Bitter Aries (The Zodiac Book 1)

by Paul Sating

  The design he pointed at was a swirl of blue hues, some light enough to appear a faded white, others such a deep blue as to look black at first glance. In the center of the blue swirls was a red circle. There was nothing diverse about it, just a big red spot, plopped down in the middle of a beautiful blue mosaic.

  "That?" I asked, pointing at the circle.

  The guard's eyes rolled at the question. An eye roll!

  "Yes, dumbass."

  The three of us did as told, my blood warmer than it had been seconds before, once again, being talked to like I was a stray devildog.

  Standing in the center, I looked around Lucifer's headquarters. A building of glory and importance, lingering doubts of my worthiness came on in a wave. I couldn't do what the Council thought I could. They promised a meeting before we were loosed on the human world, but unless that meeting imbued me with the power of Hell, I was doomed to fail. That, I was sure of as I watched the demons go about their routines like what was happening in the middle of the floor was not significant. Now that we were standing in the open, awkward as a nightmare about being in class and suddenly realizing you did not have any clothes on, the pair of guards looked disinterested. We must have looked like idiots, standing around while everyone else moved with a purpose. Part of me thought this might be some poor practical joke, a way to shame the Segregate for being a reject. Only Bilba and Ralrek's presence convinced me otherwise.

  Then things changed.

  Flames of blue licked the air. I instinctively jumped back; Bilba and Ralrek reacted similarly but slower.

  "Don't move, dumbass, unless you want to lose an arm," the eloquent guard said.

  His partner, his arms crossed, growled.

  I think he was trying to laugh.

  The flames spread vertically, rippling out as if they were fingers appearing from another dimension, gripping hold of the Underworld so it could peel it open and peek in from the other side. The crackle of the flames never grew in volume as they did. Impossibly, the wall of fire bent inward on itself all around us, extending toward the middle, forming a dome.

  "Wha—" Bilba started.

  Once enclosed, the wall spread, forming a hole in the firewall and exposing what was on the other side.

  Lucifer's headquarters was no longer there. Instead, I was looking into a dull, gray void. There was a hint of shapes on the other side, but they were featureless. Even the outlines of the shapes made it impossible to discern what I was looking at.

  Panic cut my breath short.

  "Step inside," the guard ordered from somewhere on the other side of the firewall.

  The three of us measured one another, seeing who would be the one to test fate.

  "Go ahead, Zeke," Ralrek smirked, making a horizontal circular motion with his finger. "You're the chosen one, aren't you? Shouldn't it be you who has the honors?"

  I could have been snarky, insulted him, or corrected his use of my nickname. But I didn't get a chance. The blue flames licked the air, popping and crackling. The encircled void pulsed, ebbing toward and away from clarity as if teasing the reveal of what waited on the other side.

  Before I swallowed my apprehension or covered it with a personal attack on the tall twit with gorgeous hair, the guard barked, "Move now!"

  I took a deep breath and stepped into the void … with my eyes closed, but, please, that's our secret, okay?

  In a burst of white light, everything hushed and the world, the entire universe, whirled and dipped. In an instant, nausea swelled my stomach. I stumbled, reaching out to support myself on any surface available, knowing nothing was. Falling. Surrounded by nothingness, I should have been falling, but yet I wasn't. No rushing air, no stomach churning drop. Just. Nothing.

  And then, the void vanished, the blinding light evaporating with the zipping sound as my feet found the firm floor.

  When I opened my eyes, the world was gray and muted, distorted to the point of ambiguity. The dullness allowed my vision to clear and take in everything. I elbowed Bilba because he still held his eyes closed; I left Ralrek alone.

  "Where are we?" Bilba asked as he blinked.

  Though I had never been inside one, it now appeared we were standing inside a bubble of some sort. On the other side of the gossamer barrier, the world was distorted to the point of indistinguishability. The bubble surrounded us, from foot to head, and three hundred and sixty degrees. We were completely enclosed in its shell.

  Out there, on the other side, things moved. Distorted rectangles moved horizontally atop of equally distorted circles. The top of the bubble brightened from a light cast from above. I reached my hand up, coming short of reaching the top of the bubble but still feeling the heat.

  "I—I don't know." The words caught in my throat. The Council had promised a meeting before this kicked off, and we had just been in Lucifer's headquarters, I assumed. Why did the guards not take us to one of the hundreds of meeting rooms that building must have contained? Unless that was where we were now? Some secret cell for the important mission we were being sent on, possibly?

  Ralrek looked around, his face twisted. An aberrant experience, it was strange seeing him so unsettled. Usually the cool and collected personality, maybe he was actually a living, breathing spawn of Lucifer instead of a caricature of a mule's ass. Who would have guessed?

  "Is this a test or something?" Bilba's voice shook.

  "No idea," I said, slowly turning. Even though the bubble was wide enough for the three of us to lay head-to-foot in, it provided no way out, making it claustrophobic.

  The bubble space was eerily silent. Even though things moved on the other side, none of the sound of that activity penetrated our small protective realm.

  "I can't make out anything," Ralrek said, peering closer but not touching the barrier.

  If this was a test, maybe doing something would disqualify me from the Council's consideration. If so, I could go back home and pretend none of this ever happened and become the insignificant Segregate again. Was that what I wanted?

  What if it was not a test? Besides the broken promise to meet with us one more time, the Council had said nothing about what would happen once we left for the Overworld. In complete ambiguity, how long were we to stand here waiting for something to happen?

  Either way, I couldn't stay inside this bubble for much longer. The walls felt like they were creeping in and Bilba was ripe from his exertions trying to keep up with the guard. And Ralrek. I was trapped with Ralrek.

  Properly motivated, I reached out for the cloudy barrier. Before my fingers touched it, though, a voice spoke from behind, stopping me.

  "I wouldn't do that." It was a deep, recognizable voice.

  I turned to face Beelzebub, filling nearly half the space behind us with his girth. He crossed his arms, making his pectorals swell even further.

  Bilba's mouth opened, but he didn't croak a single noise. Ralrek's eyes flashed with something. Excitement?

  I acted, needing to get out of this blessed bubble. "Are we—"

  Beelzebub grunted, giving me a slow nod. "Welcome to the Overworld."

  9 - Seattle

  Bilba slapped my arm. "Did you hear that? The Overworld!"

  His excitement was so infectious I found myself sharing it, even if it was a tight laugh. "I did; I was standing right here." Shared excitement would not rob me of a chance to be a smartass.

  Beelzebub pointed at the barrier. "You won't want to touch that, even when you're ready to cross over. And, before you get any ideas of taking the initiative, none of you have the power to set it off. In fact, all three of you combined couldn't ripple it."

  "Who are you?" Ralrek asked tepidly, looking less confident than I had ever seen him.

  "You know me as Beelzebub." The big man gestured with as wide of a swing of his arms as he could in the constrained space. "I'm facilitating this trip. At least for now. Once you're initiated, you will navigate on your own. But it's appropriate to give you a warm start, though I prefer to look at it as
me helping you avoid blowing everything to smithereens as soon as you step foot in the mortal realm."

  "This is it? The Overworld?" I asked in the stunned silence that fell after Beelzebub's introduction. After a hundred years of watching mortal movies and a few hundred reading their books, this was it; I was a single bubble barrier away from being in their world. Apprehension mixed with excitement—I was really becoming a mess.

  Beelzebub's eyebrows scrunched together. "It is, boys." His deep voice shook the bubble.

  Rectangular shapes rose into the surrounding air. Buildings. High rises and skyscrapers, the mortals called them. The moving rectangles were what they called cars and trucks. It was all coming together now. I squinted as if doing so would help me see through the barrier at my first mortal. Thin shapes moved alongside the buildings and only the bubble stopped me from clearly seeing them. I looked up at the thing I dreaded about this trip more than any other aspect of life here.

  The open sky.

  All of that ... emptiness above me and physics major I was not, I refused to entertain the science behind how we didn't just float off into it. Gravity was a great theory when you had the planet's bedrock above you in the Underworld, but the open sky here reminded me just how vulnerable to other forces I was. It was the last thing I needed to be reminded of.

  Bilba's eyes danced between Beelzebub and the bubble. "Is it?" He took a deep breath and continued, "Is it dangerous for us out there like the lessons say? Probably why we're in here, right? I remember reading Paskull's Passage back in, oh, I don't know, our three hundred eightieth year history course. In it, he discusses the first exploration and how, without the protective shell, those ancient demons stepped right into—"

  "Enough." Beelzebub raised a hand and touched his middle finger to his thumb. "With a snap, this protective shell disappears and the three of you will be immersed in the Overworld. Right now, you're still under the Council's protection. You won't be once you leave this, with one exception, which I'll get to. The mortals aren't even aware we're here. But we'll get to that too. First, I'd warn you to not be in such a hurry to join them. I find their kind to be a toxic little species. Before you leave this shell, we have some things to discuss."

  "Our mission?" Ralrek said.

  "Exactly," Beelzebub said. "You must be very careful about what you discuss and where you discuss it. We've put a ward around your sanctuary, the human apartment you'll be staying in, and that's where you will do all of your mission-related work, except being out in the world and finding this annoying runaway. Never," the word rumbled in his chest, "ever discuss your work around humans. As pitiful as they are, some of them can be highly intelligent and the last thing we want is them aware of our operations in their world."

  "They won't be able to tell what we are?" I asked. Bilba was already shaking his head.

  "How? You look just like them," Beelzebub said. "But if the three of you act like idiots or start your competitive one-upmanship garbage here, as you do back in the Fifth, you will give yourselves away." His nostrils flared. "Don't look so shocked, the Council has eyes everywhere and we're more than aware of your tendencies to let testosterone cloud your minds. Not here, boys. You're representing us. You're representing Lucifer. Conduct yourselves as such."

  I closed my dropped jaw. "We wouldn't." I didn't want to sound defiant toward the intimidating presence filling the bubble, but I also didn't know if he understood how much I wanted to complete this mission and make up for a lifetime of embarrassment for my parents. I wouldn't allow the playful competition I had with Bilba—or the antagonistic one I had with Ralrek—to humiliate my parents further. Their prideful expressions as I left were still fresh in my mind.

  They'd suffered enough.

  If there would be an issue, Ralrek, not me, would instigate it. Ralrek was the one who treated everyone like bat dung, the one who always got his way while acting like demons should be thrilled he recognized them as living, breathing spawn of Lucifer. No, I would not stoop to his level.

  "Time will tell," Beelzebub said. "Until that point, we'll be keeping a close eye on every movement and word. There won't be an unobserved moment for you lot."

  "Everything?" Bilba asked, his eyes wide. "Even when we're—"

  The answer came in a single word. "Everything."

  "Oh," Bilba said, looking at his feet. His gulp was audible.

  Ignoring it, I focused on the major demon's answer. It was too immediate, too firm. Call me a skeptic, but it felt like Beelzebub was trying to convince us. In the Fifth Circle, we had anonymity provided by numbers. There are too many of us, spread across the nine Circles, for the Council to watch. But we were isolated in the realm of mortals, on a secret mission. Surely, if there ever was a time to watch us, it would be now. We wouldn't have a second of freedom. But could the Council watch everything, or was this a ploy to manipulate us into self-policing?

  "Is this Seattle, then? Where Aries is?"

  Beelzebub's nostrils flared once more. His expression darkened as he scowled. "The answer to both questions is, yes. Seattle is the last known location of Aries."

  I scratched my head. If the Council could watch everything we did here, why didn't they know where Aries was and retrieve him themselves? Unless they thought that work below their high order? But if it was, then why was it so important to send three novices to the Overworld, where we could screw up more than a few thousand years of Hell's work? I needed more than they were giving me.

  "Wouldn't you know exactly where he is?" I asked.

  Beelzebub's massive shoulders rose and fell with a frustrated sigh that made him appear as if he were in the gym, doing shoulder shrugs. "Aries is a powerful demon. He's virtually timeless, as the first of his name. As such, his powers are equal to those of us serving on the Third Council. Maybe even greater."

  His voice tight, the Council member said that last part like it was a reluctant admission.

  "He's the last one, right? The last first of his name?" Bilba asked.

  "Yes," Beelzebub continued, "As with all the past first of their names, Lucifer imbued them with a wonderful and unfortunate gift that makes him ... difficult for the Council to deal with."

  "A gift?" I couldn't imagine what Aries had that made him difficult for five Council members.

  Beelzebub's face twisted, and he clenched his hand. "Aries has Sensory magic."

  Bilba gasped, but Ralrek and I did not react.

  "It's a special Ability," Bilba answered in a rushed cadence. "Only the first of their names and Lucifer wield that magic."

  A partial answer, at best.

  Beelzebub's chest rumbled in a low growl before he spoke. "Sensory Abilities allow the user to tap into all Abilities and they affect demons and mortals alike. Some angels can be affected by Sensory spells too."

  I whistled.

  "A demon with that kind of magic loose in the Overworld could be catastrophic," Ralrek said.

  I held my groan. Ralrek was the type that kept up on current events, not because they interested him, but because he could wiggle his way into conversations with demons with more influence than he had. Over the past half a millennia, I cannot tell you how often I had seen him do that at parties. It was gross.

  Still, Beelzebub nodded. "And it is what he uses to avoid our detection. Six months!" His sudden roar shook the bubble. "We have wasted so many resources in that time trying to track him down. Right now, we have a dozen scouts and negotiators wasting away in this forsaken place. Instead of keeping tabs on those blessed angels, we have to allocate them to this angel spawn. It's not like the three of you are a threat to him, but we don't need you to defeat him, just to find him. And this nightmare can be over." Beelzebub paused, his eyes traveling across the three of us. We, smartly, remained quiet. It was eerie and surreal. We were standing in the middle of a protective bubble, shielding us from a foreign realm only feet away, discussing the developments surrounding a first of his name with one of the Founders.

  The barrier b
locked all outside noise. In the silence between the four of us, the mystery only fed my nervousness, enhanced by Beelzebub's perspective.

  Beelzebub sniffed. "But that's not for you or your lot to fix. Yes, Sensory magic is a powerful gift, and Aries uses it to his benefit."

  "So, the Council is blind to him?"

  He stepped forward and for a second I thought he would crush me with the twitch of his lips. Instead, he bent until he was eye level. He muttered something, and with a wave of a hand, all sound evaporated. The bubble was so quiet I heard my heart beat. The exposed skin on my arms and neck felt like a film of slime had been brushed on it. I shivered.

  "A listening ward," Beelzebub said, watching me. "Heavens, I'm the Prince of Demons! It's my discretion what the rest of the Council hears."

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. Exclusive access was on the plate. A Founder, giving us special insight. What a weird day!

  "There's politics at play here, boys," Beelzebub said. "None of it is anything you need to worry about, but you need to be as informed as possible because everyone is depending on you to succeed. Aries is a rogue and he could undo a delicate balance, accidentally or on purpose. Matters not; both result in the same troubling outcome. But, you are the key to stopping that." He looked me directly in my eyes. "For too long, there's been infighting amongst Founders. Aries used that advantage to slip away. Once he got to the Overworld, he used his Ability to block all of our access to him. All access. Even blocked Lucifer and Yahweh. This is serious, boys. Without being able to sense him, we need to rely on information from our operatives. The two gods reached an accord, but it is brittle and we're running out of time. It has become extremely dangerous."

  We were at a crucial point in understanding what the Underworld's leaders had thrust us into. I should have kept my mouth shut. But that was asking the impossible. "Why?"

  Beelzebub's wide nostrils flared. "His presence in the mortal realm is unapproved. That means Lucifer didn't give his blessing, so Yahweh didn't get a say in the matter either. Two pissed off gods." Beelzebub shook his head, looking, for the briefest of seconds, defeated.