Chapter 7

The Twice Damned. Rebels. Good demons. Just when I thought I had seen it all, existence went ahead and twisted itself in ways I couldn't have imagined. Demons were told to be little more than instinct-driven monsters, salivating at the mere thought of inflicting harm upon humanity.

As one of Heaven's Lightbringers, I had seen it for myself many times.

None of my tasks on Earth were ever as predictable as a demonic possession. Either it had found its way out of Hell and possessed the first unlucky person it came across, or some egotistical human had dragged it out, tried to control it—failed miserably—and inevitably ended up possessed.

It didn't matter how the possession started, but it ended with them wreaking untold havoc on the human's life and the lives of those around them, until we came to destroy it or send it back to Hell and fix the damage it had done.

Demons were slaves to the pain and torment they suffered in Hell, existing in a perpetual state of agony. At least, that was what the Archangels taught us. All they wanted was to proliferate their pain, inflicting it upon humanity in a selfish attempt to displace it from themselves and absolve them of their crimes against Heaven and God.

The most important thing to remember when dealing with demons, they'd said, was that they never told the truth.

Azaroth and his minions were pretty much exactly what the Archangels had warned us about, but these demons… they were nothing like that, and they challenged everything I thought I had ever known about them. They were in pain, and Hell had definitely warped them, but they had their own ideas and motivations; they laughed, made music, built cities, cultures, factions.

They were alive down here in Hell, perhaps in a way that none of us in Heaven had ever been.

I had been escorted to a small room and asked to wait until Missolis called on me again. It was spartan really—a chair, a small table, and what looked like a bed, carved straight out of the stone walls, but with no pillows or sheets. I realized that demons probably didn't need to sleep, but, without Light to quickly repair their wounds, would still need somewhere to rest and recover from any injuries.

From inside my room, I could hear the pulse of this strange city under the mountain. The voices, the laughter, the music—it all flowed in through the small window. There wasn't much of a view, but I didn't need one, the smells and sounds alone painted such a beautiful, vibrant picture of life here.

The Tyrant's bastion had been fit-for-purpose but cold, Meridian was a gilded lie, and Helena was simply a clone of Heaven itself. None of my post-fall homes had this kind of hustle and bustle.

It was a while before someone knocked at my chamber door. The noise startled me, my hackles rose, and I worried that one of the bitter demons I'd been warned about had found me. I tentatively approached the door and opened it. On the other side was Malachi, the demon who had rescued me and brought me here.

He regarded me with eyes of burning emerald. "Am I intruding?" he asked.

I stepped aside to allow him to enter. "Not at all," I said. "Please, come in."

Malachi bowed his head, minding he didn't catch his white horns on the stone entryway as he stepped through. I shut the door behind him and turned to face him. "I guess you're here to tell me what she's decided?"

"Deliberations are still in progress." After my meeting with Missolis, she had called in some of her lieutenants to discuss a possible battle plan and vote on whether it should be carried out or not.

I was sure Malachi would be amongst them and was surprised to find him here instead—surprised and a little wary.

"I wanted to speak to you in private, if I could, before things go any further." He looked nervous as he spoke.

"Okay? That doesn't sound ominous at all."

"I didn't mean for it to come off that way, but I thought you should know the consequences of your presence, and of the request you have made of our leader."

"I only asked her to show me the way out. I was happy to leave and never darken your door again."

"That is not what I want."

"What do you want then?"

"This is home," Malachi replied. "It takes getting used to, but we have made a life for ourselves down here."

"Missolis gave me the impression that you were all very eager to leave."

"Missolis was one of the first Twice Damned, she has suffered and worked hard to get us here. Everything is war to her, but you have to understand, war has been her entire existence. She does not know how to lay down her sword and enjoy herself, even for a moment. To do so, she believes, would be to invite ruin into the sanctuary she has built."

"She is very protective, that much I could tell."

"We weren't always so well set up and protected. There was a time, not that long ago, where we existed as nomads out there in the wastes being hounded by Hellions, Ravagers, and their Overlords. Now we have something worth fighting for."

"So, is it that you don't want to leave, or that you don't think I should leave?"

"Both."

"Ok, I can understand you not wanting to leave the home you've fought for, but why are you going to try talk me out of leaving?"

"I could tell you it's suicide, that none who have ever attempted to escape this realm have succeeded."

"You were once an angel, Malachi. You know that no demon would be allowed to walk the Earth freely, definitely not in a human host."

"And what has changed now? You say angels have corporeal form, and that perhaps demons have the same, but if any here have escaped and survived host-less since your Fall, we have not heard of it."

I took a deep breath, then sighed. "Look, I didn't ask you to risk your lives for me. I only asked for the way out of this place so that I could take it, alone. If you've spoken to Missolis, then you know why I have to go—why I don't belong here and likely never will."

Malachi nodded. "I understand your determination, but you are wrong."

I frowned. "Wrong?"

"Sarakiel… you won't find much love for humans or angels down here, any grace we had we lost long ago. Many of us are here because we loved the humans too strongly, some of us are here because we loved God, or Lucifer, too strongly. We broke the rules in some way or another, whether well intentioned or not. You, and the other angels, may think you are better than us," he pointed toward my fingers, "but you are not."

"I…" my cheeks flushed, and the heat rose in my chest. I was embarrassed and angry at the same time, but ultimately knew he was right. We had free will on Earth, as they did in Hell, but what had we used it for? To sin, overindulge, and kill.

"You're right," I admitted. "I'm not better than any of you just because I have some Light left, and I can't pretend that I went through the same thing you all did. I wasn't broken before I was thrown into the Pit, although Medrion tried. The angels on Earth… they're only now coming to terms with things that your kind have been born into, but I know they can do better—we can do better."

"You think they deserve our help?"

"I think they deserve a chance, and they won't get one if Lucifer is allowed to run around and corrupt everything. They need our help to have that chance."

"Where were they when we needed help? We dragged ourselves through the walls of that Pit and survived the rigors of Hell to build this place, this sanctuary—and we did it on our own. We aren't running anymore, Sarakiel. We aren't being slaughtered in the wastes like animals or disintegrated by angels up on Earth. There is life to be lived here, joy to be found."

"Joy… in Hell…"

"You must forget what you think you know of Hell. Yes, we have struggled, and yes, this realm takes from us the very thing that once made us angels, but it took us in when Heaven rejected us. This is our home, and it can be yours as well."

"How did Hell even… happen? God only made the Pit."

"You think God is the only entity able to create anything?"

"Well, yes."

Malachi shrugged. "Some demons tell of the first angels to be thrown into the Pit following Lucifer's rebellion. Their pain and their rage was so great, that even God's prison couldn't contain them. Their anger granted them strength enough to break through the walls and emerge, reborn, into a realm created purely of their torment and Lucifer's despair."

"You're telling me angels built this place, then?"

"Hell was not built; Hell is a consequence, a reflection."

"If the first demons willed Hell in to being, why can't they make it a better place?"

"Immortal entities can hold grudges for a very long time. It is not simply a case of wishing things to be better, but of taking action, turning the tide of misery and bitterness that pervades. That is what we fight for here, and you…your presence reminds us of what we once were, it gives us something to strive toward."

I shook my head. "You're asking me to abandon… everything. Abandon all hope and just settle here, with you and your people."

"I am. Not because I have a burning contempt for the lands above ours, but because I think you can do more good here than there."

Doing good in Hell was the most contradictory thing I had ever heard. "I don't understand what you want from me. Missolis seems pretty desperate to leave this place. She thought I was going to be your savior, not your moral guide."

"I know she wants to leave, and there are many like her who would risk everything for another chance at achieving grace. But you and I both know, no matter what we do… we are damned. God isn't here to give us back our grace, and Earth is no place for a demon."

I looked down at my feet, then back up at Malachi. Abaddon—my Abaddon—was the most corrupt angel I had seen on Earth so far; his wings, his horns, if he were in Hell no one would mistake him for an angel. Malachi's appearance, however, would certainly raise eyebrows on Earth.

His horns were thick and—on closer inspection—I could see the cracks and blood where they had painfully torn out of his skull and continued to grow from his forehead. His feet were no longer human, but instead the cloven hooves of a goat, and his skin was the color of a juicy, red plum or apple.

He'd fit in on Earth like I fit in here—and he was scared.

"If someone had tried to convince me to leave Heaven and go live on Earth…" I trailed off, looking for the right words to say. "Earth is no place for any of us, demon or angel, but just like you have down here, angels have made lives for themselves up there."

Malachi frowned. "Living in a bastion, walled up from the rest of the world, constantly at war with others of your kind?—"

"Is exactly what you're doing down here. You built this sanctuary to protect yourselves from other demons, the ones who didn't agree with your way of living. That's exactly what happened on Earth—we fight because everyone has a different idea of what life should be; it's very human if you think about it."

"Is that what you're striving to be more like? Humans?"

"All I'm saying is, I've lived on Earth for a while now and I was able to make a life for myself there. It's a life full of conflict and danger but, like you, it's the only life I've ever known outside of Heaven."

"You could learn to be happy here," he insisted.

"And you could learn to be happy there," I retorted.

He remained silent for a moment before making his way toward my door, turning to face me as he opened it, "If you go ahead with this, many will follow you, and they will die."

"I don't want that, but it's their decision to make, not yours."

"The outcome is inevitable, Sarakiel. Your arrival has given them false hope."

I shook my head. "I made promises to the lost souls in Heaven and on Earth. If I don't help them… I won't be able to live with that guilt. It would consume me."

"The lost souls down here don't matter, then?"

"I'm sorry…" I said, the words punctuated by a burst of laughter that floated up past the small window in my room. "I have to do this."

Malachi nodded. "If you are caught, your fate will be worse than ours," he said, before exiting my room and firmly shutting the door behind him.