by Elise Marion
“And when I’ve beaten her?” Addison asked, shouting to be heard above the roaring and cheering demons.
Inclining his head, Lucifer smirked. “I am a man of my word, of course. Should you defeat Lilith in the ring, you are free to leave with my blessing.”
“Keep your blessings,” she spat. “Let’s do this.”
“Very well,” Lucifer replied. “Mammon?”
The red monster stood and approached the edge of the balcony, holding his hands out as if extending them to the crowd in welcome. The demons fell silent, and Mammon’s deep, baritone voice rang out through the cavern, echoing from its walls.
“Let the games begin!” he roared.
A round circle opened in the ground near her, seemingly triggered by the voice of Mammon. All around her, more of the holes appeared, emitting the stench of sulfur and the red glow of fire. Rising from the depths, they appeared—demons, dozens of them. On the opposite side, her target materialized. Dressed down in black leather and armor, her pale blonde hair scraped back into a ponytail, she placed her hands on her hips and stared at Addison from across the ring.
“You wanted me, girl. Now is your chance. Come get me.”
As she remembered watching her mother burst into flames, Addison allowed anger to burn along the surface of her skin. The edges of her vision went black just as a flurry of movement came at her from the left. She turned just as a horde of tiny, winged demonlings converged on her in a black cloud. Screeching and flapping their wings with a metallic clangor, they enveloped her, pulling at her clothing and tearing at her skin with sharp claws.
With an annoyed grunt, she swatted at them while attempting to pull on her light. But rage had begun to overflow within her, and she wouldn’t be able to contain it much longer.
“Screw this,” she muttered. The only person she needed her light to take out was Lilith. The rest of them could get a taste of her dark side.
The anger poured out of her like a black cloud, a scream tearing from her as the heat of it made her feel as if she burned from the inside. But the demons went down all at once, dropping like flies as the cloud rippled outward, immobilizing them before tearing them apart. Black demon blood splattered the ground at her feet, staining her clothes.
Glaring at Lilith, she curled her upper lip and cracked her knuckles. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Darting a glance toward one of the demons waiting its turn with her, Lilith snapped her fingers as if summoning a dog. “Azazel!”
A red-skinned demon with four curved horns lumbered toward her. Tattoos similar to Mammon’s etched his naked torso while from the waist down, he was covered in fur with the legs of a goat.
He carried a double-edged spear in one large hand, angling it as if to impale her with it as he approached. Addison reared back to avoid the sharp tip of the spear, bending until her back came parallel to the floor. Azazel took advantage of her position by pounding a fist against her chest, knocking the wind from her and throwing her to the ground. She rolled away just before he could stomp on her with one of his hooves, then turned and moved in the opposite direction when he thrust his spear down toward her. The weapon became embedded in the ground, and while Azazel fought to pry it loose, Addison got back on her feet and charged him, hands balled into fists at her side.
The demon turned just as she approached, lunging toward her with his head lowered, as if to give her a ram with his horns. She gripped them and skidded to a stop, wrestling with him as he attempted to snatch his horns free. With all the strength she possessed, she tightened her hold on the horns and lifted. Satisfaction curled her mouth into a smirk as she began to spin, taking the demon with her—faster and faster until even she began to grow dizzy. Releasing him with a forceful shove, she sent Azazel flying head over heels into the crowd. Addison didn’t even bother to see where he’d ended up, turning to meet the next creature sure to attack.
“Balam!” Lilith commanded, launching another one of her minions.
A massive bear with bristly black fur raced in her direction, foam gathering around his lips as he peeled them back in a vicious snarl. Riding on the animal’s back, a creature with the body of a man and three heads—man, ram, and bull—sat holding a set of reins in one hand and a massive sword in the other.
Backpedaling swiftly, Addison reached for the spear still embedded in the ground. It was wedged deep, but she pulled it free just in time. Turning to face the three-headed thing charging her on the back of the bear, she knelt and clutched the weapon with both hands, thrusting it forward.
The bear bellowed, rearing up on its back paws as the spear entered its chest and thrust out through its back. Balam, the demon, went sprawling from the animal’s back as it went down with the spear still inside it. The wooden shaft broke in half, leaving Addison with a splintered edge. Breaking into a run, she charged the three-headed creature, the broken sliver of wood clutched in her fist.
Regaining his footing, Balam lumbered toward her, all three of his heads snarling and snapping as if to devour her. She leapt, raising the spear like a javelin, using her speed and momentum to propel toward the beast. The bull’s head of the demon roared when she stabbed it, jamming the spear into its eye and giving it a vicious twist. Balam’s balance became thrown off as the bull’s head grew limp, black blood staining its face from the obliterated eye.
The goat head belched fire as one of Balam’s large hands raised the sword and swung it clumsily at her. Its equilibrium thrown off by one destroyed head, the demon tilted with the downswing, thrown off-balance. Addison dodged the sword with ease, then delivered a kick to Balam’s wrist, loosening his hold on the hilt.
The weapon was heavy, but she managed to lift it with both hands, turning and swinging it just as Balam began bearing down on her again. Her swing caught the demon against his goat’s head, the blade sinking halfway through the neck and embedding there. Balam went down with another growl of rage and pain, but she’d be damned if she let up. Jumping onto his back, she wrapped both arms around his final surviving head. While he struggled against her, she slowly strangled the life from him, squeezing harder and harder, while he convulsed and squirmed beneath her. Finally, the human head went limp and Balam’s body stilled.
All around her, demons celebrated—obviously entertained by the death and gore. It didn’t seem to matter who was winning, as long as they got to watch body parts fly. A part of her wanted them to have the show of their lives. Hell would not soon forget the time they’d brought Addison Monroe into their midst.
“Is that all you got?” she bellowed, rising to her feet and pacing around Balam’s dead body. “I can do this all day!”
Lilith’s face had gone purple with rage, her teeth gritted as she called on reinforcements. “Haures! Oriax! Volac!”
Three demons left their posts as their names were called, all converging on her at once. Oriax reached her first—a lion that stood on his back paws like a human, his tail replaced with a snake that coiled and snapped behind him like a whip. In one paw, he clutched a handful of serpents which writhed and hissed as if fighting to be free to bite her.
She ducked when Oriax’s tail whipped toward her, cracking through the air above her head. As she rose, she lifted one leg to deliver a kick to the beast’s middle, but missed, landing her leg in Oriax’s free hand. Sharp claws sank into the flesh of her ankle, and she bit back a cry of pain when he yanked her off her feet as if she weighed no more than a rag doll. He released his serpents onto her, still maintaining a hold on her ankle as they swarmed her, slithering down her legs and torso, one even slipping beneath her shirt as it raced across her belly, coiling around her like a lasso. She shuddered and tried not to scream as one wrapped around her throat, while others looped around both her arms. To show fear in the face of so many demons would only feed their power more.
Oriax flung her away from him, but before she could hit the ground, the second demon was on her. Volac—a winged, child-sized demon sitting on the b
ack of a two-headed dragon—snatched her out of the air, one hand wrapped around her foot. With a beat of its massive wings, the dragon took them higher, out of reach of the others.
Addison struggled to be free of Volac’s hold, but he was strong despite being so small. A sudden sting in her throat was her only warning before all three of the serpents began sinking their fangs into her, biting over and over along her shoulders and neck.
“Ugh! Get off me!” she grumbled, reaching for the power of hellfire.
Satisfaction flared deep as the hellfire torched from her palms, igniting the two serpents coiled around her arms, before also taking out the one constricting her throat. The pain from their bites still stung, their venom creating a slow burn in her veins. The pain only fueled her, urging her to fight for freedom against Volac’s hold. She squirmed and thrashed until he was pulled off-balance, almost falling off the back of his dragon.
Reaching into her shirt for the ring, she became struck with a notion. The power of the Seal should enable her to slip into the minds of some of the demons present, forcing them to bend to her will.
She glanced over at the dragon, finding his mind easiest to control, with no thoughts beyond destruction and death by fire occupying it.
I am your master now, she thought, firing her commands into the animal’s brain. Tear apart anything that tries to harm me.
Letting out a roar and mouthful of smoke and flames, the dragon ceased its flight abruptly, bucking Volac from its back. The little demon was thrown, his momentum dragging Addison with him as he kept a hold on her. As they dropped, she reached up to grab onto the dragon’s foot, just barely making it before hurtling back down into the pit.
Glancing down at Volac, she cocked back her free foot and gave him a swift kick to the face. The demon released her with a howl, falling a few feet before flapping his little wings to remain afloat.
Climbing swiftly up onto the dragon’s back, she took hold of one of the armored ridges running down its back.
“Light him up,” she commanded.
Without preamble, the dragon followed her command, spewing flames from both heads that lit Volac on fire from head to toe. While the little demon hurtled downward in a ball of fire, Addison urged the dragon lower, back down into the pit. Opening its jaws wide, it aimed for Oriax, who now paced the ground on all fours waiting for her to come back down. The dragon collided with the lion, throwing her from its back. The two beasts went tumbling and rolling, snapping and biting at each other as she bounced away from them, landing on her back.
Before she could get onto her feet, the third demon Lilith had thrown at her appeared, standing over her and revealing a set of frightening teeth with a snarl. Haures possessed the legs of a man, but the torso and head of a leopard, complete with massive paws—one of which swiped at her face as she lay immobilized beneath him. She couldn’t hold her scream in this time as the paw connected, the heavy appendage landing heavier than a fist, the claws leaving three gouges in her cheek.
He made a move to bite her, and might have succeeded in tearing her head off if she hadn’t raised her arm just in time. Another shriek ripped from her as his teeth clenched her forearm, one of his canines ripping through and through. Sucking in deep breaths, she reached out with her other hand and jammed her fingers into Haures’ eyes—hard. The leopard demon released her with a snarl, rearing away from her invasive fingers. Addison was on him in a heartbeat, driving a fist against the top of its head. Haures fell to his belly on the ground with a grunt, stunned from her blow.
Backpedaling, she searched for a weapon to be used against the beast—any weapon would do at this point. Finding Balam’s dead, three-headed body still lying nearby, she rushed toward it. Grasping one of the horns from its bull’s head, she pulled with all her might, gritting her teeth as her injured arm buckled under the strain.
“Come on, damn it!” she cried, pulling and pulling with all the strength she possessed.
She could hear Haures getting back on his feet, while further across the ring, Volac’s dragon snarled and growled while it ripped Oriax to shreds. Haures was ready to charge her again, and she needed something to kill him with.
Finally tearing the horn free from its place on Balam’s head, she turned just as Haures leapt toward her. He landed on top of her, throwing her to her back—but not before the curved bull’s horn impaled him through his gut, re-appearing out through his back.
The demon’s putrid blood stained her clothes as he jerked and convulsed before going still, tongue lolling from his mouth. Throwing his body from on top of her, she struggled back to her feet, cradling her injured arm against her chest.
“Let’s end this shit right now,” she growled, glaring at Lilith from behind strands of hair fallen messily into her face.
Clutching at the ring with her good hand, she called on its power, slipping into the minds of all the other demons waiting on standby for Lilith to call on them. Each of them fell under her call, too weak to fight her influence. Addison grinned in satisfaction. She might not be strong enough to control Lilith, but her minions proved another story.
“Tear each other apart,” she commanded them.
As they each turned to one another, snarling or muttering threats before launching at each other, Addison inclined her head and met Lilith’s gaze.
“You ready for me yet? Or do you have any more minions you want me to beat the shit out of first?”
Hands clenched into fists at her sides, Lilith strode toward her through the horde of demons tearing each other to pieces at Addison’s command. Her eyes glowed red, her mouth contorted into a furious snarl.
Addison squared her shoulders, bracing herself for the fight of her life. The battle against the other demons had taken a great deal of strength, and with an injured arm, she stood at a disadvantage.
Seconds before they could make contact, Lilith changed her form, taking on one of her three—the black serpent.
Addison leapt over the snake’s head, landing on its neck and running along its body—which wound around the ring several times. Lilith turned to find her standing on her coiled body and lunged, fangs bared and dripping venom. Addison jumped again, going vertical this time and levitating upward. Lilith knocked against the side of the cavern, causing the rock walls to shudder and a few of the smaller demons to drop from their stadium seats.
Glancing down at her arm, she found blood dripping from the puncture wounds created by the fangs of Haures. She was losing a lot of blood and getting weaker by the second. If she was going to end this, she needed to do it quickly, with a K.O. blow that would rid her of Lilith and get her the hell out of here.
Lilith recovered quickly from the impact and turned to lunge at her again, faster this time. Mind made up, Addison fought against the urge to run, and seized hold of the opposite urge. Springing in Lilith’s direction, she flattened her body like a torpedo and hurtled herself forward with all her might. The open mouth of the serpent loomed with sharp, menacing fangs on either side, the darkness within curling fear low in her belly. Yet, she closed her eyes and powered through, shooting between the fangs and right into Lilith’s open mouth, sucking in a deep breath and holding it before plunging into blackness.
Warmth and moisture enveloped her, and her lungs began to burn from her held breath as she called on the power of the Seal. She was falling again, plunging deep into Lilith’s serpentine body where no sound or sight existed—just a suffocating blanket of blackness and the sickening moisture coating her insides. The ring grew warm against her chest, and its white light flashed behind her closed eyelids.
Addison found herself thrown across the arena like a projectile, forced from Lilith’s body as the serpent was destroyed from within. She skidded across the rough, rocky ground, her back burning from the pain of scraping against it. Chunks of flesh and globs of demon blood exploded in every direction, raining down over the demon stadium and hordes howling their approval over the brutal takedown.
Lilith’s snake
head rested nearby, the mouth still hanging open, serpentine tongue visible between its fangs. In the midst of all the carnage lay Lilith’s human form, wearing nothing but her skin and the blood of one of her animal forms, curled into the fetal position.
Rising to her hands and knees, Addison crawled across the ground toward Lilith. Snatching the ring free of its place against her chest, she wrapped the chain of the necklace holding it around her knuckles. With the ring facing out, aligned with one of her knuckles, she clocked Lilith with a powerful right hook. The demon fell onto her back, eyes wide with terror as Addison loomed over her, fist cocked back to strike again. The imprint of the Seal had been left against the pale skin of her cheek.
“You shouldn’t have fucked with me, or my friends,” she grunted between labored breaths. Her strength was fading fast, and unconsciousness pulled at the edges of her mind. “Now, I’m going to have to make this hurt.”
Lilith raised her hands in defense, far too late as Addison straddled her and landed a punch against her chest, then another and another. Savage satisfaction gave her strength unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Instead of running from it like she tended to do, she took hold of it, using it against the demon who had subjected her to the worst torture of her life. Blow after blow, she continued, until Lilith’s sternum cracked beneath her fist, caving inward beneath a gaping wound created by the force of the ring, displaying the empty hole where a heart should be. Jamming her fist in the opening, she met the demon’s gaze.
“From the depths you came, and to the depths you will return,” she hissed, allowing the power of the ring to merge with her inner light.
The light grew and swelled, bursting outward from her like a firework. Lilith’s screams echoed from the walls of the cavern as the white glow enveloped her, then tore her apart, taking her away altogether.
