He nodded. “But the filthy little bastard has always eluded me.” He tossed a stray piece of wood into the fire and sighed. “At least you have one advantage over us—you know for certain what awaits you in death.”
She shook her head. “So you say. But if Belial has his way, he’ll drag me off to Azmodea and trap me there.”
“Can he do that?”
Ariel scowled as she considered it. “I’m not really sure. I’ve never been there. Only heard the stories of its misery. Mostly from creatures like Shadow and Thorn, who speak of the pain and torture. It’s supposed to be a dark, tormented place that’s filled with the awful entities who live to prey on others. There are places to hide, but if they find you, they will attack without cessation.”
“So it’s like here, then.”
She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. “Only worse.”
“Doesn’t sound like it to me.”
She lifted her head to stare at him. “You don’t understand, Valteri. There’s no one there to help you.”
“And that would be different from this world, how?”
Ariel opened her mouth to argue with him and then realized that from what he’d experienced in his life there was no difference. Her gaze dropped to the scars on his body.
Not from war.
From cruelty.
“Sorry. I forgot.”
He sighed wearily. “Human or demon, makes no never mind to me. They are both out to use and abuse anyone who gets in their way.”
She wished she could tell him differently. But the truth was that she hadn’t seen much better behavior herself. “Thorn and Shadow came to help us. For no reason.”
“Have they?”
“They haven’t hurt.”
He snorted then sighed as he threw another piece of wood into the fire. “I don’t know, Ariel. I just keep thinking…”
She gave him time to continue, but when he seemed to have forgotten, she prodded him. “What?”
“If there is a God, why has He punished me for things I couldn’t help, and damned you for events you couldn’t prevent?”
“That wasn’t God. It was a vengeful woman who was lost in her own grief, and a self-serving demon out for his own advancement. They had nothing to do with God.”
“Why hasn’t He stopped them?”
“Because of our free will. As much as it hurts, it’s our gift and our curse. To interfere with it would take it away from us.”
He pierced her with a harsh stare. “It didn’t feel like free will when I was a child, chained and beaten.”
She pulled his head down so that she could kiss his lips. “I know. We can’t control our obstacles or what others think or may do. But we are all the masters of our own end. Of the choices we, ourselves, make.”
Valteri grimaced. “You say that, and yet I recall a story Brother Jerome used to tell of the pharaoh who was born to be damned. Was that really his choice?”
“Of course it was. All the pharaoh had to do was free the Hebrews and even he would have been saved. Instead, it was his own stubbornness that damned him. His pride that cost him his life.”
A strange look crossed his face and she struggled to name it.
“What?” she asked.
He looked away, his body more rigid than the sword strapped to his hip.
