Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Azazel

I rubbed my forehead as I listened to the grievances brought before me by the latest supplicant. A cherub of middling power, mired in some dispute with a neighboring cherub that even the seraph immediately overseeing them didn’t have the wherewithal to handle. So now I had to step in.

Tiresome, but part and parcel of being an archdemon.

I fondly remembered my naive belief that climbing up to this rank would bring me some modicum of surcease from the constant pressure of having to perform my role in this society, of having to act according to the rules laid down by others. I guessed even two thousand five hundred years of life experience hadn’t spared me from falling prey to unrealistic expectations.

If running an estate as a cherub had meant a lot of time spent managing subordinates and ensuring things worked smoothly, it went double and even triple that for being an archdemon.

Spending just a little over a week away from here—the time I’d been in Heaven with Zoe—had resulted in a backlog of work that had piled up and was now waiting for me to sort through. Issues with soul storage and procurement, quarrels among my tenants and subordinate demons, political dealings with other archdemonacies, giving or denying permission for all sorts of things, among them, for example, the transfer of demons and half-bloods between territories.

Some of it could be taken care of by the demons serving directly underneath me as my lieutenants, but much remained that needed my personal seal of approval—or rejection. If I delegated too many tasks and decisions to my lieutenants, it would weaken my position and undermine my authority. And as the example of my ousting the previous archdemon a few years ago showed, holding on to this rank was a matter of power.

Seeing as I needed this position in order to claim Zoe once she fell meant I’d do whatever it took to hold on to this office. If I had to sit through hours of complaints by subordinates and excruciatingly boring analyses of the latest shifts in soul availability on Earth, so be it.

“And so then his hellhound came back and ate its way through another one of my pits,” the cherub before me droned on. “One hundred souls, all slurped up within minutes! It took forever to restore those souls to their previous state once the dog had spit them back out, and they still aren’t back to their levels of power production from before. Now, he says it wasn’t his hound and that there’s no evidence, but I saw the paw prints. And given the previous incident?—”

A bone-shattering howl interrupted the demon’s tirade.

I lifted my head from where I’d rested it on my hand, which was propped up on the armrest of my large, well-cushioned chair—if I had to sit here for hours every other day, I had to do so in comfort—and looked toward the window in the wall to my right. The frequent lightning in the sky outside let the multicolored panels flash in brilliant shades, the glass allowing for more sounds to filter into this room, which meant the soul-wrenching baying and howling that now echoed over here from the kennels were all the more audible.

Even so, it shouldn’t be this loud. The hounds were never this agitated.

And come to think of it…it sounded like the noise came from only one dog. Though, this particular canine certainly made enough of a ruckus now that it could drown out any other sound.

Narrowing my eyes, I lifted my hand to indicate to the cherub to remain quiet, and then I rose from my chair and walked over to the window.

“Your Highness?” one of my lieutenants asked from behind me.

I tilted my head and listened to the howling. I knew every single one of my hounds. Even with the ones added to my kennels from the archdemon I’d ousted, I could tell them all apart, many of them by their baying alone.

And this one here…

“Vengeance,” I muttered.

She’d been quiet for years. Withdrawn, dispirited, barely mentally present. I hadn’t heard a sound come out of her since she’d ceased her song of mourning months after Zoe had died and entered Heaven.

But now she howled again.

I turned on my heels and marched out of the room, to the dismayed questions of my lieutenants and the cherub. Not that I cared. This took precedence.

I quickly found the next balcony from which to take flight, and then I soared over to the kennel building. Naturally, it was much larger than the one I’d had at my old estate when I’d been a cherub under Daevi. As was fitting for an archdemon, everything I now owned put whatever I’d called mine before to shame. When I’d won the previous archdemon’s position, I’d moved into his palace and taken over all his personal assets and properties.

After all, he didn’t need them anymore now that he was dead.

And making my home in the center of my archdemon territory was the sensible choice, to better be able to keep an eye on everything and stay in control. My old estate in Daevi’s archdemon territory stayed part of my grandmother’s domain and had been gifted to a deserving cherub coming up in the ranks.

All personal effects of mine—and Zoe’s—had been moved to my new home.

Our new home, once she was down here with me.

An iron fist gripped my heart at the thought of being parted from her again after that blessed time together in Heaven. Who knew how long it would take her to find her mother’s soul and settle things? I might be looking at months of more separation, added to the years I’d already had to endure without her.

Then again, if this was what she needed and wanted to be happy, I’d gladly suffer to make it possible for her. And in the grand scheme of things, a few more weeks or months separated from her were nothing compared to the length of eternity we would get to spend together once she was back here with me.

So I stuffed my own desperate need for her deep down and resigned myself to patiently wait for the day my mother would send word that Zoe was about to fall. I’d live for that moment when I could catch her underneath Angelfall, making sure she’d never even crash onto the ground, and hold her in my arms once more.

I landed in the courtyard in front of the massive kennel building, a squat structure of the darkest stone, fortified along the walls in order to keep the hounds inside. A few subordinate caretakers were running in and out of the building, shouts filling the air amid the incessant howling and baying of Zoe’s personal hound.

I quickly made my way inside, hurrying past the enclosures with the other dogs, who were in a state of agitation, though none made as much noise as the hound at the very end of the spacious hall. A demon stood before Vengeance’s cage, and I greeted my kennel master with a nod.

“What is going on?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the heart-stopping howl of Vengeance.

Hael turned to me with a stricken expression, his dark hair pulled back into a tight knot. “Your Highness,” he said and went down on one knee, only to rise again right away. “I do not know. She’s been like this for minutes now.”

He gestured at the huge enclosure, which was furnished with all the trappings a hound could possibly want, and at the dog in question, who was currently trying her best to dig her way out through the stone floor while baying and howling at the top of her lungs. Her claws had already raked deep grooves in the ground.

We’d had to put her here after Zoe had died. I would have kept her close and given her whatever comfort I could offer in the absence of her beloved mistress, but Vengeance had been inconsolable, unmanageable, and bent on destroying everything in her path in her distress. After she’d trashed my personal quarters twice, I’d made the hard decision to send her back to Hael and the kennels.

I visited her regularly, had tried to take her out for walks and play, but for the most part, she’d ignored me.

She’d never been my hound, and I wasn’t the one she needed or wanted.

“In all these years,” Hael continued, “she’s never been this excited and active. Not since…” He trailed off and lowered his gaze.

Not since Zoe had been gone.

Vengeance now attempted to jump over the high fence of her enclosure, her baying more desperate by the minute.

“She broke out once, didn’t she?” I asked, my gaze on the hound.

“Yes, Your Highness. That was when the lady returned from Lucifer’s palace after she’d been gone for a few days.”

My eyes flicked to Hael, my chest drawing tight with dread.

Vengeance howled so loud it rattled the massive bars of her kennel, and my gaze shot back to her. It can’t be…

“If you had to label the nature of her baying,” I said to Hael, crossing my arms, “would you say it is mournful?” I raised my brows. “Or happy?”

Hael cleared his throat. “She is currently crying out in cheerful greeting, Your Highness.”

My stomach sank to the floor.

No, this couldn’t be true. She couldn’t be here—my mother would have sent word. I hadn’t received a message, and it had only been a few days since I’d left Heaven and returned to Hell.

Vengeance did her best to climb out of her enclosure, her claws scoring the stone walls.

Pivoting, I signaled one of the other demons working the kennels. “Get me the cat.”

“Your Highness?”

“Mephistopheles,” I specified. “Find him and tell him to come here.”

“Right away, Your Highness.” The demon bowed her head and dashed off.

“What do you intend to do?” Hael asked.

I watched Vengeance’s three heads trying to chew through the bars of her cage, each of which was as wide as a mature tree trunk and made of Hell’s hardest steel. “We’re going to let her loose.”

Hael drew back as if shocked with electricity. “Pardon?”

“There is a reason she wants to run,” I muttered, my heart thrumming madly. “And the cat will follow so we know where she goes.”

After a moment of hesitation, my kennel master shifted his weight and asked, “You don’t think…?”

“Yes,” I said, swallowing past a dry throat and a massive lump of anxiety lodged in my chest, “I do.” My eyes on the hound howling to return to her mistress, I voiced what should be an impossibility, what threatened to destroy the future I’d worked so hard to achieve. “Zoe is back here in Hell. Claimed by someone else.”