by Ivy Asher
“You’re making it worse, you fucking idiot,” Crux mutters at Echo under his breath.
“Shut the fuck up,” Echo snaps at him. “She’s clearly fucking clueless! She wouldn’t last a single night at the Hellgate.”
“But she appears to be an Inner Ring, Echo,” Iceman chides. “Maybe she can’t defend it yet, but just her presence could stabilize it. Do you really want to let her walk away?”
I point at him, interrupting their little argument. “That! That right there. What does Inner Ring mean?” I ask.
To my irritation, they all groan, as if they just found out I don’t know how to do basic shit like wipe my own ass or something.
Instead of answering me, Echo and Iceman-Rafferty go right back to arguing. “She saw all three of us in the graveyard, even though we were warded. She’s not some useless fucking Diluted or Outer Ringer. We could finally manage the Gate with her.”
Jerif shakes his head. “This is a bad idea. Echo’s right; she doesn’t know shit, which pretty much makes her next to useless.”
The quad all share a look before their eyes trail back to me, and they look at me like they’re trying to figure out how to solve a fucking Rubik’s Cube. Which, for the record, I’ve never been able to do.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demand, feeling like I’m about to seriously lose my shit unless someone explains.
Iceman sighs. “I’m—we’re—also demons. Actual demons. As in, not human.”
I blink at him. And blink. And blink some more. My brain hangs up a sign that states left to freak the fuck out, be back in five minutes.
He runs a hand nervously through his blue hair, careful to avoid his horns, and looks to the other guys. “Did she go on pause mode again?” he asks them.
Crux circles around me, lifting one of my arms and letting it slap down against my leather clad thigh like I’m a defective doll. “Huh. Maybe.”
I flinch away from him as the situation suddenly kickstarts my panic. Immediately, I break out into a nervous sweat. It’s like the heat of Hell itself has suddenly enveloped me simply because they admitted to being demons. I start fanning myself as the sweltering temperature takes over my body. “Demons. As in Hell demons?” I clarify.
“Yes,” they all answer at the same time.
I fan harder. “And your costume....”
Iceman clears his throat. “Is, umm, not a costume,” he tells me, looking down at his blue body like he’s trying to see it through my eyes.
I nod quickly, full on sweating now. I touched his spine spikes, for fuck’s sake.
I take a break from fanning my flaming face to pull at the stifling leather encasing my ass. Sweat is pooling below my cheeks and between my breasts as if I wanted a naturally formed pond there. “And you, as demons, are here, as my bosses, to...hang out in a cemetery and fuck with me?” I ask.
“Technically, the mausoleum you found us in is a gateway to get to Hell,” Echo supplies.
God, I’m gonna melt.
“Is there a fan in here? I ask, looking around wildly. “Or some air conditioning? I mean, I saw your kitchen, so I’m guessing no to the A/C, but for fuck’s sake, can someone open a window?” I gasp, feeling like I’m about to combust.
Crux has the audacity to smirk. “I think she’s freaking out.”
“Obviously,” Jerif snaps. He turns to Iceman. “Handle it.”
Before I can be “handled,” I book it toward the huge window and start clawing at it, trying to get the fucker to open. I can’t breathe. My body is like an inferno, and the damn window won’t fucking open. I’m going to die if I don’t cool down.
I start tugging at my outfit, ready to just strip down here and now. I realize that I’m probably having some sort of anxiety attack as my entire existence and reality crashes around me, but I’m too damn hot to act rationally. I pinch the fabric of my shirt, trying to get some air down my chest. I still can’t get the stupid window to budge. The latch is probably made by the devil himself.
With no other options, I raise my scythe, ready to just shatter the fucking glass, but before I can, Jerif catches it in his fist mid-swing.
“Raf,” he snaps as I try to wrangle the scythe away from him.
“Right,” Iceman-Rafferty grunts.
One second, I’m boiling alive and trying to take out a window while wrestling with a demon, and the next second, Iceman’s body is wrapped around mine. His chest and arms surround me. I tense, ready to elbow him in his rock-hard gut, but then his temperature hits me. His skin is blessedly ice-cold. It’s so fucking soothing that I actually let out a whimper as my scorching, panic-heated body melts against him, and I stop struggling completely.
But before I can enjoy it for more than a couple of seconds, his finger reaches up and touches my temple, and I just...stop. One touch from the blue demon, and I’m suddenly, utterly and completely blank.
Like...no panic, no fear, no overheating, no cooling balm, nothing. In fact, I can’t even move. It’s like he actually paused me. I’d be freaked out, but my emotions are paused right along with my body.
Motherfucking demons.
I wake up on a fainting couch in a dark room that—praise the Hellgate—is nice and cool. I run my hands over my body, expecting the stifling leather pants to have disappeared, thus allowing my body to once again regulate its temperature, but I’m surprised—and relieved—to find I’m still fully dressed.
I’m confused for a moment when my hand brushes against something hard and grainy, but I quickly realize it’s my scythe. It’s been left at my side like some comforting stuffed animal. I don’t know what it says about me that I’m actually snuggling it.
Demons.
The word rushes to the forefront of my mind, and I swallow hard as I sit up and take a groggy look at the fainting couch I’m perched on. Of course they have a couch perfectly designed to place a fainter. I wonder how many security guard employees have lain on this thing before me.
The tick of an old grandfather clock is the only sound that fills the room aside from the squeak of my leather as I take stock of myself. Surprisingly, I feel really rested. Like I’ve just woken up from the best sleep ever and I’m spry and ready to go. I stretch a little and look around at the shadow-dipped room, noting that it’s different from where I was before.
I take a second to question if all of this was just some fucked up dream. I mean, who tells some poor, unsuspecting woman that they’re demons, pushes their pause button without permission, and then just leaves them alone in a dark room? I don’t care what species you are, it’s rude.
I could escape. I could tell the world what I know. I could go full Gaston and rouse the villagers and show back up here on their doorstep ready to pitchfork their asses. But as appealing as that all is, my thoughts of escape and whistleblowing have one fatal flaw...no one will believe me. I’ll be one of those kooks trying to convince everyone that I was abducted and anal-probed by the aliens.
Actually, worse, because my story isn’t even that interesting. I was scared in a graveyard, invited into the house where four guys told me they weren’t humans, and then I went unconscious. Definitely not headline news.
Just fucking great, Delta.
I drop my head into my hands and groan out my frustration. I knew this was all too good to be true, but I could have never seen the whole demon thing coming. I just figured I’d get here and it would be some fucked up telemarketing job that I just got tricked into doing.
“Get out of debt, fix my house, find a job I like. That was my to-do list. Not skip down
Mindfuck Lane with a bunch of hot demons,” I mumble as I try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
“So you think we’re hot?” a smooth voice asks me, and I scream at the unexpected invasion of it.
My eyes flare as I look up and see Echo stepping out of a shadow—and I don’t mean that he was casually leaning against a wall and reveals himself. I mean he literally steps out of a fucking shadow.
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br /> His dark tattoos swirl and move over his pale skin, settling again when I squint at them as he makes himself fully visible. The hair on my arms rises as I swallow hard, all doubts of him not being human flying out the window. He is completely otherworldly, there’s no more doubt about it.
“How the fuck did you do that?” I ask, but any response he offers is drowned out by the French doors slamming open and the three other demons tumbling into the room. The lanterns on the walls come to life, flooding the room with light.
“She’s awake,” Jerif says, sounding anything but excited about that fact.
“Are you okay?” Crux asks as he comes forward, walking behind Iceman.
Am I okay?
“Uhh. No, not even a little bit. You guys went full paranormal on me,” I tell them.
Iceman frowns. “Full...paranormal?”
“Yes!” I say with a huff. “You caught me off guard and then did some freaky shit to make me actually swoon. You made me go full Bella Swan when I’m a fucking Katniss Everdeen at heart,” I told them accusingly. “Not cool. I’m allowed to pause myself. You are not allowed to pause me, ever!” I add, staring at Iceman, because I need to drill that point home.
They just stare at me until Echo looks over at Iceman-Rafferty. “Did you mess up her brain? Because she’s just making up words now.”
Iceman just shrugs as if it’s a definite possibility. I look at him accusingly. “You can’t just knock someone out,” I say with anger.
“You were panicking. I didn’t want you to injure yourself.”
“Or the window,” Crux supplies with a grin.
I get unsteadily to my feet and shake my head, my overloaded brain still trying to process everything. “I need to know what the hell is going on,” I say before wincing at my choice of words.
Iceman gives me a placating look, probably because I look like I’m about to start panicking again, but I’m not. I’m surprisingly level-headed right now. A bomb was dropped at my feet, and maybe I’m not totally processing it and my brain just decided to go on survival mode, but whatever the hell happened, it seems I’ve put demons are real on a waffle, and I’m just smothering it with syrup, ready to swallow that fact whole.
“We should go talk in the office.”
I snort. That’s probably a code for let’s drag her to the pits of Hell. Not today, demons. Not today. I cross my arms in front of my chest and shift my weight, making the leather pants squeak embarrassingly loud, but I somehow hold my glower through the noise and pretend like it didn’t even happen. “No, thanks. Let’s talk here.”
Everyone glances back at Iceman, and he sighs. “Miss Gates, it was unfortunate that you learned about things this way, but we’re telling the truth. We’re demons. And so are you.”
My stomach churns, and I’m dangerously close to going into blink-mode again, but I shove it aside.
“You should’ve always known what you are, though,” he goes on. “Who are your parents?”
I point my scythe at him. “Don’t you dare drag my parents into this. They were fucking beautiful, gentle, good people. They were not demons, and neither am I.”
Iceman holds up his hands. “Okay, parents are off-limits. Understood.”
“But you are a demon,” Jerif tells me. “You wouldn’t be able to see us otherwise. Hell, you wouldn’t have even been able to get this job.”
My mind immediately flips to the Chucky bouncer dude who was standing guard outside the interview building. Is that what he was doing? Making sure only demons went inside?
I run a hand through my knotted hair, pulling on it slightly like I can yank some sanity out with the strands. “This can’t be fucking real.”
“It’s real,” Crux assures me. “But you know what else it is? It’s fucking awesome,” he says with obvious excitement glinting in his green eyes. “We can finally fix the Gate.”
My waffle is already dangerously close to overflowing with syrup, and now they want to add fix-the-gate whipped cream? “Wait, wait, wait, wait,” I say, swinging my scythe back and forth in my hand. “Gate as in the cemetery gate or gate as in…”
“The Hellgate,” Jerif supplies matter-of-factly. Like me helping to fix whatever is wrong with the damn gate to literal Hell is mundane.
I start laughing. Probably slightly hysterically, but there it is. I answered a Help Wanted ad, for fuck’s sake. How did this shit happen to me? “Oh, sure. I’ll just sort out the Gate to Hell for you guys. No biggie. Should I do that before or after I resurrect some corpses from the graveyard and turn into a werewolf under the full moon?”
Crux tilts his head. “Shit, you can do that?”
I give him an exasperated look, but Echo smirks. “I believe she was being sarcastic.”
Crux looks a bit disappointed. “Oh.”
I shake my head, because this is just way too fucking much. “Alright. I should go. I think I’ll go. I’m just gonna go,” I ramble, beginning to head toward the door.
I’m blocked by Iceman before I can make it even two steps. “Let us explain.”
I know I’m just going to hear a bunch of shit that I don’t want to deal with, but it’s obvious that they’re going full Gandalf and aren’t going to let me pass. I cross my arms in front of me and plant my feet. “Okay, then. Explain.”
He hesitates for a moment, those icy-blue eyes of his locked on my face. “The fact that you were able to answer the job ad means that you’re Hell-touched,” he tells me.
“Uhh, I’m pretty sure that if Hell felt me up, I would’ve known,” I counter, making two of the others snicker.
“You’re not just Hell-touched,” Iceman goes on. “You’re not a Diluted, which means you’re not a mostly human, watered-down demon. You’re not an Outer Ring demon either, because if you were, you wouldn’t be able to see us. So you’re powerful. That makes you an Inner Ring demon like us.”
“Explain the Rings,” I demand.
“There are five Rings of Hell,” he says patiently. “The two Outer Rings, four and five, are made up of less powerful demons. The Rings are called Quattour and Quīnque. Those Ringers are the demons we usually get to fill this position. That, or Diluted, but those don’t usually last even a week. They’re too watered down with human blood to help sustain the Gate, so we’ve been trying not to bring in Diluted anymore unless we absolutely have to.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, trying to chew on the information. “And you think I’m a demon from a more powerful Ring?”
Iceman nods. “Inner Ring demons—the more powerful of our kind—can ward themselves to be invisible to humans and to the Outers. It’s a defense mechanism mostly. Because while we’re powerful, the Outer Ringers far surpass us in numbers. There’s a lot of jealousy and bullshit, so it’s normal for us to ward ourselves so we don’t have to deal with them. Usually, we don’t ever show ourselves to the fifth we hire for the Gate except during initiation. We just use their power to help sustain the Hellgate.”
I blink, trying to keep up with all of this information being slung my way like shit from a shovel. “So what do you think I am?” I ask.
“At the very least, we think you’re from the Third Ring—a Trēs. But you could be a Duo or an Ūnus as well.”
“Or a Nihil,” Crux cuts in.
Jerif groans, shooting the surfer dude a look. “She can’t be a fucking Nihil,” he snaps.
“Why not?” I ask curiously.
“Because. A Nihil is the most powerful of our kind. Nihil is the very beginning and core to the Rings. Only Lucifer and the other Abdicated are Nihils.”
“Regardless of what you are, this is a good thing,” Echo cuts in. “It means we can finally sustain the Gate properly.” He watches me from where he’s propped up against the wall, his body slunk against the only shadows still in the room.
“What does that mean?”
“It used to only take the four of us to sustain the Gate, but about a year ago, it started requiring more power to manage it. We’ve been b
ringing in demons to help, but we haven’t been able to find a fifth who could…” Iceman trails off.
“Who could what?” I press.
“Not die,” Crux answers way too nonchalantly for my taste.
“Wait a fucking minute,” I say, holding up my hand. “Are you telling me that you hired me because all of the others in my position died?”
His eyes skate uneasily to the side before settling back on my face. “Yes.”
“Oh fucking hell,” I curse, running a hand down my face.
“See?” Jerif says. “She can’t fucking handle it.”
“I’m handling it!” I snap over my shoulder at him.
He rolls his eyes.
“What if she’s a Gatekeeper?” Crux declares randomly.
“A what?” I ask at the same time Jerif and Echo groan.
Crux shakes his head at them. “Come on! Look at her! She has a fucking scythe! Who do we know that used to carry scythes…? Gatekeepers!”
Echo, Jerif and Iceman look at Crux like they’re not seeing the connections he’s so passionately making. Crux looks at them incredulously and gestures to me.
“Her last name is Gates for crying out loud. We’re just going to pretend like that might not be a clue into what’s going on?”
The other three pause at his words, but then Echo shakes his head. “No way. The Hell Gatekeepers were wiped out. They don’t exist anymore, and she’s not a Reaper.”
Crux opens his mouth to argue, but Iceman cuts him off. “We should test her.”
Jerif rounds on him. “Are you insane? We can’t bring her to Hell!”
“Why not?” Echo butts in.
“Because she didn’t even know she was a fucking demon until ten minutes ago!” Jerif shouts, the cords in his neck straining like he wants to take a swing at someone. Personally, I agree with him, but he’s been kind of a dick, so I’m not going to say it.
“Then let’s not test her,” Crux replies. “She can see us, and she has a scythe. We could just induct her as our fifth and train her. We don’t need to test her. I mean, what else could she possibly be?”