by A. K. Koonce
Someone yanks on my leg and pulls me back down to the floor.
That fucking green skinned demon. He’s had it out for me ever since I walked through those fucking doors.
Bitch wants to catch these hands, that’s exactly what he’s gonna get.
He leers, his forked tongue flicking out in a suggestive, disgusting gesture.
I’ve had it up to here with his bullshit. My hand tightens into a fist and I pull my arm back and send it flying forward, packing as much strength as I can into the punch, and maybe even a little magic.
Blood, a midnight blue color, bursts from his nose and the asshole falls back, landing unconscious on the floor. His body is swallowed up by the fray, and I don’t see him again.
Then, I feel someone’s hands wrap around my waist and pull me back. I twist in the grasp only to meet Azazel’s milky white eyes. I relax as he pulls me away from the fight and to a quieter area of the bar. I go with him, trust pulsing between us. He takes a seat, sitting back against the chair with leisurely grace.
“So,” he drawls, his starry eyes shining with curiosity. “If your men were here, what would they be doing?”
The mere question sobers me up instantly, more than the fight had. “Malek would be watching over me. Super territorial, that one.” I smile.
I sit down on the empty chair next to Azazel, and he easily drapes his arm over the back of it. Not touching, keeping a respectable distance for a demon. Then again, he’s my family. Some distant cousin or uncle on my grandfather, Satan’s side or something…
Hell if I can remember.
“Saint would probably be bothering a pixie, Syko would be making a joke about the ambiance, and Phoenix… he’d be brooding behind me.” Turning me on by just standing there. “Always brooding.”
“They sound like a handful.”
“They are but….” I suddenly feel my giddiness fade away as my thoughts are overcome with them. “I…” I stand to my full height, taking in a breath. “I have to go home now.” My voice trembles, and I don’t know why. It’s like the high I just felt is suddenly crashing, causing my emotions to fray.
Those white eyes follow me. “You miss them.”
I do. I don’t even have to say the words when I know they’re prominent on my face.
He sighs and stands. He’s very close to me, but I don’t feel afraid. Not anymore. All I feel is… friendship. Like we’ve known each other for years rather than hours.
His hands cup my shoulders and squeeze. “It has been a pleasure knowing you, Izara Castillo, Princess of Hell.” The air permeates with the scent of magic, of sulfur and burnt cinnamon. Heat presses onto my back and my wings, and I know, without having to turn around, that a portal is there.
And that this is goodbye.
“I hope we meet again one day,” I whisper like it’s some type of forbidden desire I shouldn’t even want. “Under different circumstances.”
A broad smile tilts his mouth, making him look more beautiful. “Oh, dearest Izara. I am sure we will.”
And then he gently pushes me towards the portal.
And I’m falling into darkness.
Nine
Saint
The voices and images of confinement scurry around the black room. I don’t dwell on them though. Phoenix taught me a long time ago how to block out dark magic or even cruel fathers. It’s my own bitter thoughts that are harder to ignore.
Days pass slowly and it becomes harder and harder to safely keep my thoughts from twisting in on themselves.
The more adrenaline inspiring the illusions, the better they are to block out your surroundings. Izzy disappearing, us being confined, the shadows looming around me, I imagine it all away.
I imagine myself with her. The intimate thoughts become a sensual reality that even Phoenix would be proud of.
Her hips thrust in time with mine, our bodies melding and sliding against one another so perfectly that I can almost taste the salt along her skin. The gliding way she slides her pussy down my shaft brings my body to life with tingling energy coursing all through me. Full lips whisper along my neck.
“Saint...” My lashes flutter and Phoenix’s demonic eyes turn into a sinful angel’s gaze. Both men brush their palms down my back as they stand behind me.
“Saint…” Their bare chests skim along my back as Syko slides his tongue along my neck before biting my shoulder hard enough to arch my spine.
“Saint…” Phoenix’s steady fingers push down my abs, trailing lower and lower before teasing the base of my cock.
A groan consumes my chest.
“Saint…” She lowers herself down my shaft. Her wetness coats his palm, and the incubus flicks his dark gaze from me to her.
Heavy, lustful breaths part my lips and when I Iook up at the beautiful woman, she’s gone.
Confusion washes over me. A chill settles over my sweaty skin as my stomach drops sickly.
Reality slams into me.
All of them are gone.
Because Izara’s in hell.
And I’m alone.
Ten
Izara
The first circle of hell is a ghost of a town. Here no demons roam, but the spirits do. They’re ghosts, moaning and weeping. Their bodies pass mine like soft wisps of light and air that chills this entire dimension.
This whole setting is just the definition of heartbreak and sorrow, and even I feel it press around me, seeping into my bones. It clings to me, and I shake it off.
The place is crawling with these phantom people, how am I supposed to find the leader of this dimension? I suppose I could just…
I take a breath and reach down for my magic. I haven’t really used it after Azazel healed me. Maybe I can create another direct portal to the Academy now that I’m healed.
I try it, picturing the sight of home, of crumbling buildings and dark skeletal trees… The air shimmers before me, forming the portal I need.
Smiling, I step towards it, only for a moment later to have it disappear into tendrils of smoke as someone steps right over my portal like it’s nothing more than mist and illusion.
It’s not a weeping person, not a ghost with haunting cries that echo through the night. It’s… a woman. A demon woman with beautiful, tumbling black hair and big violet eyes with slitted pupils. When she speaks, her voice is an enchanting whisper. “Welcome to limbo, the first circle of hell, home to the ghosts’ of mortals who have not crossed over, the denial dead, the unbaptised, and the tragic. I am Lilith, the first woman, mother of demons and dead children. Welcome to my domain, Izara Castillo, Princess of Hell—”
“Thank you for that warm greeting,” I interrupt quickly. Their disturbing introductions are becoming grating. It’s getting pretty old. “And I’m afraid my stay here will be entirely too short. I have to… go.”
She doesn’t even blink at my announcement. She bows her head. “Of course. I know how busy you must be, preparing for the reign of chaos.”
I’m sorry, the reign of fucking what?
Before I can ask about that ominous statement, she turns from me and starts gliding away. “The exit to this dimension is through the Forest of Woe. If you can make it across there, then you’ll find the doorway to earth and your precious Academy.”
Couldn’t you just... I don’t know... summon it for me now? I wish I could ask that, but I’m almost afraid she’ll zap me with eternal sorrow if I do. This is just another part of my test. I have to go through this fucking forest in order to finally get back to the Academy and out of this hell that is, well, hell.
She stops just at the edge of a dark, frightening forest. The Academy grounds have nothing on this place. The patch of woods is thick with a maze of trees so dark, I can’t see anything through it. But I can feel the unease, the indescribable feeling of sorrow, rage, and heartbreak so profound, it nearly cleaves through me entirely.
Strange things go bump in the night in this dimension, and it’s like all the nightmares I was ever told about are true
. I can feel it in there, pulsing, reaching for me and threatening to drown me in despair.
And I have to travel through that to get to the exit.
My gaze goes up. Maybe I can fly over it? But even that seems impossible when the forest is as tall as it is wide. It looks too high to fly over.
“Best of luck to you, Izara. I’ll be seeing you again.” She turns away and just disappears like ash in the wind.
I’m left alone before the looming gloom of the forest. I don’t waste anymore time before I venture towards it and I’m swallowed up by the darkness. One minute there’s light and the next, nothing but shadows pressed upon darker shadows. The only illumination around me is the dart of ghosts rushing past, screeching, crying. After a while of wandering forward, hands out in front of me, that I realize the spirits are screeching words. I can’t make them out at first, but when I do, a chill slides over my skin. They’re crying their every torturous sin.
I can't help but feel like it’s a haunted Halloween walk. I jump and cry out every time a ghost pops out in front of me, shrieking into my face. Their sorrow is heavy on me. I can feel my footsteps lagging, feel my bones weigh down. I’m moving slower, even if I don’t want to. Like the forest is claiming me for its own with each slow step.
I pump my wings, physically trying to fight off the emotions threatening to take over. I hover off the ground and with a few strong beats of my wings, I push forward while my legs can’t. I move at a faster pace, desperate to get out of the haunting darkness, to make it to the portal. Here, my magic feels frenzied, like its waning, sputtering embers.
I tear through branches, and they snag against my skin, my smooth wings, until I smack straight into the trunk of a tree and slide down it, pain radiating from my face, down the front of my body. My palms dig into rocks and sticks, and I push myself off from the ground and stand, rubbing my palms down my front to ease the pain.
Out of the corner of my vision, a flicker of light appears and stays. I turn towards it, catching the ephemeral image of the ghost of an angel with wide-spread wings. And for some reason… I recognize her. Her gaze goes to me, and her eyes widen like she’s aware that I’m there. I hadn’t realized the ghosts were actually aware of me, but it’s obvious she is, by the way her gaze goes over my body, my fiery wings.
She opens her mouth. “You.” The single word is packed with so much hate, I stagger back a shaking step. And I realize where I’ve seen her before, and who she is.
Etheria, the former headmistress and one of the founding Prods of Academy of Six.
The cruel angel who killed Professor Shade’s child.
The onslaught of hatred that spirals through me is sudden and surprising. I glare. Because of her, a child died in the Dark Genocide. Her own child, her’s and the teacher's who helped me ever since I found myself at that detention center of a school.
The sorrow I witnessed Shade display becomes my own as I take her in. When I look at her, I see the small, broken body of a little boy with bicolored eyes that are open but unseeing, staring up at a sky that rains down ash in the aftermath of destruction. Of a war that killed demons. And demons… they’re evil. It shouldn’t matter to me, but it does. Because, like it or not, I’m part demon. Phoenix is a demon. Azazel is a demon, and there are some in that second circle who are kind. Any one of them could have died in the Dark Genocide. Children died in the Dark Genocide.
And she cruelly mocked Professor Shade as he held his dead child in his arms.
For a single cruel second, I’m glad she’s stuck here, glad she has unresolved problems and will spend the rest of her afterlife in limbo.
The denial dead. I bet she is in denial.
“You shouldn’t exist,” she echoes, her voice becoming a high-pitched whine, so similar to the others around us.
“Well I do.” I take an angry step forward.
“No, no, no,” she wails, grasping her hair, but the strands pass through her fingers like she’s grasping air. “Chaos. So much chaos. Destruction. Fire and hell on earth.”
I want to know what she’s talking about, I want to ask, but I don’t. These are her sins, everything she has to live with in this dimension. The blood she helped spill? It’s on her hands, in her heart, and that’s why she’s crying, why she’s tortured.
And she deserves every fucking bit of it.
“Don’t go, don’t go. Blood and fire. Chaos. Hell on earth!”
That seems punishment enough, and still not everything she deserves for what she did to her own child. This pain could never match up to the pain I glimpse inside Professor Shade’s eyes every time he speaks of his little boy.
So I stalk past her and let her wallow in her own misery.
But all the way, her haunting cries follow me, echoing in my mind like the dark promise of a premonition.
It feels like hours before I finally make it to the end of the forest, and my whole body, even my heart and soul, ache like I’ve been physically beaten. Even my wings hurt. The walk seemed endless, but finally, fucking finally, I’m at the end.
I step away from the copse of trees and into the light. Beyond, there lays a doorway, a portal and beyond it, I can see the front steps of the Academy. I can see home.
Home. It’s strange to think of that wretched place as my home.
But as long as my men are there, that’s exactly what it is.
How much time has passed? That’s the first question that flutters through my mind as I step in front of the portal. If I step into it and emerge on the other side, will it be to realize that an eternity has passed? Will Saint, Phoenix, Malek, and Syko still be there waiting for me? Will they be old and wrinkled, will I be nothing but a distant memory in their fragile, decaying minds?
I fucking hope not.
Only one way to find out.
Taking a final breath, I whisper my goodbye to hell and step through the portal.
Eleven
Izara
The damp cobblestone ground cuts into my back and wings as I roll over and stare up at the blue sky.
How much time as passed? I wonder once more. A few hours...a few days? Shit what if years have slipped by and the men I love are now old and frail waiting for a girl who lost herself in the rings of hell?
“Miss Castillo.” A disappointed voice leers out my name and it’s then that I realize that years have not passed.
And I am very much still in the shit hole prison of Academy of Six under the watch of Headmaster Willms.
Great.
The joy I feel at finally being home overrides any wariness or trepidation. I can’t even despise the Academy right now. I can't even despise him. I’m back. I’m back, and I can see Saint, Phoenix, Malek, and Syko again.
His hazel eyes bare down on me from behind his old square glasses. He adjusts his suit and I suddenly feel very much like a bug that he might step on at any moment.
I certainly didn’t miss his judgment during my little hell-trip.
“Come inside, Miss Castillo. You’ve missed many classes. You’ve broken several rules in the past four weeks and I’m much too tired to stand here all day discussing them.” His shoes scuff the sidewalk as he heads toward the entrance building without looking back to see if I’m following.
A heavy puff of air exits my lungs and flutters the dark hair in front of my face. Ash, sweat, and the drippings of demon booze clings to body and against my slick, shining leather outfit. I somehow find the strength to shove myself off of the ground and follow after the old Headmaster.
The building is quiet when I enter and my dear friend, Miss Warren gives me a tight smile that feels slightly more genuine than it used to. Shit. I wonder if she missed me, then I feel bad because I didn't think about her at all.
“Morning, Izara,” the secretary whispers on a mousy tone.
Willms cuts her a cold glance, and she rushes to turn back around and begin her endless typing at her old black typewriter.
My leathery wings ruffle against my back as I slip into th
e Headmaster’s office and they only become even more on edge when he closes the door soundly behind us.
Nerves claw beneath my skin in a new way that I’ve never experienced. I feel trapped now that the door is solidly closed and I know it’ll open again but I hate the way the room feels like it’s pressing in on me.
I force a breath in my lungs and calm myself by listening to my inhales and exhales.
“It seems you’ve taken a nice adventure recently. Do tell me about that, Miss Castillo.”
Tell him. About my trip through hell?
No, I’d rather not. I doubt he'd believe any of it anyway. If he didn’t believe me when I'd been choked on my first day—with the bruises to prove it—then he wouldn’t believe I’d been kidnapped by my father and sent to hell.
I know perfectly well what I look like. Tight full body leather, long unkempt hair and fiery spread out wings.
I likely look like I went to dominate hell. Not been kidnapped and tortured by it.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say and as I sit down, I notice a ripped off and bloody pixie arm tangled through my hair. I discreetly tug it out and drop it beneath his desk.
“Miss Castillo, you’re just slightly out of Academy of Six’s jurisdiction when you enter hell.”
That’s surprising. I always assumed hell and Academy of Six were one in the same.
I say nothing instead of telling the aging Headmaster my petty thoughts.
“You are not allowed off campus property. Do you understand?”
It takes me just under a second to realize...I’m not in confinement. No guards are here. It’s just me and him. And he’s warning me rather than punishing me.
Why?
“I understand,” I say slowly. But I really don't, and the room feels smaller as the two of us stare one another down in a silent showdown of who might crack first.
Surprisingly, it’s Willms.
Get fucked. I didn't spend hours in the second circle of hell without coming out with a few tricks up my sleeve.