by Lily Luchesi
Danny wanted to turn away, but was fixed to the spot, watching all this unfold. He had seen a little of what Angie had gone through, but to think this had been done to her...he couldn’t picture it. If he did, he’d probably join her.
Leaving that demon alone, she moved to the other one, who was glaring at her. Reaching on the table, she pulled a whip that had silver threads running through it. Danny handed her another syringe, and this time she emptied it over the whip itself. “These scars healed. I’ll make sure yours never do.”
With that being said, she began to whip the demon, her strength making the whip cut through its clothes like butter and leave bloody, burning wounds behind. Putting one of her gloves back on, she gripped the end of the whip and moved behind the demon, wrapping the silver and horsehair around its neck and pulling tightly. Its eyes bulged and its tongue protruded.
She grabbed both edges in one hand, holding them tight, as she got another long iron nail from her pocket and shoved it into this one’s right eyeball. There was a wet popping sound and Danny finally turned away as the goo and blood began to roll down its cheek, the head of the nail now in the place where the eyeball had been moments ago.
He turned back a second later, when there was a crash. Angelica had pushed the chair over, so the demon was on its back. Leaving that one, she returned to the first just to shove another nail in its head, followed by another holy water injection. The demon was too tired from the previous ministrations to even scream loudly anymore.
“Kill me,” the demon on the floor begged weakly, its throat damaged from the strangling.
Angelica laughed coldly. “Aren’t you a weak one? You did this to me for three days straight and I never once begged for death.” She kicked its head; Danny heard its jaw crack. “Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.”
She knelt down before it, between its trapped knees. Danny knew what she was going to do and thinking of something similar being done to her was unimaginable. At the same time, he was horrified at the fact that she was capable of this. Was this darkly smiling sadist really the same woman who giggled in his arms last night? It was hard to believe it. He’d been wrong: turning had changed her, and right then he was more terrified of her than of the entire Legion.
He turned away, unable to watch as he heard fabric tearing and then tortured shrieks that did shatter the one-way mirror this time. Turning back, Angelica was standing up, and the demon was laying in a pool of its own blood, leaking from the crotch and head.
She looked at them both and said, “Danny, you can kill them. This is how I want to always remember the motherfuckers.” She turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” Danny asked, shaking and trying to hide it.
“Hell,” she replied.
Chapter Nine
“I am not going to let you go back into Hell alone!” Danny protested. “When are you going to get it through your head that you’re not alone anymore?”
Angelica held back a frustrated huff. “I know I’m not alone, but I also know that you and I are dangerous to each other because we care too much. You’re ready to dive back into the Underworld for the second time, all for me. This has nothing to do with you, Danny.”
She turned away, and he grabbed her hand, his touch warm and alive. As time went on, while her emotions did not abate, she felt her body slowly becoming truly Undead. It took quite a while, compared with other vampires, but her body was colder, and she needed to feed more often, sometimes utilizing blood bags so that she did not hurt Danny by taking too much from him in a day. She was always hungry and sometimes the bloodlust made her weak and dizzy. It seemed like she could never get enough. Every time he touched her now, she could feel the stark difference in their skin: fire and ice. The opposite of their personalities.
“Angelica, when two people love each other, everything is intertwined,” Danny said. “It isn’t your fate or my problems anymore. It’s ours.”
She refused to turn and face him, her strength and her hatred at being seen as weak winning out over everything else. “I have lost too many people to lose you, too.”
She felt him move closer, catching the heady scent of his cologne, sweat, and faintly, the salt of the blood rushing just beneath his skin. His hands were on her shoulders and she felt his soft beard brush her skin as he kissed her neck.
“You’re not going to lose me. Now come on,” he said, his lips pressed to her skin.
She closed her eyes. “If I say no, will you just follow me anyway?”
“Take a guess,” he replied, and she felt him smile against her neck.
Angelica turned to him, hands on his shoulders. “Centuries ago, love was considered equal with mental illness. I now understand why, because as much as I love you equals how much you drive me absolutely mental.” She kissed his cheek. “Got your gear loaded up?”
“Yeah. Bart successfully distracting Mark?” he asked.
Nodding, Angelica said, “We’re going to be in very hot water when we get back.”
Danny smirked. “Sometimes I think you forget that you’re the actual boss, just not on paper.”
“Trust me, that is one thing I never forget,” she replied, leading him to the elevator. They got out on the main floor, walked around the building and to the secret entrance. Despite it being only November, Angelica saw that Danny’s nose was red from the whipping wind. She was glad she didn’t notice the cold anymore, because Chicago winters were brutal.
Angelica unlocked all the locks and dismantled the wards. Usually vampires could not dismantle the Grand Coven’s work, but she had made herself, Bart, and Mark able to undo certain wards on the PID building in case of emergency.
“How big is the Grand Coven, anyway?” Danny asked as he watched her work on the spells.
“There are about three thousand natural born witches and wizards in the US, more in the United Kingdom. Self-taught or apprenticed Coven members...well, those are more extensive,” she replied. “Their main American chapter is here, of course, but you can always find a white witch when you need one anywhere in the world. I don’t mention them often, but they are the backbone to this institution.”
She led him down the stairs, feeling the unnatural warmth with each step she descended.
“You know, I always thought that if you had a dungeon, it would be entirely different from this,” Danny commented with a wry smile.
Angelica chuckled, taking the enchanted knife from its scabbard. “Give me your hand, pervert. You can’t use vampire blood for this.” She took his hand in hers and made a long slice along his palm.
He held his hand over the portal, dripping blood in the right formation. Angelica squeezed her eyes shut, tamping down the urge to sink her fangs into Danny’s flesh and not bite or simply drink, but tear, mutilate, and bathe in the blood she released. Her stomach roiled at the images her mind was sending, but she couldn’t help it: it was a case of nature over nurture.
Danny started reciting the Latin incantation and his voice grounded the small part of her that still housed her human emotions and she fought back her bloodlust, hoping that her fangs would stay hidden in her gums and her eyes would remain brown.
The portal opened, sending a rush of hot air that stank of sulfur up into the basement. She took Danny’s hand and said, “Let’s do this.”
They leapt into the portal, the feeling of darkness and being weightless as they entered the new plane requiring some adjustment as they were unceremoniously tossed into what Angelica called the Portal Hub. It was like Union Station: “This way in and out of Hell, monsters and ghouls.”
Angelica dusted herself off, checking to make sure she had not lost one of her weapons in the void. It all seemed to be there, and the Portal Hub was empty of demons at the moment.
“Hey, uh, I hate to ask, but...did you ever think that this might be—”
“A trap?” Angelica cut Danny off. “Of course I did. But since I cannot summon Leander, it was sit in my office like a damsel in distress
, or go here and at least try to get some information. Better to take a risk and be wrong than to never have taken one at all.”
“I don’t think paraphrasing Tennyson quite captures the extreme lengths you’re going to here,” Danny said. “Milton, maybe, but not Tennyson.”
Angelica rolled her eyes. “I am not discussing classic poetry with you right now. Look, Hell has tried to get a multitude of creatures on their side, and before I came along, most submitted to Lucifer willingly. I gave them all another way of life, and Hell has lost out on a lot of monster souls that they could turn to their Legion. Mark could be right, that Leander wants to convince me to go to their side, and get more creatures for them.”
Danny gave her a side-eyed glance as they began to walk down the darkened corridor. “And what would it take for you to agree to that?”
“Short of mind control? Nothing. Not even torturing you. I love you, but one soul versus thousands? No contest.”
She expected Danny to be upset, but he clapped her on the shoulder. “For once you’ve got your priorities straight. What are you going to do to him if he tries to force you to join him?”
She held up her blade. “Slice his skin off like I’m working at the deli and he’s a fresh hunk of prosciutto, douse him in holy water, and then destroy the demonic soul in him.”
They reached the end of the main corridor and Danny went to the direction he had taken when he and Helena had been down there, but Angelica stopped him. “Leander won’t be on this level. This is for petty criminals.”
“How many levels are there?” he asked.
“Four. I don’t know who came up with eight. There’s this level, where they keep some of the monsters we kill, and quite a few human souls as well. The next level is for slightly more dangerous criminals: serial killers, rapists, people like Fiona. The third level is the actual Pit, and trust me, you don’t want any more information on it. Final level is where we want to go: let’s call it the offices, where the demons reside when not terrorizing Earth.”
“So there actually is a pit of fire and brimstone?” Danny asked.
She nodded. She had not been there, but she knew what happened to souls who went there, and it wasn’t simply a hot spring. Her skin tingled, body memory making her feel what those two demons had done to her when she had been held captive. From what she had heard, what she had gone through was nothing compared to what they did to the souls in the Pit.
Angelica led him to a stone staircase that went down, and she began her descent, assuming he’d keep up despite the delicious fear she smelled coming off of him. The only emotion that flavored blood better than fear was lust.
The next level was larger than the first, because there were more souls here. Angelica remembered the face of everyone she had ever killed, and she saw many of them in their cages, chained with iron. No matter what they were when they were alive, all souls in Hell could be restrained with iron.
“Be quick, we don’t want them alerting the higher ups,” she whispered to Danny. She tugged him around where a few empty cells stood, and then a voice came that made her blood run colder than it already did naturally.
“Ah, my ambitious little girl. Come to visit so soon?”
She felt Danny stiffen beside her, and she could only imagine his mortal fear: after all, the first time he had seen Vincent Cross had been in a dark alleyway while he tore a girl’s throat out. It was almost as traumatic as her experiences with the man she had called ‘Father’ for twenty years.
He was chained up more than the others, his body nearly immobile. What she could see of him was ghastly: he was bruised, beaten, and bloodied. That did not dampen his spirits, however, as he grinned at her, his mouthful of fangs glinting in the half-light. His eyes did not turn red, they remained icy blue, rooting Angelica to the spot.
He had been her longest hunt, her most difficult execution. Before she had been fully turned, his murder of her mother had haunted her nightmares, a murder she had been unable to stop. After a hundred and seventy-nine years, she had finally destroyed the man who had ruined her perfect life. She had never expected to see him again.
“Leander has been to see me. He visits often. Depending on his mood, sometimes I am allowed to be tortured here in my cage, and not in the Pit downstairs,” Vincent continued. “He likes to talk, too. Mostly a lament on how I betrayed him, and how he knew it would come to my being in Hell. I suppose he doesn’t see the irony, considering he is Satan’s right hand man himself.
“When he isn’t bemoaning his broken, bloody, bisexual heart, he talks about you. You killed his so-called girlfriend. Bravo, from what I heard that was quite a brutal battle. But what he is really worried about is what happened to you: you turned.”
Angelica wasn’t sure what to say. Vincent could very well give her the information she sought, but he could also lie to her and get her killed just as easily. Uncertainty was foreign to her when it came to seeking information. Her policy was simple: if they didn’t talk, start cutting into them until they did. Even if she had physical access to Vincent, she had a funny feeling he would not be easily swayed by pain. He taught her everything she knew, after all.
“I thought I was finally shot of you,” she snapped. “Why would Leander care if I’d turned? I could have great influence over the paranormal community regardless of my blood status.”
He laughed, a deep sound that could still instill fear in her. “Ah, Angelica. Pity Veronica died before she could find out about her bloodline—”
“Don’t you dare talk about her!” Angelica cried, her composure breaking at last. “You should be ashamed to even speak her name!” She felt hot tears well into her eyes, but she held them back. He did not deserve to see them, to see how what he had done had hurt her so deeply. “She loved you, she trusted you. She wanted to spend eternity with you, and you—” You tore her apart right in front of me. Angelica cut herself off, unable to even say it.
Danny put his hand in hers, squeezing tightly.
“Ah, the mortal. Still here, are you? I thought you would have turned tail or she would have drained you dry by now,” Vincent commented. “And Angelica, you should know that blood is not just nutrition, it is power. Her spirit did remain with me: in my very veins for eternity, giving me her power.”
Angelica felt sick. “Power is not more important than love!”
He shook his head, still laughing. “That’s what you say now. You’ll learn.”
“Yes, she will.”
Danny and Angelica turned toward the new voice and saw Leander ascending the stairs from the level below. If Vincent looked like a punching bag, Leander looked like a fashion model with his perfect brown hair, wide smile, and well-cut outfit that could have come from the pages of GQ.
“I was wondering how long it would take until you decided on a journey down here of your own accord,” Leander continued. “I do apologize if Vincent bothered you.” He snapped his fingers and Vincent let out a scream that made Angelica’s preternaturally sensitive ears ache. The vampire passed out in his cage. “Now, shall we go somewhere more comfortable? I believe you were headed to my quarters anyway?”
“How am I to know you won’t just try and shove us in the Pit?” Angelica asked.
“Because I require something from you...and to get you to comply, I would assume treating your little pet right would help me in that regard. Now, come.”
She scoffed. “You didn’t treat me right when you took me from Hollywood.”
Leander smirked. “I assumed you would respond to violence, since violence is your usual method of communication with us. I was incorrect, and now I am trying a more civilized manner. If that does not work, believe me, I have a plan C, D, and all the way to fucking Z, Cross.”
What on Earth does he want from me so badly? she wondered. Gesturing to Danny, they followed Leander down the stairs, and blood-sweat prickled on her skin. The lower they got, the hotter it got, and vampires cannot handle heat.
“We can bypass the Pi
t, since I am sure Mancini’s mortal mind could never recover from what he would see there,” Leander said.
“How fucking kind,” Danny muttered loud enough for Angelica to hear.
Like magic, the staircase did not stop on the third level— where shrieks of torture and sadistic laughter could be heard above a roaring fire, something liquid sizzling, and the sound of crunching bones —but continued down to the bottom level of Hell.
The stairs ended, and the two of them followed Leander down a long corridor with ornately carved doors lining both sides. Each had either a name or a number on it. This was the hottest level yet, and the quietest. No souls being held captive or tortured, nothing but their footsteps echoing back off the vaulted ceiling. One of three doors at the end of the corridor bore the words: “Leander Price: March 25th, 1832.”
Leander muttered a spell to open the door and then waited for the two of them to walk in ahead of him. “Enter.”
Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly, Angelica thought as she cautiously stepped inside...an old English sitting room. That was certainly not what she had been expecting. The proportions of the room were skewed compared with the distance between the doors, but she assumed that spatial analysis could go fuck itself down here in Hell. His quarters could be the size of Montana if he so desired.
“I grew very fond of my home when I was in London, and fashioned my new residence similarly,” Leander said.
“I am not here to discuss decor,” Angelica commented. “What do you want with me? What is so big that you discussed it with Vincent of all people?”
Leander lit a cigarette and sat down in a plush brown leather chair behind a mahogany desk. “Right to the point, eh? Very well. Tell me, what do you know about your lineage?”
“Nothing that you don’t already know,” she replied. “My mother’s line descended from the ancient Romans, one of the most powerful. Killing the heirs— her and I —would weaken every other vampire on Earth.”