CHAPTER 37
River
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting to find here, but whatever it had been, it certainly wasn’t the carnage, destruction, and death littering the ground everywhere I looked. There were body parts of creatures I couldn’t begin to identify as well as some I knew. There was a gargoyle wing and over there was some mauled akalia vine.
I think that may have been a revenir, but I couldn’t tell for sure, and that was definitely the head of a barta demon. There was no way to block out the sights and smells before me. For as long as I lived, I would never forget this.
The natural brimstone scent of Hell didn’t help any as my stomach rolled sickeningly and threatened to empty what little food I’d had today onto the intestines of some long-dead monster. In some areas, the remains were piled almost knee-high, and there wasn’t a section of the fifty-foot cavern before us that wasn’t covered with some ravaged creature.
In the midst of all the remains, the tiny goblins were running to and fro like toddlers on a sugar high. Over two dozen hellhounds chased them through the remains. They pounced on them and swallowed them whole. The tiny creatures screamed as they ran for one of the three other tunnels splitting off from here.
I looked up and my breath caught at the gaping hole overhead with spiral after spiral of rock circling upward above us. I didn’t have to be told, I knew the road winding upward was the same road Hawk and I had traversed upon entering Hell. We had finally found the bottom of the pit.
“Did the humans create that when they broke into Hell?” I inquired and pointed at the opening above us.
“No, it has always existed,” Kobal replied, his eyes shining gold as he watched the chaos surrounding us. “The humans only opened the way onto Earth.”
“What about the other entrance to Hell, the one you said was open in Europe? Are we close to it?”
“No,” Kobal said. “It’s as far from here as the entrance on your side is.”
“Where is the way toward it?”
“There is no way toward it. You have already entered it,” Magnus replied.
“Whatever that means, Mad Hatter,” Hawk said.
Magnus scowled at him. “I have not lost my mind.”
The demon of illusions really had spent a lot of time watching humans over the years, I realized.
“Who is the Mad Hatter?” Bale inquired.
“An insane character from a book,” I replied, and Kobal shook his head.
In my head, I could hear the words Kobal had once uttered to me. You humans and your infatuation with fictional characters.
“I see,” Bale said.
“You’re thinking of the gateway as a hole that cuts all the way through the Earth. It’s not,” Kobal said. “There is an opening on both sides of the planet, but each one is identical to the other. It’s why we believe if we could close one, they would both close.”
“Think of them as two halves of the same hole, almost literally. If you took a paper and folded it in the middle, they would meet at a certain point. This is the point,” Magnus said.
“But how would we emerge on the Europe side?” I inquired.
“You go the way you didn’t come.”
“This is what a bad acid trip would be like,” Hawk groaned as I gawked at Magnus. He stared back at us with an expression that made it clear what he’d just said made perfect sense to him.
Hell is the rabbit hole, I realized. And we had tumbled headfirst into it.
“Am I supposed to understand that?” I asked.
Magnus pointed above us. “You started that way, but you didn’t come that way. You’ve taken a different trail.”
“So if we were to follow that roadway out of here, we’d end up in Europe?”
“There are many roads to traverse in order to get to where you have to go.”
He was making my head pound, and he had no idea he sounded like he spoke gibberish.
“Things work differently here,” Kobal said.
“Obviously,” I muttered.
I forced my attention back to the gory cavern. It was almost preferable to the hamster wheel Magnus was spinning. Now that my eyes weren’t immediately drawn to the massacre, I realized what I’d originally thought was another tunnel across from me was something else entirely. Before the start of the entrance, the walls were the same black I’d become accustomed to in Hell, but something silver poked out from the edges of the rocks, and beyond that, I realized the rocks became a solid silver color.
My brow furrowed as I took in the broken edges sticking more than three feet out of the rock. I could see swirls of something on those edges, but there wasn’t enough there for me to make out what it was supposed to be. I realized what I was looking at though.
“The remains of the first seal,” I murmured.
“Yes,” Kobal said.
Without another word, he rested his hands on my hips and plucked me off the ground. “What are you doing?” I demanded.
“We have to cross over to the seals.”
“You need your hands free, and I have to be ready to help.”
“You’re not walking through this.”
Could I really argue with not having to climb through rotten remains? No, no I could not. “Let me on your back then. I can see anything coming from there, and we’ll both be able to use our hands.” I’d also be able to get free of him a lot faster if it became necessary, but I kept that to myself.
He hesitated before shifting me so I was riding piggyback. I adjusted the skirt of my dress, clamped my thighs against his sides, and held onto his shoulders as he stepped into the cavern. I tried not to pay attention to the squishing sounds under his feet, but the only other sounds were the crunch of bones as the hounds ate their dinner and the diminishing shrieks of the goblins. Some of the tiny, flesh-eating monsters managed to make it into the other tunnels and vanished.
With nothing left to chase, the hounds prowled back and forth, their hackles raised and their continuous snarls echoing through the cavern. “Ainka,” Kobal said to them and the noises died down a little.
“What did that mean?” I inquired.
“Best translation would be ‘easy,’” he replied.
“When this is over, will you teach me your language?”
“If you wish to learn it, I will.”
“I should probably learn the language of my subjects.” I tried to keep my tone teasing, but I was struggling not to pay attention to our surroundings.
“They would like that very much.”
“Weren’t there more hounds here?” Bale asked.
“Yes,” Kobal replied.
Something cracked beneath his foot and my stomach rolled again. Caving into the urge, I pressed my nose and mouth against his neck and inhaled deeply. His enticing fiery scent somewhat drowned out the stench surrounding us. He rested his hand briefly on my knee and squeezed it.
“Almost there, Mah Kush-la,” he assured me.
I lifted my head from his neck. If the others had to walk through this disaster, I could at least suffer the stench. Arriving at the remains of the first seal, Kobal started to put me down. He stopped when he spotted the bloodshed beyond. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the main cavern, but carcasses and blood covered the floor through here too.
“Skelleins, stay here and keep watch for anything trying to come at us from behind,” Kobal ordered.
They turned as one and formed a line across the entrance of the first seal. They brought their swords before them, holding the tips of the blades in front of their nose holes.
I stared at the silver walls of the first seal surrounding us when Kobal continued onward. The walls bore no indication that the revenirs had been trapped within here for thousands upon thousands of years. There were no scratches on them, and other than the blood splattering it, the silver surface remained pristine.
Gazing up, my mouth parted in awe as I realized the ceiling had to be a good ten stories above us. The only reason I could see it t
hrough the gloom above was because it was the same silver color as the broken walls surrounding us and it gleamed in the fiery light. The light came from beyond the window at the bottom of the seal on the left wall.
I lifted myself up on Kobal’s back and craned my head to try and see out the thick window. My breath whistled in when I spotted endless fires rolling over the top of each other. Though this fire was the exact opposite of water, it looked like waves crashing onto the shore. Only these waves of fire crashed onto what looked like a large roadway beyond.
“Why is there a window?” I asked.
Kobal glanced dismissively at it. “Not a window as you know them. There’s no glass in it. It is simply a see-through barrier as solid and strong as the walls surrounding us. It was created by the varcolac who forged the first seal.”
“Why?”
“So the varcolac could check on those imprisoned within, and so that other demons and Hell creatures could see the fate awaiting them if they didn’t obey the laws or turned on their own.”
“How awful it must have been for those imprisoned here to be watched like that,” I murmured.
“There was a very good reason each of these seals were put into place,” Kobal replied.
“Why weren’t they just killed outright instead of trapping them like this and putting them on display?”
“Why not destroy every human you put into prison?”
“That’s different. Were you trying to rehabilitate those imprisoned here? Was there ever a chance they would be set free again? We don’t put our inmates on display like zoo animals.”
“There is no rehabilitating what is here, and few demons ever ventured down here to see what these creatures could do. I am probably the only one who has seen what every one of the demons and creatures behind the seals is capable of.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“My ancestors imprisoned them here. I had to know what I was keeping locked away, and what they would be capable of if they ever broke free.”
Kobal was not one to mess with, he’d kill without blinking an eye, but I knew he wouldn’t have enjoyed watching the things imprisoned here.
“At one time, each creature here had a reason for existing. Even behind these walls, they had a use as they still punished souls. Their crimes were turning on other demons or Hell creatures, trying to expand into areas where they didn’t belong, starting battles they couldn’t win, or siding with Lucifer,” Kobal said. “Things have drastically changed since the humans disrupted the balance.”
“Souls can enter the seals?” Hawk asked.
“Yes,” Kobal replied. “Many wraiths who are lost, disoriented, or drained find their way to these deepest depths. Some come here thinking they can hide from us and find something much worse. If we choose for it to happen, demons and many of the creatures behind the seals can make a wraith take on their human form and experience their torments as a human with all the agony a human would endure.”
“Such as the gargoyles feasting on the flesh of another,” Corson said.
“Or my bearded lady,” Magnus added.
The image those words conjured caused me to shudder. I glanced nervously at the ceiling once more, but all of the gargoyles had long since flown from this place. That didn’t mean something just as hideous, or worse, couldn’t be hiding somewhere amongst these walls.
“How did your ancestors ever manage to capture all these creatures and lock them away down here?” I asked as we continued through the broken seals.
“It’s not an easy task but one that requires the help of many demons to get them to this area. The power of the varcolac seals them behind these walls that normally would make your steel look weak. The varcolac is also the only one who can bring down a seal, or at least that was the way it was for thousands of years. Now I do not know what is going on.” Kobal frowned as he said these last words; a vein throbbed in his temple, and his jaw clenched.
I ran my hands soothingly over his chest, but he didn’t relax beneath me. “Could there somehow be another varcolac?” I asked. “One who is bringing the seals down?”
“Two varcolacs in existence at once is impossible. It has never happened before. It would not happen now. And no varcolac would be aiding Lucifer in such a way,” Magnus said.
“Yeah, and we were all so certain Hell on Earth was just an expression, but not anymore,” I retorted.
“He is right,” Kobal said and squeezed my knee. “I was born knowing that I had to defend and protect Hell and its inhabitants no matter what, not to destroy them and hand them over to be enslaved.”
“What will happen to all the creatures behind these seals still and the ones who have already escaped?” Hawk inquired.
“There is no reason for these things to exist anymore,” Kobal answered. “The balance has been forever tipped. They may still have a purpose, but there will be no going back to the old way for any of us. By leaving these creatures alive, we risk further war and destruction if they were to ever get free. The inhabitants of the seals will forever be a menace to human and demon alike. The first chance I have to do it, those behind the remaining seals will be destroyed. The ones who have already escaped will be hunted until every last one of them is dead.”
I felt the ripple of power through his muscles as they contracted beneath my grip. This time, when I dipped my head to his neck, it wasn’t because I needed his scent to block out that around me, but because I had to be closer to him.
“Know I love you,” I whispered in his ear.
His head turned toward me; his half amber and obsidian eyes met mine as they shimmered back and forth between control and loss of it. “And I, you with all I am.”
Turning away from me, he focused on continuing forward through the dead strewn throughout the fallen seals we traversed. “You should put me down.”
“River—”
“We’re getting closer to the end. It will be better if I’m not burdening you.”
His hands squeezed on my knees again, but he didn’t stop me from sliding down his back. I tried not to think about what my feet might be stepping on and kept my gaze focused straight ahead as we moved deeper through the fallen seals. Risking a glance behind me, the hair on my neck rose when I saw the hounds stalking silently behind us with their heads low and their hackles raised.
I knew they wouldn’t attack us, but the looks on their faces and their stance made it clear they were on the prowl for more flesh. “Why didn’t they chase after the goblins that fled into the tunnels?” I asked around the lump in my throat.
“Their command was to stay with the seals. They’ve obeyed it,” Kobal replied.
The lump in my throat grew larger when I glanced at him. He looked as deadly as the hounds he controlled—more so as flames rose around his wrists. The image of the fires he’d risen from flashed through my mind. He was exactly like the fire he’d been forged from—lethal, powerful, and a force of destruction.
I pitied whatever was ahead of us breaking the seals.
The flames on his right arm vanished when he shot it out in front of me as we stepped through the next seal. Before I could stop myself, I stepped into his arm, and he pushed me back a step. His hand wrapped around my bicep to steady me before releasing me abruptly. Turning, he glanced back at the others.
“Be ready,” he commanded briskly. He gave me a pointed look before striding purposely forward.
CHAPTER 38
River
I stayed by his side, determined to go into this with him even though my heart felt like it might explode out of my chest. Turning the corner, I was abruptly brought up again when Kobal stepped to the side, planting his body squarely in front of mine. I frowned fiercely at the markings on his bare back before lifting my gaze to take in the seal fifty feet in front of us.
My breath caught as I stared at the front of the gigantic wall rising high into the air. Pure silver still shone through some parts of the wall, but much of it had turned black in color eithe
r from years of being here, or from whatever had happened when the seal before it fell. The black on it shadowed the intricate designs etched into every possible inch.
Within the silver and black, swirls of deep maroon stained the surface. I didn’t have to ask, the power vibrating from it told me the wall had been stained and forged with the blood of Kobal’s ancestors. Standing this far away, the power of the seal caused the hair on my arms to rise.
What could possibly be capable of destroying such a thing?
My eyes fell to the five hounds pacing anxiously before the wall. The other hounds moved forward, brushing by us to join their brethren in the scattered remains of the gobalinus lining the floor. Their growls were louder than a car engine revving as they rose and fell in sync with each other.
“There’s nothing here,” Magnus said.
“Something has the hounds riled up,” Kobal replied, his gaze focused on the creatures he controlled.
I stepped out from behind his back to peer at the markings on the wall. I recognized some of them as the same ones on Kobal. Just then, as I looked closer at the seal, I realized that what I’d believed were only designs or waves of fire on Kobal’s body were actually more of the ancient and powerful language of the demon race.
“There’s more symbols on you than I ever realized,” I murmured as I gazed between the seal and him, picking out more and more of the same markings on each of them.
“There are many on me.”
He said no more as he broke away to stride toward the wall. The hounds stepped back as he moved in their direction, separating into two rows to allow him to walk between them. Their front legs came out, and their hackles remained raised as their powerful bodies bent down around him.
My breath caught in my throat, and my hand fluttered to my lips as the hounds watched him from their bowed positions. Their amber eyes glowed in the fires washing over them, their shiny black coats shining in the light. They were easily double the size of a lion and far more powerful, yet they bowed to him with reverence.
I took a step forward when Kobal rested his hand on the seal. Flames encompassed his hand and slid down toward his elbow. He craned his head back to peer at the wall stretching high above him.
The Road (The Road to Hell Series, Book 3) Page 27
