Into Hell (The Road to Hell Series, Book 4)

by Brenda K. Davies

  Kobal stepped out of the side passageway. He turned to extend his hand to me. Taking it, I climbed out from between the walls and into a massive cavern. The heat slapped me in the face with enough force to suck the breath out of me. I wheezed to get air into my shocked lungs as sweat poured down me, soaking me as thoroughly as my dip in the Asharún. I didn’t bother to pull my dress away from me again; it cleaved to my body, but extra movement was not an option. Moving would only create more heat and more sweat.

  “River—”

  “Fine!” I wheezed before Kobal decided to either take me back or carry me through here. “I’m fine. Keep going.”

  My legs wobbled when I stepped forward, but I steadied them beneath me as a muscle twitched in Kobal’s cheek.

  Walking caused more sweat to pour down me. My lips cracked and my mouth felt like I’d made sand my new favorite snack, but I didn’t ask for the water some of the skelleins carried for me. I’d drink it all if I got my hands on it, and I wanted out of this place more than I craved a drink.

  Our footsteps echoed off the walls surrounding us. We couldn’t hide that we were coming from anything ahead, but we’d be able to see anything coming at us from over two hundred feet away. Tilting my head back, I blinked at the smooth, rounded ceiling a hundred feet above me. The glow of a distant fire bounced off the black rocks, turning some of them gray. The glow and those gray rocks were the only color in this drab area.

  Hell shadows danced over the walls, keeping rhythm with the flickering flames. The shadows moved in a sinuous, almost memorizing dance. They unnerved me with their ability to leap and jump in ways no normal shadow could, but they were fascinating to watch.

  When my knees nearly gave out on me, I staggered forward a step before righting myself. “Let me carry you,” Kobal grated from between his teeth.

  My attempt to swallow was thwarted by my severe lack of saliva. “No.”

  “It’s not a sign of weakness to require help. You are not from here. You’ll exhaust yourself by being stubborn.”

  “Maybe, but this is something I have to do,” I croaked.

  Kobal growled in frustration and made a move to grab me. For a second, I thought he was going to completely disregard my wishes, but his hands fell back to his sides. His black eyes shifted to amber when they met mine, and I knew what it had taken for him not to do as he wanted.

  At one time, he would have ignored my words and tossed me over his shoulder. I had no doubt he would carry me out of here if he believed I was in danger, but for now he’d listened to me.

  I almost threw myself into his arms to hug him close. Instead, I smiled at him. He stared at me for a minute before reluctantly turning away.

  As we walked across the cavern, I finally spotted the source of the heat and the glow playing over the walls. Fifty feet away, fire rolled onto a rock ledge before receding again. The ebb and flow of it reminded me of the sea. The crackle of the flames almost sounded like the crashing of waves on the sand. Unlike the sea, white plumes of spray didn’t shoot up from it when it reached the shore, instead yellow and orange sparks floated through the air before vanishing into the shade above.

  “An ocean in Hell,” I whispered. “Is that the oracle?”

  “It is,” Kobal confirmed.

  I missed the ocean. Missed the salt of it on my lips, the soothing flow of its waves against the shore, and the cries of the birds soaring above. This crashing fire had none of the teeming life the sea did, but it still drew me toward it.

  Stopping at the edge of the waves, I gazed out over the oracle. The fires rolled on for a good hundred yards before slipping beneath the wall across from me. “Where does it come from?” I asked.

  “The oracle is an extension of the Fires of Creation,” Kobal said from beside me. “This chamber doesn’t possess the same amount of power as the chamber housing the Fires, but there is enough here that the human world can be looked upon. Because the fire here isn’t as strong, we can get closer to the oracle.”

  I remembered gazing down into the Fires of Creation that had forged Kobal and thinking how angry and hot the flames looked. Now that heat blasted against me, but nothing would deter me from getting closer to it.

  My heart beat faster with every step I took toward the fiery sea. I yearned to peer into the oracle and see my brothers. I had to know Gage and Bailey were alive. I’d sacrifice everything for them and would do anything to ensure they had a future.

  The trembling in my legs grew, but it wasn’t only from exhaustion anymore. No, I feared looking into those fires and discovering my brothers’ broken bodies. A lump wedged in my throat. Every step became harder to make, but I continued until I stood at the edge of what could only be called a shore.

  I kept my feet away from the rolling inferno as I gazed over the crests. “Will it work for me?” I asked Kobal when he stepped beside me.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you see anything?” No matter how I tried, I couldn’t keep the hope from my voice. I needed someone to see something beyond this place.

  “The wall,” he replied and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Mac is guarding it. The wall still stands.”

  My shoulders sagged beneath his grip. “Hawk?” I asked when he came forward to stand on my other side.

  “I see the ocean, but not this one,” he said softly.

  “Is it the ocean from home?”

  Hawk had lived in the town next to the one I grew up in, but we hadn’t met until we were both at the wall.

  “Yes, and there are boats on it, people fishing.”

  My hands fisted as I tried to will something into view. No matter how much I tried, all I saw was fire and the sparks floating through the air. “Do I have to look somewhere special?”

  “No,” Kobal replied, his hand tightening on my shoulder when I swayed on my feet. “We should go.”

  “Wait.” All I wanted was a glimpse of Bailey and Gage, just one tiny glimpse. “A few more minutes.”

  I sensed the other demons and skelleins closing in behind me. The hounds’ claws clicked against the rocky ground as they patrolled the cavern. I didn’t look at any of them.

  “You must drink,” Kobal said and handed me a canteen.

  My fingers curled around it, and I lifted it to my mouth. Hot water trickled past my lips. I greedily gulped it down before reluctantly pulling it away. Kobal took it from me and handed it to Lix as I focused on the oracle again. Before me, the waves of fire parted like a curtain pulling back from a window.

  My heart plummeted when I saw what the oracle revealed.

  CHAPTER 7

  River

  The Last Stop bar the skelleins built around the gateway into Hell had been on fire the last time I saw it. If there had been any remains of the bar, they’d been cleared away to reveal the charred earth the fire had ravaged. The skelleins who stayed above to help guard the gateway hadn’t bothered to rebuild anything.

  The scene slid further away to create a panoramic view of the area and the demons and humans camped there. Their numbers were far smaller than I recalled. It didn’t take me long to discover why as the oracle revealed the mounds of overturned dirt marking the numerous graves at the edge of the woods.

  At the edge of the clearing stood a young girl with her wheat blonde hair falling in ringlets around her shoulders. Her kelly green eyes surveyed the clearing with sadness. Unlike the ghosts everyone could see due to the opening of the gateway, I was the only one who had ever seen the child, Angela. I didn’t know what she was, or why she appeared to me, but my instincts said she wasn’t a bad thing.

  Suddenly Angela’s head lifted and her eyes latched onto mine. I didn’t have a chance to blink before the scene shifted and I found myself standing before her. Angela’s mouth curved into a smile as she gazed at me.

  Angela’s rosebud mouth opened, but if she spoke, I didn’t hear her. She’d never spoken to me before. She’d tried to stop me from doing things with gestures, but never words. Lifting her han
d, her fingers attempted to caress my arm. I felt nothing against my skin.

  “Are you able to see what I see?” I asked Kobal.

  “Not normally, but you might be able to pull me into your vision.”

  I grasped his hand on my shoulder and pulled it down to envelope it within both of mine. I focused on his large hand until the cavern and the scene in the oracle faded away. All I saw now was Angela, and all I felt was the formidable flow of Kobal’s life washing over me.

  A pathway opened between us and I pulled Kobal into my vision. The three of us stood together in a world of misty, gray fog. The oracle didn’t fuel this anymore, I did.

  “Can you see her?” I whispered.

  Angela’s eyes shifted to where Kobal stood. Her face hardened in a way I’d never seen a child’s face harden before. Kobal snarled and stepped toward Angela.

  “Kobal!” I tried to pull him back as defiance radiated from Angela, but he refused to budge.

  Angela turned toward me. Her hand stretched out as desperation blazed from her eyes, and I sensed her need to communicate something to me. I stretched my hand toward her, but Kobal seized my wrist and jerked it down. He pushed me back and planted himself in front of me.

  “No!” I cried when the fog faded away to reveal the rolling tide of the oracle once more. “Why did you do that?” I demanded, poking him in his shoulder blade. “She was trying to tell me something!”

  Kobal’s head swiveled toward me. His golden eyes blazed and the corded muscles in his biceps bulged as the veins in his arms stood out. I’d seen him enraged more than a few times, but this was something more than rage. If I hadn’t known he would never hurt me, I would have bolted from him and straight out of this cavern. Instead, I held my ground while all the others backed steadily away.

  “Is that who you’ve been seeing?” he demanded. “Is she why you took the angel figurine and refused to part with it? Is that the child, Angela?”

  I released his hand. “Yes.”

  “Fuck!” The bellowed word bounced endlessly off the cavern walls.

  “Kobal—” He lifted me and carried me away from the oracle. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “She’s not bad!”

  “She’s not good,” he growled.

  “You can’t know that!”

  He set me on my feet so abruptly that I staggered back before catching my balance.

  “I can know it.” I opened my mouth to protest his words, but he continued speaking. “She is an angel, River, or at least the angels are using her to get to you.”

  “Holy shit!” Corson blurted and edged further away when Kobal glowered at him.

  My mouth closed before falling open and closing again. Questions tumbled so rapidly through my mind that I couldn’t grasp one to ask it. I opened my mouth again, but all that came out was, “Huh?”

  “The dead child, Angela, is an angel or a tool the angels are using to manipulate you,” Kobal said.

  “She can’t possibly be an angel!” I protested.

  “You are correct, dear niece. She is not an angel,” a voice purred from the shadows on the far side of the cavern. “However, my long lost, and not at all missed, brothers and sisters are trying to communicate with you. They just don’t know how.”

  I didn’t have time to process the words before Kobal pushed me behind him. The sound he emitted caused the hair on my body to rise, and I knew that whoever stood in those shadows would not make it out of here alive.

  ***

  Kobal

  I focused on the area where the voice had come from, but whoever stood there remained concealed by the darkness. Scenting the air, I detected a new aroma, but it was so faint that the hounds hadn’t caught it. Whoever it was hadn’t been there long and must have slipped in while I was immersed in River’s vision.

  I recognized the odor the intruder emitted as one of the fallen angels. It brought to mind water, but whereas River made me think of fresh rain, this was more like a lake with the minerally tang of brimstone mixed into it. Hell had corrupted the angel’s natural scent.

  I bared my fangs at a shifting in the shadows and gestured for the hounds to come forward.

  “I have not come here to fight, Kobal,” the voice murmured. “I would not have revealed my presence to you if I meant to attack. I would have simply struck while the two of you were focused on the oracle.”

  “Then why not show yourself?” I demanded.

  A raven swept out of the darkness to land fifty feet away. Its talons ticked against the ground, rainbow colors reflected off its feathers when it folded its wings against its sides and settled away from the oracle. The bird stood nearly three feet tall and weighed at least a hundred pounds.

  “I’ve shown myself,” the raven murmured and River gasped. “As you can see, I could have remained hidden from you. Could have followed you wherever it was you are going and reported to Satan… I mean Lucifer. Even if you scented me, you would not have been looking for me.”

  “What the fuck is with the talking bird?” Hawk blurted.

  “It’s not a bird,” Bale said and drew her sword from the holder on her back.

  “I am not here to fight any of you,” the raven stated.

  River stepped out from behind me. I held my arm in front of her as my body tensed in preparation to attack. If that bird so much as ruffled a feather the wrong way, I’d pluck it bare before shoving its beak up its ass.

  I searched the shadows for more enemies. Within me, Phenex and Crux stirred in preparation of a battle, but I kept them locked away when I sensed nothing else out there. That didn’t mean the fallen angels couldn’t be somewhere nearby, waiting for their chance to launch an attack against us. They could have sent the raven as a distraction.

  Hatred coiled within me when my gaze returned to the raven. I despised the angels in Heaven as much as the ones in Hell. I didn’t know what any of the angels sought from River, but I knew none of them would care if she lived or died if it got them what they wanted from her.

  Every instinct in me screamed to go for the raven, to attack and kill, but I wouldn’t leave River’s side until I knew what was going on here. If I moved away from her, an angel might come from somewhere else and try to take her. When she was stronger, she could fight them off and cause a lot of damage, but she was too weak for that now.

  “Lix, take the skelleins to the other end of the cavern. Get behind the raven and keep an eye out,” I commanded.

  “My brothers and sisters are not here, and they do not know I am,” the raven said.

  “That’s either extremely good or bad for you. If you’re setting us up, I will take the time to make your death especially excruciating,” I vowed.

  “I have no doubt,” the raven replied.

  River’s brow furrowed as she stared at the bird. “Caim?” she inquired.

  River identified more with her angelic side than her human or demon side. Because of that, she’d known the fallen angel Azote’s name too when he attacked her, yet she hadn’t recognized what Angela was. I suspected that was because Angela wasn’t truly an angel, but something the angels were using to communicate with River.

  The raven’s head tilted to the side; its ebony eyes shimmered with colors while he studied her. “Yes,” the raven replied.

  “How did you find us?” I demanded.

  “I’ve been flying over much of Hell in search of you. It occurred to me you would know the angels never come here and that this would be a good place for you to travel through. I have not come here on Lucifer’s behalf, but because I have some things I must discuss with you.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Kobal

  “Show your true self then,” I commanded. “If what you say is true, then there will be no deceptions between us.”

  The raven chuckled and ruffled its feathers. Within those feathers, streaks of rainbow color came to life in the glow of the fire. “Yet you stand with the demon of illusions.”

  “There are no illusions here,” Magnus said a
nd spread his hands before him. “You would see them if there were.”

  With a ripple of movement and a shifting of the air, the raven vanished from view. In its place stood the fallen angel I knew as Caim. I hadn’t known about his ability to shapeshift though. I didn’t trust him, but I understood it had been a small olive branch on his part to reveal this to us.

  Spreading his six-foot wings out at his sides, Caim displayed more of the differences between him and most of his fallen brethren. After shearing their wings off on Earth, most of the fallen angels had regrown bat-like wings with thick veins running through them. Caim’s wings were covered in black feathers. Those feathers glistened with the same rainbow colors the raven possessed. A nearly foot-long silver spike came out of the tip of each wing, and another protruded from the bottom of them.

  He settled his wings against his back, tucking them away until all that could be seen of them were the two silver spikes over his shoulders.

  “Caim,” River said again.

  The angel’s eyes shifted to her. Like the rest of the fallen angels, his eyes were now black instead of the violet of the angels, but different colors reflected in his eyes. “Yes, my niece,” he murmured. “That is my name.”

  River’s eyes narrowed. “Lucifer is not my father; you are not my uncle.”

  “Yet you recognized me in raven-form and you spoke my name before you were told it. I would wager you also knew Azote’s name when you encountered him.”

  I recognized the stubborn gleam in River’s eyes as she lifted her chin. “That doesn’t make you my uncle, or Lucifer my father,” she replied.

  “My fellow brothers and sisters are trying to communicate with you from Heaven,” Caim said instead of arguing with River over her lineage.

  “Why?” I demanded. “What is Angela exactly?”

  “Humans call them Guardian Angels; angels call them guides. Because of the laws laid down many years ago, angels will not travel to Earth anymore. Over the years, they have developed guides to get humans to do their bidding. Guides are rarely used as it requires a lot of power. However, because River cannot openly communicate with the angels like some of her ancestors could, they had to find another way to reach out to her. They are using this Angela’s spirit, her soul, to connect with you,” Caim explained.