by D. N. Hoxa
It seemed like my time was up.
I was very irritated, which always happened when I went through so many emotions in such a short time. The chains on my mood swing must have snapped, and now I was mad, too. When Chelsea came back, I didn’t tell her about the meeting. I didn’t want her to worry about me, and we were out drinking. I still had until dawn, anyway. So, we both pretended Lexar Dagon’an hadn’t been here at all and that I wasn’t going to see my father in mere hours.
But in the back of my mind, he was still there. The memory of him, the job he was on. The past—even the future.
For now, I enjoyed my drink and the company of my best friend, but at dawn, things were going to change. And if that nocturnal witch really was as dangerous as she sounded, it would be game on by morning. I was going to catch her first, just so I could rub it all over Lexar’s pretty face.
Then we’d see which one of us would end up saying please.
Asshole.
3
Let’s get a few things out of the way real quick, shall we? I know you’re curious. I even made a bullet-point list, just for you—and not because I had nothing better to do just now.
Name: Sapphire Donovan
Age: 25
Appearance: My bright red hair is pretty long and always a mess, but I’ve convinced myself that it suits me because I’m too lazy to do anything about it. My eyes are blue, my skin pretty pale, so I get why some people are startled at the sight of me. I’m about five foot eight. Also, I look like a model, except I got a little more ass. (Yes, that’s a song. Look it up.) By like a model, I mean you’d need a magnifying glass to find my boobs. And by a little more ass, I mean a lot more ass.
Current job: Photographer & Maggot Slayer (I came up with that name myself.)
Origin: …it’s complicated. See below.
Species: …even more complicated. See below.
Mother: Lenora Donovan, fire witch, not a member of the Witch Alliance, and she didn’t practice a lot of magic. No other family that I know of.
Father: a very Bad Guy.
And now it’s time for the history lesson. Just bear with me. I promise to keep it short.
My dad, the Bad Guy, is a fallen angel, one of the seven who followed Lucifer out of Heaven because they basically couldn’t keep their dicks in their pants. Mortal women were all the rage back then. They are now, too, actually. My poor mother had no idea who my idiot father was while he wooed her, until it was too late. By then, good ole me was growing in her womb, and she was already in love with me—but I digress.
Now, normally, most offspring of fallen angels don’t survive birth. Something about nature keeping the balance. Daddy Dearest explained it to me, I think. But I did survive. And so did Lexar Dagon’an. His dad was a fallen angel, too, except the two of them were close. The best of buddies, while I couldn’t stand to even look my father in the face—willingly—for longer than a few seconds. I still did it to piss him off, though.
Moving on to the fun stuff: the Fallen gifted the world with magic when they made a home out of the Underworld, a.k.a. Hell, a.k.a. the Downstairs, a.k.a. the Down There. They gave away their magic because they tried to make gods out of themselves by tricking humans into worshipping them like deities. Long story short—it worked for a few centuries, and then it didn’t.
By then, magic had spread far and wide, creating its own sources everywhere—sources that are called Ley lines. It also became part of humans, and it evolved in all kinds of ways. Nobody, not even the Fallen, could predict what magic would do to the world and the people, until it was done and nobody could take it back. Now, the world was full of unnatural creatures and magical places hidden in plain sight.
Needless to say, this didn’t make the Fallen very happy. Too much power was loose in the world. Too little left in their control.
Some mortals—like witches and warlocks—could call magic out of the Ley lines with spells that the Fallen had written themselves in the old days. They call that kind light magic, and most draw their magic from it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s harmless. Only that dark magic—magic that comes straight from The Source, otherwise known as Hell—is worse.
Others turned to monsters, hungry for chaos and destruction, blood, flesh. Some shifted into animals, and some connected with nature’s elements. Some changed so completely that almost nothing in them remained human—like the faeries and gnomes and goblins. Even the blood in their veins was blue, and so on, and so forth.
Back to the Fallen.
Most offspring of the Fallen have pretty standard sets of magical powers. We are connected to the Underworld, and we normally inherit powers from our fathers in most cases—like Lexar. He had the gift of thunder and lightning, just like his dad.
That’s not the case with me, though.
Something went wrong during my creation. My father’s gift, other than his magic, was fire. My mother’s magic focused on fire, too. Fire witches drew power from flames to do their bidding, and so it made sense that I would have it, too. And I did. Just not in the way anybody expected.
It was a shock to both me and my father when one day, a little while after my eighteenth birthday, I sprouted wings and flew.
Then caught fire, died, and was born again.
You guessed it. I am the only offspring of the Fallen in history to ever shift into a phoenix. And in case you didn’t get the point, I am very special.
Everyone believed that phoenixes were creatures of Heaven. If everyone stopped to think about it, though, they’d realize how much sense it made that phoenixes are actually born in Hell. They are fire. Hell is forged in fire.
According to my dad, phoenixes were made as soldiers over a millennia ago, for the Ultimate Bad Guy, a.k.a. Lucifer, a.k.a. the Devil, a.k.a. Satan…yeah, you know who I’m talking about. He made an army of phoenixes in an attempt to take over Heaven, which failed miserably when the Good Guys flew down with their huge wings and destroyed them for good.
The world hadn’t seen another phoenix until I showed up. Like I said: special.
I know what you’re thinking. Being a phoenix must be so cool. So fascinating. So damn inspiring. She flies while she’s on fire. She’s burning and she doesn’t stop, even though she knows she’ll end up in ashes. She’ll just keep going until lights out. Then, she’ll rise from the dead and do it all over again.
Fucking poetic, right?
Let me tell you, there is nothing inspiring about fire and ashes, death and revival. There’s nothing poetic about pain so excruciating, you would willingly give your soul to anyone who’ll take it just to make sure you never feel it again. That is, if I even had a soul, which I don’t.
Except that’s not how phoenixes work. I’m stuck with this my whole life. My whole eternal life.
Not so fun being special, after all.
But that’s me. I’ve got magic from both my mother and my father that I never can get to work quite right so I never even try, and I’ve got a firebird living inside me that makes me wish I was never born every time she tries to force her way out of me. It’s fine, most of the time. I mind my own business, live a quiet life, kill people and things that aren’t supposed to be here, and just enjoy my days as much as I can.
Things were about to change, though. I could feel it in my bones, just like I did when a maggot was in my city. It called to me like a mermaid’s song does to a foul-mouthed sailor.
And it would all start with the witch hunt.
4
There were plenty of magical places in Philadelphia. The not-so-magical parts of the city, though, were hidden in plain sight. There were only a couple that I knew of, and one of them was a few streets down from where I lived. I smoked my cigarette and looked at Lexar across the street, looking at me. I really didn’t want to go over to him. I didn’t want to go where he was going to take me, either, but I had no choice. It was almost dawn, and my father was expecting me.
Throwing the butt of the cigarette away, I looked at the empty st
reet to make sure no cars were passing by, then crossed it. There was no way I was getting out of this, so I was just going to get it over with as quickly as I could.
Where I was going was to Hell. One of the portals that led there was the building at Lexar’s back. He was waiting for me because, unlike him, I didn’t have access to the portal. I had to be escorted because I’d chosen to live up here and not with my father. As a result, that entire place treated me like scum, like I was worse than the dirt on their shiny shoes, like an outsider—and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You look like you swallowed something wrong,” Lexar said with a grin.
“Suck it, asshole.” I passed right by him, hands tucked in the pockets of my hoodie, and I entered the bookstore.
The smell alone was worth a million bucks and about the only upside to this entire thing. The shop had closed hours ago, but Lexar had the key, even though the human owner had no idea what was in the basement of his shop.
Lexar walked in behind me and sighed when he saw that I’d stopped in front of a shelf. The place wasn’t big, but it was perfect. Not neat and tidy by any means, but the books were placed in perfect order. The owner focused on the important things, and that’s why I bought most of my books here. Only two lamps were on at the end of the room, but that wasn’t an issue. I raised my hand up and the next second, flames slipped from my skin, creating a small fireball over my palm. More than enough light to read the spines.
“They’re expecting us, Princess. Chop, chop,” Lexar said, his mocking tone getting on my nerves in an instant.
I turned around and smiled brightly, bringing the fire closer to my face. “Do you see the fuck you in my smile? Look closely ‘cause it’s right there.”
He wasn’t surprised in the least. And he didn’t back off like he should have. Instead, he leaned closer to me, and closer, until the fireball in my palm illuminated one side of his face perfectly—except for the eyes. Those always remained dark. The light hit him just right, damn it. I was dying to take a picture of him.
Every instinct in my body demanded I move away, just a bit, but I stood still instead. I wasn’t going to let this guy intimidate me.
“Hmm,” he breathed, his eyes scrolling down my face, stopping on my smile. It was really hard to hold it, but I think I managed. “I don’t see it.”
“Then maybe you should get your eyes checked.” I turned to the bookshelf again, casually, just in case he thought I was turning away from him. Which I was.
The problem was, he remained right where he was, and he was now breathing down my neck.
“Are you afraid of me, Sassy Pants?” he whispered, and it took all I had not to set the entire bookstore on fire. I would have if books weren’t priceless.
“No, Nevermore. I can kill you without making an effort. I’m not afraid of you.” At least half of that was true.
“Last time we saw each other—”
“Don’t.” That was as far as I was willing to let it go. I faced him again, but this time I wasn’t bothered by his proximity. Our noses almost touched, and I couldn’t have cared less. “Don’t talk to me like you know me because you don’t. Don’t talk to me like I’m your friend because I’m not. Just don’t talk to me at all.”
“But I do know you,” he whispered. The asshole wasn’t even fazed by my words at all. “I know how you look when you’re nervous, too. Like you do right now.” He raised his index finger toward my cheek, and I swore to God, if he touched me, I was going to set him on fire. He didn’t. His finger hovered half an inch from my skin. “Your eyes always give you away.”
What the hell do you want from me? The words popped into my head, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from speaking. I didn’t know what kind of a game he was playing, but I was not going to fall for it.
So, I forced myself to smile. “Maybe I should put the fuck you in them, then. That way you won’t miss it.”
“You know I can take you, right here, right now, right? I can slam you against this shelf and make sure you forget your own name in seconds,” he whispered, his warm breath blowing against my lips.
And my idiot brain was all too eager to imagine everything he just said in perfect detail. My mouth opened, but I found no words to speak—only for a second. A second was all he needed to make his fucking point. He grinned.
“It wouldn’t be like last time. I wouldn’t take it easy on you at all.”
Yeah, because he was talking about fighting, not…other things.
“I fucking hate your guts, you know that?”
Closing my fist, I spun around and made for the end of the room. It was dawn, I hadn’t slept at all, I hadn’t had any coffee, and I was pissed. And nervous about meeting my dad. There was no reason to drag this on with the asshole. I could kick his ass after the meeting if it came to it—just not in the bookstore.
He chuckled while he came after me, down the stairs and to the basement. There was no door or anything like that to mark the portal to the Underworld. It was just a wall with yellow bricks, at the end of which were cases full of books, reaching up to the ceiling.
“I was joking, Princess,” Lexar said when he stepped next to me. We were both facing the wall, but he just wouldn’t open the damn portal already.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I spit through gritted teeth.
“As you wish,” the asshole said and finally raised his hand. He pressed his palm onto the yellow bricks, and electricity began to spark into existence all around his arm. The lightning strikes grew bigger and bigger until each was as thick as my fingers, and they licked the wall like they were tasting it. It was the magic in Lexar that was allowed passage from the earthly plane and to the gates of Hell. If the portal behind this wall felt my magic, it wouldn’t activate, and if I tried to break it down, it would just not be there at all. That’s magic for ya. It doesn’t give a shit about sense—it just does whatever it wants.
When the portal opened, it began as a square the size of Lexar’s palm, smack in the middle of the wall. Then it expanded as he gave it more of his magic. I stepped to the side because the sound of his lightning crackling and the flashing lights were not doing me any favors. I turned my head the other way and closed my eyes, reminding myself to breathe. I’d been here before, in this very spot, with my father, and I knew how it went. No need to panic. All I had to do was go see what my father wanted and get out. He wasn’t going to follow me out here. I could do what I wanted afterward—I just needed the meeting over with.
When lightning stopped flashing every few seconds, and the air infused with a lot more magic than you could feel anywhere in the world, I turned around to see that the portal was ready to transport us. It was like a doorway, with nothing but darkness on the other side.
“After you,” Lexar said, waving his hand toward the portal.
I bit my tongue to keep from replying. I was saving my energy for when I met with my dad. Pissing him off was a specialty of mine, and I needed focus. So, I ignored Lexar and stepped into the portal.
It did make you a bit dizzy, even though you couldn’t really feel the difference passing through. It was just like stepping from a relatively warm room, into a really warm room. It was always hot in Hell, which was where the phrase had come from, I guess. That much fire in one place tended to heat things up.
Before me, the darkness disappeared, giving way for orange light to illuminate the narrow pathway ahead. Lexar walked beside me. The pathway was made of rectangular stones, and it snaked its way downward for no reason at all. I didn’t get why they couldn’t just make a straight way toward the Tenth Circle, but I still remembered what my dad had said the first time I’d been there: you do not want to step away from the pathway. Maybe I’d even asked him why, and he told me, but I didn’t remember. I’d been barely eighteen years old then.
“Why so silent?” Lexar asked after a couple of minutes. It wouldn’t be long now before we reached the Tenth Circle of Hell.
“I can’t exactly
plot your murder out loud, can I?” I mumbled.
He chuckled. “I know you don’t like being down here, but it’ll be over quick.”
Surprised, I looked at him. “Are you high or something?”
“I’m not high. I’m just trying to distract you, but it’s not working. Just stop thinking about it. It’s not that bad.”
Distract me? Is that why he was being such a prick?
“This is your home. Of course, it’s not bad for you.” Told you he lived under a rock. A really big rock called the surface of the Earth.
“We’re going straight to the Third. You won’t even see anything.” Yep, he was definitely high on something.
“I know that. My problem is with what’s on the Third.”
What he was talking about was the Third Circle of Hell. There were ten of them, and no, they didn’t get worse as they went. Every Circle was different, a different realm altogether technically. The Third Circle was where the elite lived—the Fallen and their offspring and lots of demons and other creatures nobody even knew where they came from. It was like a city—the only one of its kind Downstairs, and of course, there were no tormented souls and no screaming ghosts in that realm.
Lexar thought I was nervous about what was on the other Circles, but I wasn’t. I did feel pity for the poor souls who ended up here. I didn’t want to see them suffering in about a million different ways, but they didn’t get here for being good guys in life. They did things that even God couldn’t forgive, and now they paid the consequences.
Besides, the same fate awaited me when I died.
“Why do you hate him so much?” Lexar asked just as we began to make out the walls of the Tenth Circle, a.k.a. the Lego wall, a.k.a. Hell’s official entrance. Most of the walls were tall and not placed in any particular order. It was like gigantic pieces of Lego thrown all over with no rhyme or reason—hence the name I gave it—and they were black and shiny. It was all very beautiful in an eerie kind of way. I was dying to take a picture of them, and I knew just the right angle. My father told me that they were a type of Ley line, like the ones magic made on Earth, and if you knew how to tap into them, they could be anything—safe havens, doors, tunnels, portals. Of course, I couldn’t tap into shit, but Lexar could.
