He hums as a soul screams in the background. “Sure. Since the fucker is in pieces and won’t regenerate for a couple of hours, can we do something?”
Tony acts like we’re on vacation sometimes and not surrounded by walls of fire; like the inferno that rips through the place occasionally, burning us to a crisp, is no big deal.
He walks beside me through the chambers of sinners being tortured, and we pause at the wall filled with different weapons. I set the whip in its place, inspect the blood staining the leather, and roll my eyes. I’ll need to clean that later.
“When do you finish your shift?”
“Stop calling it a shift,” I say.
My shoulder hits a fellow demon as he tries to pass. Vadden, the same guy desperate to climb rank and become Satan’s little bitch. He stops and glares, then pauses when he realizes it’s me he’s barged into. The newer souls try to be too big for their boots when they first get here, so I usually need to take them down from their pedestal, which unfortunately has given me a reputation for getting into fights.
Ones I tend to not lose.
I grab the roster, checking what other souls have been assigned to me and scowl at a name that keeps popping up.
Oh, fuck my life. He’s a pisser. I’ve had to torture him far too many times.
None of the other demons have been willing to trade souls for him.
Tony snickers beside me. “Sucks to be you.”
He meets my glower with a shit-eating grin and follows me up the winding stone staircase like a lost dog. Every so often, we get a peek of the tallest building in Hell—a circular castle that stretches up toward the red sky, breaking past the raging fire fueled by damned souls. It’s where Satan stays, away from us all, looking down at us doing Its dirty work.
Most of the souls are terrified of It—but of course I’m an asshole who likes to push buttons, so I’m certain the ruler of Hell loathes me. I should’ve really contemplated that when I tried to break into Its castle, demanding to know what happened to my brother on Earth. I wanted to kill It, though I had no weapon but my weak demon power—the ability to pull up fire from the eternal river of lava and bodies that separates us from It.
I was thrown in the dungeons with a mental lock on my mind for what felt like centuries.
Now, for the rest of eternity, I’ll be torturing souls with no hope of freedom.
The hair all over my body rises at an unwelcoming feeling, a pull, causing me to glance out the window at the guarded gate that prevents anyone from leaving Hell. The urge to go over there vanishes within seconds. “What was that?” I ask Tony, who looks more confused than me.
“What was what?”
I continue to stare. My heartbeat accelerates, and the ringing in my ears nearly has me wincing.
Something is telling me to go… somewhere. I can’t control it even if I wanted to.
I stare at my friend, but before I can speak, my head spins, and everything goes dark.
3
Sable
My fingers tremble around the steering wheel as I stare at the broken sign above the gate. Four years ago, the wordsEldrith Manorused to be up there in cursive lettering. Now, all that remains is an empty hole laced with cobwebs. I’m pretty sure someone stole the sign.
I’m not entirely sure how I got here. It’s all a blur.
Taking a deep breath, I push open the car door and crash onto the harsh pavement. My head swims as I trip over my own feet. I use the roof to stabilize myself, then reach inside for the plastic bag with the shit I need and my sister’s urn.
It’s a fucking miracle I didn’t crash.
The wine lurches up my throat as I stumble to the gate, eyes narrowed on the ground, careful to avoid the sludge and overgrowth crawling over the pavement.
How long has it been since I’ve been back here? A year? Two? Three, even?
It’s turned to shit since the last time I saw it. No wonder the real estate agent told us there’s no way it’ll sell at the amount we wanted.
Or maybe it was always shit. Fuck knows. I can sense the bad vibes from out here. They’re making me nauseous.
