by Ivy Asher
Taz takes an intimidating step forward. “Morax, we hereby denounce you,” he declares, and the finality of his words matches the expressions of the rest of the Sins.
Morax says nothing. He just continues to stand there, watching, waiting.
“Something’s wrong,” Delta murmurs.
And she’s right. Something does feel wrong.
My lips press together. “This is too easy.”
Delta nods at my assumption, and dread crawls over me in chilling little steps.
Taz looks over to Wrath. “Call Lucifer.”
Wrath flashes a wide, fanged grin and raises her blood-coated sword. “Gladly.” She slices her palm and speaks Lucifer’s name in the air. And even though she said it quietly, it rings through the room and bounces off the walls like she yelled through an endless cavern, as if just the name itself has power.
My heart pounds in my chest, my skin breaks into gooseflesh, and a trickle of fear, awe, and heady momentousness freezes all thoughts in my head as something in the atmosphere shifts. It’s almost like a vibration in the air, like someone just sent out a high frequency pulse that we can’t hear but we sure as hell can feel.
Almost as soon as the air settles into silence again, the sealed heavy double doors to the ballroom suddenly burst open, flinging dead bodies aside like they’re nothing. Footsteps sound, and I watch the most sinfully gorgeous male stride confidently inside, wearing a simple white button-up and black slacks, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’m looking at the Devil.
Every step he takes radiates power. He has stark black wings and hair, a beautiful, ageless face, and even from up here, I can feel strength emanating from him. He’s magnificent. He’s terrifying. Everything about him screams wicked danger.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” he says smoothly as he comes to stand with his Sins.
“Lucifer,” the Ophidian says, speaking for the first time since Wrath took down his cronies. “You actually crawled out of the Hellish hole that you’ve been hiding in.”
Even from this angle, I’m able to see the smirk that crosses the Devil’s face. “Always needing so much attention,” he says with a tsk. “What’s wrong, Morax? Your Matron didn’t hug you enough as a child?”
Morax’s face flashes with anger, but in a split second, it’s gone again, like he just shoved it away. “The Impels were a more prestigious bloodline than you ever gave us credit for,” he replies, his voice on edge.
Lucifer rolls his eyes. “Perhaps it’s because instead of spreading the word of the Gods, as you were created to do, you corrupted your ability to affect free will. That cannot stand. You know, you always knew, that it would be your downfall. Balance always wins, Morax. Always,” Lucifer stresses as he takes a step forward. “I will take great pleasure in wiping you off the face of the realms.”
Delta’s hand comes down to grip my hand nervously, her fingers digging in nearly to the point of pain as the Devil closes in.
As soon as Lucifer stands directly in front of him, a quick, self-assured grin crosses Morax’s face. Then he reaches out, lighting-fast, and grabs onto the Devil, just as something on his finger begins to glow.
A split second. That’s all I have to realize what’s happening as a matching glow on my own wrist flares. Morax’s laugh is all I hear as Delta and I look wide-eyed at our cuffs, both of us understanding what’s happening but having no time to do anything about it.
My eyes snap up to Ire’s frowning face just as the cuff around my wrist flashes. His resounding “NO!” sounds in my mind as I’m yanked away through space and time, away from victory and straight into the frigid clutches of defeat.
Our bodies are pulled by the cuffs on our wrists, and all I can still hear is the terrifying and grating sound of the Ophidian laughing as I’m stolen away once again. But this time, I know there’s no coming back.
33
Being transported with Gatekeeper portal magic feels different than the shifting that Morax did to me. Instead of popping from one place to another, this feels like I’m sinking into a bottomless sea.
The glow from my wrist is the only thing I can see as currents of light pull and push me, forcing me to drift and whirl in dozens of different directions. Nothing else exists in this strange continuum, and just as I begin to feel fear, like I’ll somehow be lost in this break between places, the waterless waves of illumination shove me upward, and an airy tide pushes me out.
I land sputtering on my feet, stumbling to stay upright, only to crash into a body beside me. I don’t even have a chance to look up before the person is shoving me away from them, the force so violent that I go flying back, smashing into someone else before I land hard on the ground.
“Don’t...fucking...touch her.”
My head snaps up, my aching arm forgotten as I look around to find the voice. “Toreon.”
He’s there, on his knees, his arms outstretched and held high above his head. My eyes follow the direction of his palms, and I gape at the sight of the portal that he’s building above him. It’s got to be thirty feet in diameter.
Reeling from his palms are threads of golden power. It slowly unspools from him and into the portal ring above, circling and spinning, the thin strings of light like glowing strands of hair that are braiding together.
“Toreon,” I say again, but this time, my eyes take him in, and I see the heavy exhaustion in his face. His golden eyes are gone, and bleached-out irises look back at me. His face is sunken, his green body sickly with a graying pallor. Even his hair has faded from thick, silky black strands to stringy chunks, the roots starting to go white.
He needs help, and he needs it badly. He looks like life itself is being sucked right out of him, and my mate instincts are screaming at me to go to him, to give him my blood and power.
I start to scramble to my feet, only to find a helping hand on my arm, and I look over and find Delta. She has a grim look on her face and a flash of fear in her gray eyes, her gaze trained over my shoulder. As soon as I’m on my feet, I look around, noticing our surroundings for the first time.
We’re outside, but from the look of the red-star speckled black sky, we’re still in Hell. Surrounding us in a gathered circle are thousands of demons. They stretch farther than I can even see. Some have wings, denoting them as Abdicated, but most don’t. They look on, absent of any expression, no fidgeting or noises coming from them, and for a group this large, it’s uncanny. The lack of life in them gives me the creeps.
My eyes scan around, and aside from a heavy mist in the air and a colorless ground, it almost looks like we’re in a graveyard of some sort. Except...there are no graves or markers, save for a single stone jutting up from the ground. It’s the blackest, shiniest obsidian, and it’s taller than a house, jagged and raw, like it’s always been there and always will be.
The Origin Stone.
I don’t know how I know that’s what it is, but I do, and standing right in front of it is Morax with a now restrained Lucifer. I frown at the strips of glowing white cloth that Lucifer has wrapped around his arms and legs, keeping his limbs bound together. It looks...negligible, and yet, Lucifer is straining against it like it’s the strongest material in existence, his body unable to move.
“What the fuck is this?” the Devil snarls, his arms wrenching and pulling, his muscles bunching with every move, the tendons in his neck strained.
“I thought you’d like it. Just a little family heirloom I saved from our time in Heaven,” Morax says with a satisfied expression before he reaches up and shoves another piece of the glowing cloth right into Lucifer’s mouth. Just as quickly, Morax wraps the last strip around his head to bind the gag, all while Lucifer stares at him like he wants to shoot fire out of his eyes.
“It’s stopping his power,” Delta hisses into my ear, and my stomach drops at the implication of that. How the Devil himself could be cowed so quickly terrifies me. He’s supposed to be so powerful, so formidable. If he can’t best the Ophidian, what
the hell are we supposed to do?
A ragged gasp to my right brings my attention back to Toreon. He’s waning. His body slumping forward, even as his hands are still held up above him, arms shaking with effort. How much more power does he have to give before he dies?
I start to move toward him only to be immediately stopped in my tracks. “Don’t even think about it, Annulus,” Morax calls out.
Delta holds my arm tight as we turn to face him, and he looks back at us with unrepressed displeasure. “I’d so hoped that the compulsion would work and that you’d scythe a few of the Sins for me and weaken Lucifer, but no matter. Everything went according to plan,” he says with a grin.
My mind whirls, while Delta pales next to me. “You never needed us to kill the Sins,” she says, her voice hollow with understanding.
“You just needed one of them to call Lucifer for you,” I finish, hoping my anger will burn away the defeat that’s taking root in my soul. Will we ever get the upper hand with this monster? Is there really any way to escape him?
The Ophidian grins, his snakes snapping at me. “Now that’s just adorable,” he coos as his eyes rake over me, his tone dripping with condescension. “You really thought you were going to win, didn’t you, Sable? You thought I actually believed your submission.” He adds a chuckle, punctuating the statement and making humiliation flood me.
My teeth clench as his laughter fills the air. I thought we had a chance, but he’s been playing with us the whole time. And now here we are, back in his clutches, the Devil helpless on his knees and all illusions shattered.
“It would have made things so much easier if you and your sisters had just listened,” he tells me evenly, like some disappointed authority figure who’s gently trying to get some disaffected youth to see the error of their ways. “I’ll have to make sure our progeny know how to obey.”
“We’ll fucking kill you before your dick can even leave your pants,” Delta snaps.
The Ophidian laughs. “We’re going to have such fun together, my little Annuli. I can’t wait to hear you scream as I show you just how wrong you are, but there will be time later for that. For now, I believe you have a sister missing.”
I suck in a breath at his words, and Morax looks over to some of the gathered demons surrounding us. With a nod, I watch as they part, and then several figures come filing through in a line.
“Oh my God…” Delta’s voice is garbled with pain as her hand covers her mouth.
Medley leads the line, and behind her are six demons, each more different than the last. All of them stop and turn, their line perfect, each of them staring straight ahead.
My stomach tightens as a sob escapes Delta’s covered mouth. I’d know that dead-eyed look anywhere. Each of them is drowning in Morax’s compulsion, Medley included.
With that realization, the last of my hope flutters away like a moth in the night in search of a better light. I’ve never met them, but it’s clear through Delta’s reaction and what I recognize from Medley’s stories, that Morax has Delta’s and Medley’s mates.
“No, no, no,” Delta chants beside me, and I go down the line, picking each of them out, matching their features with the names Medley told me.
Lavender skin and watercolor tattoos is Alder. The one next to him with black hair and marble skin is Flint. Beside him is the first of Delta’s mates; he has black skin and fire hair, formidable even while he looks on dully. Jerif.
The next one in line is a demon that looks nearly human, no wings or horns or supernatural skin tone, just a tan body and blond hair, and I know that one is Crux. Beside him is Echo, the pale demon with pitch black markings on his exposed arms that I know are shadows that move. The last one in line is a demon with blue skin and horns—Rafferty.
“Iceman,” Delta calls, but the blue demon doesn’t answer. “Jerif?” Nothing. “Echo! Crux! You guys, fucking snap out of it!” she shouts, but they don’t react. They don’t even look at her, and I can feel through our bond that it kills her.
Morax watches us, enjoying the shock and pain as we take it all in. “You weren’t very careful at the party, girls,” he says with patronizing disdain. “And you weren’t the only one with eyes up on that balcony.”
My head spins as I run through everything that happened tonight, trying to piece together what I missed. I jump from memory to memory, needing to know where it all went so wrong. Were we really doomed from the start, or could we have done something differently? For some reason, my mind goes to the bored Abdicated that was playing with his jeweled goblet, and realization prickles through me.
“The Abdicated holding the goblet,” I whisper to myself, my eyes lifting from the ground to meet Morax’s amused stare. “It was a signal,” I say to him, wanting to confirm it. “When he dropped the goblet, he was signaling to you that we weren’t under your control.”
Morax grins. “Very good, Sable.”
“What did you do to them?” Delta demands, her voice hollow and her attention still on her mates and Medley.
“Well, when it became clear you’d broken through my compulsion, I knew I needed an insurance policy. Luckily for me, Medley here was able to be put back under coercion. Though, I will say, it did take some time to wear her down.”
My stomach twists into knots at what he could’ve done to her to wear her down without us knowing.
“She was kind enough to go and retrieve your mates for me. Isn’t that right, Medley?” he says, and our sister nods numbly.
“Now, my Gatekeeper is nearly done, and all the pieces that I have been lining up for centuries are finally exactly where I need them to be.”
My eyes go back to Toreon, my heart screaming to go to him, but I’m stopped again when Morax tuts. “Uh, uh, Annulus. As I said, the Gatekeeper is almost done.”
But I ignore him and move toward Toreon anyway.
“One more step, and a randomly chosen mate of your sisters isn’t going to take another breath,” Morax calls out, the words leaving his mouth casually as though the polite tone somehow masks the threat.
My feet freeze in their steps. “He’s dying!” I argue, my soul in worried agony as I watch Toreon continue to unleash power against his will while it sucks him dry.
“He is,” Morax agrees with a nod. “He has just enough juice for the portal, and then I suspect he’ll keel right over.”
My panic spikes, and I whip my head to look at Morax, but I know he’s not lying. He has no reason to. I can feel the truth. Toreon is dying. Tears prick behind my eyes. “Please, please, let me heal him. Let me give him my blood,” I plead, not caring that my throat is clogging with a sob. “You don’t want your only Gatekeeper to die! You need him!”
“Needed,” Morax replies. “Past tense. As soon as he’s finished with the portal, which I suspect will be in the next few minutes, his usefulness will be sapped. The only thing I need from him once he’s done with this, is to die so that no one can ever try to undo what I’ve done. Remember, I play the long game, Sable. I plan for everything.”
A giant ball of sorrowful rage fills me, and suddenly, I remember Ire. With a jolt, I scream at him in my head. “Ire? Ire! IRE!”
But nothing happens. I cry his name over and over again in my mind, but he doesn’t answer, he doesn’t appear. I don’t know if it’s this place that’s blocking him or if I’m not beaconing him correctly, since I’ve never tried to do it on purpose. Either way, it isn’t working, and a crushing feeling of failure falls onto my shoulders. I’m out of options.
Delta lets out a vicious growl. “What the fuck do you want from us?”
“So glad you asked,” he says conversationally as he keeps one eye on Toreon and the portal.
He’s always watching, always planning. He was always two steps ahead of us, even when we thought we’d won. He beat the Sins, he even beat the King of Hell himself. How could we ever think we stood a chance against him?
“Do you know why we’re here, Little One?” he asks as he trails a sharp nail over
the Origin Stone.
“Because you’re fucking dramatic and felt the need for a creepy backdrop for your little villain showdown?” Delta deadpans.
Morax sends her an unimpressed growl before he smooths his features again. “Wrong. But I’m not surprised. All three of you are completely ignorant. You can blame your mother for that,” he says, and then he reaches down and yanks the gag out of Lucifer’s mouth, leaving him with stripes of red around his mouth and cheeks where the fabric was touching him, like the cloth burns on contact. I don’t even want to know what the inside of his mouth looks like.
“Would you care to take a guess, Morningstar?” Morax asks mockingly.
Lucifer just watches him like he’s envisioning a hundred ways to kill him.
“The Origin Stone,” Morax continues, as if he just loves to hear himself talk, though I suspect it also has to do with the fact that he’s waiting for the portal to be completed. “This is the only neutral territory in Hell. When you’re here, your powers are diminished.”
Understanding settles in me, and I let go of the hope that somehow Ire will hear me.
“Interestingly enough,” Morax goes on as he begins to circle around Lucifer, like he just really enjoys pissing the Devil off, “this is also where Lucifer created Hell.”
Morax slaps a palm against the huge black stone. “Right here. This stone is the pillar of Hell. It was erected by the blood of the Fallen. The Abdicated. The beloved Morningstar, who advocated for the importance of darkness in the scheme of balance,” he says, as if the words taste bitter in his mouth. “But the most important fact is that this stone carries Lucifer’s essence. It’s what created this realm. He is Hell’s architect, Hell’s foundation, and he cannot be killed...at least, not naturally.”
I watch as Lucifer’s face pales, obviously catching on to what Morax is getting at.
“It was thought that no power or weapon in all the realms can do Lucifer harm, but that’s not true, is it, Luce? You can be taken down, it just has to be done by our little Annuli, doesn’t it?” Morax taunts, nodding to us.