Hell Bent

by Cate Corvin

  He sat inside it easily, watching the scene in the hall with something close to boredom. Vyra kept giving him sidelong looks, nodding her head ever so slightly at Lucifer and silently asking the archangel to do something.

  Michael just smiled, remaining where he was.

  Ereshkigal stood up, descending the stairs with slow, deliberate steps. No matter what Lucifer said, when she was in her younger form, she was almost painfully beautiful: a painting done in shades of black and white and slashed with red.

  Her dark gaze caught me, and she smiled. The Queen held out a hand to one of her guards.

  The Irkallan unsheathed an ebonite dagger and placed it reverently in her palm before backing away.

  “Open his mouth,” she ordered.

  The demons restraining Lucifer shuffled around him, making room for the guard to step in and pry Lucifer’s mouth open.

  He reached in with sharp talons and gripped my mate’s tongue, pulling it out. The muscles in Lucifer’s neck stood out in cords as he resisted them, but… he wasn’t resisting hard enough.

  I knew Lucifer well enough to know this was only the slightest fraction of what he was capable of. Why didn’t he push back?

  Ereshkigal flipped the bone-handled dagger between her fingers, glaring down at him. “If you can’t use your tongue for something worthwhile, what use do you have for it at all?”

  Everyone in the room froze as Lucifer started laughing. Ereshkigal’s lips drew back over her teeth.

  He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t, with that claw piercing his tongue.

  But his golden skin started to shimmer, then glow. The soft light grew in intensity until even Ereshkigal turned her face away, holding up her hand to shield her eyes.

  Arcs of light snapped out of him, scorching the flesh of the Irkallans holding him down. I squinted, refusing to turn away even though tears had filled my eyes from the brightness.

  But some of the Irkallans fell away, clasping hands to the burns on their bodies. A low hum filled the air, shivering straight into my bones as something approached, like this moment in time was a bubble waiting to pop.

  “Burn her, Lucifer,” I whispered, peering behind my fingers. I was going to go blind if I looked at him for too long. “Burn her!”

  But Lucifer jerked his head away from the guard’s hand, the claw ripping right through his tongue.

  “HERE, TASCIUS! HERE!” he shouted, his light so blinding it was like the sun had risen right in the depths of Kur.

  My heart clenched in my chest. He was pushing out all of his power, giving Tascius a beacon to follow.

  Ereshkigal whipped towards him, my feathers illuminated to a brilliant violet all over her body. Her mouth opened, showing… no teeth at all.

  There was nothing but that endless swirling void behind her lips, darkness creeping from behind them in thin tendrils, reaching for yet another one of my men.

  She leaned forward to gulp Lucifer into the depths, but he glared up at her, blood running over his chin in a river, with an evil grin on his face.

  The shriek of shattering rock and stone tore through Kur, echoing all the way down into the abyss. Chunks of ebonite and stone fell from the ceiling to the arena floor and splashed in the river below. Ereshkigal whirled around, her mouth still gaping.

  A comet plunged into the city, burning with gold and silver fire. It hit the arena with a crack.

  It wasn’t a comet of stone, but flesh and blood. Flesh that was burned black, white bones showing through the remaining skin… and white feathers that shimmered with cinders.

  Tascius.

  He held the Spear of Light, even though it was burning him alive. The golden spear was alive and wrathful with flames, but I felt it call to me.

  Tascius staggered upright, almost reduced to a skeleton by the Spear’s inner fire. Agony suddenly screamed through my mate bond, and I stumbled, reaching out for him from an insurmountable distance.

  He threw the Spear to me and fell to his knees, almost completely consumed by its flames.

  I watched with horror as the Spear arced towards the balcony.

  If I had wings, I could’ve caught it.

  But he was half ashes, and I was too far away, too slow.

  The Spear fell short, plummeting downwards into the river of souls.

  I didn’t give a damn about the Spear. All I felt was the pain in Tascius’s bond, the torment he must’ve kept shielded from me the entire time.

  I couldn’t walk with the feeling of flames around me, even though I was unharmed. I half-walked, half-stumbled towards the balcony edge, searching desperately for the gangway to reach him.

  He couldn’t die. I wouldn’t allow it.

  “Tascius,” I breathed, sucking in a breath as fresh pain sliced through me.

  He lay face down on the arena floor, drawing in harsh, crackling breaths. How had he managed to bring it all the way from the mountains where I’d left it? I could make out the tiny ebonite bonds woven into his spine, visible from how much of him the Spear’s fire had eaten away.

  I found the gangway and got on my knees to cross it, holding on with hands and feet. I was far too dizzy from the shared pain to attempt to walk it, but when my hands touched the solid ebonite of the arena pillar, some of the pain had lessened.

  New, pale skin was spreading over his burned husk of a body. White-blond hair began to peek through the new skin of his scalp, and little by little, his face reconstituted itself.

  I’d never been so grateful for the power of the archangels, or that the universe had passed Gabriel’s power on to him. Without it, he would’ve died a thousand times over from this.

  I crawled the remaining few feet between us, taking deep breaths as the pain faded. I wanted to touch all of him, but so much of his body was still ruined and burned… my hands hovered over him as he regenerated, slowly and painfully.

  His breath began to ease a few minutes later, becoming more even. When his lips moved, I had to lean in close to hear him, holding my hair back from falling and touching anywhere that might hurt him.

  “I brought you the Spear,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” I assured him, my throat tight. I couldn’t tell him now, after what he’d gone through to bring it here, that it had fallen into the river. “Yes, I have it.”

  He could be upset later. For now, I was just terrified that the Spear’s fire might have permanently damaged him.

  But he was still healing. My hands were trembling now, desperate to touch him and reassure myself that he would be fine.

  Something suddenly snaked around my waist, tightening until it squeezed the breath out of me. I struggled against the tentacle as Ereshkigal swept onto the pillar, but she picked me up with it, dangling me harmlessly out of the way.

  “You have an entire passel of men willing to die for you,” she sneered at me. “How charming. I’m still not sure what it is about you that inspires heroics before death, but maybe this one will enlighten me.”

  She stepped closer and leaned over, examining Tascius’s healing wounds. The ridges of his vertebrae were still visible, along with the lacy network of ebonite in his bones.

  “In fact… perhaps he will enlighten me on far more than this ridiculous death-wish they all seem to possess.”

  A lump of ice dropped into the pit of my stomach. I could only imagine how much worse the Irkallan guards would be if Ereshkigal had their bodies re-formed by a talented smith, the ebonite itself woven into their bones as indestructible claws and teeth…

  “He won’t enlighten you on anything,” I snapped, trying to wriggle out of the shadow-bonds, but she only gripped me tighter.

  She raised a hand and the darkness crawled over Tascius’s limp form like a living creature, enveloping him in dense shadows. When she clenched her fist, the shadows condensed… and vanished.

  Along with Tascius.

  I screamed wordlessly in her face, clawing at the bonds with my fingernails.

  “Oh, please,” she said to me.
“You’re utterly helpless. There is nothing you can do to me, and I’ve grown tired of your stubbornness. Your man is of far more use to me being studied, and if you want him to live at all, you’ll learn your place.”

  I slowly quit struggling, glaring at her with pure hate.

  “That’s better,” she purred.

  She strode towards the gangway, carrying me after her in midair.

  As we passed over the thin bridge, I looked down at the pale blue flow of the river, the pale bodies of souls drifting through it.

  The Spear’s golden light flared beneath the water, a blurry golden glow that called to me.

  It was so far out of reach. Even if I had my wings, just daring to touch the water and its grasping spirits would be deadly.

  But it was here in Kur, and Tascius had nearly died to bring it to me.

  One way or another, I would get my hands on the Spear again.

  22

  Melisande

  She dropped me bodily on the balcony floor. Pain shrieked through my knees when I hit the ground, and I dropped forward onto my hands.

  “Morningstar.” Ereshkigal paused, looking him over.

  The guards had piled back on him, holding him in place. It took nearly twenty of them to keep him in place, but the ebonite cuff around his neck guaranteed he wouldn’t be able to raise a hand against the Queen, regardless.

  “You’ve disappointed me, as lovely as you are.” She surveyed him with disgust, and opened her mouth to speak again…

  But nothing came out.

  Her dark eyes went blank, staring a thousand yards and seeing nothing.

  The guards holding down Lucifer exchanged surreptitious glances. Lucifer just raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest of her tirade. “I look forward to disappointing you more.” His tongue had healed, but the blood on his face was dripping down to his chest.

  Ereshkigal jerked, her hand rising to her chest and resting there. Her fingers twitched ever so slightly.

  She turned and walked away silently.

  “You can release Lucifer now,” Satan said, his voice smooth as oil.

  I started, having forgotten him completely. He didn’t so much as look at Ereshkigal’s retreating back, even though she was bent oddly to the side as she walked down the corridor.

  The beginning of her end. I sent a burst of hopeful emotion down the bond to Azazel, giving him something to hang onto as he fought his way out of the abyss.

  We would be here, waiting for him.

  Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I felt him reach out to me in response before vanishing again.

  The guards slowly backed off from Lucifer. He rose to his feet, wiping blood off his chin, and cast them a thin-eyed, silvery glance.

  “Get out.” Satan snapped out the order, but Lucifer still looked at his father askance.

  “Let’s not pretend we’re on the same side,” he said. “Whatever your ulterior motive is, you’re full of shit.”

  Belial came up behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “First rule of war, Prince: don’t turn on your enemies until after they’ve been useful to you.”

  I couldn’t remind them that Satan was entirely the enemy, not remotely redeemable, while he was standing right in front of us. He wasn’t even entirely himself.

  It was that weakness we needed to exploit.

  “King Nergal.” I reached out and laid my hand on his arm, holding back a tangible shiver. He might look handsome now, but that faceless creature of black ooze was just below the warm skin I touched, only a few cells away from touching me back. “Thank you.”

  There was a wavering speck of black left in one of his eyes. It was such a tiny mote of darkness it seemed like nothing more than a single cloud smudged across a blue sky.

  It seemed to shrink as I watched, looking up into his face with all the sincerity I could muster.

  Nergal had to be in there, fighting to be the dominant owner of the body. If I just pushed it a little more, made him really believe he was the one… maybe he would make a decent ally.

  “If we’re not pretending anymore, then they must know what I offered,” he said. “I gave you a way out.”

  Lucifer’s silver eyes were a weight on me. He knew what I’d been offered, of course, but…

  “What did he offer, angel?” Belial’s question was posed so innocently, I knew he was only moments from exploding.

  “Nothing I was willing to bargain for.” I raised my chin, refusing to be cowed by Satan’s knowing smirk.

  “If it involves your safety, and Sarai’s, perhaps we should know.” There was the slightest emphasis on Sarai, my weakest point, which he knew perfectly well.

  Satan didn’t seem inclined to make it any easier on me. “Why don’t you tell them?” he asked. “You turned it down, after all. There’s no shame now.”

  I felt everyone’s eyes on me. Belial’s hand tightened on my waist, and even Vyra, half-hidden behind Michael’s cage, gave me a sidelong look.

  “He offered to keep Sarai safe, to kill Ereshkigal, and take me out of Kur,” I finally said. “For the price of remaining with him, which was too high a price to ask of me.”

  Anger flared in the mate mark on my palm. Claws pricked my side as Belial struggled to master the lion within himself for a moment.

  I turned to look up at him. “You can’t tell me you would’ve accepted that offer.”

  “If it meant you wouldn’t have had your wings cut away, and that Sarai would forever be protected…” he started to say, and I took a step back.

  I nearly ran into Satan when I did so. He was the last person I wanted to touch right now. “You can’t mean that. You know what he is.”

  “There are many things I would give up for the sake of knowing you would both survive,” he said darkly.

  “It wouldn’t be surviving if I was bound to him forever.” I didn’t try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Maybe a small, cowardly part of me had wanted to take Satan up on the offer, but the rest of me would never be able to live with it. “It would be servitude for all time.”

  Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes on Belial now. “I’m with her. That’s too heavy a price. If you expect him to keep his word, then you’re more naïve than I ever would’ve believed.”

  “And she could’ve broken her promise just as easily as him once she was out,” Belial growled.

  Satan just watched them with a faint smile. The tension between the two was growing thick enough to cut with a knife.

  “Both of you, stop,” I said, feeling completely worn out. “It doesn’t matter now. He wants us to fight amongst ourselves.”

  All Satan did was run his fingers through Nergal’s black hair, still looking amused. “You don’t do me much credit.”

  No matter how much influence Nergal had over him, I couldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Deep beneath it all, he was still a liar and a fraud. A beast.

  He’d terrorized Vyra, who was in the same room with him now, someone he couldn’t even bother to acknowledge or apologize to. It didn’t matter how many times he’d told me he could change.

  He couldn’t. It was part of the inherent nature he spoke of.

  “I do give you credit,” I said, keeping my true thoughts out of my tone. “Whatever your ulterior motives, you’ve helped me. I’m willing to put aside our feud for as long as this lasts. To a certain extent, I’ll trust your judgment.”

  “But not enough to leave with me,” he pointed out.

  Belial growled. It was a low sound, barely audible, but I felt it in my bones.

  “I won’t leave them—besides, you said it yourself: this could be the beginning of the end. If you’re right… well, this collar won’t mean much soon.”

  I touched the ebonite band around my neck, running my fingers over the sparkling jewels.

  Satan glanced at the collar, then at Belial behind me, hovering protectively. He flicked dust off his shoulder with a shrug. “I have one ulterior motive: to
see her dead. You’re all just playing the game of staying alive long enough to see it happen as well.”

  “The Spear is in Kur now,” Lucifer said quietly. “In case you were thinking of fucking anyone over, remember: it will hurt you as much as it can hurt her.”

  “Will it?” Satan leaned towards him, his eyes narrowed. “It’s at the bottom of the River Cocytus. I wish you the best of luck in retrieving it. The souls down there are hungry, or so I’m told.”

  They were hungry, and malevolent as well. I remembered their pale hands clawing for me when I’d fallen towards the surface. They’d grab anyone they could get their hands on and drown them, condemning their soul to float aimlessly in the river.

  Lucifer’s eyes met mine, his emotions written there clearly.

  I had no way into the river. With my wings, maybe I would’ve had a small chance to clear the river, but… a human, swimming against that tide, would never make it.

  Nobody else could go near the Spear. The fact that Tascius had survived at all was an anomaly.

  “I fully intend to stay alive and kill her myself, if necessary.” I turned back to Satan, more aware than ever that I had nothing left to bargain with. “But as I said— I will put my hate aside. If you help me, I will help you.”

  “You want to know where your little archangel is,” Satan said lazily.

  I was a little taken aback that he’d know exactly what I was going to ask, but I rallied anyways. “Yes. Where would she keep him?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “I could tell you, but first… you say you’ll put aside our feud.”

  “I will.” I met his eyes squarely.

  “How much do you trust me?”

  Not at all. I pushed the thought aside. “Enough to put my life in your hands. Enough to let you in on our plans at all.”

  “Then I will take you to him myself. In exchange, you’ll allow me to remain while you speak to him. I’m curious about this lover of yours… and how he held the Spear at all without dying.” Satan’s eyes glittered. He looked thrilled at the prospect of knowing more than he should.

  And of potentially knowing how to deflect the Spear’s power. It was a dangerous risk to take.