Page 26 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)

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M AYBE SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE been so cocky.

Bex had fallen off a lot of scary places in the last few months, including out of Heaven twice and down a bottomless void inside her own soul. Each of those had been existentially terrifying in its own unique way, but nothing compared to this fall, because this time, Bex wasn’t alone.

Nemini had called them hands, but they were more like whole bodies coming out of the dark to wrap around her.

Bex had talked a big game about not getting caught, but she didn’t even get a chance to dodge before they’d bound her up like a mummy, covering her face and locking her limbs as they dragged her faster and faster into the depths.

What made it even more terrifying was that Bex had no idea what she was being dragged by .

It was so dark that even her normally excellent night vision was useless.

All she knew was that the things swirling around her were as strong as deep ocean currents, and they were sucking her into a freezing abyss that was much more terrifying than the void she’d fallen into before.

That had been just empty nothing, and she’d had Nemini to help her through it.

There was no one to help her now. Bex couldn’t even open her mouth to scream as the pressure binding her body began to change, sharpening into distinct shapes that felt like arms, hands, legs, even faces.

Terrified, screaming faces that bit into Bex’s flesh like zombies.

Ghostly zombies, because while she could feel every ridge and point of their sharp teeth, the bites never actually broke her skin.

It was just pain and the endless feeling of being devoured.

And weirdly enough, that was the feeling that kicked Bex out of her panic, because unlike everything else that had happened since she’d jumped into the Lowest Hells, being held down and chomped on was a feeling she’d experienced many times before.

All at once, Bex stopped fighting and let her body go limp. This caused the things squeezing her to pause as well, loosening the pressure over her mouth long enough for Bex to get out a word.

“ Stop, ” she ordered in the same commanding tone she used on kick demons.

The writhing bodies wrapped around her didn’t listen, but that was normal too.

Even back when she’d had her horns and the voice of a queen, the kick demons trapped in Limbo had always been too crazed with hunger to obey.

Now that she was no longer struggling to escape them, Bex could feel that the phantom bodies here were the same.

If she focused, she could even feel their horns.

Tall, forked, antler-like horns attached to screaming, terrified demons lost in the dark.

The moment she realized that, Bex stopped being afraid.

It didn’t matter that she was still being dragged down into a freezing, pitch-black pit.

The hands pulling her hair and the invisible teeth biting her flesh weren’t evil ghosts or sorcerous phantoms made to torment Gilgamesh’s enemies. They were demons.

It was so obvious, Bex felt like an idiot for not realizing the truth sooner.

The Lowest Hells were uniquely horrible, but that didn’t mean they didn’t serve the same purpose as all the others.

They were still a prison built by Gilgamesh to contain Ishtar’s children.

Bex even knew which children because all the other demon tribes were already accounted for.

War was in the Upper Hells, and Envy, Lust, Greed, Fear, Hate, and Sorrow were all lumped together in the middle.

Bex would never not know her own Wrath demons, so that only left one option.

These were the demons who’d been cast into the void when Gilgamesh broke their queen, the tragically lost demons of Pride.

Now that she knew what she was dealing with, Bex even recognized the freezing cold darkness she was falling through.

It was the same feeling she used to get when Nemini touched her before Bex had lost her name and become a void herself.

But where Nemini’s emptiness had always been a calm, empty place where nothing mattered and every burden could be set down, this was a screaming nightmare.

There was no peace in this void, no solace in the emptiness, because it wasn’t empty at all.

The darkness here was filled with terror and loss, confusion and hunger, because unlike Nemini, these demons had never hit bottom.

They’d been falling and falling and falling for five thousand years.

No wonder they latched on to anything they came into contact with.

They were terrified, which perversely made Bex feel a lot more confident, because if there was anything she’d learned during the month she’d spent rescuing her people from Limbo, it was how to handle a panicking demon.

“ Demons of Pride! ” she yelled, bellowing into the dark like she could fill the emptiness with nothing but her voice.

“I am Rebexa, Queen of Wrath! Like your own queen, I was broken by Gilgamesh, but Ishtar’s creations are resilient!

I know you’ve been falling for a long time, but as a wise member of your own tribe just reminded me, nothing lasts forever.

Gilgamesh has trapped you in a prison of your own fear just like he trapped my demons in starvation, but we are the people of the Riverlands!

If we were truly defeated, the Traitor King wouldn’t need the Hells.

He wouldn’t need chains or slave bands, but Gilgamesh relies on all those crutches because he has not won .

The war isn’t over, so lift your horns, soldiers of Pride!

Release me so that I may do Ishtar’s work, and I swear on my mother’s name, I will set you free ! ”

She’d shouted it with all her might, but Bex’s promise still faded into the void.

There was nothing else it could’ve done, because hers was no longer a queen’s voice.

She had no name, no horns, no sword, no authority, nothing at all.

Despite all she’d lost, though, Bex was still a daughter of Ishtar.

For one hundred and ninety-eight lifetimes, she’d refused to accept defeat.

Every death, every loss, every time Ishtar had welcomed her home, Bex had picked up her sword and marched back out into the fight.

Even when Nemini had offered her the peace of the void, she’d clung stubbornly to her duty because she wasn’t finished.

So long as her people were slaves, Bex would never be finished.

She might not be the Bonfire Queen of Wrath anymore, but her anger would never, ever go out.

That fire would spark back to life again and again just like Bex herself did, and when she thrust out her hand to the screaming pride demons now, Bex was the one who flared in the dark.

It was just a faint glow at the end of her fingers, nothing like the blazing inferno she normally was, but even tiny lights shine bright when the darkness is deep enough.

Bex’s words had been instantly lost, but her fire gleamed through the void like a lighthouse, and everywhere its glow touched, the shattered demons’ screams turned back into words.

Queen! they whispered desperately. Save us! Save us!

“I will,” Bex promised, reaching her glowing fingers as far as they would go. “So long as I draw breath, I swear I’ll get you out.”

She had nothing to back those words up with, but that didn’t seem to matter.

The fact that a queen had come to speak to them at all must have been enough, because the reckless words were barely out of Bex’s mouth when the frantic mass of writhing demons suddenly let her go.

The teeth stopped biting, the hands stopped grabbing, and the thick sea of darkness rolled away to reveal an enormous chamber.

Just like the Middle Hells above, it was shaped like a natural cavern. Since it had been made to hold only one sort of demon, this Hell was smaller, with a much lower ceiling, but the space was still massive. It was also, Bex realized with a start, absolutely packed with demons.

They’d been laid out in rows on the floor like corpses awaiting cremation.

Their skin was the same dark brown as Nemini’s, but unlike Bex’s void demon, all of these bodies had horns.

Big, beautiful, stag-like antlers that gleamed like obsidian in the faint glow of Bex’s tiny fire.

It didn’t look like any of them had slave bands or collars, but Bex wasn’t sure if that was because Gilgamesh didn’t consider them an escape risk or if demons whose names had been shattered couldn’t be collared.

Chains or no chains, though, they weren’t going anywhere.

Bex had actually landed on top of one when the grasping hands let her go, but the man didn’t even seem to notice her boot on his chest. His eyes were squeezed shut like he was sleeping, but his whole body was twitching, and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

He didn’t react to Bex at all, not even when she shook him with her glowing hand.

That was supremely disappointing. For a moment there, Bex really thought she’d gotten some of her power back. Sadly, it looked like a little glowing was all it was. Her lit-up fingers didn’t feel any warmer than usual, and she couldn’t even sense the void where the demons’ names should have been.

She’d just have to come back down here after she’d retrieved her horns, Bex decided.

If Nemini could survive without a queen, surely these demons could too.

She’d go out and pick them all up off the riverbank if that was what it took, but she was going to keep her promise, to them and to Nemini.

First, though, she had to get what she’d come for.