Road to Hell

by J. C. Diem

  He smiled at me shyly. “I would like that…Violet.” I could see that it was a struggle for him to use my name. “It has been a very long time since I have had a friend.”

  Leo shook his head sardonically, but didn’t comment about our bonding session. Nathan’s face was stony. He stood so still that he looked like a Greek statue.

  “What did you mean when you said your master’s carriage wasn’t drawn by nightmares?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from Nathan. “Why do demons even need carriages? Don’t they just teleport everywhere?”

  Sam’s expression turned grave again. “Nightmares are one of hell’s version of horses. They are made of shadows and have eyes that burn with fire. They serve only the strongest of demons who have conquered a gate in all nine realms of hell. Demons cannot teleport when they are in hell. I have heard this is only possible when they are in this realm.”

  “It is the same for angels,” Nathan confirmed. “How did you manage to stow away on the carriage?”

  “Sam has a neat trick,” I said. “Show him,” I urged when the imp just sat there.

  Looking down at his hands, he concentrated and his skin changed color. It went from black to a dark brown that matched the table top. They even had the same grain of wood as the table.

  “Interesting,” Nathan said in a musing tone. “Can all imps camouflage themselves like this?”

  Sam shrugged and the color faded. “I do not know. I did not often have a chance to speak to the other lowly minions.”

  “I would like to know where Satan has gone to,” Leo said. “He is the most powerful demon in existence. It does not make sense that another has risen to take his place.”

  They looked at me for an answer, but I didn’t have one. The demons that I’d absorbed didn’t know where their old leader had gone or how their new one had risen so high. “It beats me,” I said with a shrug. “I didn’t see anything about that in any of their memories.”

  “How many souls have you absorbed now?” Nathan asked.

  “Three,” I replied with a grimace.

  “When did you acquire the other two?”

  Leo explained how we’d both stabbed the lesser demons in the chest to release their essence. “They were immediately drawn inside Violet once they were expelled from their vessels,” he finished up.

  “I have never heard of anything like this happening before,” Nathan said. His tone and expression were disturbed. “We should consult with Sophia about this when she returns. Perhaps she will have some wisdom to shed.”

  He’d tried to hide my ability to ingest souls from the others, but now that Leo and Sam had seen me absorb two more demons, the secret was out. I could already imagine Brie’s reaction to the news and knew that it wouldn’t be pleasant. This would give her even more reasons to dislike me.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “She did what?” Brie said incredulously and stared at me in horror. Sophia had taken the news a little better, but she was still pale and shaken. They’d returned after a couple of hours with clothes for Sam and food for me.

  Sophia picked up her teacup with a hand that trembled slightly. “You heard Nathanael as well as I did,” she said. “There is no need for him to repeat himself.”

  Pacing up and down, the teen was so worked up that she couldn’t articulate her feelings. Coming to a stop at last, she gripped the back of her chair hard enough to turn her knuckles white. “When were you going to tell us that you are a succubus?” It came out in an accusing hiss.

  “What the hell is a succubus?” I asked in confusion.

  “It is a mythical creature that eats souls,” Leo told me then turned to his twin. “I do not believe that Violet is a true succubus.”

  “Really?” she said sarcastically. “Why not?”

  “Because she did not suck the essence from the demons,” Nathan replied. “They were drawn to her. She had no choice but to absorb them.”

  “Why has she not been possessed by one of them?” Brie asked and sent me an accusing stare. “It is unheard of for a demon to fill a vessel and not to take charge of it.”

  “It is obvious that Violet is not a normal human,” Sophia said almost tiredly. She might not need to sleep, but she looked like she could use a nap right now. This news had obviously hit her hard. “I already knew she was special. I just did not realize how different she would be.”

  “I would not call being able to absorb demons ‘special’,” Brie said.

  “What would you call it?” I demanded, already knowing what her answer would be.

  “Only someone who is evil could take more evil into themselves,” she said coldly.

  Sam surged to his feet and all three angels made their weapons appear. “My mistress is not evil,” the imp said hotly in my defense. “She is good and kind and there is not a wicked bone in her body!”

  I put my hand on his arm to find that he was shaking. His bravado was just a show. He was petrified of them all. “Thanks, Sam, but it’s okay. Brie is just saying what they’re all thinking.”

  Filled with distress, he sank back down onto his seat again. “They are wrong,” he said stubbornly. “I have lived with true evil for centuries. I can feel it even when they try to hide their real natures. I do not sense any evil in you.”

  “You should. I have three demons inside me, after all.”

  He shrugged his bony shoulders, but he didn’t relent.

  “What does this mean?” Leo asked Sophia.

  Staring deeply into her cup, she dragged her gaze up to meet his. “I do not know.” Her simple answer wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I have not seen this development in my visions.”

  I stood with a heavy sigh. “Come on, Sam, let’s get you cleaned up and into some new clothes.” His skin was too dark to tell if he was dirty or not, but it would make me feel better for him if he took a shower. At the least, it would get rid of the smell of sulphur.

  I picked up the plastic bags that Sophia had left next to Sam’s chair and he hesitantly followed me up to the second floor. Taking his bags into my room, I upended the contents onto my bed and sorted through them. I handed him a change of clothes then took him to the bathroom. After showing him how to use the shower, I retreated to my bedroom.

  Folding his clothes up neatly, I put them back in the bags then dumped them on the floor at the end of my bed. I had only one small dresser and it wasn’t big enough to share with him. The closet was full of Leo and Brie’s clothing. With nothing better to do, I lay down to wait.

  A quiet knock came at my door a while later and I realized that I’d dozed off. I opened my eyes to see Sam standing in the doorway. “What do you think?” he asked, scratching his arm nervously.

  Now dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he looked almost human. Only his unnaturally dark skin and ugly face spoiled the illusion. “You look better,” I said as diplomatically as possible.

  He grinned and sat down on the floor beside my bed. “I enjoyed taking a shower. Do you think Sophia would mind if I did so again?”

  I hadn’t seen a single customer enter the store so far, but she didn’t appear to be strapped for cash. I was pretty sure she could afford to pay the water bill. “I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  Feeling tired despite my nap, I lay back down again. I could hear raised voices coming from downstairs, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. I was fairly sure Brie was arguing with them to kick me out, since I was apparently so evil.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” I said to Sam. “Don’t let anyone disturb me, okay?”

  “I shall guard your door until you awaken,” he said in a serious tone. Standing, he tiptoed out of the room. He shut the door gently and I heard him lean against it. Shaking my head at my peculiar new friend, my eyes slid shut. Moments later, I fell into a dream.

  I was in a dark, misty area with dense fog swirling around my feet. Looking up, I saw only darkness without stars above. The air was damp, but odorless. A sound came fr
om somewhere in the distance and rapidly drew closer. Peering into the mist, I saw several pairs of scarlet eyes approaching. They glowed brightly enough to illuminate four shadowy, horse-like creatures that had to be nightmares. Their hooves made no sound, but the wheels of the carriage they were pulling sounded like they were clattering over a hard surface.

  Creaking and groaning, the carriage was as inky as the sky and dense black curtains filled the windows. An image of a monstrous face decorated the door, but it flashed past so fast that I didn’t get a good look at it. No one appeared to be directing the nightmares and they didn’t wear a bridle. Their eyes flickered towards me as they bolted past, but they didn’t stop. I sensed a malevolent presence in the carriage just as something took hold of my hand and pulled me down into a crouch.

  It was the female lesser demon that I’d absorbed. “It is not safe for you to be here,” she hissed. Without her vessel, she couldn’t hide her hideous face and form from me. She was dressed in black leather armor and knee high boots.

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “You are dreaming of the shadowlands that lie between hell and Earth,” a deep voice replied. I glanced over my shoulder to see the pirate captain who had kidnapped Sam and had taken him to hell. “We need to leave this place immediately.” He was even taller than the police officer that he’d possessed. He also wore leather armor, but it was slightly more ornate and had metal braces around his wrists.

  “Why are you in such a rush to leave?” I asked suspiciously. I knew it was just a dream, but it seemed very real.

  The lesser male demon stepped into view, ringing his insubstantial hands in worry. “If our master catches you, he will take you to his realm. If you stay there for too long, you will become his creature. Once that happens, we will never be able to free ourselves from you.” Unlike the other two, he wore an outfit that looked like a plain black sack with a rope for a belt.

  “I didn’t ask any of you to invade my body,” I reminded him. “It isn’t my fault that you’re all stuck inside me.”

  “Yet we are trapped and we see no way to extricate ourselves,” the female said unhappily.

  “Why did you enter me in the first place?”

  “I thought I could possess your vessel,” the pirate replied. “But when I entered you, I found only a vast emptiness inside.”

  “What do you mean?” I said with a frown.

  “Normal humans have a soul that we can subjugate to our will,” the lesser male explained. “You are not like any human we have ever encountered before.”

  I didn’t want to put two and two together, but I knew what this meant. I wasn’t like other humans, because I apparently didn’t have a soul. Demons couldn’t possess me because there was nothing inside for them to take over.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Noise roused me from my sleep before I could begin to worry that it had been more than just a dream. Raised voices sounded from outside my door. Cranky at being disturbed, I rolled out of bed and strode over to find out what was going on.

  Brie spoke in a snarl and I hesitated with my hand on the doorknob. “Impertinent whelp! How dare you attempt to bar my way!”

  “My mistress does not wish to be disturbed,” Sam replied with an edge of panic in his voice.

  “Lowly scum, it is time to see if you have regained your mortality now that you are back on Earth.” Her vehemence had me pulling the door open just as she finished speaking. Her sword was in her hand, aiming for Sam’s stomach as she lunged forward. He leaped aside and the dazzling blue metal came towards me. Time seemed to slow down as I waited for Nathan to appear to save me. The blade was close enough for the point to touch my jacket when bright crimson light flared.

  Blinded, I staggered backwards and a horn blared from right behind me. “Get off the road, jackass!” a guy shouted before the car motored off.

  My sight returned and I discovered that I was standing on a street. Another car was coming, so I stepped up onto the sidewalk. I was pretty sure I was still in Manhattan. Spinning in a quick circle, I came to a stop facing a dark green door. It was devoid of a window and the redbrick walls beside it were blank. The building was narrow and was sandwiched in between a deli and a shoe repair store. Writing on the ground caught my eye. I glanced down to see the words ‘Good Intentions’ carved into the cement in front of the door in an archaic script. It had probably been a secondhand store, but it appeared to have gone out of business some time ago.

  Turning away from the building, I put a hand on my stomach to find I wasn’t wounded. I didn’t know who had teleported me away, but they’d rescued me just in the nick of time.

  Nathan appeared just as I took a step forward. I crashed into him and he caught me by the shoulders before I could rebound off him and fall down. Excitement flared at being chest to chest with him, but I pushed it down. It would be far too embarrassing to act like a giddy teenager in front of my guardian angel.

  “Where were you?” I asked accusingly. “Brie came this close to slicing my guts open.” I held my thumb and finger a fraction apart to indicate just how narrow my escape from death had been this time.

  Letting me go, he ran a hand through his hair and I took a step back. “I did not receive my usual warning that you were in danger,” he said. He looked even more rattled by that than I felt.

  “Why not?”

  “It would appear that the demons’ wards have done more than merely imprison me on this island. It has also negated my ability to sense when you are in peril.”

  “So, you won’t be able to come to my rescue whenever I’m in danger now?” I’d been counting on him being there during the trials that I was apparently going to face. To think that he wouldn’t be able to appear and whisk me to safety worried me.

  “Not unless you remain in my sight at all times,” he said with a wry smile.

  “That’s not going to happen. A girl needs her privacy sometimes. Besides,” I said morosely, “now that everyone thinks I’m evil, why would you even want to keep saving me from certain death?”

  He gave a small sigh and took my hand. A thrill went through me at the contact. “Briathos is the only one who believes that you harbor evil. Sophia and Leo are still undecided on the topic.”

  “That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.” It was depressing that they doubted me, but I couldn’t really blame them. If our situation had been reversed, I’d have wondered whether they were going to sprout crimson eyes and a forked tongue as well.

  He squeezed my fingers gently until I met his gaze. “They do not know you like I do. I know that you could never become evil.”

  The moment drew out and the fluttering in my stomach grew worse. I tried not to let his touch affect me. I knew that only heartbreak could come from letting my feelings for him grow.

  Clearing my throat, I tugged my hand loose and immediately felt a sense of loss. “How did I get here if you didn’t save me?”

  “It would seem that you somehow managed to teleport yourself to safety.”

  “It wasn’t me,” I said. “One second I was standing there and the next I was here.” I looked around at the unfamiliar street. “Wherever here is.”

  “Briathos and Samuel would have seen it if another angel or a demon had helped you.”

  Remembering that it had been a flash of scarlet rather than white light, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened. I didn’t know how, but my inner demons had saved me. It was a possibility that I didn’t want to explore just yet, so I changed the subject. “How did you find me so quickly?”

  He pointed at my bracelet. “I followed Brie’s spell and it led me to you.” That must have been how he’d found Sophia’s store, I realized. He’d seen my bracelet and recognized it as being the work of an angel. He’d used it to track down Brie and Leo.

  Studying my bracelet, I saw that it had changed color again. It was a slightly darker orange now. Another faint marking had been etched into the stone. “I guess it acts
like a tracking device,” I said. “I’m surprised Brie and Leo haven’t arrived by now.” Brie might hate me and want me gone, but surely Leo didn’t despise me yet.

  “They do not have my talent for tracking spells.”

  I still knew very little about angels and what they were capable of. Apparently, they didn’t all share the same skills.

  Now that we were alone, there was a question that I wanted to ask. “Brie said that humans can’t sprout wings when angels possess them.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then why did you have wings after you came to my rescue on the Brooklyn Bridge?”

  He looked startled by the question and frowned. “I do not know. That has never happened to me before while I have been in a completely solid form.”

  That brought up something else that had been puzzling me. “Sophia said that angels are pure spirit and that they need to possess humans to be able to interact with this world. If that’s the case, then how have you managed to save me so many times?” He’d never appeared to me as a human before. He’d been more like a ghost.

  “That is difficult to explain,” he hedged.

  “I’ll try to keep up.” I was a bit insulted that he thought I wouldn’t be able to comprehend his explanation.

  “I have been in possession of this vessel for several thousand years.” My mouth dropped open in shock at that revelation, but at least it explained why he’d been wearing a toga. “That is a much longer period of time than we usually inhabit a human for. Because of this, my vessel has changed over time. It has become charged with power. I can hover between this world and the celestial plane. In this state, I am invisible to humans, but I am able to interact with them.”

  No one else had been able to see him, but he hadn’t been quite invisible to me. I’d dimly been able to see his face and had even felt his touch when he’d sheltered me from harm.

  “How many angels have this ability?”