The Eighth

by Wytovich, Stephanie

  “Stop the cart,” she said to the guards.

  “Arazel, please. Don’t do this.”

  Arazel hopped out and beat the dirt and grime from her pants. She muttered something under her breath and the more Paimon tried to look away, the more he tried to remove himself from the situation, the closer he was drawn to her. It was as if she’d become a flame, dancing in the arms of rage, a burning ember that blazed in the night. She defined the beauty in violence, the sex in pain. But she wasn’t Marissa.

  Neither is Rhea.

  Paimon fought himself. He could never be with Arazel because he could never fully give himself to her. She deserved more than that. She was a female of worth and she deserved a male that would honor her. Not an emotionally scarred lover whose heart rested in the hands of the Devil. But heart or not, it would always truly belong to Marissa. So where did that leave Rhea? What role did she play in all of this?

  “Take him to the gathering hall,” said Arazel. “I’m sure the Devil would like to have a word with him.”

  Arazel leaned over the cart’s splintered railing and dropped her voice below a whisper. “You’re going to regret choosing her over me.” Then she walked away, her hips swaying to the punch of her words.

  ‡‡‡

  The sky was on fire.

  The Devil wasn’t happy.

  Paimon could only remember the sky looking like that on two occasions. The first happened shortly after his arrival in Hell. Stuck working on the puzzle of the bridges, he’d looked to the sky for answers only to have his eyes fill up with ash. A shrill scream echoed in the distance like a mother’s wail after giving birth to a stillborn child. It was breathless and desperate, but the pitch was somehow off. It broke his concentration, and only then did Paimon see the answer to the puzzle. He'd solved it in a matter of minutes and the bridges had lined up.

  The second time it was different. He was with the Devil, walking alongside the gallows in the gathering hall, when a groundling fell into the room, limbs barely attached and its face lost to madness. The thing was ugly. Its nose was chewed up and mashed in. One could even see the bite marks and molar prints its attacker had left. Close up, it looked as if something had gnawed on the creature’s face long enough to render it blind.

  The Devil walked up to it, tilting his head to the side to get a better look. The groundling couldn’t talk but it moaned and choked on its own spit. A mixture of drool and blood slid down the corner of its mouth. The groundling had been completely destroyed, masticated and spat out, left to die. Paimon wondered why whatever had worked it over so badly had let it go in the first place. Why not just eat it?

  Lucifer clapped his hands twice and a pair of guards came to his side.

  “There’s something in its hands,” he said. “Get it.”

  The guards pulled a small piece of parchment from the groundling’s clenched fist and handed it to the Devil, who seemed hesitant to take it at first, but did nonetheless.

  Lucifer opened the parchment—his hands a shaking mess—and read its contents. The letter slipped through his hands as the Devil stood there, gaze adrift and speechless. When he came to, he spat on the note and on the creature who had brought it to him.

  “Kill it,” the Devil said to the guards. “And double our protectors tonight. We don’t need any more unexpected visitors.”

  The Devil walked away then. Paimon ran to keep up and asked what was wrong, but Lucifer was lost in his own head. Whatever was on that parchment unleashed something that night. Paimon had never seen the Devil nervous before; yet there he stood, mumbling to himself, his face contorted in worry.

  “My lord?”

  The sky darkened.

  Lucifer’s face, once beautiful and alluring, shifted into a mask of betrayal and hate. His usually smooth and flawless skin now wore a suit of crow’s feet, his lips chapped and cracked at the sides. His eyes, always wide with excitement, were now two bottomless pits that searched the grounds.

  Possessed with rage, the Devil screamed.

  Paimon shivered then as the temperature dropped. Bumps rose on his flesh and his hair stood erect, prickling at the back of his neck as his fear was exposed. Ash began to fall from the sky, and Paimon knew it was only a matter of time before the sky would be lit in fire. The Devil couldn’t cry but he could burn. And when the Devil burned, they all did.

  The memory of that day still unnerved him.

  Paimon never found out what had been on that parchment, but he had a sickening feeling that he was about to. A pit formed in his stomach, collecting the juices of guilt and fear. What was he going to say when he came face to face with Lucifer? Would the Devil know what he’d done?

  Of course he would.

  But would he be merciful?

  Paimon hugged his knees to his chest.

  No.

  The Devil wasn’t capable of mercy.

  Chapter 19

  Paimon’s stomach turned as the guards wheeled him into the gathering hall. The air tasted thick with punishment, and Paimon began to miss the seclusion of the tunnels. The openness of the courtyard didn’t exactly make him feel safe because he could see everything at once.

  “You, stay with him,” Arazel shouted to the guard. “I’ll let Lucifer know his favorite collector has returned.”

  Since when was she on a first name basis with the Devil?

  The guard nodded. “As you wish,” he said, but Paimon heard him follow it up with ‘you miserable cunt’ under his breath.

  Still too weak to move, Paimon lay in the cart like a broken doll, his legs heavy with fatigue. His head hurt, but not the type of pain that came from spinning what-if scenarios and reliving one’s regrets. This was the pain of penetration. His thoughts felt violated, picked over and tampered with. He didn’t know what was real and what had been planted in his mind to confuse him. What frightened him most was that he trusted The Seven’s word—Lust’s word—that Rhea was safe.

  Paimon touched the skin behind his ear. The flesh was raised as if something had been burned into it; he traced the serpent-like outline of an ‘S’. Arazel was right. He wore her mark. Whatever that meant. The sooner he found out what the branding entailed, the sooner he could get back to Rhea, if she was even still alive.

  What he couldn’t wrap his mind around was how he’d managed to seek them out in the first place. When Arazel explained it, she said she’d prayed to Lust, begged for her to come. Paimon hand’t done anything but give into exhaustion. Sloth. Could his surrender to sleep have opened the door? Weakness. Paimon shuddered to think that a blackout had called to The Seven. But it certainly wasn’t the first time that he’d fallen into the arms of sleep, so what made this time different?

  Rhea.

  It all came back to her.

  She was the key—Paimon wasn’t sure to what—but without her, he couldn’t unlock anything. He had to get back to her, but how?

  “Get up,” said the guard as his palm connected with the side of Paimon’s cheek. Lost in his thoughts, Paimon clearly hadn’t heard him the first time. Not that it made any difference, because he still didn’t think he’d be able to get out of the cart. His legs were useless, and the world spun circles around him, blurring the guard’s face. Paimon’s cheek throbbed, the pulse adding to the drumming in his head, and when he tried to hoist himself up, he fell like an infant trying to walk.

  “Pathetic,” said the guard as he unlocked the latch and let the cart-door fall. He reached in and grabbed Paimon by his shirt, dragging him out. He left him in a pile of humiliation on the cobblestones and stood beside him, his foot resting on Paimon’s back in case he decided to run.

  The air grew cold.

  The Devil drifted in from the shadows, Arazel at his side.

  “How long has he been here?”

  “A few hours, my lord,” said the guard.

  Lucifer’s face grew taut with anger. “And why wasn’t he immediately brought to my quarters?”

  The guard fell quiet and Arazel smirked.
The Devil grabbed her by the throat. His thick, yellowed nails cut into her flesh and her eyes shone with fear. “Keeping secrets from me, my pet?” Arazel tried to protest, but he squeezed harder, cutting off her words. “I don’t tolerate insolence, especially from whores.”

  “Let her go,” said Paimon.

  Lucifer shoved Arazel and laughed. Her body hit the ground and the force left her gasping for air.

  “Paimon. I’d almost forgotten about you. How long has it been? Days? Weeks?”

  Paimon tasted the sarcasm on the Devil’s tongue.

  “I’ve been gone only a day, sire.”

  “Mmmhh.” Lucifer circled Paimon like a vulture eyeing up its prey. The Devil studied him. His eyes searched Paimon’s flesh, swept his body for telling signs. Paimon cringed. “But how long since we’ve spoken?”

  “Quite some time.”

  “And why is that? Have you been avoiding me?” The Devil smiled. His grin, while charming, held nothing but malice. A clever mask for an insidious creature.

  “No.”

  “No. But why would you? We don’t keep secrets from each other, after all.”

  Paimon swallowed.

  He knows. He knows and he’s going to kill me now.

  The Devil was quiet for a moment, his eyes locked on Paimon’s. He said nothing and he didn’t move. He just stood there, looking at Paimon as if he were meat. The guards, unsure of what was happening, held their ground while Arazel looked upon the scene in shock. Her eyes were like two sizzling flames swollen with fear.

  “Come, you need to feed,” said the Devil as he held out his hand. “Your journey has weakened you.”

  Paimon hesitated, but was too afraid not to do as he was told.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Lucifer pulled Paimon to his feet and put his arm around him for support. Paimon leaned into him, taking in the scent of suspicion while he battled the unnerving sensation of how safe he felt in the Devil’s arms.

  “There we go,” said the Devil.

  The two of them walked out of the gathering hall, leaving the gallows and the cobblestone streets behind them. Paimon couldn’t see Arazel’s face, but he was sure the stunned look she wore must have been priceless. Not everyone gets personally carried to the feeding grounds by the Devil himself.

  Exactly. So what makes me different?

  Paimon’s ear began to burn. He bit his lip to negate the pain, but it only got worse. He concentrated on each step, each breath as he battled the urge to scream. Images swarmed his head. Pictures of people he’d never met and places he’d never seen flashed in his mind’s eye, all strangely familiar. Dreams? Jaded memories? Fields with dead flowers and overgrown weeds that fenced them in. Displaced smiles lay on the faces of dead females, their bodies dissected and strewn throughout the grass like scattered seeds to grow death. Then the faces turned blank and the places grew dark. The world inside his head was plagued with a heavy fog, and Paimon struggled to see through it.

  Nothing.

  His world went black.

  The burn in his ear subsided, as did the vision, leaving Paimon with nothing but confusion, emptiness, and an insatiable hunger.

  Paimon licked his lips. His skin, chapped and frayed, scratched at his tongue. He slid the standing pieces of flesh in between his incisors, rubbing them back and forth before he tore them out and chewed on the dead skin.

  Sweet sin, he was starving.

  “Don’t eat yourself,” said the Devil. “We’re almost there.”

  But they weren’t.

  Paimon knew the hallways to the feeding grounds all too well. They shifted with each passage, similar to the bridges of The Forsaken. Depending on the rotation and speed of change, Paimon could sometimes predict the hall’s next move, but only if he was fully focused.

  His concern must have worn on his face because the Devil stopped. “I may not have built these halls, Paimon, but I know everything that goes on within them.”

  Drunk with exhaustion, Paimon half nodded his head.

  What did he say?

  Paimon’s perception was off. He saw the Devil’s mouth moving but he couldn’t understand what he was saying. The Devil kept talking but his words seemed to be slowing, each syllable dragging out longer than the one before. Paimon strained to listen but the muffled, drawn-out lag of the Devil’s words bogged him down. He sank deeper into his own mind, struggling to avoid the mental quicksand of his thoughts.

  The bodies were back. The blank faces with no eyes, nose or mouth. Flesh on bones. They walked towards him with outstretched arms aimed at his throat, their bodies twisted and mangled.

  No. You’re not here. This isn’t happening.

  Paimon closed his eyes and held himself in the dark. When he opened them again, the bodies were closer. Too close.

  “It’s really all about knowing your place, I think. The sinners versus the punishers. Some of them don’t quite understand it yet,” said the Devil.

  They were there behind the Devil, ready to strike.

  Lucifer pushed on one of the bricks and the walls unlatched, each block giving way for the other to move, the cement crumbling beneath them, beside them. Rectangles of red, gray, and black dipped and spun as the entranceway opened, revealing the feeding ground.

  The Devil turned and touched Paimon’s face, the bodies in Paimon’s mind disappearing under the softness of his contact.

  “I truly am sorry about your face. Thankfully, you’re a quick healer.”

  Paimon didn’t even realize he was bleeding until Lucifer licked the red off his hand.

  “Tell me, how have the burnings been going? Have you been finding them useful?”

  Burnings? How does he know?

  Paimon thought back to his most recent shower in the flames. It seemed like ages ago, and the memory of it made him itch. He wanted the fire again and he wanted it now.

  The Devil smiled as the two of them walked through the opening in the wall and into the feeding ground. The scent of human flesh escaped the room, a tantric blend of aromas. The female that had been brought in smelled of betrayal, the male version of lust. Paimon’s breath quickened as hunger ripped through his stomach.

  “Oh yes, I know all about them. It hurts me when one of my own can’t handle his sins.”

  Paimon chewed the inside of his cheek, his pride faltering.

  “No.”

  “No what?” said the Devil.

  “No, they’re not working.”

  The Devil adjusted his hold on Paimon, securing him around his waist.

  “Unfortunate. See, that’s the tricky thing about sin. Once you succumb to its filth, it’s impossible to cleanse. Some might say it leaves its brand on you.”

  The Devil smiled as he ushered Paimon to the altar. “Come, my son. It’s time to feed.”

  Chapter 20

  Paimon tried not to meet the Devil’s eyes. Did he say brand? He said brand. That word could not have been a coincidence. The Devil adjusted his hold on Paimon and together, with the Devil leading, they walked to the altar as if nothing was wrong.

  And maybe it’s not. Maybe everything’s fine.

  Filled with long, wooden pews, the room resembled a chapel. A trough sat elevated in front, stained with the blood of past feedings. Above it swung two metal meat hooks with Caden’s and Jayme’s bodies pierced through their navels.

  “Don’t they look delicious?” said the Devil as he walked up the steps to run his hand down their bodies.

  Paimon stared at the two of them, unable to avert his eyes from their flayed, naked bodies. Their skin, once vibrant with life, was sallow and bluish-gray in the candlelight. It hung off their bodies, flaccid and flapping in the cool draft of air that circulated in the room. Their faces showed repentance, sorrow. Blood trickled down their legs and dripped into a marble trough that took up most of the altar. Packs of groundlings huddled together, each on their knees in prayer while the blooding took place.

  No one could feed until the bodies were co
mpletely drained, and even then, ritual dictated hierarchy. The Devil moderated their consumption by holding communion. Once a week, the horde gathered together to feast, but before anyone could feed, they had to show respect for their food and take in the blood of sin. Only then could they devour the flesh.

  “Go. Drink,” said the Devil.

  “But you haven’t blessed the blood.”

  The Devil walked towards the trough, his fingers tracing the outline of the pews. The room quieted and all eyes turned towards him. Paimon limped behind.

  “No, I haven’t, have I?”

  The Devil stood between Jayme and Caden, his arms stretched in cruciform shape. “My sons, daughters.” He scanned the crowd and met the eyes of every demon. “Let us pray.”

  Paimon closed his eyes and bowed his head.

  “We gather here today to honor the blood and body of sin. But not in those that hang above me. Their sins cannot weigh against the magnitude of betrayal, for in this room, a traitor walks among us.”

  The Devil pushed the trough off the altar, splashing the floor with blood. It sank into the cracks and crevices of the marble floor, staining the gray tiles red.

  “This blood is filth. I wouldn’t feed it to the most gluttonous of sinners.” He ran a finger against the bottom of the trough and brought it to his mouth. The Devil tasted it, his tongue black and forked as he showed the horde what deception tasted like.

  A circle of fire sprung up around him and the black eyes that once looked at Paimon with pride now stared through him with rage.

  “These bodies were not marked for Hell, but brought here as offerings for a job that was not completed. Rejoice, Paimon. I’m calling you out. Take credit for the waste you brought your brothers and sisters.”

  Paimon froze, his tongue tied in panic.

  The Devil walked down the steps as his bare feet soaked up blood. Crimson footprints trailed behind him. Paimon kept his head down. He didn’t want to make eye contact. Didn’t want to exist.