Down in Flames

by Jennifer Siddoway

  “You’re sick,” I informed him dryly.

  Aidan sat down on the edge of his desk with a pensive smile. I didn’t like it when he smiled, because that never gave away what he was thinking – and sometimes that alone was enough to terrify me. The way his eyes were glistening right now made me worried. For anyone else, the far-off gaze and alluring smile would have been attractive. After all no one disputed that he was handsome. For me though, the expression had a bone chilling effect, because any time he put on charm it meant he wanted something.

  “You seem displeased with the task at hand,” he stated. “Is this not what you expected? I’d be more than happy to assign you other tasks, though you might be repulsed by them as well.”

  Asmodea’s crystal palace in the center of her kingdom was harsh and beautiful at the same time. Its sharp corners pierced surrounding like knives, and its vast lands dotted with sickening pools of green acid served as a type of moat.

  “No, I understand. I’ll take this package to Stygia and give Asmodea your regards, then speak with Abaddon. I have little to no influence over her decisions, but I’ll speak with her and relay your message regardless. I know I'm low on the social totem pole.”

  “High,” he corrected instantly.

  I turned to him confused and asked, “What?”

  Aidan shook his head dismissively. “Never mind.”

  My eyes flickered to the wall beside us, where another map was on display. Holographic notes were posted all throughout, with thumbtack buttons marking areas of special interest. A shimmering iridescent thread connected them all together in an impressive display of evil mastermind. Clearly his mind was every bit as flawless as his face, except it was so horribly twisted. Aidan only used that power and appeal for evil, which was such a shame. Color coded and embellished, it was obvious he’d put a lot of time and thought into designing it.

  “Is that glitter?” I asked him coyly.

  Aidan glanced up to where I was pointing and nodded. “It is in fact. Problem?”

  I shook my head and walked slowly to his desk, glancing back at it over my shoulder. “Will you explain it to me one day?”

  I had no interest in learning the inner workings of his mind; what I’d learned thus far was horrifying, but the map intrigued me, and on some level, it was necessary. How was I going to stop him unless I knew what he was planning? There were several white veins of light that appeared to be buried underneath the ground. A few points of them converged on one another and tangled beneath some major cities and I wanted to know what that meant. Dozens of silver tacks were placed in cities that gave strategic advantage and many of them made sense, except for five. Out of all the marking on his board, five of them were blue and did not adhere to the same reasoning as all the rest. Boston, Long Beach, Dublin, Amsterdam and Phoenix.

  Aidan raised an eyebrow with amusement and looked me over curiously. “One day, perhaps. It’s rather complicated, but I think you can handle it.”

  I nodded, my eyes fixed on the tack that had been placed in my hometown of Mobile. “Why Alabama?” I asked him curiously. “Of all the places in the world, it seems wasted.”

  “It is a rather useless stretch of land,” he told me with a grin. “But that’s where the Whelan family settled. It’s where your mother brought the curse, and so it remains.”

  I swallowed hard at the mention of my mother, glancing down at the mahogany desk and running my finger along its edge. We’d only discussed her condition once since my arrival, merely to reaffirm that she was finally released from her coma on the other side. My feelings toward her were still conflicted. With so many emotions, I didn’t know how I felt about her being awake. The decision to come with him broke the sleeping spell and set her free. Now she could come and go in peace. A knot rose in my stomach as I wondered if he was still in love with her, even after all this time.

  “Have you had any contact with her recently?”

  Aidan smiled thinly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. A faint shift in his aura wavered from purple to almost black when I mentioned her. “Not since she awoke. You’d know if I had.”

  My face hardened as I nodded, the edges of my mouth drawing down into a frown. “Good.”

  I didn’t realize when I was saying it, but it came out with a sense of relief. He could hear it in my voice and I saw him smile slightly. Aidan cocked his head toward me looking thoughtful. “It pleases you that I have severed ties with her.”

  “Well, yes,” I admitted sheepishly.

  The demon smiled, tapping his finger against the sleeve of his Armani jacket and eyed me quizzically. The svelte lines of his broad shoulders and lean figure fit perfectly into a crisp gray vest as the wheels turned in his head. “You can leave that here for now. Come with me, I’d like to show you something.”

  I swallowed hard, returning the package to the table where I found it, and followed him out the door to an adjacent balcony that looked out across all Avernus. The room was so high up I could see almost the entirety of the kingdom stretching out below.

  In a different context, the scene would have been spectacular, but I found the carnage below tended to dampen my state of awe. It was riddled with crime and the streets were filled with garbage. Even the design of the streets was organized to create disruption and chaos. There was no system in place to manage the crowd, so it became a post-apocalyptic cesspool.

  All I could see were the ones being trampled on beneath the desperate grasping. I backed away from the window feeling a little dizzy.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Aidan asked me casually. “There’s no kingdom to equal it anywhere in this world.”

  “It is,” I agreed in a monotone.

  “The reason my reach is vast is because I laid the groundwork for that to happen. Political alliances are the foundation of any civilization. Avernus is vast and wide, but none of that means anything unless I have an army to defend it. Asmodea has the best trained soldiers in existence, and when the time comes for us to battle, I want them on my side.”

  “I wasn’t aware we were planning for a battle.”

  “That’s what you still don’t understand,” he growled. “I am always preparing for a battle. If my authority is threatened, I will not flee. And when an arrogant child fails to show you the respect you deserve, you remind them why you’re king.”

  I gulped nervously from the fire blaring in his eyes when he stepped towards me.

  “I don't care what realm you reside in,” he informed me acidly. “What matters is your allegiance. I need to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you know you belong to me. And that you will perform whatever task I assign you, no matter how odious it may seem. Anything less will be met with swift and violent repercussions.”

  My stomach churned as I cleared my throat and asked, “Is there anything you needed, Master?”

  He smiled at the forced usage of his title and the pain it required for me to say it. With an intensity that can only be described as violence, his mouth crushed down on mine, bringing our discussion to a halt. His lips were fierce and demanding, hungrily trying to mark me as his. As soon as he touched me, however, I froze, becoming cold and unresponsive. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of thinking I actually enjoyed this. It would be like kissing a statue.

  Aidan’s lips broke from mine and he ran his thumb across them, looking me dead in the eyes and said, “Never forget, I own you.”

  The passion in his eyes alarmed me and I swallowed hard to calm my beating heart. His thick purple aura flared with strong emotion and swirled around him furiously. He was so mercurial, I didn’t know what to think of it. His emotions ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other and switched back and forth so fast I couldn’t keep up with it. He stared at me for a moment and I breathed out slowly, still trying to catch my balance. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

  Aidan grinned the wolfish smile I’d grown to hate. “That depends. Is it working?”

  I stared back at him, unblinking, and r
aised an eyebrow in defiance. “You already know who I choose. The only reason I came here was to keep my family safe. That has no bearing on where my heart is.”

  He stepped back, gaging my statement carefully. “You still want the Guardian?” he mused dismally.

  “He has a name, it’s Caleb. And, yes. I chose him then, and I choose him now. I always will.”

  “Is that so? Because in my experience, humans are ultimately selfish creatures that put their own needs above the welfare of anyone else. You are no different.”

  As I stared at him, Mammon’s gift went into effect, drawing me back to another place where Aidan was another being entirely. My visions and ability to see into the past were Mammon’s twisted idea of a gift that he bestowed on me during his trial. All I’d asked for was to know the truth about what happened, but Mammon interpreted it differently. It had been a blessing and a curse, mostly because I had little to no control over when they happened. Every time a vision struck I was hit by an overwhelming sense of vertigo; it was upsetting. When the pull behind my eyes subsided, Aidan and the other angels were dressed in pale gray robes and gathered around a table in the marble halls of Paradise.

  “This is madness!”

  Aidan, or as he was known among them, Lucifer, stood from his seat. “I’m offering you freedom from this outdated law. Without the Council governing our every move, we could be free to rule ourselves. I for one am tired of being ordered from place to place.”

  There was a murmuring in the crowd and Lucifer grinned.

  “This was my birthright, to rule the celestial plane and all of its inhabitants. I could bring peace and order to a corrupt bureaucracy.”

  “What you suggest is treason. It would start a war and many of our brothers and sisters would die,” one of the angels told him.

  “I’m not saying there won’t be bloodshed, but a revolution has its price. Now who is with me?”

  A cheer rose from the crowd. Lucifer smiled.

  “Alright, now what we need is to infiltrate the Mortal Plane. It’s still in its primitive state and vulnerable. The ground is still infused with magic from its creation and we can use that to our advantage.”

  “But how?”

  He waved his hand across the table and created an illusionary map, exactly like the one I had seen inside his office. The same glittering threads glistened across the entire globe, intersecting one another at various points throughout. Even in the world’s infant state, I recognized the location of future civilizations, cities that I made note of: St. Petersburg, Alexandra, Vancouver … Paris.

  Of course, he would have set up shop there.

  “You see this?” he told them urgently as he pointed to one of the connections. “This is how we get inside. Our father created these ley lines to bring life and power flowing to the planet in a self-sustaining current. That power replenishes itself repeatedly and continues the natural order. If we can control certain points of magic around the globe, it will create a portal between realms. Then our armies can invade.”

  “How do you plan on controlling it? The Earth is a living being, you can’t recalibrate the nature of it by turning on a switch.”

  Aidan smiled. “Or can you?”

  One of the angels scoffed. “Of course not! The arcane magic flowing through it will reject anything that doesn’t mesh with the predisposed alignment. To change it, it would have to come from something made of Earth itself – a key of some sort that would unlock the gate to nature’s power.”

  Aidan paused, thinking about that for a moment. “A key … made from the Earth itself …. Then we’ll do that.”

  Before I could see any more, I was ripped out of the vision by a sharp and painful tug on the back of my head.

  “Augh! Ow!”

  When my eyes focused again, Aidan was snarling mere inches from my face and pulling me by the hair. His fingers tangled in the braid and gripped it fiercely at the back of my head. “Stay out of my head!” he commanded furiously.

  I stumbled backwards when he released me, rubbing the tender area of my scalp. “Sorry, I can’t always control it.”

  “Learn to!”

  He walked away from me and I realized what they were talking about in the vision was me. They had referred to it as a “key” that was made out of Earth, tied to nature and the Mortal Plane. If I were to take that literally, it was a direct reference to Lilith and her prodigy: someone with blood of the fae who could tap into those magic ley line and unleash the portal.

  Aidan is the Lord of Pride and he never gave up on that dream of ruling, not one, but all the realms combined.

  “You were an angel once,” I muttered softly. “What happened to you that changed all that?”

  The words had barely left my mouth when his hand made contact with my face. He hit me with such force that it knocked me to the ground. I gingerly reached for my cheek and looked up at him with angry tears pricking at my eyes.

  Aidan barred his teeth and hissed in measured force, “Don’t talk about my father.”

  The grin crept up on me before I realized what was happening. “I didn’t realize you have such daddy issues.”

  That did it.

  Aidan was fuming as he sneered down at me on the floor. I’d rarely seen him get this upset. The glamor on the edge of his face began to fade, revealing the charred demon hide underneath. Just as the ridge of his eyebrows became all gnarled and horrible, he got a grip on his anger. It was gone as swiftly as it arrived.

  “To Stygia, then Gehenna and back,” he ordered curtly, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. “No shortcuts or I’ll know,” he reminded me with deadly confidence. As he spoke, the rune of my shoulder began to glow as it triggered my tracking spell. It didn’t hurt, but it felt like pressure as I felt the rune ignite and stiffen the flesh around it.

  Always keeping tabs on me.

  I grabbed the bloody package on my way out the door and stormed out in a huff. While I was leaving the palace grounds, I cracked my neck to the side and spread my arms out to the city street. The fastest way to travel in the Demon Realm was by magic, and with the addition of my fae bloodline, I was able to expedite things nicely. Hours of grueling training had made me stronger. After my arrival, I’d gone through some intense training to see what I was fully capable of. My very first lesson I learned that it was harder to create than destroy.

  Charley was right, I thought to myself sadly. Demons are built to destroy.

  Thorny black vines broke through the rubble on the highway and grew in a twisted path that carried me across the city. I would have liked to teleport, but it was forbidden inside the city. The branches split and diverged as they pushed their way through the air, sagging only momentarily to seek an anchor to latch onto and again push off from. At this speed, I moved like a colossally heavy, dark, thorny spider, its growth more than actual ambulation propelling me as it bent and sought my destination much like a flower would the afternoon sun. It left a perplexing winding spread of vines and branches softly pulsing behind, but with most of it trying to root into concrete, it shouldn’t leave too permanent a nuisance as it dried out.

  Chapter Two

  Lost Without You

  ML

  I held Asmodea’s package when I came to the border between Avernus and Stygia.

  As far as the eye could see was a barren wasteland with pools of putrid, green water that sprayed like acid whenever you walked past. On the horizon stood the only structure for miles, made entirely out of shiny black crystal – Asmodea’s palace.

  From a distance, it appeared quite lovely, but as I got closer the stink of death and destruction quickly put me off my ease. I’d been there many times and it was not high on the list of places where I would like to own beachside property. Enormous bug-like creatures roamed the countryside, picking up stragglers and bringing them back to the castle screaming.

  Frozen bodies, wrapped in silken thread littered the path towards Asmodea’s dark domain. Worse still was the gate where th
e food was still alive and hanging petrified from the rafters, waiting to be eaten. Suspended as they were, all the blood had pooled around their faces making their eyes bloodshot and veins around the neck bulging beneath the pressure.

  A few of them screamed out to me when I walked up, thinking I would save them. Fools.

  If there was one thing I had learned while living in the underworld, it was that I couldn’t let myself dwell on the scale of horror and violence taking place or it would drive me insane. In a strange way, it forced me to compartmentalize so that I could to cling to whatever shreds of humanity I had left.

  Stealing my heart away, I passed beneath the spider’s prey waiting to be eaten, and entered the castle grounds, where it became more littered in her cobweb masterpiece. The guards nodded when they saw me, allowing me to enter. Why was Aidan sending me on such a petty quest? He and Asmodea have a congenial relationship; I saw no reason why he would be concerned about her loyalty. Surely if Aidan asked, she’d come rushing to his aide. It had to be something more than that.

  I stepped into the throne room where Asmodea sat on a large pedestal in a throne made of skulls, in her swollen spider form. Her bulbous belly revealed a red hourglass pattern and eight hairy legs spread out on the floor around her. Above her monstrous abdomen, the queen’s torso was wrapped in a leather bodice with lacing in the front, to amplify her curvaceous bosom. Sathanus sat next to her on the dais, having a private tea party with her dolls and teddy bear.

  They both looked up as the guards announced my arrival, but the demon child sitting next to her couldn’t have cared less about my intrusion and was completely enamored with the tea set in front of her. Her sparking dress spilled out around the plastic throne that had been set up for her amusement, and a glitter crown sat on her curls of golden ringlets. In one of the plastic chairs was her antique doll, with cold glass eyes that stared out across the throne room. Paint was chipping away from its face and the fabric of its dress was moth eaten and falling apart at the seams. Asmodea smiled at me when she broke from their conversation and waved me closer. “Lord Aidan has sent an envoy, who seeks an audience with the queen.”