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

by Brenda K. Davies

  Those foul depths were not my home, not anymore.

  “Shax!” Erin shouted from behind me. “What is it?”

  The skelleins flanked my sides. “What do you feel?” one of them inquired.

  “Hell is broken,” I murmured.

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know, but it is. We have to move back. Aim your guns at the hole!” I shouted to everyone holding the weapons. “Listen to my commands! If it’s not one of ours, shred it!”

  The words had no sooner left my mouth then the flap of wings sounded and manticores burst out of the gateway. They soared high into the sky.

  “Fire!” I shouted, and gunshots pierced the air.

  Two of the manticores released an ear-splitting, trumpeting screech. The humans stumbled back as the hideous monsters swooped toward them. Their scorpion tails sank into the victims closest to them. Bracing my feet apart, I readied myself for an attack, but the rest of the manticores flew over the trees and out of view. The two manticores fled with their victims. Three of them remained on the ground, their bodies too riddled with bullets for them to fly again. Demons closed in to dispatch of them.

  “What were those things?” Wren demanded.

  “Shax!” The intensity of Morax’s voice blazing into my mind nearly caused me to go to my knees. “The seals are falling and the angels are fleeing. They may be coming your way.”

  I worked on replying to him. “I thought the falling of the seals had been stopped.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  “Later. But know that they are all coming down and we can’t stop it.”

  My heart sank as I realized the vibrations I’d felt through the Earth were the result of whatever force had been strong enough to bring down the remaining seals. With the gateway open, the entire world was doomed.

  “Are Kobal and River alive?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are all of you going to make it out?”

  A protracted silence stretched out before he replied. “I’m not sure.”

  For Morax to admit that, shit had to be real bad. “The manticores just fled. No angels.”

  “Yet.”

  “Yet,” I agreed. “But that means they’re still with you.”

  Morax’s voice retreated as swiftly from my mind as it burst into it. He often ended his conversations that abruptly, but after what he’d revealed, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been killed. My gaze ran over the humans and demons gathered around me.

  They’d all been prepared for a battle and warned they may not survive it. They would fight to the death, but none of us had been prepared for all the seals to fall and for the worst of Hell to be unleashed at once.

  “The seals are falling, all of them!” I shouted to them.

  “How is that possible?” a skellein demanded.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But Hell is about to come to Earth.”

  “Ay dios mio,” Vargas muttered. He lifted the cross hanging from his necklace and kissed it before tucking it inside his shirt. With a resolute expression, he lifted his rifle to his shoulder and aimed it at the gateway.

  “The angels may also be on their way,” I cautioned.

  The skelleins stomped their feet and their teeth chattered excitedly. “We always enjoy killing ourselves some angels!” one shouted, and the rest released a whoop of joy.

  “Crazy bastards,” Erin muttered.

  Wren stared at them like they’d lost their minds. Perhaps they had, perhaps we all had, but that didn’t change the fact that Earth as everyone knew it was about to change again.

  From within the shadows of the gateway, the beat of wings resonated against the rock walls as a rokh took shape. It shrieked in excitement when it spotted the freedom it sought. Its gold talons curved as it flapped its wings faster and burst from the gateway.

  Bullets riddled its body as it rose higher, its multi-colored wings reflecting the sun behind it.

  CHAPTER 29

  River

  Keep going. Get out. Get out! You can try to fix this when you’re out of here, but you have to be free to do it!

  I kept telling myself this, but though I’d gained strength from Kobal, it wasn’t enough. I could barely keep my feet under me, and I couldn’t let Kobal carry me again. We all needed our hands free as much as possible to survive the craziness surrounding us.

  “The manticores are out! Angels are not!” Morax yelled over his shoulder at us.

  “Did you communicate with Shax?” Kobal inquired.

  “Yes. I can’t get in touch with Bettle again, but Shax and the others have been warned about what is coming.”

  Please let them survive it, I pleaded as my right leg gave out on me.

  Kobal lifted me into his arms before I could hit the ground. “Put me down!” I said.

  “No.” I knew there would be no changing his mind.

  The walls shook around us, and more rocks fell as three more demons toppled into the nothingness below. The numbers on both sides of the fight were dwindling.

  “Head for the throne room!” Kobal shouted to Morax. “I can open a gateway there that will take us out!”

  Morax gave a wave of his tail in response. After another hundred feet, he veered to the left and into a tunnel. Many of the demons, paliton and craeton alike, followed him. Some kept going along the roadway toward the gate above.

  Knowing he wouldn’t put me down, I draped my arms around Kobal’s neck when he entered the tunnel. His muscles bunched and flexed against me. One of his hands shielded my head as the ground heaved upward again. My eyes darted nervously to the ceiling as more dust and pebbles rained down.

  “Can’t you open a gate here?” Hawk asked from behind us.

  “We would have to stop here,” Kobal replied. “And it takes time to open one.”

  The Earth quaked again and larger chunks of stone clattered around us. The dust became so thick I could barely see Lix in front of me. Phenex yelped when a rock caught her on the shoulder.

  “I’d prefer not stopping right now,” Magnus said as he wiped dust from his hair.

  “Agreed,” Hawk panted.

  Morax took another turn and entered the cavern with the silent waterfall of fire. I gazed into the flames as Kobal ran beneath them. Their heat warmed my skin, but they didn’t burn me.

  Kobal leapt effortlessly over the stones winding through the red and orange river and into the enormous room at the end of the stream. With every step he took into the room, more colors blazed to life in the pathway of stones beneath him. The symbols etched into the walls twisted and moved toward him as if they were greeting their king.

  The power of those symbols crackled against my skin, strengthening me further as the room came alive in a way I’d never dreamed possible.

  This place was as much Kobal as the Fires of Creation were.

  ***

  Kobal

  My gaze went to the far dais, my fangs throbbed with the urge to tear something to shreds. My throne was gone, and I knew exactly who had it, but why had Lucifer bothered to come here and take it when the weight of it would only slow him down? I had a feeling I would find out the answer to that soon enough.

  Beyond where my throne once sat, I saw that River’s was also gone.

  When she squirmed in my arms, I set her down. She walked away from me to rest her fingers against the wall. Her head bowed and her black hair fell forward to shield her features.

  Pulling her hand away, she flexed it as she stepped back. Pink color tinged her cheeks and the black circles under her eyes had lessened. Realizing this room gave her strength, I seized her hand and placed it on the wall again. She tried to tug it from me, but I refused to release her.

  “You saw what happened below! What I did!” She jerked at her hand again.

  “Those were extraordinary events. You are weakened, Lucifer is still alive, and Hell is coming apart. Take what you need from this place, while you can
,” I replied, unwilling to relent.

  Her fingers unfurled in my hand to rest against the wall. We stared at each other for a moment before I released her. The ground shuddered again. A jagged crack raced out from beneath my feet and toward the dais. Through the crack, the flames beneath us flickered and jumped. The demons stumbled away from it and the hounds backed slowly away.

  “Opening that gateway sometime soon would be lovely,” Magnus said to me.

  “For once, I must agree with him,” Lopan said from his perch on Calah’s shoulders.

  “Step back,” I commanded.

  River turned and flattened her back against the wall while the demons crept closer to her. Many of them eyed her warily, and only Corson and Bale were brave enough to stand beside her, but beneath the demons’ apprehension of her, I also saw admiration. What she’d done to the seals made them nervous, but they respected power, and she had displayed a lot of it.

  I rubbed my palms together before closing my eyes and focusing on the flow of the symbols marking me. It had been years since I’d opened a gateway, and I’d never done it as often as my ancestors had in the days before Lucifer entered Hell, but the ability to do so came flooding back to me.

  The ground heaved again, and gasps filled the air as the temperature in the throne room ratcheted up. Energy crackled over my skin. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know the fissure had grown enough to reveal the oracle below.

  Opening my eyes, I turned my hands so the backs of them pressed against each other. My markings shifted and flooded down to my fingertips when I pulled my hands apart. The rending of the air caused my skin to ripple as I opened a hole before me. I may not do it often, but the opening of the gateways was a part of me and it brought forth an overwhelming sensation of rightness with it.

  River’s eyes met mine over the black hole in front of me. At three feet wide and five feet high, the hole had been opened through the fabric of time itself. The ground heaved upward, knocking most of the demons into the wall as chunks of the ceiling broke free to smash into the ground. The force of them dented the ground, and one larger piece crushed a demon beneath it. I didn’t have time to open the gateway as wide as I wanted to, or to have it open on the other end where I wanted it to.

  This would have to be enough.

  “Hurry!” I commanded and held one of my hands out to River. Until I closed it, the gateway would remain open without me now. Taking my hand, she stepped away from the wall. “It won’t take you all the way out of Hell,” I told her. “I didn’t have enough time for that, but it will get you most of the way there.”

  “I’m not going without you,” she stated.

  “I will follow you, after the others go through.”

  She glanced at everyone else. “They’ll go first, but I’m staying with you.”

  “No, you’re not.” Looking beyond her, I focused on the demons. “Start evacuating, now!”

  “Your majesty, you should go first,” one of them protested, and the others nodded their agreement.

  “The Fires will not kill me, but they will kill you. Go.”

  I didn’t have to order them through again as they rushed into the gateway. Many had to duck to enter it, and some could only go through one at a time. The tree nymphs were small enough to fit two or three at a time. The darkness swirled up like fog to block most of their bodies before they were more than three feet in. Within five feet, they disappeared.

  “You have to go,” I said to River.

  “You are their king, and I am their queen,” she said. “I will wait until our followers are safe too.”

  “I will survive if this whole place falls, you will not. You’re going.”

  “Kobal—”

  “No more arguments.” I shifted my attention to Corson. “Get her out of here and don’t stop until she’s on the surface.”

  She opened her mouth to protest before closing it. Resting her palm against my cheek, she rose onto her toes to kiss me. Unable to resist, I drew her closer to deepen the kiss.

  When the ground heaved again, I pulled away from her. Demons cried out as the fissure in the floor expanded and fire leapt up from below. Sweat stuck River’s hair to her face as she leaned closer to me.

  “No matter what happens, know I love you with everything I am,” she whispered.

  “And I you, Mah Kush-la. Now go.”

  “Come, child, it’s time for you to leave this place,” Caim said and nudged her forward with his wing.

  “Corson, go,” I ordered. “Hawk go with them.”

  “I would like to go too,” Caim said as he stepped forward. “If something happens, I can get her from Hell the fastest.”

  I hesitated before responding. I didn’t want the angel with her, but he had a point. “If he tries anything, kill him,” I said to Corson.

  Corson grinned as he rubbed his chin with the tip of one of his deadly talons. “Gladly.”

  They all moved forward to follow behind River as she entered the gateway. Sorrow emanated from her as she stared at me over her shoulder until she vanished. Stepping back, I gestured for the others to go through as fire rose to consume the dais.

  Bale, Magnus, Lix, Morax, Verin, Calah, and Lopan spread out around me while Phenex and Crux sat next to me. Resting my hands on the heads of Phenex and Crux, I drew them back into me, locking them away as the rest of the hounds prowled nearby. Low growls emanated from them as the fissure in the floor expanded.

  CHAPTER 30

  River

  Within the gateway, the gloom was so absolute that I couldn’t see the demons who had entered before me, or Corson behind me. When we’d entered, only inches had separated me from the ones ahead of me, yet it felt as if they had ceased to exist.

  I was completely alone in this place and time, something oddly fitting right now. The idea of Kobal back there, still in danger while I traveled away from him, made my teeth grind together. However, standing next to him, I’d realized it was better if we were separated now.

  Lucifer’s insidious words whispered through my mind. I tried to deny them, but the more I contemplated them, the more I believed that he’d been telling the truth—a truth Kobal would deny. If he was with me, he would never let me do what was necessary to stop the outflux of creatures escaping Hell.

  There was no hot, no cold in the gateway. It was a comfortable, warm temperature like a perfect spring day. No sound penetrated the gateway either, not even when I snapped my fingers to create some noise in the vortex did anything penetrate this nothing.

  Had I somehow lost my way? No, impossible. Kobal would never risk such a thing. But once the idea took hold, I couldn’t shake it. Sweat beaded my brow as I lifted my hands to feel in front of me, but they came up with nothing. They didn’t create a breeze as no air flowed through here, but I could still breathe.

  A pinpoint of light pierced the night before me. The back of a demon materialized, then his head, followed by his legs. The hair on my arms rose at the disconcerting spectacle of the demon coming together in pieces.

  I jumped when a hand encased my elbow, and glanced back at Corson. His citrine eyes were filled with concern as he propelled me forward. Behind him, Hawk appeared and then Caim.

  Stepping out of the gateway, my back flattened against the craggy wall when I realized we’d emerged on the road leading out of Hell. However, it was a lot different than the last time I’d traveled it.

  Before, shadows had concealed the road. Now, it was illuminated by the fires burning below. Sweat dripped down my forehead and cleaved my clothes to my body. The Hell shadows writhed across the walls as they tried to escape the light. Tilting my head back, I gazed at the gateway leading out of Hell only a hundred feet above us. So close, yet so far.

  I had to make it there. I couldn’t completely fix this mess, but I might be able to staunch the flow of nightmares pouring out of Hell.

  Corson tugged me onward as Lucifer’s words replayed in my mind. “Do you want to know a secret, daughter?”

>   I shuddered as I recalled the warmth of his breath against my cheek and the humor with which he’d tormented me. “Would you like to know why I never attempted to stop you from trying to close the gateway?”

  I’d assumed it was because he’d been too cowardly to come out and face those above, especially Kobal. That instead he’d hidden away while he plotted and grew his army, but his whispered words revealed a different reason to me.

  Debris crunched beneath my feet as I ran beside Corson. We traveled higher as more seal creatures flew out of the flames or followed along the roadway behind us. Some of those creatures also ran ahead of us, and I knew more were already on Earth.

  Glancing back, I searched for Kobal amid the crush of demons and creatures fleeing the demise of Hell, but I saw no sign of him.

  He’ll be okay. He can survive fire. He’s the only one who can help everyone else escape if the gateway above is closed.

  My arms and legs pumped faster. If I died in here, there would be no stopping the outflow of Hell, and if I made it out alive…

  “I’ll tell you and only you my secret,” Lucifer whispered through my memories.

  I didn’t know why he’d told me his secret. Maybe because he believed there was nothing I could do to close the gateway. Maybe because he believed it would inflict more suffering on me and Kobal if I escaped and I revealed Lucifer’s secret to him. Or maybe Lucifer had simply believed it impossible that I would get away from him. He was arrogant and crazy enough to believe that anyway. And he’d never seen Caim’s betrayal coming.

  Either way, he had spilled the beans, but was it all a lie?

  Most likely, he was a psychotic lunatic after all.

  “Must go faster!” Hawk panted from behind me.

  My heart sank when I chanced a look back and saw the fires rising higher and still no sign of Kobal. The flames seemed to be chasing us, determined not to let us get away. A few hundred feet below, more demons and seal creatures fled, but others were consumed by the fire as it continued relentlessly onward.