Page 62 of A Serpent in the Garden

The smell was so horrific it made my eyes water, the mingled, bitter fear-sweats of hundreds. All these people. I couldn’t keep a shiver out of my words as skin of all colors pressed around me in a wall of sweat-fouled flesh. They’re all damned?

They’ll wait here until the council reconvenes at midnight to decide which Hell they belong in.

Some were crying; a few were stuffing their pockets with coins as if they’d ever be able to spend them; one must have lost his head completely and tried to make a break for the gates. I heard the scuffle as the guard behind me grabbed him and the resultant thud as he sailed through the crowd and landed flat on his back at the edge of my vision, taking dozens down with him as he fell.

I turned forward and found the guard leering at me.

“You’re scared.” His face peered between the open metal jaws of a hellhound his helmet had been carved to resemble. “I can taste it. If a crowd of damned scum scares you, you won’t last long in Frost.” His eyes were a vivid, poisonous green, green like envy or acid, and on his lips, a greasy smirk.

What I wouldn’t give to rip his head off and piss down his throat, It said, and I don’t think he meant it to be comforting but I felt my chest loosen with an unwilling, shaky laugh.

“You won’t be laughing in a minute,” the demon said.

I heard the guards behind me pushing back the scrum, caught snatches of thin pleas that I knew would fall on deaf ears. A dim stone hallway lay up ahead; that seemed our destination. Another scuffle broke out to my right and I turned to find a demon, dark-haired and tall, thrashing against three pairs of hands pressed into his chest.

“What is that,” he kept saying, “what the fuck is going on?” And when our gazes locked from between the shoulders of the guards, he looked like someone had woken him up with a punch to the face. So pale he looked leeched of all blood, a shock of feathery black hair to match the inky pools of his eyes, upon which no torch flame reflected. The way they sucked in light but gave off none might have made him look terrifying, but his dizzy expression of surprise somewhat ruined the effect. His lips were so startlingly red it looked as though he’d kissed a pool of blood. They gaped open like a fresh wound, sharp deadly fangs glistening orange in the torchlight.

And It was not unaffected by this demon, though I felt him trying very hard not to react. He’d gone rigid, clenching the bars of his cell so tightly I felt they’d disintegrate in his hands.

Do you know him? I asked, as the demon seemed to come back to himself, fighting harder against the guards, wild, manic.

He’s my brother.

Does he know you’re with me?

He can tell. They’ll all be able to tell when they look at you.

A startling amount of effort was required to throw Its brother back, but I couldn’t see the results of the tussle because the guard It hated swept in to herd me away.

The hallway wasn’t a hallway at all but a staircase leading down, and soon enough, it echoed with hollow screams. I wanted to duck for cover each time a new howl came tumbling through, ricocheting off the sweaty stone walls.

You’ll be hearing them a lot, It said, not unkindly. Better get used to it.

I felt I could sooner detach my limbs than grow used to it. A dazzling sense of unreality descended upon me. Surely I wasn’t here right now. These could not be my feet, carrying me down this staircase. I had never been more aware of my living, trembling body as I was at that moment. All the vicious wounds it could take, how little effort a demon would need to exert to blow me out like a candle. The fear pounded over me in a wave that left me gasping, and when the breath came back and I blinked around at where I was, it was as if Hell’s staircase was illuminated in a light so stark and lucid I could hardly remember a world that had been anything but horrific. My mother was dead and Serich probably was too; I’d never see Livvy again, hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye—

It blasted me with a chill so sharp I lost my train of thought.

The stone reverberated with screams now. Maneuvering Jessarine down the steps was a difficult task. She went willingly enough but I was afraid of nicking her with the blade and had to turn her sideways to manage.

Keep Jessa at your side, It said. Put your arm around her, keep the blade at her belly. She won’t fight you.

And it was easier that way, though the ice in her skin made me flinch. Our footsteps echoed so madly it sounded as though a load of people were clattering around behind me, though most of the guard had melted away when Its brother put up a fight. Now only one made up the rear. It smelled of soot and sweat and metal, blood and fire.

The light grew brighter, the screams louder, with each step down the staircase. They went hissing up the walls, clouding my ears, running through me like a sword. Screams of all sorts: thin wails and full-bodied, endless moans, wordless weeping. Spiraling sobs, echoes that I could feel inside my own body.

You’re okay, It said as my heart contracted like a fist. It’s just Fang.

I wanted to claw off my ears so I wouldn’t have to hear such pain any longer. It infected me, did something to my soul to listen, tore me up inside, and I felt It run a cold finger down the wall of that dark room. I can block your hearing.

No. I’ll listen to every one of them. I need to hear it to appreciate it. And a part of me felt I owed it to these souls to hear their suffering. Mine were the only sympathetic ears in this entire institution.

Sweetheart, It said on a small and disbelieving laugh as a guttural growl ripped through the staircase, these aren’t exactly innocent babies.

That doesn’t mean I’ll be unaffected by their pain.

These are rapists and thieves. Gluttons who fed their addictions instead of their children. Gamblers who robbed their families, left them homeless in the gutter. Wantonly lustful scum who spread diseases that killed babies in the womb. They put themselves above all the rest. They wouldn’t shudder at your pain. If it were possible to make you take their place, they would do it in a second. You mean nothing to them, less than nothing. Don’t waste your pity on them for a second.

We were edging toward a landing now, a pool of yellow light flickering across the stone floors. I squeezed Jessa’s cold little hand with my numb one. I wanted to look but I didn’t; I had to know but I wanted to press my eyes shut and remain in the dark, where it was safer.