Chapter 17: Lana

"H ow much of that is your blood?" Maalik snaps at me the next day when Akira and I arrive back at Purgatory. He was waiting for us at the edge of the realm – this is his way of showing he cares. And, indeed, in his snake eyes I see worry over the fact he sent us on a mission where I got so visibly injured.

Though our pace was slower, neither of us wanted to break stride for a couple of hours of sleep, so we made decent time. We're filthy, hurting, and exhausted.

"I honestly don't know anymore," I reply, my voice faint. "I just know I need ten baths and twice as many hours of sleep." I was tempted to jump into The Lethe at some point, the smell getting to my frayed nerves. Thankfully, Akira stopped me. Probably to prevent the loss of memory of everything we've seen, though .

"Tell me," Maalik demands.

"He's not there," I sigh. "What is there is an opening into The Pits."

"The Pits?" Maalik is incredulous and makes eye contact with Akira, who nods back in confirmation. Seriously? I know I look like I've been through a macerator, but I'm not hallucinating.

"All the higher-ups in his court are locked in cages above it. It looks like only one being could have been responsible for the situation and his name starts with a capital D. We didn't see the rift, though," I add.

"I see." He frowns. "I'll let Belial know." Belial must be the honey-tongued orator. I don't have enough energy to care. "Clean yourselves up and let Daniel tend to your wounds." Maalik dismisses us.

"Don't have to tell me twice," I mutter.

By now we've reached the atrium and I wave my hand once in farewell to Akira.

"Will see you later, Lana," he finally speaks, of his own free will.

I guess it took almost dying together to get his attention. Who'd have known?

???

I wake up drenched – both from sweat and arousal. Panting, I squeeze my thighs together and squirm.

I dreamt about the archdemon. He was sliding inside me, moving above me, his solid weight pressing me down in a show of dominance. My hand slides up my stomach towards my chest. I feel like I'm just a touch away from orgasm.

Thankfully, my senses return before I act on the need coursing through me. Frustrated, I throw my covers back and jump out of bed, heading straight towards the bathtub for Hell's version of a cold shower. I can't control my dreams, but I can control the choices I make with my body. At least, when his fiery eyes aren't burning me into a pliable pile of playdough.

Another thing I can't control is my curiosity. Though I'm telling myself knowledge is power and blah, blah, blah. Cooled off and dressed, I head towards the keep's library.

It doesn't take me long to find what I'm looking for, and soon I'm thumbing through a heavy leather-bound grimoire, doing what I wanted to do ever since I found out what the archdemon's name is. Ashtaroth . I swallow as shivers gallop across my skin.

A demon in the first hierarchy of Hell , I read. A Great Duke of Hell. Known as Ashtaroth, Astaroth, Astarot, or Asteroth. Associated with temptations, seductions, and leading individuals astray. Yeah, no shit. Guiding people towards desires and indulgence. Tell me something I don't know, book. Connected with two deadly sins, either lust or pride. Interesting. I wonder how this ties in with the existence of the missing Asmodeus, or Asmodai, as the Celestials call him, the Duke more commonly known for the sin of lust.

I turn to the next page and find a drawing of Ashtaroth's seal.

I trace the pentagram with my fingers, then veer off to the branching curlicues.

"You will not summon him to the library, I hope?" The sound of Daniel's voice jolts me out of my fixation and I blush. I was just caught caressing a demonic seal.

"I'm just reading up," I mumble, unable to make eye contact. " How did you know which one he is, by the way?"

"The lightning." Daniel sits across from me and folds his hands in his lap. "You must not have encountered mention of it in your reading yet. There is a lot of conflicting information in these grimoires, both in those written by mortals and in our own accounts."

I make a noncommittal sound and turn the page, getting away from the seal.

"Resisting temptation is not easy, child. If it was, Hell would be a lot emptier, and you would be living the rest of your mortal life in ignorance." Daniel's voice is gentle, but I hate that he sees right through me, into what's happening inside my body, my mind.

"I think you have rested enough after your excursion. Nick is alone south of the keep as Dean has injured his wrist. You could join him." Daniel gives me an out from our uncomfortable, mostly one-sided conversation, and I take it. Even though Nick is far from my favorite person.

I snap the book closed, tell him I'll see him at dinner, and change into my leathers.

The delineation between Purgatory and Hell is invisible – at least to our eyes. If the Fallen see it differently, they haven't shared with the class. One moment I'm standing on familiar gray sand, the ever-present aurora above me, the next I smell the rotten eggs of brimstone and the sky is on fire. Even though The Phlegethon is a couple of miles away, the ground feels chalkier, the air warmer.

I don't walk more than twenty minutes in the direction of Nick's tracks when I see the blond soldier in the distance. He's sneering at me before I even get close enough to get a word out. I still try to be civil though, so I greet him politely enough. "Daniel said Dean had to return," I add to my greeting.

"So, what?" His voice is even more hostile than usual. What crawled up his ass? "He sent the mighty demon fucker to protect me?"

I can't help but flush from head to toe. "You're an asshole, Nick," I hiss back at him. I turn on my heel to leave, unwilling to put up with his venom today, when I'm suddenly pushed from behind. The unexpected force surprises me enough that I lose my balance. I barely catch myself from faceplanting into the dry ground, scraping the heels of my palms.

I don't get to assess myself before Nick is yelling. Turning, I see that he's completely unhinged, the veins in his neck standing out with tension. "Don't turn your back on me, you frigid prude!" His eyes gleam with the kind of madness only a hurt male ego can produce.

I can't help but press on the wound – he went a step too far today. "Which is it, Nick? A slut or a prude? Or is anyone who chooses to not fuck you both?" I raise my palms in question as if I really am curious about the answer. Then I go for the throat. "And what do you call the ones that take pity on you once, but can't stomach to do so the second time you ask, knowing you couldn't even get a succubus off?"

His face turns a mottled purple and he unsheathes his longsword. "I'm going to gut you," he says, his voice so low it's barely recognizable.

I jump a step back, completely bewildered. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Nick?" My voice is shrill from shock; I never really bothered to engage him when he hurled his many, many insults over the last few years. I really didn't expect him to pull a weapon on me.

"You!" he shouts, spittle flying. "You're what's wrong! I'm fucking tired of watching you strut around, high and mighty, the team leader who can do no wrong. Lose a team member? It's not your fault. Get railed by an archdemon? No problem, Daniel will just take care of your booboos. And when someone needs to infiltrate an archdemon's stronghold, who do they pick? You!" His breathing is heavy, shoulders heaving with the movement. "I bet you suck cock all night long just so they don't kick you out on your worthless ass."

"Nick…" I hold my hands up placatingly and try to keep the edge of fear out of my voice. If I can't calm him down, one of us might not walk back from this. "You know it's not like that. I was picked for that mission because of my senses and no other reason." He snorts, but I continue, my voice turning harder. "And you have no idea what happened with Ashtaroth." I want to add that I didn't get railed either, but I'm distracted by the bolt of lightning across the sky, the following clap of instantaneous thunder. Oh. Shit.

Nick doesn't seem to notice the telltale meteorological reaction that followed me saying a certain name out loud in Hell. He's too busy laughing, the sound tinged with a healthy dose of hysteria. "Fucking liar. I bet you threw yourself at him like the desperate whore you are." He raises his sword to point it at me and I don't hesitate to pull mine out, despite a part of me still hoping that he'll just calm down. "I'm going to show them how weak you are. I'm going to drag your carcass back and show them all."

"Nick, stop!" I shriek, but it's too late. He lunges toward me with a powerful overhead attack and I duck and weave instinctively. He doesn't stop pressing the attack and swipes at my midsection diagonally. I barely manage to jump back in time and use one of my swords to deflect his. I can't keep this up for too long. He's larger than me and hasn't been injured recently. "Nick, please." I try to reason with him again. "Don't do this."

Nick doesn't reply, striking at me again, and this time I don't jump back far enough. He nicks the side of my torso, just under my ribcage, the leather splitting like butter and my skin with it. Fuck. Of course it does; his sword is made of angelic steel just like mine are.

I hiss and grit my teeth. It's time I reconcile with the fact that this is a kill-or-be-killed situation. I'll deal with the consequences later.

I barely notice the now-storming sky above us as Nick tries to strike at my head from above again. I don't dodge this time and cross my blades in front of me instead. As I stop his strike I snarl in his face – it's game on, buddy. Nick tries to use his greater physical strength to push down, but anticipating it, I twist and deflect his sword away.

He might be enraged, but all the training he received over the years is guiding him into all the right moves. He immediately tries to swipe towards my middle again. I manage to evade it and get some space between us.

I need to go on the offensive. The next time he charges at me, I duck, but I also use both of my swords to slash at his legs. He staggers back, the twin tears in his leathers weeping blood.

"Fucking bitch!" His face contorted in rage, he feints and kicks me in the stomach instead. My breath punches out as I fly backward, trying to hold on to my swords through the impact with the ground. "I'm gonna fuck you with my sword before I cut open your throat." His voice is full of glee as he slowly walks toward me.

But my eyes are not on him anymore. They're on the figure that materialized beside him.

The black-haired archdemon grabs Nick's arm so fast, that he doesn't even manage to fully turn his head before I hear his bones being crushed with a nauseating sound. Nick's high-pitched screams join the clap and boom of the thunder from the storm still ravaging the skies, and he drops to his knees.

I gather the courage to stand on shaking legs as Nick sobs, clearly in shock from the realization of who just attacked him. This is the third time I've been near this demon – though I only really saw him the one time. His face is absolutely expressionless and the roiling flames of his eyes are the only sign of life.

"Did I call you?" I blurt out, my voice surprisingly even. His gaze slowly moves to me, then to the cut at my side and the dark, shining wetness on the leather around it. He takes a step behind Nick and places a hand on his shoulder.

"Please, please, please," the man on the ground snivels. The crotch of his leathers turns darker as he empties his bladder from pain and fear.

I should voice protest at whatever will surely happen to Nick… but he tried to kill me. I have no doubt he would've desecrated my corpse if it came to that. I look up from Nick's wet fa ce and meet Ashtaroth's eyes. The thunder goes silent. He must take whatever expression he sees on my face as a green light and tightens his grip on Nick's shoulder.

A wet tearing and snapping sound, the likes of which I've never heard before is far too loud in the sudden silence, and it makes a primal part of me freeze. I can't quite focus on what the archdemon is doing, staring into the distance instead, but I expect he's ripping Nick's head off.

Instead of a head, something white, red, and pink is thrown before me, startling me from my stupor. I know I shouldn't look down, and maybe that's what makes it impossible not to. The thud of Nick's body hitting the ground is muffled by the high-pitched ringing in my ears. It takes longer than it should to realize that the off-white serpentine shape lying before me, with pink smears of blood and pieces of flesh still attached, is Nick's spine.

I turn away from the macabre sight and cover my face with my hands, like the grisly scene could ever be unseen. It's burned into my retinas and I feel my gorge rising. I place a hand on my stomach and the other over my mouth as I gag, my body convulsing violently.

A scent that's both fresh and homey invades my nose, soothing my roiling stomach. As I slowly rise from my hunched position, I can see Ashtaroth lifting his hand towards my face. His red, gore-covered hand. "No!" I blurt, but he just braces the back of my neck using his other hand to keep me from flinching away and touches my forehead with his blood-streaked thumb. I can feel him leave a smear of wetness, like he's anointing me with warpaint. Like I'm a certain lion prince and my father, the king, is about to show me off to his subjects in the jungle. The subjugating action has me fuming enough that I tear out of my stupor. I clench my fists and bare my teeth in a snarl. I want to bite that infuriating smirk clean off his perfect face.

He slides his clean hand down slowly from my neck to the small of my back, then pulls me into him. I gasp as our lower bodies come into contact. I don't want to know what part of this made him hard, whether it was the violence or my anger, but I can't ignore the pulse of liquid heat I feel at the press of that hardness against me. Looking up at his face brings vivid flashbacks from the dream I had just a few hours ago and I flush. I'm a sick, sick person. My colleague just tried to kill me, who is now lying as spineless in death as he was in life just a few feet away, and I'm cozying up against the archdemon that butchered him.

I don't find out what it is he has planned for me though; the eyes roving languorously over my face halt as the hand holding me against him tightens. He growls quietly.

"Soon." His perfect lips form the promise that makes me shiver and between one blink and the next, he steps back and disappears.

I must have been leaning on him more than I realized, because I stumble back and opt to sit down. The movement stretches my wound and I send what little energy I have left to its healing. It's not much. But that's Daniel I see running towards me – and Nick's remains. Divine intervention, I snicker to myself. Yeah, I'm definitely not mentally sound these days.

"What happened?" Daniel asks, sounding less surprised than I would have been if I happened upon a spineless corpse.

"He attacked me," I answer, waiting for the third-degree. But Daniel just nods, like it makes perfect sense that his trainee is lying on the ground sans spine, his other trainee the only other person that's present.

He kneels next to me and inspects my wound. "It appears to be healing on its own. We will clean and dress it at the keep."

"How did you know?" I ask numbly.

"I was pacing outside. I felt… disquieted. I had already decided to follow you when I saw the first lightning strike. I hurried over and had barely glimpsed you standing with him in the distance before he noticed my presence."

I hang my head. He saw me pressed against the archdemon, a detached spinal column garnishing the romantic scene, bits of gore sprinkled around like rose petals. Instead of being disgusted with me, Daniel stands up and offers me his hand. "He prevented your death." Once more he's reading me like an open book.

"Again…" I mumble and let him pull me up.

"I cannot resent him in this moment," Daniel says, his voice steely.

"But, Nick?" I gesture towards the grisly remains of the vicious young man.

"Did he deserve it?" He asks pragmatically. An odd question coming from such a kind being. Deserve it? Does anyone deserve to get their spine ripped out? Though, it was a quick death. Aside from some crushed bones, he didn't suffer. I have a feeling he would have made me suffer…

"Yes," I reply, lifting my chin. "He deserved it."