For the Hell of It (Razing Hell Book 1)

by Cate Corvin

  “Silly Nephilim.” I touched his lips. “There is one thing I’m going to do, because I’m not dying tonight.”

  “Which is?” he asked, his lips pressed tight against my fingers.

  I smiled. “Kill it in one minute.”

  25

  Melisande

  As soon as I stepped into the arena, the sin of hubris bit me in the ass.

  Hard.

  I gripped my spear and stared up at the monstrosity Belial had unleashed on me.

  The manticore’s baleful tawny eyes glared at me, rheumy and full of pure hate. Patches of fur were missing from the striped orange-and-black hide, exposing raw flesh. The beast’s stinger-tipped tail switched back and forth like an oversized cat’s, droplets of venom sizzling as they spattered the obsidian floor.

  A transparent barrier had been erected around the arena floor’s walls, blocking the audience from taking a faceful of that scorching venom.

  My heart thumped a hollow beat in my chest when the manticore spread its wings, revealing the holes and tears ripped through the delicate hide.

  It might’ve been a cruel beast, even an evil one, but it’d been savaged before it ever made it to the Seventh Circle. Not for the first time, I felt a terrible pity for one of the creatures I was forced to fight.

  It crouched and hissed, a long uninterrupted stream that sounded like a thousand snakes.

  No matter what I felt for it, there was no doubt it was going to try its hardest to kill me.

  I wrapped my fingers around the spear so hard my knuckles turned white, my heart thumping in my ears. Belial’s voice seemed to swim to my ears from a thousand miles away, like I was underwater.

  “Give a bloody welcome to No Saint, demons,” he called, and as I circled the manticore I caught sight of him on the throne of bones, perched on the edge of his seat, watching me avidly.

  Tascius was in the gladiators’ spectator box, his pale hair a beacon, hands clenched on the wall. Even Yraceli was there, chained to the bones behind the safety of the barrier.

  A sweep of shadows flickered in the corner of my eye, and Lucifer and Azazel took their place on their own dais. The screams of the demons quieted a little at the sight, but the murmur steadily grew back into a roar.

  They were all here, of course. Right when I was starting to feel like my overconfidence was the tiniest bit overblown.

  The last dais remained empty, and I put my back to it as the manticore hissed again, whip-like tail lashing the air. Several drops of venom sprayed on the obsidian only inches from my feet, sizzling pockmarks into the stone.

  I swallowed my trepidation, but caught sight of something that gave me hope: an entire slice of the arena packed with demons, horned and winged and clawed, wearing raven feather wings and cloaks and wire halos.

  They held up a sign, eyes flashing from smears of black war-paint as the others around them screamed: my wings, topped with an ebony crown.

  Unlike the rest of the chanting demons they were unnervingly silent, but they were clearly there for me. They seemed completely at ease with the shrieks of their fellow spectators, but the manticore’s sudden roar drowned them all out.

  I took a deep breath and spread my wings. A manticore was nothing.

  I’d held the Sword of Light and hadn’t died, though I had the scars to show for it. I’d fallen from Heaven and hadn’t died, though I’d been taken captive. I’d survived four rounds in the Seventh Circle, and I was still whole.

  I had the four men who pushed and pulled me, twisting me from the inside out, all cheering my name.

  I could do this.

  My wings beat the air and I flew upwards, angling my spear for the creature’s heart.

  The manticore raised its own wings, creeping into the center of the arena on dripping paws, but it made no move to follow me. It was too crippled by the holes in its wings to fly.

  I ignored the slam of my heart against my ribs, the echo of screams and cheers, the cold bead of sweat that ran down my spine. There was nothing in the world but me and the manticore below, its eyes tracking my every movement.

  I tucked my wings and plummeted, narrowly avoiding the lash of its tail as I thrust the spear forward.

  The manticore moved like lightning, batting away the spear with a paw. I felt the wood bend under my palms and released the shaft before it could snap. It went clattering across the floor and the manticore licked its lips.

  If the thing had human expressions, I would’ve said it looked satisfied.

  My wings snapped out and I fluttered backwards, making a series of hops to avoid the crashing paws as the manticore advanced.

  It hissed, its hot breath carrying the reek of carrion, and a blast of hot wind hit me from behind as the arena doors opened.

  I couldn’t look at the new arrival, not if I wanted to avoid being gutted right there in front of the demons I wanted to impress, but the crowd fell dead silent. Trepidation prickled over my skin as a pitch-black shadow crept through the stands and climbed the stairs of the empty third dais.

  The manticore lunged, its tail whipping around. I almost tripped in my haste to avoid the translucent stinger and caught myself with outspread wings carrying me upwards.

  My spear was on the far side of the arena. I darted downwards, dodging another blow from the stinger, and hit the stone floor with a thud, gripping the shaft.

  Something heavy slammed into me, sending me flying across the floor.

  There was a collective gasp at the sight of the venom sizzling across my thigh and calf, but… there was no pain. The stinger hadn’t penetrated me, and even as the venom crackled, it didn’t breach the leather Azazel had given me.

  My eyes darted up to the Watcher, whose face was uncharacteristically drawn and pale. Lucifer’s hands were curled around the arms of his chair, every muscle in his body drawn tight as a wire.

  What were they so worried about? I hadn’t died yet.

  I jumped to my feet, stomach muscles screaming from the effort, and lifted the spear. The manticore tossed its head.

  Running forward, I spread my wings like I was about to take flight, and the manticore’s head jerked upwards, already following a motion I hadn’t made.

  I threw the spear, torquing my upper body to get the most thrust. The muscle in my back went tight, knotting near my shoulder blade, and my wing curled in on itself from the pain.

  The manticore screamed, a horrible cacophony that filled the arena and bounced off the walls, doubling back.

  My spear wobbled where it’d buried itself in the beast’s chest, blood painting its ragged fur in a slow flood.

  But the manticore didn’t fall. I’d missed its heart.

  Swearing under my breath, I took a step back, narrowly missing a puddle of venom. The manticore brushed at the spear, snapping away the visible shaft.

  Then it rose, head lowered to charge.

  I glanced up at Azazel. He’d wanted to teach me for a reason. My hands were empty, but I still had a weapon.

  I reached for the dark fire inside myself, drawing it forth to sear my veins and fill me with its burning wrath. It parched every cell in my body, but I gritted my teeth against the pain, and tasted a hint of petals among the ash.

  If I wanted it to work for me, I needed to stop fighting it.

  The manticore paused, its eyes glued to the dark flames licking my fingers, and I forced my shoulders to relax. I welcomed the fire, every bite of pain, the sensation of being so flooded with power I could annihilate anything in my path.

  The agony lessened. It was small, but the magic seemed to shift with me, coiling through my blood and bones like a snake. The taste of flowers overtook the taste of embers.

  I exhaled, sending white-hot sparks dancing through the air.

  “Come get it,” I growled at the manticore, which was slowly regaining its courage and creeping forward.

  Its tail arched over its back, the stinger trembling as the beast aimed it at me, venom welling at the sharp point.

&
nbsp; Flames curled playfully around my fingers, and I cupped my hands, gathering the sparks into handfuls of black fire. The manticore lunged, the scorpion’s tail striking out.

  I lunged sideways and the stinger slammed into the floor. Drawing back a glittering fist, I plunged it into the throat of the beast, still scrambling to recover.

  My silver claws pierced its hide, holding me fast.

  The manticore’s shriek nearly deafened me. My ears rang as I blasted my unholy fire through its veins, scorching the beast from the inside out. It thrashed and struggled, but I dug my claws in deeper, pouring a ceaseless torrent of fire into it.

  The manticore shuddered and fell still, smoke rising from its open mouth.

  A moment later, the swaying tail dropped with a thud, venom spilling across the floor. It was dead.

  I curled my fists, willing the fire to retreat from my veins, imagining the sensation of cool water pouring through me, the soothing touch of Azazel’s healing magic. My heart pounded in my ears like a drum.

  Bit by bit, the fire withdrew, curling back into the depths of my soul. I took a shuddering breath, exhaled the dregs, and opened my eyes. The sparks spun away and died on the air.

  Then I realized that everyone was screaming, stomping their feet. The pounding wasn’t my heart.

  It was the cheers pressing in on me, even as the magical barrier melted away.

  So I hadn’t beat it in a minute, but it didn’t matter. I’d won, and my magic hadn’t consumed me.

  I couldn’t stop the grin that spread across my face, raising my fists and shaking them at the stands. I let out a wild war-cry that my followers echoed back to me, their wings bouncing as they started to mosh.

  “Fuck yes, I did that!”

  I wheeled around to face Belial, expecting congratulations on winning my fifth round, maybe a bit of appreciation for the fact that I’d just taken down a motherfucking manticore with my bare hands.

  Like Azazel and Lucifer, he was tense, a muscle ticking in his jaw. His usually-brilliant eyes were dark as he gazed at the third dais, poised like he was about to grab his own weapon.

  The unease I’d pushed aside came back full force. Under the exhilaration of victory, I felt a presence on the dais behind me, a malevolent creeping touch that felt like nails being dragged over my skin.

  The last thing I wanted to do was turn around. Even Tascius was silent, his mouth a thin line.

  I forced myself to look.

  My breath caught as I took in the wavering shadows spilling from the form of a man in a black suit. He sat on the dais with one leg crossed casually over the other, revealing cloven hooves where feet would have been otherwise.

  A pair of curling goat horns had knocked his stovepipe hat slightly askew, and horizontal pupils spread across his eyes. Satan’s mouth was red as blood against skin as white as snow.

  He was smiling, but there was something detached about the expression, like his human face was a mask stretched over something else.

  All the demons on that side of the arena had backed up, piling over each other until there was a wide empty area around his dais. There was no sign of any female demons in the crowd now.

  I wished I was like Azazel and could become shadows at a thought. It’d be worth making a sacrifice to an interdimensional deity for the ability to fade from Satan’s sight.

  His goat-like eyes crawled over me inch by inch, leaving me feeling filthy everywhere they touched.

  Satan held up a hand, showing fingers that had too many joints, and several pitch-black moths fluttered out of sleeves and resettled on his suit. I had the sudden uncanny impression that his suit wasn’t made of cloth, but composed of nothing but night insects.

  A black spot appeared in the center of his corpse-pale palm, growing as I watched.

  When a black stem took form, the bud bursting into the full bloom of a rose, my heart froze over.

  Everything Vyra had warned me about came crashing down on me. Satan’s Brides. A black rose marking them as his next conquest.

  I should’ve let the manticore kill me instead.

  He plucked the rose from his palm and held it out, leaning forward in the chair. I shuddered as the light glinted off tiny black beetles crawling through its petals. It looked like a dead thing, even though I’d just seen it grow.

  I remained frozen in place, unable to approach or flee. Satan’s grin stretched wider, growing until it showed teeth from ear to ear, and my heart skipped several beats until warm hands touched my shoulders.

  Lucifer Morningstar pulled me behind him, defiantly gazing up at his father with cold quicksilver eyes.

  I didn’t want to admit that I was hiding behind him, but one of his wings was slightly extended, forming a slight barrier between myself and Satan.

  The tension stretched between them, Satan’s mouth growing impossibly wide, until the King of Hell finally tossed the rose to the arena floor at my feet, never taking his oblong pupils from my face.

  “For you.” His whisper was the crackle of dead leaves, with the faintest trace of an echo behind it: tormented screaming. A shudder ran down my spine.

  Satan rose from the dais, his movements as jerky as a puppet’s, and Lucifer turned to block me as Satan approached Belial’s throne and bowed to him, his spine crackling with the movement.

  When he passed the dais where Azazel and Vyra sat, he paused, and a forked tongue flickered from between his lips.

  “Delicious,” he sighed.

  Vyra, already pale, had gone the color of parchment, her lips trembling. She shrank behind Azazel, huddled to make herself smaller, and the Watcher blocked Satan’s view of her, raising his chin and refusing to be cowed.

  Satan just laughed, another shuddery, whisper-like sound that reminded me of centipedes slithering over each other.

  He jerked and twitched his way to the arena door, shedding beetles and moths, and as soon as he hit the bloodred light he collapsed into a puddle of insects, his human form disappearing entirely. The insects all took flight, disappearing back into whatever corners of Hell they came from.

  I drew a breath into air-starved lungs and looked down at the rose. It was already crumbling at the edges, but the promise and threat was very clear.

  I’d been seen, and he’d marked my face.

  Lucifer stepped on the rose and crushed it, grinding it into dust underfoot.

  26

  Melisande

  Despite the fear still coursing through me, I raised my hands again, rallying the demons and whatever strength I had left.

  As soon as Satan had disappeared, they’d rushed to fill in the void of space he’d left behind. Some were leaning over the wall, hands extended, and I stepped from the safety of Lucifer’s wings to reach out and touch them, circling the arena.

  By the time I’d circled back to Lucifer I was half-running, half-skipping, letting the hype of victory flush the remaining fear from my system.

  “What in the fuck was that?” I muttered through gritted teeth, keeping a big smile plastered on my face like I hadn’t just had the shit scared out of me. “Why was he here?”

  Azazel had grabbed Vyra when I passed, the two of them vanishing from sight. His gaze had burned into me before they disappeared.

  I hoped she was having a strong drink now, even if she was technically safe from Satan’s touch thanks to her brother’s sacrifice.

  “It wasn’t really him,” Lucifer said, but his tension hadn’t abated.

  I looked up at him. “I’m going to need you to explain that in very clear detail, because it sure as hell seemed like him.”

  Belial was suddenly at my side, picking me up and placing me on his shoulder out of Lucifer’s reach. The two princes gave each other narrow-eyed looks before Belial strode away, but he couldn’t shake Lucifer that easily.

  I shook my fists at the raven-feathered slice of my followers, spreading my wings wide. Several small loose pinions shook free.

  I hadn’t anticipated that almost thirty of them wo
uld stream over the arena’s walls, converging on the place where we’d been only seconds ago and fighting over those fallen feathers.

  “My god,” I whispered.

  One of the demons threw a solid haymaker into another’s face and absconded with the tiniest bit of down fluff. He cackled as he scampered back into the stands, his fake wings bobbing manically.

  “You’ve surpassed fans into fanatics,” Belial said admiringly.

  Lucifer rolled his shoulders with a disgusted sigh. “This isn’t the time for your humor, Prince.”

  Belial just gave him a crooked smile. “There is no time that isn’t the time.”

  We passed under the archway to Belial’s private rooms. The warmaster’s hand was warm against my thigh, and I found I had no desire for him to remove it.

  It was dark enough in the long hall that I let my hand drop to cover his fingers. I couldn’t see his expression when he glanced up at me.

  “You are aware that was Satan, yes?” I could almost hear Lucifer’s eyebrow arch as he spoke. “No part of this situation warrants jokes.”

  “Yes, I’m aware that the goat-eyed freak was Satan,” Belial said, a bite of impatience in his tone. “And no, I’m not remotely worried about him or anything he’ll do.”

  Belial lowered me into his arms as we reached his door, gently placing me on the floor. I was getting so used to being manhandled by the enormous pureblood demons that being lifted up and down was becoming second nature.

  “You should be.” Lucifer’s whisper was flat, hardly echoing. “He could tear this arena down around your head, prince or not.”

  Belial leaned in so the two of them were towering over me. In the darkness, the flames dancing in his eyes were even more prominent.

  “Him and what army?” he whispered back viciously.

  Lucifer fell silent, considering his words.

  Belial shoved the door open and we spilled inside. I almost started when I realized people were already waiting for us.

  Azazel was lounging against the wall like always, his arms crossed over his chest and jaw clenched. Tascius sat in a low chair, his forearms braced on his thighs, head bowed. My gifted feather brushed his cheek as he looked up, relief overtaking the concern in his eyes.