“The poets leave hell and again behold the stars.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Zach and I heard the police sirens nearby. I suspected that some human alerted the authorities. There was a lot of lightning in the sky and that unexplained mist that now drifted away. The guy that tried to shoot me was hit with lightning; he was unconscious, and the other two were moaning on the ground. They were going to be just fine, but I had to clear their minds too, just in case. My hands were trembling, my knees felt like paper. If I hadn’t gotten completely wasted a night before, maybe this would never have happened. Now I had to answer to the Lucifer faction and a tiny voice in my head kept whispering that this was possibly my last night on earth.
I couldn’t cry over spilt milk. What was done was done. I had exposed my abilities and the world below to humans. The rules were put in place to protect all the demons that lived on the outside, and my sloppy energy nearly killed an innocent man. Whoever witnessed my theatrics knew that I was powerful. That kind of magic was limited to a demon. My human mother had told me many times that I was different, that one day someone would come for me and explain everything. Now I was getting what she meant, now it all finally made sense. The demon that knocked her up must have revealed our world to her, must have mentioned that I was going to be much stronger than other mongrels.
“Stay with him. I will look around,” I told Zach, who was back on his feet checking the guy I accidentally fried earlier on. His mind was in despair, but at least he wasn’t questioning his own sanity. I felt really guilty, knowing that I could never tell him the truth about his partner, that I could never truly explain that the world around him was doomed.
“We have to question these two and search for the prince. He can’t be far,” Zach said, standing up. “That guy there is alive, barely, but he will make it.”
“I’m not a cop, Zach, it’s your job. I’m just helping out. I have somewhere that I need to be,” I stated, rubbing my neck and wondering if I was going to be sent down to the underworld tonight. The faction couldn’t be that cruel, but it was a possibility.
I didn’t wait for him to stop me. Besides, the cemetery started filling up with other cops. I backed away, seeing flashlights moving quickly towards us. Uncomfortable questions would follow and I didn’t have time to fill out any statements or talk to the human shrink. I had messed with enough minds tonight. Maybe Ricky could pull some strings and get me out of this mess. The only problem was that Ricky had pissed off a few people down below too, and his hands were tied.
On my way back home I felt much worse, shaking all over and being sick everywhere on the street. When I got inside I threw myself on my bed and lay there for a good half hour, telling my stupid self that this was the last time I drank more than I could handle. Paul must have put more magic than he intended in one of my bottles. It wasn’t his fault that I was an addict. I forced some food through my mouth later on, knowing that I had to fuel my body with new energy. After my stomach was full, I felt slightly better.
The Watchers were most likely around. I saved Emma a couple of weeks ago and I managed to get away with that kind of outburst of power, but thunder and lightning down at the cemetery pushed its limits. My days were numbered. Most of the time demons downstairs didn’t care to listen to explanations. They needed to punish mongrels like me.
I must have fallen asleep for an hour or two, because a car horn outside woke me up. The clock on the wall was showing half past ten. I was an hour and a half away from my judgment hearing. Part of me wanted to call Ricky to warn him that he might never see me again, but I didn’t want to worry him. I had a small advantage: the missing royal and my case. If I could just get in touch with Rodriguez somehow, maybe he could stop the hearing and let others know that I was only trying to do my job.
The voice of reason reminded me that it was too late for that now.
I swallowed the tears down when I stepped outside in the cold. Arthur had showered me with attention and I suspected that maybe my involvement with him triggered new attention back, but this time from hell. Only certain members of the royal family knew what happened between us, but word may have spread. Demons in hell only knew black or white. They didn’t believe in love and desire. These emotions were foreign to them.
I headed to Payne’s Wharf. It was a wasteland, a deserted part of London near the River Thames. Most of the time humans avoided it. Lately there had been reports that a couple of females had been raped in that area. The police advised everyone to stay away.
I believed that it was just hell’s propaganda, to keep humans away from the only official entrance to the underworld. The Gates of Hell were guarded by the Watchers so that no one could enter without their say-so. I never had the courage to actually check this theory out, but I knew that many mongrels had, ending up lost down below.
The night was windy; a new storm was approaching from the west. I walked through the streets, passing humans that had no idea that a world below actually existed and that some of them would end up there at some point in their lives. I took the tube down, and my anxiety rose, filling my stomach with heavy bricks.
I reached my destination just before midnight, pushing the fear away, telling myself this was the price that I needed to pay. I could only blame myself for what happened.
In the distance the tall facade of Payne’s Wharf spread in front of my eyes, and my stomach blossomed with a fresh dose of rippling trepidation. Fear drifted behind me in tiny tendrils, stinging me with its sharp claws. This was it, my time had come. I didn’t have any regrets. I made my choices, and I couldn’t do anything about the fact that the rules of hell weren’t fair.
A demon crossed my path several moments later. I stopped, inhaling the raw musty smell of stagnant water close by. Maybe after the incident at the cemetery I was immune to other supernatural beings. My normally sharp senses didn’t register any danger, not just yet.
“Are you the one that everyone is waiting for?” a female demon with nice long blonde hair asked.
“Presumably,” I responded. She smiled, like she was genuinely excited.
“Come, she is waiting for you.”
We walked through the wasteland for the next few minutes in silence. Behind the pillar of another ruined construction I spotted at least five demons, all from the same faction. Lucifer’s presence around here seemed profound, and it surprised me that everyone was so calm. The woman who stood on the large piece of concrete looked familiar. I stopped in my tracks, feeling fooled and betrayed. She’d called herself Alexis at the palace, but this couldn’t be her real name down here. She warned me to stay away from Arthur, selling some crap about being connected to the Princess Layla. This was some kind of a joke. She couldn’t be the judge.
“You don’t have any authority to summon me here. I don’t answer to you!” I shouted, getting really tired of being a pushover. I had demonic blood in me, but that didn’t mean that I had to obey anyone.
She smiled, and a strong wind ruffled her chestnut hair. She waved her hand, like she was making some kind of gesture, bowing in front of me. Then I felt the ground beneath my feet shaking and a cold shiver crawl over my back, stirring the waves of warning vibes in my stomach. I felt like something was in the ground, pulsing with energy and trying to get out.
Everyone around me sensed the shift in the air, the rising electricity. Then the ground began shaking, moving, and the strong wind whipped through, almost knocking me off my feet.
And then the ground began descending, creating a large hole; rocks started falling into it, an invisible power trying to suck in every nearby living being. The heat exploded, stinging my skin, and I felt myself being pulled too. Melted lava appeared on the edges. I had a fifty-fifty chance of staying up on my feet or being pulled inside the fiery pits. The smell of burning ozone filled the air. My lungs contracted and I found it hard to breathe.
My skin was itching with roaring power, as invisible voices whispered that I wanted to discover what was down in the underworld, what other secrets demons were keeping from mongrels. The itch of curiosity began brewing inside my stomach, pulling me closer to hell and further away from this world. The craving burned my throat, as I launched back away from the hole, taking long pulls of air.
Alexis was staring down at me, smiling. Her eyes were penetrating, her energy invading my mind. The bitch was bulldogging her way in, hoping to untangle my wards. I ground my teeth together, fighting back the heat and her unbearable pressure inside my skull.
I didn’t know what was happening when a wave of heat suddenly threw me to the ground, and I slammed down on my back. Everything stopped, the hole in the ground, the entrance to the underworld had vanished as quickly as it appeared, sucking the bits and pieces of stones around, like an invisible whirlpool in the middle of the ocean. The craving had gone away, but the bitter taste in my mouth remained.
I was breathing hard and quickly repairing my wards. The bitch was strong and she knew my sloppy spectacle of powers at the cemetery weakened me.
“You’re accused of conspiring against Lucifer’s faction, revealing all the secrets to the human and failing to comply with the rules,” Alexis shouted, pointing at me. A couple of demons that gathered around to look cheered, agreeing with her. Her fingers were black, covered with thick liquid, what looked like blood. My stomach tightened and I forced myself to look when she started licking them, closing her eyes with an expression of euphoria.
I had no doubt that it was human blood, as the smell of burning flesh wafted in the air. I wanted to gag. Some of the demons were known for consuming human flesh, but I could never figure out why. My stomach revolted at the thought. I didn’t understand how she had been put in charge, her authority was limited, but at the same time she summoned the gates. I wasn’t planning to leave earth just yet, and she couldn’t send me over there, unless she was a Watcher.
The other demons stared at me, looking excited, rubbing their hands together.
Alexis was slowly breaking through my wards that protected my memories, my deepest secrets. I was reading her well, and she was thinking that I wasn't just an ordinary mongrel, a half demon. I couldn’t let her see the past, discover what I was forced to hide in order to survive.
“I had to stop those humans; it was in self-defence and I had no other choice but to use my powers!” I shouted, angry that I wasn’t even getting a proper hearing. Sweat ran down my face when I watched her coming down. Her mouth was smeared with blood, eyes shimmering with rippling power. “I demand to speak to a Watcher. This is a joke; you have no right judging me!”
“The missing prince has been taken down to hell, so you must cease your investigation. The Mammon faction is going to take care of this from now on. His soul had been taken, and you failed to bring him back,” she said, circling around me.
She was beautiful—her skin radiated with small crystals, her long brown hair shined in the night fire that suddenly started burning next to me, but her eyes were the most mesmerising.
“I have seen him on earth; he hasn’t been taken down to the underworld yet. You’re wrong and I have been give—”
“That task is no longer relevant. Lucifer sent me here to condemn your investigation. Another demon confirmed that you used your abilities tonight in front of others, that you nearly exposed us. This is a strict violation of underworld code.”
She was close, standing no more than a meter away from me, fighting her way through my energy. I gathered my strength and somehow I tore myself away from her influence. No one could have predicted that I would scramble back on my feet and throw myself at her.
She didn’t have time to back away, so I grabbed her shins with both my hands, hoping to use her own energy against her. We connected, and I cleaved my way in, passing her wards, tearing my way through. The demon inside her was weak and fading.
Our eyes met and a silent scream filled my throat when I saw through her. Her powerful demon in front of me was fading away, dark, consuming shadows eating bits, parts of her fully intact demonic soul. From the outside, she was just a human and that was why I couldn’t fully understand who she was in the palace.
I was suddenly affected by her pain, her suffering. Rivers of blood filled my eyes. I parted my mouth, wanting to scream as her lack of power continued to get worse. She was losing hours, days, and years. Her demonic soul was dying slowly and that had something to do with the fact that she had been on the outside world for too long. The threats were coming together in slow burning marks.
She roared at the top of her lungs, and I felt the hot burning sensation on the back of my scull. The fire inside my chest soared. I couldn’t let her drag me back to hell, just because I discovered her secret.
Darkness covered me completely and the next thing I knew I was falling down. I saw my mother’s face, heard her weak voice whispering to me, saying that no one could touch me because I was protected.
A second later I must have passed out from heat, landing down in hell. Literally.