Chapter 19
They spentthe night listening to Astarte and Ilmon’s tales of their adventures in the strange new realm they’d found themselves in, all those millennia past. Of how two distinct factions soon formed in the Underworld. The first led by Satanael, the one who had guided them to their downfall, and the second headed initially by Azazel and now by Astarte.
Shock reverberated through Mae when the Goddess revealed that the first hellbeasts who ever walked the Underworld were once divine creatures and humans beloved by the angels who fell from Heaven and were cast into Hell with them.
She couldn’t help but glance at Brimstone and wonder if he too had been a divine beast in his past life. The fox stayed quiet, his eyes closed and his tail brushing softly against her arm.
Ilmon described how the fiends and monsters born in the Underworld, those who had never experienced life in Heaven, turned into brutal savages who only knew how to pillage and kill. And why the Leaders of the Grigori and the fallen angels they led decided to educate and take under their wing as many of these demons as they could.
“Every living thing needs a purpose,” the Incubus king had said quietly. “We decided ours was to attempt to create a civilization down here. Somewhere those who had fallen victim to our dark fate could build a life for themselves and the new families they created, finding purpose until the time of our final Judgment.”
Mae’s heart pounded listening to Astarte and Ilmon share stories of the epic battles that had been fought in the Underworld without mankind’s knowledge. Of otherworldly disasters that had nearly wiped out the human race on many an occasion. Of wars that would have led to the End of Days so many feared had Azazel and the Leaders of the Grigori not managed to foil them.
It was Uriel’s descendants, the Immortals, who had helped mitigate the impact of those catastrophes on Earth. They too had been unaware until recently of the divine hand that had often guided their actions.
Surprise jolted Mae when Astarte revealed how she came to meet the son of the archangel who had commanded the divine army that had banished her and the Grigori to Hell.
“I knew you were enemies but I hadn’t realized he was trying to stop you from opening a gate to Hell.”
The Goddess made a face. “Yes, well, I’m not exactly proud of that aspect of my history.” Her expression turned distant as she gazed at the mist swirling above the distant peaks and forests emerging from the gloom. “Artemus and his friends chose to show me mercy after the contract I made with one of Satanael’s henchmen ended and my purpose for standing in their path was as good as gone. I returned to Hell mistress of my own fate once more and sought out Armaros, Ilmon, and the rest to tell them all I had learned while I lived in the shadows of Satanael’s council. When one of my spies told me the fallen angel who sired Artemus’s twin brother Drake was scheming to drag him to the Underworld, I waited for him to fall to Hell and rescued him before his father could get his hands on him.”
“So, that’s how Artemus ended up coming here?” Mae mumbled.
“Yes.”
Bright spots blinked into life high above as the glowworms roaming the roof and walls of the giant cavern awoke, casting the pale light of what stood for dawn in Hell across the valley. The castle was stirring when Armaros’s hammer finally fell silent.
“It is done.”
Mae’s chest tightened, her unblinking gaze swinging to the anvil he loomed over.
Armaros wiped sweat from his brow and stared proudly at what he had spent the night making. A puzzled expression danced in the demon’s eyes. “I must admit, he came together faster than I thought he would.”
Mae climbed to her feet and rushed over with Brimstone, Nikolai following. The pentagram pendant lay still on the dark block, metal dull and unmoving.
“Hell?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
Her heart twisted when the weapon failed to respond.
Brimstone whimpered in her arms. Na Ri’s anxiety throbbed through her soul.
They couldn’t feel anything from the pendant. Not a spark of demonic energy or even a hint of the thousand fiends who inhabited it.
“Don’t lose hope yet,” Armaros grunted at Mae’s distraught expression. “He still needs some finishing touches.”
Mae tried not to appear dejected. Nikolai put a comforting hand around her shoulders and led her away. She forced herself to have breakfast with him and the others, her stomach in knots as she stole glances at the forge where Armaros ground, filed, and polished the pendant.
The demon handed her the weapon two hours later.
Her hands shook as she took it, the metal cool against her skin.
“Why don’t you try pouring your magic into it?” Armaros suggested.
Mae swallowed. Demonic energy laced with black and white magic bloomed around her as she drew on her cores. She gathered the potent aura into her hands and willed it into the pendant. Brimstone transformed and pressed his brow to her back, his tails vibrating as he lent her his powers.
Despite their efforts, the weapon stayed as inanimate as the tools that had forged it.
Mae’s vision swam with tears. Her shoulders slumped.
No, Na Ri mumbled. This cannot be!
Armaros scratched his head. “I don’t understand. I used the same process the first time I made him.”
“Was there something else?” Astarte frowned. “Something Azazel had to do to make him, I don’t know,” she waved a hand, “—wake up?”
The answer came to Mae and Armaros at the same time.
“Oh!” the demon mumbled.
Mae grabbed a knife from the table, her heart racing. She cut her thumb and squeezed blood on the pendant.
It absorbed the crimson drops with a hungry hiss.
Hope exploded inside Mae, making her dizzy. Na Ri shuddered.
They invoked the name that had inhabited their every dream and waking moment since the fateful night they last fought the Sorcerer King.
“Come, Hellreaver!”
The fire that pulsed inside their cores made Mae gasp. Brimstone stiffened above her when he felt the echo of the weapon’s revival.
A crimson light trembled into life around the pendant.
Nikolai tensed. Vlad and Cortes grew wary. Astarte and Ilmon appeared fascinated by what they were witnessing.
A smug smile stretched Armaros’s mouth. “Told you guys I could do it.”
Mae stared breathlessly at Hellreaver. The power swelling inside her and Na Ri’s cores felt stronger than when they’d first experienced the weapon’s awakening, in the cemetery in South Ridgewood where Rose’s family had laid her empty coffin to rest.
It matched the thickening glow engulfing the pendant.
He is more powerful, Na Ri murmured in a voice full of wonder.
Black and white threads appeared amidst the scarlet energy shivering violently on the metal.
Mae’s eyes widened. Is that because our magic has evolved?!
Probably.
Hellreaver levitated out of her grasp with a speed that made her suck in air. He transformed, the haze around him shrinking down to an aura of black and crimson static.
“I know I’ve asked this question before,” Cortes said leadenly, “but is he bigger too?”
Mae’s heart pounded hard, her stunned gaze riveted to Hellreaver’s new form.
He was sixty inches of wicked menace, his metal twice as thick and gleaming ominously despite his inky color, his serrated edges deeper and more jagged where they glinted with magic.
Mae gulped. He looks like he could cut air molecules by just looking at them!
Even Armaros seemed shocked by the weapon’s appearance.
Everyone startled when Hellreaver yawned and smacked his teeth.
“Ah. That was a nice, long nap,” he said drowsily.
The voices of the demons who dwelled within him rumbled faintly across the courtyard.
Mae’s eyes bulged.
“Everyone heard that, right?” Vlad said flatly.
Hellreaver tensed when he became aware of his surroundings. “Where is this?Who—?” He twisted around, saw Mae, and froze. “My—my witch?!” Demonic energy blasted around him, waking Vannog and Vozgan with a start. “Where is he?!” The weapon pivoted on himself, his tone murderous. “Where is that scoundrel Sorcerer King?! I will cut him and bite him and?—!”
“He broke you.”
Hellreaver recoiled at Brimstone’s quiet words.
The demon fox bent his giant head and nuzzled the weapon affectionately. “It is good to see you, old friend.”
“Br—broke?!” Hellreaver stammered.
“You protected me from harm in the battle the three of us fought against the Sorcerer King,” Brimstone explained. “He was about to stab me in the heart with a sword made from the soul of his familiar. He thought I was hiding the Book of Light.”
“You stopped Vedran, but not without taking heavy damage in the process,” Mae said in a low voice.
Hellreaver trembled in the fraught silence. “You mean, I—I was dead?!”
Mae’s eyes welled up as she relived that awful moment all over again.
“Yes.” She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “We tried to use our magic to revive you but we couldn’t. You were too far gone for Assimilate to work. So we came to Hell and asked Armaros to fix you.”
“Oh.”
Hellreaver’s quivering got worse. He sagged in midair.
Mae smiled tremulouslyandopened her arms. “Come here.”
Hellreaver shot into her hold. She squeezed him tightly to her chest, her heart swelling with happiness.
“I missed you so much, Hell.”
Hellreaver sniveled, the shivers racking him finally abating. It was a while before he spoke.
“Hmm, my witch, I hate to mention this, what with this being a delicate moment and everything, but have you put on a little weight? It’s just your bosom feels a smidgen bigger and your breasts are squishier than—ouch!” His tone turned offended. “How could you hit me?! I’ve just come back to life!”
“You totally deserved that,” Nikolai snapped while Mae scowled and shook her smarting hand.
Brimstone sighed. “He never learns.”
“So, he really is just a scumbag, huh?” Vlad observed, his lip curling. “I always suspected he was.”
“Can I eat him?” Vozgan asked Vannog hopefully.
“Not unless you want indigestion,” his father huffed.
Hellreaver observed the helldragons nervously. He brightened when he spotted Astarte and Ilmon. “Oh, it’s Astaroth and the Wicked Ravisher.”
Ilmon squinted. Astarte’s lips twitched.
Hellreaver’s gaze dropped. “Whoa. Now that bosom right there is as mighty as they—hmmm!Hmmm!”
Mae had muzzled him. “Have you got a death wish?!”
Astarte tensed. Ilmon’s eyes flared. Armaros twitched. Vannog blinked and raised his head.
Their gazes swung as one to the north.
Mae’s scalp prickled as she followed their line of sight. She could feel something approaching. A formidable presence that carried an eerily familiar echo of demonic energy.
“What’s wrong?” Nikolai asked guardedly.
“I…don’t know.”
Na Ri stirred.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Armaros put his hands on his hips, his expression pleased. “Now this is cause for celebration.”
“Yes.” A fierce light brightened Astarte’s face. “He’s finally back.”
“Who’s back?” Cortes said, confused.
Vlad frowned and pointed. “What is that?”
A spot had appeared high above the mountains. It grew rapidly and soon split to form two figures. One was Alicia.
The other was a demon with long, curved horns.
“Someone whose return we have long awaited,” Ilmon said softly.
The hairs lifted on the back of Mae’s neck. She sensed the newcomer’s gaze on her even though she could still not make out his face.
But she didn’t have to.
She knew this power. Power that was making her cores tremble and Na Ri quake with joy inside her.
She had felt it once before, standing inside a nexus in Prague.
“Azazel?!” she mumbled.
Nikolai shot her a stunned glance.
Magic surged across the city, rattling the windows of the palace. The air sparkled with crimson flashes that reflected the happiness of the demon who was drawing near. He landed lightly in the courtyard ahead of Alicia, his beautiful eyes on Mae.
“Master,” Brimstone and Hellreaver mumbled.
The Third Leader of the Grigori and the fallen angel who once wielded the strongest magic in Heaven smiled at them fondly before gazing at Mae. He opened his arms.
“My daughters.”
Mae sobbed and rushed into his hold. Azazel closed his arms around her and shuddered, his embrace warm and strong.
I am home, father, Na Ri whispered brokenly.
The demon’s heartbeat thrummed steadily in Mae’s ears, a soothing sound that calmed her raw nerves. She might not have been born physically of him but there was no doubt in her heart.
Azazel was as much a father to her as her human one had been.
“So, this was the trouble you sniffed out?” Astarte asked Alicia in a mildly exasperated tone. “You could have said before you left.”
The Reaper queen frowned. “Azazel was not the one I’d sensed.”