Page 3 of All's Hell That Ends Well

Gah, I’d been mad at him for no reason when I should have had more faith in him, when, really, the person I had all the reason to be mad at was Naamah, and her alone. She’d basically sold me out to Lucifer!

Anger and betrayal made my skin flush hot, and a growl worked its way up my throat.

I’d thought she was my friend. I’d thought she cared about me, but all along, she’d been planning to sabotage the timing of my fall from grace so that Lucifer would be the one to snatch me up.

And why? What did he want from me?

A thought struck me, and this time, I really did stop walking, my bones icing over.

What if…he wanted revenge because he thought I’d been involved in Lilith’s murder?

Of course, Ihadbeen involved in it, albeit unknowingly and unwittingly—Destatur had roped me into her plan without telling me, convincing me to take Lilith to Earth, the one place where she could be killed by angels, which would then prompt Lucifer to cancel the truce and start Armageddon.

And I’d been so naive, so trusting, that I’d just gone along with it, thinking I was doing Lilith a big favor by escorting her to Earth and playing tour guide.

My grief over her death and my role in it were now only eclipsed by the fear striking its talons in me about whether Lucifer thought I’d been in cahoots with Destatur and now wanted payback. Was that why he’d claimed me? Did he want to torture me in retaliation?

The floor threatened to tilt under me.

My only hope was that the kernel of Lilith’s power that I apparently still carried within me would keep him from causing me physical harm…though it wouldn’t prevent him from exposing me to psychological torture, as I well knew.

“Keep up!” Haniel barked from a few paces ahead of me.

I flinched and hurried after him.

But come to think of it, Lucifer wanting revenge was unlikely, wasn’t it? If he believed the lie that Destatur and Enaia had wanted to dish up, namely that Azazel and I had been the instigators of the conspiracy to murder Lilith, then Azazel wouldn’t be alive and walking around freely. He’d either be dead, or suffering eternal punishment chained to the subfloor of Lucifer’s entrance hall.

So, the simple fact that Azazel was alive and well meant that Lucifer had somehow learned the truth, which in turn meant he would know that I had been a mere pawn in Destatur and Enaia’s game.

The relief flooding me was tempered by the nagging, terrifying question of what—if not revenge—Lucifer wanted with me. This uncertainty left me reeling. If I knew what he intended, I could at least prepare myself, trying to find ways to mitigate it or form a plan of how to deal with whatever loomed.

As it was, I was walking into this completely blind, and it scared the fuck out of me.

Maybe this was just another way for him to hurt Azazel? It would fit his style to make a grab for me in order to keep Azazel and me apart as well as use me to lash out at Azazel by intermittently hurting me and letting Azazel know.

And, much like the time I’d broken my vow to Lucifer and faced suffering the consequences, there’d be no legal way to get me out of it. I belonged to Lucifer now, and with the steep hierarchical and feudal setup of Hell, Lucifer could do whatever the fuck he pleased with me, and I couldn’t even quit and join another archdemon’s territory instead.

As we walked through the hallways—Haniel stopping here and there to inquire about Lucifer’s current location with some of the staff—I noticed some things that gave me pause.

I’d been in Lucifer’s palace only twice before, but each time, everything in here had been spick and span, the luxurious furnishings in tip-top shape, the floors polished to a shine, the gold and silver adornments of the decor gleaming in the light of the torches and chandeliers. Even at the Fall Festival, when there’d been a good degree of chaos with the masses of guests milling about, there’d still been a general sense of orderliness underneath it all, a feeling of strictly held control that temporarily allowed some leeway for the crowds partying at the festival.

Now, though…the overall impression I got was one of neglect.

The floors had lost their shine. Furnishings were torn in places, some of the curtains ripped, and no one seemed to care to fix them. There were cracks in a few walls, and I spotted what might be rat droppings in the corners. Only half of the chandeliers or torches appeared to be lit, providing just enough light to not bathe the entire room in darkness.

A dread-filled sense of doom gripped me as my gaze roamed over the obvious signs of decay and negligence.

Here and there, either in the hallways or visible through an open door in an adjacent room, we came across other demons, some of whom looked harried and hastened to run past, whereas others seemed to entertain themselves with various raucous games or lavish feasts.

We were just walking past another of those open-door ballroom-like chambers when shrill shrieking caused me to wince and pause. Peering into the room, I spotted a group of three male demons standing around something on the floor.

One of them laughed and gestured to the bundle on the ground. “Again, again!”

The tallest of them, a dude with long, silver-white hair, flicked his hand, and flames erupted over the thing on the floor—which started shrieking again, convulsing in pain.

Horror rolled through me, squeezing my stomach.

That thing on the floor was a hellrat. Burned, bleeding, mutilated, but alive.

---