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 thana 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—rottingflesh. 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.
