by Diem, J. C.
I watched her for a few seconds then realized that I was smiling cruelly. I’d brought her here to help me, not to torture her. Reaching out with my dagger, I scraped it across the third rune. Her screams cut off and she panted for air. If she somehow managed to leave my bedroom, the third rune that I’d created downstairs would take her straight to her knees again.
Breathing harshly, she lifted her head and glared up at me. “So, you have finally revealed your true nature. I take it you have brought me here to slaughter my vessel and to ingest my soul as you did to Raziel?”
I blanched at her accusation, wondering how she knew about what I’d done to her colleague. Someone must have seen me stab the angel in the heart. “It was an accident,” I said in self-defense. “He was going to zap me with holy fire and I was just defending myself.”
“I knew you were responsible for his disappearance!” she said and pushed herself to her feet. Realizing she’d just manipulated me into admitting to something that she’d only guessed at, I mentally cursed myself. “Hagith will declare an all-out war on you if she discovers what you have done.”
“You mean she doesn’t already know?”
“No. She merely suspects.” Crossing her arms, she examined me closely. Her vessel was nearly identical to Leo’s. They were the same height and build and had the same short, curly blond hair and blue eyes. The main difference was the distaste that she always wore when she looked at me. “How did you bring me here against my will? Is it a new trick that you learned from your evil legion?”
“The legion aren’t responsible this time. It’s a talent that is unique to me. It seems I can summon angels to me if I have something that they created.” I gestured at the bracelet on my wrist.
Shaking her head, she didn’t bother to ask how it was possible. None of us really knew what it meant to be Hellscourge. I was fairly sure I still hadn’t discovered everything that I was capable of doing yet. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I need you to fry me with holy fire.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “You wish for me to inflict the very thing on you that you evicted Raziel from his vessel to avoid?”
“I’m aware of the irony,” I replied with a sigh.
“Why do you want me to harm you in this fashion?”
“Look at me,” I said harshly and gestured at my wan face and slowly darkening skin. “The toxin is spreading at a faster rate. It usually takes me several weeks to find the portal to the next realm. I barely have the strength to stand, let alone walk the streets looking for it.”
“How will being purged with holy fire possibly be of any help to you?” Even as she asked the question, she realized what the answer was.
“Purging me of evil is exactly what it does,” I clarified. “It won’t cure me, but it will push the poison back for a while. It will also recharge my batteries a bit.”
Considering her options, she looked at the glowing symbols that were on my door. “I take it that I will not be able to leave this room until I have acceded to your wishes?” She’d probably already tried to teleport away and had failed, thanks to Sy’s runes.
“I’m not going to force you to do it,” I replied, to her surprise. “I thought you’d jump at the chance to punish me.”
“I do not relish causing others pain,” she said then shrugged. “I will make an exception this time.”
My answer was dry. “I thought you might.”
I wasn’t really surprised that Brie was willing to zap me. I had to assume it was all part of Fate’s master plan. Even knowing that it was necessary, I wasn’t looking forward to the next few minutes of my life.
₪₪₪
Chapter Seven
Aware of the agony that was about to sweep through me, I sent a thought to the legion and hoped they could hear me. Brace yourselves. This is going to hurt. I wasn’t the only one who would be affected by the barrage of holy fire. My inner demons would suffer along with me.
Hoping the purge wouldn’t destroy too many of my mind squatters, I knelt in front of Brie. I’d end up on the floor anyway, so I might as well try to avoid bashing my brains out when I fell. “Do it,” I told her.
A mixture of reluctance and anticipation crossed her face as she placed her hands on my head. She couldn’t decide if she was happy or annoyed about what I was asking her to do. “How long should I send the holy fire through your system?” she queried.
“Hagith and Orifiel usually only zap me for a few seconds,” I replied. “I think you should make it a bit longer. Ten seconds should do it.”
Biting her bottom lip, she nodded. “Ready yourself. I will begin now.”
There wasn’t really anything I could do to prepare for the pain. The first few seconds were bad, but then the fire intensified and I couldn’t hold back my shrieks. Deep in the recesses of my mind, the legion screamed with me as they shared my agony. It was a good thing that my bedroom was warded with Sy’s silence spell. If my friends had been able to hear me, they would have done their best to knock the door down with their bare hands to rescue me from my torment.
It felt more like an hour had passed than ten seconds before the burning inside my mind stopped. The screams from my legion petered out and I found myself lying face down on the carpet. Brie crouched beside me with her hand on my shoulder. It would have been more comforting if she hadn’t been the one who had just tortured me. “Will that suffice?” she asked. “Or do you require more purging?”
I uttered a croak that was meant to be a laugh. It took me a few seconds before I was able to respond. “I don’t think I’d survive another round of that.”
She helped me to sit up and I leaned against the door. I expected her to be triumphant at causing me pain, but she was merely frowning thoughtfully. “It appears to have worked,” she said. “Your skin is lighter and you do not look as ill now.”
I wasn’t sure how that was possible since I was fairly close to barfing from the agony that had just wracked me. “Will you be willing to zap me again if I need you to?”
She hesitated then nodded. “As long as you promise to keep this between us.” She looked away and a flash of guilt passed over her face. “I do not want Leo to find out about this.”
“It’ll be our secret,” I agreed. “Help me up and I’ll let you out.”
She lifted me to my feet as though I weighed nothing. She may have chosen a teenager to be her vessel, but she was still preternaturally strong.
My hand was shaking when I pulled my dagger and scraped it across the rune that negated her ability to teleport. Without another word, she disappeared.
I deactivated all of the runes just in case someone came to check on me. It would be a dead giveaway that I’d been up to something if they found themselves locked out. I didn’t want my friends to find out that I’d allowed Brie to torture me.
As quietly as I could, I staggered over to my bed. I put the dagger on the nightstand then eased myself down on the mattress and lifted up my shirt. As I’d hoped, the thick black scar that ran across my abdomen was now thinner. The tendrils weren’t as long and they were barely moving at all. They’d been stunned into submission by the holy fire.
Releasing my shirt, I curled up on my side. Shuddering in the aftermath of pain unlike anything I’d endured before, I slipped into welcome unconsciousness.
It seemed like only a few moments passed before I was standing in the shadowlands of my mind. Just like the real shadowlands, it was perpetually gloomy and mist swirled around my knees.
My legion of demons stood in a cluster. They were still shaken by the holy fire that had swept through their ranks. I’d just ingested an extra thirty-six demons yesterday, but I could see that I’d lost more than that during the purge.
Morax saw me and walked over. “How many are gone?” I asked him.
“Sixty,” he replied. Looming over me, he looked like he wanted to take me in his talons and shake me. “How could you allow yourself to be captured by angels again?”
Astounded by that admission, he glared down at me as though I’d lost my mind. “Are you insane?” he snarled, inadvertently echoing my thoughts.
“It was either let her purge me of the taint, or become so weak that I’d be completely useless,” I retorted. “The Wraith Warrior’s toxin is killing me. Holy fire is the only thing that will keep me going.”
“Do you even care that we are being decimated?” He swept his hand at the thinned group of hell spawn. Huddled together, they watched me with frightened scarlet eyes. Even the thirteen other Demon Lords were shaken. They were strong enough to survive being purged, but I suspected that they would become weaker if it happened too often.
“Of course I’m concerned about you guys,” I said.
“Then prove it. Offer us the same shelter that you have given to the girl, the scribe and the angel.”
He had a good point. Heather, Sy and Raziel were safe and snug in their houses while the legion were out in the open. I wanted the demons gone, but not like this. “You’re right,” I said. My sudden capitulation surprised him into blinking. “What sort of shelter do you want?”
“We do not require anything fancy. As long as it has four walls and a roof, it will suffice.”
I could manipulate the matter of my mind easily. A mere thought had a new building standing off to the right. The demons didn’t waste any time scampering inside. “Wait,” I called out and they all froze. Searching the crowd, I found the three lesser demons that I was looking for. I wasn’t sure how I picked them out of the crowd. I’d ingested their memories and somehow knew these were the ones I needed to speak to. “You, you and you.” I pointed them out and they flinched. “Come here.” Hunching their shoulders, they slunk over to us. I doubted that it was luck that had saved them from the purge. Fate had to be behind it.
“Have we done something wrong, Hellscourge?” the female asked almost timidly.
“No. I saw something in your memories and I wanted to ask you about it.”
“What did you see?” one of the males asked. All three were soldiers and wore simple black leather armor. Morax towered over us all. We looked like children in comparison to him. Unlike the lesser demons, his armor was more ornate and he had twin black metal braces on his wrists.
“I saw a woman with short black hair and pale blue eyes. Who is she?”
“She is the lord who invaded our territory,” the female said. “She and her numerous lackeys bested us, which is how we ended up here.” Her tone was sour.
The second male frowned. “She is the lord that invaded our territory as well. She was in charge of three packs that had banded together. We did not stand a chance against her.” The other male nodded in agreement.
“That’s weird. Why would the same demon invade more than one pack’s turf?” I asked.
“I do not believe that it was her intention to invade them,” Morax said. “If she is in command of three packs, then I suspect that she had a different agenda entirely.”
The rest of the demons had entered the building now. I’d made the interior and exterior black so they would feel more at home. I willed all five of us inside and we appeared near the door. “Hellscourge requires your attention,” Morax said in a loud voice and an instant hush fell. He motioned for me to speak.
“How many of you were invaded by a lord who was in possession of a woman with short black hair and pale blue eyes? She had three packs of demons with her.”
I was surprised when almost all of the hands rose. I assumed the others were demons that my team had taken down.
“It is as I thought,” Morax said almost to himself. “Do any of you know who the lord was?”
“It was Lord Vepar,” one of the captains said with an expression of distaste. Mutters swept through the crowd.
“I might have known,” Morax said with his upper lip curled.
“Who is Vepar?” I asked.
“It is rumored that she is Dantanian’s lover,” one of the female lords replied. “The pair have been scheming together for several millennia.”
“Is it normal for lords and scribes to hook up?”
“Never,” the female said with a shudder. “We do not lower ourselves to consort with weaker demons.”
“Isn’t Dantanian fairly powerful? He is the Head Scribe, after all.”
“He is not a warrior,” she said flatly and all of the females nodded in agreement. Even the servants were disgusted at the thought of sleeping with a scribe. “I would never allow a male to take me to his bed unless he can best me at hand to hand combat.”
It was an insight into demonic culture that I hadn’t been willing or prepared to hear. “That’s good to know,” I said weakly.
Angels were holy and pure and were above having carnal needs. I was pretty sure their celestial bodies couldn’t even function in that manner. I’d read that two hundred male angels had given into curiosity a very long time ago. They’d taken possession of humans so they could have sex with some of the most beautiful women alive. That had ended in utter disaster and had created a race called Nephilim. I was one of a new breed of Nephilim, but I didn’t want to think about that right now and pushed the thought aside.
Demons, on the other hand, had changed when they’d been evicted from heaven. They’d become evil and twisted and had embraced their vile natures. It appeared that they could fornicate with whomever or whatever they wanted, including humans. Few humans survived the encounter, but their deaths just added to the hell spawns’ pleasure.
“Why is Lord Vepar evicting us from our hosts?” another lord queried.
“Is it not obvious?” Morax replied. “She intends to force as many of us as possible to become trapped inside Hellscourge.”
“I know that,” the lord said unconvincingly. “I am just querying why she would do such a thing.”
“The more demons I have inside me, the closer I get to succumbing to the dark side,” I told him. My scarlet bracelet and dagger had been the first sign that the balance had shifted inside me. Without my dual soul, I was slowly, but inexorably turning into a demon.
Morax looked down at me from his much greater height. “You must find a way to free us from you before it is too late.”
“I’m working on it,” I said. We shared the same fear; that I would turn into one of them permanently. If that happened, there was a good chance that they would be trapped inside me for eternity.
₪₪₪
Chapter Eight
Leaving the legion’s new house, I didn’t bother to add any furniture or decorations. Gossip was their favorite past time when they weren’t torturing souls. I was sure that they’d be able to keep themselves entertained.
Since I was here, I whisked myself over to Raziel’s small house to check on him. He didn’t answer my knock, so I mentally unlocked the door and let myself in. He stood in the middle of his living room with his arms crossed. There was a smug look on his handsome face. Medium height and build, he had dark brown hair and eyes. “I take it that you have been recaptured by Hagith and Orifiel?” he said
“Nope. Sorry to disappoint you.”
His smirk faltered and he frowned. “Then who punished you this time?”
“Briathos.”
His smirk returned. “Ah, yes. She despises you almost as much as Hagith and Orifiel do. How did you run afoul of her?”
“I didn’t. I summoned her to me and asked her to purge me with holy fire.”
His astonishment was priceless. “How did you summon her and why did you ask her to punish you?”
“I called her to me with my own weird power. As to why I asked her to zap me, do you really care?”
He debated about it then shrugged. “Not really. Why are you here? Have you come to torment me?”
“I just wanted to check on you and see if you needed anything.” Now that I was here, I was regretting that decision. Being trapped inside me hadn’
t endeared me to him at all. If anything, he hated me even more now.
“There is nothing that you could possibly give me that I could ever want or need,” he responded with a sneer. “Except for a way out of your depraved body.”
“Fine. I’ll leave you to stew in solitude then,” I said snarkily. “Have fun being all alone with nothing to do but wallow in your hatred of me.” I knew I’d swiftly go nuts if I was in his situation. Come to think of it, I had been in his situation a couple of times. Thankfully, I hadn’t been locked up by Bob or the angels long enough to go insane.
He struggled for a moment then spoke before I could teleport myself away. “Wait. There is one thing that I would like.” I could see that it pained him to lower himself enough to utter the words.
“What?”
“A radio that plays classical music.”
“You listen to human music?”
He nodded stiffly. “Mankind has many faults, but their capacity to create majestic music cannot be denied.”
It would horrify him to learn that he had something in common with one of the hellgates. The gate had been fond of the arts. He’d lamented about being tasked with guarding one of the realms of hell instead of being able to follow his passions.
With a wave of my hand, I created a stereo system that would play only classical music. Raziel turned away, clearly dismissing me and crossed to the device. I decided to be spiteful and to let him figure out how to work it on his own.
Mentally locking the door after I left to keep the legion out, I teleported to Heather’s house. The door opened when I knocked this time. Heather looked at me with tears in her eyes then pulled me in for a hug. “What happened?” she asked. “Who zapped you with holy fire?”
Thanks to the house that I’d built for her and Sy, they wouldn’t have shared my pain like the legion had. Bright white light would have flared outside, which would have alerted them that I’d been purged. They could only see through my eyes when I was under a lot of stress. Since I’d asked Brie to torture me, they hadn’t seen what had gone on between us. Stepping inside, I waited for Sytry to join us at the table before I told them what I’d been through.
