or be hyper specific. The bowl happily did exactly as requested, zooming in on the blond woman, and then her coffee. And then, her sipping the coffee, as if the bowl knew exactly what Hannah wanted without her having to say it.

Hannah groaned and walked away. "Fuck me that was dumb."

"Kinda, yeah," Mia said, laughing. "So, it can show me whatever I want?"

"Whatever you want," Adron said. "As long as it exists and it's on the surface right now."

"As long as it exists..." Oh. That did make things a little more problematic. What could she ask it to show her? The home she never really had, could never find, but always wanted? The close friends she'd never managed to make, despite the dozens of kinda-sorta friends she had?

Maybe some of the hot dudes at her university? Nah. She'd gotten her fill of being a peeping tom, and with the threat Diogo gave her not long ago, it was probably best she not think about sex. Whatever the weird aura thing she gave off was, it apparently got a lot stronger when she was horny, and a lot stronger again if she gave into that horniness.