Inferno

It was hot. Way too hot, and everything hurt like hell. My bones screamed as I pushed myself to my knees. Dark sand shifted under me, threatening to send me toppling again. I opened my aching right hand again, examining the damage. My palm was still seared red with a slowly-fading burn, the tell-tale mark of my transgression. My sin. My only crime against heaven. Which meant this wasted dark landscape was Hell, the Infern. My fall from grace burnt brightly enough to melt the sand beneath me. Broken bits of metal gleamed among the blobs of glass, a few curved pieces sinking into the sand. I touched them with shaking fingers. The shattered pieces of my broken halo had been shinning with holy light only...… minutes ago? Months? Centuries? How long did it take to fall through worlds until you reach the end of all things? The pieces were scorched and warped, barely recognizable as a once-angelic thing. Several proud faces appeared in my mind, the archangels responsible for this. My lips drew back over my teeth in a silent snarl as I imagined plunging the broken but still-sharp remnants of my halo into their throats...but mostly I wanted to make their leader suffer. Something soft fluttered past the edges of my halo. I picked it up, ignoring the pain shooting up my arm, and realized that it was a single black feather caught between my pinched fingers. "Nooo...." my voice was a dry, cracked whisper, broken from screaming as I fell. "No, no, no, no...….noooooooo." I released the feather, and the scorching, breath-stealing wind tore it away, sending it flurrying into the blood-red sky like a bit of ash, just another piece of refuse claimed by Hell. I got to my feet, knees wobbling under me, feeling like my bones were stuffed full of broken glass, and spread my wings for flight. Agony ripped through my muscles. Another singed feather broke loose, followed by another. The wind swept them out of sight over the rim of the crater rising around me, the meteor that had caused this. My once-snowy wings were pitch black like a starless night, a stretch of crow's wings spreading from my back. I swallowed back a bitter taste as my stomach churned. His face was burned in my mind. My mouth twisted in regret, pity and rage kindled in golden eyes...…and a touch of pleasure as he planted his hand over my heart and pushed me. Fucking Gabriel. My angelic choir is gone. They don't own me anymore. My thoughts were no longer filtered by words or ideas that might lead me into sin. I was free to think and say what I wanted. "f**k you" I rasped at the sky, overjoyed that my mouth could even form the word. I wanted to say it again a thousand times just because I could. I climbed on all fours up the side of the crater and screamed to the sky. "f**k you! f**k you all!" My screams drew out into animal howls. I crawled out of the crater using the shattered bits of my halo as picks, screaming the whole way, promising every blood vengeance I could think of on the motherfucker who'd cast me down. I pulled myself over the rim and paused, gasping for breath in the endless heat. A city spread in the distance, so wide and deep it looked like a hole dug into the earth from horizon to horizon, a titanic bowl that took up most of the black sand desert in front of me. It was the city of Avernus. The city of blood, the first circle of Hell. I stared at it so hard, watching lights wink in and out of existence, I didn't hear the soft puff of hooves on the sand. "With a mouth like that, someone's gonna f**k you eventually. I scrambled backwards, almost falling right back into the crater at the sound of the deep voice. A red horse smeared with streaks of black and white war paint glared at me, snorting black mist from its nostrils. For a crazed moment, I thought the horse had spoken, that the impact of falling from grace and the heat of Hell had broken my mind, but it wheeled and sent up a plume of sand, revealing it's rider. A demon, no! Scratch that. An archdemon, unless I miss my mark. I'd never had the privilege or pleasure of facing one on the battlefield before. He was concealed under glossy, inky armor, his face covered by a matching metal mask shaped like a man's screaming face. The gaping whole revealed full lips and a square chin. Thorns rose from his pauldrons like a dark halo, and clawed gauntlets held the horse's reins. A deep red cloak hung from his shoulders, catching the wind like a streak of blood behind him. "Come closer and it will be the last thing you ever do", I hissed, rising to my feet. My fingers tightened around the bits of halo. They were a s**t weapon, but I'd fallen without my sword, and they'd do it if they had to. My shapeless tunic gave me more pause than my lack of weapons; it was charred at the edges, stained grey, and utterly defenceless. I felt the weight of the eyes behind the hideous mask, hungrily looking over me from head to toe like a snack. The archdemon stretched his hand, offering me that clawed gauntlet like your life your saver. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but know half of you, your Avernus, you will be out here looking for you soon, so you know they won't be interested in anything other than the taste of yours bones your Your choice angel." He spat the last word. There was no hiding what I was, not with the blasphemous crow wings sprouting from my back, and down here in the underworld, everything was going to want a piece of me. I was f****d, all right. And it felt glorious to even be able to think the word without a bolt of heavenly agony ripping through my brain. "You'll have to kill me first," I declared, summoning courage I didn't feel. I was broken down by the fall, well beyond the ability to take an archdemon. "Demon." To my surprise, he laughed, the sound rippling out from behind the mask. Then he reached up and peeled it off. Fucked was not a strong enough word for my situation. Horror radiated through me and I found myself reaching for a sword that wasn't there. All the angels knew this archdemon's face. It was beautiful as only sin could be, arched brows over aquamarine eyes, a strong nose, claw marks cutting his broad jaw. Dark hair spilled over his shoulders. Amaymon, the Prince of Wrath. Satan's wrath master. "It would be my pleasure," he said with a broad grin. "Run, angel. Fly if you can." I spread my wings with desperation, but my bloody body was in agony. The only way out was through him. The edges of the halo stung my palms as I readied myself to kill him or die trying. Amaymon spurred his war horse and it charged forward, the thundering hooves a steady drumbeat that grew louder and louder until it filled my ears with a roar. I ducked as his clawed gauntlet reached for me and slashed out, aiming for the horse's tendons. Just wait till I am no longer down, horse. You are next on my list. "I'd say you put up a good fight, but that would be a fat-ass lie." Amaymon examined the last pieces of my shattered halo and tossed it over his shoulder. I rammed my elbow backwards into his face, and bit back a shriek of pain and rage when one of the thorns on his Armor caught my skin and scraped right into my bone. I was so weak. My God. I'd thought the name of the creator in vain, but no holy fire blasted me from Heaven. If I'd been clinging to any last shreds of hope that this was all a mistake, that Heaven wanted its child back, it was gone now. I was on my own. Not even the angelic strictures cared what I thought or said. They had cut me loose completely. My anger wiped away the agony of that realization. If I could say f**k and God, I could say everything else, words that hadn't crossed my lips since I'd shucked off my mortal flesh in the last war for humanity. "f**k you, you ass-faced s**t-stain of a demon. You wouldn't have the balls to take me on if I hadn't just fallen." Amaymon was the polar opposite of ass-faced, but he didn't need to know that. I'd go to my rave maintaining the last sanity I had left. Something so evil shouldn't be so beautiful. "Is it your first time to say f**k? It is, isn't it? He seemed completely unfazed by my attitude, but since I was the one slung across his lap like a war prize, less weapon and broken, it wasn't that surprising. " Of course not." "Ah, I see." He spurred the war horse again, wheeling it towards the great bowl of Avernus, and the rocking motion of the horse's broad back combined with the hardness of Amaymon's Armor digging into my stomach made me feel seasick. "What is your name?" I kept silent. Not only because he didn't deserve an answer, but because I wasn't obliged to tell him. Besides, I liked the idea of rankling the archdemon as much as possible before he killed me. I wasn't going to answer a damn thing. "I've cracked tougher shells than your angel." "I wouldn't be too cocky if I were you, plus you reek and am done playing games with you." He really didn't smell bad at all. I'd expected him to smell like blood and decay this close, but instead, his armor was tinged with the rich, smoky scent of a bonfire. Amaymon laughed again. He had a throaty laugh, the kind that was full of genuine joy. "The games are never over in Hell." I watched the sand flow past beneath us, and Amaymon shifted, holding me in place with one gauntlet. A moment later, something heavy draped over me, thick with that mouth-watering bonfire scent and as soft as velvet. Red fabric pooled around my shoulders and arms. He'd covered me with his cloak, obscuring my blackened wings. I sneered at the thought he might be trying to do me a kindness. Demons are never kind. They are incapable of it. "Look, angel. This is Avernus. Your new home, and the last place you'll ever see." With my stomach churning, I raised my head and braced my arms on Amaymon's leg, pushing myself up. He took pity on my struggle and gripped a handful of cloak and tunic, pulling me upwards and seating me on his lap just as the horse's hooves changed off something hard. Several other riders went charging past us into the wasteland, focused on the crater my fall had left behind. Too late for them, and too late for me. I realized the cloak wasn't a kindness at all; he didn't want the demon outriders to see that he'd already acquired their prize. The outer rim of Avernus was carved from obsidian, soaking up the midnight sun without reflecting anything back. Without thinking, I curled my fingers into the cloak and pulled it tighter around myself, as though that would shield me from what was coming. Because the architecture of Avernus was far from the worst of it. All around it, crawling like ants over a mound, was the sprawl of civilization. Demons of all shades and stripes walked among the human shades of death, gathered in silent gray clumos. Dread filled me as Amaymon's horse plunged into the mass of life and the sound crashed over me in a wave. Several demons, dripping with iron thorns and gleaming with scars, fell to their knees until we'd left them behind to be swallowed by the crowd. He took me further into Avernus, every clang of the horses hooves a death knell. The scope of it made my mind ache as we descended, the chaos of Limbo giving way to the smooth decadence of lust, and in gluttony my mouth watered from the delicious smells hanging in the air. Coins paved the streets in greed, swords hung from every temple in anger and golden idols sparkled in Heresy. My mouth tasted like copper when we descended to the next level, the Circle Amaymon called home: Wrath. We stood on a broad shelf of obsidian and I squinted across the massive abyss at the side of the Circle, the dark side lit with twinkling lights. I could walk for days and still not reach the other side. " This is my temple, " Amymon breathed in my ear. I shivered, my fingers threatening to punch holes in the cloak from how hard I gripped it. " My Circle. My Kingdom. I own every stone, every blade, every drop of blood spilled in this place. My word is law. Now, tell me to f**k myself again and see what happens to you. " He gripped my jaw with that iron hand, the claws just dimpling my cheeks as he turned my head and forced me to look at him. Our faces were so close I could count every dark eyelash, pick out the tiny bright spots of yellow in his aquamarine eyes like stars in the sky. His hand tightened, and his eyes dropped to my lips, expecting an answer. " f**k you " I whispered. Amaymon froze, so still I wondered if he'd just tear my head off now and throw it into an abyss. Then a cruel grin split his beautiful features. " You will before the end, angel. " He kissed me before I could wrench my face away, binding those words into a promise. His soft tongue darted between my lips, drawing a gasp from me as the forbidden heat of lust blurts into a life inside me. I shouldn't have felt it. Those sensations were supposed to be dead to me, burned out by the incorruption light of divinity. Much less from a demon. I was well and truly damned.