The Road To Hell Part 23

"Daun." I wanted to plead with my hands, but he hadn't given me permission to move other than to speak, so all I could do was beg with my voice. "I really love him. I didn't ask to. It just happened. And I can't just tuck it into a jar and put it on a shelf. Please try to understand. He's my everything."

My words hung in the air between us. He looked at me, his gaze heavy on my body, judgment waiting in his eyes. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't command you to forget love." he said, "to forget your man. One reason why I shouldn't command you to stay with me."

Staring at the incubus who had been my friend for thousands of years, who had helped me more than once and saved me from human horrors, I held my head high and answered him truthfully. "Because the only way for you to have me like that is for you to force me to stay, to use the power of the soul bond to make me forget him. And you said yourself, you're not into power games."

A pause that stretched into forever as he considered my reply, and then: "You're right, babes. I did say that." An ugly smile stretched across his face. "But demons lie."

s.h.i.t.

"I do so love that look you get when you think the world is ending. It's positively addictive." His eyes gleamed, glowed, and a wicked grin ate his face. My legs tried to move, to get me away, but all I could do was stand and watch as he spread his arms wide. "I don't need to play those games, Jezzie. Because I have power. Far more than you know."

A humming, deep, like the slow waking of hornets in winter. Then a ripping sound, followed by the crack of bones. Something rose behind Daun, unfolding, growing up and out, until he was surrounded in shadow. It split in two, stretched out behind him, huge, batlike, as blue as his flesh.

Wings.

I stared at those blue appendages, a tiny voice in my mind gibbering that this was impossible-Daun wasn't strong enough to have wings. G.o.ds wore them like otherworldly accessories; angels sported them as a given. But for demons to have wings, they had to ama.s.s an incredible amount of power. Only the elite and the greatest rank of lesser demons could fly. Daun was-had been-a second-level Seducer. What was he now?

Pit swallow me, how strong was he?

He said, "It's the new me."

"You wear it well," I replied, my voice a smothered scream. "Looks like I missed a lot in the month I was gone."

"You have no idea." He clamped his hands onto my shoulders, dug in tight. "But you will. Come on, babes. Time for the grand tour."

A slap of brimstone, and then the underworld shifted.

One thing about materializing in midair: it really f.u.c.ks with your equilibrium.

My hooves dangled in the air, the hot winds over the Lake of Fire brushing against my most sensitive spots and searing my nostrils. For a split second, I felt Daun behind me, his hands hooked into my armpits and his c.o.c.k pressed against my lower back. I had time to very distinctly think: Oh s.h.i.t.

And then we fell.

Aaaaaaaaaah!

Before I could muster a proper gut-busting scream, Daun stopped our plummet, beating his wings against the stagnant air with powerful strokes, almost as if he were swimming. We hovered over the fulminating Lake, its orange-red surface dotted with specks of blue flame. From this height, a gla.s.sy sheen covered the fiery liquid like a birth cowl: strands of molten lava, caught in the Lake's updraft, quickly cooled to form delicate filaments, easily broken. Pretty, in a third-degree-burn sort of way.

Look at that. We weren't going to cannonball into the Lake of Fire after all. If I had still possessed all the standard human bodily functions, I would have shat myself.

Daun seemed to be enjoying the situation immensely. With every downward thrust of his leathery wings, he bucked his hips against my back. h.e.l.lo, erection jamming into my spine. Normally, I'd be jockeying for a better position, but at the moment, suspended over the Lake of Fire, the last thing on my mind was s.e.x.

Mental note: Avoid the Mile High Club.

If not for Daun's earlier command to stand still, I'd be scrabbling up his back right now and holding on for dear afterlife. I had this thing about flying: I hated it. Based on how my stomach was lurching, it hated me right back. And there was nothing I could do about it; I was literally Daun's prisoner.

Being dead sucked. I so wasn't going to do this again.

Even this high up, the smell of the Underworld filled the air-rotten eggs and acrid heat that was almost palpable; sewage and sweat and the tangy scent of fear. Problem was, it was my fear I smelled, which took the fun right out of it. Beneath us-way, way, way, way, way beneath us-the Lake churned. If I fell from this height, would I hit the bottom of the Lake?

Huh. Did the Lake even have a bottom?

Sounds drifted up from the Third Sphere, pulled me out of my thoughts of free falling: shrieks of the d.a.m.ned, vocal chords straining, voices filled with tears; laughter of their tormentors, burbling with mirth. The screams and the guffaws mingled, forming a cacophony of joyous misery. But as I listened to the music of the Underworld, I thought the chortles sounded forced, almost as desperate as the mortal pleas for mercy.

"Look, babes." Daun's deep voice reverberated in the air like thunder. "h.e.l.l, scurrying beneath your hooves. See how it's changed?"

"All I see from here is the Lake."

He clucked his tongue. "Then you're not looking hard enough."

We moved, cutting through the red-tinged air. Daun soared with confident strokes of his wings, as if he'd been created to ride the wind. All I can say for me is that I didn't vomit. The last time I'd flown anywhere was when Meg had taken me to the First Sphere, before the Announcement that had rocked the Abyss to its core.

She didn't drop you, Peaches whispered. Neither will Daun.

Yeah, but what if I weigh too much for him to hold?

Peaches sighed. Daun's right, you know. Sometimes you're such a girl.

Go f.u.c.k yourself.

Okay, a naughty girl. But still a girl.

As we flew, my fear slowly ebbed, replaced with a dawning horror. Daun was right: h.e.l.l had changed. Dramatically. "Where's the Wall?"

"The King destroyed it, about a week after you hoofed it to the mortal coil." I heard the rage in Daun's voice, felt the tension in his arms and stomach as he carried me. "Said we had no reason to hide our glory. Glory. Pfaugh!" He spat, and his loogey spiraled down, disappeared somewhere over h.e.l.l.

Me, I'd always thought the Great Wall that had surrounded the periphery of h.e.l.l was rather gratuitous. It's not like we really needed to defend ourselves against invaders. And let's face it: the d.a.m.ned weren't going anywhere. Other than the mortal intimidation factor, I hadn't seen any purpose to the Wall. But still, it had been ours-a colossal, defining characteristic of the Abyss.

And now it was gone-apparently in a blaze of glory. Somehow, I doubted the King was on a Bon Jovi kick.

All I could say was, "Wow." An incredible understatement, but it summed it up. "Just... wow."

"And that's not the worst of it," Daun said. "Look down at the boundaries."

Beneath us, I clearly made out the peripheral shape of the Pit: an extremely elongated oval, with a neck at the crest that served as the entrance to d.a.m.nation. I didn't see the mighty Gates. Gone, I realized-without the Wall, there could be no Gates. My heart shriveled. I'd always liked those wrought iron fortifications, with the placard of welcome hanging over them, attached by severed hands. All creatures had been required to pull a stint as Gateskeeper on a rotating basis. When it had been my turn at the Gates, I would enjoy examining each new mortal entrant to the Pit, sniffing out each sin and confirming that yes, this person was d.a.m.ned. I loved tasting fear wafting from the souls of the truly evil, enjoyed sharing my brethren's infernal victory over another job well done.

All that, gone.

Outlined in the blue-threaded orange of the Lake of Fire, h.e.l.l sprawled, its heat-baked surface glowing with the colors of various Sins. Northwest was the powder blue of Sloth, its snake pits reduced to black dots along the rocky terrain. Bordering it to the east was the red glow of Wrath, home to Beserkers and those mortals who had dedicated their lives giving into their rages. From this height, I couldn't see the dismembered body parts that littered the ground, but the Mount of Prometheus-where the enraged were chained until they didn't have enough limbs to be bound to anything but the inside of a plastic bag-stretched up like the Earth giving Heaven the finger.

I squinted. Something looked off about the boundary between Sloth and Wrath, but I couldn't quite place it. Frowning, I scanned the rest of the Third Sphere, the plane of the d.a.m.ned and lowest level of h.e.l.l, trying to pinpoint what was different.

Just south of the Berserkers, the turquoise of Envy spread out long, coming to a wide base, where the bulk of its freezing waters were kept in cast-iron tubs that could fit a hundred humans apiece. Beneath Envy was the squat, yellow land of Covet with its towering cauldrons of boiling oil (in pots of gold, of course). To the west of Covet were the Heartlands of l.u.s.t, their dark blue boundaries housing legions of bonfire mounds. The Pridelands stretched northwest of l.u.s.t, swathed in royal purple, their enormous instruments of torture winking beneath me like millions of fishhooks laid out in neat rows. At the a.s.s-end of h.e.l.l, appropriately enough, sprawled Gluttony in all its vomit-green finery.

Again, something nagged at me, like a tickle I couldn't scratch. Which, given how Daun hadn't allowed me to move yet, was spot on. "What's different?" I asked aloud, more to myself than to Daun.

"The boundaries," he said again. "Take a good look."

I stared at the section between Pride's purple and l.u.s.t's deep blue... and with a gasp, I saw it: the boundaries had blurred, bonding the lands of the Arrogant and the Seducers. The same for the boundary between l.u.s.t and Gluttony-the blue and olive green merged, softening the outlines of Sin.

"How could the boundaries blur?" I said, my head spinning. Most of the denizens of the Abyss despised those not of their own Sin. And that was being generous. The Envious and the Greedy had hated each other for a slight impossible to explain or understand, from the very beginning of the Underworld. Pride and l.u.s.t had a deep loathing for one another that was almost as old. The Lazy, when they could be bothered to actually think, hated everything that moved. And so on. The only things that kept infernal tempers in check were the unmistakable boundaries of Sin. All demons could traverse all parts of the Third Sphere safely to deposit their mortal catches; no matter how the nefarious detested one another, we all played for the same team-and there were rules to follow. Without a mortal client in tow, however, demons traversed the Lands of Sin at their own risk outside of their home base. From as far back as I could remember, it had been that way.

But now, with the boundaries softening, that could only lead to open conflict among the malefic. It was worse than throwing oil onto a raging fire.

"He's reshaping the Abyss," Daun said with a snort. "He says it's a kind of shock treatment."

"The King Himself is doing this?" I asked, stunned. I'd thought that maybe h.e.l.l was reshaping itself to reflect the mortal coil, with its ever-changing standards for Sin. "He's the one who said we were too soft, and this is His response-to soften the boundaries of Sin?"

"Yep."

I seriously wondered if the King of h.e.l.l was r.e.t.a.r.ded.

Daun growled, "He's d.i.c.king around with everything. The Kings of Sin are clawing at themselves, this close to declaring a war of Sin and Land. And that's not even getting into all the changes in the elite."

My stomach lurched, but this time it had nothing to do with our flight. The elite of h.e.l.l never changed. Sort of like death and taxes were a given for the humans, the elite being permanent a.s.sholes of the Pit was a given for the lesser demonfolk. "What sort of changes?"

"Rosey's gone," Daun said, his voice low-pitched, sharing a secret. "Our sovereign ruler destroyed him a few days ago."

Rosier was-had been-the Prince of l.u.s.t, second only to King Asmodai. "s.h.i.t. What did he do to score oblivion?"

"He bragged to Naberius how he was going to drop you at His feet, to show Him and all of h.e.l.l that he could clean up His mess."

Eek. "Did he now."

"The King got word of it. He summoned Rosey to His side and boom, demon ash all over the Courtyard. It's how I earned my wings-there was a hole in the ranks, and Pan tapped me."

My eyes widened. "Bless me, Daun-are you one of the elite?"

"No. Not yet. But at the rate our Dread Lord is going, soon." He lowered his voice. "Rosey's not the only one He's destroyed. Just the most recent. He did it in front of the other Kings and princ.i.p.als, just before He etched the Great Rule onto the side of Abaddon."

"The Great Rule?" Before the Announcement, there had been ten. After I ran, Daun had told me the King had blasted them off the side of the infernal palace. "What Rule?"

"Look to the east, Jez."

I turned my head and saw the looming mountain fortress of Pandemonium, home to all demons and other nefarious ent.i.ties-and, towering above it, the black palace of Abaddon, gleaming, a dark jewel at the pinnacle of the Underworld. Even from this distance, I could make out the six-word command, etched in the palace wall: OBEY YOUR KING OR BE DESTROYED.

Staring at those words, I felt my stomach knot.

"There's a desperation in h.e.l.l that never used to be here before," Daun said, his voice whisper quiet. "Nothing you can easily place, but it's a feeling that's there all the same. The elite are paranoid, the Kings are itching for war. The place is rank with tension."

"And the fumes from the Lake of Fire."

"That's my babes," Daun said, "always quick to point out the obvious. You want down?"

"Please."

"So polite. Being human's screwed with your sensibilities."

We flew down at a stomach-flipping speed. Bless me, I didn't know how birds managed their swan dives without barfing all over their feathers. Down, down, the land of l.u.s.t blooming beneath us, spreading out like a fungus, the screams and stench of burning humans a.s.saulting my senses. Daun zoomed us past the main Burning Grounds, flying us over the heads of demons and d.a.m.ned alike, all too lost in their own torments to notice two more ent.i.ties soaring past.

As we approached the base of the Second Sphere, Daun slowed. The main path framed the bottom of the black mountain, leading up and in. Off to the left, another path veered around a crop of large boulders, leading to a hidden point beneath the ebon crag of Pandemonium.

"Here we are," he said, finally coming to a halt. "You can move now."

As my hooves touched the rocky soil, he shoved me away from him. Off balance, my legs tangled beneath me, and I stumbled to the ground. Demon fall down, go boom. Ash puffed around my face, and I spat dirt from my mouth. Nothing said h.e.l.l like a mouthful of barren soil.

"The Abyss is nowhere near as fun as it used to be," Daun said.

"I'm getting that." Propping myself up onto my elbows, I looked up at him. Staring down at me, Daun radiated s.e.x, his long hair windswept, his arms folded over his broad chest. He could have been the cover model for demonic romance novels.

"You chose to run away from h.e.l.l," he said. "You chose to become a human for real, complete with a soul. You're so big on choice, Jezebel. Well, here's another choice. Either stay with me here and be a demon once more, be true to who you really are. Or go in there, into the Caverns, and try to find your poor lost love. But if you do that, you do it without my help."

"How can I choose?" I couldn't hide the bitterness from my voice, from my thoughts; it coated my tongue like vinegar. "You own me, Daun. You can tell me what to think. Anything I do, how can I know if that's really my choice?"

He chuckled. "Well, I guess that's a chance you have to take. Now-either me, with all the hedonism that implies, or him, lost forever. Choose."

I already had. From the moment I'd called Daun's name in Paul's apartment, I'd made my choice.

Biting my lip before I spoke, I tried to think of the right words. Nothing came to me, so I told the truth-a former demon's last resort. "I love him, Daun. I have to go find him."

His body showed no reaction; his face remained impa.s.sive. But his eyes... bless me, his eyes blazed hotter than any of l.u.s.t's bonfires. "Fine."

How could a creature of Evil sound so hurt? So small? "Daun..."

He motioned with his hand, and his heavy presence vanished from my mind. "I've released you. No more soul bond. You're free. For whatever that'll get you."

"Thank you." I pulled myself up until I stood before him on wobbly legs. "I knew you would free me. You'd promised on your name."

A smile flitted across his lips, cold, mirthless. "Demons lie, Jezzie. You should remember that. Go on, try to find your flesh puppet. But I'm not fishing you out when you get lost." His smile slid off his face. "You go in the Caverns, babes, you're on your own."

I threw myself on him, wrapped him in my arms and planted a huge kiss on his cheek.

"I'll be back," I said, hoping I wasn't a liar.

"Uh huh," he said, shrugging out of my embrace. "Care to place a bet?"

"I already have."

"Bye, babes."

"See you on the other side." With that, I turned away from him and marched into the Endless Caverns.

Chapter 17.