Malachi and his group led me around the external ring and toward the closest bridge, instantly attracting the attention of every demon in area. Though I wasn’t the first angel they had seen down here—they had all arrived as angels, after all—I was apparently the first to still retain their angelic nature and their Light.

  It seemed to raise hackles in some places and draw curiosity in others. Malachi had warned me against making contact with them, but I didn’t particularly feel threatened. Or, at least, I felt about as threatened as one would expect in a city full of demons. Still, there were whispers, discussions held in hushed tones as we passed; they were all talking about me, perhaps wondering whether I was a prisoner or a prize.

  I wasn’t sure which I was either.

  “It doesn’t look like they hate me,” I said.

  “Hate is a strong word,” said Malachi. “They are curious about you, to be sure. But we are outcasts. Sinners in the eyes of your masters. Once the curiosity is gone, the bitterness will rise.”

  I gave Malachi a determined look. “Heaven is not my master.”

  We walked down the central structure in a spiral until we reached a door about halfway down. I tried to glance over the edge, to see the bottom of the gigantic cavern, but the further down it stretched the darker it got and the dizzier I felt for looking.

  Malachi knocked and opened the door, gesturing for me to step through. On the other side of the door was a room that honestly looked more like a torture chamber, though thankfully it was not covered in blood.

  There were racks against the walls on which grizzly looking weapons hung. The heads of monsters, killed and stuffed, mounted above them as trophies. On the floor, in the center of the room, was a rug made from the fur of a serpent-looking creature with large, bulging, amber eyes and teeth as long as my fingers. Such a thing should’ve been covered in scales, not deep green fur, but I wasn’t about to question this hellish bestiary.

  On the other side of the room, sitting at a desk covered in parchments, was a demon with only one leathery wing, and clad in scraps of metal that had been fastened into armor. This demon’s crimson skin was marked and scarred from countless battles fought against other demons and worse. When she looked up at me, her eyes burned with he same inner fire as Azaroth.

  But when she spoke, her voice was soft and almost inviting.

  It was jarring.

  “Leave us, Malachi,” she said. “Wait outside.”

  Malachi nodded, then ducked out of the room leaving me alone with this warlord. I took a few tentative steps inside but stopped short of reaching the desk.

  “You’re the angel I’ve heard so much about,” she said after a moment.

  I nodded. “I, uh, I want to thank you for rescuing me⁠—”

  “Rescuing you? You’re supposed to be rescuing us.”

  I frowned. “I… huh?”

  “That is why you’re here, is it not? To free us from this damnation?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Istared at the scarred, battle-hardened demon sitting across from me, dumbfounded. What had she just said? Her amber eyes narrowed as she rose from her chair and leaned over the desk toward me, “It is why you’re here, isn’t it?” she asked with in a low, dangerous tone; the softness gone in an instant.

  I had to be careful. They had saved my life, but they were still demons. One misstep and I was likely to find myself on the wrong end of a sharp blade, but outright lying to her would undoubtedly end the same way.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I wasn’t sent here to free you.”

  She looked me up and down, scrutinizing every inch of my appearance, “But you’re wearing armor, and I’m told you have Light. Why else would you be here if not to free us?”

  “I’m really not here to⁠—”

  “Think carefully. The transition could have damaged your memories.”

  “But I⁠—”

  The demon slammed her desk with the back of her fist. “Don’t talk, just think! They must have sent you down here with instructions, with a plan of some kind; a way to get us out.”

  My jaw tightened and my hackles rose. That outburst had put me on the defensive, and it wasn’t a great way for us to start the conversation. I took a deep breath, then exhaled, hoping she wasn’t mistaking my silence for deep, introspective thought.

  “Look,” I said, “There’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

  “I think the misunderstanding is yours,” she said, shaking her head. “Angels like you don’t just fall into Hell accidentally, so, how did you wind up in the Pit if you weren’t sent?”

  “It’s a really long story,” I replied. “But I will tell you, so long as you promise not to stab me if it’s not what you wanted to hear. I really don’t want to be stabbed.”

  The demon pulled back, stood upright, and straightened out the tunic under her makeshift armor. Though her countenance remained harsh and demonic, her demeanor softened; the amber fire in her eyes dimmed to a soft glow, and her stance relaxed.

  She also made sure to push away the dagger on her desk so that it was out of arms’ reach.

  “Let’s start over,” she said. “My name is Missolis… what is your name?”

  “Sarakiel,” I said. “And, again, thank you… for saving me.”

  Missolis nodded. “We do our best to help those who claw their way out of the Pit. We cannot reach them all, but we do what we can.”

  “Malachi told me you rebelled against Hell. That’s… honorable.”

  “It isn’t about honor. It’s about survival. We don’t want to become them… what little grace we have, we want to keep. I had hoped that our actions against the legions of Hell had finally been noticed by someone up there, or that our exile had been revoked in the wake of God’s passing…”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “But there’s no one up there anymore—help isn’t coming.”

  By her reaction—or lack of—I figured that she already knew what I had just told her, or at least had considered it a possibility. It went some way to explaining her initial insistence and agitation though; my arrival must have felt like a drop of water to a dehydrated, dying man. A single match in perpetual darkness.

  She sat back down heavily and gestured toward the seat beside me, inviting me to sit. “You must understand, we are desperate to find a way out of this place.”

  “I honestly wouldn’t have guessed by the way your people live. I don’t know what I expected of Hell, but definitely not cities.”

  “Survival, Sarakiel. What we have here is a hovel compared to the Citadel. We have some small comforts, but make no mistake—this is Hell. From the moment you claw your way out of the Pit; the pain, the suffering, the heart-wrenching loneliness. It’s enough to drive most mad. You, however… you are unharmed.”

  “I was able to use my Light to heal my wounds. From what I’ve been told, that’s not the norm.”

  “No, it is not. We are not able to heal damage done to our bodies. It remains, lingers—it scars and marks us as demons, enabling the transformation into what we have all become. You can hardly blame me for believing a savior had come at last, able to not only endure, but also heal the pains of egress.”

  “So, every single demon down here had to dig their way out?”

  Missolis nodded. “Dig through the walls. It’s that simple, and that difficult. Many angels don’t make it through, and with no Light to sustain them…”

  The pile of bones.

  I shuddered as I thought of all the angels who had not made their way out, and I wondered if I would have joined them had I not heard Azaroth’s voice on the other side. That thought was quickly kicked aside and replaced by images of Gadriel; a quiet flash of wings, a pair of inquisitive eyes, a lip curled into a grin.

  Had she made it out? Or were her remains counted among the bones I had landed on?

  As much as I hoped she was not dead, I wasn’t sure that becoming a demon was a kinder fate. Missolis certainly didn’t seem to think so.

  “I don’t suppose we can go back out that way? To get into Heaven, I mean.”

  “There is no going back into the Pit; the path a demon carves through it closes as soon as they emerge and there is no way to dig back in, though some have tried.” She paused, examining me once more, but this time with curiosity rather than disdain. “How did you end up in the Pit?”

  “I did promise I would tell you, but I’m afraid you won’t believe me.”

  “I will believe a great many things, Sarakiel.” Her eyes lowered. “Try me.”

  There was so much to tell, I wasn’t sure where to start. Did I start on Earth? Did I mention Abaddon? It seemed logical to start at the beginning, but I figured it was easier to start at the end and work backwards as more questions came. “It was Lucifer.”

  She didn’t immediately react to that revelation either. “Go on.”

  “I went to the Pit to try stop an insane Archangel from absorbing his essence. Instead, the Archangel freed Lucifer. Lucifer killed him and threw me into the Pit.”

  “So, it’s true.”

  “What’s true?” I frowned.

  “Lucifer escaped his prison.”

  “You already knew?”

  “We’d heard rumors from the demons still loyal to him, but we’d put it down to blind fanaticism. Now that you’ve confirmed it…well, it puts us in a precarious position.”

  I cocked my head, wordlessly questioning her.

  “Think about it,” she continued, “The majority of the demons here were sentenced to the Pit for joining his rebellion. They’ve been biding their time, amassing their forces and hoping for his return. My rebels rejected God, and then also rejected Lucifer. We are stuck in the middle, and likely will be the first to fall at the hands of Lucifers army. Our need to escape has become even more urgent, Sarakiel.”

  An army of demons set loose upon the world. The thought sent a cold chill up my spine as I recalled Lucifer’s words; he’d wanted a Lieutenant, and he thought he had found one in Abaddon—my Abaddon.

  They will call you King of the Ashes.

  That was what the Oracle, Ariuk, had told him before turning on me to deliver his final prophecy: I would be the one to end his reign. At the time I had believed it, but the Tyrant—Abaddon—was not the same angel he was back then. The Guardian who had defended Helena’s bastion and tried to stop Medrion with his own life couldn’t possibly raze the Earth, could he?

  “I have to go back,” I said.

  “Back?”

  “Lucifer is free. If I can go back, I can stop him from doing more damage to Heaven, Earth, and Hell.”

  And I can save Abaddon.

  He had to be alive. I felt it, and, if nothing else, I knew the prophecy was still unfulfilled; that meant he was alive and, as long as he was alive, I could still help him. I just needed to get out of Hell first—no big deal.

  “I just told you, there is no going back to Heaven,” said Missolis. “Or did your time in the Pit fry your hearing as well as your memory?”

  “My hearing is fine, as is my memory…” I paused, choosing my words. “If the Pit isn’t an option, then we’ll just have to find another way out, right?”

  “You think we have not spent millennia looking for a way out? If it were possible we would have done so already.”

  “Demons get out of Hell all the time—I’ve personally dealt with many who have made it to Earth.”

  “By possessing human hosts.”

  “Well, maybe that’s not true anymore. Angels couldn’t keep physical form on Earth before God died, but we’ve all become mortal and Earth-bound since the Fall.”

  “The what?” she asked.

  “I’ll explain everything to you, I swear, but please, if there’s any way you can think of to get out of here, we have to try it.”

  Missolis tapped her overgrown nails against the desk as she thought, weighing up this angel who had suddenly fallen into her midst and was now promising all the things she had hoped to hear for so long.

  “Who are you?” She asked at last. “First, you tell me you were not sent here to save us, in fact you tell me that our worst nightmare has come true and Lucifer is free once more. And then, you tell me that all the angels are on Earth, locked out of Heaven as we are, but that we can escape and be amongst them⁠—”

  “I haven’t promised anything.” I interrupted.

  “Regardless. It is more hope than we have had in a very long time.” She stood up and started pulling heavy, fabric-like maps from a shelf behind her, “There is only one way into Hell, and only one way out that I know of, but it is heavily guarded and used only by one demon. To attempt to reach it is to risk eternal damnation at the hands of one of the worst monsters ever to exist.”

  “As the humans say: it wouldn’t be worth doing if it wasn’t hard.” I smiled unconvincingly.

  Missolis smirked. “Indeed, but consider the other human saying—you are either very brave, or very stupid.”

  “That’s weirdly not the first time I’ve been told that,” I laughed. “But please, I need to get back.”

  Her reluctance was palpable. I doubted whether it had anything to do with concern for my wellbeing, rather that this would be a direct incursion into enemy territory; deep enemy territory if I had to guess. This wasn’t a guerilla style attack we were talking about; it was a full on, cards-on-the-table operation that could get everyone killed—or worse.

  I could see it in her eyes, if this went wrong, it would be the end of her, her rebels, and the small city she had protected for so long.

  “If I tell you, you will leave this place and go on this fool’s errand. When he catches you, he will force you to tell him where my people are. I cannot risk that,” she said.

  “Who will catch me?”

  “Who else but Abaddon?”

  “Abaddon…The First.” I breathed.

  “There is a passage… a crack through the walls of this dimension somewhere inside of his Citadel. Abaddon is the only demon who has access to it, and he keeps it well guarded. There is no way for us to reach it, and even if we could, going to the Citadel now is a death sentence.”

  “Now?” I asked. “Why now?”

  “As I said, Abaddon has been building an army for Lucifer, slowly recruiting as many demons as possible, converting those who were not already loyal to him—not a difficult task when most angels arrive here broken, bitter, and angry.”

  “Part of me doesn’t want to believe an angel would just join Abaddon like that, but I’ve had first-hand experience of the way Heaven breaks us before throwing us down here.”

  “Abaddon remained steadfast that one day he would be called upon to wage war in Lucifer’s name. That faith has borne fruit, and they are gathering at the Citadel. I do not know their plans; I only know this much because we have watched their numbers swell in recent days, but I know that whatever they are planning cannot be good.”

  “Then we have to move quickly, right? That’s the only thing we can do.”

  “And say you get past the army, and Abaddon himself, what then? You, alone, take on Lucifer?”

  “There are angels on Earth who will fight, even if you won’t. If you want to stay here, cowering at the thought of being found, be my guest, but I will not sit here and do nothing.”

  I stood up, determined to hide any hint of fear or doubt in my voice. She didn’t think I could do it, but I had done so much already since falling to Earth, things I never would have thought possible… she didn’t know who she was dealing with.

  “Show me where the door is,” I said. “No one is going to give us our freedom; if we want it, then we’re going to have to take it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Twice Damned. Rebels. Good demons. Just when I thought I had seen it all, existence went ahead and twisted itself in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Demons were told to be little more than instinct-driven monsters, salivating at the mere thought of inflicting harm upon humanity.

  As one of Heaven’s Lightbringers, I had seen it for myself many times.

  None of my tasks on Earth were ever as predictable as a demonic possession. Either it had found its way out of Hell and possessed the first unlucky person it came across, or some egotistical human had dragged it out, tried to control it—failed miserably—and inevitably ended up possessed.

  It didn’t matter how the possession started, but it ended with them wreaking untold havoc on the human’s life and the lives of those around them, until we came to destroy it or send it back to Hell and fix the damage it had done.

  Demons were slaves to the pain and torment they suffered in Hell, existing in a perpetual state of agony. At least, that was what the Archangels taught us. All they wanted was to proliferate their pain, inflicting it upon humanity in a selfish attempt to displace it from themselves and absolve them of their crimes against Heaven and God.

  The most important thing to remember when dealing with demons, they’d said, was that they never told the truth.

  Azaroth and his minions were pretty much exactly what the Archangels had warned us about, but these demons… they were nothing like that, and they challenged everything I thought I had ever known about them. They were in pain, and Hell had definitely warped them, but they had their own ideas and motivations; they laughed, made music, built cities, cultures, factions.

  They were alive down here in Hell, perhaps in a way that none of us in Heaven had ever been.

  I had been escorted to a small room and asked to wait until Missolis called on me again. It was spartan really—a chair, a small table, and what looked like a bed, carved straight out of the stone walls, but with no pillows or sheets. I realized that demons probably didn’t need to sleep, but, without Light to quickly repair their wounds, would still need somewhere to rest and recover from any injuries.

  From inside my room, I could hear the pulse of this strange city under the mountain. The voices, the laughter, the music—it all flowed in through the small window. There wasn’t much of a view, but I didn’t need one, the smells and sounds alone painted such a beautiful, vibrant picture of life here.