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15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Belial

“This is your last chance to get off the ferry, both of you,” I grumbled down to Cecil and Holga from the back of the gondola. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Soon, we’d be entering Asmodeus’ realm. The moment we passed the barrier, there’d be no turning back—not until I had Rayven. I’d chase her down to the frozen lake if that’s what it took.

“We’re not leaving you alone, Sire.” Cecil sat beside Holga on the bench at my feet, his boney arm wrapped tightly around her shivering form.

I couldn’t blame her for being terrified. Her soul had resided in the second layer, in Asmodeus’ care, for hundreds of years. Knowing that brutal fuck, he’d done unspeakable things to her.

Something akin to guilt stabbed at my chest. I’d been the one to send her off to him. Back then, it felt like a just punishment for trying to help Catherine escape.

Maybe I was just as cruel and heartless as my brothers. All she’d done was what I’d asked of her: protect my mortal treasure from all dangers. The witch took her job seriously, so of course that meant protecting her from the greatest danger of all. Me .

Now, here she was, insisting she accompany me to the second circle so she could help protect and care for Rayven, even if it meant returning to the horrible place she’d been trapped in for years.

Poor Cecil was terrified too. As my librarian, he’d never been to the other eight realms of Hell. He was used to the quiet of my library and nothing else. But when Holga had insisted on accompanying me, he’d refused to stay behind.

“You’re fools then,” I muttered as I pushed the oar made of bone and tipped with a blue-flamed lantern, guiding the vessel deeper down into my realm. It had been so long since I’d ferried one of my own gondolas. Hells, it had been forever since any of my psychopomps had gone to the lower realms.

There weren't enough souls passing Judgement through limbo to warrant the ferries anymore. There was only the occasional soul, in which case I’d simply toss them into the Styx. Any of the souls I could stomach sending to my brothers these days didn’t deserve the fanfare of an official ferryman.

“My Lord, if I may…” Cecil turned in his seat to look up at me with his tooth-filled eye sockets. “Perhaps we should summon one of your ferrymen to escort us? You are the king. You shouldn’t have to—”

“I may be the king of Limbo, but I am still a psychopomp. If I am going to send a ferry to rescue Rayven, it’s going to be with me at the helm.”

Not to mention the added fact that I possessed Rayven’s soul. No other demon deserved to ferry my queen over the Styx but me.

It had been so long since I’d traveled the Styx downstream. It was beautiful, at least in my realm. My castle was long and winding, with marble pillars draped with laurels and bones standing tall on either bank. A grand farewell to any soul passing through.

Eventually, we passed beneath the stone arch that funneled us outside. It was nighttime, and the blood moon dipped low in the sky, nearly kissing the Styx. The river of souls ran under my hedge maze, the roots spilling into the crimson water, drinking from the nutrient-rich liquid.

The brush was thick, but it peeled back, roots shuffling and disembodied heads grumbling their irritation as the vines shuffled them along with the rest of the shrubs for the gondola to pass.

“My Lord!” Cecil’s voice shot up an octave with his panic as he spotted a sharp drop ahead. “Waterfall!”

I said nothing and continued to push the ferry along. The teeth in the librarian’s eye sockets practically chattered together with nerves. Holga soothed him, quietly explaining how the ferry magic worked since she’d taken this journey before.

Cecil gripped the gondola’s silver-gilded edge, yellowed knuckles turning white from the pressure.

His exhale of relief was audible, even over the rushing water. While the crimson liquid, carrying various chunks of human remains, had a sudden drop of several dozen feet, the gondola drifted down slowly at an angle, floating along as if it had never left the water.

When the gondola rejoined the Styx, we were underground in an elaborate cave system colder than death.

“The second circle…” Holga whispered, her tone rife with apprehension.

“It’s alright. We’re safe with Lord Belial,” Cecil reassured her, squeezing an arm around her. “There’s no deceased soul safer than those in his care.”

The skeletal witch stiffened. If she was going to respond, she likely thought better of it.

I knew what she was thinking. All souls were safe with me—so long as they didn’t anger me.

As the Lord of Limbo, I could shatter souls in my realm as if they’d never existed. And if I wanted them to suffer, I’d sentence them to a worse fate by ushering them down the Styx to become wards of my brothers’ realms.

“I won’t ever send you back, Holga,” I told the witch, breaking the silence after a few quiet minutes of drifting down the river. “You have my word.”

I pulled the gondola up to the dock in front of a large flight of steps carved into the stone. When the boat glided to a stop, flames leapt to life in the gilded braziers flanking the steps.

“I can’t promise I can keep your souls safe if you leave this boat.”

I stepped onto the dock, and by the time I turned around to level Cecil and Holga with a firm stare, I was in my true form. My cloak settled over my shoulders, complete with silver-plated pauldrons I’d fashioned from ribcages and a crown of bone between my horns.

I only wore a crown on special occasions, and today, the day of Asmodeus’ death, was a special occasion.

“Neither of you are permitted to move from that bench. Is that understood?”

When I got a nod from both of them, I turned with a swirl of my cape and ascended the steps to the Lord of Lechery’s palace—if it could be called that. The place wasn’t much more than a glorified pit in what was otherwise a miserable shithole of a realm.

I climbed the steep stone staircase toward the main entrance, using my oar as a walking staff, my lantern lighting the way. Its blue flame was small, but the light was powerful, illuminating the vast cavern and all the carnage that decorated it.

The only similarity I shared with Asmodeus was a love of decorating our dwellings with the remains of our subjects. My preference was bone, of course, and his was flesh— rotting flesh. The place stunk like a disease-ravaged mass grave. Ultimate paradise for the flies and maggots and total Hell for everything else.

Asmodeus sat slouched on his throne of brutalized women, all three of his heads bowed as if in some unholy prayer. He didn’t bother looking up as I approached him.

“She isn’t here anymore.” His growl bounced off the stone walls, making him sound every bit the monstrous demon lord he was. “You’re too late, Lord of Bones.”

My chest tightened, and it took everything within me to keep my wrath caged just long enough to get answers. I was capable of beating it out of him, but I’d get to Rayven sooner if Asmodeus cooperated.

“Too bad for you. I might have spared your life if she was still here.”

“Liar,” the bull’s head huffed, the first of the three to look at me.

The flaxen-haired head was the next to meet my heated glare. “You need to muzzle that rabid bitch of yours.”

I’d always hated the voice of the human-looking head the most. It was an obnoxious fucking sound, even more irritating than its punchable face.

“Even if you hadn’t kidnapped her, I’d put you down like a dog for talking about my queen that way.” I stormed toward him, terrifying purpose in my heavy stride and murder in my flaming eyes. “Right after I make you eat your words by choking you with every tongue I cut from your heads.”

Asmodeus’ spine straightened as he sat up, lifting the shadows covering his lower half and stopping me in my tracks.

Copious amounts of blood streaked his thighs and ran down his goat legs, matting in their wiry fur. His six eyes were stark with the foulest loathing, and it was enough to make me laugh. If this form had skin on its skull, I'd even crack a smile.

“By blood and darkness,” I snickered. “Did she do that?”

My eyes dropped to the gaping wound between his thighs. Nothing but shredded skin hung over his uncomfortably large ballsack.

The look on his faces confirmed my suspicions. “My mate took your fucking cock.”

My gorgeous, brilliant, unholy terror of a mate had robbed a lust demon of what the humans would call his “money-maker.” The thought of Rayven’s face, lips, and chin wet with Asmodeus’ blood, thick beads of red streaking down her throat and peppering her perfect tits while the Lord of Lust screamed, holding the tattered vestiges of his manhood…

It made my cock hard, and it swelled enough for Asmodeus to notice.

“And they say I’m the fucking sadist,” the bull rumbled as the goat brayed.

It dawned on me then that the Lord of Lust would have had to do something truly fucked to push Rayven to that point. My maw snapped, saliva sprawling as I loomed over Asmodeus’ throne and unleashed a roar. “Where is she? What the fuck have you done to her. If you touched her, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” the demon challenged. “You already plan on killing me. At least I had a little fun first.”

Rage built in my core until I couldn’t contain myself for another breath. My hand snapped out, taking him by his middle throat with one hand and shoving my oar between his legs. The screech of agony would have burst my eardrums had I any in this form.

“Tell me where she is,” I hissed into his face as he screamed into mine. No more threats. I’d let his imagination fill in the blanks, all the ways I could make him suffer for kidnapping my most precious treasure.

“She…she jumped into the Styx before I could catch her. She’s probably with Vine or Leviathan now…”

Vine. The name had me seething. The Lord of Pride was a complete bastard, but he usually kept to himself. He didn’t like to acknowledge the existence of the other demon lords and was more reclusive than even me.

No soul passed through a realm without the master knowing of it. Would he have helped her? Doubtful. With any luck, she would be safe with Leviathan. Of my brothers, he was the only one I’d call a friend. He’d keep her safe for me until I came to collect her.

I continued to shove the oar into Asmodeus’ groin. His scream reached a whole new octave I didn’t know a growly demon like him could even hit as I rammed it inside him and stretched out the hole Rayven had made.

“Aw, what’s the problem, As? Don’t you love fucked up shit like this?” I drawled, my voice hard steel wrapped in silk. “Or are you just too chicken-shit to take what you dish out?”

The oar was speared deep enough inside him that it would have killed any other creature. All three of his mouths opened, gurgling blood and strangled whimpers of pain as his organs and flesh stretched around the invading object.

I laughed, taking pleasure in watching him suffer. “You know, I’ve always hated you. I’ve fantasized about killing you, but you’ve never given me a reason until now.”

“You—You’re a demon lord,” he sputtered. I didn’t flinch at the blood he spat onto the bleached bone of my skull. “The god of bones, of death. You have no business taking a mortal queen.”

“You forget, brother…” Using all my strength, I rammed the oar as deep as I could into him. The sound of skin tearing from the inside could be heard even above his screams. The lantern fell to the floor, blue fire catching on my cloak and engulfing me. “As the god of death, life is also mine to play with. All life….”

I was immune to my own flames, but Asmodeus was not. He writhed and thrashed as the flames consumed his entire body while the end of the oar made a grisly exit from the mouth of his center head. It was a horrific death, yet all I could do was laugh at the disturbing scene.

“Including yours.”

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