Chapter 18 Cinder
CINDER
“Isabel, as in the bitch who cursed my bloodline?” I tightened my grip on the machete, anger making my blood burn in my veins. But anger wasn’t the right word. Resentment, maybe fury. No…
What I felt was pure rage.
“The one who tricked me, stole the amulet, and locked me in the dark prison for four centuries.” Discord fumed, his voice dripping with malice as his muscles tensed. “The reason for all our strife.”
Isabel grinned wickedly through the glass. Too many teeth filled her smile, sharp and pointed, erasing what little humanity she might have possessed. She rose to her bare, calloused feet, a tattered black skirt billowing around her ankles as she lifted a leg and stomped on the roof.
The glass cracked around her heel, fissures jutting in every direction, and Discord and I backed away. She stomped again, fracturing the roof even more. As she lifted her foot a third time, I dove beneath a table.
She shattered the glass. The entire roof crashed down around us, and I shielded my face against the shards as the most wicked witch of all descended upon us.
Discord did not follow my lead. He stood there, stance wide, ribcage expanding and contracting with his forced breaths, his skin bloodied from the raining glass.
Isabel floated to the ground, her bare feet landing in a pile of broken shards.
She twisted, bending her body at an unnatural angle to sneer at me beneath the table, and the glass crunched.
She winked and straightened, stepping toward my demon, and I expected her to leave a pool of blood where she had stood.
A few shards stuck in the soles of her feet, but she didn’t bleed. Not even a little.
Discord let out a guttural roar and charged toward her. I scrambled from my hiding spot as his fist connected with her jaw. Her head jerked back, but her wicked grin widened, amusement dancing in her solid black eyes.
She hit back, landing an uppercut to his chin and pissing me right the eff off. The sound of his lower teeth slamming into his top made my jaw ache, and I wasted no time letting her know. I lunged forward, jabbing the machete into her back with enough force for the blade to protrude from her chest.
I yanked it out, ready for her to fall to her knees so I could take off her head, but she just stood there, her laugh too deep, too distant for it to be her own.
And my machete? Not a single speck of blood. That pissed me off even more.
I spun and swung, the blade passing through her neck with little resistance. The action should have lobbed her head clean off, but it didn’t even leave a scratch.
“I will torture your soul for all eternity for what you’ve done.” Discord drew a claw-like tool from his belt and slashed at her chest. She laughed harder, and he tackled her.
“You seduced me. Humiliated me. Stole four hundred years of my existence.” Pinning her arms at her sides with his knees, he wailed on her, landing punch after punch.
Still, she only laughed.
“This isn’t right.” I moved behind him and hacked at her legs. Again, the machete passed through them, not even causing a scratch.
“She will pay.” Discord continued his assault, his chest heaving with the exertion of pommeling his sworn enemy.
I put the trowel back on my belt and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think that’s her.”
“Of course it is.” He jabbed the claw tool into her throat.
“No, Discord. Feel her energy. That’s not a witch. That’s nothing that was ever alive. She’s a tulpa.”
Isabel’s menacing laugh deepened, and she turned to smoke beneath him, reforming on her feet, her image shimmering with demonic magic.
“You’re smarter than you look, foul witch,” she said in Ruin’s voice.
Discord stood, his hands curling into fists, the tendons in his neck taut and protruding. “You dare toy with me?”
“You make it all too easy.” She…he…laughed again. “You’re weak and pathetic, and when you’re out of my way, Hell will be mine.”
Discord’s eye twitched. “I’m only weak because my powers are bound.”
“Even at full strength, you could never beat me.”
My demon crossed his arms, his voice deepening with malice. “Tell that to Bedlam and Tumult.”
“We could join forces, you know.” I interrupted their pissing match, laying my persuasion magic on thick. “Help us find Hecate and return her to Lucifer. She’s what he really wants.”
The tulpa threw its head back, Ruin’s villainous laugh echoing inside the shed. “I don’t give a damn what he wants. His so-called love for that witch has made him weak as well. He sent you on a fool’s errand, and once you’re dead, I’ll take him down too.”
“You’re planning to overthrow the devil himself.” Now it was Discord’s turn to laugh. “Talk about a fool’s errand. You’ve lost half your team already.”
“There’s only room for one at the top.” The tulpa shrugged. “I’d have destroyed them myself if you hadn’t.”
“We can help you.” I laced my words with another wave of magic. “Hecate is pissed at Lucifer too. Help us find her, and she’ll help you destroy him.”
The tulpa looked at me, its expression thoughtful as my magic took hold. Then it shook its head. “I know where she is.”
“Then show us.” I grasped Discord’s hand, squeezing it twice and hoping to Hecate he got the message. It was time for a little truth magic. “Take us to her, become our ally, and we’ll help you overthrow your dickhead…dictator.”
My demon understood the assignment. A surge of magic washed through me, and I opened to it, sending my power into him, countering his discord and forcing the truth.
“Where is she?” we asked in unison. “Tell us now,” Discord added, sending another pulse of magic toward the tulpa.
The being inclined its chin. “I buried her.”
A hollow pit formed in my stomach. The goddess wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. “Buried her where? Show us.”
The tulpa flashed its pointy teeth, lowering its chin in a blood-curdling expression. “With pleasure.”
The entity turned into smoke and shot upward, disappearing into the sky.
My breath came out in a rush, the only sound penetrating the unnatural quiet, and Discord tensed, stilling, listening…sensing. We waited. And waited. Nothing happened.
“Maybe our magic doesn’t work on tulpas,” I finally said.
“It should have.” He cut his gaze around the room. “Filtered, maybe, so not at full strength, but his tulpas are a part of him.”
The tension in my shoulders eased. “Tumult’s tulpas weren’t nearly as scary; they couldn’t actually touch me. I guess Ruin’s had more practice.”
Discord shook his head. “Tumult’s power was illusion. He could not bring beings into existence like this.”
“Can you?” I hung the machete on my belt and tugged from his grasp.
He glanced sideways at me. “Before I was disgraced, yes, I could. But I’ve always preferred to face my conflicts head-on, in person.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed a thread of cowardice running through the devil’s new crew.”
The moment I uttered the words, the ground shook beneath our feet.
Discord clutched my arm and dragged me to his side as a three-foot-wide fissure opened in the center of the shed.
The ground fell away, and the walls shuddered, the tools hanging on them clattering on the floor.
The reek of sulfur and decay permeated the air, and I suppressed a cough as we backed away.
I would never get used to the smells in this realm.
As the earthquake settled, silence engulfed us, and a shaft of red-orange light glowed from below. I stepped toward the crevice, and Discord moved with me, tightening his grip on my arm as if he planned to haul my butt out of there at the first sign of movement.
I peered into the opening and let out a low whistle. “What level of Hell is that?”
Black rock extended thirty feet down on both sides of the fissure, with crimson and violet crystals shimmering and pulsing like living glitter. At the far end of the shed, a stone staircase spiraled into the depths.
“That is not a level of Hell I’m familiar with.” Discord stepped back and slowly made his way toward the staircase. “It’s something entirely new.”
“Something Ruin created.” I followed him, inching along the outer edge of the crevice.
“Most likely.” He frowned, his eyes calculating. “Do you sense Hecate down there? Can you connect with her?”
“Between the scorching heat, the nasty stench, and the weird vibrations, my senses are on overload,” I said. “Anyway, I don’t think I ever did connect to the goddess. I think it was my mom the whole time.”
“It seems we’ll have to check it out ourselves.” He gestured to the steps.
I eyed the staircase and curled my lip. We’d used our newfound truth magic on Ruin’s tulpa.
If it had worked on him like it had on Lucifer, he must be showing us the way to Hecate, but I couldn’t ignore the foreboding feeling settling in my stomach like a brick of leftover meatloaf. “It could be a trap.”
Discord laughed dryly. “It most likely is. Do you have a better plan?”
“Sadly, no.” I shrugged. “Down we go.”
He nodded solemnly. “Stay close, senses sharp.”
“Got it,” I said. “And kill anything that moves.”
We descended slowly, our steps cautious. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the staircase crumbled beneath our feet and we plummeted into the depths. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
Halfway down, the energy around us thickened. The crystals in the walls vibrated, creating a high-pitched ringing noise that felt like it came from everywhere, including the inside of my head. It rattled my teeth, and I ground them together to keep them from falling out of my mouth.
Discord stopped on the bottom step and ignited hellfire in his hand, illuminating the underground chamber.
The walls were made of packed earth, with slabs of obsidian that reflected the firelight.
Gnarled roots protruded from the dirt, snaking toward the sheets of volcanic glass and forming intricately woven frames around them.
Ahead of us lay a pool of dark purple water, so dark it was nearly black, its placid surface so still that it could have been another sheet of glass. A series of roots extended into the pool, their thorns humming in the same mournful pitch as the vines we’d fought above.
“It’s too still in here.” I rested my hand on Discord’s shoulder.
“Most traps are.” He placed his on top of mine. “The calm before the storm. Shall we continue?”
“What else are we going to do? The only way out of this mess is through.” Even though every cell in my body screamed danger! Danger!
The moment my demon’s foot hit the ground, the entire chamber lit up, the walls and roots glowing a greenish yellow that reminded me of the glow-in-the-dark wands we sold at our little witchy shop in Salem. Man, I couldn’t wait to get home.
Discord crept forward, toward the pool, and I stopped in front of a framed slab of obsidian, cringing at my reflection.
My hair was a ratted pink mess, dark circles ringed my eyes, and my skin had taken on an ashen pallor.
If I could perfect my Living Dead walk, I wouldn’t need a costume for Halloween.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am definitely not the fairest one of all. Sheesh.” I brushed the hair off my forehead and joined Discord at the creepy pool.
“Is that water?” I asked, tempted to hop into it and have a little bath.
“Yes, but it’s been bespelled.” He pointed at the surface. “Look closely. Do you see?”
I peered down to find my disheveled reflection next to his. How did he still look so perfect? “I know I’m a mess.”
“Look deeper, beyond your reflection.” His gaze didn’t stray from the pool.
I squinted, trying to ignore the hot mess express squinting back at me, and sure enough, beneath the glassy surface, dozens upon dozens of ghost-like faces drifted in a nonexistent current.
I pressed a hand to my chest. “Those are people.”
“They once were,” Discord said. “Now they’re the embodiment of pain and torment. This water gives Ruin access to their deepest fears and regrets. He uses those, along with their guilt, to hold them, to torture them, to make them a part of his macabre garden.”
“I am so glad I didn’t dunk my head in there,” I said.
Discord looked at me with alarm. “That would be detrimental.”
“That’s why I asked first.”
A strange vocal clicking sound emanated behind us a moment before claws scraped across the ground. We whirled toward the attacker—a solid black, featureless tulpa with blood red eyes—and drew our weapons, but the friggin’ beastie moved faster than an imp at an all-you-can-eat hair buffet.
It slammed into me. My machete pierced its gut as I fell backward. The tulpa disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and I made a giant splash in the purple people eater.