Hellfire and Brimstone

by Angela Roquet

  Limbo City was in rare form. The trees in the park thrashed in a wind unlike any they’d ever encountered before. Branches creaked and snapped, littering the ground around Saul’s and Coreen’s memorial statues, and leaves were violently shaken from their limbs before being dragged into a blinding windstorm. The park lights flickered, as if the electricity might go out any minute.

  I had the skeleton coin drop me off in the space behind Josie’s marble bench. It seemed like it would be good cover, but with the flurry of leaves and the erratic lighting, I couldn’t see anything. The wind was cruel, and without a jacket, it assaulted me with its icy gusts, instantly chapping my lips and drawing water from my eyes.

  “Lana!”

  I thought Bub was shouting my name, but the wind distorted my hearing as well as my sight. When a hand latched onto my shoulder, I almost pissed myself. Naledi knelt beside me, taking shelter from the onslaught of leaves. Her coil of braids had come loose, and they spilled over her shoulders, writhing against the wind like Medusa’s serpents.

  “Lana, you made it,” she said, relief trembling her voice. “Where are the souls? We need them.”

  My heart lurched and Naledi found the answer in my expression. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What do we do now?”

  Naledi’s gaze fell away from mine, her mournful eyes searching the storm raging through the park. “There’s nothing we can do,” she said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear her over the roar of the wind.

  My eyes rolled up to the tear in the sky, visible through the spinning leaves and the treetops as their limbs grew barren. It was less visible over the city, camouflaged by the cover of night. It looked like a wispy cloud. Or like the blur of the Milky Way that I sometimes spied from the viewing ledge up the mountain trail behind the manor in Tartarus.

  “I thought you were going to fix that,” I said to Naledi, frowning as I looked back to her.

  She was crying, silent tears trailing down her cheeks, the wind hastening their journey across her dark skin. “I thought I could,” she said. Her voice rose over the howling wind. “But it’s not just the realm that’s broken.”

  My pulse quickened as I huddled in closer to her, trying to understand what she was saying. I just wanted something to make sense, but it was hard to focus in the mayhem. My hand gripped the back of Josie’s marble bench. It felt like ice, but it was the only thing grounding me. The wind ripped at my curls and played tug of war with the air in my chest, sucking the breath from my mouth any time I tried to speak.

  Naledi gripped my forearm, drawing my focus back to her soulful eyes. “As above, so below,” she whispered, pushing the words into my mind by will rather than volume.

  The park lights stuttered, and the leaves seemed to freeze in the air around us, flickering in slow motion, as if someone had plunged a disco ball under water. But the sudden silence was most jarring.

  “As above, so below,” Naledi said again, her voice sharp and clear. “Too many originals have been lost. I am the last pillar of the middle ground. The balance of Eternity’s power falls to the souls of the sea. The throne reflects above what they hold below.”

  I shook my head, trying to let her know that I was an idiot. That I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about. That none of what she was saying gave me half a fucking clue what I should be doing to stop the madness closing in around us.

  Naledi’s hold on my arm tightened, her fingernails biting into my skin. “Listen,” she snapped, cutting me off before I could spill my confessions. “When Grim takes the throne, don’t think, just do. This is what you were made for.”

  “When he takes the throne?” My breath rushed out like I’d been slugged in the stomach and I curled in on myself, shying away from the storm as it filled in around us, reclaiming the silence and ending our reprieve.

  “Naledi.” A booming voice cut through the storm. It doubled me over a second time, and I shrank behind Josie’s bench, trying to learn how to disappear.

  A deep, whooshing sound like a helicopter’s blades cut through the air, and then Grim’s black wings opened over the memorial garden. His milky complexion glowed against the darkness, purple veins throbbing beneath translucent skin. His nakedness seemed to suggest that he’d regressed back to his most primal origins, and his eyes were full black, as if they hadn’t returned to their normal state since the first bloodbath in the throne realm.

  Panic shot through me as he landed in the clearing before the bronze statues. The leaves didn’t touch him, and I realized the spot was a vacuum, the center from which the storm pushed outward.

  Grim’s black eyes searched the park, pausing as they reached the bench Naledi and I cowered behind. I couldn’t flip a coin in this wind. There was no escape, and the look on Naledi’s face told me she wasn’t interested in one. Her hand softened on my arm and she ran it up to my shoulder and then to my cheek.

  “Remember to listen.” She gave me a tender smile and stood. The storm parted for her, leaves curling away to form a clear path toward Grim and the statues.

  “What are you doing?” I stumbled from the shelter of the bench to reach after her. But the path closed at her back, a blur of golden leaves and bitter cold air rushing in to fill the emptiness.

  “Naledi!” I held my arm over my face and cried out to her, squinting through the coarse debris. It felt like shrapnel exploding around me on a battlefield. As if nature had chosen a side, and it wasn’t mine.

  The noise intensified in my ears, and voices crept in to join the chaos. A howl broke the din, and then Saul’s gritty tongue licked my elbow. My hound wedged his big, black head under my arm and took refuge from the wind. I held him close, soaking in the warmth of his fur. My skin had taken on a bluish tint from the cold, and I suddenly wondered what the odds were of me dying from hypothermia tonight. Right now, it sounded better than the alternative deaths plaguing my mind.

  Another howl ripped through the air, and I looked up to see Coreen barrel past us, ignoring the onslaught of the storm as she raced across the destroyed garden. As she darted around Naledi, her lips peeled back from her muzzle in a vicious snarl, and my heart swelled with pride at her determination and bravery. She paused at the feet of the bronze statues, her back bunching up like a loaded spring, and then she launched herself at Grim.

  It was clear he hadn’t expected the attack. Coreen’s jaws closed over his shoulder, biting down where it met his neck and piercing through his collarbone. But the sound he made was full of more rage than pain. His wings shot out from his back and thrust downward, lifting them both in the sky.

  Coreen kicked her back feet up at his torso as she tried to hang on, but Grim’s thrashing finally shook her loose. She fell to the ground, landing on her back with a wounded yip. She rolled over and tried to pull herself up again, but Grim’s foot connected with her spine.

  A sickening crackle of bones made my heart spasm, and then Saul tore away from my arms. He followed his sister’s path through the storm, curling around Naledi as she continued her slow progression, and rushed up behind where Grim loomed over Coreen.

  But Grim would not be taken by surprise a second time. He turned his wrath on my hound, taking to the air again as he kicked Saul under the ribcage. Before Saul could gain his footing, Grim wrapped his hand around the hound’s collar and hurled him across the park and into the base of a tulip tree. The trunk splintered, causing the tree to sway more violently, and for a moment I wondered if the whole thing might break free and be sucked into the vortex spiraling around the park.

  The storm was escalating, the gale-force winds building into some terrible climax. The lighter wooden benches that encircled the memorial garden scraped along the concrete, and the fur ruffled across the motionless bodies of my hounds. I wanted to run to them, to take them up in my arms before they were swept away. I wanted to bury my face in their fur and sob myself into hysterics until this whole nightmare was over.

  But more than that, I wanted to sink my knife into Grim’s f
ace and tear off his wings. Wrath boiled up in my chest, filling my mouth with a bitter taste. I stood up slowly from behind Josie’s bench and glared at him through the fragmented chaos. The raging winds had crushed the leaves, crumbling the drier ones into a gritty powder that made me feel like I was sinking in quicksand.

  Grim hovered in the clean air above the memorial garden, untouched by the land’s fury. Dark blood oozed from the puncture wounds Coreen had inflicted. It trailed down his chest and one arm, marring his otherwise perfect flesh. His black eyes seemed to take in everything, but the tilt of his chin revealed the brunt of his focus.

  Naledi continued to advance toward the bronze statues. Her burlap dress billowed at her feet, and her braids whipped around her face and shoulders. Her progression was slow and methodical, like a bride approaching her groom. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “Has she lost her mind?” Gabriel yelled as he landed behind me. His wings drew up on either side as I turned around, shielding me from the worst of the storm, and I wrapped my arms around his neck in a fierce hug. His blond curls were mangled from the wind, but his skin felt hot under mine, and he shivered against my icy embrace.

  “We have to stop him,” I shouted in Gabriel’s ear, trying to be heard over the storm.

  He nodded gravely and withdrew the sword at his hip. “Stay here,” he said, and then lifted into the air.

  I gasped as the debris pelted me again. It felt harsher than before. I dropped back down behind Josie’s bench and covered my ears, watching as Gabriel charged Grim. This was madness, and certainly no time for a fair fight. We needed to assault Grim all at once, I thought, just as Bub’s army of flies swarmed the god’s face.

  Grim shook his head, looking mildly annoyed, but still managed to dodge Gabriel’s sword and delivered a solid blow to the angel’s temple. Grim reared his fist back, as if to strike again, when an arrowhead blossomed through his chest, just under his left nipple. His back bowed and he twisted in the air, looking for the source of his pain.

  Gabriel came in for another jab with his sword, but Grim caught the end of it in one hand, wrenching it away from the angel. He spun in a wide arc, searching the ground for perpetrators. When his eyes found me, they widened. Those glossy black orbs took me in with some strange mixture of rage and delight. Something else swirled around in there, perhaps fear or derangement, but it seemed unimportant as Grim hurled the sword in my direction. I sucked in a startled breath and tried to dodge its trajectory.

  Silver wings hissed through the air, and then Maalik collapsed on the ground with a gurgling moan. The hilt of Gabriel’s sword was buried in his stomach. He lay on his side, convulsing as his wings flapped frantically in the thrashing winds.

  I reached down to him, clenching and unclenching my fingers, not knowing what else to do. My breath panted in and out in ragged succession, and horror consumed me as blood trickled from Maalik’s mouth and the fire in his eyes burned out.

  Tears blurred my vision. I looked up, seeking out Grim. The dire situation in the sky had grown while I’d been busy watching Maalik take his final breaths. But Grim was still on top. I realized that right away. Grim grasped Bub’s throat in one hand and Gabriel’s in his other, their bodies dangling limply. It was as if he had been waiting for me to look up and see what he had done. He released them, letting them fall to the ground below, and my heart exploded with despair.

  There were more bodies scattered throughout the garden. I could see them now that my eyes searched the carnage for Bub and Gabriel. Grim worked fast. And now I was suddenly alone, with nothing standing between me and his ire.

  Except Naledi.

  I watched as she stopped before the memorial statues and turned her gaze up to Grim. She held her hand out to him in polite invitation.

  This couldn’t be happening. Denial was the only thing holding my sanity together. Everything else was too overwhelming. Grief and heartache and terror, turning my stomach into a ball of furious energy. A sudden pressure in my chest filled me with blistering heat. It rolled down my arms and sent a pins and needles sensation throughout my body as it chased away the chill in my core.

  Listen. Naledi turned and gave me a meaningful look. The storm hushed as Grim descended on her, and the leaves and debris slowed their furious spiral. The fire in my chest was almost too much without the freezing wind to mollify it.

  Grim’s feet touched down lightly in the clearing before the statues. His back was to me, and I caught a glimpse of the arrow protruding from his ribcage before his great black wings folded over his shoulders like a cloak. He took Naledi in his arms like a lover, and she let him.

  I wanted to scream at her. How could she do this? Everyone had fought so hard. How could she just give up?

  Grim reached one hand up and stroked it down the side of her face and across her neck. I held my breath, waiting for the ugly part to come. The part where he would twist her head off and suck her essence out through her eye sockets. The part where the world would collapse in on itself.

  Instead, he leaned in close as if to kiss Naledi. When she opened her mouth to him, his eyes closed. Blue light spilled from her. It washed over Grim, encasing him in a cocoon of tranquil power. It was beautiful and horrifying all at once.

  I was startled out of my daze when I caught Naledi staring at me over Grim’s shoulder. Her eyes were full of that blue light, transferring it slowly into him, and the message she’d been trying to send me was clear. She was sacrificing herself to create a window. This would be the only chance I had to stop this nightmare.

  I took a timid step away from Josie’s marble bench. The soft earth and mulched leaves crunched beneath my boots, and I knew I’d never be able to sneak up behind Grim. But with the storm gone, my options expanded.

  I pulled the skeleton coin from my pocket and flipped it in the air.

  When I appeared behind Grim, Naledi was gone, reduced to nothing more than soul matter coursing through a power-drunk god. The ground beneath us trembled with consequence, and I feared I was too late. I knew I was too late.

  The dead littering the park filled my heart with immeasurable grief that amplified as my focus returned to Grim. The adrenaline shooting through my veins ignited the spark in my chest. Heat radiated through me, and I felt like I’d been dosed with boiling water.

  My hands glowed red, like they had the few other times I’d used them to pull someone out of existence. I lifted them, turning my palms over with detached wonder. The fiery light spilled over Grim’s shoulder, and he turned toward me, surprise breaking the sated look on his face.

  As I plunged my hands through the blue light and his bare chest, the most brilliant colors spilled out of him. And into me.

  I pulled away, expecting the ethereal pop of energy and dispersal of soul matter that should have followed, but I was stuck. My hands wouldn’t budge. Grim stared at me with wide eyes. I pulled harder, straining to twist away from him, expecting a retaliating blow that never came.

  The colorful light kept unraveling from him, like knotted scarves from a clown’s breast pocket. It felt like it could go on forever, and I had a moment of panic thinking that it might, until Grim’s luminosity began to fade. His skin turned sallow and ashen, and then as the last of the light trickled from him, his body crumbled in on itself, fading into dust.

  Relief washed over me, but it didn’t last. The light was still settling inside my core, and with it, a thousand voices broke the surface of my mind.

  Chapter 25

  “Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.”

  —Blaise Pascal

  The noise in my head was unbearable. Voices in dozens of languages I couldn’t understand flooded my mind. They wouldn’t shut up. How could anyone function like this?

  I caught snippets of English, French, and Latin, three languages that I knew, but they were quickly drowned out by the scrambled din of nonsense. Pressure pushed at the back of my eyes, and pain radiated along the
circumference of my skull, pulsing more quickly as the voices grew louder. Urgent and angry. They wanted to know why I wasn’t listening. I could understand that much.

  Maybe if I bashed my head against something… My sanity wasn’t that far gone. Yet. But it was getting close enough that I began to panic. My own memories nagged at the edge of my consciousness, but I couldn’t reach them. Not through the voices that demanded precedence.

  I looked down at my open palms. They were glowing. Light spilled from my fingers, turning night to day, and it illuminated the dead bodies lying around the garden, spread in a circle all around me.

  I recognized these beings, on some basic level. Angels, a demon, hellhounds, reapers. Reapers. That’s what I was. I was a reaper. This power didn’t belong to me. It was meant for something else. But the longer I held onto it, the harder it was to understand what I had to do with it.

  Something instinctual passed through me, and I pointed a finger at the slain demon lying across the carpet of bright leaves. Energy flowed out of me in a subtle mist, covering him in white light. He inhaled a sharp breath and then his eyes opened, taking me in with fearful wonder.

  “Lana,” he whispered.

  It was my name. The voices echoed it back and forth inside my head, inflected with various accents, but otherwise the same word. A moment of clarity took hold of my mind, and I shook with anticipation as I threw my hands out, hoping to repeat the deed that had delivered a morsel of salvation.

  White light shot forth from me in a rolling wave, and all at once, the other beings woke with life. At the same time, I felt life wane inside me. If I could only give away more, then this pain might end. I might remember who I was. Because I was certainly someone. I could tell from the recognition set in the surprised faces that encircled me.

  Memories filtered through in the moments of solace I’d purchased with the light. I knew more than my name. I knew this city. I knew these people. And I knew what had to be done. I stepped over the pile of ash at my feet and walked toward the Sea of Eternity.