On the other side of the gate, we're bathed in light for a moment. The ground trembles under our feet, then we find ourselves surrounded by sharp, volcanic-looking rock formations. There's a long, narrow pass in front of us, those sharp rocks on all sides. And guess what's lying at the dead end of this pass?

"Vulcan's." I say it with a hint of resignation and a pinch of no surprise.

"We're not gonna stop here, are we?" asks Nikki.

"I don't see any other choice." Joe frowns as he looks around both sides of the building. "No, there's no two ways around it. Literally. We gotta go in and hope we can sneak out the back or something, undetected."

"Best of luck to us, then," I mutter.

"Can't make omelets without breaking a few legs," Nikki says with a small, chirpy chuckle.

Even Joe and I can't help but join in her laughing at her own joke. Then we neutralize ourselves emotionally and walk into Vulcan's as poker-faced as possible.

The place may be called "Vulcan's," but it feels a little less Star Trek and a little more Star Wars. Tons of demons of all shapes, sizes, and colors eat delicious-smelling steakhouse-y dishes, washed down with brightly colored drinks that look less like drinks and more like miniature bath bombs. Somewhere in the very back of the dining room, there's a jazz band playing something that sounds like the old cantina music, but with a key change or two and an additional note every few seconds to make it legally different. Like how Vanilla Ice insisted "Ice Ice Baby" didn't rip off "Under Pressure," no sir.

"Do you have a reservation?"

I start, then realize there's a cute Aladdin-looking dude standing behind a podium, like he's the host. Wait, he's dressed kind of like Disney's Aladdin, shirtless under a barely-there vapor-wear vest and wearing baggy khaki pants...but he's white. And not "white" like "Mediterranean" so he can at least vaguely pass for an Arab, but white like French Wonder Bread. "What fresh hell is this?"

"Depends," says the phony Aladdin. "Would you like it medium-well, well-done, or extra-crispy?" As he talks, he shifts his skin tone just a bit, darkening until he looks a little more like what Disney had in mind. Though he's still not perfect.

I look around to get my friends' reads on the situation. Joe's not really looking at "Aladdin," but instead at the door, as if he expects some hellish assassin to follow us into the building. Nikki, however, is mesmerized by the display of lean but rippling muscle. I mean, I can't help but notice it too, but we're not here for eating eye candy.

"Listen," I say, leaning forward so I can whisper to "Aladdin" without fear of being overheard. "We're not here to eat. We just need to get to whatever's on the other side of this place."

"Aladdin" looks around, then beckons us forward silently. He takes us through the dining room, past the kitchen, and into a narrow but oddly high-ceilinged office, where he takes a shirt and coat off a pair of hangers just inside the door. "I thought I'd never get an excuse to walk off my post," he says. "Oh, sorry, where are my manners? My name's Smith. Morgan Smith. Last name preferred, please. Also preferred, male pronouns unless stated otherwise."

"Do you ever prefer otherwise?" asks Nikki.

"Nah, I just throw that in to confuse the ignorant. It's a common misconception that we hellsprites can shift gender in addition to our shapes, sizes, and colors."

"Sounds like an insult to the authentically genderfluid," I mutter. "Well, Mr. Politically Incorrect, take us out the back door and let us be on our way, then, huh?"

Smith bites his lip. "See, here's the thing - we're not supposed to let people just go through. You got recommended the roc, right? Seriously, guys, it's to die for."

Joe cracks his knuckles, and the twitch of his jaw suggests he's ready to morph into full Wendigo mode. "I don't care that God himself recommended it. We're kind of in a hurry, so..."

Smith blanches, undoing all the darkening his skin's had in the last couple of minutes. Wait, he was actually tan? Guess he wasn't kidding about the color-shifting hellsprite thing. "Okay...now I'm tempted to just let you pass...but no, no, I can't." He looks like he's having some kind of argument with himself. Do hellsprites typically act like Gollum?

"You can," I say. "You can, and you will, 'cause we really don't have time for this business."

This gets Smith's attention long enough for him to stare at me like he's still scared and submissive. But not for much longer. "I think you'll find that you do." His voice drops a couple of octaves, and he himself grows to ten feet in height.

"Well, that explains the ceiling," I say.

Smith kneels so he can talk to us a little better, but he's still a good seven and a half feet at least. "I'll be very insulted if you don't let me serve you some roc," he rumbles. "Would you like it medium-well, well-done, or extra-crispy?"

"Can't do it rare?" Joe quips.

"You wouldn't like it that way. Roc blood needs to be annihilated with considerable heat when cooking, or else it can sneak into you through any open wound in your mouth and poison you dead."

I frown up at Vulcan - for now I finally see him for who he really is. "We don't have much of a choice, do we?" But as soon as he straightens up, I turn to Nikki and whisper, out of the corner of my mouth, "The second he gives us our meals, we flip the table and run out the back door like goddamn bastards."

"Pardon your French," Joe whispers, eyeballing the back door warily.