Hell Bound (Hellscourge Book 3)

by Diem, J. C.

  “It is a human,” one of the females said in astonishment. She examined Sam and her lip curled. “And an imp. The most useless of all beings that resides in hell.”

  “He isn’t useless,” I said in Sam’s defense. His shoulders sagged as they always did whenever someone belittled him. “He’s my guide and my friend.”

  “Ooh, he is your friend,” the hell spawn mocked and rolled her eyes. “I stand corrected. What are you doing here? Are you not aware that the city is cursed?”

  “Obviously not,” I retorted. “We came here to find a piece of metal about this big.” I held up my palm to indicate the size. “Have any of you seen it?”

  Their eyes flicked away from me furtively. One of the demons had his hands behind his back. The others shuffled in front of him to hide him from my sight.

  “No,” the female spokesdemon said. “We have seen nothing new since we were swallowed by this creature two millennia ago.”

  I knew they were lying, but I let it go for now. I had a much more pressing question to ask, thanks to my innate curiosity. “Why was the city cursed? How did the swamp come to be?”

  They exchanged looks then she leaned in to whisper to me. “The Prince did something that displeased the Hellmaster. It is said that Satan cursed the city and stripped the Prince of his power and cast him back to the first realm. The ground turned to sludge and the snakes took up residence. Then the palace sank and this creature was placed here to ensure that no one would ever try to rebuild on this site.”

  “I guess another Prince must have risen and built a new city and a palace far away from here.”

  She shrugged in unconcern. “I would not know. We have been trapped here ever since that fateful day.”

  While she’d been talking, they’d subtly moved to surround us. Weapons began to appear in their hands. Most were daggers like mine, but others held short swords. “You don’t want to attack me,” I warned them.

  “Why not?” Her expression had turned sly. “We are tired of torturing the souls that were swallowed along with us. You two will offer us some much needed entertainment.”

  “We really won’t,” I replied and my dagger became an axe. “Haven’t you figured out who I am yet?”

  Staring at my weapon, she looked at me in wild hope. “Could it be?”

  “Hellscourge?” someone whispered. It wasn’t said in horror, but in profound hope.

  “Gold of hair, green of eye,” someone chanted.

  “Bearing two opposing natures,” another demon continued.

  “She shall purge the nine realms of its leaders,” a third intoned.

  “Leaving devastation in her wake,” a fourth recited.

  Their spokesdemon finished the last line herself. “The Hellscourge shall bring death to any who incurs her wrath.”

  “That’s right,” I confirmed. “I’ve already killed two Princes.”

  Instead of fleeing in terror, she turned to Sam. “Is this true, imp?”

  “It is,” he replied with a nod. “I witnessed one of their deaths myself. She beheaded the first one and gutted the second.” He said it as if he was proud of me.

  “I know you have the object we’re searching for,” I said and pointed at the demon who was trying to hide it from me. “Just hand it over and no one needs to get hurt.”

  “You do not understand,” their leader said and her weapon disappeared. “We will not fight you.” She gestured for the demon who was holding the object to come forward. “We will gladly give you this trinket, on one condition.”

  I knew that making a bargain with a demon was a bad idea, but I felt compelled to ask anyway. “What condition?”

  “We want you to kill us.”

  I blinked at her unexpected answer. “Why?”

  “Because we are tired of living in this miserable existence,” she said wearily. “There is no way out of this prison.” She cast her hand around, indicating the stomach that we were trapped inside. “Death would be better than this.” She said it bleakly and heads nodded in agreement. One by one, their weapons winked out of existence. The lesser demon opened his hand to reveal the piece of metal. About the size of my palm, it was tarnished silver and bore faint impressions that I couldn’t make out.

  Looking at Sam for his opinion, he nodded, but he seemed disturbed. “If I had been imprisoned here for two millennia, I would want to die as well,” he told me.

  “Fine,” I said and reached out to pick up the object. I slipped it into my pocket then motioned for them to line up. “I’ll try to make your deaths painless.”

  Their hideous faces twisted in something close to joy as they complied. I swung my axe up and their spokesdemon leaned forward, offering me her neck. The blade sliced down and cut through her flesh with ease.

  At first, it didn’t bother me to end their lives. By the twentieth execution, I was starting to feel queasy. By the fiftieth, I wasn’t sure that I could continue on with the mindless slaughter. When I was near the end, I had to force myself to swing the axe. As soon as the last one fell, I surveyed the long line of headless bodies and came close to bursting into tears. They’d lined up and had begged to die, but I still felt like a mass murderer.

  Sam folded me into his arms and stroked his hand down my filthy hair. “It was an act of mercy,” he said gently. “You should not feel bad about ending their lives.”

  “I can’t help it,” I half-sobbed. “They just stood there like sheep and let me cut their heads off!” It was so un-demon like that I couldn’t understand how they’d given up all hope. If I was trapped down here, I’d stop at nothing to free myself. Come to think of it, I was imprisoned down here now. We were in exactly the same position that they’d been in, but we didn’t have anyone who could end our existence or our endless misery.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Once I’d regained control of my emotions. Sam voiced the same question that I’d been asking myself. “How are we going to get out of here?” He peered around the cavernous stomach, futilely searching for a way out. If a way had existed, I was pretty sure the demons would have found it by now.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to try to carve my way through its flesh.” I didn’t relish the idea, but I didn’t know what else to do. This thing was at least a couple of thousand years old, which meant it was probably immortal. Then again, I was the scourge of hell. If I could kill demons, maybe I would be able to kill it as well.

  We sloshed through the putrid gastric juices until we reached the stomach wall. Hefting my axe, I cut into the rubbery membrane. It took several tries before I perforated the lining. I felt the beast flinch when blood spurted over me. It added to the stains that already soaked my clothes.

  “I think it felt that one,” Sam said. He was keeping his distance from me to avoid the blood splatters. His guess was confirmed when I swung my axe again. The monster bellowed and the echo came all the way down to us. I chopped into it again and lost my balance when it surged into motion.

  Sam reached for me and we clutched each other as the gigantic snake frantically swam around in dizzying patterns. Stopping, it heaved a few times. We looked at each other in horror when we realized what it was going to do. “This is going to be gross,” I predicted then the snake vomited.

  Tumbling head over heels, we were swept back along its stomach and up through its throat. My legs had healed from the deep gashes, but I was torn open again as I swept between two of its teeth. We landed with a wet splat on solid ground, but we weren’t alone. Souls by the thousands were ejected along with us. They’d been deeper within its digestive tract where we hadn’t been able to see or hear them.

  Screaming and wailing, the souls thrashed around, believing they were suffering from some new form of torment. The chains that had once bound them together had long ago disintegrated from the acid that had done an excellent job of staining our clothes.

  I exchanged a relieved look with Sam that we’d been dumped beside the lake that had take
n the palace’s place. The massive maw of the snake began to close as it retreated into the swamp. Its scarlet eyes were narrowed in rage and pain as it slowly slid back beneath the sludge.

  Still sitting on the crumbling wall as if it had been savoring our demise, the raven gave a frustrated caw at seeing us escape so soon. It took to wing and flapped off into the distance. It was no doubt speeding off to warn its master that we were still intact. I was pretty sure the Hellmaster wanted me alive, but he’d intended to punish me first. We’d only spent a short amount of time in the snake’s gut, but it had been more than long enough for me.

  The much smaller offspring left us in peace this time as we slogged through the calf-deep sludge towards the outskirts of town. Maybe they knew that their gigantic overlord had been wounded and were now too afraid to attack us.

  It hadn’t escaped me that murdering the demons hadn’t been necessary after all. They could have been vomited out with us, but it was too late now. I didn’t know why I felt so bad about killing them. Maybe because they’d been so pathetically desperate to die.

  Sam kept sending me sidelong looks that I couldn’t quite interpret. “What?” I asked when I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “You look different.”

  “Different how?”

  He cocked his head to the side and seemed reluctant to answer me. “I think your skin is darker.”

  Looking down at my hands, I snorted out a laugh. “I’m completely covered in crud. Of course my skin is darker.”

  “It is not just your skin that is different,” he said even more reluctantly. “You have bumps on your forehead.”

  My hand flew to my forehead in horror. Sure enough, two lumps were beginning to form. I was almost afraid to ask, but I forced the words out. “Does anything else about me look different?”

  “Your eyes are changing color.”

  “They’re turning red, aren’t they?” I asked with foreboding. He nodded and it was all I could do not to cry.

  Wishing I’d never fled from Denver and ended up in New York to be dragged into this destiny, I mentally called on the nightmares. They appeared moments later and rapidly galloped towards us. Stopping a few yards away, they both turned their heads to survey us. Their nostrils flared in apparent disgust. “I know we stink,” I said dismally. “There’s no need to make an issue of it.”

  Pawing at the ground soundlessly, they tossed their manes in agitation, but allowed us to climb into the carriage. I sank down onto the cushioned seat in gratitude. Something fluttered inside my stomach and I went stock still. Sam had also collapsed onto his seat in exhaustion. His eyes were closed so I took a moment to lift up my jacket and shirt. The scar had thickened and the tendrils had lengthened. They were moving as if a gentle wind was blowing them.

  Feeling ill, I dropped my clothes to cover the hideous sight and closed my eyes as well. We lurched into motion and I fell asleep to the clatter of the wheels over the hard ground.

  It felt like only moments had passed before I was standing in front of the legion inside my mind. “What’s happening to me?” I said to Morax straight away.

  He looked tired, but not as exhausted as I felt. “We have been discussing this,” he said, indicating the other Demon Lords. “We believe your body is beginning to change because of the toxin that the Wraith Warrior infected you with.”

  “It’s turning me into one of you, isn’t it?” I said in dread.

  He inclined his head in agreement. “So it would seem.” They weren’t particularly happy about it. The more like them I became, the less likely it was that I’d find a way to evict them from my mind.

  With a nod of thanks, I trudged over to Heather’s house. She threw the door open and pulled me inside before I could knock. “Are you alright?” she asked. I was clean in my dream and she didn’t hesitate to give me a hug.

  “I’m fine,” I replied. That might be true physically, but I was a wreck mentally. Sy was sitting on the floor in the living room, sketching out some new runes. He looked up and nodded in acknowledgement that I was there. “I want to thank you both for keeping me sane when I was in the rat tunnels,” I said.

  “That’s okay,” Heather replied. “We all know how important it is for you to keep your mind intact.” She might not interact with the legion, but she knew as well as they did that I was their only key to eventual freedom.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Sam woke me by urgently shaking my shoulder. “You need to wake up,” he said.

  His tone had me sitting up from my slump. “What’s wrong?” I looked around to see we were still in the carriage.

  “We are nearing the gate.”

  “Already? That was quick.”

  “Not really. It took us nearly two days to get here.”

  I looked at him blankly. My dream had broken up fairly quickly and I remembered nothing after that. “Was I asleep the whole time?”

  “Yes. I thought it was best to let you get your rest.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t feel rested. I felt groggy and out of sorts.

  “You should look out the window. I think we may have a slight problem with getting back into the shadowlands.”

  Disturbed by his ominous tone, I pushed the window up and looked outside. The tall black wall that penned in the demons like unholy cattle was visible ahead. I could see the gate waiting for us and it wasn’t alone. A full regiment of a thousand soldiers was arrayed before it.

  “This is not good,” I agreed. “If we manage to break through them, we can’t risk them following us.” That had happened the last time and I’d ended up with a hundred extra troops to add to my legion. I didn’t know how the regiment had found this particular entrance, then I realized that the raven had to be responsible. It had relayed everything to its master and he’d sent these lackeys to intercept us.

  “I do not think you can stop them from following us into the shadowlands.”

  “There has to be a way,” I said, thinking fast. I snapped my fingers when I remembered something. “The gate said it moves to wherever its needed. What if we choose a different spot on the wall and see if it will shift to us?”

  Sam’s mouth dropped open. “You can be truly brilliant sometimes.”

  “Thanks,” I said wryly. I didn’t kid myself that I was a genius, but even I had my moments.

  Reacting to my thoughts, the nightmares veered away from the regiment. A Demon Lord and the captain in charge of the soldiers shouted orders. They took off after us at a run, but we rapidly left them in our dust.

  Picking a spot about a mile away from where the gate had originally been, I silently asked the hellhorses to stop. Sticking my head out the window again, I crossed my fingers that this was going to work. “Gate! I need you!”

  A section of the wall shimmered and the gate appeared, complete with its pet gargoyles. A face formed in the wrought iron. His dismal expression and decorations of humans performing the arts told me it was the same gate that we’d used to enter the seventh realm. “There is no need to shout,” he said sourly. “My hearing is exceptional.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Would you mind opening for us?”

  He heaved a put-upon sigh. “I suppose I must.” A groaning sound commenced and a crack appeared down the middle of the gate. It slowly began to swing open and Sam tugged on my sleeve.

  “We have another problem,” he said.

  “The soldiers can’t have caught up to us yet,” I replied and turned to see how close they were. As I’d guessed, they were still distant. Hearing a hollow howl from behind us, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I scrambled across the carriage and squeezed in beside Sam. A pack of hellhounds was closing in on us fast. Their crimson eyes gleamed in bloodlust as their feet noiselessly covered the ground.

  Diving over to the window, I stuck my head out. “Hurry!” I shouted at the gate.

  “I cannot move any faster,” he said, looking at me glumly.

  Shifting restlessly, the nig
htmares rolled their eyes. They were fearsome in their own right, but neither of them wanted to take on a pack of six hellhounds. The moment there was enough room for the carriage to squeeze through, they took off at a gallop.

  “Don’t let the hellhounds through!” I ordered the gate.

  “It is already too late to prevent them from leaving,” he lamented as he began to swing shut. The dogs managed to race through the opening, but the regiment of soldiers had been locked in hell. Nearly nipping at our heels, I could almost smell the hounds’ breath as they sprinted after us. The hellhorses galloped as fast as they could, widening the gap between us and our pursuers. Sam and I watched through the back window as the demonic dogs fell further and further behind.

  Knowing we had to be close to the portal that would take us home, we turned around just as the carriage disappeared. One of the nightmares appeared beneath us before we could fall to the ground. Riding bareback now, Sam held onto the horse’s mane and I gripped him tightly around the waist. I risked a look back to see the hellhounds silently pounding after us.

  Entering the narrow alleyway, we braced ourselves a moment before the horse skidded to a stop and bucked us off. As always, Nathan was there to catch me. Leo was there to save Sam from splattering on the road. Brie was a no-show this time.

  “I have you,” Nathan said, drinking in the sight of me. Staring into his beautiful eyes, I was on the verge of becoming lost in their depths.

  Remembering the danger that had followed us, I turned to see the nightmare spin around. It galloped off, disappearing from sight. Seconds later, I saw the pack of hellhounds sprinting through the darkness. Skidding to a stop just like the nightmare had, the alpha dog’s head emerged from the portal. Crimson eyes glowed eerily in the dark as its shadowy head appeared to be sticking out of the rock wall.