Belial lay against the prickly, sweet hay, his body aching in twisting, heated agony. At this moment, he didn’t even possess enough strength to change into his true form and leave this desolate world.
Not that he cared.
Not after the secret he’d just learned …
Those roving little bastards thought themselves so smart. And here he’d thought they’d come to protect Ariel.
He would laugh if he were able.
Valteri the Godless was in fact Valteri fitzJaden.…
Bloody figured.
His plan had cost him much, but it’d been well worth the price of staying in this wretched human body for so long.
To get the soul of Jaden’s son, he’d gladly do it all again. There was no telling what Kadar and Azura would give him for this. He could only imagine the reward.…
A giddy rush surged through him. Now, all he had to do was plan Valteri’s death.
With the curse fulfilled, he’d escort that bastard straight to his master’s throne.
His smile widened. How simple. He’d chain them both to Kadar Noir’s throne.
And reap his eternal reward.
Out of nowhere, an image of Seth went through his mind. What they’d done to the boy when he’d first been brought into Azmodea.
Against his will, he flinched at the memory.
That child had been brutalized.
For a second, he felt guilty for what he was doing to another innocent. But neither Ariel nor Valteri were as young as Seth had been. Unlike Rezar’s son, they were trained warriors who’d taken their fair share of lives.
They wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.
No one had ever taken pity or mercy where he was concerned. Not even his own mother. From his first breath, she’d saddled him with a name that meant “worthless,” and that was how she and everyone else had treated him. How everyone looked at him.
But if he returned home with the son of Jaden he would be worthless no longer. And they’d finally have to give him his due.
People were weak and petty. Mindless guppies following wherever their group swam. The few he’d known with their own minds usually fell to his temptation in no time.
Nay, there was nothing about human beings that couldn’t be corrupted—given the right inducement.
Arelim were just the same. And he had even less use for them.
They held themselves far above him and everyone else. As if they were somehow better. Smarter. When they were all cut from the same chaotic goo.
The same vengeful gods.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled his will for the coming deaths. He would have no pity for either of them. Better they suffer than him.
He’d had enough for a million lifetimes.
“There you are!”
Belial looked up at Brother Edred, who stood at the stall’s opening, leaning against a wooden post. Worry filled the old man’s gray eyes and for an instant, Belial feared Edred might be able to detect his real appearance.
“Greetings, Friar. What brings you to the stable?”
“I have a matter I’d like to discuss with you.”
Belial hesitated. Normally, the man’s presence would be of no consequence to him, but he wasn’t in his usual fighting shape. Given his weakness, he wasn’t sure if he could keep his human cover intact.
And if it failed before the friar …
That could be awkward.
While the little bastard wasn’t exactly godly anymore, the friar still bore enough divine benediction to weaken him further. And even from his current distance, he was causing Belial’s belly to burn and twist, his head to throb and ache.
The friar stepped forward.
Sweat trickled down Belial’s face, making his cheek itch. “Brother Edred,” he said quickly, stopping the friar before he came too close. “I beg you stand back before my illness taints you as well.”
“Illness, you say?”
“Aye. Could be plague.”
Eyes wide, the friar returned to the opening of the stall and darted his gaze over Belial’s body. “A jest?”
Not really. He’d like to unleash it all over them, but he knew better than to say that out loud. “Of course. ’Tis just a cold. But still, I’d hate for you to catch it.”
Instead of making the friar happy, those words only seemed to darken his mood. “Mayhap ’tis the evilness that resides in this hall that taints you more.”
Now this was interesting, given that he was the evil in the hall. He couldn’t wait to hear what idiocy the friar came up with. “What’s that?”
Edred stroked the wooden cross that dangled about his neck and cast his gaze around as if seeking something or someone. “Can you not feel it? ’Tis like a serpent crawling in the bowels of the earth beneath our feet, waiting for just the right moment before it burrows its way up and bites our ankles when we least expect it. Since first I came here, I have felt Lucifer’s presence.”
How quaint of them to think Lucifer was the scariest thing in their little universe to fear. He would laugh in the man’s face, except for the fact that the little ape wouldn’t get the joke. “Lucifer’s presence, you say?”
“Aye, and Lord Valteri is his servant.”
Belial had to bite his tongue to stifle the laughter. What a pitiful fool. He couldn’t resist toying with him. “Aye, indeed. Lord Valteri is surely damned, and can no doubt benefit from your grace. What do you intend to do?”
“First, I must make your lady sister understand the beast that she has married. Mayhap I’m not too late to save her precious soul.”
If only he knew.
The bald little man was too late to save even his own. That, the Lucifer he feared would one day lay claim to, and no one would stop him or the demon he sent for it. The little backbiting hypocrite deserved it and more. Belial wished he would be there to see the little monk’s face once he realized that all his investment of thumping his Bible and dutifully making his prayers was wasted because his heart was blacker than that of any of the pretend demons he lectured about.
That his tongue and deeds damned him more than all his “faithful” prayers could undo.
How could the little bastard not read his own holy book?
Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
Here the friar stood, breaking every one of the commandments he was supposed to protect. Every covenant he was charged with keeping. Proud, while spreading lies about his own innocent overlord and scheming against that innocent man and inciting others to attack him for no reason.
Trying to get him, a demon, to help him convince Valteri’s own wife to turn against him so that they could kill that innocent man.
And for what?
The friar’s fear?
His personal gain and vanity?
Others would look to the friar as a legend and authority. See him as something more than the pathetic little maggot he actually was.
Honestly, Belial admired Valteri, though he’d never admit to that out loud. In spite of how hard others had kicked him down and spit on him, he’d risen above them all to become a true noble man. He’d let nothing and no one hold him back.
While they laughed in his face and had deliberately sabotaged his armor and given him substandard equipment to use in battle, he’d outfought them all.
Proven himself, time and again, to be the better warrior.
Now this little weasel was here, like all the others, plotting against him to lay him low.
Just like me.
That dose of reality stung hard.
And still the friar prattled on. “Will you help me, my lord, to expose the vileness inside him? Then the fair lady would have no choice other than to believe us.”
His stomach churning as his conscience continued to flog him, Belial sighed. “And how would you expose him?”
The friar pulled a vial out from a pouch he had attached to his rope belt.
Belial had to keep from laughing as he saw the holy water that would have absolutely no affect whatsoever on Valteri.
“A drop or two of this upon his skin and all will know of his true origins.”
Oh, to have that amount of faith in his own stupidity.
“And if your water has no effect on him?”
Edred’s brows shot up in shock and he crossed himself. “Could he be so powerful?”
“He could be … something.”
“Then I shall pray on it!” The friar scampered off.
Belial slid to the floor as sweat rolled down his cheek.
“You’re weak.”
He cringed at the sound of Shadow’s voice coming to him out of the darkness that bastard called home. The shadows he’d been named for. “What do you want?”
“The head of my father delivered to me on a platter. My mother’s heart in my fist. Peace for all mankind … but I’d settle for you to just piss off.”
Belial scoffed at his old enemy. “We all want something. I’d settle for your heart in my fist.” He grimaced as another wave of pain tore through him.
Shadow stepped into the light so that Belial could see the arrogant wanker. Dressed in a burgundy surcoat and chain mail that seemed so out of place on such a heartless creature.
At least when it wasn’t covered in blood and entrails.
Those eerie gray eyes were piercing with their intelligence. “Why don’t you head home? Why put yourself through this torment?”
With a shaky breath, Belial cut a menacing glare toward him. “You know why.”
“I do, but it won’t work. See, you keep thinking that you can buy goodwill from creatures who have none. They’re morally bankrupt and selfish. Doesn’t matter how much you give when they think they deserve. That’s an ever-sliding scale where you lose. I learned that a long, long time ago.” Shadow moved forward and squatted down beside him. “They’ll never be grateful because they think whatever you do for them is their due, and they’ll always demand more. Until they use you up completely, and you’re nothing but a shattered, hollowed-out husk they leave behind. They will suck you dry, my brother. Sadly, they’re the real vampires. Not those made-up nightmares that mankind fears.”
Damn him for the truth he spoke. “I would slap you if I had the strength.”
He laughed. “I know you would.” Shadow reached out and brushed the hair back from his forehead. “You look like shite, brother. Want me to take you home so that you can rest?”
Belial knocked his hand away. “Why would you help me?”
“Because I was you, once. Angry. Pissed off and pissed on. Hating everyone and everything. Some days, I still am you. I know that irrational fury that drives you to lash out at the world and especially those who hate you for things you can’t help. For the things you are and aren’t. Those who really hate you for what you’ve bled to accomplish because they think it was given to you, while you know the scars you carry for having earned it. But hating them won’t bring you any more solace than sitting here and wallowing in your misery. So get up off your arse, demon. No one gives a fuck if you live or die.”
“Then why bother?”
“Pure spite. If nothing else, every breath you draw infuriates every enemy you have who begrudges you for the fact you’re not dead. That alone has kept me going through many a winter’s storm.”
Belial laughed, hating the fact that he was beginning to like this bastard. “Truth?”
He pulled the sleeves back on his tunic to show the deep scars where he’d once sliced his own wrist. “Is now. I almost ended my life once, and then decided I wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d driven all hope from me. If nothing else, I’ll steal that victory from them.”
“I’m so tired of being kicked, Shadow.”
He laughed bitterly. “We all are. Some days we’re the boot and some days we’re the arse. Personally, I prefer being the boot, but I have to say that many times I’ve been the arse that deserved the boot. And today, you have definitely deserved my foot up yours.”
Taking Shadow’s hand, he allowed him to pull him to his feet. “I still have to give Kadar a soul.”
Shadow shook his head. “Think long and hard about what you’re doing. You never know the enemies you make when you’re trying to make a friend.”
Those sage words sent a chill over him.
And true to his promise, Shadow took him back to Azmodea so that he could leave his human body and renew his strength.
Yet unlike him, Shadow’s appearance didn’t change. He was still as human here as he’d been in their realm. “I thought you were a demon, too.”
“I am.”
“Then why haven’t you changed forms?”
Shadow released him and stepped away. His lips quirked in an evil smile. “I’m a lot more powerful than you know. And not at all what you think. Why do you think they call me the prince of Shadows?” And with a wink, he vanished.
Shadow left Belial and headed down the dark, smelly hallway toward the small cell where he knew his target would be waiting. The sounds of the damned and tortured echoed off the midnight walls around him that oozed a red, sticky mixture that’d always reminded him of blood.
How Thorn could stand living in this hell realm, he’d never understand. While his own fortress home was much nicer than this, it was still gloomy as shit.
And far too close to their parents for his comfort. What the hell was wrong with his cousin that he’d choose to live here?
But then that was a long and frightening list.
“Shadow?”
He drew up short as he heard his uncle’s voice. And here he’d thought to surprise him.
Should have known better.
Jaden would have smelled him coming. Felt his powers. After all, they drew them from the same place.
He entered the room where Jaden rested. “Hello, Uncle. How are you?”
By the expression on his face, it was obvious that Jaden wasn’t on vacation. In fact, he looked as if an enema might do him some good.
Or a long night of a heavy drinking binge.
Sitting in a chair with a book, Jaden scowled at him. “Perturbed by your presence. You should know better.”
“And yet I never do better. Bad genes, they tell me. Comes from your side of the family.”
“Indeed.” Jaden brushed his hand over a nasty bruise on his cheek. “Come to see your mother?”
“Is she on fire? Beheaded?”
“No.”
“Then why would I bother?”
Jaden laughed. “You’re such a surly little bastard.”
“And you’re a huge motherfucker. What do you eat? Fertilizer?” It’d always bothered him that his family stood head and shoulders over him. Jaden had a full seven inches, which irritated him to the core of his soul. Especially given that both his parents were tall as shit.
Jaden turned a page. “Must have been your anger and misspent youth that stunted your growth.”
“More like the venom I sucked from my mother’s tit.”
Closing his book, Jaden shook his head. With the same pair of mismatched eyes that he’d gifted to Valteri, he watched him. “You’re in a bad mood, even for you. Something in particular wrenched your testicle and drove you here?”
“Manner of speaking. I wanted to ask you a peculiar question.”
That got his attention. He quirked a brow in an expression almost identical to one of Valteri’s. “This I can’t wait to hear.”
“Do you know how many children you have?”
“What game are you about?”
Shadow saw his eyes flickering in the darkness of the small room. A warning that in spite of his captivity, Jaden’s god powers were kicking in. “Not a game. Just curious if you know.”
“I have two sons. As you’re well aware.”
Shadow nodded. So Jaden had no clue about Valteri.
Interesting.
“And if you were to have any more?”
“Are you offering me your services?”
He gave the older god a dry glare. “Answer the question, you bastard. If you were to have a child out there. Would you know?”
“Of course.”
Yet there was a light in his eyes that undermined the confidence in Jaden’s tone. “Unless…”
Jaden scratched his chin thoughtfully. After a moment, he spoke again. “It’s not really possible.”
“What?”
“If a child were born without powers or if they were bound for some reason. Then I’d have no way of knowing.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
Jaden shrugged. “Why would anyone want my child?”
He had a point. Especially given the fate of his last two. Shadow shuddered. Yeah, being Jaden’s kid wasn’t a blessing. Bad things always seemed to befall them.
“For argument’s sake. If you did have another child out there. What would you do?”
“Depends. If I liked the kid, I’d protect it. Should the child prove to be a danger to the world…”
“You’d destroy it.”
Jaden’s mismatched gaze turned dark. “I’m not my sister. I would never risk or condemn the world for my child.”
Funny, Jaden was speaking to the wrong audience. Shadow was on Apollymi’s side in this matter. The concept of a mother who would sacrifice the world to save her son …
He’d kill to have a mother so loyal.
Or anyone who wouldn’t stab him in the back. For that matter, he’d take a friend who wouldn’t trip him if they were being chased.
Damn, his life really was pathetic.
“If you’re expecting a hero cookie from me for your devotion to this sick world … don’t. I’m all out.”
Jaden snorted. “Interesting to hear you say that.”
That dig hit home, as they both knew the sin he’d committed that stung him to this day. “Fuck you, Jaden.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not my type. I prefer my women to be more demure.”
“And I prefer mine to have a conscience and a heart.” And with that, Shadow left before he started a war that neither of them could afford right now.
But it was tempting. Damn Jaden and his mouth.
One day, he hoped someone gave that god what he deserved. More than that, he hoped it was him who did it.
For now …
Shadow had much to consider.
Were Valteri’s powers bound? That was an interesting question. Was the boy blessed enough to have been born human or had someone or something else intervened?
And if they had intervened, why?
The why was the disturbing thing. Because no one did that lightly.
Shadow flinched as he remembered when the Dark-Hunter Acheron’s powers had been unbound. It’d almost ended the world. Of course, a lot of that had to do with Shadow’s aunt Apollymi, Acheron’s mother. The goddess had been furious and intent on ending the world for what mankind had done to her son.
Still …
It’d taken Acheron years to learn to use and control his god powers. Some of them, he still had trouble with.
How would Valteri respond if his were suddenly unleashed?
Well, there was one way to find out.