Chapter 5

Soaring through Hell was unlike anything I had ever done before. It was a barren, desolate wasteland where the only light came from the florescent rivers of lava flowing freely from the volcanoes. There were barely any signs of life beneath us—no plants, and certainly no animals to be seen.

In fact, the only sign that anything could survive here at all was the one, small, isolated pocket of what might have been a settlement in the distance. Our flight group intentionally avoided them, choosing to take the long way around them rather than fly overhead.

The clouds above us looked so thick they were almost solid, and they reflected the green glow below giving them a strange, sickly hue. I had no doubt that flying into them would mean death, choked by the volcanic fumes they held. The air under them was no better; hot, difficult to breathe, and even harder to fly through as I kept gliding through thermal drafts and finding myself much higher—and closer to the clouds—than I had intended to be.

The demons—rebels—ahead landed on a cliff nestled in between other craggy mountains and valleys; one spot out of countless others, unmarked and uninspiring. There were no lights here, no demonically made structures, no natural landmarks that would make this place stand out.

In other words, it was the perfect place for a secret rebel base.

I landed, looking around for some hint of a door or entryway, but was stopped by my new hosts, who had begun to encircle me, drawing their weapons as they did. I raised my hands and spun around, taking stock of just how many demons looked ready to skewer me with their blades.

"Hold on, now, I thought we were on the same side," I said, trying not to sound threatening.

"That remains to be seen, angel," came the voice of the demon who had freed me. He approached, the other demons making room for him to enter the circle I found myself in.

"Then why rescue me if you're only going to kill me?"

"Kill you?" he repeated, "No one has said we are going to kill you."

"Then why all the weapons?"

"I think the weapons make my point for me, yes?"

"You mean ‘take one step out of line and you'll be on the receiving end of one of these points' sort of point?"

"Exactly."

I nodded. "This isn't my first time as a captive, I promise I'll be on my best behavior."

The demon took a deep breath and walked around me, examining me, sizing me up. "My name is Malachi. I have brought you to our sanctuary," he said, "But before you enter, I must give you a warning."

"Warning?"

"You're about to encounter many more of our kind. Most of us have never seen an angel as whole as you before—unbowed, unbroken, and full of Light. Some may be hostile towards you. It is important that you do not wander, do not make eye contact, and do not speak to anyone but our leader."

"You aren't the leader?"

"I am not."

"Who is then?"

"All in due time. Give me your hand."

He held out his hand, plum palm up, to receive mine, pulling out a small dagger and staring at me intently, as if he expected me to outright refuse. "Why do you need my hand?" I asked.

"Our sanctuary is protected by demonic magic. It will flay the skin of anyone not marked for entry… a potent defensive mechanism that has protected us for many years."

"It sounds… unpleasant."

"And it is. So, if you'd like to keep your skin…" he bounced his outstretched hand as a reminder of what I was meant to be doing.

Reluctantly, I gave Malachi one of my hands. He took it in his and paused, curiously examining the deep purple tone of my fingertips and the slight elongation of my fingernails. Malachi turned his eyes up at me and regarded me with curiosity.

"These aren't angel hands," Malachi said.

"I can assure you, they are," I said.

"I've never seen angel hands tarnished in such a way… why are yours like this?"

"How about we make a trade? I answer your question, if you answer one of mine."

Malachi's burning green eyes narrowed. "I accept your terms. Ask your question."

I had to consider my question carefully if I was only going to get one. I was sure that questions like ‘why did you rescue me' and ‘how did you know where I was' would be answered as soon as I was marched in front of their leader.

I glanced at the demons surrounding me, noting their varied appearances; some had lashing tails, others had sharpened teeth or more than two eyes. Horns. Claws. Scales. I hadn't realized until now, but Malachi had cloven hooves! These people weren't angels, not anymore, and yet they had saved me.

There was only one question to ask.

"You aren't like the other demons I met… who are you?"

Malachi paused, considering how best to answer my question. "We are the Twice Damned. Sinners sentenced to the Pit for our crimes against God… only to reach this place and choose to rebel against its malignant influence."

"Are you saying you're… good demons?"

"There is no such thing," he laughed. "We rebelled against God, some of us rebelled against Lucifer, but all of us rebel against Hell. We refuse to sink further into demonism, as futile a task as that seems at times. So, we do what we can to disrupt Hell's plans, to stop its workings or at least slow them down. In doing so we hope to cling to some piece of what we once were."

"I… I didn't even think that was possible."

"Neither did we. But we persist." Malachi paused one more. "I answered your question, now you answer mine. What happened to your hands?"

I took a deep breath. "Well… I don't know if you've heard, but God is dead."

"We may be demons, but we felt her death all the same."

"O-kay," I shook my head at the absurd realization that I was in Hell, explaining the Burn to a demon. "When She died, Heaven kicked us out and all of Her angels fell to Earth. Something about the Fall must have changed us, because sinning… well, sinning leads to this." I raised my hands. "Some of us are marked in harsher ways than others… they don't get worse over time, but the more sins we commit the more warped our bodies become."

"But God is dead… how can you sin against Her?"

"I don't know how it works. Honestly, I assumed that's how things worked down here too, why you all look like?—"

"No. It is the mere nature of this realm that warps us, remakes us in its image." He looked at my fingers again, inspecting them from every angle before asking, "How did you sin?"

"I… accidentally killed some mortals. I hadn't meant to. Now I wear their blood on my hands."

Malachi's eyes narrowed, "None of what you say sounds possible. The fact that you're here, and that you came here through the Pit, tells me you could be lying."

"I'm not lying. I swear it."

"You're telling me you fell to Earth; how did you wind up in the Pit from there?"

"That's way more than one question. I'll answer if you let me ask another, if not, we should get on with this—your fellow demons must have lost feeling in their arms by now."

Malachi nodded, and—to their relief—gave his rebels the order to put down their weapons. "Very well," he said. He ran his blade across his forearm, then took some of his own blood and smeared it on my hand. Given what we had just talked about, I wondered if the symbolism was done on purpose.

"Is that it?" I asked.

"That's it," he confirmed. "Now, come with us."

The demons made way for us to move through them and fell into step behind us. Together we walked a short way along the mountainside, toward a natural crevice against the mountain that couldn't be seen from the air, or even from where we had landed. I thought we were heading into a hidden cavern, only the crevice ended up being a solid, black, rock wall.

Malachi approached the wall, turned his head to look at me, and then stepped through the wall as if it weren't there. One of the demons at my back nodded for me to proceed, so I did, walking confidently into the wall and closing my eyes as I reached the threshold.

Crossing it didn't feel like… well, anything. There was no resistance, no strange tingling, nothing at all to tell me I had just walked through a solid rock wall. It was un-magical and also a bit disappointing, until I reopened my eyes.

I was standing on the lip of a circular walkway, hewn out of the mountain rock and lining the edge of a central chamber—a hole that seemed to be as wide and as deep as the mountain itself. In the middle stood a tall, stone structure, perfectly cut and carved, with many bridges set at different levels connecting the central column to the outer ring we were on.

Lights shone from the many windows and doors along the structure, and everywhere I looked where demons, their voices carrying and echoing throughout the mountain. There were so many of them, all taking different forms, and in different stages of their transformation; it was hard to believe that some of them had started as angels at all.

The whole place made me think of a busy marketplace, albeit underground, but just as vibrant and active. I could hear music from one of the levels below me—Music, in Hell?—and I was fairly sure I spotted a demon walking some weird half crocodile-half fish pet. At least, I hoped it was a pet.

These demons looked content in their damnation, happy even.

And I stood out like a sore thumb.

Malachi and his group led me around the external ring and toward the closest bridge, instantly attracting the attention of every demon in area. Though I wasn't the first angel they had seen down here—they had all arrived as angels, after all—I was apparently the first to still retain their angelic nature and their Light.

It seemed to raise hackles in some places and draw curiosity in others. Malachi had warned me against making contact with them, but I didn't particularly feel threatened. Or, at least, I felt about as threatened as one would expect in a city full of demons. Still, there were whispers, discussions held in hushed tones as we passed; they were all talking about me, perhaps wondering whether I was a prisoner or a prize.

I wasn't sure which I was either.

"It doesn't look like they hate me," I said.

"Hate is a strong word," said Malachi. "They are curious about you, to be sure. But we are outcasts. Sinners in the eyes of your masters. Once the curiosity is gone, the bitterness will rise."

I gave Malachi a determined look. "Heaven is not my master."

We walked down the central structure in a spiral until we reached a door about halfway down. I tried to glance over the edge, to see the bottom of the gigantic cavern, but the further down it stretched the darker it got and the dizzier I felt for looking.

Malachi knocked and opened the door, gesturing for me to step through. On the other side of the door was a room that honestly looked more like a torture chamber, though thankfully it was not covered in blood.

There were racks against the walls on which grizzly looking weapons hung. The heads of monsters, killed and stuffed, mounted above them as trophies. On the floor, in the center of the room, was a rug made from the fur of a serpent-looking creature with large, bulging, amber eyes and teeth as long as my fingers. Such a thing should've been covered in scales, not deep green fur, but I wasn't about to question this hellish bestiary.

On the other side of the room, sitting at a desk covered in parchments, was a demon with only one leathery wing, and clad in scraps of metal that had been fastened into armor. This demon's crimson skin was marked and scarred from countless battles fought against other demons and worse. When she looked up at me, her eyes burned with he same inner fire as Azaroth.

But when she spoke, her voice was soft and almost inviting.

It was jarring.

"Leave us, Malachi," she said. "Wait outside."

Malachi nodded, then ducked out of the room leaving me alone with this warlord. I took a few tentative steps inside but stopped short of reaching the desk.

"You're the angel I've heard so much about," she said after a moment.

I nodded. "I, uh, I want to thank you for rescuing me?—"

"Rescuing you? You're supposed to be rescuing us."

I frowned. "I… huh?"

"That is why you're here, is it not? To free us from this damnation?"