His demeanor was intense and cold. He was on the short side and thin with a harsh mouth. His nose looked permanently broken and askew. His dull blue eyes bore into her. She wasn’t sure what she had done to deserve his anger.
Flashes of his past blinded her for a moment. He had been a spy during WWII, for the side that had lost. He had been discovered and was held prisoner. He was about to be executed for espionage when he made a deal with Lucifer. Many innocent lives were lost due to his deal. Of course, he hadn’t fared any better than Aganon in his afterlife, or hers, as it seemed.
Caleb glared at her and then walked straight into the solid stone wall at the back of the landing under the stairs and disappeared, except for the arm that was still pulling her. She tried to hold herself back, but lost her balance when she was forced to put her hand against what looked like a solid wall and tumbled forward out of the castle. She landed in a small opening surrounded by boulders.
Caleb pulled her along a narrow path that ran along the castle wall. Before she could get her bearings, she was whisked out into the enormous underground that held all the Realms of Hell. She was surrounded by the realms for as far as the eye could see and beyond. At least she knew where she was. Well beyond the realms were rock walls that reached on forever. In the rocks were large cracks that lead to caves where the truly terrible monsters roamed. While she had figured out some of the names of the realms or the types of people receiving the punishment in them, she still didn’t know what went on inside the caves.
All the realms were the size of multiple football fields and contained overwhelming amounts of people in them. Most of the prisoners writhed on the ground or tried to dodge the punishers. Their screams made it impossible to hear anything else. Their faces were unrecognizable through the pain, tears, and blood. They all looked the same, gray, tattered, bleeding, and in disbelief.
Caleb pulled her past the Realm of Frost, toward the Realm of Thorns. He tightened his grip, lowered his head, and pulled her closer to the edge. She tried to pry his hand off her to no avail. She noticed along the way that the demons or the punishers were starting to notice them, despite being focused on their work.
She remembered Lucifer saying that only Fallen Angels worked in Hell. All these years she had assumed they were demons or creatures of evil. All the stories said that the angels had been cast out of Heaven and sent to Hell. She had assumed they were now demons. Apparently, the stories were not correct on this point. They also weren’t gods like in Greek Mythology. She had seen some of the punishers with their black wings unfolded when they scoop up escaped souls and toss them back in, but she never wanted to believe that they were actually angels.
The Fallen Angels all turned one by one and looked at her. Some were startled, others looked stunned, and some laughed. None of the angels tried to stop them, until they reached the edge of the Realm of Thorns. The angel in charge of the realm took one look at Michelle and threw his hands up to stop them. He shook his head violently at Caleb.
The punisher’s face looked young, but his eyes told his age. He was wiser and more world-weary than his smooth face implied. He was paler than the other angels were, and had shaggy dark hair that was swept across his forehead, which emphasized his bright gray eyes. He was dressed in leather pants, but appeared more modern with a black T-shirt. If she had met him on the street, she would have thought him to be in his twenties. She had seen him many times before and was certain his name was Cyrus.
Caleb glared at Cyrus, and continued to drag her toward the edge.
Cyrus stopped them again, screaming something in a different language. She had assumed it was some kind of demonic language, but it must have been the language of the angels. It was a language that all of them understood, though not all of them spoke aloud.
Caleb waved at Cyrus, trying to cut off his rant. He pulled Michelle closer, and lifted her sleeve to reveal the scars on her wrist.
Cyrus stopped mid-sentence and stared incredulously at the scars. He looked back up at her again and pointed to the dress.
Caleb shook his head again, clearly annoyed, and shoved Michelle’s wrist into the angel’s face. Given that Caleb was missing his tongue for reasons such as disobedience or talking back, Michelle figured that the servant wouldn’t easily give up on his task. What would he lose next, an ear?
“I’m not going in there!” she screamed at both of them. She was tired of this debate.
Cyrus became even more agitated when Michelle spoke. It was clear that he was trying to process everything he was seeing.
Then Caleb made his final move. He pointed to his empty mouth, and then pointed to the angel’s mouth. Point, set, match. That was enough for Cyrus to shake off any doubts and comply with the order given to him.
Cyrus grabbed Michelle’s arm and pulled her to the edge. He nodded to Caleb and Caleb ran like a cheetah back to the castle. The Realm of Thorns it was then.
The realm was for liars, and there were certainly a lot of them. It was at maximum capacity and everyone was wearing either expensive suits or ugly off the rack suits. Government officials, CEOs, and run of the mill thieves and liars were the main professions that populated the realm.
There were endless tangles of thick branches and bushes that filled the entire realm. They, of course, were covered in thorns. Not the kind of thorns found on rose bushes, which might be have been tolerable, but large thorns that were sharper than glass, thicker than a wrist, and everywhere. There was no safe haven to be found. If you tried to stop moving, the thorns would move against you as if they were alive. The branches were constantly changing and growing new thorns. They would spear up from the ground where there had been a clear space and would continue growing and tangling with the other branches. For every lie someone had told, a new thorn would slice their skin until they understood the pain that their lies caused others.
Standing at the edge of the realm, her mind chose that moment to blind her with the worst migraine of her life, worse than the one that had landed her in Lucifer’s lap. It look her a second to regain her balance and see clearly. She nearly vomited on Cyrus.
Before she could recover completely, a hand slammed against her back and she fell unceremoniously into the thorns. As she fell into the middle of the realm, she quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be easy to escape. A man who had lied to everyone, including his own grandmother, pushed passed her and knocked her straight into a wall of thorns. The migraine was forgotten when pain tore through her back and radiated through every part of her body. Anguish was the only thought left in her head.
∞
Michelle opened her eyes when she felt something hit her. She looked up and saw that the branches she had started to number to pass the endless days were gone and she was being hit with only one thing. Granted that one thing stung terribly, but it was only one thing, not hundreds. An angel was standing over her hitting her with a cat-o-nine-tails made of barbed wire. The Realm of Thrashing Vines it was then, home of the backstabbers. At least she was moving on to something else. She vaguely recalled crawling her way to the edge of the thorn branches and being pulled along the pathways between realms before having her face smashed into the ground. She must have been transferred.
If she ever saw Caleb again, she would do worse to him than remove his tongue. She mentally listed all the parts she would remove and how she would remove them as the whip came down again.
Her headache had quieted to a dull ache in the back of her skull when a woman who had reached the edge was thrown back in by one of the angels and landed directly on her. The woman had turned on every person in her life and tried to destroy anyone who was nice to her. She was a real winner. All things considered, she’d rather have people thrown at her than be whipped with barbed wire. Maybe she’d just invented a new torture. Her sarcasm died away when the metal came down again and tore through her stupid dress and her skin.
∞
Time had lost all meaning. She had endured the Realm of Claws where she h
ad been mauled by animals with razor sharp claws; the Realm of Ghouls with its monstrous creatures tearing the flesh from her body and breaking her bones; the Realm of Burning Seas where she was boiled alive, while being drowned; the Realm of Frost where her body slowly froze, until pieces of her fell off; and yes, her favorite, the Realm of Fire where she had been burned alive. She wasn’t sure why she had ended up in Murderer’s Row, or some of the harsher realms, but no one questioned whether she should be there. She was simply tossed in time and again. She was even thrown into the lesser the realms like the Realm of Thirst, and the Realm of Insects. The only realm she skipped was the one for rapists, the Realm of Monsters. That one was just too gruesome for words.
The only thing that kept her from losing her mind completely was Lucifer. She thought about how he had kissed her and how soft his lips had been. She remembered how his hands had roamed her body. She pictured how beautiful he was when he watched her mouth slide over him. She wanted to feel him against her again. Next time she would remove his shirt and see all of him. She laughed as she remembered her embarrassment in the Throne Room when he told her to put on the dress. Part of her wished she had taken her clothes off in front of him. She should have been terrified of him or at least angry with him for sending her off to her doom, but stupidly she still wanted him.
She hadn’t seen Lucifer since he ran out her room. She wondered why he wasn’t standing around laughing at her pain. Since Caleb worked for Lucifer, she assumed Lucifer had ordered that she be put through the gamut. Apparently, she would indeed be punished for taking her own life. She suddenly understood why Lucifer had said that she was special. Not only would she live out her afterlife as a prisoner of Hell and be tortured, but she would also have to please Lucifer.
She was drowning in the Realm of Drowning Seas when a hand pulled her out. She looked up to see a man standing in front of her smiling cheerfully. It took her a while to stop coughing up water. Once she was able to breathe again, she looked up, and saw that Hades had rescued her.
“Tired of this yet, kitten…err…Mistress?” He smiled pleasantly and held out his hand to her.
“Yes! Get me out of here!” she yelled as she reached out and clung to him.
“Your wish is my command. I would have brought you a towel had I known you were here. I thought you were still in the Realm of Fire,” he smirked and handed her a bag of marshmallows.
She instantly disliked Hades.
He turned to walk away while beckoning her to follow. She got to her feet, without his help, and was led into the castle. When she approached the guard at the doors, she saw that she was whole again, her injuries completely healed, though her dress was still in shreds. She was soaking wet, but at least she could breathe again.
They entered the castle, walked up four flights of stairs to the rotunda and took the hallway on the right to Lucifer’s tower. Crossing the covered bridge, she looked out over the realms at all the souls being tortured. She was grateful to no longer be one of them. They passed under the fire lit chandeliers, through the enormous black metal doors, and into the Throne Room. Hades ascended the dais and seated himself on Lucifer’s throne.
Snug as a bug in a rug, Michelle thought as she watched Hades settle in.
It irked her to see him sitting there instead of Lucifer. Not that she was loyal at all to Lucifer; it just seemed to be an insult. She had a feeling that one of the lower thrones was probably his. Maybe he still had more of a god complex than Lucifer had let on; either that or he liked the exercise from walking up the extra step to the better throne. He looked out of place in his sharp suit, sitting on the Skull Throne. She focused on the largest skull at the top of the chair, the one with ruby eyes. For some reason it made her think of Lucifer. She was surprised to find that she missed him.
“Now, isn’t this more comfortable?” Hades looked down at Michelle from atop the dais.
She was convinced he suffered from delusions of grandeur.
“It’s better than swallowing a ton of water, sure,” she sneered and wrung out her hair.
Mental note, throw Hades into the Realm of Frost, watch his fingers fall off, and then offer him a Popsicle, she thought, grinding her teeth together.
“Yes, well, what do you expect from Hell? Speaking of which, let’s make you a little more presentable, shall we?” Hades waved his hand toward Michelle’s dress.
She was instantly dry and no longer in tatters like a shipwrecked sailor. She was also warm for the first time since being on fire.
“I’m sure you have many questions my darling Mistress. I figured I would give you a break from your adventures to get to know you a little better,” Hades smiled and crossed his legs. He looked at her condescendingly, the way someone would look at a small child. He was waiting to see what silly things would come out her mouth.
Whenever Hades spoke, he always sounded polite, but she had the distinct image of a viper when she looked at him. She didn’t trust him, though she didn’t trust anyone. Granted, he was the only one who had let her come up for air and toweled her off. He would go in the “maybe a friend, but maybe I should kill him” column, for now. Caleb was firmly in the “kill” column. Lucifer was in the “beat senseless” column.
“Where is Lucifer?” she demanded. She wanted to know what was going on. She was pissed that he hadn’t even bothered to make sure she was being taken care of in the realms and in complete misery. She thought he would have gotten off on that. Then again, she knew how he got off. She thought he might, at the very least, come back to finish what they had started.
“He’s vacationing. Scouting trip is more like it. He’s looking for more, well…company,” Hades replied with a smirk. “It gets very lonely down here and he is eternally fickle. Sometimes he’s with a woman once, then kills her, and moves on to the next,” Hades waved his hand as if it were something beneath his concern.
“I see. So he likes to get rid of them before he has sex with them?” Michelle put her hand on her hip.
She didn’t know why she was being so defensive. She wanted to believe that Lucifer wouldn’t have much interest in kicking her to the curb, yet, since they hadn’t gotten very far. If her sole purpose in this place was to be his mistress, which at this point she would take over being in the realms, she wanted to at least give it a try. When she had a few moments of clarity between her pain sessions, she had thought about her experiences with Lucifer. She was curious about him, but was more curious about sex. She thought perhaps she could negotiate her way out of the torture. “And I’m already dead, if you hadn’t noticed. No fear there,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“He didn’t have sex with you?” he muttered the question more to himself than to her. He appeared confused, but quickly regained his snarky composure. “Well, like I said, he’s fickle. Besides, there are things worse than mortal death. You have seen the mark on your door, haven’t you? That should be proof enough that you are nothing more than a passing fancy,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Yes, it’s a crescent moon with a sun and clouds above it. What does it mean?” she still wasn’t convinced that he could be trusted, but she would rather keep him talking until she figured out where Lucifer was.
“It’s the mark of his harem. He has so many women that he needs to mark their doors to keep track of them. I’ve personally lost count over the years. This week alone, he’s paraded at least thirty of them through here. Some of them were even Playboy Bunnies. Some he ships in from the Mortal Realm; others make deals with him and end up paying for their stupidity. That dress is part and parcel. Sorry peaches, Mistress, you’re not special around here,” he shrugged.
Michelle noticed that whenever Hades called her a sarcastic name it sounded as if he were forced to correct himself and call her Mistress. He seemed annoyed when he had to correct himself.
“I’ve never seen anyone else wearing a dress like this,” Michelle was pissed. If she had to wear the hideous thing, she wanted it to mean something.
; “He gets bored with his lovers after a while. You didn’t think you would be his pet forever, did you?” Hades burst out laughing. “Oh, oh dear. You thought this gig was for eternity. Afraid not kitten…Mistress. You are simply that, a mistress, disposable and replaceable. You are one in hundreds of millions over the eons. You don’t mind sharing, do you? He wants women, we bring them here, or he goes out on the prowl. That’s not going to change because he calls you his mistress. Wait, you have been in orgies before, right? Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Poor thing, you fell for the biggest line of all time. Lucifer will never have anyone special; it’s not in his nature,” Hades’ eyes gleamed. He was enjoying this. He wanted her to know the truth and was delighted to be the one to share it with her.
“Wonderful. It just gets better,” she sighed. She was dejected by the thought that Lucifer didn’t care about her.
What was wrong with her? She didn’t care about him. She didn’t know anything about him. He could have been lying when he said that he’d waited a long time for her. Tears started to well up in her eyes at the thought of Lucifer with other women. Why did she even care?
She cared because she was angry. If he was going to use her and throw her away, then her death was for nothing. She had died simply because he was bored and needed a plaything. He confused her and tricked her into killing herself with the headaches and the hypnotic suggestions just so that he could have sex with her, torture her, and then what? Kill her again? What was the point of all that?
None of this seemed right. She thought about the longing in his voice when he called to her. She heard his anger when she didn’t join him. She had started to believe that the voice had cared for her, at least enough to keep reaching out to her.
God, she was a stupid child. She had fallen for his lies. He didn’t care about her and she wasn’t special. She was nothing more than a game to him. She felt sick. Her death was meaningless. She was beyond depressed.
The Third Throne: Angel of Darkness Page 9