“My leader, who had seen how hard I gazed, informed me now: ‘In all these fires are souls. Each one is swaddled in its inward blaze.’”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
It was a female demon that shouted those cruel words at the passing crowd. She created a magical light in the centre of her palm and then started bouncing it up and down. A few demons stopped to watch her and a few more were already standing in front of the stage, probably waiting to start the bidding war. On the platform there was another female and male demon dragging some scared-looking mongrels onto the stage.
“What’s going on up there?” I asked Dominica, grabbing her elbow. The stage was lit by torches. Most of the mongrels looked very human, and there was a mix of men and women.
Anger blinded me for a second and I clenched my fists so hard that I cut blood circulation to my fingers. I needed to remember that this was none of my business. I had to keep moving, but at the same time I couldn’t pretend that this kind of injustice was acceptable.
“Some demons can live longer only if they take a mongrel’s magic away. That woman is selling them,” Dominica explained. Those words made my blood boil.
“Please tell me that there are mongrels in hell that are free? That this isn’t common?” I asked, unable to hide my bitterness. She shrugged her shoulders, looking at me like she didn’t understand my question.
“Demons own them. Besides, there is no freedom in hell. We all have to do what we have to do,” she stated.
“What does this mean?”
“I plot dreams in my home. That’s my job,” Dominica said. “Maggie captures mongrels. She has to follow her life guidelines. We can’t rebel against the faction. Some try, but then they are taken to the pits. The others are lucky to escape on earth. Life is so much easier there.”
I guess she was right. Lucifer owned every demon in hell, but still I couldn’t accept that mongrels were being sold like livestock. This was worse than anything I’d ever seen.
“Let’s get closer,” I said to her.
My voices told me that I needed to stay sane for now. I couldn’t afford to bring any more attention to myself. As I approached, the female demon was walking around the platform with a skinny female mongrel that was wearing white Converse sneakers and jeans. She looked pale and petrified.
The demons in front were throwing high bids while the others tried to get in line too. Every part of my body shook with rage. I glanced up at the female demon that was running this disgusting show. A few heartbeats later I realised that I had met her before. Years ago in London she called herself Catherine, not Maggie, and she used to be married to Ricky, my best friend.
Ricky had told me she fought hard to escape from here. Then when she got to earth a few years later she took all their money and disappeared. Ricky hired me to go after her.
Now she looked so much different and I still couldn’t quite believe that she was back. She had short red hair and wore thick black glasses with a long black cloak. Demons were throwing golden coins on the stage. She grabbed the mongrel’s elbow and pushed her closer to the crowd.
“The demon in a blue shirt is bidding the highest so far. Will anyone go higher? This mongrel will burn well. She is very skinny.” Catherine—or Maggie— laughed cruelly. My blood pressure was skyrocketing. Watchers had been dragging mongrels to hell for as long as I remembered, sometimes for reasons beyond our control. Cyril had warned me a few times that I was on their radar too. Oppression of mongrels was real and it looked like nothing was going to change, unless Lucifer shifted a few laws around here.
“Buy her,” I said to Dominica. “Have you got any gold? I want you to buy her.”
“Since my lover was taken I don’t care for those mongrels and what their magic can do to my abilities. Besides, I don't have any gold coins with me. I’m miserable and nothing makes me happy these days,” she said and then started crying again.
I exhaled sharply and glanced back at Catherine, ready to lose control and barge onto the stage. When Ricky hired me, I had to chase after her all around the country. The bitch was strong, and she set off her Chimera on me.
“Mongrel on the loose! Mongrel. Grab her before she escapes!” Catherine shouted all of a sudden, pointing at me.
A few demons stepped away from me and I panicked, knowing that I had to get the fuck out of there. I didn’t understand how she even managed to recognise me. It had been years since we’d seen each other last, but obviously she hadn’t forgotten me.
“Oh no… She’s free. She’s from the outside,” Dominica started saying, but I already caught the attention of a few Watchers that were glaring at the crowd from the other side of the road.
“I need to leave now,” I snapped and started pushing demons away, heading back towards the forest. I didn’t have time to wait for Dominica. She was only going to slow me down. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. It was a huge error on my part. Some demons were shouting after me; others were throwing spells, but my boots pounded against the hard concrete pavement. It was too late for me to save any mongrels. Now I had to save myself.
Multiple spells shot inches away from my face, so I dodged towards the empty alley on my left. I sensed Watchers and other demons chasing after me. They must have heard about me from those in Mammon’s circle. The streets of this mysterious hell town started splitting into different directions, and the buildings were shrinking, or my imagination was playing tricks on me. Magic was messing with my head. I needed to get back to the forest to hide. It was dark and I had an advantage over anyone that was after me. My abilities worked much better in hell than on earth.
I stopped for a second just so I could catch my breath, ready to slide into some random building. Then something really heavy hit me on the back of my head and I went down. I must have lost consciousness for several moments, because when I woke up, I was being carried in the air.
My head hurt like hell, and there were bits of dried blood in my hair. I glanced up, seeing the Watcher. He was holding my legs and I was hanging upside down. His enormous black wings beat against the air.
“Let me go, you fucker, now let me go!” I shouted, trying to use my energy to burn him, but blood was rushing to my head. I felt dizzy, unable to tap into my source.
I didn’t have enough body strength to lift myself up or even twist my legs. He carried me back to the square and then circled around for a bit. Demons were shouting, but it was difficult to make out if I was the reason. Moments later the Watcher dropped me and I slammed on the ground painfully hard. This time I was certain that I had broken my leg. Every bone in my body hurt and my lungs compressed painfully.
“She belongs to me. She escaped from the Ash Forest earlier on,” shouted someone. I glanced back seeing Catherine or Maggie pushing through the crowd. She was holding a piece of paper in her hand, shaking it in front of my face. The crowd stepped aside when two Watchers landed on the ground a few meters away from me.
I was ready to launch myself at Ricky’s ex-wife and strangle her with my bare hands. However, I quickly realised that I could barely move.
“She talks shit. I don’t belong to anyone. I’m Maxine Brodeur and I’m free!” I shouted, ready to die on this square rather than go with that bitch. I tapped into my source and managed to create a faint ball of light on my hands.
There were some snippets and whispers around me. Some demons moved away from me.
“Take her, Adrian, and let us do our job. This mongrel is out of control, her magic hasn’t been retained.”
“Hold on a second, Maggie, and stop lying through your teeth. We have direct orders from the dark lord to stop any free-walking mongrel in the circle,” the Watcher stated, coming forward. I swallowed hard, knowing that I had no chance to fight him in the state that I was in. Maybe in the past I had opened the gates to hell and tossed the great Berith down, but right now hell owned me.
“But, master, look at her. She’s mine and only mine—”
The Watcher went a few inches above the ground and threw a fire ball towards Catherine. He intentionally missed, but the ends of her hair caught fire and that instantly shut her up.
She glared at me, whispering something to the demon that stood next to her.
Years ago I left her with nothing and walked away. I didn’t know how she managed to pull herself together. Either way, that was irrelevant, because now she was finally getting her revenge.
“Everyone be quiet,” the Watcher shouted.
Suddenly Dominica appeared next to me. Tears were streaming down her face. I really didn’t need this right now.
“I’m sorry, Maxine. I didn’t know that this was going to happen. They told me that they could get me to my lover if I bring you in,” she was saying. My jaw dropped and I stared at her with utter disbelief. Dominica wasn’t hiding in the forest—she was waiting for me. Fuck, I had been a fool to trust her. I opened my mouth to tell her to get away from me when I was hit from behind again. My knees turned into paper and I went down, feeling like someone had split my head in two.
Moments later the darkness in hell shaded me completely.
Zach
“We have to do something!” I shouted at those bloody morons, wanting to get some kind of reaction out of them, I had no idea how long we had been stuck in Purgatory, but we had already wasted so much time, sitting and debating on what to do. We all realised pretty quickly that the time in hell worked much slower than on earth.
“Maxine said there is nothing that we can do. Lucifer has her soul,” Paul told me, shaking his head. “She made a deal with him, and that means she now belongs to him.”
We were all sitting in his pub for almost an hour now. Apparently Ricky and Emma were on the way here too.
I fucking loved that girl. Maybe this was crazy, but I had fallen for her. Hell existed, and demons had been living amongst humans for centuries. This was crazy, and yet I kind of accepted it.
I got up, kicked the chair and stared at Maxine’s friends, not quite believing that they were ready to just give up.
“So that’s it. She’s gone forever. What about the prince? The body is still there, while the whole country is looking for him.”
“Ricky will know what to do. The head of the faction needs to be informed,” Paul continued. The man had locked the pub so no one could walk in. His sword was still on the table, covered with blood. I stopped trying to be reasonable about what happened out there.
The fact was that I needed to get Maxine out of hell on my own if that was necessary.
Then the door burst open and a second later Ricky and Emma stepped inside.
“Rodriguez is refusing to get involved. The old coward!” Ricky shouted, and violent sparks of energy escaped from his hands.
“So you know what happened to Maxine?” I asked, slowly losing control of myself and everyone around me.
“The Watchers told me. Only Maxine would have been that stupid to agree to make a deal with Lucifer himself. What the hell was she thinking?” Ricky shouted. His whole face was red. Emma tried to calm him down, but I had seen that look of resignation on her face before. She didn’t believe that Maxine could still be saved.
“Did you tell him about the prince?” I asked.
“Yes, he drilled me for an hour after that,” Ricky explained.
“So now he knows about Maxine’s daughter—”
“He does and he was more interested in tracking her down than getting Arthur’s body back. The old bastard wanted to keep me in the palace, but then he had an urgent message from downstairs. I had no idea what was that about.”
“So the guards are retrieving the body as we speak?” Nameless asked and Ricky nodded. He finally flopped back on the chair.
“I was just telling Paul that we have to do something. Rescue her,” I urged them all, pacing around the empty pub.
“Ricky, Zach is right. We can’t leave her alone there,” Emma added.
“You’re humans so you guys don’t understand what hell really is. The dark lord can wipe us all out in a matter of seconds. Even if I could get there, I wouldn’t be able to get to Lucifer. That part of hell is off limits for anyone.” Ricky hid his face in his palms.
I swore loudly and everyone else flinched. My pulse was pounding in my ears. At first I’d thought that what happened between Maxine and me was just a fling, but I wanted her more than I could fucking admit.
Max was too proud to ask for help. She’d always been that way.
“Take me to the palace or those Watchers,” I insisted, pushing not to lose it. “This isn’t right. We all know that she doesn’t deserve to be stuck there.”
Ricky, Nameless, Paul and now even my sister. They were all magical, they could use whatever voodoo crap they had and get her out.
Zara was sitting by that guy not saying anything. There was so much that we needed to discuss. Cornelia was waiting; so was Max’s little girl.
“Mate, I can take you to hell, but you will burn. You’re not even supposed to know what’s happening. You’re not in the system.”
“What happened to Matilda and Max’s daughter? Why isn’t she here?” Emma asked.
“She needed to disappear again. Rodriguez knows that there is royal blood in her veins. He’s already looking for her,” Ricky explained, shaking his head, like he was b laming himself for everything that went wrong that evening.
“So what, are we just going to give up? That’s it. Maxine is gone and I have to accept that?”
“No one said we’re giving up. I have a plan, but it’s complicated,” Ricky said, looking like he was going to pass out.
The man had nearly died, but that demon Morpheus had saved him. I was still amazed that he was amongst us.
“We’re listening to you, man, we are all listening …” Paul muttered.