Chapter 28
Fuck! Hell had various alarms. This one wasn’t a good one. Most of Hell celebrated when the Cambion alarm went off because we were bringing one of our own home. Personally, I didn’t think it was cause for celebration. Maybe demons shouldn’t be abandoning their spawn in the mortal realm.
This was the breach alarm. The souls were constantly trying to find a way out of Hell.
They didn’t exactly know that the King of Hell was missing and that’s what was causing thin spots, but they were exploiting it.
The rapists and murderers who didn’t usually play well together were working together to break through.
We were about to explain to her what the alarm was, but the butler was back telling us the princes were here to see her.
Fuck. The princes investigated the first breaches themselves, then decided it was too much work.
It had mostly been Satan, and a handpicked team trying to wrangle the souls back where they belonged.
Satan was here, and he looked pissed. It was usually not a good idea to make the Prince of Wrath angry.
Asmodeus was smirking, and that usually wasn’t a good sign, either.
Whatever was going on, some of the princes looked like they were following Asmodeus for now.
Whether it was because they were using him and letting him string his own noose or they legitimately wanted him in charge was anyone’s guess.
Sydney had her hands over her ears, but she was glaring at the princes like they’d tracked dog shit in the house.
“Does Hell have some kind of alarm that unannounced assholes are about to drop by like they own the place?”
I couldn’t help snorting. I didn’t particularly care for it when she was rude to me, but it was satisfying when she threw it towards people I hated.
“There’s been a breach. We’ve decided since you want to claim the throne, you can handle it,” Asmodeus sneered.
“You don’t have to—” Satan started.
“You’re giving me the chance to be a final girl in a George Romero movie? Bullet to the head, right?”
She actually seemed excited. This woman was insane.
I didn’t live in the mortal realm anymore, but everyone thought these were drug addicts, not the souls of bad people escaping Hell and jumping into the freshest corpse they could find.
She did know she couldn’t just waltz around the mortal realm shooting people in the head like she was living in a zombie movie, right?
She was crazy, so she might not know that.
“Uh, Sydney,” Satan started.
“Or do I have some kind of demon mojo that I can just make their heads explode because the only way to kill a zombie is by destroying the brain.”
“Sydney…”
“Or is this an Exorcist thing because I liked the first one, but I wasn’t a fan of the other five movies.
My high school wasn’t fancy and didn’t offer Latin, and I haven’t been to a single Mass in my life.
I also literally just dealt with projectile vomiting and don’t want to get it on me this time.
Unless they are actually ghouls, then someone is going to have to get me a machete. ”
We were all looking at her like she was utterly insane because she was. That wasn’t how any of this worked. What did she think was going to happen if she tried any of that shit on the mortal realm?
This wasn’t the movies. Humans paid millions of dollars to watch movies where people did magic, but if they actually saw someone doing real magic, they wanted to kill them or study them. It was why we always had to swoop in and get the Cambion kids.
Asmodeus looked like he didn’t know what to do with her.
Honestly, I didn’t, either, but for different reasons.
This was a power play. He wanted to swoop in and throw her into a situation she was unqualified for because he was hoping she told him she couldn’t do it.
I was sure he’d be happy to teach her and worm his way close enough to kill her.
But the little psychopath didn’t want his help. She wanted a machete. Sydney didn’t want anything to do with him.
“Sydney, you wouldn’t be chopping off heads or shooting anyone. You have to speak their true name and order them back to Hell. You have to be specific, or they’ll just jump into another corpse. I’m not even sure you can since your angel side isn’t fully awake yet,” Satan said.
“Dude, lame. You got my hopes up about killing zombies.”
“I never said anything about killing zombies or ghouls or anything that just came out of your mouth,” Asmodeus said.
“It was like wrapping a pair of socks in a big box and putting it under the Christmas tree like it was Barbie’s Dream House. I’ll bet you kick puppies.”
“He might have been missing her entire life, but she is Lucifer’s daughter. What did you think was going to happen?” Satan said.
“Kir was nothing like this,” Mammon hissed.
“Kir was sheltered from all the bad things in the world and it cost him his life. If Lucifer was ready to have kids again, he would have raised a daughter in his image. You aren’t going to be able to manipulate this one like you did Kir.
Sydney, if you want to go fight zombies, I’d be happy to take you and show you how, but there are no shotguns or machetes involved. ”
I saw the look Asmodeus cut Satan. It was pure murder. He wanted to be the one to take her to the mortal realm. Asmodeus was the worst about thinking all demons were cockroaches, but the demons he used for his purposes seemed to think he saw them differently.
He wouldn’t have invited us. He would have taken Sydney on her own and I just didn’t trust this angel. It went further than me hating the idea of a person. Asmodeus was up to something.
Everyone was looking outside of Hell for Lucifer, but what if Asmodeus had known the entire time?