Chapter 33
FREE SPIRIT
THE SECOND BELIAL’S FOOT TOUCHED THE EDGE OF THE portal, it sucked him straight into its vortex. But this spell wasn’t like a hellgate. It wasn’t a rough ride. Instead, it felt like his body briefly vaporized into tiny particles, only to reform again on the other side.
This spell must have required untold sacrifices and magic to penetrate straight through Lucifer’s ironclad defenses and into the center of … wherever this was. Of course it didn’t function like a normal gate.
Bel looked around.
For the most part, everything was blackness. He was standing in a long tunnel, the purple glowing portal still swirling around him.
Ahead of him was a stone door. On that door was inscribed a seal. The lines had been drawn in blood, and at one time they would have glowed red with Sheolic magic. But thanks to Murmur, the magic had been broken. Now they were only faded and cracked lines, the old blood already flaking away.
All Bel had to do was walk forward and open that door.
Then his task would be complete and he would be free to go.
Judging by the absence of anyone in the library and the chaos reigning outside, Bel suspected that the Necromancer was indeed dead, though he didn’t know how or why.
His second favor would never have to be fulfilled. He would be free of Murmur forever.
He would also have Lucifer after him and way bigger problems to deal with, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
He stepped forward out of the portal, and paused for a moment to look behind it. A tunnel stretched before him, leading into darkness. His nape prickled. A suspicion arose, but it was too inconceivable to believe.
Curiosity got the best of him. He turned, careful to inch around the edge of the portal so he didn’t get sucked prematurely back to the library, and then he walked down the tunnel.
The faint purple glow of the portal was the only source of light, and as he moved farther past it, it faded to complete darkness.
He guided himself by keeping one hand on the wall.
A voice whispered in his head that he was fucking crazy for walking down a black tunnel with no idea where he was going, especially when his task was back in the opposite direction.
But he had to know.
With his next step, the ground dropped out beneath him.
His foot landed on empty space, and he was halfway into transferring his weight forward before he lurched back. He swayed briefly over the steep drop before correcting his balance, heart pounding.
A fall like that wouldn’t kill him—he was a demon with wings after all—but nobody liked the sensation of a sudden, unexpected plummet into an abyss.
Despite the impossibility of it, he suddenly knew exactly where he was.
He stepped back to the edge of the precipice, leaning out as far as he could, and looked down.
Sure enough, far below, he could make out a flickering orange glow. A lake of fire, filling the entire bottom of the chasm he was peering into. He twisted and looked up. The edges of the enormous pit rose for what looked like miles. High above, he could see the faintest smear of the red sky.
The longer he stared, the more his eyes adjusted, until he could discern faint smoke spiraling around the inner walls of the chasm.
Souls.
He knew how this place worked. After death, human souls were judged. Those who were unworthy were sent to Hell to face penance for their evil misdeeds. They were sorted into nine levels. Nine layers of suffering, worsening depending on the amount of evil staining the soul.
Belial was standing somewhere in the Nine Rings.
No one was supposed to come here. Not even Lucifer.
The giant chasm of the Nine Rings was in the center of Lucifer’s territory.
No one dared even fly over it, lest they be sucked into the vortex of souls below.
The Rings were guarded by reaper-like beings who oversaw the souls within.
Those beings never left the pit, and no one who wasn’t supposed to be there entered.
If they did, they never returned to tell the tale.
The High King’s lair surrounded the Rings, and it was his job to guard it, ensuring no one trespassed into the forbidden chasm, and that the souls who went in didn’t come out until they were ready for reincarnation.
All that Murmur’s letter had told him was that he was to take a portal to Lucifer’s territory and open a door. But he hadn’t mentioned anything about the Nine-fucking-Rings. Why would there be a door with the High King’s seal on it here of all places? And what was behind it?
Belial backed away from the edge.
He couldn’t answer the many questions he had, but he could get himself the fuck out of here. He wasn’t supposed to be here, and he feared that if he stayed too long, the guardians would find him.
His blood cold, he made his way back down the tunnel until the faint glow of the portal reappeared. He sidestepped it carefully once more and approached the forbidden door. The door that Murmur had evidently died trying to gain access to.
Why? He supposed he was about to find out.
The door had no handle and no hinges, and was in fact just a huge block of stone set in front of an opening. It would take impossible strength to move, but Lucifer had that in spades.
Bel reached around to grasp it, but the stone was larger than his arm span. He gritted his teeth. He was too small to reach it in human form. Of course he was.
He stood back. Closed his eyes. Curled his hands into fists. And then he breathed out in a long, deep exhalation.
And he gave into the rage.
The internal walls he’d built around it fell away, and a fiery ecstasy charged through his veins.
His vision was overtaken by fire. Everywhere he looked he saw flames, and it was fucking glorious.
He wanted to burn alive in it. He wanted to destroy everything in his path.
He wanted to bathe in blood and stand atop the crumbling ruins of the world, knowing he had brought about its end.
Through the intoxicating rush of his inner darkness, he maintained a tenuous grasp on the present. He was so tall now, his head hit the roof of the tunnel. And he could have gotten much bigger, had he the space.
He reached out, wrapping his arms around the heavy block of stone. In this state, the stone felt light, and he gripped it easily. He turned, hefting the enormous piece of rock, and with a roar, chucked it down the tunnel, past the portal, and into the chasm beyond.
At his back, he felt an ice-cold blast.
He spun around. The opening before him was pitch-black, but he could hear moans and screams within. And then suddenly, there was a rushing sound, like a river breaking free from a dam.
And then souls came.
They blew past him, shooting with powerful force down the tunnel. Their essences brushed against him, offering him glimpses of their lives and memories … and he knew.
He knew exactly what Murmur had done.
From the depths of the lightless chasm, the soul cried for release, his cry mingling with the others.
Thousands of haunted, voiceless screams, were trapped in this blighted place.
There was no release for them, no end to their suffering.
The great dragon sucked their essences, draining them like water from a punctured vessel. They knew only darkness.
To them, death had not meant release, but enslavement.
But then … everything changed.
The door was opened. And there was freedom at last.
Suddenly, the soul was rushing toward some unknown destination. Thousands of other souls went with him, all chasing their long-sought salvation.
But then he felt a tug. A tether, drawing him back.
Not back in the direction of the prison, but … somewhere else. To a place that had once meant everything to him but now seemed like a distant memory. Did he want to go back there? He could sense that if it fought hard enough, he could snap the tether and continue on.
But … something called him back.
Some voiceless, faceless longing told him that he had unfinished business. It told him that there were wrongs he had to right, mistakes he’d made that he had to atone for.
So he surrendered, and he let the tether take him.
He was sucked backward. He slammed into a confined vessel, his formless essence imprisoned by atoms and molecules. Rushing rivers of blood deafened his inner ear. The throbbing pulse of life beat like a drum.
And then he sucked in a breath … and opened his eyes.
Soaring through burning skies, high above the scorched plains and bone-littered mountains, the High King of Hell let out a mighty roar.
Ahead, the Necromancer’s lair loomed, its stone spires like a dark crown. He’d been flying rapidly toward it, planning to take that castle apart piece by piece until he found the traitor within, feasting on the flesh of any creature who stood in his way.
Instead, he froze midflight. It could not be. Surely he was mistaken.
And yet … Suddenly weakened, his wing beats faltered, and he plummeted toward the ground below. Just before he made impact, he managed to gather his wits enough to pump his wings and bring himself back to altitude. But his mind continued reeling.
In the heart of his fortified territory, in the deepest, darkest depths of the Nine Rings …
A door had opened.
His secret source of power had been compromised. The souls he had imprisoned were rushing out, finding the freedom he had denied them.
The High King opened his throat and roared with impossible fury.
It was a roar so great, the entire underworld shook. The plains trembled, cracks snaking along the hardened surface. Boulders tumbled from the tops of lifeless mountains.
Demons from all across the land screamed and covered their ears. Some fell into the fissures opening in the ground. Others were crushed by falling rock and debris.