Hell Bent

by Cate Corvin

  I felt his power die, returning to the Chain, where it would wait for a new vessel.

  I would be here, Spear in hand, ready to destroy him again.

  My weapon hummed with greed, not satisfied with his blood alone. Together, we were war. We were annihilation, the screams of the dying and our enemies brought low.

  I spread my wings, looking over my shoulder towards Kur.

  The Gates were destroyed, but the city wasn’t. The people who had kept me prisoner, who had allowed their Queen to humiliate me, still lived on.

  It couldn’t be allowed.

  I stepped away from the corpse of Satan, leaving him for the desert to consume. He was nothing, and I was brimming with the golden power, the urge to set things right thrumming in my bones.

  Devastate them. Destroy them. Crush and consume, ruin and ravage…

  Yes, I told the power. Yes, we will do it.

  I strode under the remains of the Gates that would barely clear my head now if they were whole. They were nothing more than child’s toys, and when I was done, Kur would be nothing.

  I would wipe the desert clean and allow it to start anew.

  The gates of Kur were open, the carved face askew. It looked like someone screaming, their jaw torn off, letting sand pour into the depths of the city.

  I smiled at the sight. They would all scream as they beheld the glory, before being cleansed by the light.

  One of the Irkallan guards climbed out over the side, sand sticking to the sweat and paint on his body. He stopped, looking up at me with fear lighting his eyes.

  I raised the Spear and drove it downwards, piercing him before he could even scream.

  The demon was consumed instantly, his ashes swept away on the wind. The desert was howling, voicing his agony for him.

  I stepped over the edge, cracking the first step as I descended.

  A voice came to me on the wind. It was small at first, and I brushed it aside like a fly.

  Kur had to be cleansed. Its atrocities should not be allowed to exist.

  I leaned down and picked up another fleeing Irkallan, wrapping my entire hand around his upper body.

  There was something familiar about the demon. I raised him higher, frowning as I peered at his face.

  The fire in my eyes was blinding, lighting up like. His skin began to blister.

  “Damuzid,” I said, my voice ringing like a gong, and he screamed. Blood ran out of his ears.

  He’d made me suffer, dragged me through the desert, deprived me until I thought I might die.

  I squeezed and felt bones crack in my hands.

  He was dead before he hit the sand.

  I gazed down the stairs into the city depths. The Irkallans fled, or else held up useless swords and spears, knowing their time was at an end. The reek of fear was strong in the air.

  I drew back the Spear, intending to throw it into their midst and destroy them all, but someone stood in the way.

  I blinked down at the figure, who I’d always known as so much taller than me… he was joined by another.

  They shone with the light of dawn and moonlight. I reached for them, feeling for the essence inside them.

  It was pure. They would be allowed to pass, unharmed by the fire consuming me.

  “Melisande, stop!” one of them shouted.

  A lion joined them, glimmering with fire similar to mine. I felt his soul, a kindred spirit: the wrath of war burned inside him as it did in me.

  I smiled at him, extending a hand. He would join me, and with claws and blades we would raze the city to ashes.

  “You have to stop,” a small voice said. Something pale fluttered past my head and landed on the ground with the rest of them. It was the succubus, delicate against the others. “This isn’t what you came for, Melisande. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  An archangel followed her, the brightest rays of the day. “Come on, sister. You’re still in there somewhere.”

  I took a step back, the fire in my veins starting to hurt. It was nibbling at me, sparking flames at my fingertips. If I didn’t obey, then what would I be?

  Emptiness. Nothing at all.

  War was our life. We demanded victory over our foes, the worship of blade and blood. We required it.

  But something cool touched my shoulder. I turned and looked into another like myself, a power so immense it couldn’t be unleashed without consequences.

  “Don’t let it consume you,” he said. Dark wings fell down his back, the feathers as black and soft as velvet, but lightning was in his eyes. “Let go of the power. Let it sink deep inside you and sleep.”

  It was impossible to let it sleep. It was me, and it was in every part of me.

  I gripped the Spear, the lust for blood making my hand tremble.

  The night power closed his hand over mine. “Who are you?”

  There was a faint prickle on the back of my neck. Something was calling me, an emotion I could barely remember under the onslaught of fury.

  Love. I exhaled, golden fire coating my tongue. I couldn’t destroy everything, because love was also under my dominion.

  There was a brief memory of someone telling me that, but it fluttered away. I knew these hands, these voices.

  “I’m Melisande,” I said, my throat aching. The ringing tones faded away from my voice.

  “Who is Melisande?” The god of night and stars squeezed my hand tighter. I found myself looking up at him, as though I were shrinking, my power fading.

  There was a moment of panic when I thought it wouldn’t go, that it would struggle until I was full of rage again, but there was such immense relief when the fire died down, swirling deep into the center of my soul.

  “I’m… just an angel.” I was. My wings were heavy, but four of them slowly dissipated as I shrank in size, vanishing into the ether. They would be back, waiting for me to call on them.

  My feathers were still stained dark as night. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “LADY WRATH,” the lion added, padding around me.

  “No Saint,” the succubus said with a bright smile.

  “Fallen, but unbroken,” said one archangel, and the other said, “My best friend.”

  My halo spun in a frenzy, throwing out sparks of light before it imploded and vanished.

  I fell onto my hands and knees, panting in the sand.

  I wasn’t Inanna, or a vengeful goddess of war. I was just Melisande.

  “I almost lost myself,” I whispered, taking a deep breath. My body was my own again. The golden flames curled up in my soul, no longer eating me alive, slumbering as my violet and white magic sprung to life.

  But it would always be there. There would always be this titan inside me, a hunger and fury like no other.

  Azazel shrank into his mortal form, his shadows releasing him. He knelt down and took my hands. “You will never lose yourself when you have us. We are chained to you as deeply as you are to us.”

  I focused on the Chain, looking for the ties that bound us all together. They were strong, unbreakable, the links whole.

  New chains had formed, as well. They were gold, twining around my hands and arms and into my heart. I supposed these ones were permanent as well, a new mark to add to my collection.

  The succubus’s name came back to me as she stepped forward. Vyra. One of the people I loved the most, the reason I’d been willing to die and let that fire in.

  “Well, now that you’ve almost turned Kur into a wasteland,” she said, nudging a bit of broken ebonite with her foot. “Maybe we should explain to the King before he declares war on Dis?”

  I looked at her in confusion, squinting as the wind swept my hair across my face, and followed her gaze.

  Nergal approached us from under the broken Gates. He was alive.

  And tears were running down his face.

  29

  Melisande

  Nergal had the look of a man utterly broken.

  His shoulders slumped as he dragged himself through the
sand towards us, paying no attention to the shards of ebonite that cut his feet as he walked.

  Azazel helped me up and everyone backed away, giving him room as he looked down into the depths of Kur.

  I still felt twitchy around him. I’d only ever known him when he was possessed by Satan, and it was hard to shake the feeling that I was once again in the presence of an enemy.

  But there was something about him that made it clear he was no longer anything but himself, even if the power inside me was sleeping. I didn’t need it to reach inside him and feel for the purity of his own power.

  He reached up and rubbed his face with his hands, pulling them down slowly under the tangled black locks of hair. The tear stains cut through the dirt on his cheeks as he sank to his knees.

  “She’s gone.” Even his voice sounded hollow.

  No one else would be able to comfort him. I wasn’t even sure I would be able to.

  But I still gently pulled myself out of Azazel’s hands and stepped forward, only inches from the sole remaining ruler of Kur. “She wanted to go, Nergal. She was tired of being trapped in a half-life.”

  Nergal let his hands drop to his lap, just staring blankly into the city.

  My heart felt like it had frozen over. I’d had no choice but to do as the Chain asked, even at the expense of another’s life. Inanna herself had made it clear to me in the dreams she’d sent: she was tired. She was done.

  All she’d wanted was peace, and to pass on what remained of her to someone else.

  “I waited thousands of years,” he said.

  I knelt down next to him in the blood-stained sand. “So did she,” I told him. I reached into his lap and took his hand. “It was her choice to go.”

  He finally turned his head to look at me. His sky-blue eyes looked almost dead, but there was still a faint fire in them. He was still alive and entirely free now.

  “You possess her power,” he breathed. “The essence of what she was. You could stay here in Kur with me.”

  His hand clamped around mine, possessive and desperate.

  I slowly drew my hand away, folding them in my own lap. “I don’t think that would go the way you imagine.” It was impossible to soften the blow. Nergal had lost almost everything. “I am not Inanna. You would just be deceiving yourself.”

  “You could take her place as Queen.” He stood up, the fire in his eyes brightening.

  I regarded him sadly as I rose to my feet. I’d come out of Kur alive and with everyone I loved. The unfairness of it was a bitter pill to swallow. “I am not a queen and I never intended to become one.”

  His blue eyes searched my face. “Please,” he whispered. “You are all I have left of her.”

  “No. I know you fought Satan while he possessed you, and I appreciate that more than I can say, but I already have a home. I have a family that loves me and a city that needs me. Even if I stayed here, I can’t take her place in your heart, and you’d be living a lie. Besides… now that Ereshkigal is gone, Kur needs you. You need to protect and rebuild it.”

  I gestured to the broken mouth that let sunlight stream into Kur.

  “It could be tomorrow. It could be millennia from now. But someday, the universe will right the balance. There will be a new Father of Lies. I can’t stay here and pretend to be someone I’m not, but… I hope you would consider me and all of Dis a friend to you.”

  I held out my hand again, this time making it clear that it wasn’t a romantic gesture. Ereshkigal had told me that Dis and Kur were once sister cities. She’d promised Satan she would link them again.

  Maybe that was another, smaller reason I’d come here. To link us once again.

  After all, there were other enemies out there. I hadn’t forgotten Acheron, and I doubted the Nephilim had forgotten us.

  Nergal would be an invaluable ally.

  He hesitated, and finally took my hand. “I consider you all my great allies,” he said quietly. “But if you ever change your mind… Kur is here and will be for all time. If you come back, I will welcome you with open arms.”

  A shiver went down my spine. Satan had used those exact words. It was so hard to look back and differentiate how much had been him speaking, and how much had been Nergal.

  Maybe Satan had left a streak of his true nature inside the King. It was something that only time would tell me.

  “Thank you.” I tried to smile, but it was impossible after what had happened. My face had healed, but it still ached.

  Azazel stepped up next to my shoulder, his violet eyes a little cold as he gazed at Nergal. “There are things I would like to retrieve before I bring my mate home.”

  Nergal held out his hand. “Sack the city, if you want. All I want is Ereshkigal’s head to put on a pike.”

  “What’s left of it,” Azazel muttered.

  I stepped away and picked the Spear out of the sand, letting it burn me. The pain, oddly enough, still felt like a greeting from an old friend. And after what Tascius had gone through to bring it to me, I would never let it out of my sight again.

  Although being a demi-goddess likely lessened the odds of ever being that helpless again in my life. Even without the Spear, I’d achieved something very few angels could ever speak of, despite being fallen.

  I brushed the sand from the golden shaft and points, silently thanking it for being there.

  Then I followed Azazel and Nergal back into the city I’d come to despise. Despite my promise to Nergal that I would always be his friend and ally, I hoped I wouldn’t have to come back here again.

  The memories, as Azazel had once said, would be too much.

  Tascius, Belial, and Lucifer surrounded me. Vyra, Haru, and Michael remained on the surface. She looked over the edge and shuddered, then strode away and out of sight.

  I didn’t blame her in the slightest, but there was a token I wanted for myself before I turned my back on Irkalla forever.

  Tascius took my hand as we walked, lacing his fingers through mine. I smiled up at him before looking out over what we’d done.

  The city wasn’t leveled, but it was wrecked. Several houses and shops had been crushed and were spilling down over the tiers of the city, and the arena pillar had slanted sideways in the river below.

  The balcony I hated so much was crumbling, but I spread my brand-new wings and flew to it across the gap.

  It was stable under our weight as the others joined me.

  Ereshkigal’s throne of ivory had been scattered across the room. Ebonite cages were twisted and bent, strewn amid the black sphinx statues.

  Her remains were scattered alongside it. Lace, silk, skin, bone… all of it withered, the crone finally having found true death.

  Amid the remains of her clothing were the dark feathers from my original wings. She’d worn me as a trophy until the very end.

  Azazel and Nergal both approached the walls instead: my mate took Nakir’s skin from the wall, and Nergal gently removed Inanna’s corpse, cradling her in his arms.

  I stepped forward and several of the feathers and onyx beads crunched underfoot. Lowering the Spear, I sifted through the remains.

  They were still intact, her clawed hands. I’d loathed them more than any other part other, the way she’d brushed them through my hair, then slapped me with them. My blood had coated these claws more times than I cared to count.

  They would make a fine addition to Gabriel’s gilded wings. Anyone who dared to lay a hand on me would find themselves turned into a pretty decoration for my arena, my temple of war.

  Belial handed me a knife. “Take your spoils, princess.”

  I grinned, a weight finally lightening on my chest. I gripped the dagger firmly and began cutting, taking an artist’s care with my task.

  When I was done, ten claws had been set aside. They were from her true form; dense, almost iron-like, the largest almost as wide around as the shaft of my spear.

  I placed them carefully in a length of shredded silk, wrapped them up, and tied it around my waist wi
th a bit of lace, then retrieved my Spear.

  I had no idea what Azazel had done with Nakir, but his father’s remains were gone. “Did she keep any trace of Lailah?” he asked Nergal, his lips turned down at the corners.

  Nergal just shook his head. He still held Inanna like a lifeline. “No.”

  Azazel swept towards me, then stopped. He looked down at the king with an expression that was as close to pity as he got. “It will fade with time,” he told him. “We will be here for you. Can we depend on you to keep your eyes open?”

  Nergal finally looked up at him. “When the wheel turns again, I’ll be the first one at your side,” he promised.

  But his gaze drifted to me, sad and desperate. I hoped he would find some measure of peace before we were called to ally again.

  I raised a hand in farewell, wishing I could do more, but I couldn’t make him promises I couldn’t keep. My men had called me back; I was just Melisande.

  Just an angel with a tiger sleeping inside her.

  I couldn’t be something I wasn’t, even to heal a broken heart.

  It was that thought that made me turn my back on him. All I wanted was to be home in Dis.

  I fluttered across the gap again, keeping my eyes away from the River Cocytus and the souls below. “Come on,” I said, feeling a real smile finally tug on my lips. “Let’s get home.”

  Belial had shifted into his lion form to clear the gap, leaping from balcony, to pillar, to the stairs. He purred as he led me up into the sunlight again.

  I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, letting my skin soak up the warmth.

  Then my eyes popped open. “We’re not taking the Between again, are we?” I had a sudden fear that if we went that path, all these fresh memories in my mind would lead me straight back to Irkalla in a never-ending loop.

  Lucifer joined me, looking out over the broken Gates. “I think Vyra had something else in mind,” he said.

  She was running across the sand towards us, waving her hands. Haru and Michael were nowhere in sight.

  “I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS,” Belial grumbled.