by Julie Kenner
“Long story.”
She picked up the arrow and gently stroked her fingers over the smooth surface. “Well, we don’t have much else to do while we’re waiting for the Orphmage to give up the human.”
He could think of a lot of things they could do. If he wasn’t forbidden by Azagoth to do them.
Anger and frustration threatened to boil over. He’d put up with Azagoth’s asshattery for thousands of years, but now...now it felt like he was at a crossroads, at a place where he couldn’t stand it anymore. Hadn’t he paid for his sins for long enough?
Growling to himself, he stormed out of the bedroom and searched the hut for liquor. Soft footsteps followed him, but he ignored Cat as he popped the cork out of a clay jug of what smelled like extremely potent bloodwine.
Cat drifted into his peripheral vision as she checked out the knickknacks on the walls. Demons loved their wood and bone carvings. “So how did you end up here, anyway?”
He chugged a few swallows of the tart bloodwine, relishing the hot tingle as it burned its way down his throat. “You’re a fallen angel, too. You know all about dirty laundry.”
A wisp of pink swept across her cheeks. “My fall wasn’t entirely my fault.”
“You’re still going with that story, huh?”
Her chin lifted. “It’s true. I told you how it happened.”
He snorted. “And Seminus demons hate sex.”
She snatched the jug from him and took a swig. He had to hide an amused smile when she coughed. “So you own your fall?” she wheezed as she sat down at the kitchen table.
“Yup.” He took back the jug. “I fucked up royally.” He brought the container to his lips, pausing to say, “You really want to hear this? You want to know how I got here?”
At her nod, he lowered the jug. He hadn’t told anyone this. It wasn’t that he gave a crap who knew. It was just that he never really talked to anyone. Not about himself or his life. This was new, and he wasn’t sure it was a good thing.
Finally, he propped his hip on the table edge. “When I was still an angel, my job was to process new humans arriving in Heaven after they died on Earth. It was boring as shit, and every time someone came through who had been slaughtered by another human, it pissed me off. So I started spending my time in the human realm, stopping sinners before they committed sins.”
“Stopping them? How?”
“At first, I caused distractions. Earthquakes, sudden rainstorms, swarms of mosquitoes, whatever it took. Then I came across some vile bastard in the act of raping a young woman. I didn’t think, didn’t pause. I flash-fried him with a lightning bolt. And the weird thing is, I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt. I knew I was going to be punished because, with very few exceptions, angels aren’t supposed to kill humans.”
He expected her to show some revulsion, but she merely propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward like a kid hearing a bedtime story. “Did you? Get punished, I mean?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Guess no one was paying attention. So the next time I found an evil human committing an atrocity, I whacked him. Damn, it felt good.” So. Fucking. Good. “And that’s where it all went wrong.”
“Ah,” she murmured. “You liked to kill.”
Damn straight, he had. “It didn’t take long before I wasn’t just killing evil humans, but bad humans.” There was a difference, a very important difference. Evil couldn’t be repaired. Couldn’t be forgiven. But bad could. “I made no distinction between those who were evil and those who were just assholes. I felt the need to punish, and I was made bolder by the fact that I didn’t get caught. Not until I went after a son of a bitch who was famous for his torture methods. Turned out that he was Primori.”
“Primori are people whose existence is crucial in some way,” she mused, and then her eyes shot wide. “Which means he had a Memitim angel to protect him. And all Memitim...”
“Are Azagoth’s children,” he finished.
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.” He took another healthy swig from the jug. “The Memitim dude came out of nowhere, and we got into a nasty fight that ended with him dead.”
“What did you do?”
Despite the fact that this had taken place over five thousand years ago, Hades’s gut sank the way it had way back then when he’d realized what he’d done. He’d killed a fellow angel. Nearly killed a Primori. And worse, he hadn’t cared all that much. His concern had been for himself, and for thousands of years, nothing had changed.
Until now. Now his greatest concern was making sure Cat was safe. His own fate was unimportant.
“I knew I’d get caught,” he said, “so I ran for a while. Lost myself in the human population. But my parents were both professors of Angelic Ethics, and I’d had their teachings drilled into me since birth, so when the angels started closing in, I figured I’d earn points for turning myself in voluntarily.” He curled his lip. “Turns out, not so much. I was relieved of my wings, but instead of being given a new name and booted out of Heaven, I was handed over to Azagoth.”
At first, he’d thought the archangels’s decision to let him keep his name and send him to Azagoth had been done purely to make the Grim Reaper happy, but once the Biblical prophecy tying him to the Four Horsemen appeared, he understood that he was meant for more than just being Azagoth’s plaything.
Not that being a Biblical legend had helped him avoid pain. At all.
“Wow.” Cat’s already pale skin went a shade paler, making her freckles stand out on her nose and cheeks. “I’m shocked that he didn’t kill you.”
“Azagoth doesn’t kill people.” Hades reconsidered that. “Mostly. He’s a big fan of eternal torment.” No, Azagoth didn’t take the easy way when it came to revenge. Or justice. He definitely wasn’t the forgiving sort. “He needed someone to run the Inner Sanctum, so he gave me wings and power, making me the only Unfallen in history to be able to enter Sheoul without becoming a True Fallen.” He smiled bitterly. “But he also made it his mission to make my life a living hell. And for thousands of years, he did.”
She sat back in her chair, her lips pursed in thought. “Is your living situation part of that?”
“Yup.” He shrugged. “He’s only recently started letting me out of the Inner Sanctum for short periods of time. It’s only been in the last fifty years or so that he allowed me to have luxuries from the outside if I can get anyone to bring them to me.”
“Like the ice cream Limos brought you.”
The pity creeping into Cat’s voice made his jaw tighten. “Yeah.”
“But you said you can go outside now. How often?”
“I’ve left Sheoul-gra five times in the last hundred years, and it cost me each time.” Even when the Four Horsemen had gotten him sprung to help with a massive battle a few years ago, he’d paid dearly despite the fact that he’d fought for the good guys. For that, Azagoth had taken away Hades’s only real friend, a demon who had been living in the 1st Ring for two thousand years. Azagoth had reincarnated him, leaving Hades with only his asshole wardens for company.
“So I’m guessing you don’t do much dating if you can’t leave, huh? You said females in Sheoul-gra are off limits, but what about here in the Inner Sanctum?”
He laughed. But it was a bitter, hard sound, even to his own ears. “Everyone is off limits to me, Cat. My wardens can screw whoever they want in the Inner Sanctum, but me? Remember the peeling thing I told you about? Yeah. Celibacy and me became really fucking intimate.”
“You must have been so lonely,” she said softly.
He blinked. Lonely? That thought hadn’t occurred to him, and he didn’t think it would occur to anyone else, either.
Although, now that he thought about it, yeah, there had always been a strange tension inside him that he couldn’t identify. That he’d always written off as being sexual in nature. But now that he’d spent time with Cat, it was killing him to know that it was only a matter of time before he lost her company and her soothing touch
. Fuck, he couldn’t think about it, because if he did, he’d lose it.
Redirecting his thoughts, he flipped back to his default setting of deflection. “I don’t know if I was lonely, really, but I was definitely horny.”
She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “I know the feeling.”
A scream from outside jolted them both to their feet. He rushed to the window and signaled for Cat to stay back, out of sight of anyone who might have a ranged weapon.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
Awesomeness, that’s what. Turning to her, he grinned. “Ever seen The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit? You know how the giant eagles always turn up to save the day?”
She jammed her hands on her hips. “Are you going to tell me that big birds are helping to search for the human?”
Outside, people were still screaming. “Better. The hellhounds have arrived.”
“Hellhounds eat people,” she pointed out.
“Hilarious, right?” He held out his hand. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
“To the hellhounds?”
“Not just the hellhounds,” he said, grasping her hand in his. “To the king himself. Let’s go say hi to Cerberus.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cataclysm had seen a lot of scary shit in her life––most of it in the last few days––but the massive, two-headed beast standing outside, surrounded by hounds that were as large as bison but still half his size, was one of the most intimidating creatures she’d ever come across.
Black as night, with glowing crimson eyes and teeth that would make a shark jealous, Cerberus used one massive paw to rake deep grooves in the grass. Steam rose up from the damaged earth, turning everything around it to ash.
“Hey, buddy,” Hades said. “’Sup?”
The two heads snapped at each other before the left one put its ears back and lowered to eye level. A deep, smoky growl curled up from deep in the beast’s chest.
Hades turned to her. “He said his brethren are sweeping the Rings for the human, and he apologizes in advance for any accidents.”
“Accidents?”
“Most hellhounds hate angels, fallen or otherwise. Ol’ Cerb here barely tolerates me. So we can expect some casualties among my warden ranks.” He picked up a stick and threw it, and two of the hellhounds took off in a blur of black fur. “Also, he didn’t really apologize. It was more of a description of how he thinks they’ll taste.”
She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, and frankly, she didn’t want to know.
Cerberus’s other head made some snarling noises, and Hades snarled back. The two of them went back and forth, until finally, Hades held up his hand and turned to her again.
“I...uh...I failed to mention something earlier.”
She glared at Hades. She hated being kept in the dark about anything. “Dammit, Hades, what did you not tell me?”
“The Orphmage who captured you is using your life force to fuel the spell that will open the Inner Sanctum’s barriers. He did the same thing to the human. Cerberus thinks that if we can get you close enough to the human, you’ll be able to detect him. It should also unlock the doors between the Inner Sanctum and Azagoth’s realm. Basically, the mutt wants to use you to track the human. Funny, yes? How it’s the opposite of in the human realm, when humans use dogs––”
“I get it,” she blurted. And criminy, could this situation get any worse? “But I can’t believe you were keeping this from me. My life force? Seriously?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, but he didn’t sound very contrite. “I didn’t want to worry you. Especially not after I was such a dick to you earlier.”
Well, at least he admitted to being a dick. “I’m not worried,” she explained. “I’m mad. We need to be out looking for the human. I have to fix this so the world isn’t overrun by demon spirits and so Azagoth won’t expel me from Sheoul-gra.” She watched the hellhounds grab the stick and start a game of tug-of-war. “And fixing this could go a long way toward earning my way back to Heaven.”
Hades’s head jerked back as if he’d been slapped. “Why the everloving fuck do you want to go back to people who kicked you to the curb?”
“Heaven is my home,” she said simply.
Even with the growls and snarls coming from the hellhounds and the shouts of people yelling at the beasts from a safe distance, Hades’s silence was deafening.
Finally, he said quietly, “Seems to me that home is where the people who want you are.”
For some reason, his words knocked the breath out of her. “And who would that be?” she asked. “Azagoth? I clean his house. And not very well. Anyone can do that. He’s probably going to fire me anyway, once he learns that I was the one who got the human sent here in the first place. Lilliana? I consider her a friend, and I hope she feels the same about me, but she’d be fine without me. The other Unfallen living in the dorms? Sometimes I cook for them. They’d miss my brown butter vanilla bean cake, but aside from that...”
She shrugged as if it was all no big deal, but the realization that she was so insignificant hurt. Making matters worse was her status as an Unfallen. She had no powers, no status, no identity. Maybe she should have entered Sheoul and turned herself into a True Fallen. At least then she’d have wings and power.
But the cost would have been her soul.
Suddenly, Hades’s hands came down on her shoulders. “I want you, Cat. I want you more than I’ve wanted anything since I fell.”
Her heart pounded with joy, but a blanket of sadness wrapped around it, muffling the happiness. “And what good does that do either of us if Azagoth is so bent on revenge?”
“Cat––”
She pulled away from him. “Don’t make things worse. We need to find the human, and I need to get back to Heaven. Can we do that, please? Before all of my life is drained?”
A chill settled in the air, so noticeable that even the hellhounds looked around to see where the cold front was coming from. Cat didn’t bother searching.
An icy glaze turned Hades’s eyes cloudy and his expression stony. Blue veins rose to the surface of his skin, which had lost a few shades of color, the way it had back at Azagoth’s mansion when he’d shown her his wings. A darkness emanated from him, making her skin burn, and it struck her that this was the Hades who came out to play when things went to hell. This was the Jailor of the Dead. The Keeper of Souls. The Master of Torture.
“Tell me, Cataclysm.” His voice had gone deep, scraping the craggy bottoms of Hell’s fiery pits. “How did you get your name?”
Oh, God. He knew. Humiliation shrunk her skin. “It doesn’t matter. We should go.” She spun around. The door to the hut was just a few steps away––
A hellhound blocked the path, drool dripping from its bared teeth. Clearly, Hades wasn’t done with this conversation, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of turning around to face him.
“Did you choose your name?” She jumped at the sound of his voice, so close to her right ear that she felt his breath on her lobe.
“You know I didn’t,” she ground out, her humiliation veering sharply to anger that he’d chosen to go there. But then, he was the Master of Torture, wasn’t he? He’d proven earlier that he knew where to strike in order to extract the most pain from a victim, and names could be an extremely sensitive subject for fallen angels.
When an angel lost his or her wings, they usually got to choose their new names. Heck, a fallen angel could rename themselves over and over, although they were never to use their angel names again…except inside Sheoul-gra.
But sometimes, the archangels chose a person’s fallen angel name. As a punishment, or an insult, or a lesson...whatever their motivations, when they selected a name for a disgraced angel, it forever rendered one unable to refer to oneself as anything but the name the archangels chose. If they’d wanted Cat’s new name to be Poopalufagus, she would be compelled to use it. Hell, she couldn’t even speak her an
gelic name if she tried...and she had. The name always got clogged in her throat.
“Why did the archangels choose to call you Cataclysm?” His lips grazed her ear as he spoke.
“Because I was a disaster.” Her voice cracked, and she hated herself for it. Hated Hades for making her revisit the worst moment of her life. Hated him more for forcing her to confront a truth she wasn’t ready to face yet. “I helped nearly end the world, and they wanted to remind me of it forever.”
Silence stretched, and she sensed Hades withdraw. When he finally spoke, his voice was back to normal, but somehow, she knew that nothing would be normal ever again.
“And those are the people you want to go home to.” He brushed past her and shooed the hound out of the way. As he threw open the door to the hut and gestured for her to enter, he smiled coldly. “Then, by all means, let’s not waste any time getting you back there.”
* * * *
Hades spent over twelve hours with a pack of ravenous hellhounds and one fiercely silent female as they searched the 5th Ring for the damned human. Granted, he hadn’t felt like talking, either, because ultimately, what did he and Cat have to talk about? Her desire to go back to Heaven, to people who saddled her with a name that would haunt her forever? His selfish desire to prevent that?
Ultimately, there was nothing he could do to convince her not to go back to Heaven if she was given the chance. She didn’t want to be here, and even if she did, they couldn’t be together. Not if Azagoth was still determined to punish him.
He looked over at Cat, who was standing about thirty yards away on a cliff above a river of lava. In the distance, a blackened volcano spewed smoke and steam as reddish-orange veins of molten rock flowed down its sides. She was dressed in her jeans and corset, and when Hades made clear they were going to be dealing with scorching terrain, she’d agreed to wear a pair of boots loaned to her by a the demons whose hut they’d stayed in.
Hellhounds surrounded her, keeping her safe. The demon canines were unabashed killers, but when given something to protect, they took their job seriously. There was nothing on the planet more loyal than a hellhound. There was also nothing more ravenous, as the half-dozen hellhounds tearing apart some hapless demon nearby proved.