Page 32 of A Wicked Dance of Obsidian and Light (Echoes of Darkness #1)

“W ho put the bounty on Iris Harper?” Kaiden clips out through gritted teeth.

“I told you I don’t know!” Adramelech’s screams bounce off the wall as Kaiden sets him on fire for what must be the hundredth time today. The smell of charred meat wafts through the air, making bile surge in my throat. He’s hanging from a metal hook in the ceiling, spelled chains around his wrists. His feet barely touch the cement floor.

We’re in the basement of the building Kaiden lives in, or better said, the building he owns because I just found out earlier that he owns the whole freakin’ neighborhood, and I still don’t know how to process that information. He really wasn’t kidding when he said the Conclave is getting into legitimate business.

The space is impressive; it looks like a giant windowless warehouse with top-notch security. He even has a biometric scanner at the door. Empty cages litter the wall on my far left, and I guess this is where justice is served, where all the dark creatures that break the number one rule of not killing humans are punished.

The sound of a phone ringing slices through the air, and Kaiden steps back from Adramelech, taking his phone out of his pants and glancing at the screen. He looks over his shoulder, and his crimson gaze finds mine, his scleras slowly going back to white. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back,” he tells me before striding to the door with steps that echo loudly in the cavernous space.

“I don’t know why, but I don’t quite believe you,” I say to Adramelech as I stand from the chair I’ve been sitting on since we arrived a few hours ago. After I fell asleep in Kaiden’s car, he brought Adramelech’s unconscious body here, and then he drove us to my apartment. I woke in my bed, confused as to how I got there. After getting ready, Kaiden drove us to his building.

The thought that Kaiden must have carried me to bed is doing strange things to my heart. I can’t get last night out of my head…the kiss, our talk, and then what happened in his car. A maelstrom of emotions war inside my chest, and my pulse scatters as the image of Kaiden kneeling between my thighs and feasting on me flashes through my mind.

Dammit, Iris, concentrate!

I blink, forcefully bringing my mind into the present. “You see, the Order taught us that Lucifer’s right-hand demon is a well of information. That he knows everything going on. Why would you be his chancellor otherwise?” I challenge, striding to the massive table on my right, where torture instruments are laid out in an obsessive-compulsive order. Judging by how clean and organized Kaiden’s penthouse is along with this place, I’m sure he’s one of those clean freaks. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t blow a gasket living in my apartment. Don’t get me wrong; I like things clean and organized, but not at this level.

Picking up a serrated knife that has a weird symbol on the handle, I run my finger down its sharp blade. It looks spelled. Since I don’t know what it does, I put it back in its place and take out a dagger from its holster at my belt. I make my way toward Adramelech slowly, with the gait of a predator cornering its next meal, as I flip it in the air a few times. “But do you know what you’re most famous for? Your voracious appetite for eating the souls of innocent children and then feeding their little bodies to your snakes.”

He smirks. “They do taste better than anything. Untainted souls are a delicacy.”

“Sick fuck,” I snap, and with a flick of my wrist, I send the dagger flying. It impales Adramelech’s left eyeball with a wet thwack .

“You cunt!” He lets out a blood curdling wail, struggling in his restraints as tar-like blood starts pouring on the side of his face.

I smile like a cat. “Aw, did that hurt? I guess you’ve never experienced what a blessed dagger can do before. Well, let’s get you two acquainted, shall we?”

His nostrils flare, and his serpentine eye glimmers with undisguised rage. “Do your worst,” he hisses, and I step back to avoid the spittle flying from his mouth. He’s only wearing the pants from last night, the skin of his exposed torso, a mangled mess of burns, still sizzling in the aftermath of Kaiden’s power.

He didn’t use any of the torture instruments on Adramelech, and I suspect it’s because of my presence. He’s probably afraid of my reaction, of how I’m going to perceive him after witnessing him inflict torture. Little does Kaiden know, I’ve dabbled in the art myself. Whenever I stumble across a demon higher in rank on my shifts, I make sure to question it about my mother’s death before sending it back to Hell.

Since the umbra attack, there have been very few demons on the streets, so when Kaiden mentioned we were going to get Adramelech, I knew I had to be here, not only because I have a bounty on my head and want to know why, but because he might know something about the demon that killed my mother.

Folding my arms in front of my chest, I say, “Eliana Harper, my mother, was a hellseeker. She was killed eight years ago by a demon at the bottom of a canyon. Do you know anything about it, who that demon is?”

He arches a mocking eyebrow. “Aw, let me guess, Mommy Dearest’s death messed up your sad little life,” he taunts with a snicker.

A muscle thrums in my taut jaw as I wrap my fingers around the dagger’s hilt and twist, eliciting another screech. “I asked you a question.” With that, I take out the dagger and start carving out his eye to the sound of his wails. I don’t enjoy this; in fact, my stomach lurches in my throat every time he screams. It’s only practice that made me somewhat immune. The first time I tortured a demon, I spilled the contents of my stomach on the ground three times before I was able to continue.

Adramelech’s serpentine eye smacks the floor and rolls, and I step back to see his face better. “Do you think there’s a spell or magic powerful enough to grow back your eye? I don’t think so,” I muse, tone detached, cold as ice. “So, did you change your mind? Are you going to start talking now?”

The sound of Kaiden opening and closing the door reverberates in the vast space, but I don’t turn around. The wards Malik put on the basement are so strong that he cannot disappear and appear at whim inside, so he needs to use the door like a normal person.

“Fucking hellseeker bitch,” Adramelech spews.

“’Kay then, well, I guess you don’t need the other eye either.” I lift my dagger-holding hand and swing it toward Adramelech’s remaining eye.

Just before the tip of the blade makes contact, he bellows, “STOP!”

I do.

His chest is bouncing with labored breaths. “There’s a ledger Lucifer likes to keep with every single hellseeker death caused by a demon since the initiation of the Order. Your mother’s name is not there. I would know; I’m the one writing in it.”

What. The. Fuck.

I almost stagger back at hearing his words. No, that can’t be right. I saw the file. The Order classified my mother’s death as caused by an unknown demon. “You’re lying,” I seethe. It’s the only explanation because if he’s not, it means that the Order lied about my mother’s death, and why would they do that? It makes no sense.

“I don’t think he is. Lucifer does keep a ledger,” Kaiden says from my right, startling me. If he is surprised to come back into the room and find me torturing Adramelech, he doesn’t show it.

“Where can I find this ledger?” I inquire as I turn my head toward Kaiden.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. “In Hell, at Lucifer’s palace.”

“Can we get it?”

“It’s too dangerous. It’s the best guarded place in Hell. You can only enter with Lucifer’s permission, and he’s in hiding, remember?”

Fuck.

Looking back at Adramelech, I ask, “Who put a bounty on my head?”

His nostrils flare. “I already told you. I. Don’t. Know.”

I tilt my head. “Fine, then what do you know about the umbra?”

“The umbra?” he echoes, and his throat rolls with an audible swallow.

That alone tells me he must know something. “Yeah, don’t play dumb. A few weeks ago, I was attacked by umbra demons in the national park. They came through a fucking portal and almost killed me.”

Something akin to fear flashes in Adramelech’s eye. But he still doesn’t say anything.

“’Kay then,” I say dryly and plunge the dagger into his gut, twisting before taking it out. I wait for the screams to stop. “Don’t worry; your remaining eye is next. So…the umbra?”

He mutters a sharp curse, followed by a death stare my way. Sweat runs down in rivulets on his face and torso, tar-like blood gushing from the wound as violent tremors wrack his body. He hisses a serrated breath. “When the Celestial Treaty was signed, the seraphim put a secret clause in it. It obligated Lucifer to hide the umbra in the farthest corner of Hell and erase all traces of their existence because of a prophecy.”

Folding my arms in front of my chest, I ask, “What prophecy?”

“I don’t know what the prophecy says. I only know it exists.”

“What about the portal? Do you know who opened it?”

“No,” he answers quickly. Too quickly.

I cock an eyebrow and swing the dagger toward Adramelech’s remaining eye again.

“FUCK! STOP!” he bellows.

I drop my hand and wait.

“I know a portal opened near Shadow Lake almost two months ago. It created quite the buzz in Hell since portals are forbidden. At first, I thought it might be a demon from the resistance, but I couldn’t find any evidence. I didn’t know umbra came through it, though, until right now…” He swallows. “I think they tore open the veil to create the portal.”

My eyes widen. “They can do that?”

“Yes. They used to tear through the veil between Hell and Earth to collect souls, and that was before Lucifer banished them to the furthest corner of Hell.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to calm the headache blooming between my eyes. Gritting my teeth, I turn on my heel and start pacing the length of the basement, my mind spinning. A warm hand placed on my shoulder stops me.

“You okay?” Kaiden asks. Canting his head to the side, his obsidian gaze captures mine and makes my heart flutter. He drops his hand at the side of his body, and I shiver slightly, already missing his warmth.

“Yeah…Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

“I’m not sure, though you did scare the shit out of him when you were about to take out his second eye.” A small smile tugs at his full, sinful lips.

“Yeah, well, you were taking too long, so I decided to intervene.”

“You’re good at it, torture. If you ever need a job…”

I huff. “I know you held back on Adramelech because I was here.” Hiking a shoulder, I say, “I don’t enjoy inflicting pain, but you get used to it when you do it enough times. It’s something I had to do in order to at least try and find the demon who killed my mother.”

“Didn’t you say she died in a car accident when you were fifteen?”

“When the Order took me in, I learned that we fell into the canyon, and at the bottom, a demon was waiting for us. I don’t know how I survived, obviously, since I can’t remember anything about my past. But I saw the file. It said that the cause of death was inflicted wounds by an unknown demon.” I fold my lower lip between my teeth, gnawing on it. “Do you think the Order lied about my mother’s death?” I ask after a few beats of silence.

“I don’t know, but you put too much faith into the Order. It’s not like they’re saints.”

I scoff. “Yeah, well, they took me in after my mother’s death and gave me a purpose. They didn’t have to since I’m a half-blood, so excuse me for not choosing to believe a demon to the detriment of the people who gave me a new life.”

Kaiden sucks on his teeth. “I understand this is a hard pill to swallow, but you have to at least take into consideration that the Order might have lied.”

“I know, I just…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you, but it’s the first lead I got about my mother’s death, and it wasn’t what I expected to hear.” I heave out a deep sigh. “We need to find out what that prophecy says.”

“Yeah, I know,” he murmurs grimly, deep in thought, then scrubs a hand over his stubbled cheeks.

Taking out my phone from the back pocket of my jeans, I glance at the screen. “Shit, it’s already nine. I have to go home and get ready for my shift. I can’t miss another one.”

“Okay. We can pick this up tomorrow and see if you can get anything else out of Adramelech regarding the prophecy. I’ll call Malik from the car and let him know we finished for today, so he can come heal him. I don’t know if he’ll be able to do anything about the eye, though,” he says before placing his hand at the small of my back.

“What happens when you finish getting all the information you need out of Adramelech? Are you going to kill him?” I ask Kaiden as we get out in the hallway.

“No, it’s too risky. Even if Lucifer is in hiding, we can’t risk him finding out. He might retaliate. Malik is going to erase his memories to make sure he doesn’t remember being tortured.”

My eyes almost bulge out of my head. I figured Malik was extremely powerful for a dark magic wielder, but not that powerful. “Can he do that?” I ask.

“The brain is always tricky to mess with, but I believe he can do it,” he says, jabbing the elevator button.