Chapter 15
The wind whippedat Mae’s hair and chilled her face where she clung to Vannog’s back. Vozgan’s father was flying across an immense valley shrouded with mist, his giant wings eating the miles in seconds. The yellow haze swirling above the top of the dark forest they passed churned violently in his wake.
Mae shivered and hugged Brimstone to her chest, Nikolai a comforting, warm presence at her back.
It felt strange being cold in the Underworld. Then again, the place was nothing like any of them had imagined when they’d made the fateful decision to come here.
Instead of a realm of fire and ash filled with the screams of damned souls, Hell looked like a world from the Jurassic era stuck inside the bowels of the planet. It was a veritable maze of cavernous spaces big enough to house mountains and the largest human cities. As for its valleys, forests, deserts, oceans, lakes, and rivers, they dwarfed anything that could be found on Earth.
Artemus was right. Mae’s stomach roiled as she looked over Vannog’s flank toward a distant river of lava. This dimension is too vast and overwhelming for a mere human to comprehend.
You soon get used to it, Na Ri reassured her.
Nikolai tightened his hold around her waist when another shudder racked her body, his body heat seeping into her flesh.
They had spent a few hours resting in Arakiel’s palace after the battle outside his city had ended. The Second Leader of the Grigori turned out to be the cantankerous demon commander who’d looked like he wanted to barf at Ilmon’s show of affection toward his son.
As for the Incubus king, he had left shortly after meeting Vlad, but not before promising that they would soon reunite.
Mae had wondered if Barquiel was behind the army Astarte and her allies had fought, but the Goddess had told her otherwise. And her explanation had been nothing if not sobering.
“Satanael is consolidating his troops by forcibly absorbing demonic settlements,” the Goddess had explained with a troubled expression. “Most of these places are remote and well beyond his usual scope of operation. He’s left them alone for many a millennia.” She drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair. “It seems his council has advised him that now is the time to start growing his forces again.”
“I bet you it was that son of a dung beetle, Oriens,” Arakiel sneered.
The demon commander beside him gracefully overlooked his interjection.
“This will only lead to more territorial conflicts,” Tamiel observed. The Fifth Leader of the Grigori was a demon with wise eyes and a calm demeanor. “We haven’t seen the end of these skirmishes yet.”
“Surely, if those demons and beasts are against being ruled by—” Cortes had faltered.
“Satanael,” Zakiel, the Fifteenth Leader of the Grigori, had added helpfully.
The sorcerer had shuddered. “Yeah, that guy.” He’d studied Astarte and the demon commanders with a faint frown. “Aren’t they technically on your side?”
“Not necessarily,” Ramiel, the Sixth Leader of the Grigori, had replied in Astarte’s stead. “They were willing to slaughter the demons and beasts under Arakiel’s protection to lay claim to his city. Not all those in Hell are capable of upholding alliances.”
Vlad had grimaced. “So, there are different factions even among the demons who oppose Satanael?”
“Yes.” Astarte had sighed. “There are as many cabals as there are breeds of helllizard.”
Mae, Nikolai, Vlad, and Cortes had stared at the Goddess.
“There are many types of helllizard,” Chazaquiel had expounded.
The Eighth Leader of the Grigori had begun naming them before mumbling to a stop in the face of Astarte’s pointed look.
“Come.” Astarte had risen to her feet and turned to Mae. “The hour is late. If we want to get to Hell Deep by nightfall, we should leave now. Alicia and Ilmon are likely already at Armaros’s keep.”
“Should I try teleporting us there?” Cortes had suggested. “All I need is someone’s memory of the place and Mae’s magic to translate it to my core.”
The Goddess and the demon commanders had stared at the sorcerer like he’d suggested they perform a frightful sex act.
“Wait.” Arakiel had cocked a thumb at Cortes, his tone full of suspicion. “This guy can teleport?!”
Cortes made a face. “Let’s just say I gained some new spells after Mae…touched my core.”
This time, the Goddess and the Leaders of the Grigori had fixed Mae with various pearl-clutching expressions of disapproval.
“There were extenuating circumstances,” she’d said defensively.
Astarte had lowered her brows. “So, that’s how you guys got here? A space warping spell?!”
Mae had avoided her stare and maintained a tactful silence.
Astarte’s shoulders had slumped.
Tamiel had gently patted the Goddess’s shoulder. “She is her father’s daughter, after all.”
Mae had brightened. “Oh. Did Azazel do something similar?”
“Don’t sound so damn proud about it!” Arakiel had snapped.
Mae had hesitated. “Alicia told us something recently. That a demon who looked like Azazel was spotted near this domain. Is that true?”
“It is,” Arakiel had grunted. “But I could find no trace of him when I went looking so I am uncertain if it was truly Azazel.”
Astarte’s voice broke through Mae’s reverie. “We’re almost there.”
Mae squinted when they emerged from some clouds. All she could see up ahead was a whole lot of gray.
Nikolai’s fingers clenched on her waist. “Isn’t that a mountain?!”
“Shit!” Vlad cursed.
“We’re going to crash!” Cortes yelled.
“No, we’re not,” Vannog huffed haughtily, smoke billowing from his enormous nostrils.
Astarte smirked at them over her shoulder. “Enjoy the ride, kids.”
She rolled off the helldragon and dropped from view.
Mae’s stomach flip-flopped as Vannog dove after her. Alastair squawked. Popo shrieked. Tarang yowled.
Astarte whooped excitedly where she flew beside the helldragon, her hand skimming his flank.
The floor of the valley rose to meet them at a speed that made Mae’s eyes water. Leaves and branches exploded off trees in the powerful downdraft caused by Vannog’s wings as he pulled up sharply and skimmed the top of a forest.
This is fun!Brimstone chuffed, face wobbling with the G-force.
Mae was starting to think the ride had affected her familiar’s brain.
Vannog sailed over a lake where giant, shadowy beasts swam beneath the surface, folded his wings, and darted inside an opening in the base of the mountain.
Astarte reappeared and alighted nimbly on the back of the dragon’s neck as he glided through a huge tunnel that burrowed beneath the land. She cackled when she saw their ashen expressions in the gloom.
“Ah.” The Goddess wiped a tear of mirth from her eye. “I should have brought a cellphone to the Underworld just so I could take a snapshot of your faces right now.” She chuckled. “Artemus is going to crack a rib laughing when I tell him about this.”
A full body snigger shook her frame.
Mae scowled. Nikolai peeled Alastair’s wings from his face and spat out a feather, similarly annoyed. Vlad was cajoling Tarang out from under his jacket.
“I told you guys she was going to be a pain in our ass,” Cortes muttered darkly, carefully unhooking Popo’s claws from where the parrot clung grimly to his chest.
Vannog navigated a maze of burrows that twisted and dipped and rose beneath some twenty miles of mountains, the tips of his wings at times brushing the rock walls. The gloom finally dwindled when he approached an exit. He emerged into a canyon carved by a turbulent river and looped smoothly around the edge of a bluff.
Mae’s breath caught when the helldragon shot out onto a vast plain where golden fields swayed in a gentle breeze. Her wide-eyed gaze danced over the wheat crops covering the immense prairie and around the ring of towering, mist-wreathed mountains enclosing the valley they were crossing.
Evergreen forests draped the flanks of the peaks, along with colorful meadows full of flowers and pastures where hellbeasts grazed. Waterfalls glinted here and there against dark rock faces, liquid silver cascading down vertiginous ridges to meet the river that meandered through the valley.
“How is this possible?!” Nikolai shouted, stunned. “This place is just like somewhere you’d find on Earth!”
Astarte twisted around and leveled a steady look at Mae. “It is a blessing granted to us by your father’s magic.”
Mae’s stomach knotted as she gazed at the demon Goddess. “My father did this?!”
“Yes.” Astarte faced forward again. “This place used to be like the other valleys we passed not long ago. Dark and bleak, with only dead forests and dry, cracked land. It’s come back to life in the past couple of months. We believe it’s because Azazel found out you were still alive.”
Mae’s fingers clenched on Brimstone. The fox keened softly and raised his head to lick her chin.
“There are a handful of places like this in Hell Deep that Azazel helped create,” Astarte said. “The most beautiful of them was the kingdom he built for Ran Soyun.”
Mae stiffened. “Is that still?—?”
“No.” Astarte’s tone hardened. “The war the first Sorcerer King and Barquiel brought to that dominion devastated it beyond repair. I doubt even Azazel would be able to resurrect the realm he once inhabited with his wife and child.”
A lump formed in Mae’s throat as Na Ri’s sorrow fluttered through her heart.
A city appeared up ahead. A pale citadel crowned the low hill within its towering walls.
“Are those—bones?!” Vlad gasped.
The castle gleamed in the low light, the human remains making up its facade radiating a sickening light.
“Before you get all misty-eyed, those bones are from humans who died in wars on Earth,” Astarte grunted.
“Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel any better,” Cortes muttered.
Mae scanned the landscape nervously while Vannog closed in on the city. She could feel the presence of many demons in the mountains and forests, as well as some thousand creatures who reeked of incubus energy.
The way Vlad frowned as he followed her gaze told her he’d sensed them too.
“Do not fear,” Astarte said. “They are the army Armaros and Ilmon put together to defend this place should Hell’s Council ever dare to invade.”