Page 25 of Unholy Bond (The Corruption of Evelyn Adams #2)

The walk from the palace heart to the barracks was a dead man’s sprint through every old haunt and nightmare I’d ever dragged behind me.

In Hell, the architecture shifted to accommodate power, so after a few centuries of Lucifer in charge, we had walls that bent away from the main corridors like a punch-drunk boxer, always expecting the next blow.

They never quite straightened up, and the stone always seemed a little damp with the memory of previous tenants.

Every arch and ceiling bulged with the implication of violence.

Spikes, hooks, notches for chains that rattled when there was no wind.

The Void covered me as I moved, not so much a cloak as a second skin.

A sheath of nothing that made me smaller, quieter, meaner.

The disguise wasn’t perfect, but it shaved off the edges, dulled the gold of my eyes to muddy amber, suppressed the barbs on my cock and tail, made the purple of my skin mottled and ugly instead of regal.

I’d never pass for one of the truly low-level scuts, but among the barracks crowd, you could do worse than look like a half-breed thug who’d fucked his way up the ladder.

The soldiers in Hell weren’t the grandstanding generals of the propaganda.

They were lifers, grunts, trash from the bottom of the blood barrel.

Even the ones with wings kept them folded and patched.

In the old days I would have killed every third one just to make a point, but this was a new game.

I had a pouch full of gold, a belt loaded with sigils, and a knife etched with runes.

I had a script and an audience and just enough rage to play my part.

The barracks rose out of the sub-basement like a tumor, the windows punched through with iron bars and the doors studded with bone.

Someone had glued a plaque to the lintel that read “Loyalty Is Its Own Reward,” but I could see where the word “Punishment” had been scraped off and replaced.

The place smelled like wet dog, brimstone, and cheap rotgut. My favorite.

I ducked inside and the Void constricted, pressing my muscles tight to my bones. I’d been here before. Not this exact room, but its ancestors. A thousand identical shitholes from a thousand identical wars, each one promising a different flavor of pain.

The main hall was packed with bunk beds, each one welded from black iron.

A handful of demons lounged on the top bunks, most with helmets off and claws out, picking at scabs or sharpening whatever they had handy.

The real activity was in the side chambers.

The armory, the mess. The places where the real business happened.

I went straight for the armory. The door was open, hinges oiled, and inside I found four of them.

Soldiers, but not the best. They had the eyes of men who’d been told to kill, then been told to forget.

Two sat at a battered table, cleaning what passed for rifles here.

A third had his back to the door, rummaging through a crate of helmets.

The fourth was the dangerous one, half again my size with a strip of scale running from scalp to tailbone and a single, ugly eye embedded in his right cheek.

He was sharpening a blade that looked like it had been designed for hacking limbs, and when I entered, he kept sharpening.

“Lost, are you?” said the one at the crate. His accent was old, deep-hell, and he didn’t turn around. “Auditor’s office is two doors up.”

I ignored him and leaned against the weapons rack. I picked up a barbed spear, turning it in my hand. The balance was shit, but it would do in a pinch.

“I’ve come with an opportunity,” I said, pitching my words so casually they slid right off the suspicion in the air. “Unless you’re the type who prefers the current arrangement.”

They looked at each other with a flicker of animal calculation. The Void made the moment stretch, made me see the trajectory of every possible fight, the way the blood would arc, the way they’d scream if I put my knife to the base of their skull.

Instead, I tossed a pouch of gold onto the table. It hit with a clink and rolled out, coins bouncing across the cracked surface.

The demons looked at the gold, then at me, then at each other. The one with the scale stripe kept his focus on the knife, but the pulse jumped in his neck.

I kept circling the room, trailing my fingers over racks of clubs and barbed whips. “I represent someone who values loyalty,” I said. “Not the kind that gets you a medal, the kind that keeps you alive.”

Another movement of their eyes, another crack in the facade.

The one at the crate turned, finally, and I saw he’d once been beautiful, before they’d stitched a demon’s mouth onto his face and tattooed his ears with a spiral that said “Property of the Prince.” His hands were still elegant.

I imagined he could slit a throat with one and never spill a drop while playing a complicated piano piece with the other.

“Lucifer rewards the loyal,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. He watched the coins with a longing that had nothing to do with pay.

“Lucifer eats the loyal,” I said, letting my smile show. “He shits them out and uses their bones to build new walls.”

That got a laugh from the table, not loud, but enough to break the tension. The one with the scarred arms leaned forward, eyes bright.

“You got more of that?” he asked, nudging the gold with a claw.

“Plenty,” I said. “But I’m not looking for beggars. I’m looking for soldiers. The kind that know when it’s time to change sides.”

He spat, a wad of black that sizzled on the floor. “We all know. Just not all of us are ready to die yet.”

I gave him a hard look, then focused on the biggest one. “You don’t look happy with your boss,” I said.

He glared, then set the knife down. His arms were crisscrossed with whip marks, some so fresh they still wept. “He’s a cunt,” he said, not even lowering his voice. “But he’s got the only key to the mess hall.”

More laughter, more tension leaking out.

“If someone offered you a way out?” I said, testing. “Someone stronger?”

Before he could answer, a sergeant crashed through the door. He was a wall of meat and anger, his badge pinned to his chest with a nail, and his tongue slithered in and out like a lizard’s. The other demons went silent, instantly.

He scanned the room, ignoring the gold. “What business do you have here?” he asked me.

I straightened, set the spear down, and faced him full on. “Recruiting,” I said, blunt. “For a better cause than this shithole.”

He stepped closer, putting himself between me and the others. “You think you can just come in here and—”

I nodded past him, at the black crack running up the wall where the Void had started to seep through. “Even Hell is rejecting him,” I said. “You smell it? The rot? He’s losing. We’re the replacement.”

He turned to look. For a moment, he was all calculation. Then he did something I didn’t expect.

He went down on one knee.

The others watched, unsure, but then the big one with the scale stripe followed.

Then the scarred arms. Within thirty seconds, every demon in the room was kneeling, heads down, tails between legs.

The Void purred, a hot pulse in my chest, and I realized I’d missed this.

I’d missed the moment when I claimed a room for myself, missed the anticipation before the bloodletting began.

“Tell us what you need,” said the sergeant, his head bowed.

I walked to him, close enough to smell the fear, the sweat, the yearning for violence. I pressed a hand to his shoulder, just above the badge, and leaned in.

“Lilith needs soldiers who can follow orders,” I said. “She needs fighters who can hold a line, break a line, turn a line inside out. You know what comes next?”

He nodded, just once.

“Good,” I said. “You’ll be the first wave. Gather your loyalists, don’t tip your hand. When you get the signal, you go for the core. Take out the supervisors first. Cut off comms. Hit the main gate and hold it.”

He nodded again. I saw the plan forming behind his eyes, the way it always did with the best ones.

The others looked at me, wanting instruction. I gave it to them, methodical and cold.

“When the time comes, you’ll know. Until then, keep your heads down and your weapons sharp.”

I tossed a second pouch of gold onto the table. “For loyalty,” I said. “And for getting the hell out of here alive.”

They stood, one by one, the sergeant last. He looked at me, and I saw what I needed. Not hope, not faith, just the grim certainty of a man who’d finally found his excuse to do awful things.

As I left the room, the black crack on the wall seemed wider, the tendrils thicker, the Void’s pulse stronger. I savored the feeling. It was the taste of war, and it was mine.