Thief's Honour

Chapter Seven- Welcome to Hell

The next day, Madeleine was ready. She'd killed a guy in an alley where he wouldn't be found for hours, and collected enough blood to make three pentagrams.

Back at home, she powdered her face stark-white, put on red contact lenses, and masked her aura so no one would know what she really was. She also shrugged on a cloak, one often worn by ghouls in service to Hell. You don't want to know where she got it. She also pulled on leather gloves, to avoid leaving any fingerprints anywhere.

Then she went to another abandoned alley, where she would be undisturbed, drew the pentagram, placed the candles at the points as Damien had instructed, and placed the amulet in front of it. She sat, cross-legged, in the center. If things went sideways, she didn't want to end up leading whoever was chasing her home.

She inhaled, and concentrated on a little alcove right outside the room where the jewel was, as shown in the notes from Damien. She felt a sudden blast of heat. When she opened her eyes, she was there. She was in Hell. She couldn't go back now, even if she wanted to.

Madeleine rose to her feet, slowly, silently. She blinked, to let her eyes adjust to the dim light provided only by black fire flickering on braziers, which were mounted on rocky walls.

The pentagram amulet lay on the ground beside her, the star inside turned forty-five degrees. Exactly as Damien had told her. She crouched and picked it up, tucking it into her cloak.

She turned to an opening, which supposedly was the room where the jewel was kept. She pulled out a piece of paper she had worked on for an hour, burning each failure until it was perfect enough to pass the examination.

She took a deep breath, and exhaled. She could do this. She walked into the room, hood up and partially covering her face.

Four large demons with huge, bulging muscles glared down at her, almost convincing her to run the other way as fast as possible, screw the mission and anything else Damien wanted from her.

However, the rational side of her warned her that she would be in even worse trouble if she didn't do it, so she proceeded.

She handed the note to the largest one. "Message for you." She announced softly.

This was going to be the crucial part. Ghouls were pretty much the only ones who ran errands for both Heaven and Hell, and she hoped that the pale face makeup and contact lenses would convince them that this was just another message, not a distraction. It all rested on the integrity of the appearance of her disguise.

He took the note, frowning. He assessed her appearance critically, and, apparently satisfied, nodded and read the note. She turned and left, like any good little messenger would in a real situation.

Messengers didn't need to know the note's contents, and were expected to do their job and then get out of the way.

A minute later, all four guards ran out. Madeleine smirked. It would probably take them two minutes to get to the throne room, another few minutes to get severely chastised for bursting into the throne room uninvited, and then another minute for them to show the forged note and realize that Damien did not want them in the throne room. And that she'd wanted them out of the room for a reason.

She was proud of that note. Damien's handwriting was not easy to forge, even with the note he had so arrogantly dropped her. And inadvertently made her job a hundred times easier.

Plenty of time for her to sneak into the room, locate the jewel in the middle of the room, pick it up, and get the heck out of there.

Madeleine slipped into the room, and ran to the stand where the jewel stood. It was beautiful, really. It was a orange fist-sized stone, shaped like a diamond, with a deep ruby red in the very center.

The stand was solid gold, with decorations that complemented the jewel.

She picked the jewel up gently, taking care to not drop or damage it. It didn't look easily breakable, but you never knew with heavily guarded magical jewels. They might be extremely delicate, or volatile.

An alarm suddenly sounded. Madeleine cursed. Of course, a magical jewel that was really important would have an alarm set to go off.

She fled the room immediately, wasting no time. She followed curved passages and paths until she was far away, on the edge of several pools of lava.

Then she reached for the amulet, to get back to Earth. It wasn't in her pocket, where she'd put it.

"Frick." Madeleine checked her other pocket, just in case. No luck.

The amulet was gone. Madeleine frantically searched every pocket and fold of her cloak. Nothing. She moaned quietly, in fear and despair. She was dead.

The Devil was pissed. Really pissed. Damien hadn't asked why, but from the way he was ranting and yelling at guards, it was really bad.

"I wouldn't go in there." Ming warned. "Dad's livid. Someone stole the jewel. Like, THE jewel."

Damien gaped. "THE jewel?"

Ming nodded. "He's furious. You'll never believe how they got rid of the guards." She leaned close to him eagerly.

"How?" He asked.

She laughed. "They forged a note in your handwriting, telling the guards to go to the throne room."

Damien gasped. "My handwriting? How could anyone forge my writing?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. It's so messy it'd be impossible, even if they had a sheet of paper with every letter of the alphabet in your writing. Forget forging it. It'd be impossible to read it."

Damien nodded. Then he had a thought... that note he had dropped on the thief, to subtly hint that he could hear and see everything she did. Maybe...

"Who gave the guards the note?" He asked.

Ming shrugged. "Some ghoul. They don't know who, but they were probably bribed and don't want to admit it."

Damien paused. "Maybe..." Then he noticed something on the ground. An amulet, in the shape of a pentagram and turned forty-five degrees. When Ming wasn't watching, he bent down, picked it up and put it in his pocket. Then he left to make a call. Apparently, the thief would need some help, if she wanted to survive to see the next day.