CHAPTER THIRTEEN:FAR AWAY
1494 Words
---
LILITH POV
The throne of the Ninth Pit was not made of gold. Gold was for cowards. Mine was carved from the femurs of kings who thought they could bargain with me.
It bored me.
I tapped one claw against the armrest. The sound echoed through the cavern. Below, the rivers of fire ran sluggish. Even they were lazy today.
“Report,” I said.
A lesser demon crawled forward, head to the stone. It shook. Good.
“Asmodeus, my queen. He… he has not progressed. The Nephalem lives. Unharmed. She laughs. She eats. She—”
“Enough.”
The demon vaporized. Ash on my tongue. Still not enough.
I looked at the scrying pool. It showed me her. Sadie. Nephalem. Sitting in that human mansion with her little collection of strays. A vampire. A frost girl. Fairies. A nature wielder. And my son, circling her like a lovesick dog instead of gutting her like he was made to.
Disgraceful.
“Did I birth him, or did I s**t him out?” I asked the chamber.
No one answered. Smart.
I stood. The chains on my wrists rattled. I hated this part of Hell. Too deep. Too quiet. No screams. Just the hum of power waiting to be used.
“Fine,” I said. “If my son won’t do it, I’ll motivate him.”
I dragged my nails down my palm. Black blood welled, thick and smoking. I let it drip into the pool.
“Wake,” I told the dark.
The pool boiled.
From the depths, things rose. Hounds with no skin, only muscle and teeth and hate. Beasts with too many limbs, made from war and famine and the prayers of dying children.
My pets.
“Go,” I whispered. “Start far. Let her hear the screams first. Let her smell it on the wind before it reaches her door.”
The pool stilled. The beasts were gone.
To Earth.
I sat back down. Smiled.
“Let’s see how nonchalant she is when the world burns around her.”
---
WRITER POV
It started in Norway.
A fishing village. Small. Unimportant. The kind of place that wouldn’t make the news until it was too late.
The hounds came at dusk. They didn’t howl. They didn’t need to. They moved through the streets like smoke, and where they passed, there was no one left. No bodies. No blood. Just empty clothes and houses with the doors still open.
By the time the sun rose, the village was gone.
Next was a stretch of highway in Nevada. Cars found abandoned, engines running. Phones on the seats, mid-text. brb. They never were.
Then a temple in Thailand. A market in Morocco. A school in Brazil after hours, thank the gods, but the night guard’s scream was caught on a security camera that melted thirty seconds later.
Always far. Always distant. Never in Port Harcourt. Never near Moonlight High. Never near her.
But the world noticed.
Phones buzzed. News anchors went pale on air. Unprecedented disappearances. No evidence of attack. Experts baffled.
In Sadie’s mansion, the TV was on. Mute.
---
HARPER POV
“Turn it up,” I said.
“No,” Sadie said, not looking away from her book.
“People are dying, Sadie.”
“People die every day.”
I stared at her. “Not like this. Not by demon hounds. Not in whole towns.”
Mia was by the window, arms crossed. Her plants were wilting. That was new. “It’s Lilith,” she said quietly. “Has to be. This is her style. Far, then close. Starve you before she strikes.”
“Then let her starve,” Sadie said. “I’m not hungry.”
I whipped around to the rest of them. “Are you all hearing this? There’s footage. There’s—there’s kids, Sadie.”
Layla didn’t look up from painting her nails. “Kids die in wars we don’t see too. What, we gonna fly to Norway?”
“Yes!” I shouted. “That’s exactly what we—”
“Harper.” Chloe’s voice was soft. Dangerous. “Sit down.”
I didn’t. “You don’t care? Any of you?”
“I care,” Merlinda whispered. She was on the floor, knees to her chest, watching the muted TV. Her eyes were wet. “I can hear them. Sometimes. When it’s quiet. I hear the new ones.”
That shut me up. Because Merlinda wasn’t like us. She was half angel. She did hear things.
“So we do nothing?” I asked the room.
“We do what we’ve always done,” Ayla said. She’d been quiet since her date. Since little pickle. “We survive. The world isn’t our job.”
“Says the fairy,” I snapped.
“Says the girl who lived through her clan being slaughtered,” Ayla snapped back. “You want to run out there and save everyone? Be my guest. I’ll watch from here.”
“Enough,” Sadie said. She finally closed her book. “Harper. Merlinda. If you want to go, go. I’m not stopping you.”
“And when we die?” I asked.
She looked at me. Really looked. “Then you die.”
Cold. God, she was cold.
I stood. “Fine.”
“Sit down, Harper,” Chloe said again.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not,” Chloe said. “Lilith is. She wants us scattered. She wants you scared and stupid and running into her mouth. That’s why it’s far. That’s why it’s not here. Yet.”
Mia nodded. “She’s baiting Sadie. Or Asmodeus. Or both. We go out there, we play her game.”
I looked at Merlinda. She was crying now, silent.
I sat down. Hard.
I hated them. I hated that they were right.
---
MERLINDA POV
I couldn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them. Not faces. Just shapes. Running. Then not running. Then nothing.
I went to the kitchen at 2 a.m. Harper was there.
“Can’t sleep either?” she asked.
I shook my head. I poured water. My hands shook.
“They’re not stopping,” I whispered. “I can feel it. It’s like… like a storm, but under the earth. Moving.”
Harper was quiet for a long time. “My parents,” she said. “When the witches came, I was out getting water. I came back and… and the whole clan was gone. Ash. Just ash. I could’ve been there. I should’ve been there.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m not nonchalant,” she said. “I’m just… tired of screaming into nothing.”
I reached out. Took her hand. She let me.
“We can’t save them,” I said. “Can we?”
“No,” she said. “But we can be ready when it gets here.”
We stayed like that. Two girls, awake, while the world burned somewhere else.
---
SADIE POV
The house was quiet.
They thought I was asleep. I wasn’t. I never was, these days.
I stood at the window. The street was empty. The mist was gone. But I could feel it. Pressure. Like before a thunderstorm.
My phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Did you see Norway? Pretty, wasn’t it?
I deleted it.
Another.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: You’re running out of world, Nephalem.
Delete.
Another.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: How many have to die before you come out and play?
I turned my phone off.
Mia was in the doorway. I didn’t hear her come in.
“You felt it too,” she said. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“They’re testing you. Seeing how far you’ll let it go.”
“I know.”
“She won’t stop at the edges, Sadie.”
“I know.”
Mia came and stood next to me. Her hand was warm. Earth-warm. “If it gets here, I’ll fight.”
“I know.”
“And if I lose?”
I looked at her. “Then we lose together.”
She nodded. Went back to bed.
I stayed at the window.
Far away, something screamed.
I didn’t flinch.
Not yet.
---
WRITER POV
In Hell, Lilith watched.
The scrying pool showed the mansion. Dark. Quiet. No movement.
No Asmodeus. No Darcy. Good. They were away. Busy with sky court retrievers. Bleeding. Distracted.
Her plan was working.
The beasts would keep eating. Town by town. Until the Nephalem couldn’t pretend it wasn’t her fault. Until the guilt rotted her from inside.
Or until she came to Hell herself to stop it.
Either way, Lilith won.
She smiled and dipped her fingers in the pool. The image rippled.
“Suffer far,” she whispered to Sadie’s reflection. “Then suffer close.”
The pool went dark.
And on Earth, in a city without a name, the hounds began to run again.
---
- Writer
