“Are you Micah?”
The boy’s eyes widened at the use of his name. “Aria told you.”
Kyle nodded. “How did you find me?” he asked.
“I found the portal as you said, and then tracked the Ifrit back here. It was a long shot, but I hoped you’d be here as well. I came as quickly as I could. Were you hurt? Were there others in there?”
“No, I’m OK. I don’t think there are any more,” Kyle said, evasive. Micah shot a piercing look in his direction but Kyle dropped his eyes to the ground. “I’m sorry about your friend, Aria.”
Micah smiled grimly, his perfect face betraying an instant of suffering. “Sacrifice in these times is necessary. Even for my kind.”
“Wouldn’t she go back to your realm in death?”
“Not the way she died,” Micah said gently. Kyle remembered that Aria had slid the dagger home herself. “The part of her spirit that remains will rest here.”
Kyle frowned. “She’s here then because of me. Because I couldn’t do it. Because I’m a coward.”
“I am sure Aria had her reasons for choosing the path she did.”
“Micah,” Kyle began, “there’s something I need to tell you. I’m not entirely human. I don’t know what I am.” He stared at the floor. “Something else, something worse.”
The boy’s eyes were gentle. “As long as you have a drop of human blood in you, there is always hope.” Micah walked over to where Marcus’s car was parked. “Come, we must get you somewhere safe,” he said, fumbling with the passenger door. “I destroyed the portal that brought me here. I am sure the Ifrit are still close, so we must travel by less obvious means. Do you have keys?”
“No need,” Kyle said, hotwiring the car with a deft twist of a few wires. At Micah’s dry look, he shrugged. “Tricks of a misspent youth. Where to?”
“Back to your town. We must speak with Samsar.”
“Who is this Samsar?”
“Someone who can help.”
“And he’s in Silver Lake? I don’t think I know him.”
Micah shot him a measured glance. “You’ve known him for years. He’s your friend Sera’s father.”
INFINITY
Sera lay on her bed, her iPod turned up full blast, trying to let the music drown out every thought in her head. She’d spent the entire day at home, analyzing what she’d learned into tiny, bite-sized pieces. Her whole life—everything she’d believed in—had been a lie. Especially Kyle. And that was the one that stung the most.
She’d tried to call him after her “revelation,” but it went straight to voicemail. She needed to speak to him, to hear him tell her the truth in his own words—she needed to know that their entire friendship had been based on more than just another fabrication.
Kyle was one of them.
She almost jumped out of her skin as a head poked up from the side of her bed.
“Nate! You scared the crap out of me!” Sera shrieked.
“Sorry. I knocked and you didn’t answer, so I came in,” Nate said apologetically.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Did you get the packet I put under your pillow?” Sera’s face was blank. “You asked me to get you the information on the hell stuff, remember?”
“Oh right.” Sera drew the thick envelope from under her pillows. Nate had marked “five dollars” on the outside. An involuntary smile crossed her lips at this. She pulled the handful of papers out, scanning them. Her eyes widened at the graphic text describing Xibalba and its demons in all their horrific glory. A shiver wound its way up her spine.
“Crazy, right?” Nate whispered. “You think any of it is real?”
Sera steeled her voice. “Of course it’s not real, dummy. People make this stuff up and believe in all kinds of things. Besides, I thought you said yourself that you can find anything on the Internet?” She shoved the papers back into the envelope. “I have half a mind to go make up my own vision of heaven and see what people think about that.”
“They won’t think anything because hell is way cooler,” Nate informed her. “I think I’m definitely going to use this in my short film. Maybe Nate’s Journey to Hell could be the title. With the right effects, it could be pretty sweet. What do you think?”
“I think it’s dumb.”
Sera doubted that anyone would be pleased about some kid, especially the son of a Sanrak and an ex-Azura, making a movie about Xibalba. There was a reason no one knew about it. And if Nate went poking around, it would only draw attention to them all—the one thing her parents told her they must avoid.
“Whatever, I’m the creative genius in this house,” Nate said, turning to leave.
“Nate, wait,” Sera said, grabbing his arm, desperate. “Maybe you should do something else, like zombies. You love zombies, remember? All that blood and gore? That’s what people want.”
“Been done. I need something new. This is it.”
“Nate, I really think you—”
“Sera. It’s just a movie. You said it yourself. It’s not real.” Her ten-year-old brother was speaking to her as if she were a scared child. He must have heard the underlying desperation in her voice. “What does it matter anyway? I’ve already submitted the outline.”
“Just do something else, or I’ll tell Mom,” Sera hissed, frantic.
“You wouldn’t!” Nate gasped. The look of broken trust on his face was almost her undoing. But she couldn’t let him go through with it, not after all she’d learned. Azura killed Daeva. What would they do to a defenseless boy?
“I mean it, Nate. This stuff is bad news. It’s like some kind of … cult. Will you please just leave it alone. OK? You have to promise me!”
“OK, I get it, it’s bad,” Nate said, backing away from her near manic fervor. “Look, forget the five bucks. It’s on me. You look terrible, Ser. Maybe you should get some rest. I’ll see you later.”
Before she could respond, he slipped out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him. Sera frowned. She’d have to keep an eye on him—Nate was far too clever for his own good.
Lying back against her pillows, she tucked the ear buds in her ears and pulled Nate’s packet out, spreading the pages on her bedspread. Some of the pictures were explicit, hideous. She had to keep reminding herself that it was all real.
Hell existed. These things existed.
Some of the information confirmed what her parents had already told her or what she’d guessed on her own. There were seven hells and seven Demon Lords. Azrath, as her father had said, was the Azura Lord for the Portal to Xibalba. Apparently he could travel freely through all of the hells and held more power than any of the other Demon Lords—with the exception of one, Ra’al.
There was no “king” of the Dark Realms, but if there were one, it would be Ra’al, the Demon Lord of the lowest, most horrific dimension of Xibalba—home to the worst of the worst of humanity. He was so strong that it was rumored he’d once portaled to the Mortal Realm himself.
According to one of the sources, centuries before, Azrath had tried to coerce the others to unite against Ra’al, but it had been a futile effort; he could not unite nor control the other Azura. They were too driven by their own greed. Ra’al, for his part, was not threatened by Azrath’s antics—Ra’al held the most power as ruler of the largest hell dimension.
Strangely enough, there was no description of Azrath, the being she was most interested in. All she found what that he, more often than not, took the form of a mortal. Sera stared at the ugly descriptions of each of the seven Demon Lords.
“Ra’al is formless,” she read aloud. “The worst thing about this Demon Lord is that he takes the form of what a person trusts the most and then betrays them. He reigns through hate and fear. His dimension boasts torture of the worst kind, the fear that embeds itself into tissue and bone, burrowing deep and inescapable for eternity.” Her throat dry, Sera didn’t even want to imagine what form the demon would take for her. Her parents? Nate?
“The sixt
h dimension,” she read, “is home to Temlucus, the Demon Lord of Torment. This dimension is where the expression ‘burning in hell’ gets its reputation. Temlucus’s body is all fire and to look upon him means to suffer an eternity of fiery death.” There was no picture of Temlucus, just a sea of burning bodies, hands reaching out of the fire in desperate supplication, never to be answered. Sera shivered.
“The fifth dimension is ruled by Wyndigu and is marked by decomposition and decay.” Sera tasted sour bile in the back of her throat and blinked away the horrific accompanying image of a faceless rotting corpse. She could feel the gaping holes of its eyes boring into her as if it were alive and suppressed a shudder. She flipped the page over quickly.
“Lamasha is the fourth Demon Lord,” she read. “This dimension is overrun with disease and depravity of all kinds. Lamasha has the head of a lion with a deformed, hairy body and the taloned feet of a vulture.
“The third dimension is home to Belphegar, the Demon Lord of Lust, Excess, and Excrement.” This one had an accompanying image. She stared at the likeness of Belphegar in horror. He had the body of a huge, slovenly beast with horns and a gaping mouth merged with the body of an enticingly beautiful woman. Sera retched at the grotesque rendition of a disgusting beast on one side lusting after a woman on the other side in the same body. It was a revolting combination.
Sera skipped quickly ahead to the last two Demon Lords. “Nequ’el is the Demon Lord of the second dimension. He is shown here with the head of a black dog with razor sharp teeth and the body of a man. His dimension is one of war and unending enslavement.” In the illustration, Nequ’el was shown whipping his naked victims as they lugged heavy rocks in a single line up a mountain. Their thin and broken bodies were stained with blood and raw, open wounds.
“Dekaias is the Demon Lord of Vanity and Arrogance,” she read. “His first dimension is marked by opulence and overindulgence, but don’t be fooled: hedonism has a heavy and oftentimes hidden cost.”
To Sera, the first dimension seemed to be the easiest to take in until she saw the image on the next page. In profile, Dekaias had the face of a beautiful boy with a head of twisting serpents. His tongue was forked. A pair of both feathered and dragon’s wings arced from his back. The picture showed him drinking the blood of a beautiful boy with a head of blond curls, his face angled away in the image. The floor on which he stood was a sea of bloody mouths and faces and teeth, moaning in supplication. The phantom pain of a graze on her heel throbbed, and Sera gasped aloud.
It was the exact image from her dream.
Sera raced for the bathroom, her hand clapped over her mouth. She vomited into the toilet and then wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Was Dekaias the owner of the dream voice? Had he been the boy she had seen? She frowned, trying to recall if the shape she’d envisioned had been his. Gooseflesh broke out along her arms. Deep down, she knew it was him. Sera rinsed her mouth with cold water and hauled deep, cleansing breaths into her lungs, banishing the horrific images of the demon lords. One thing was for sure—Xibalba was far worse than she had ever imagined.
She walked back into her bedroom and almost screamed at the figure sitting on the edge of her bed.
“It’s OK, Sera,” Dev soothed. “It’s just me.”
“What are you doing here? Does my mom know you’re in here?” she asked with a panicked look at the bedroom door.
“She told me to come up,” he said, and then added quickly, “she thought you’d need some company. You don’t look so great.” His golden brown eyes were full of concern. “What’s going on?”
If only he knew.
Her eyes watered again, threatening to go into full-on flood mode. “I’m fine,” she said gruffly, her gaze slipping from his face to his bare feet. “Why are you wearing rings on your toes?”
He grinned as he wiggled his toes. “I like them.”
“They’re weird.” Despite her glib comment, the strange rings seemed to fall in effortlessly with Dev’s personal style. He had rings on his thumbs, too, and even had gold rings in his ears, which should have made him look girly, but didn’t. Instead, combined with his golden coloring and inked skin, he just looked like an extraordinarily pretty pirate.
Sera frowned, noticing that Dev held some of the papers from Nate’s packet in his long fingers. He raised an eyebrow.
“A … paper I’m working on,” she said hurriedly. The familiar twinge rippled along her spine as the lie sped past her lips.
“Pretty graphic stuff,” Dev commented in a mild tone. She took the papers from his hands and stuffed them out of sight beneath her duvet. “What’s your paper about? Maybe I can help?”
“I doubt it,” she shot back but something in his words made her reassess her immediate response. She studied his open, earnest face and gave in to the need to make some sense of her churning thoughts. “Do you think people believe in heaven and hell?”
A smile as if he’d expected her question. “People believe in a lot of different things, but at the core it’s all really the same—good versus evil, gods versus demons. But what people believe in may not be the whole reality; they could just be parts of one giant truth or versions of a single truth.”
Sera stared at him. “So, what is that truth?”
“Well, what I think doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s what you think.”
“I don’t know what I think,” she hedged. “Did you ever have one of those days where everything you thought you knew was suddenly not the same? When everything that was so clear before suddenly turned gray and indistinct? Like you woke up in a different reality?”
Dev laughed, a huge belly laugh that made her smile and frown in confusion at the same time. “All the time,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You have no idea. We live in a socially engineered world.”
“So, what do you believe, then?”
“I believe in three things. I believe in life. I believe in love. And I believe in the inherent goodness of people to bring those two things together to discover meaning in life.”
“What about hell?” She reached for the pile of papers she’d hidden and waved it in front of his face. “This stuff? Demons? Death, anarchy, the end of the world? If this is true, then those three things have no hope of survival.”
“Yet they do survive, regardless of those things,” Dev said matter-of-factly. “Because other things exist to protect that life, to guard against those very ones that would destroy it.”
“Like the gods?” Her voice broke on the last word.
Dev’s eyes were filled with an odd compassion, and suddenly Sera felt as if he somehow understood the topsy-turvy world she now lived in.
“Like the gods,” he agreed softly.
“I don’t believe in them.”
“Don’t you?”
His knowing eyes unnerved her. “No. Stop playing games, Dev. You offered to help, remember?”
“You’re right, I did,” he agreed.
Sera flounced off the edge of the bed and walked to her desk, pretending to check her email. She could feel him staring at her but focused on her screen instead. Without turning, she asked, “Have you ever heard of anything called the Trimurtas?”
“Yes. The three lords of Illysia.” His calm tone made her jerk around.
“And Xibalba?”
“The Dark Realms, the hell dimensions?”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
She advanced on him, eyes narrowed. “Daeva?”
“Guardians. The good guys.”
“Azura?”
“The bad guys.”
Sera was almost on top of Dev at that point. “How do you know all of this? My parents, Kyle, Beth, now you! Why does everything feel like it’s all some giant conspiracy?” She threw her hands up and slumped on the bed next to him. Dev remained silent, his eyes sympathetic. Sera glared at him. “So you do believe in all of these things then? Azura? Daeva?”
“Yes.” Dev stared at her with a peculiar expression.
“But it’s not about what I believe, but what you believe, Sera,” he repeated, his tone soft. “You have to come to terms with what is right in your heart. You can’t find those answers with anyone else—not me, not Kyle, not your parents.”
He leaned in toward her, his golden eyes compelling, and reached a long blue arm across her shoulders to pull her to sit next to him, drawing her head against his shoulder. He smelled of spice and marigolds, an odd scent. But it suited him. Distracted by the sudden warmth in his eyes and the accompanying rush in her chest, Sera dipped her head into the crook of his arm.
Dev was very appealing, especially in the way that he was looking at her just then. It made her insides feel a little jittery. He kissed her forehead and the jittery feeling was eclipsed by something else entirely.
He was still looking at her with a serene expression, a lock of dark hair curling into his cheek. She brushed it away before she could stop herself, her fingers trailing through the softness of his hair, and then dropped them hastily, appalled at her spontaneity.
“Don’t be afraid, Sera,” he said.
“Of what?”
“Of me.”
“I’m not—”
“Or of this.”
Dev leaned down and held her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Her breath constricted in her chest. He was going to kiss her! A flush of warmth rushed up into her ears, obliterating all thought, and Sera closed her eyes as he turned her face up to his.
The kiss was the barest touch, his warm lips brushing gently against hers, but Sera felt it to the ends of her toenails. Her entire body tingled, like a live electrical wire, and then all of a sudden, it was over. She pulled back, eyes wide.
As far as first kisses went, it’d been pretty great. She felt warmth flush her cheeks at Dev’s amused look—obviously it hadn’t been his first. She turned redder as he smiled widely and kissed her on the nose.
“So?” he said.
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