Page 14 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)
M A R G O T
The Present
With both arms wrapped around an archdemon’s neck and not a weapon to my name, I had little hope of surviving the onslaught of demons and souls calling for my blood.
The sound of them around us was like nothing I’d ever heard before, vicious and growling creatures that were desperate for the kind of blood that only I could provide.
Archdemons were neither living nor dead, a gray area that didn’t call to the hunger of lost souls and lesser demons.
I couldn’t make myself move. Couldn’t make myself tear my gaze away from that now-closed doorway above my head as if it would simply reopen to allow us to escape.
I knew Willow didn’t have that kind of strength left, but it didn’t stop me from waiting to see her try.
Beelzebub groaned, crying out as his wing jerked against me. The sound of pain was enough to pull my attention away from the doorway, and I stared at the gold of his Enochian tattoos where they glowed beneath my arms.
The faint glimpses of the demons and souls around us were enough to make me flinch in fear, some of them entirely humanoid but for the blank look in their eyes.
Others were distorted blurs of motion, muscle, and sinew bending in ways that were unnatural to living things.
Their bones cracked and joints popped around us, the sounds like something from one of the horror movies I’d studiously avoided watching.
Sometimes, fiction was far too close to reality.
I couldn’t see the landscape beyond the writhing flesh of demons moving and attempting to reach us, the archdemons who had fallen in with us doing their best to form a wall between us and the coming threat.
“Get her out of here!” one of them shouted, swinging his hand and cutting through one of the demons who fought to get closer to us. Blood sprayed onto my cheek, the proximity of the demon too close for comfort as I gasped at the unfamiliar warmth the violence brought.
Beelzebub’s hands cupped my cheeks, cradling my face in his grip with a gentleness so at odds with the warpath of the demons around us.
“I need you to snap out of it, songbird,” he said, that name striking me in the chest. It forced me to shake off the trauma, wincing when his wings tugged me in close and more of my body lined up with his.
Skin touched skin, the feeling too warm for comfort in this place where the heat was so dry and stifling.
Sweat slicked my body, a mix of adrenaline and the heat making me feel sticky as I nodded up at the archdemon who was doing his best to keep me safe.
“Get me a fucking opening then!” Beelzebub shouted back to the archdemon who had yelled at him.
His tone was entirely different from the one I had come to know in the limited time I’d spent with him.
This was the commander of Lucifer’s armies.
This was His second-in-command, who must have led Hell through the centuries when Lucifer’s soul had been trapped within a Vessel in Crystal Hollow.
The archdemon with fiery red skin grappled with Michael, the archangel struggling without fingers that he must have lost at some point in his fight with Lucifer.
If the archangel was anything like what I’d come to know of the devil and His demons, it would take time for his magic to heal him in this place that was so far removed from the father who had provided him with magic in the first place.
His feathered wings flapped and smacked against the archdemon, and it seemed to cause more frustration than hurt, leaving the red one sputtering with rage.
Two of the other demons moved with Beelzebub, taking up his rear as he tried to step back from the worst of the fray.
I felt Beelzebub shudder as something scraped down his wing, tearing through the fibrous tissue as I nodded up at him.
He used his injured wing to throw whatever had hurt him off, nodding back to me as he settled his hands at my waist.
I flinched away from the touch on instinct, nodding through the reaction to encourage him to continue.
I could deal with the consequences of being touched later, if I survived, but for this moment I needed to focus on allowing Beelzebub to do what was necessary to save us both without fear of repercussions from me.
He gripped me tightly, tugging me tighter into his enormous frame. Heat pulsed off those golden symbols scrawled into his chest, the light held within them glowing brighter as my hands brushed over them.
I forced myself to tighten my arm around his neck, sandwiching Jonathan between us as I struggled to cradle him with one arm. The cat’s blood leaked out onto me slowly, his wounds deep but not life-threatening, and I knew he would be alright with medical attention.
If we managed to escape.
Beelzebub crushed me to his chest, bending his knees as I clung to him.
He jumped into the air, the massive expanse of those bat-like wings spreading wide.
They caught the wind as demons reached for us—for me, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
They had no interest in Beelzebub, only trying to go through him to get to me.
His wings flapped, sending a burst of air toward the ground.
The demons closest to where we had been fell to the ground as we went airborne.
Beelzebub flew even as blood dripped down from his wing to land on the ground below us, the tear in his wing forcing us to fly a crooked path.
He grimaced through the pain but never stopped, taking us past endless rolling hills of deep red earth.
Lost souls moved along the surface of the dirt in writhing piles.
They looked like bodies, though I knew they wouldn’t have come to Hell with a physical form the way I had; they still managed to hurt and maim one another.
Lava poured down from the mountaintops, spilling out of craters at the highest peaks as chunks of volcanic rock flew through the air before falling down to the ground and crushing souls beneath it.
Fire and brimstone dominated this place, the scent of burning and charred flesh potent in the air as Beelzebub flew.
Only when we put distance between ourselves and the gate to the realm of the living did the landscape below us begin to change.
Demons became less frequent, their red flesh fading into memory.
The souls who remained this far from the gate wandered aimlessly, with space to move freely without the violence of another interfering.
“The First Circle,” Beelzebub said, his voice loud enough to drown out the sound of the traveling air. He stopped beating his wings, settling into a smooth glide that hitched every time he needed to move his injured wing as the silence and peace of flight overcame him.
Some of the tension left his features, replaced by a calm I’d never seen on the tense male, making him look so much less harsh. His square jaw softened as if he lived in a constant state of gritting his teeth, his red eyes roaming the ground below.
“Limbo,” I said, nodding my understanding.
I hadn’t known what part of Hell the seal opened into, but it made sense that it would be the outermost boundary.
While it was the circle for those awaiting judgment and sorting into the circles that claimed their sins, it was also home to those who had not sworn themselves to God but lived otherwise virtuous lives.
Limbo was the least severe of the Nine Circles.
It was a circle I would not be permitted to stay in when I died because the sin of my magic would condemn me elsewhere, like all witches. We each had our home within Hell, where our magic resided like a mirror.
The ground below us became more hilly than mountainous, the ebb and flow of the land feeling more natural than the even, flat plains of red earth beneath the seal itself and the harsh volcanic peaks that surrounded the plain.
A building loomed in the distance, onyx stone jutting out of the hillside.
The tops of the palace were pointed like spires, reminding me of the gothic architecture of churches like Notre-Dame.
The windows at the front shimmered with the light of stained glass, reflecting off the red earth in the front.
Beelzebub veered to his left in a sharp turn, gliding toward the palace.
We descended slowly, crossing over the gate that lingered in the front of the building.
Beelzebub shifted me, drawing a startled gasp from me as he quickly moved a hand behind my knees and cradled me in his arms.
He landed smoothly, not even pausing as he shifted into an even gait and strode toward the doors of the palace. A male demon thrust them open, his skin a darker shade of brown than Beelzebub’s medium olive.
“Beelzebub,” the demon said, stepping aside to hold the door as the archdemon carried me in.
Jonathan jumped down from my hold immediately once we were through the threshold, shaking off the dust that had settled on him during our flight.
He twisted his body immediately, licking at the three slash marks on his chest.
“Stop that,” I scolded him as Beelzebub set me on my feet. Squatting down, I bopped him on the nose. “Bad kitty.”
He glared up at me with his eerie purple eyes, a look of pure disbelief as he swatted at my finger defiantly.
“The cat might need stitches,” I said, interrupting Beelzebub where he spoke to the demon.
Reaching out with a cautious hand, I waited until he turned to look at me.
“May I?” I asked, gesturing with my chin to his injured wing.
When he nodded and turned to give me his back, I wrapped my fingers around the edge, pulling it out so that I could examine the tear in the membrane.
I swallowed, thinking of the cost of all the physical touch we’d both had no choice but to allow in the urgency of survival.
“As might you,” I added, stroking a tender finger over the tear to brush dirt away from the wound.