Hades (7 page)

She rubbed her eyes, which were as blurry as her memories. “What happened to me?”

Hades came over, moving in that way of his, like a panther on the hunt. Not even the chains on his massive black boots made a sound when he walked.

“That’s my question for you.” He held out the cup, which was really more of a bowl. That looked suspiciously like the top of a skull. “Drink this.”

She eyed the contents as she took the bowl, nearly splashing the clear yellow liquid on her hand. It seemed safe enough, wasn’t full of floating eyeballs or anything.

“Smells good,” she said as she put it to her lips. “What is it?”

“It’s a healing broth. Made it myself from the skin and bones of a Croix Viper.”

Cat tried not to gag even though the liquid actually tasted decent, like spicy chicken soup. “Thank you.” She tried to hand it back, but he shook his head.

“Drink it all. It’ll heal the rest of your wounds.”

She looked down at herself, but there wasn’t a mark on her. Her jeans were dirty, and there were splashes of what might be blood on her feet, but it didn’t appear to be hers, and otherwise, she seemed to be in great shape. “What wounds?”

He picked up one of several blades he’d laid out on a crude wooden table and began wiping it down with a rag. “You were pretty messed up when I found you. I have the capacity to heal minor physical damage, but the other stuff is beyond my ability.”

“The other stuff?” She watched him slide the blade into a leather harness hanging off a chair.

“Psychic wounds,” he said gruffly. “The kind you get when an Orphmage thrusts his magic stick in you.”

She drew a sharp breath. “Magic...stick?”

“Not
that
kind of magic stick. Seriously, you ever seen an Orphmage’s junk?” He snorted. “I figure they use their staffs to compensate for their tiny dicks.”

She’d have laughed if she wasn’t so confused about why she was here and what had happened to her. She hadn’t spoken to Hades much, but she’d seen how he interacted with others, and she loved his sense of humor. He was so inappropriate and nothing like the people she’d dealt with in her sixty years of life in Heaven. She was pretty sure most angels had
magic sticks
up their asses.

“Maybe I could get out of this...” She looked around at the box she was sitting in. “This...um, coffin? Am I in a freaking coffin?”

“It’s actually more of a sarcophagus.” He grinned. “Cool, huh?”

Actually, yeah. Hades, guardian of the demon graveyard, had a sarcophagus for a bed. He really lived the part, didn’t he?

He offered her his hand, which she took, relishing the hot static buzz that skittered over her skin as she allowed him to help her to her feet and out of the giant coffin. And man, his hand was big. And strong. And it made her wonder what his fingers would feel like as they caressed her skin.

This was the second time they’d touched. She liked it. Wanted more. Being this close to a male was rare and strange, and aside from the unfortunate incident with Zhubaal, she’d never really had more than casual contact with the opposite sex. In Heaven, many angels were all “free-love” and “if it feels good do it,” but Seraphim tended to be conservative, determined to use ancient practices like arranged matings in order to preserve the inherent abilities that made Seraphim unique among angels.

She’d always thought Seraphim customs were a drag, even though her parents hadn’t been as militant as most others. Even so, just before she’d been booted from Heaven, they’d started to nudge her in the direction of suitable mates.

Now she was on her own, curious, and frankly, she was horny. Her brief encounter with Zhubaal had been ill-conceived and had only left her more sexually frustrated. Although, if she were honest with herself, she could probably lay some of her frustration at her own feet since she hadn’t been shy about asking Lilliana about sex with Azagoth.

Lilliana had been shocked at first, but they’d grown close, and soon Azagoth’s mate was confiding in Cat, sharing what they did in the shower, with the spanking bench, out in the woods... Cat shivered at the thought of doing some of those things with Hades.

The desire to feel more than the buzz she was getting through their clasped hands became a burning need, and she stepped closer to him, drawn by his bare chest and thick arms. If she could just smooth her palm over his biceps or abs––

Abruptly, he released her and leaped back, almost as if she’d scorched him. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he stood there, staring down his perfectly straight nose as if she were an enemy. And yet...there was an undercurrent of heat flowing behind the ice in his eyes.

Could he read her mind? And if he had, wouldn’t her naughty thoughts have made him want to touch her more? She didn’t know much about the males of her species, but she knew it didn’t take much to get them interested.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said gruffly. “I don’t have a lot of visitors, so...” He shrugged as he gestured to one of two chairs in the small space.

Right. So...pretend that neither one of them had been affected by the brief moment of...well, she didn’t know what to call it. Maybe avoidance was for the best.

She cleared her throat in hopes of not sounding like a moron. “This is your home? I wouldn’t have expected you to live in a one-room...what is this? A crypt?”

“Ding, ding,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm but not malice. “Give the girl a prize. More snake soup, maybe?”

She held up her still-full bowl. “Thanks, but I’m good.” The crackling fire drew her attention to the carved gargoyles on the ends of the mantel and the faded painting of angels battling demons in a cemetery hanging above it. Okay, maybe Hades was taking the graveyard guardian thing a little too far.  “So, why do you live in a crypt? Surely you could have a mansion if you wanted.”

“You’d think, right?” He gestured to the chair again. “Sit.”

It didn’t occur to her to not obey, so she sat carefully in the rickety chair that must have been put together by a five-year-old child. As far as she could tell, it was constructed of branches and strips of leather.

Hades folded his arms over his massive chest and stared at her until she squirmed in her highly uncomfortable seat. As if her discomfort was exactly what he was waiting for, he finally spoke.

“Tell me, Cat. What did you do to piss off Azagoth, and why would he send you to the Inner Sanctum without telling me?”

Shit. She was a terrible liar, and she had a feeling that Hades would see through a lie, anyway, but the truth...man, it was probably going to get her punished in a major way. She stalled by sipping the snakey soup.

“Also,” he pressed, not missing a beat, “what do you know about communications being down and the door between Azagoth’s realm and the Inner Sanctum being locked?”

She choked on the broth. “It’s locked for you, too?” At his nod, her mouth went dry. This was bad. Really bad. “I tried to go back, but I couldn’t. I thought I screwed something up.”

“You screwed up, all right,” he said, “but you couldn’t have gone back. Only Azagoth or I can operate the doors.” He tossed a log on the fire. “Why did you come here?”

Dread made her stomach churn, as if the soup had morphed back into a snake in her belly. “Before I answer your questions, I need to ask something.”

“Sure,” he drawled, arms still crossed over his chest. “Why the fuck not.”

Well, that didn’t sound promising. “Azagoth has the ability to destroy souls.” She shuddered at the very idea, at the sheer
power
one must possess to undo what God himself had done. “Do you?”

One corner of his perfect mouth tipped up. “You worried?”

“A little.”

“Seriously?” He lost the smile. “What the fuck did you do?” His eyes narrowed, becoming shards of angry ice. “Azagoth doesn’t know you’re here, does he? You entered the Sanctum without his knowledge. Holy shit, Cat, do you know what I’m supposed to do to intruders?”

She could guess, but she really didn’t want to. The bowl in her hands started to tremble.
Calm down. He probably won’t kill you. Probably
.

“Cat!” he barked. “At least one of my wardens is dead because of you, so I need some answers.
Now
.”

She couldn’t look at him, so she concentrated on her feet and said softly, “I accidentally let some souls into the Inner Sanctum.”

“Accidentally?”

“Of course it was an accident,” she snapped, annoyed that her motives were in question. “Who in their right mind would open the tunnel without Azagoth’s permission? I didn’t even know
how
to open the thing. I was cleaning, and I accidentally––”

“Okay,” he interrupted. “I get it. It was an accident, but that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

She set the bowl on the edge of the coffin and blew out a breath. “I wanted to fix my mistake. I know it was stupid. I changed my mind, but the portal closed and I couldn’t get back.”

“So you traveled to the 5th Ring?” he asked, incredulous. “What kind of dumbass move was that? What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I needed to find the human,” she shot back, feeling a little defensive. She might be impulsive, and she might not have made the best decision ever, but she had been trying to make things right. “But I swear, I’d barely stepped out when demons surrounded me.”

“That’s because you’re different. You are, for lack of a better word, alive. They can sense your life-force in a way my wardens and I can’t.” He scowled. “Wait. Human?” He moved a little closer, and she suddenly felt crowded. “What human?”

Ah, yeah, this was where things got really sticky. And bad. “One of the souls that got through...it was human.”

“So?” He picked up another of his wicked knives off the table and ran his thumb over the blade. “Evil humans are admitted to the Inner Sanctum every day. The souls you allowed through would have made their way to one of the five Rings...which isn’t a catastrophe. Eventually we’d have figured out that they were in the wrong place.
If
they were in the wrong place. So why did you worry about it? Because you were afraid of Azagoth’s wrath? Not that you shouldn’t be afraid,” he threw in. “He peeled me once.
Peeled me
. Do you know what it feels like to be fucking peeled? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not as fun as it sounds.”

Er...she didn’t think it sounded fun at all. And geez, she knew Azagoth could be terrifying, but she’d also seen his tender, caring side, and she’d never known him to be needlessly cruel. Then again, by all accounts, Lilliana had softened him considerably. Cat wouldn’t have wanted to know Azagoth pre-Lilliana.

“I’m...not sure how to respond to that.” But she was sure as hell more afraid of Azagoth than ever. “I mean, yes, I was worried about Azagoth’s reaction, but the problem is that the soul was mistakenly brought here. He’s human, but not evil. He was reaped by mistake.”

“A mistake? How do you know all of this?”

“Because Reaver paid a visit to Azagoth. He wants the human back in a bad way.”

Hades went silent, spinning around to pace, his heavy boots striking the floor with great, tomb-shaking cracks. “When did this happen? When did you send the human into my realm?”

She didn’t
send
the human into the realm, but she wasn’t about to quibble about terminology at the moment. “Three days ago.” She reconsidered that, since she didn’t know how long she’d been held captive by the demons. “Could be a little longer.”

Hades let out a low whistle as he ran his hand over his Mohawk. “Damn, Cat. Just...fuck.”

“I know,” she said miserably.

“No, you don’t know. It all makes sense now. The ritual I came across a few days ago. The Orphmage wielding power. The human was fueling all of it. The damned human is why all of this shit is happening, and with the comms down, Azagoth had no way to warn me.”

“What shit?”

“The riots down here. The rebellion.” He hurled the knife to the table. The tip of the blade punched into the wood and vibrated, the noise filling the small space with an eerie echo. “The magic.”

She shook her head, completely lost. “I don’t understand. There have been riots? What magic?”

“The magic that severed communication with Azagoth and sealed the exits out of the Inner Sanctum.”

“Sealed? Not just locked? Like, there’s nothing you can do?” She couldn’t believe that. How could one dead human cause so much trouble? “You’re Hades. Surely––”

“No, Cat. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The exit is sealed. We’re stuck here, and if the demons are clever enough, they can use the human to reveal the location of my home as well. And once that happens...” He trailed off, and she swallowed. Hard.

She knew she shouldn’t ask, but as the psychotic angel she used to work for once said, she was “fatally curious.” “Once that happens...what?”

“We’ll be overrun by millions of the evilest demons on the Ufelskala scale. They’ll kill us, Cat, and if we’re lucky, they’ll only spend a couple of days doing it.”

Chapter Eight

Hades could not believe this shit. In his thousands of years of presiding over the hellhole that was the Inner Sanctum, not a single soul had entered by mistake. Both he and Azagoth had been very careful about who––and what––passed through the barrier. The consequences of the smallest foreign object or unauthorized person entering the Inner Sanctum was precisely why not even his fallen angel wardens were allowed to leave once they started work here. Hades himself couldn’t bring anything in, except under certain circumstances, and only with Azagoth’s permission.

Made it tough for a guy to get a pizza.

And now, in a matter of days there had been at least two unauthorized entrances, and the full extent of the resulting damage had yet to be seen.

Cat shoved to her bare feet, which were decorated with purple nail polish. Cute. He’d been ordered not to touch her sexually, but would sucking on her toes count?

“So you’re saying that we have no recourse?” Her hands formed fists at her sides, and he wondered if she was attempting to keep from punching something. “There’s no way to contact Azagoth?”