Sins of the Immortal

by Jamie McGuire

  I stopped and held up my hands. “Just hear me out.”

  She glanced behind us. “Hurry.”

  “My mother came to me. No, that’s inaccurate. She met me on a neutral plane … ish.”

  “That was reckless!” She shook her head, disgusted. “She could’ve been cast out and negated everything we went through to get her there. Everything she went through. What were you thinking?”

  “That what she had to tell me would only take a moment.”

  “Where did you meet her?” she asked.

  I cleared my throat. “Right outside the gates.”

  Eden’s mouth fell open. “I thought she got in?”

  “She did. She had help bypassing the system, though, to get inside before my father got to her.”

  Eden looked around, then pulled me with her, sprinting to the next building. She leapt up broken pieces of wood, and we landed on a collapsing roof, three stories up. Her eyes scanned the horizon before we ducked behind what was once the roof access to an elevator shaft.

  “Someone will be punished,” she said. “Maybe by me. Levi, what did you do?”

  “She was let in through the eighth pearl.”

  “The eighth pearl is small and doesn’t open for anyone.”

  “It does for the Awal.”

  “Do you mean AWOLL? Or awal as in first in Arabic?”

  “You know the story of the first brothers?”

  She was getting impatient. “Cain and Abel? Of course.”

  I sighed. “Mamá was owed a favor. Cain convinced Abel to open the Eighth Pearl.”

  Eden thought for half a second, then waved her hands in the air. “Way-way-way-way-wait. Why would Cain owe your mother a favor? After all this time and she hadn’t cashed it in? And how in God’s name did Cain get his brother—who he murdered—to help him satisfy that favor?”

  “Uh…” I said, already knowing her reaction. “Mamá was the whisperer in Cain’s ear.”

  Eden lowered her chin. “Petra convinced Cain to kill Abel?”

  “She taught Abel how to fashion a knife to protect his livestock. She also told Cain to disembowel Abel with that knife.”

  “What? How is it possible that your answers make less sense of all this?”

  “She was playing both sides to create jealousy and piss off the Almighty, Eden, that’s what she did back then. Listen, she helped them both, so they both owed her favors.

  “So they’re the two traitors.”

  “Three.”

  She blinked. “And Ramiel.”

  Even with her infinite intellectual power, it took her a moment to put the pieces together. She nodded. “Cain is old. One of the oldest here. He got the sword for Bex?”

  “He was also one of the most trusted—enough to breach Lucifer’s temple. This was their chance. They’ve been conspiring there for centuries,” I said, pointing to the gates of the dungeons. “Since the last time we found our way back to each other. They knew we were their one chance.”

  “One chance for what?”

  “They haven’t told me that part yet.”

  “And you trust them? Levi!”

  “We have to go,” I said, peeking around the elevator shaft top. “We have to go now!”

  “I know. I feel them. But Ramiel and Cain are traitors. Apparently, Abel is, too. Levi, we can’t link arms with them. I definitely can’t! I—”

  The ground began to tremble.

  I grabbed Eden’s arm. “It’s not just minions this time.”

  She frowned. “What? Who’s with them?”

  “Paymon. They know we’re here. We have to go.” I pulled on her, but she seemed mesmerized by the glowing fires bringing up the rear of the herd of demons barreling over the carcasses of still-smoldering vehicles and buildings.

  “I’m not afraid,” she whispered.

  “Paymon has never left a contender alive. Not once. If my brother struggles at all with both of us, he’ll keep us from reaching the dungeons. If my other brothers arrive, we’re in trouble.”

  I looked past her, seeing hundreds of smaller demons crawling over the landscape toward us, and two larger ones, slogging along like trolls. Slow, but powerful. Their drool hit the ground and created holes in the sand, melting everything it touched.

  “He can’t beat me. I’m a little curious, actually, to push myself … to see just how much damage I can do.”

  “Eden,” I said with a sigh. “I’m more human than ever. You can’t concentrate on Paymon and…”

  She turned to me. “Keep you alive?”

  I frowned. I hated that thought, but it was the truth.

  She shook her head, seeming frustrated with herself and a bit disoriented. “I don’t … I don’t know what I…”

  “It’s Paymon. I’ll explain later. Let’s go!”

  We sprinted together toward the dungeons, dodging the elephant-sized fire balls they shot at us from behind. Eden came from the side and shoved me fifty yards off course, and I rolled, narrowly missing a winged creature that had been unleashed on us. She fought with it briefly, wasting no time in bringing it to the ground. In one leap she was on its back, breaking its neck with one twist and riding it to the ground with a flurry of soot shooting in every direction.

  She ran to me, sliding on her knees. “You okay?” she asked, helping me to my feet.

  “Yeah… I think I rolled my ankle.” I laughed without humor. I was no longer Leviathan. I was becoming more human with each passing minute.

  “Can you run?” Eden asked.

  I nodded, but I could barely keep ahead of the herd before; now it was a fair chase. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t be able to bounce back to Earth’s plane.

  Horns bleated, and hundreds of marching feet vibrated the ground beneath us. War cries and shrieking could be heard over the winds of Hell.

  “They didn’t bring as many this time,” Eden said, running alongside me. She could’ve reached the dungeons by now, but she held back, keeping pace.

  “They don’t need to. Paymon is enough.”

  We jogged to a stop in front of the doors, glowing from the fires that whipped off the old iron toward us and more violently the closer we came.

  “We can’t phase,” she said. “So how do we get in?”

  “They’ll open the doors.”

  She glanced behind us. The herd was closing in. The crawlers had slowed, giving the larger, strong demons time to catch up.

  “When?” Eden said, yelling over the grunts and shrieking.

  “C’mon, Ramiel,” I said under my breath, looking up.

  I glanced back again, seeing that my brother’s small army would be upon us in the next minute. I didn’t want to yell Ramiel’s name, but he wasn’t giving us much choice.

  Recognition lit Eden’s face. “They’re using us as bait. We have to bounce. This is a trap.”

  I grabbed her hands, but something was different. She felt it too, and her face paled. “You can’t bounce.”

  I clenched my jaw, and then took a rock and threw it at the doors. It vaporized immediately. “Ramiel! You son-of-a-bitch!”

  “I thought you said you trusted them!” Eden said. Her blue nightgown was covered in dirt, just like her hair and face.

  “I thought you said not to!”

  Eden’s mouth fell open. She was too busy worrying about me being stuck in Hell to sense our escape was seconds away. She gripped my shirt. “Maybe I can do it for the both of us. Maybe…”

  The doors opened behind me. We were both yanked inside, the iron hinges red hot and whining as they closed again.

  I bent over and grabbed my knees in an attempt to catch my breath, hacking at the smoke and sulfur burning my throat.

  “Are you okay?” Eden said, kneeling next to me.

  A loud bang rocked the dungeon doors, forcing dust to fall from the ceiling like rain.

  Eden looked up at our host with vengeance in her eyes. “Wh
y did you draw them in, Ramiel? They know we’re here, now. They won’t stop until they get inside!” she seethed.

  “Exactly,” he said, oddly at ease. He turned away from us, taking a few steps before he paused. “Come with me. It has finally come to pass and knowing Paymon we don’t have much time.”

  “Come to pass?” Eden said, helping me to stand. “What the hell does that even mean?”

  He continued walking.

  “Ramiel!” Eden yelled. “Mind letting us in on the plan we apparently helped launch?”

  He didn’t stop again. “Come with me. You’ll know soon enough.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eden

  I interlocked my elbow with Levi’s, helping him limp down the hall. I’d tried to scan his body to find out why his powers were waning so profoundly, but nothing was different except for how weak he’d become.

  I looked around, peeking into each prison and at the pitiful creatures inside, all broken from decades of torture. The sick dread that came over me was familiar. “I remember this place,” I breathed. “You were in the back, waiting for me in a cell.”

  Levi smiled. “You came to free me after we were discovered.”

  “And it wasn’t even the first time.”

  “No,” Levi said, breathing out a quiet laugh. “They should have learned their lesson.”

  “I guess that’s why they sent you here, hoping you’d learn yours.”

  Levi pulled me closer to his side. “I was born without a soul, Eden. You’re the closest thing I’ve had to one. There isn’t a being that’s ever existed who could get a taste of that and learn to stay away.”

  “Is that what it is? This whole time you were in love with my soul?”

  He smiled down at me. With the fires crawling up the walls and flickering on the ceiling above, his irises seemed to glow even more than normal. He touched my chin with his index finger and thumb. “No matter what form you take, which lifetime or plane we’re on, your soul will always be my map to you. Not this,” he said, gesturing to my skin and bones, hair and clothes. He touched the center of my chest, pressing his finger gently into my skin. “You.”

  I threw my arms around his shoulders and hugged him tight. His brothers were on their way, if not arriving any minute. He was injured, he couldn’t bounce, and the first of many attacks had started, rattling the huge doors.

  “It’s impossible, right?” I asked.

  “Not impossible,” a woman said from behind us. She was a tiny thing, bronzed skin and green eyes, and the tattered hem of her thin linen dress fell at her ankles. By her accent I could tell she was from the very early times of humans. She was beautiful, even more so than Cassia, and just as strong. A dead demon dangled from her blackened fingers. She threw it to the floor and the limp, hairless flesh and bone slid across the hall and hit the wall, catching fire and incinerating instantly. The woman gestured to its ashes. “Kershus. He’s a scavenger, a spy, and he’d slipped in through a little-known tunnel. He’ll respawn soon. We should begin.”

  “You have a knack for arriving at the right time,” Ramiel said. He clearly knew her, but as familiar as she seemed, I couldn’t place her. Her long, onyx hair was braided in some places and fell in loose curls in others, the singed ends hitting the small of her back. She was barefoot like me, but like her fingers, her feet were black, caked with soot.

  “It’s good to see you again, Eve,” Levi said.

  My mouth fell open. “Eve. Adam’s Eve?”

  She grinned. “No, he’s Eve’s Adam; lazy, passive, unambitious shit that he is.” She turned her attention to Levi. “I didn’t think you’d survive going head-to-head with your family. I’m impressed.” She looked to me, the kindness in her eyes misplaced in such a dark place. “And you. You were always bound for something astronomical. But the Keeper of the Balance? A nearly impossible task, Asuranachmineh.” She called me by name, beautiful and flowing, but not in English—or in any language on Earth. It was familiar, but so deeply embedded in my past she could’ve been speaking of someone else.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised to see her in the Underworld; after all, she was the first to sin. The first mother of a murderer, the first human to befriend Satan. But Eve’s DNA was flawless. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and like Ramiel, there was something very wrong about her beauty existing within the nightmarish backdrop of Hell.

  A loud boom shook the doors again, this time rattling my bones. I could feel the strain on the doors through the floor, the walls, and it shook through to my core. Streams of eons-old dust and dirt began to filter down from the ceiling.

  Ramiel smiled on me like my father did sometimes. “It’s by design, Eden.”

  “So you want them to get through?” I asked, looking for an exit. “I’ve been here before, but it’s been a long time. With Levi injured, we’ll need an escape plan.”

  “Not escaping is the plan,” Eve said, walking with Ramiel to the back of the Oubliette.

  “Wait. What?” I said, following her further. We were deeper in the dungeons than I’d ever been, passing cells containing so many revolting scenes of torment that I made myself stop peering in, instead concentrating on Eve, who seemed unfazed.

  Levi encircled his fingers around mine, trying hard not to hobble. Beads of sweat formed between our palms, at my hairline, and on the small of my back, fanned by the thin fabric of my nightgown each time I took a step. The broken bits of gravel and dirt beneath my feet was hot, but it didn’t burn. Still, I wished I’d taken the time to dress before we left. A trip to Hell is never short.

  Ramiel stopped at a circular steel door, the metal tarnished, the borders blackened by superheated fire that had rolled through the corridor at least once before.

  We waited for a solid minute before Levi finally shifted his weight. “Respectfully, Ramiel. You know what’s outside. What the hell are we waiting for?”

  “The door.”

  “I see that, but you obviously have an end-game here, and we need to know what that is before my brothers and their legions breach the entrance,” Levi said, as if he were reminding him. “They’re still attacking the outer doors.”

  “We need everyone here, first,” Ramiel said. “Patience. It takes time to get all the players together on such short notice.”

  As if on cue, the lever jerked upward, the door unlatched, accompanied by the high-pitched sound of metal grinding against metal. Two men walked through, and had Eve not embraced them both, I would’ve already known their names. The sons of Adam had dark, rich skin like their mother’s, but only Cain’s hands and feet were stained with the dirt that Eve wore. It must’ve been a mark, a reminder that they’d failed God—maybe even ancient burns. The sons were nearly identical with their round, deep-set russet eyes and short chins they’d inherited from their father. The high cheekbones and jawline from Eve. Their dark hair was so coarse but soft like wool, braided close to the scalp. Deciding which was Abel and which was Cain wasn’t difficult. The taller brother had the glow of a glorious eternity spent in Heaven; the other was shorter and hunched over, worn and haggard after spending the same time in Hell.

  It was strange knowing Eve was their mother. She looked maybe ten years older than Cain.

  Abel spoke in a language I didn’t understand, but he said it with a smile.

  “I’ll translate. They can understand you, but the descendants of Adam speak their father’s tongue only,” Eve said. “Abel apologizes for their tardiness.”

  “Abel,” Levi said, outstretching his hand. “Thank you. I know you took a great risk to get my mother through the gate before my father could stop it.”

  Abel spoke, and again, his mother translated. “I’m the first human to arrive in Heaven. One procures many favors over such a long time. I called in them all,” he said with a smile. “Sans one.” Abel turned to his brother.

  “Cain,” Levi said with a nod.

  “My debt was to Ramiel,
” Cain muttered, communicating with Eve’s assistance. “He’s helped me escape from many horrors here, in this very place. He asked me to use my position to retrieve Gehenna. You brought it, yes?”

  Eve didn’t have to translate the last part, but any explanation had to be cut short.

  “Yes,” I said. “Levi has it.”

  Ramiel’s expression changed. “Levi, do you sense it? Your father knows.”

  Levi nodded. “My senses are weak, but yes. That I can feel.” He grabbed my hand, turning toward the corridor. “The tunnel Kershus came in through. Where does it lead?”

  “To the temple,” Ramiel said. “You’ll need to escape through the portal. Don’t hesitate. Abel will destroy it behind him.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  Recognition hit, and Levi’s shoulders sagged. “No. No, not you, too.”

  Ramiel smiled. “A sacrifice is a sacrifice, no matter where it happens, and saving you will help me see Lizeth again.”

  “They’ll tear you apart,” I said, my brows pulling together. “And it won’t be immediate.”

  “I’ve endured worse,” Ramiel said. “And then I’ll be with her. Anything is worth that.”

  “That’s what all of this is about? To return you to Lizeth? I don’t understand what part the brothers will play.”

  Eve smiled. “Ramiel will rejoin Lizeth. Cain and I will finally be free of this place with the help of Gehenna.”

  “You expect me to kill you? The mother of all humanity and her first son? It will disturb The Balance to use Gehenna. I can’t, even if I wanted to.”

  “Not you,” Eve said. “You.” She looked to Levi.

  “Me?” he said. He was keeping weight off his ankle as much as possible, signaling he was feeling worse, not better. He wasn’t healing at all, now.

  Cain spoke to Ramiel, his words quick and without emotion. “This will be your part, Levi. As the Keeper of the Balance, Eden can’t do it, but you can.”

  “Once it’s done, Levi,” Ramiel said, his voice low, “once you know I’m gone, you must go through the portal. Abel has to destroy it before he leaves to let me into the Eighth Pearl.”