The demons deserved to be set free too. For hundreds of thousands of years, we’d kept ourselves mostly separated from the humans and respectful of the boundaries between our worlds so as not to upset the intricate balance, but the humans had been the ones to tear that balance apart. We were here to save them now, to fix the mess they had created, and as our reward, we would reap the benefits of staying on this plane, feeling the sun on our flesh and experiencing a world of life instead of death.
I watched River as she stepped closer to the pit. Every day she came here and faced the gateway, she became better able to withstand it, and I grew to hate it more. If she’d been unable to stand being so close to the gateway, I would have had a reason to take her from here, but now I had no reason to do so. We would have to see this battle through to the end.
There is still a possibility she won’t be able to withstand the fires of Hell once she’s inside. But I had a feeling that wouldn’t be an obstacle, not for her.
River edged toward the pit until her toes were at the very edge. Her black hair fell forward to shield her pretty features from me. I found myself holding my breath as I watched her, willing her to back away, but she remained unmoving.
I closed the few feet between us, staying close to her as I peered into the dark bowels of Hell.
“I’m okay,” River murmured to me, sensing my concern for her before I could give voice to it.
“I don’t like you so close.”
“I’m going to have to get closer if I have to go in.”
My teeth grated together as I spoke. “I know.”
She looked up at me. The faint scar in the corner of her right eyebrow and the light dusting of freckles across her nose were more pronounced right now. Outside of this place, her skin held a golden hue from all the time she’d spent outdoors over the years, but near the gateway, her skin had a stark pallor to it.
Unable to resist, I brushed my knuckles across her cheek. Her thinner frame had matured her face, and she looked older now than when I’d first met her only four short months ago, but she’d also grown from a pretty woman to a beautiful one. Or perhaps, it was simply that I found her the most beautiful creature I’d ever encountered with her proud spirit and endless love.
She’d lived but a second of my lengthy lifetime, yet she’d managed to take possession of me in a way I’d never known possible. What I was willing to do for this woman would shock Lucifer himself.
She leaned into my touch before her amethyst eyes slid back to the pit. My hand fell away from her as she kept her head bent. From here, the fires of Hell couldn’t be seen, but I could feel their power in my bones.
River knelt beside the pit. Golden-blue sparks danced across her fingers as she drew life from—as she described it—the sluggish Earth beneath her fingers. Before we’d gotten close to Hell, the sparks she emitted had always been a golden-white color, but here they were darker. The sparks rose to encircle her wrists, climbing all the way to her elbows. She worked tirelessly to use her angelic ability to draw energy from life in an attempt to close the gateway.
It hadn’t worked so far, but she’d never been this close to the gateway before now. “There’s so much power here,” she murmured, drawing my attention away from the sparks and back to her. She lifted her head to stare at me. “It’s such a combination of everything, of Hell and Earth, of death and life. It’s so… conflicting.”
I shifted my feet as I glanced between her and the pit. “Can you handle it?”
“Yes.”
My fingers flexed as I watched her and resisted the compulsion to pull her away, but she was showing no ill effects from being this close or from the flow of life engulfing her arms. The others all watched her, but no one spoke again for the next few hours as she tried to find some way of manipulating the gateway into reacting to her the way another gate once had to Lucifer.
The fading daylight drew my attention to the holes in the roof created by the gargoyles Lucifer had somehow managed to set free from behind the second seal. Even if River couldn’t make it into Hell or close this gateway, I had to return to Hell, and it would have to be soon.
I had to find out what was happening to the hellhounds I’d left guarding the seals, and it was imperative that I find a way to stop the seals from falling. If the creatures locked behind those seals continued to break free, it would be the end of what remained of the humans, and perhaps Earth itself, which would mean the end of us all.
I turned away from the pink, red, and orange streaked sky to take in the others still standing within the room. Vargas paced by the doorway to the bar, his hands clasped behind his back. Hawk leaned against the far wall, his rifle in hand, as he watched the pit. Beside him, Erin had her legs crossed while she sharpened one of her knives. Corson and Bale both circled the edges of the gateway, keeping watch for anything rising from within.
My gaze slid to River. Her eyes were closed against the sun pooling over her. Her expression was so serene that she almost looked as if she were meditating. The compression of her full mouth and the jut of her chin were the only indication she endured any kind of strain.
As if sensing my stare, her eyes fluttered open to look back at me. The striking, purple shade of her irises were the most beautiful thing about her. They were enchanting, and a sign of her angel heritage, as all angels had the same eye color.
Her mouth quirked in a smile when she met my gaze. “What is it?”
“Just watching you.”
Love danced within her eyes as she rose. “I’m ready to go back to the camp,” she said and stretched her back. “And I’m ready to enter Hell tomorrow.”
I barely managed to bite back the savage “no” that rose in my throat. I glanced at the pit then at her once more. “That may not be necessary. There has to be some way—”
“To close the gate from here?” she interrupted. “How? What? Because all I’ve been able to do is stand and stare at this thing. I can feel the pulse of life vibrating through the Earth beneath my feet now instead of only despair and torment, but I still have absolutely no idea how to go about shutting it.”
“Going in may not do any good,” Corson said from across the room, his voice higher than normal.
I glanced at the normally easygoing, yet lethal demon I considered one of my closest and strongest allies. He had his shoulders thrust back and his orange eyes focused on River. There was an unusually stubborn and angry set to his pointed chin. At six four, Corson was tall with a lithe, whipcord build that made him exceptionally fast, far faster than most demons.
His hair was so black in color it was nearly blue in the fading light falling around him. It curled against his collar and over the top of his pointed ears. From the tips of his ears, two pink unicorns dangled and spun on their golden chains. I’d become more accustomed to seeing him adorned in random pieces of jewelry, but I still hated it. I itched to tear the earrings out of his ears every time he walked by with a new set of them that he’d acquired from his latest female conquest.
“It can’t do any harm, either. I hope,” River muttered so low I knew I was the only one who heard the last two words.
“Perhaps we should wait on that,” Corson said.
When River had first walked into the camp near the wall, she’d been nothing more than one of the possibilities we’d encountered while searching for Lucifer’s last descendant. Now, she was my Chosen and their queen, but more than that, Bale respected her, which was rare, and Corson considered her a friend. Corson enjoyed being around many humans and demons, but there were few he truly admired. Like me, he’d always stayed true to the mission, to what was supposed to be done when it came to River. I felt him balking now.
“Waiting won’t do us any good,” River said. “I won’t go far, but maybe somehow the answer will come to me if I do enter. I’m not getting anything now. I have no idea how this is supposed to be done.”
“You might not be able to do it,” Corson reminded her.
“Corson,” Bale sa
id in a warning tone before glancing at me.
She worried his words would push me over the edge, and I felt myself teetering, but it wouldn’t be their words that pushed me over. It would be standing back and having to watch as River climbed onto the roadway circling the edge of the pit. Corson opened his mouth to protest more before clamping it closed again.
“Are you sure about this?” I inquired of River, my voice more ragged than normal.
“I still feel good. Like really good right now,” she replied. “I’m not drained like I was when we first started coming here. I can handle myself emotionally around this place now. I can do this.”
I had no doubt that I was far less ready for this than she was. “If you feel up to trying to enter tomorrow, then we will.”
“I do,” she said.
Corson paced away while Erin, Hawk, and Vargas looked on helplessly. My gaze fell on Hawk leaning against the wall. He didn’t know it yet, none of the humans did, but there was an extremely good chance he would be able to make the journey into Hell with us.
Ever since Lilitu, the queen of her branch of the canagh demons, had sliced Hawk open and her blood had mixed with his, he’d been showing more and more demon-like traits. The girl following him around after only one sexual encounter with him was one example; his more volatile temper, the rate at which his wounds healed now, and the fact he wasn’t sleeping as much as he used to were only a few of the others. Demons required sleep, just not as much as the human race did.
Eventually, I would have to tell him that he was turning into what humans considered an incubus. He would only have more women trailing around behind him if he weren’t informed soon. However, right now, I couldn’t risk River knowing there was a possibility she could become immortal too—not with everything else going on, and not with the chance it could sever her connection with the Earth forever. She was convinced the loss of that connection had been what turned Lucifer, and the other fallen angels into the malevolent creatures they were now. No matter how badly I craved her by my side for eternity, I would not risk destroying her in such a way.
For now, the others kept a close eye on Hawk to make sure he didn’t have sex or kiss another woman. He was staying away from them for now, but it was only a matter of time before his canagh nature became more dominant, and he wouldn’t be able to go without sex, not without consequences.
He’d made it this far through the change, which meant he would survive it. When the time came, I was going to have to explain what was happening to him, and he would have to agree to keep it quiet, or I would have him removed from our group.
I didn’t like keeping things from River, and I had no idea what I would tell her if he did suddenly leave, but I would cross that bridge when, or if, we came to it. If he did agree to keep it quiet, I would find some demons for him to have sex with so he could feed and keep his urges from getting out of control. No matter what, Hawk had to be kept from unwittingly ensnaring more mortal women.
Taking hold of River’s elbow, I led her back toward the hallway door. I opened it for her and waited for the others to file through it before stepping inside. I didn’t look back at the gateway; I knew what awaited us there.
Resting my hand in the middle of River’s back, I walked beside her down the hall. Bale and Corson led the way before us. Bale’s hips swung back and forth with every step she took. Her blood-red hair fell to the middle of her back. The red of her skin appeared darker in the dimly lit hall.
Stopping before the other door, Bale pulled it open and stepped back. Her lime-colored eyes briefly met mine before darting to River. Bale’s jaw clenched; she had come to like River over these past months, but she wouldn’t protest what must be done.
I guided River back into the main barroom. Shadows from the lanterns lining the walls danced over the worn carpet and across the bar. The flames reflected on the gleaming white skulls of the skelleins. Music drifted through the room, and all the skelleins swayed back and forth to the beat with their mugs raised in the air. I had no idea what they were singing, but the humans all exchanged a surprised look before breaking into grins.
River clapped her hands before her and bounced on the toes of her boots. I caught something about there being no time for losers and champions before the music faded away. The skelleins cheered, clinked their glasses loudly with one another, and downed their beer.
In Hell, the skelleins had always enjoyed their mjéod, a demon drink brewed from the waters of Hell. On Earth, their penchant for mjéod had been replaced with a passion for beer. I didn’t know when they’d first tasted the human concoction, but I wasn’t sure if the skelleins ever stopped drinking it.
They brewed their own beer and kept it in a shed in the woods. I’d discovered their little stash a couple of weeks ago when I’d been scouting the area with other demons. They had enough inside their shed to keep them supplied for at least six months.
River’s head tilted to the side, as it did every time she watched them drink a beverage, but like always, no liquid trickled from their skeletal frames. She shook her head before shooting me an amazed look. “I’ll never get used to that,” she murmured.
Draping my arm around her shoulders, I pulled her close against my side and held her there. She fit perfectly against me, soft and yielding against all my hard edges.
The skelleins all turned to face us when they realized we were standing there. Breaking free of Hell had caused them to individualize themselves far more than they ever had before. In Hell, it had been impossible to tell male from female; now it was easy enough by the clothes they wore.
Some of the skelleins had really individualized themselves—like the pirate at another table who had somehow found a stuffed parrot to add to his eyepatch and bandana. I hadn’t realized the skelleins had spent so much time watching the human world when they’d been in Hell, but they’d seen far more of it than I’d ever realized.
“Do ye know the answer?” a skellein wearing a kilt shouted to Erin. The male skellein definitely hadn’t come from Scotland, but he’d shouted the words in a bad Scottish accent.
“It took some thinking,” Erin said, “but it’s a watermelon.”
Groans and cheers accompanied her statement. “Have a drink with us, lass!” the kilt wearer cried.
“Afraid not,” Erin replied.
River turned to me with hope shining in her eyes. “Can we stay? I’m in no rush to go back out there. Besides, I think a trip into Hell should be preceded with a few drinks.”
It would probably be best if she rested, but I could not deny her this. “We can stay.”
The skellein’s jaws clacked together eagerly, and their bony feet clicked against the floor as they rushed to make room for her at the bar. “Drinking with the World Walker!” one of them cheered. “Get her anything she asks for, on me!”
“You don’t pay for drinks!” another shouted.
“Neither do you!” the first retorted. “But I offered her first drink to her.” He pulled at his bright orange tie as he proudly puffed out his chest.
River grinned at him then looked at me with a radiant smile. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling in return as I ran my hand over the back of her silken hair. My fingers brushed over some of the shells on the necklace she wore. When I’d first met her, the shells had been shiny; now they were dull and more than a few of them had cracked and broken away.
The skellein with the orange tie extended his bony hand and leaned closer to River. “The name is Lix.”
She took hold of his hand. “River.”
“Or we could call you savior,” he said with a pull of his jaw into a grin.
CHAPTER 4
Kobal
I glowered at the creature who purposely ignored me as River tugged her hand away from him. “I am no one’s savior,” she told him.
Lix adjusted his tie as he spoke. “We are each trying to find our own way in the world. Some have no idea who or what they are yet, but you will find out soon enough.”
“What would you like?” the bartender asked River.
River tapped her finger on her chin as she stared at the taps lining the bar. “I don’t know, something strong.”
“How about some mjéod?” the bartender suggested.
“What is that?” River inquired.
“It’s a demon brew,” I told her. “It’s what we often drank in Hell. It’s far too strong for you.”
Her eyes lit with curiosity. “I’d still like to try it.”
Arguing with her would get us nowhere; besides, she’d hate it after one sip. “I’ll get one and we can share it.” I focused on the skellein behind the bar. “I’ll take a mjéod for the both of us.”
The bartender turned away and came back a minute later with a glass of the deep red brew. She placed it on the bar before me. River stared at the glass before leaning forward to sniff it. Her nose wrinkled at the pungent aroma, and she sat back.
“What an odd color,” she murmured.
“It’s brewed from the rivers in Hell,” I told her.
“There are rivers in Hell?” Vargas inquired.
“Of course,” Corson replied. “They are not the blue of many of your rivers here on Earth or as numerous, but they are there. We all evolved from the same beginning after all.”
“How do the fires and heat not vaporize them?” Erin asked.
Corson shrugged. “The water is not the same as yours. It has evolved in its own way as well.”
“Can we drink it?” River asked.
“Humans have come here and consumed mjéod before without a problem,” Lix replied. “While they couldn’t stand afterward, they did not die. They have tried our water too. They may not be able to survive our fires, but they survive drinking our waters.”
The Road (The Road to Hell Series, Book 3) Page 3