Chapter 16

 

 

We landed on dark ground, the soil burning under my feet. I looked around and saw sizzling lava sprinkled in the whole area. This land looked surreal, as if straight out of a horror sci-fi movie. Yes, both genres combined into one. Actually, if Tarrence hadn’t told us we were heading to Inferno, I would have thought he’d taken us to Mars. The scent of burning flesh and rotten food filled my lungs, leaving me breathless. I coughed and inhaled more from the stale air in here, my whole body, every pore of mine, screaming for oxygen. Instead, a lump of smoke and charcoal entered my nostrils, making me suffocate even more.

“Connect with your center, let your magic do the breathing,” Raphael advised me. I activated the powers in my thread, and a wave of clearer air filled my lungs, enabling my breathing. It wasn’t what I’d been used to, but at least it was bearable. A quick look at the shifters, or rather their colorful auras, showed me they had trouble breathing in this place, too. Tarrence advised them of something quietly and soon they began adapting to the dark magic in here, too.

“We’re going there!” Tarrence said with a commanding tone, his pale finger pointed at a tall, ominous building in front of us. As I beheld the house, a tight knot of nerves formed in the pit of my stomach: the building in question looked like a modernized, enlarged version of Cruella Deville’s house. I counted 33 floors in this building. A pack of ravens flew above the building’s razor-sharp rooftop, swirling in a broad circle, their cries reverberating in the gloomy space—a sort of a warning for everyone who dared to come here. A black flag with the Black Court’s sigil—the inverted pentagram—fluttered on the top, blazing across the dark sky with its crimson color. My body shuddered, limbs twitching as I recalled Lucius’ eyes.

Banishing this haunting memory, I swallowed hard, my throat dryer than ever. Just then, Raphael squeezed my hand tightly.

“It’s horrible,” he confessed to me, keeping his voice low so that Tarrence couldn’t overhear us. The demon was leading our team, but I didn’t want to test his hearing or give him the pleasure of knowing my mental anguish. “I want to throw up, too,” Raphael admitted, his fingers intertwining with mine. I reveled in the warmth of his touch. I licked my lips and pressed my body closer to his. The archangel’s warm buzzing energy engulfed mine. His aura had bluish-violet colors while mine was in pink-white hues. We made an excellent combination!

Somewhat relieved by each other’s touch, we kept walking on the sizzling and hissing lava ground, the tension and dark magical vibes wearing off my shoulders. Soon enough, we reached the gloomy building’s entrance. Two large snakes swirled, twisting around the front gate, their heads watchful, guarding the pathway. Being invisible, we entered it without any trouble from the gigantic snakes. I wouldn’t like to imagine how poisonous their large white fangs could be. As I took a closer look at the snakes, I realized their color wasn’t green but smoke silver gray, peppered with tiny dark spots on their skin.

The garden-like space we found ourselves in was barren and overgrown with large weeds and gigantic plants the height of towers. As we passed them by, something behind me rustled. When I turned around to see what it was, I held my breath: the plant’s flower just opened up, grazing a medium-sized flying insect. Holy hell! Pun intended. Were we in Madagascar or in Hell?

“Faster, guys,” Tarrence said, ahead of us, urging us to hurry. “Our mission isn’t that difficult, but discipline is everything. Sebastian’s off work in about 30 seconds. The bastard is punctual as a German.”

We increased our pace and entered the ominous building. The head of a hydra adorned the front door’s arch. When I passed the threshold, strange shivers crept up and down my body.

“This way,” Tarrence ordered, marching forward. We reached a stone staircase, and he went up it. We followed suit. When we passed ten or so floors, heaviness hit me hard and I grumbled in exasperation, my breath short.

“Don’t you have elevators here?”

The nastiest smile tucked on Tarrence’s lips. “If we had, it wouldn’t have been Inferno, right, sweetie?”

I silently cursed him and focused my efforts in climbing the stairs. Raphael’s hand squeezed mine tighter and I relished in the comfort of his healing energy. The two shifters had morphed into their respective animals, a lion and a werewolf, within seconds just like Enki and Loki had transformed during our mission to Houstitz castle. This only cemented my belief that the two shifters stood at the top of the shifter food chain since they could shift on command. Not that I expected anything else from the primordial werewolf: Neil.

The lion stopped before me as if he’d sensed my thoughts were aimed at him and turned his head to face me, his eyes inviting me to hop on his back. Ah, Aidan thought I was tired and needed help to climb the stairs? Sweet of him, but I had my own Nephilim wings. It’d be humiliating if I had to resort to them, though and not complete this simple exercise.

“No, thanks. I can deal with this,” I refused the lion. “Besides, I need a little exercise.” I cracked a smile, and the lion turned his back at me, his tail whipping the floor as he ran along the stairs, climbing four of them in a row with his large paws. Maybe I had better shift, using my angel’s wings? I shook my head: no, I needed some physical exercise. Easy was seldom the best way.

I counted 19 floors when Tarrence stopped abruptly and perked his ears up, listening to something distant. I strained my hearing, too, but besides some far away steps on the marble floor, silence pervaded, shrouding the whole building.

Aidan and Gordon shifted back to their human appearances and listened carefully to the approaching steps.

Tarrence raised his hand, drawing our attention. “It’s him. He’s going back to his room.”

Soon, a lean and shadowy figure ran across the floor near where we stood. Tarrence ran after this hazy figure, gesturing for us to follow him. The demon led the party, Aidan and Gordon right after his heels, and finally the archangel and I came in tow. The open space we walked by was cold, intimidating, and gloomy - even more than the building’s facade. The scent of rotten meat and worms filled my nostrils, lighting up all my senses with repulsion and dread. Why did demonic magic need to be always so nasty to the senses?

The figure in the distance skidded to a halt in the long corridor, then went inside a door, hiding from our sight. Tarrence swooped down right after him. The demon held the door frame before it could snap shut and motioned for us to get inside the room, too. We all sneaked inside, and the demon let the door shut, pushing it slightly.

Already inside, I took a look at the room: it was relatively small, a bed stood pressed against the wall; a desk was crammed in the opposite side, a bookshelf squeezed next to it. The mysterious betrayer we were after bolted straight to the bookshelf and took out a box. The moment my eyes laid on Sebastian, my breath lumped in my throat: this was the same guy I’d seen back in Inferno Hall a few days ago, sitting on Lucius’ other side, opposite from Tarrence. It was the same blond demon!

Sebastian sprinkled a shiny gray dust he took from the container into a pattern that formed an inverted pentagram. The air blazed with shimmering darkness and an icy-cold breeze blew across my face. A dark cloud appeared, glowing in the room, swirling around us and ravaging the space. The center of it was the shimmering dark crimson inverted pentagram. Sebastian stepped into the cloud and the element took him into what I assumed was the other dimension: the astral realm of the Gates of Hades. The dark cloud sizzled, cracking with a multitude of crimson and gray runes and glyphs, interlacing one another, interwoven inside the cloud. Tarrence stepped into the shimmering whirlwind, urging us to do the same.

“You sure Sebastian won’t sense our presence?” I asked tentatively, not rushing to step into the dark cloud.

“He’s already in Hades’ astral realm, no worries,” Tarrence said impatiently, not even trying to hide his annoyance.

Raphael and I glanced at each other, then jumped in the last moment right before the cloud shrank and snapped shut. The dark vortex grabbed us by the waist, pulling us into oblivion. The last thing I remembered was the overwhelming feeling of suffocation and surrender that pricked my thread, making my head dizzy. Fear clamped down on me as I realized we were being transported into the Gates of Hades. No one had ever come so close to the Lord of the Underworld’s home. Not even Durga and Shiva.