Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) (11 page)

But to know that her
soul’s presence in Hell was not one of those mistakes, but
Satan’s doing, was quite the relief.

To see her leaving by
the light of the Angel carrying her away made everything we’d
been through down here worth it. As long as her soul was safe, I
would be fine.

“
Don’t
give up
.” Her words carried down to me as I caught the
flaming sword she’d tossed my way.

Never
, I thought
as I used the weapon to fight the Demons that had sabotaged my
escape.

The lava-ensconced,
monstrous body of Satan thrashed in the lake of fire, his molten
fists pounding the air as Alexis flew away. He turned his attention
on the Angel and me at the same time we dispatched the group of
Demons that had brought us down. We stood on a bridge of black lava
rock that stretched across the entire cavern, what appeared to be
hundreds of feet above the lake’s surface, although distance
could not be easily judged or measured down here. Bound to the lake
below, Satan couldn’t quite reach us. With a roar, he sank into
the flaming lake. A moment later, a blazing serpent emerged and
soared upward.

At the same time the
snake rose, more Demons flew at the Angel and me. I swung the sword
at the first one to reach me, and easily took it down, but the second
put up more of a fight. The ball of its mace slammed into my
shoulder, the Hellfire on its spikes sending needles of ice into my
flesh and bones. I spun away and arced my sword as I came back
around. The mace’s chain wrapped around my blade, and the Demon
tried to yank the sword from my grip.

“No way in hell
am I giving this up,” I muttered as my hands tightened around
the hilt. The Demon sword, along with the Angel’s help, was my
best bet of getting out of here. With a hard jerk, I pulled the blade
free. It sliced through the chains, severing the ball from the
handle. Weaponless, the Demon screeched a slew of obscenities in the
old language. Flinging the profanity back at it, I charged, taking
its head with one swoop. I spun to find not another Demon facing me,
but the serpent.

Its enormous head had
risen high enough from the lake to come eye to eye with me—its
eye taller than my entire body. I glanced down to find its tail still
immersed in the lake’s depths far below. No telling how long it
was. With an oval, yellow eye blazing through its red, magma skin, it
peered at me for a long moment. It opened its mouth to reveal fangs
dripping with red-hot venom. A tongue of fire flickered out, its
prongs licking my other shoulder, and this time, liquid heat pierced
into my skin rather than ice. Then the snake twisted away before
shooting higher into the air. One glance up and I knew why.

Alexis and her Angel
were still in sight.

“I don’t
think so.” I sprinted across the bridge until I came as close
as I could get, and then leapt into the air.

My sword pointed
downward when I landed on the snake, I plunged it in deep. Its body
whipped to the side as its head looped around. I wrenched the blade
free and swung at the tongue as it flicked out at me. I missed. As
though deciding I wasn’t enough of a threat, the head turned
back up and aimed for Alexis. I ran up its back, trying to reach its
head before it came within striking distance of Alexis, but it was
right on her heels. I thrust the sword again. The snake hissed and
shrieked. It reared away from Alexis, whipping back and forth. I
dropped to straddle the wide beast with my legs as best as possible,
hanging onto the sword’s grip and gritting my teeth through the
heat of the fire warming my leather pants.

Its head swung around
to face me again. Its mouth opened, baring its fangs, then widened as
though preparing to swallow me whole. With a violent yank, the blade
came free, and I jumped to my feet, holding it in front of me. This
time when the tongue darted out, I lobbed it off. But another one
immediately replaced it. The mouth opened further, coming closer.

Then it flew at me. I
jabbed at it, and the jaw snapped, nearly taking my head, but I
ducked just in time. When I came back up, the Angel who had tried to
rescue me stood in the snake’s mouth, holding it open with his
feet wedged into its bottom fangs and its sword piercing the top of
the snake’s mouth.

“No!” I
yelled.

“I cannot die,”
he said. “But you can, and so can she. If your choice remains
the same, I will be back for you.”

Without hesitation, he
dove down into the snake’s throat, his wings spread wide to
scrape the sides all the way down. Flinging itself back and forth,
the snake slithered down into the lake, shrieking as it went. I
missed the land bridge as we sank, but sprang off the snake’s
back as soon as I saw a ledge on the cliff side to land on. Before
the fiery serpent was even halfway down, it exploded. Balls of fire
and massive drops of lava rained into the lake below. Whatever
happened to the Angel, he was gone now.

I was left in Hell
alone.

I glanced up to make
sure Alexis was safe, and relief filled me when I could no longer see
the light of her and the Angel who carried her. I could handle Hell
for a while as long as she was okay.

“She may be gone,
but you’re mine again.” Satan’s voice rumbled all
around me. “I knew you couldn’t stay away forever.”

“Don’t
think I’m here forever.”

“We’ll see
about that …”

A Demon swooped down at
me. I swung the sword at it, but it twisted away. Out of nowhere,
something hard slammed into my head. I stumbled back, turned, reached
for the wall, but it was too late. My feet landed on nothing, and I
began to fall backwards for the lake. Another Demon soared for me, as
though to ensure I plunged deep into the fire. When it tried to shove
me with its hooved feet, I grabbed onto its calves and clung. Its
powerful legs swung back and forth as it tried to fling me off, but I
held on until I saw black under me.

Nothing but black. No
fire. No beasts, Satan or otherwise. Nothing at all could be seen
below. The blackness could stretch forever, as far as I knew.
Anything could be down there. But it wasn’t the lake of fire or
the serpent’s mouth, which was good enough for me.

I let go with a prayer.

And crashed into a
frozen floor. The Hellfire’s ice in my shoulder shattered,
jabbing pain through my entire right side. I rolled onto my knees and
one hand and tried to look around. The darkness was thorough. A black
as solid as wood.

But not silent.

The screams of
earlier—the bays of souls—filled the air, my ears, my
head. With no external visual stimulant, visions formed in my mind.
Memories of things I never wanted to see again. The horrible acts I’d
done on behalf of Lucas and the Ancients. The people I killed. The
villages I burned using a flame from my very palm. The same palm I
used to stroke my wife’s skin, to cup her face for a kiss. I’d
choked kind and generous men with these hands. Snapped necks of
religious leaders. Seduced royals’ women to start wars. I’d
led ambushes, finished unfair battles, and caused the deaths of
thousands. Hundreds of thousands.

The lamenting souls
recalled each one. Reminded me that I belonged here in Hell. Pleaded
with me to admit my guilt and accept my punishment.

I tried to stay
steadfast in what I knew in my heart and soul. What had been promised
to me.
No. I’ve been forgiven.

“Have you?”
Satan’s voice asked, slithering around me. “Are you
ssssure?”

“I’m
certain.”

“What about for
thisss?”

A new vision
showed—Alexis’s distraught face as I walked out the door
of the safe house in Virginia, leaving her with her mother and
grandmother so I could meet Lucas. Abandoning her for seven years,
seven months, seven days. Deserting her so she had to bring our son
into the world without me … forcing her to suffer the
circumstances of his birth alone.

“That is your
fault, too,” Satan taunted. “Dorian’s arrival
without a sister.”

“I know,” I
admitted.

“I don’t
think you do. I don’t think you fully understand. We needed
you
to mate with Alexis. We needed the child
you
, and nobody else,
would produce. But we only needed one. Only the boy. He is important.
So very important, with the blood of you
and
Alexis. The blood
of Jordan
and
Cassandra. So powerful. And he isssss mine.”

I growled and swung my
fist, but it hit nothing but air. Satan laughed.

“It’s too
late for you to fight that inevitability. You know it as well as I
do. And it’s too late for you to change this next bit I’m
going to share, but I’ll tell you anyway, because it makes me
happy. You see, two children from the two of you would not do. Not
for our plans. Another Amadis daughter from anyone else would have
been an inconvenience, but a daughter from you, born with this boy,
would have ruined everything. And we actually had someone in place to
ensure there wasn’t a girl.”

He paused, as though
checking to make sure I was listening. I didn’t want to, but
it’s not like I had a choice.

“Kali was such a
good servant of mine,” he finally continued. “Placed
herself right where she was needed most—at the top levels of
Amadis leadership. Dressed in Martin’s body, everybody trusted
her. Katerina, Sophia, their servants. If Martin sent supplies to the
kitchen staff at the safe house where Alexis stayed during her
pregnancy, nobody would question it. If those supplies were
ingredients for her breakfast, in they would go without a second
thought. If those ingredients were enchanted to attach to an extra X
chromosome, and cursed to obliterate the fetus in utero, nobody would
even know. Nobody did know. The circumstances of her labor—the
unusual amount of blood loss that caused Alexis to lose
consciousness—they blamed on natural causes. They were
delusional in their security. Martin hadn’t gone within a
thousand-mile proximity to Alexis, yet Kali had succeeded in killing
her child.
Your
child. For me. Alexis would have been better
off with children from anyone but you. Kali’s son would have
been a better choice for the Amadis. But you just couldn’t help
yourself, could you?”

Murderous red filled my
vision. Every muscle pulled taut. When a Demon flew at me, I thrilled
for the fight.

“It’s your
fault.” Alexis’s voice came from the Demon. Its form
morphed into her shape. I hesitated. “
Your
fault that
the Amadis didn’t have another daughter. Why did you have to
ruin my life, Tristan? Or should I call you
Seth
? You’re
selfish and evil! You don’t deserve to be married to me. You
don’t deserve to father my children. Look at all of the horrors
you’ve committed!”

Alexis’s image
disappeared. The Demon’s mouth with her voice pouring out of it
opened wide. It exhaled a colorful smoke that became another vision.
No, not a vision. A window onto the Earthly realm. Showing Dorian and
Noah. Dorian leaving Noah. Dorian saying goodbye as he headed out to
find Lucas.

“LIES!” I
bellowed.

Satan chuckled. “Oh,
I’m afraid not.”

“He’s going
because of you, Seth,” Demon-Alexis said. “IT’S
ALL. YOUR. FAULT!”

Her accusations grew,
and she shouted an unending list of the many ways I’d hurt her
and our son. How I’d caused the fall of the Amadis and the
world. How I’d failed her and everyone else.

“
Have
you
been forgiven for these trespasses against others?” Satan
drawled. “For the sins you’ve committed against your own
wife and children?”

“I died because
of you. Our baby girl, too. You weren’t there to save us!”
Alexis’s voice continued, and that was the one that broke me.
The vision of holding her damaged, lifeless body as our baby bled out
of her brought me to my knees.

Easily catching my
reaction, Satan pounded me with that one. Never let me forget it. The
vision blinded me as the Demon’s fists and club beat at me, its
voice—Alexis’s voice—driving home the pain I’d
caused her and our children until they became a cry. Her sobs. Her
keens of despair. And I wailed along with her.

At some point, another
Demon arrived, carrying the voices of all the others I’d hurt
and killed. The ones I thought I’d been forgiven for, but
didn’t know anymore. I could no longer believe in that
possibility. How could one person cause so much agony to so many
other people, including those he supposedly loved, and be forgiven?
How could I be absolved for the many,
many
atrocious sins I’d
committed?

“Impossible,”
I moaned along with the others.

There was no way. I
didn’t deserve to be pardoned. I didn’t deserve to be
anywhere but here. I only deserved to listen to these Demons with
their howls and whimpers, their accusations, the guilt they hurled at
me that stuck like black on tar. I deserved to suffer the pain, to
relive the agony of my soul mate’s death forever and ever.

I belonged right here.
In Hell. For eternity.