Daniel
He still couldn’t believe he was here. It didn’t seem possible that this was really Hell.
He’d tried to live a good life. He was never supposed to know what Hell actually looked like.
And sure, he’d come here through some mitigating circumstances.
It wasn’t like he was sent here. But more than anything, he wanted to be back on Earth with his brother.
He wanted to see Julian shoot Valac that dopey, lovesick look again.
He wanted to hear Talon bitch at somebody and then turn around and call Alex ‘little bird’ in the most tender voice he’d ever heard.
He wanted to hear one of Ashmedai’s raspy little laughs and watch his brother’s face light up at the sound.
They were his friends, his family, and he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve being ripped away from them so soon.
He ducked his head and rubbed a hand over his eyes. For someone who didn’t have a physical body, it sure felt a lot like he was about to cry.
When he raised his head, his breath caught in his throat. Around him, the forest was gone.
He was in the Rink. The disco ball’s lights twinkled around the room. He could smell the rubber floor mats, coffee, and pizza. Papers and laptops were scattered across the ancient air hockey table, and the multicolored lights over the training area gleamed.
They were all there. All his friends. Nicolas was in Ashmedai’s arms by the table.
Talon, Alex, and Ira were on the sofa. Wolf sat on the armrest by Ira.
Malachi and Luke were side by side in a pair of folding chairs.
Nathan sat on a stool at the table, poking at a laptop, and Storm leaned on the table beside him.
Valac was in an armchair, and Julian was on the floor at Valac’s feet, leaning against his legs.
Shadrach and Isaac were by the snack bar while Shadrach mixed himself a drink.
“I mean, if it had to happen to anybody, it was better that it was him, right?” Talon said.
“Absolutely,” Alex said earnestly, threading their fingers together. “He didn’t have someone like the rest of us. He wasn’t immortal like us, so he was going to die eventually, anyway. Better him than any of us. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you behind or watching you die.”
“I hate to say it,” Nicolas said in a way that suggested he didn’t hate to say it at all, “but you’re right. Danny didn’t have anybody special he was leaving behind. If anybody had to take that fall, I’m glad it was him.”
Pain lanced through Daniel. “Wait, what?” he croaked. “Nic, you don’t mean that.”
“Yes,” Ashmedai rasped, one black, clawed hand caressing Nicolas’s jaw. “Better him than you.”
“Ashmedai,” Daniel protested. “Stop it, you guys.”
“It’s not like I ever had any visions about him,” Ira said, shrugging. “I knew he wouldn’t be around long.”
Daniel gaped. “That’s…”
True. It was probably true. If Daniel was supposed to be there in the future, Ira would have known it.
Maybe he’d even known Daniel would die, but he couldn’t very well tell him that.
If he’d known, he might have tried to change things, and changing something could have wrecked everything.
Better to let him die than risk that, right?
“It’s not fair,” he breathed. “Please, Nic, please say something. Maybe I didn’t have a partner, but I had you.
You’re my brother. You’re the one I left behind.
Why won’t you say anything?” He reached out to grab Nicolas and shake him until he acknowledged Daniel, but his hands went right through him.
Daniel staggered, gasping sharply. He wheeled around—
A ghastly figure with black holes for eyes and jagged teeth lunged at him. He screamed, jerking back, and fell.
He landed in water. For one terrifying moment, he didn’t know which way was up. Kicking, flailing, he got his feet under him and broke through the surface, sputtering. Bright sunlight blinded him.
“Daniel Joaquin, move your ass!”
Was that…? Daniel shook the water from his face, and yes, that was his dad standing on the lake’s dock.
A handful of other paladin parents were on the shore, watching.
Right, they’d come here for a training exercise.
There were other teens around him, all swimming as hard as they could, pushing past each other, shoving each other under the water to get a leg up on the competition.
Daniel threw himself into the fray, heart pounding in his breast. He didn’t want to do this, but letting Dad down would be worse.
Hands with too-sharp nails scrabbled at his limbs.
An elbow landed in his back, and he swallowed a gulp of murky lake water.
Before he could raise his head, another body landed on him, pushing him completely under.
He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping they would move and trying not to panic.
When he opened his eyes under the water, that face was there with its gaping black eyes and cruel looking teeth. Strong, bony fingers wrapped around his wrists, dragging him deeper into the water. He opened his mouth to scream—
He was dry. Sunlight beamed down on the guild’s carefully manicured courtyard. Daniel heaved for breath, leaning against the wooden post in front of him as relief swept through him. It was gone. A bad dream, maybe. He was safe at HQ again.
“I hereby sentence you to twenty lashes for treason,” Commander Sloan’s voice rang out, and Daniel’s eyes sprang open, stomach bottoming out in terror.
The wooden post. He tried to move, but his hands were shackled in place around it. His shirt had been cut down the back.
“Wait. No!” He yanked at his hands, but the shackles held fast. “No, you can’t!”
A sinister laugh filled the air—one that wasn’t there on the day he actually received these lashes.
“Let me go!”
Pain shot up his back as the whip landed. He cried out.
When he opened his eyes, they landed on Nicolas. He was standing with their old squad, pointing and laughing.
“Nic, help me!”
“You deserve this, little brother!” Nicolas called, grinning. “Give him another, Commander!”
The whip scored against his back again, and Daniel gritted his teeth.
Again. And again. Blood trickled from the wounds, and his head swirled dizzyingly. He just wanted it to be over. Please God, let it be over soon. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Stop!”
He knew that voice.
“Take your hands off him, witch!”
Daniel opened his eyes. HQ was gone. Nicolas was gone.
He was back in the dark forest in Hell, pinned face-first against a tree trunk by an unfamiliar weight.
His back stung, and when he turned his head, he saw that horrible face again.
Pale white with empty black holes for eyes.
He wanted to scream, but it lodged in his throat.
Its mouth twisted with fury, and it spun away from him.
Daniel sank to the ground, trembling, as it collided with Chaol.
He was like an avenging angel, his dark eyes blazing as he grabbed the demon, slamming it into a nearby tree.
The color leached from his body as he transformed, his wings flaring out behind him as he lunged forward and tore the other demon’s throat out with his sharp teeth.
It took almost no time at all. Was the witch that weak or was Chaol particularly powerful?
“Danny,” Chaol snarled as he tossed the body away carelessly. “Danny, my darkling.”
He gathered Daniel into his arms and sat down right there against the tree trunk. His wings wrapped around him, cocooning him from the world, and Daniel let himself be held, tucking his face in the curve of Chaol’s neck while his teeth chattered.
“I’m so sorry,” Chaol said, rocking him from side to side. Clawed fingers gripped the back of Daniel’s head. “I didn’t know one of those fear-sucking assholes was nearby or I never would’ve left you alone, I swear. Are you okay? I can smell your blood.”
“It was—” Daniel stopped, barely able to understand himself. He shook his head, pressing closer, and Chaol’s arms and wings tightened around him.
“Not real,” Chaol said sternly. “It was not real. Whatever she showed you, whatever you saw, it wasn’t real.”
“But it was,” Daniel whimpered. “Not all of it, maybe. But some of it.”
“No, it wasn’t. Think about it. Even if you saw memories, they weren’t exactly what really happened, were they?”
Well, no. Nicolas had been there the day Daniel received his lashes, but he certainly wasn’t standing there laughing.
They’d had to hold him back. Daniel watched tears stream down his brother’s face as the whip scored his back.
It was one of the worst days of both their lives.
And it had been ten lashes, not twenty, given to him by Father Conroy.
Commander Sloan never handled the whip himself.
And the swimming exercise had actually happened, but while he remembered it with zero fondness, no one shoved him under the water or dragged him down by the wrists.
Dad yelled at him a lot and lectured him for not finishing first in his age group and made him do the swim a second time alone to prove he could beat his previous time—which he wasn’t able to do, because he was exhausted.
They’d driven home in silence, and he’d never felt like a bigger disappointment.
But the first part that took place at the Rink?
That never happened. His brother and friends said all the worst things Daniel thought about himself.
That he was lonely and worthless and nobody really cared about him.
But he knew in his heart it wasn’t true.
Nicolas loved him. None of them would be okay with him dying.
Maybe Ira had known, but the prophet didn’t have a malicious bone in his body.
He must’ve had a good reason for keeping it a secret.
Maybe, Daniel realized, Ira had known Daniel would come back as a demon. Maybe that was why he hadn’t said anything. At this point, it was the best he could hope for.
“Danny, please talk to me,” Chaol whispered. “Are you okay? I should look at your back.”