Page 48 of An Unexpected Ascension
A vibration tingles inside my chest, calling me from the other side. Cursing a moment ruined, I blink back to Lucifer’s manor, joining him in his Throne Room.
On a seat made of twisted, aged bones is perched the God of Hell. I approach, closer than no other ever dares, stepping up on the black marble dais and to the right of the Devil. Sharp, jagged bones protrude from behind him like hackles, a surefire warning for what’s presented in their hold.
“Bring him in,” Lucifer’s voice echoes boldly through the room, curling its demand around every stone pillar that upholds the fresco ceiling.
A guard stationed near the heavy set of double doors pulls one side open. Ushered through is a man of marrying age, beaten and bloody. It seems the creatures lurking in the Portae Inferi have not left him unscathed. Deep lacerations litter his skin, the crown of his head leaking brain matter down the sides of his face, the work of a crow.
With an armored glove on each shoulder, he’s forced to his knees just feet from the dais. In a slow, unfeeling movement, the man’s head lifts to reveal an evil twinge glittering in cold, dead eyes.
Lucifer waves a hand before us, summoning the story of the man’s life. In flashes, we find nothing but a raw hatred for his own kind, a sickness burrowed so deep inside his soul it’s followed him to Hell. My veins swell with a fury only the images passing before us can elicit: woman – tortured, raped, and left for dead.
“I’ve seen enough,” I bark, demanding my God to end this torment.
He snaps his fist closed, taking with it the images of the man’s atrocities. The very deeds striking too close to my decaying heart.
“Well, what say you, Hermes? As Second in Command, what will his punishment be?”
“To the canyons. Leave him for the Hell Hounds. I want to see his bones feasted on and his flesh melded into rock, dripping from his skull like wax from a candle.”
On my order, the guards haul him to his feet, a sickening smile still stapled into place.
“But before that, leave him for a night with Greygore.”
“Hermes.” Lucifer flinches.
“If Greygore didn’t tire so quickly of these weak spirited corpses, perhaps I’d let him live eternity down there. Alas, one day will suffice, even if to give him the smallest taste of his own medicine.”
The man’s smile finally falters before he’s dragged away to the dungeons of the Devil’s castle. A place where evil breaks even the hardest souls.
Before Lucifer, a beast of pure carnage was sicced on the underworld. Any damned soul that came upon it desperately wished for eradication. It wasn’t until Lucifer slayed the beast, kept him deep, deep in the darkened dungeons of these walls, did Hell change for so many. Only to be unleashed as a punishment for a depravity worth Greygore’s torture.
He’s a gnarly beast with slick skin blacker than a starless night. Larger than any animal that roams these lands, many times the size of the measly Hell Hounds wandering about. His horns sharp as his talons, the muscles that twist beneath the leathery skin, his yellow eyes filled with a lust so great it... let’s just say, the man will get everything in return that he gave on Earth.
As the boom of the doors shutting reverberates around us, Lucifer drags a hand down his tired face.
“Is my friend Lynx still with us, or does his mind succumb to the darkness of his past?”
I grunt.
“I allow justice to be served through your eyes in hopes to give you some sense of salvation, my friend, but your wrath becomes you.”
“And where is yours, God of Hell? You cradle retribution like it’s your own damn child. Never giving nearly enough of it away. Sometimes, I think you forget who you are.”
“Watch yourself, demon. I may be merciful, but I will not be disrespected in my own house, by my own servant.”
A scoff crawls up my throat.
“I have been kind to you. Understanding. Sympathetic. The next time you want to lash out at me, perhaps you can spend a night with Greygore. Then maybe you’ll see why I refrain from his torture.”
“Ah, now the God shows himself,” I mutter, and Lucifer answers with a teasing smirk.
“Your asshole wouldn’t handle even a second with that ghastly thing.”
“And yours would?” A chuckle replacing the irritability once there.
“You’d be surprised what I can handle. Though, it’s not much for my taste. I prefer to do the fucking.” He shrugs, standing from his throne and climbing down from the dais.
I follow him out the doors that sit behind the demented seat and to the war room. Before lowering himself into one of the chairs at the long metal table, he pours us both a glass of whiskey.
