“Good to see you, Oz. Where’s Ramiel?”
A low growl gurgled from his throat.
“Junior!” Ramiel called, strolling past me as the twins prepared my cage. He was one of the only beings in Hell besides humans not to look like a failed science experiment. He was tall and blond, a jarring contrast to everything else there. His ice blue eyes seemed happy to see me, but thick with an old pain he had been burdened with that would stay with him for eternity. “It’s been a while. I hear you’re in love … again. Why have you put yourself through such torture? You know they’ll come after whoever you care about.”
“It’s her. I’ll only love one woman, Ramiel, just like you.”
His smile vanished. “It’s her?”
I nodded, my body jerked to the side as Ozroth clamped my neck with a thick, rusted metal ring and locked it to one of the long, jagged bones used to enclose the cage. Some were horizontal, some vertical, creating squares for me to see out of, but none of the bones were human. Hell was a punishment for all creatures, from every corner of the universe.
“Wait,” Ramiel ordered, holding up one hand.
“They’re taking you to your father,” he said. “Was she captured?”
“Killed. Lucifer murdered her in front of me … and her family.”
Ramiel had spent eons building a reputation for himself in Hell. Ruthlessness was respected here and nothing else. As the only post-war Arch, Ramiel had to show strength at all times. He now lived among the angels-turned-demons he’d once fought against in the war of all wars: the Battle for Heaven.
Still, his hardened expression wavered just long enough for me to notice.
“She’s at the Temple, then,” Ramiel said.
“In the Bog.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Do you know where Lizeth is?” I asked.
Ramiel’s eyes instantly softened, and his lids snapped shut as he focused on the human woman for which he’d grieved so deeply he’d decried God.
When his ice blue irises were finally visible again, he peered up at the pinpoint of light in the hazy darkness above. “She’s sitting at a small dining table alone, looking out the window over the main gardens. She doesn’t know I’m here; thinks I’ve just gone out for a moment. Sadness doesn’t exist in Heaven.”
He would likely never see her again. Lizeth was taken from him in the early days of humans as an example to other fallen Archs who’d fallen in love with a human and left his Taleh unprotected. Ramiel’s love for Lizeth was legendary; the story that wrote the first rules of Hybrids. Those rules govern superhuman families like the Ryels whose biological connection to their Talehs survival would last for generations, a gift and a curse for the half angel, half human hybrids.
“Is it at all possible?” I asked. “For you to find your way to her again?”
The distant look in his eyes vanished, and his hardness returned. “Only one way, Junior. And sacrifices are hard to come by in Hell.”
He signaled for Ozroth and Mechziel’s minions to begin their journey. Six crooked, timid Underlings scurried from under rocks a few yards away to pick up two long sticks that carried my cage; the rickety, make-shift cell becoming unsteady until they could get a decent hold.
“What can I do to help you, Ramiel?” I asked, sincere.
Ramiel held up a hand, and the Underlings paused. “Help me?”
“What can I do?” I asked again.
He thought about my offer, quiet for several seconds before he asked, “You’re going to try to release Eden?”
I nodded.
“He’ll disown you, Levi, and it will be permanent this time. Not even the favor your mother carries will protect you.”
I nodded.
“But she’ll try. You know she will,” Ramiel said. I couldn’t tell if he was concerned or simply curious. The eyes are indeed the window to the soul. I could see the wheels of Ramiel’s mind spinning, searching for an answer, a solution, something.
“My mother is the only human in history to impress Lucifer,” I said. “He didn’t allow her to live after she gave birth to me. She fought her way back from Hell. Even Eden’s grandmother, Cynthia, wouldn’t stand a chance, and you know she—”
“You’re right,” Ramiel said, amused at his thoughts. “Petra is absolutely diabolical. The stories of Petra are impressive,” his smile faded, “but she’s still human. You do this, Levi… There will be consequences.”
“There always are.”
Ramiel conceded, then took a shallow bow in a gesture of respect. “Good luck to you, Son of Satan. But if I ever catch you in my dungeon again, I’ll kill you.”
“No, you won’t,” I said with a grin.
The Underlings marched forward with a collective grunt, and set out on the pathway leading to Lucifer’s Temple. Pieces of chewed flesh peeked from between their tiny, sharp teeth, human scraps that were fed to them by their demon masters. Humans were plentiful in Hell, used like cattle were on Earth, their byproducts used for all sorts of things. Underlings were far smaller but sturdier, the workhorses of the Underworld. Different from Drudens, Underlings resided only in Hell, created only to serve Hell’s hierarchy. They had no names, no homes, no time to rest, and no rights. I couldn’t imagine a more miserable existence.
With two on each stick, the Underlings heaved me over hills and down ravines, their grayish, thin skin and quick, tiny feet making them seem like naked rats trekking over the uneven ground. Even in the stifling heat, they didn’t break a sweat. We passed oceans of wailing humans, lakes of demons, burning cars and buildings, the fire and soot whipping in the wind. Creatures crawled along the ground like insects, and other curious, creepy beings aimlessly traveled the same road we did, dazed and adrift. A low rumble from the flames and distant, mysterious cracks were the background noise for the nightmarish place I called home.
The entropy and chaos of Hell was familiar, and yet I still felt disdain. Born of the pain but detached from it, I recoiled more than I could witness. I had to remind myself that we don’t always belong where we begin. Love sometimes changes us so much that there’s no going back to who we once were. Eden had freed me, and, despite all my sins, I no longer belonged in the bowels of the universe. For that, I would be forever grateful to her.
The rubble began to give way under the Underlings’ paws, and my fist grew tighter around the bones that surrounded me as they stumbled. They were strong, but their tiny, rat-like eyes made them clumsy. I braced to fall over the narrow ledge they followed to my father’s temple below.
Somehow, we made it to the bottom, and the creatures sat the box I stood in on the ground. Once they completed their task, they backed away, cowering from what was inside.
The temple loomed above me, but not even half as high as the cliffs that surrounded the trench I was nestled in. No windows and only one open entry, backlit by the liquid fire bubbling from the abyss that sat behind the structure. My father’s house didn’t need doors. No one went inside without permission.