CADE
When in full demon form, the glowing red outline of the pentagram would display on my chest, a branding of my species that never faded or waivered and glowed as brightly as the lines of demonic power that traced their way across my naturally black skin. A tapestry of our age and family history, and every demon’s markings were different. For those who had bonded and broken those bonds, they’d be left with large welts across their skin. A darker crimson cut around their torso, arms, and neck as though the invisible ropes that had bound them to their partner were dragged over their body until it burned a permanent reminder into them of the promise they had broken.
Demons didn’t take bonding with their life partners lightly.
Entry and exit to Hell weren’t particularly difficult if you held the marking and knew the incantations, and human souls didn’t take the same path we did to move between realms. We were living, breathing beings, not souls passing across afterdeath. They slid from one realm to another as though passing through water, and many weren’t aware they had died if it were a peaceful death. But demons must open a gate to Hell, and despite mythology, there wasn’tasingle gate to Hell but many, almost anywhere we needed them to be.
You needed wings to move to Heaven and the marking to move to Hell.
After months of keeping my human form and denying my demon, the shift didn’t come easy, but it was helped along by the rage and guilt that burned in my system and flowed through my veins. The desire to either fight my way to feeling better or to claim Nikki again was intense, a need that I feared would now be denied forevermore.
The eyes were the first to change, always becoming yellow with black slits for irises. Yellow eyes were the first sign of a demon losing control or someone intentionally allowing their demon loose from within. Then bones cracked and crunched, and I crouched in an alley, hidden by the buildings and the darkness of night. Blackness exploded from my veins like ink, flooding my skin and changing my complexion to an almost impossible black, which started in blotches until they spread like spider webs and cascaded across my skin, reaching for each other and joining, covering me in the dark color. The markings came next, red and bright, glowing with the light of demonic power and weaving their way across my skin before finally making their way to my chest and carving out the pentagram that would allow my access to Hell.
My hair disappeared, my teeth and nails grew sharp, and my clothes shredded as the ridges grew on my back, shoulders, elbows, calves, and ankles. Hook-like appendages that were only good for bloodshed. Breathing ragged and rasping against my rough throat, serrated with barbs that allowed prey to be swallowed whole but not be drawn back up, I stood and shookmy limbs out. They felt long and uncomfortable, and I much preferred my human form. But even if I could move to Hell as a human, I wouldn’t make it far before I was questioned. I didn’t yet have a plan on how to explain my absence for the past few months. Leaving Hell for Earth meant I didn’t have to explain myself, but going back opened up questions.
But I had to.
This was important.
This was for Nikki.
The incantation was spoken in our demonic language, and I muttered it under my breath, waiting for the heat to rise from under my feet, the welcoming pit where flames licked up the side for dramatic effect before I dropped down. Landing on my feet in the stone cavern, I made my way through the maze of brimstone and magma, and despite all the things I hated about this place, the comforting warmth tingled pleasantly against my skin, and it was nice to relinquish all control and be in my natural form, even if for a short while as I walked. I encountered no one along the way, although I had no doubt they knew I was there.
Taking a few shortcuts and cutting through hidden crevices in the stone walls, I found Murphy naked and strung up on a giant wooden X-frame, designed after the one he used to torture his victims on Earth when he wanted information. No matter what he had been through, Murphy’s soul form hadn’t lost that look of irony in his eyes. He understood exactly why he was here and seemed to have accepted his fate. He’d never once begged me to stop, not while I was doing the torturing, though I suspected now another demon had taken over that may change. They were crueler than I.
“What now?” Murphy spat, staring at me through one eye, the other swollen shut and the side of his face bloody. Physical torture worked best for men like Murphy, but psychological torment only worked if they felt guilt. “You gonna tear my ballsoff and make me eat them again?”
Again?Fuck, that wasn’t one of mine.
“I’m not here to torture you. I have questions.”
His expression changed at my voice, and while I had correctly assumed he wouldn’t be able to tell demons apart from one another, apparently he recognized me now.
“Oh, it’s you. Well, that is a pity. You did have a softer touch than the others.”
I scowled at him but didn’t argue.
“You’ll answer my questions and ask none of your own.” Murphy’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing and waited for me to speak again. I had come here for a specific reason, but now that he was in front of me again, I was tied up with Nikki, and there was something else playing in the back of my mind I wanted answers to. “You’re a cruel man, Mitch,” I said.
“Was that your question, or are you working up to it?”
Snarling again, I was pleased to see him flinch, if only slightly, at my display of aggression. “Tell me… why would a man like you dote on a stepdaughter so much?”
His demeanor changed instantly, and in a few seconds, he worked through a world of conflicting emotions—confusion, fear, anger, regret, remorse, and anger again. If I were a darker being, I’d tell the others that I’d found something Murphy feels guilty about, a button they could push over and over to torture him without laying a hand on him. But I didn’t want Nikki or Murphy’s memory of her used in that way.
“Who are you?”
“You know me,” I growled out. “We’ve spent a lot of quality time together. Now answer my question.”
“Why are you asking about her? How do you know these things?” Panic was edging in his tone. He wanted to know, but he didn’t want to risk giving me additional information.
He was still protecting her.
Why?
“I want to know why you treated her as you did. She seemed to be the only exception, except, I assume, for your wife. Nikki has nothing but glowing memories of you and adores you to this day, yet hundreds, maybe thousands of others would condemn you to death for what you’ve done. So tell mewhy.”
“I’m not telling youshit!”
