Brimstone Nightmares (Queen of the Damned Book 4)

by Kel Carpenter

  “You are free, Sinumpa, by the rules of our oath. However, this day saddens me so, and you will wear that upon your face henceforth, daughter.” My lips trembled out of control from trying to speak but having no control over my body.

  “Thank you, mother,” Sin murmured. She leaned forward to kiss Lilith’s feet and nausea rolled. This is her master. The woman behind the mask. The evil that hid in plain sight. The harbinger of my own destruction.

  The beast growled, thrashing about in my mind. Any control that I held was long gone, but whatever affected my body held us both prisoners, here in my mind. My consciousness was waning, even as the crowd of demons began parting to reveal…them. My Horsemen.

  They were here, but there would be no saving me.

  They couldn’t even save themselves.

  *Rysten*

  All our lives we’d been told that our purpose was to serve the next Queen of Hell. To serve. To kneel. To fight for. To defend. To lay down our lives, and before we’d even met her, we were prepared for this day. For the day that we might not survive.

  We were prepared to do anything that ensured her survival, even at the cost of our own lives.

  But no one prepared us for the soul crushing desperation that would sit on our backs if failure became imminent. No one told us that the sole reason for our existence could be snuffed out with the snap of one’s fingers.

  No one realized that we would come to love this woman so much it hurt. So deep that it burned.

  They didn’t tell us those things. Protect. Serve. Defend. That was our duty, and we were happy to do it at the expense of all...until now.

  I wished we’d never come back to Hell.

  I wished we had let it burn and kept her far away.

  I wished we had more time.

  I wished for a lot of things that would never come to pass, and I knew that now. I had been smart enough to cherish those moments with her like they would never happen again. Because a small part of me had known that the duty tasked upon us would be our downfall.

  And now we kneeled on the cold stone floor with poison-laced flowers around our necks, meant to kill even the strongest of demons. Even a primordial.

  If Ruby was down, the truth of it was that we never had a chance.

  “My boys,” Lilith cooed. We weren’t her anything and the vile old woman knew it. While she may have helped make us, she was no mother of ours.

  Her claws patted my cheek gently, curling around my chin. She wrenched my face upward, but I kept my eyes on Ruby. On the light. No matter what happened now she needed to survive.

  “You’ll look at me when I speak to you, Pestilence.” The prick of her nails was nothing compared to the overwhelming panic of what was to come.

  We were the ones that found Lucifer’s body last time she’d tried this. Or what was left of it.

  I spat and a glob of iridescent blue smacked against her skin. I didn’t need to look to know her features contorted with rage; the slap of her hand that sent me reeling was enough.

  “The truth is, Lilith, that you’re not a queen and stealing the power of the primordial won’t make you one.” Her foot swung out and Ruby’s scream pierced the air as my head slammed into the stone floors again and again. Bone crunched, but I still only felt an inkling of what she was doing thanks to her damned poisons.

  “Stop! Get your hands off him!” Ruby screamed, but the words were only barely intelligible.

  Lilith stilled, pulling away from me.

  “What did you say to me?” she replied in a singsong voice that rang true to madness. She was taking it as a challenge and Ruby didn’t know better than to challenge the Unseelie Queen.

  “Get your devil-damned hands off my Horseman,” Ruby growled. Her hands curled into fists and her nails scraped at the rock beneath her, turning bloody and blue as she let out the most unholy of shrieks. It would have given Moira a run for her money.

  “Well, well. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Little Morningstar?” Lilith grinned. That only incited Ruby further. Her back bowed off the concrete as flames completely consumed her, growing brighter and brighter. I wouldn’t look away, even as she grew too bright to truly see.

  Her form blurred as the flames wound around her like a living, breathing entity. She didn’t scream this time. She bended and bowed and contorted, but through it all she fought, and the flames raged. She forced her arms to lift her and her knees to hold. She rose with a vengeance and she walked with a purpose. “Did you really think that I would lie down and watch you do this?” she growled.

  And then…she exploded.

  Fire unlike anything I’d ever seen poured from her, burning out and into the cavern. It raced over the stone shores and the glowing water, snaking up the spires of every tower, crawling over every crook of the cavern walls until it was all that existed—and still she burned.

  She burned more than Lucifer ever had, even in his deepest rages.

  And she burned for me.

  It continued for a suspended frame of time where I wasn’t sure if seconds or minutes or even hours had passed. Black and blue and every color in between consumed my vision in the most glorious of blazes, but despite her raw power… despite that immense strength that was buried within her…

  Despite it all, she couldn’t go on forever—and Lilith still stood.

  “You are strong, child,” she called out, licking her lips. “I’ll give you that.” The fire grew thin, showing just how much Ruby had laid waste to. Lilith took an appreciative glance as stalactites fell from the ceiling into the clear waters below. The towers were blackened and crumbling. Every piece of cloth, fabric, or otherwise burned to a crisp and yet...the people were unharmed.

  There was only one thing that makes a demon immune to the flames.

  “Brimstone,” Laran murmured beside me. He must have come to the same conclusion.

  “Why won’t you die?” Ruby growled in a voice that was half her and half the beast. Her eyes had gone dark, but not truly black. She was fighting for control in a battle she would not win.

  “I’ve spent centuries planning, child. Did you really think I wouldn’t take into account your primordial power?” Lilith laughed a slight cackle. “No, girl, I thought of everything. Including the possibility that you might be blessed with your mother’s gifts.”

  Lilith snapped her fingers and a silver dagger appeared in her palm. Ruby’s legs shook as she took another step forward. Her outpouring of power had left her weak as Lilith circled the four of us.

  “What are you doing?” the beast snapped. Ruby’s body jerked back and forth as they vied for power. Lilith watched with a slight smile on her lips as she came to a stop before Laran.

  She reached down and grabbed a fistful of hair, wrapping it tight around her palm as she wrenched him upwards and moved to stand behind him, the silver edge of her dagger at his throat. We both knew that dagger was imbued with blood magic. “Don’t let her break you. You must survive, baby girl. For me,” Laran called out to her.

  “Teaching a lesson,” Lilith said chipperly. “I only need two of them.”

  Ruby’s eyes ran black and the beast took two trembling steps. She knew what was coming. We all did.

  And it was too late.

  A flick of her wrist was all it took. Laran let out a strangled noise and Ruby’s legs collapsed entirely as his blood flowed straight from the vein onto the glittering ashes at her feet.

  “Laran,” she choked. “Laran, please don’t go—” Shudders racked her shoulders as she caved in on herself. “Please don’t.” She pleaded with the dying demon as she crawled to him. “Laran, please…please!” she begged as tears rolled down her cheeks. She repeated his name over and over again until the gurgling stopped and the light faded from his eyes. “LARAN!” she roared in a voice that could have woken the dead.

  Lilith walked to Allistair, dagger in hand, and any fight Ruby had in her was gone by the time Lilith said, “Now, then. You’re not going to struggle, are yo
u?”

  She shook her head as the pieces inside her well and truly came apart. I saw it in her eyes that she knew she would die, and Lilith knew that. She knew that Ruby would give anything for us.

  Including the very heart that beat in her chest.

  “Take them to the water’s edge, but don’t let them touch it,” Lilith ordered. Demons burst into action to follow her every command, and trembling fingers grasped me by the sides. I recognized them, even after three thousand years.

  “I’m so sorry,” Iona whispered. I didn’t have the strength left to spit at her. I didn’t have the will power to tell her I’d rather die than touch her. There was only one thing I wanted more in this world than to see Iona burn in that moment.

  “S-save h-h-her,” I whispered through my broken jaw, through the seeping blood and foggy haze. Lilith’s flowers were impeding the healing.

  “I can’t,” she murmured back. “This was the price I paid for life.”

  “Saaaaa—” The rest of the words never came out. I managed to keep my eyes open as Lilith approached Ruby.

  My girl. Her eyes were glazed over when Lilith lifted her up like a child. She didn’t struggle. She didn’t speak. The spark in her eyes...it was gone.

  “Ruby,” Allistair wheezed beside me. “Keep… fighting… little… succubus,” he groaned. She didn’t respond. I felt my body being moved, partially lifted and partially dragged. After the beating to the face Lilith had given me, I should feel every shift, but it seemed that her poisonous flowers had numbed the pain, at least physically.

  Iona settled me on the rocky edge of the shore, giving me a front row view of Ruby being lowered into the water. She was naked and her brands glowed faintly, the blue vines limp.

  “Gather, my loyal followers, for tonight is the beginning. With this sacrifice we will create a new world. One built on the bones of our enemies.” Lilith’s words rang in the cavern as all stared on in silence.

  “Ruby,” Julian growled. “You fight her, Ruby! You don’t stop—you understand me—” His words were pointless. She wouldn’t lift a finger again. Not if it meant the death of one of us.

  Lilith began chanting. Softly at first as she lifted the dagger over her head.

  There wasn’t a flash of fear in Ruby’s eyes when Lilith struck her. Straight in the sternum.

  A sickening snap filled the air.

  Then again.

  Then again.

  Then again.

  Lilith stabbed her until the water turned bloody and both their skin turned blue.

  She stabbed her until Ruby no longer jerked with each strike of the knife.

  She stabbed her until the outline of the pentagram on her chest had been cut away, and Ruby…she was only holding on by a thread. There was screaming. So much screaming. Not of Ruby herself, but the three of us bound and unable to stop this. The outcry of a pain so deep that the mind could not grasp it.

  My life had been so long. So very long. Never had it felt so long as it did now. I didn’t want to exist in a world where she didn’t. She was my light. My soul. My whole fucking universe.

  And she couldn’t die.

  Something snapped inside of me as Lilith began carving away at her own chest, never missing a beat in her chant. Dark magic filled the air. So vile and wicked that it threatened to put her light out, but I gave it all to her.

  My magic. My strength. My will to live. I was the strongest shade ever created and I used that power to hold her together. To hold her body together. To try to heal whatever damage I could.

  Even as shadows encroached on us, I gave. As a dark void rose from Ruby, I gave.

  As the waters ran black, I gave.

  It was only when Lilith stood before me that I knew the truth. That hopelessness finally consumed me.

  She painted my chest in my mate’s blood...and there was no more to give.

  I had given right until the final shudder of Ruby’s heart…when the world went dark. Truly dark.

  And in the blackness, a voice spoke to me. A darkness I knew.

  A beast of ancient power filled with so much rage that it could not be soothed after the wrong done to it. It had been stripped of the other half of its soul.

  We both had.

  Chapter 13

  Existence was such an odd thing.

  One moment you are there and then you are not. Most believe that the worlds of Heaven and Hell are where you went after— the next plane of existence—but the truth is that no one really knows. Not even Death, who both lived and died on that precarious line in-between.

  The veil was a place of existence, less like Hell and more like a state of mind. One that you never wake up from. And I didn’t want to wake up. Not now. Not ever.

  She took him from me, but what she didn’t know was that I followed him well before the last breath left my body. I used that tiny sliver of magic that Death bequeathed upon me to go to the veil and hold onto him. Here we existed together. But on the other side, past the veil…I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

  “You can’t keep me, baby,” he murmured in my ear. “You have to go on. You have to survive.”

  “I’m not letting you go,” I said, clinging to him tighter.

  “She killed me, Ruby. You can’t change that,” he said gently, pressing the pads of his fingers into my jaw as he cupped my face. “It’s okay. We were all prepared for this.” I swallowed hard and dug my nails into the hair at the base of his neck.

  “I. Am. Not. Leaving. You,” I whispered in a harsh voice. “It’s not happening. I refuse. Do you understand me?” My bottom lip quivered as the tears threatened to fall. His eyes softened as he leaned forward and placed a kiss against my forehead. I leaned in, fighting the emotion swelling in my throat when I realized that I couldn’t smell his scent; that tinge of firewood and smoke. That I never would again.

  “If you stay with me, you’re leaving them behind. You know that, right?” he asked me.

  “They have each other. I won’t leave you here alone.”

  “You’re leaving Moira and Bandit behind. They won’t survive without you.” His tone was soft, sweet even. I hated it.

  “Stop it,” I snapped. “Stop trying to get me to leave you. You can’t! I won’t!” I pulled harder on his hair and it only drew a chuckle from his lips.

  “I’m not making you do anything, babe. I couldn’t even if I tried,” he whispered against my hair. It put me at ease, but only for a moment. “I’m just telling you what you already know, and you don’t want to hear it because the truth is you might be able to survive this if you leave me, but every minute you spend here is another one your body dies more.” My hands shook as I held him close, afraid that if I gave any slack, for even a second, he might slip away into the great abyss beyond.

  “I don’t want to do this without you,” I blurted out, taking an unsteady breath. “I don’t want to fight Lilith. I don’t want to fight for Hell. I don’t want to do any of it if it means doing it without you. I don’t want to be alone.” Tears were falling now. Big. Fat. Ugly tears. They ran down my face and onto his chest.

  “You’ll never be alone, baby. You know that.” But he was so wrong. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know what came next or when. I never knew when the next time may come that someone I loved died.

  Love. Not loved. He was still here. Still with me.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Laran. Not without you.”

  “Actually,” another voice interjected. My blood ran cold. “You are.”

  “Sin,” I spat. Laran froze as I spun around using both my hands to grip his arm behind me. “You fucked me over, Sin. This is your fault,” I hissed. She narrowed her mercury eyes and cocked her head.

  “I warned you. Do not blame me because you made a choice and did not like the outcome.” There was a hint of caution in her tone, but I didn’t care anymore. She thought this was a game and she was the one moving the pieces, but it wasn’t a game for me. It was my life, and it was over, and there were
no do-overs for any of us.

  “You betrayed me, Sin. I don’t care how you twist this. You led me here, feeding me just enough to make me think you were on my side. Laran is dead because of you!” I screamed, finally finding the fury inside. “We both are!”

  Sin took a deep breath and released it in a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry for what this war has already cost you, Ruby. I truly am. I told you from the beginning to trust no one. Not even me.” Her eyes…they were so old and filled with so much pain. Under different circumstances I might have pitied her. I might have understood.

  But I was dead. She said it herself.

  “You won’t be dead for long, Little Morningstar,” she said so softly I almost missed it.

  “Don’t call me that,” I growled, and it was one hundred percent me. No inkling of the beast resided inside my soul anymore. Sin nodded.

  “Say your goodbye’s, Ruby. We have much to do if we’re going to save Hell.”

  “What? No—”

  “I call on the blood oath for the favor owed. You will live, Ruby, and we will fight another day.”

  The skin on my breast stung as the sliver of blood magic activated on her command. A pressure filled me, pushing and pulling. It disoriented my mind and pressed down on my body. If I had bones here, they might have shattered upon the weight of the blood oath as it forced me to obey its call.

  “Laran,” I gasped, turning into him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and refused to let go.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’ll be okay, baby. Go to the Sins. They’ll know what to do.” Then the thrashing began. I felt my body again. Every muscle spasmed, attempting to split as if the very atoms that were me could not be contained. Still, I clung to him as the magic began to pull me back.

  It could take me, but I wasn’t letting go. I would keep him. I didn’t come this far just to lose him forever.

  I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it.