For the Hell of It (Razing Hell Book 1)

by Cate Corvin

I gave Capheira one more lump of sugar while they saddled her, and Belial opened the gate. Capheira stepped through, lightning crackling around her hooves with every step, and I mounted her easily, bracing my boots in the stirrups.

  “Where are we going?” I gathered her reins loosely, but Capheira obediently followed Belial back into the open sunlight. Arcturus was being tended by imps, already prepared for his prince.

  Belial mounted him and rode up. Capheira gave Arcturus side-eye, flicking her tail in warning at the flaming horse.

  We were going to get along damn well.

  “The Nightside,” he said, nudging Arcturus into a walk. “Capheira is more comfortable in the dark. It’ll make it easier for you to get used to each other if she’s happy.”

  I nudged Capheira, and she broke into a walk, cantering to get ahead of Arcturus. I resisted the urge to smirk at Belial’s oddly-intelligent horse as we passed. “I wouldn’t think you’d have time to tend demon horses when you have an entire arena to run.”

  I didn’t add how appealing I found it that he was so gentle and loving towards them. He didn’t need more ammo against me. I could just picture him lounging around braiding flowers in ponies’ manes to melt my heart.

  “Humans always said dog is a man’s best friend.” Belial drew even as the horses clopped onto the obsidian streets of the Seventh Circle, kicking up sparks of fire and lightning. “Untrue. A horse is your companion, your mount, your shield, and just as vicious as a dog if they’re trained well. Arcturus is better than an entire pack on the battlefield.”

  His horse tossed his head under the praise, and Capheira snorted steam. I patted her sleek neck as lightning rumbled inside her.

  We cantered past hundreds of obsidian buildings, shimmering heat waves rising into the air from their roofs. I realized I was gaping and shut my mouth with a snap. From above, in Azazel’s arms, Dis’s buildings looked almost like dollhouses.

  From the ground, they towered overhead, sometimes blotting out the bloody sun. The higher circles rose around us like mountains, and the dry wind sometimes carried a whiff of a new smell: jasmine from Lust, incense from Heresy.

  The crowds made way for Belial’s horse and I followed in the clear wake he left for me. I knew nobody would try to come after me in his presence, but I still had a shock when I saw that we weren’t alone.

  A contingent of demons followed us, draped in black cloaks despite the heat of the Brightside.

  Raven feathers covered their hoods and spilled over their shoulders and backs. Silver chains were draped around their necks, the end of either chain hung with spiked iron balls that swayed with their footsteps.

  There were only ten following our footsteps, but even as I watched, several cloaked demons broke free of the crowds and joined their numbers.

  We were going to have an entire army following us by the time we made it to the Nightside. A bead of sweat slithered down my back, and I turned my head back to Belial. “Should I have worn the cloak? What are they here for?”

  He glanced at the chained-and-feathered demons following us in a dark tide, then turned that mysterious, cat-like smile of his on me. “Might makes right.”

  Whatever the hell that meant.

  By the time we trotted up to the line of demarcation, the demons had swelled to a crowd of nearly fifty. “What do they want?” I asked in a flat whisper, my back prickling at the thought of so many unseen eyes on me.

  Belial held out a hand, gesturing to the Nightside. “After you.”

  I nudged Capheira, and she practically sprinted into the darkness, her tail twitching with relief. My heated skin immediately cooled down, and suddenly the wind wasn’t scorching hot, but pleasantly warm.

  “They want to follow.” Belial followed me, his fiery tones muted in the shade of twilight. “Angels follow archangels because they were chosen by God, and his word is their law. Demons follow whoever the fuck they want, usually the one they deem the strongest.”

  “Please tell me they’re following you,” I said, but Belial gave me a look. “Fine, fine. What… what am I supposed to do?”

  We passed a glittering fountain teeming with transparent, ghostly fish. Several shades dipped their hands in the water and raised cupfuls to their mouths.

  Everything in the Nightside was shrouded in shadow. Alleyways became ominous gaping mouths, buildings were titans looming over the Circle, the lit windows like eyes that watched us.

  Petals shed from drooping trees, and the ivy that grew over everything bloomed with luminescent flowers. My breath caught at the beauty of it.

  If I chose to stay in Hell, this would be the side I’d choose, the darkness full of secrets and decorated with flowers and animals that gleamed like jewels.

  “Whatever you want.” Belial nudged me with his elbow. “Have them feed you grapes. Stage an uprising. Run a coup on the Seventh Circle. They’re wearing your symbol; they’re your demons now.”

  “But I’m a slave,” I said, holding up my left palm and flashing his sigil, like he might’ve forgotten it was there. “Slaves can’t have followers.”

  Belial’s eyes lingered on the mark, and an odd expression pulled at his features until he smoothed it away. “They have free will. If they want to follow someone bound to a Prince, that’s their choice.”

  “And what if I did choose to stage a coup against you, Prince?” I asked, my tone tinged with sweetness.

  Belial cast me a slick side-long look. “Then we’d have to duke it out in the arena again, wouldn’t we, my lady?”

  I laughed, startling a flock of ghostly birds out of a tree. “I’d love to.”

  “I know you would,” he said, his voice deepening in timbre. He reached out and touched my cheek, every centimeter of skin he touched lighting up under his fingers like he’d set fire to me. “It’s one of the many things I find so endearing about you.”

  My mouth just about dropped open again. Belial, the Prince of Wrath, confessing to finding something endearing?

  “Careful,” I said lightly. “You wouldn’t want the other Circles to believe the Prince has a weakness.”

  “Let them believe what they want.” He had all the casual arrogance of someone who’d never been beaten, and likely never would be.

  Capheira snapped at a passing dragonfly the exact shade of sapphires, and my gaze jerked away from Belial at the sight of a massive obsidian building that loomed out of the murk.

  It was almost identical to his arena in the Brightside, with spires rising towards the sky and massive entryway, but the ebony doors were crooked on their hinges, and the creeping vines had nearly overtaken the black stone of its exterior. “What is this?”

  “The Nightside’s arena,” he replied, looking up at the black spires. “I prefer the sun and the heat, so this one has been unused for nearly a century now.”

  I squeezed Capheira’s reins and she stopped, her lightning illuminating the shadows around us. Without the rhythmic clop of her hooves, the scratch of cloth robes and clank of chains became much more apparent as my strange crew of followers caught up and fanned out to nearly encircle me.

  “I think it’d be very beautiful if someone took care of it.” I could already imagine the stone polished again, the glowing flowers trimmed into delicate arrangements, the glow of lanterns as warriors came from far and wide to test their strength against each other…

  The sound of doors creaking open from across the street broke my reverie. I tore my gaze from the Nightside arena and saw a demon hurrying down the steps of some heathen temple to a war-god.

  The demon himself wore a bastardized version of a monk’s robes, the scarlet cloth torn and frayed at the edges. I peered past him into the temple, and instead of a war-god, saw the icon of a war-goddess: a massive fresco covered the wall, depicting a woman riding a boar and carrying a bow and arrow.

  He stopped in front of Belial but did a double-take when he glanced at me.

  “My Lady… my Prince, it’s been too long since we’ve seen you in the
Nightside. We have a request.”

  Belial wheeled Arcturus around so he could face the monk-demon. “Tell me.”

  I had to resist the urge to snort at someone calling me ‘lady’ in anything but mockery. I was Belial’s soul-branded slave.

  And he’d addressed me first, over his prince. How strange.

  “A wyrm has taken up residence in the Starsea. It is disrupting our pilgrimages and the caravans from Tuonela.”

  “I’ve got just the angel for it,” Belial said with a grin. The monk bowed, all three of his eyes full of relief, glanced at the horde of feathered and chained demons around us, and backed away to his temple.

  “So we’re going to go fight a wyrm.” I couldn’t help but tighten in anticipation. “Sounds like a date.”

  “I’m glad you’re so easy to please,” Belial purred. “Give her blood and she’s happy. My kind of woman.”

  I glanced down at one of the cloaked demons, trying to think of how to ask them to leave us alone without sounding imperious. With a brand on my hand, imperious was the last thing I needed to be.

  “Hello. I’d like to do this alone with Belial, so… could you do me a favor, and maybe start getting some of the ivy cleared off those doors?”

  I pointed at the decrepit arena, already anticipating a hiss of denial and irritation.

  The demon bowed, raven feathers gleaming with blues and greens like an oil slick. “It would be our pleasure, Lady.”

  “Um… thank you.” I watched in astonishment as the demon rose to his feet and began spitting orders. The chains clinked as the demons split into groups, descending on the arena.

  “Is my arena so good you need another?” Belial edged closer, his spice-and-whiskey scent warming me from the inside out.

  “Do you want company on our wyrm-killing date?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m doing you a favor, giving us alone time and taking care of the Nightside of your Circle.”

  He held out a hand, eyes glittering. “To the Starsea, then.”

  I took it. His fingers curled around mine, promising more than bloodshed, if I wanted.

  I did want more. A lot more, to be honest.

  We rode through several more miles of the Nightside until the main thoroughfare split off, leading upwards through the other Circles.

  Capheira swished her tail at any demons who got too close for comfort, sensing my reticence at being touched by demons who didn’t wear feathers, but it still wasn’t quite enough. Hands brushed my calves, my hair, even my wingtips, until we left the Seventh Circle for the Sixth.

  The touching might’ve stopped, but eyes were still on us as we passed through the upper Circles. I didn’t want to know how many of those eyes belonged to demons who’d report our passing back to Satan.

  At least on the Nightside we were close to Blackchapel-

  The reason why Belial preferred the Brightside was instantly obvious to me. He might like the sun, but there was the added bonus of being nowhere near Azazel or Lucifer.

  On the other hand, knowing I was on the side of Dis with the one place Satan couldn’t enter was extremely comforting to me. Belial was confident his mark would prevent me from being taken again, but Satan had given me his token… and he was the King of Hell.

  We passed through the First Circle into the Fields of Asphodel. Capheira snagged a few of the little purple flowers as we passed, earning herself a few dirty looks from the ravenous shades. There was a broad path worn through the tall grass, indicating how many demons usually passed this way.

  The mist grew thicker at the edge of the meadow, and I tensed in the saddle, remembering the mind-bending phenomenon of the memory-rift. Belial’s hand tightened around mine as though reassuring me.

  “Close your eyes,” he said as the mist thickened. “I’m with you.”

  I licked my lips, still nervous, but did as he instructed, wrapping my fingers tightly around his wrists.

  Capheira loped under me easily, but it still seemed like an eternity before Belial stroked my wrist with his thumb. A breath of clean, cool air touched my face, wiping away the humid touch of the mist that had beaded in my hair.

  “Welcome to the Starsea, it’s- fuck, that’s a big wyrm.”

  29

  Melisande

  “But is it as big as yours?”

  The words popped out of my mouth before I could swallow them. Then I opened my eyes and gasped.

  The Starsea was beautiful. Black sand rolled in gentle dunes in the twilight, each grain shimmering as brightly as the spill of milky stars overhead. The sand was so smooth it was like seeing the sky reflected in a vast ocean. I wanted to scoop up a palmful of that fine powder and see if it glimmered in my hands as brightly as it did on the dunes.

  “Nobody’s wyrm is as big as mine, angel,” Belial said dryly, but my eyes widened when I saw a titanic coil of moon-white scales slide beneath a dune, sending a wave of glimmering sand pouring downwards.

  “Fuck. That is a big wyrm,” I breathed.

  Another small avalanche of sand shifted, and a pair of reptilian eyes flicked open, each one several feet across. The striations gleamed in shades of jade and emerald like gemstones.

  “But…” Belial clapped his hands together, generating a flame between them, and slowly pulled them apart, molding the flame like taffy. A long spear formed from the flames, the iron point gleaming a bloody red. “Not as big as mine, as we’ve established.”

  “Hmm.”

  I took a deep breath, summoning the flames inside me, and imitated his gesture. The darkness flared around my hands when my palms met, and a cold sweat broke out across my forehead as I focused on forcing them into taking a consistent, solid shape.

  My spear wasn’t as long, but the point was curved and wickedly sharp like a thorn, pitch-black all the way through.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said, wiping the sweat from my brow as I lifted it. “No one’s is as big as yours.”

  Azazel was going to shit a brick, he’d be so proud.

  Belial laughed, his eyes gleaming. “Then let’s go kill us a wyrm, angel.”

  I dismounted from Capheira and patted her nose. “Stay here,” I whispered, and took flight.

  The cool air of the Starsea buoyed me as I soared overhead, following the bright streak of flame that was Belial and Arcturus. They moved like a comet, the shifting sand melting into plates where the horse’s hooves touched.

  The wyrm’s eyes closed, and sand shifted as it burrowed deeper beneath the desert.

  I circled overhead like a vulture, watching for any dune that wasn’t being naturally blown by the wind. They rippled in eddies and waves like an ocean, tossed around more violently in the area where the wyrm had made its nest.

  Finally, I caught sight of something that was unnatural: a pool of sand deepening into a pit, like water sliding downwards. “There!” I shouted, pointing with my spear.

  Belial steered Arcturus towards the whirlpool, and I followed, riding each breath of wind as lightly as a leaf.

  The wyrm burst out of the desert like a shark breaching the ocean. Brilliantly white teeth caught the starlight, a vast maw lined with rows upon rows of fangs.

  Arcturus reared, and Belial threw his spear. It was a perfect shot, but the wyrm reared, and the spearpoint buried itself between the teeth instead of down its throat.

  The wyrm’s mouth snapped shut, shattering the spear into a million tiny pieces.

  I swooped low, following Arcturus’ trajectory as the horse circled the whirlpool. “Bring it back up.” I banked and rose, shooting back into the sky.

  Once the wyrm breached again, I’d strike from above and pierce the vulnerable throat that Belial’s spear had missed.

  But the wyrm didn’t appear. The sand trickled downwards, slowly filling the pit it had left in its wake.

  Belial threw himself from Arcturus’ back, landing with feline grace on both feet. The flaming horse continued on as the prince shifted, his bulk growing into massive proportions as the lion made an
appearance.

  The flame-tipped tail switched as he prowled over a dune, opening his mouth to release a wild roar.

  I was willing to bet the wyrm was male, if for no other reason than it apparently being incapable of backing down from an open challenge.

  The dune under Belial shifted and the wyrm exploded outwards, wrapping its iridescent coils around the lion and tightening.

  I dropped lower, leveling my spear, but they rolled so fast it was impossible to tell where the lion ended and the wyrm began. Flames poured from Belial’s mouth, leaving scorched black streaks across the wyrm’s pearlescent scales, and several strong kicks opened deep slashes in its body. Viscous dark blood splattered across the sand, sinking into the desert without a trace.

  “Fuck.” I hissed the word, swooping in low and following their mad tangle of teeth and claws.

  Belial finally broke away from the wyrm, his paws digging trenches in the sand as he skidded to a halt. The draconic creature thrashed several times before it faced him, but I already had a perfect target painted on the back of its frilled head.

  I shot forward, throwing my spear with perfect accuracy. The point punched through iron-hard scales and embedded itself in the back of the wyrm’s skull.

  It stilled, and I prepared myself to cheer, but the massive head swiveled around slowly until its eyes focused on me. The pupils narrowed to wire-thin slits.

  Belial roared, trying to catch its attention, but I had to flap hard to dodge the wyrm’s explosive movement. Feathers drifted in my wake as I barreled upwards, but the wyrm lunged, kicking into the air with a sinuous movement.

  Of course this fucker can fly, why would this be easy?

  A massive force slammed into me, knocking me aside. I spread my wings to catch the wind, tumbling head over heels-

  And landed in a puff of powdery sand. I slid down the dune in a tangled mess, flipping onto my back in time to see the wyrm’s crushing bulk falling towards me, so wide it blocked out the stars.

  An ear-piercing roar made my bones vibrate, and I squeezed my eyes shut as the wyrm descended.