by Dante King
“The Castle of Days is shaping itself around you,” Poppy shouted, pulling me backward with all her might. Her wings flapped madly, her fingers tightening in my robes, but she had neither the strength nor the leverage to get me out of the Castle’s trap. “I’ve never seen it myself, but I’ve heard this can happen when someone really powerful steps into the prison. Someone special!”
“And you didn’t warn me?” I yelled. I’d only been called ‘special’ or ‘different’ about a billion times by now along my journey. If there was any being in all the Realms who’d set off this particular trap, it’d be me.
Just then my fingers slipped. One of Poppy’s hands came free, the other no longer strong enough to hold me against the Humvee.
“Shit, hang on!” The pixie crawled toward the door, intent on using its leverage to pull me out. “No, no no...not when I just finally met a guy I get along with and knows how to lay the pipe! Don’t do this to me, universe!”
“To you?” I asked—but my cry was swallowed up. There was a horrible wrenching sensation as Poppy’s grip slipped, and I sank right into the carpet and through the floor. For a moment, the world was upside down. That’s right, I thought, in one of the Castlevanias the castle did that right when you thought you’d beaten it. You still had a little bit more to go…
And before I could fully process what I was seeing, I’d sunk into a world of fog and darkness.
It felt like I’d fallen through the surface of the Earth. Like I’d gone out of bounds in a video game, and could see upward from the infinite void beneath the game’s world. A tap against nothing revealed a solid path beneath my heels, but nothing lay beneath me but shadows. And fog.
A figure stepped into the path before me, then another. Two more added to those, then doubled again and again—until I faced an entire squadron of identical, worried-looking men. Each of whom had my face.
I stared at a field of Lukes, each of whom wore the same expression of bemused concern that I did. The fog rolled in, hiding the castle vestibule above my head. From somewhere far above me, I could hear Poppy crying out—but her voice already sounded muffled, as if it came from the bottom of a well.
The Castle of Days had me now.
I took a step—and all of the Lukes took a step right along with me. Some of them moved at angles opposite to my own, while others moved in lockstep with my own choice. I blinked several times, the picture snapping into focus—then laughed.
“This is your prison, asshole?” I asked, watching the phrase get repeated through a field of Luke Bells. “I’ve been in a Hall of Mirrors before. It’s not even scary!”
Though I didn’t tell whatever force animated the Castle of Days that there had been a time when such an environment scared me. As a kid, I’d been to the Hall of Mirrors at the County Fair and thought it was a great time, bumping into my own reflections and the reflections of my parents, with the exit and the entrance flipping from glass to glass with every move through the labyrinth.
Then, somewhere, I’d made a wrong turn. The entrance and exit had disappeared, then the reflections of my Mom and Dad, until only an endless hall of little Lukes remained. I could still hear myself, and hear the laughter of my parents and the other customers at the Fair making their way through the maze. I could hear them, but couldn’t see them—and that had scared the hell out of me.
The same fear I’d felt when coming face to face with a nightmare inside of the Infernal Academy. It welled up inside me for an instant at the sight of my childhood fear—then I banished it.
I know how to do this, I told myself, a faint smile curling at the corner of my mouth. At odd angles throughout the smoky chamber, the other Lukes did the same. Just look at your feet, Luke. That’s the trick.
The people who built a Hall of Mirrors intended for you to get overwhelmed; to become disoriented at the sight of dozens of your own reflections staring back at you. Taking steps in random directions inevitably led to bumping into yourself—which was why, to discern the real turns from the fake ones, all you had to do was keep your eyes on the ground.
It wasn’t easy. Unlike a real Hall, nothing lay beneath my feet but darkness and mist—no pattern, no easy way to feel the edges of the maze out. But I still managed to make progress. Step by step, turn by turn, I traced the outer edges of the labyrinth. Lukes moved in perfect synchrony with me, disappearing and reappearing with every turn as I sought out an exit to the maze. There had to be one—
I froze. One of the Lukes wasn’t moving.
“Abaddon,” it said, disappearing in a puff of smoke.
I stood there for a long time, tensed up and waiting for an attack. When none came, I turned and moved down the next hall—only for another Luke to step out of its proper place and rush at me.
“Unum Infernum!” the phantom Luke howled, flashing a toothy grin. Fangs protruded from the corners of its mouth, giving the whole thing a ghoulish kind of humor.
“Step back, asshole!” I yelled, reaching for the fire within. A tentacle erupted from my shoulder and shot at the fake Luke, only to slam into a cold, unyielding pane of glass.
Behind it, the fake Luke cackled, then disappeared as quickly as the first one.
I know those words, I thought as I continued to navigate the maze. The Lukes were weird, sure, but they didn’t seem to mean me any harm. They hadn’t attacked—which maybe meant something. Where had I heard those damn words before?
Way back at the beginning of all of this. The night I met Lucifer.
As if in response to my thought, the path sloped sharply downward. I nearly lost my balance as a set of stairs emerged from the mirrored hallway, angling slightly to the left as they wormed their way lower. I followed them downward, descending even deeper into the Castle of Days as dozens of Lukes did the same in my peripheral vision.
The further I went down the stairs, the more the atmosphere began to change. Now it no longer felt like I’d clipped through the boundaries of a video game—it was more like I’d entered a whole new level. I let out a laugh as I realized where I was heading. The scene at the bottom of the staircase was intimately familiar to me; I’d been there dozens of times before.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I stood at the entrance to the Infernal Academy. The big wrought-iron gate stood open just beyond the fountain, with flames dancing in the midnight black sky. It almost looked as if I’d come back home to the Academy, but when I turned around, the staircase stretched upward into the fog.
The truth was clear. This wasn’t home—it was another one of the Castle’s visions. Its tricks. So what was it going to yell at me this time?
I made my way across the parking circle, cutting close to the front gate. Whatever lesson this place wanted to teach me, or nasty trap it wanted to spring, I wanted to get it over with and find Oni as soon as possible. I had no time to waste with games.
To my surprise, Godfrey waited at the front gate. Not the new Humvee I’d taken with me into the Fae Realm, but the hot rod that had driven me to the Infernal Realm to begin with. I remembered driving the Highway to Hell with Christina and Mareth and grinned.
A small crowd had gathered around the trunk of the car. “Hey—wait a minute,” I said, picking up the pace. “I remember this! This is when Maddie snuck into the Academy with us—”
Indeed it was. The parking attendant stood next to Godfrey in her uniform, tapping on the hood. Everything about the scene was the same as it had been when I’d first arrived at the Infernal Academy, with one exception: there was no Luke. Christina and Mareth stood by, with the crowd of demons about to go feral as soon as the trunk opened crowding around the front gate. But I was nowhere to be seen.
Or was I supposed to be me?
No one opened the trunk. A banging noise came steadily from the inside, along with the faint cries of Maddie, muffled by the carpeted interior. The demons kept standing around like actors waiting for their cue to start their performance.
“Uh, hello?” I waved my hands. “Wha
t the hell is this—”
One demon’s head turned. It was the rusalka, Xora, who’d given me my initial tour of the Infernal Academy. Once I thought she might join my harem, but after the incident with Karl, I figured that might be a bad idea. Looking at her slender form and gorgeous face, I regretted that decision for a moment.
“Maleficarum,” Xora said. Long, needle-like fangs filled her demonic mouth.
She charged.
Xora jumped right over the trunk of the car, prompting whoever was inside to attack the metal with renewed vigor. While everyone else stood around, barely noticing anything strange was happening, the rusalka extended six-inch long claws from her fingers and went on the offensive.
The attack was so sudden and unexpected that she nearly clipped my throat. Only quick thinking saved me. I dashed to the side, rolling across the concrete as her claws whistled through the space where my face had been only a moment ago.
This isn’t the real Xora, I told myself, rising to my feet. It’s just something Titania uses to keep the prisoners in here occupied!
It sure as shit looked like Xora, though. Which made killing her harder.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I told the rusalka, lifting my hands. Even as I did, though, I summoned my wings and tentacles. I knew where this was going to go.
“I want to hurt you,” the fake Xora said, as casually as if we’d been discussing the weather. The rusalka lowered her head and charged forward, slashing left then right in massive slashes.
I backed up again and again. Each time the claws came close enough that I could feel the wind of their passing. The real Xora had been more than a little into me, but this one held nothing but hate in her heart for Luke Bell.
“I’m not kidding. Don’t make me do this,” I grunted. Now Xora and I moved in a circle, constrained by the group of demons clustering in around us. Sensing victory, the rusalka grew bolder, throwing herself into the attack with reckless abandon.
“Die,” the fake Xora babbled, grinning the too-wide grin that had nearly slashed Maddie’s sanity in two. “Die!”
I sighed. “Have it your way.”
The fake Xora’s next strike was an overhand slash. I chuckled to myself as she put all her weight into the blow, aiming for my chest like the bulls-eye to an arrow. As she swung, my hand caught her wrist, freezing it in mid-air.
“You’re not a threat to me any more,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “You’re too slow. Too weak.”
Fire erupted from between my fingers. Xora screamed as tongues of flame worked their way up her arm, consuming whatever they touched.
Still the onlookers did nothing. Maddie—or whatever stood for Maddie in this crazy play the Castle of Days was putting on for me—continued beating at the inside of the trunk, demanding to be set free.
Within a minute, Xora lay curled up in a smouldering ball, dead as a doornail.
I couldn’t help but feel that I’d hurt the real Xora by doing this. I resolved to see her as soon as I returned to the Infernal Academy, and maybe give the thought of adding to my harem a second look over. She was a cute girl, after all, except for when she was consumed by flames.
As Xora died, something clicked over my head. The Infernal Academy dissolved, and I stood on a bare gray stage. Around me stood white walls of the sort found in a warehouse or a distribution center, with harsh fluorescent lights set into the ceiling.
Only the car remained, with the steady thumping coming from inside the trunk. That hadn’t faded.
“This is the real prison,” I said, shaking my head. The atmosphere was undeniable—this place felt institutional and sterile, the sort of place a wicked ruler would toss their unruly dissidents or threats to the throne. “I guess that other thing was just a light show?”
Yet it had been more than that. I felt something in my head—some knowledge that I’d gained from completing whatever test or trial had just been thrown at me here. Whatever the Castle of Days was, it wasn’t entirely against me—or perhaps it was trying to test me.
“Infernal Realm,” I said, looking down at the flame smouldering in my fingers. “Celestial Realm. Fae Realm.”
Lucifer had told me I had to pass three trials to succeed. To become the Lord of Hell.
What if that was the first?
There was only one obvious thing left to do in this room. The pounding from inside the trunk considered unabated—poor Maddie must have been in a lather by now. She clearly thought everyone had abandoned her.
“Give me a second,” I said, coming around to the trunk. The car looked stranger than ever inside that empty, prison-like warehouse. “You okay in there, Maddie? Sorry to have scared you.”
I knew there was no chance Maddie was inside the trunk. But I wasn’t ready for what I saw inside.
Just beneath the trunk’s hood lay a ladder, stretching down into the darkness.
“Fucking great,” I muttered, looking around the room like I was waiting for the hidden camera crew to come out laughing. “You want me to go down this thing? Huh, Titania? Is this all some kind of test? What the fuck is this?”
“It’s your trial, Luke. Your final exam, as it were. Are you ready, my boy?”
I whirled around on a heel. Standing in the middle of the warehouse, leaning heavily on an obsidian cane, was the man himself.
Lucifer. The Prince of Darkness.
Chapter 14
“Lucifer?” I took a hesitant step forward, holding out my hands. “Is that really you?”
If it was, I didn’t want to lay hands on the Prince of Darkness without asking. Yet touching him seemed the only way to tell whether he truly stood before me, or whether he was another one of the Castle of Day’s illusions.
The Devil tossed back his head and laughed, his midnight-black hair spilling over the sharp collar of his suit.
“It’s me, my boy. The Castle of Days isn’t capable of creating an illusion quite this detailed. You saw that with your little trip down memory lane—only Xora was able to move and act like an actual person.” The Prince of Darkness scoffed. “Prisons. They never get extravagant funding.”
With a snap of his fingers, Satan dispelled the illusion.
We were actually standing in a mossy field, not far from where Poppy had performed the ritual to open a path to the Castle of Days.
Godfrey’s Humvee form stood just over the ridge, with Poppy standing next to it with a shocked look on her face.
Neither of them moved.
“Uh, Lucifer?” I asked, glancing back at the Prince of Darkness. “What exactly did you just do? Why aren’t either of them looking for me?”
“Because this is the very moment you were pulled into the Castle proper,” Lucifer said with a shrug. “I took you back out where you came in—both physically and in time. The Castle of Days bends time as well as space, young man. When you return to Persephonia and your vehicle, only a few seconds will have passed for them in the Fae Realm.” Lucifer leered at the tiny, upset pixie, chuckling. “Nice choice, by the way. I never thought to add a member of one of the fairy races to my own harem…”
I didn’t really want to think about that. “I need to find Oni,” I said, shaking my head. “Which means I have to go back inside the Castle. Otherwise the Day of Judgement is going to happen!”
Lucifer gave me a weary smile. His eyes were as piercing and youthful as ever, but the Lord of Darkness’s body looked frailer and more worn than ever before.
Whatever end his enemies were praying for the Lord of Hell to go through, he looked to be on its doorstep.
“The Day of Judgement will happen whether you like it or not, young man,” Lucifer said, shaking his head with a smile. “I have to tell you, I’m very proud of you. I knew when I first laid eyes on you that you were the one—the pupil who would succeed me on the throne of Hell. But even I wasn’t aware of your greatest secret until just now! The Castle of Days has revelations for both of us, so it seems.”
“My… secret?” I asked. I couldn’t
fathom what Lucifer meant by that. “I don’t have any secrets.”
“Oh, I assure you, you do,” Lucifer said with a grin. “You’re very close now, Luke. You have but one scene left to witness, then you’ll reach the end of the Castle of Days and your true objective. But before you do, I wanted to make sure you’re ready for it.”
“Ready for it how?” I asked, glancing around the mossy field.
Now that I stood here, I wondered how I could have ever been frightened of confusing the Castle’s illusions with the real thing. They were nothing but backdrops, put there by whatever force governed the place. Their purpose was still a mystery to me, but with Lucifer’s help, perhaps not for long.
“What do you want from me?” I asked him.
Lucifer pursed his lips, giving me the sort of imperious look that brought kings and emperors to heel. “Are you prepared to become the Lord of Hell?”
I thought about it—for about two seconds. “Yes.”
Lucifer nodded as if he’d expected this. “You made that decision the very night you met me, though you knew it not at the time. But soon, the moment will come where you will have the opportunity to make that decision a second time. It is then that you must choose, Luke.”
Wait, what? What was I going to get to choose?
“You’re saying I have a chance to take it all back?” I asked, dumbfounded.
Lucifer nodded. Suddenly he looked not just aged, but ancient—older than the stones.
“It’s not a decision you should take lightly,” the Prince of Darkness said in the most kindly voice I’d ever heard from him. “There are not many among the damned who get a second opportunity at redemption. At a normal life.”
I looked at Lucifer for a moment that stretched on forever, staring into the eyes of the angel who’d fallen from Heaven.
I laughed, loud and long, shocking the Devil into silence.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” I wiped tears from my eyes, doubling over with laughter. “Go back to being some schlub? Give up Christina, and Mareth, and Maddie, and all my other hookups? All my power!? Look, I know you’re the Devil, so you probably know a lot better than I do about the whole ‘temptation’ thing. But you’re barking up the wrong tree here, pal. This is exactly—ex-fucking-xactly—what I want!”