Read Lord of Hell (Alex Holden) Online

Authors: Devin Harnois

Tags: #heaven, #gods, #demons, #Young Adult, #Supernatural, #hell

Lord of Hell (Alex Holden) (6 page)

BOOK: Lord of Hell (Alex Holden)
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“Good.” I filled them in, very briefly, on what had gone on downtown.

They had a lot of questions, but Mew-Mew rubbed against me and reminded me,
You can tell them later. We need to go home.
Even though he was a ghost, it seemed he could still get tired. Maybe he’d used up too much energy today, like I had.

So I said a quick good-bye to them and teleported home. That used the last of my energy. I pulled off my shoes and flopped into bed, still covered in sweat, dust, and bits of broken building. I was out like a light.

I got up the next day and took a long shower. I was dirtier than I’d thought. While I was drying off, my stomach growled like an angry beast. I’d missed dinner. I grabbed a box of cereal from the cupboard and sat on the couch. After a moment of debate, I flipped on the TV to see if someone was covering the earthquake. They had to be.

And they were. There was footage of the downtown area, people being pulled out of the rubble. The news anchor said the quake was a seven on the Richter scale, and scientists were still trying to figure out what had caused it. Then they moved to another news story.

A tsunami in Indonesia.

Chapter 7

My stomach dropped.

A tsunami meant there’d been another earthquake. Two large earthquakes on the same day, on opposite sides of the Earth. That couldn’t be normal.

I called up Stefan and asked him to check with Odin to see if Ragnarok was looming again. He’d heard about the tsunami too, but hadn’t made the connection.

I shoved a few more handfuls of cereal into my mouth, then Mew-Mew and I went to check on my cult. They were fine, although they’d have to stay in the shelter for a few more days. The rescue operation was over, and I checked with the ghosts to see how things had gone. From talking with them, I knew they’d saved dozens of lives by finding trapped and injured people hours before a building-by-building search would have. I’d saved some lives directly by pulling people out of the rubble or from damaged buildings before the aftershocks had caused more collapsing. Still, the death toll was at thirty and climbing.

The tsunami on the other side of the world had killed over a hundred. Newscasters repeated that it wasn’t as bad as the Christmas tsunami from a few years ago or the more recent Japanese one, but they pointed out that it was still devastating to coastal villages and the death toll would likely double in the coming days.

Stefan called to let me know Odin had said it wasn’t a definite sign of Ragnarok, the way Skoll eating the sun or Fenrir getting loose were. But natural disasters were part of the sequence. Essentially, he said it might be a sign or it might not. I decided to go with not. Maybe it was just a really bizarre coincidence.

Honestly, I just didn’t want it to be a sign of the end of the world. I’d had enough of that last summer, and I couldn’t fight an earthquake or a tsunami anyway.

So I called Hayley and talked to her for a while about the earthquake and everything. It was good to hear her voice and I felt calmer and more grounded by the time I hung up.

Then I took Elliot down to my new paradise, which still needed a name. I set him loose, following him around and creating whatever he told me to. I’d thought my quick job was pretty enough, but in just a few minutes, Elliot made the place beautiful. A few souls gathered around, watching us work.

“Rose bushes there. Prima Donnas.”

“Huh? What color is that?” I asked.

Elliot opened the book he’d brought with him and flipped a few pages. “Here.”

I squinted at the picture. The roses were a bright pink, and, I had to admit, very pretty. I created several bushes, and several more of other colors. Soon we had a whole rose garden. Then we moved on to make a wildflower garden with dirt paths, an apple orchard, and a Japanese rock garden. It was calming after what I’d been through yesterday. And also fun. Elliot was like a kid in a candy store, flipping through his book to get me a reference and pointing to where he wanted it.

We were on the sixth garden, full of a variety of different types of flowers with stone paths and fountains. “Oh, hey,” I said. “I still need a name for this place. What do you think I should call it? I keep calling it the paradise, or the paradise in Hell, but it needs a proper name.”

He paused and tapped a finger against his chin. “Hmm, how about the Garden of Peace?”

I wrinkled my nose. “The garden part is fine, but the peace part doesn’t sit right with me.”

Elliot rolled his eyes. “Of course it doesn’t. Should we call it the Garden of Kicking Ass or something?”

“No. It’s not that I have anything against peace, but that name makes me think of a war memorial or something. Or a city garden with an overblown name.” I tapped a foot against the newly created stone walkway. “Maybe we can ask the souls for ideas.”

“You could ask them for ideas about what they’d like the place to look like, too,” he said. “How big is this place, anyway?”

“I don’t know, but I made it bigger yesterday, and I think I can just keep going. Hell isn’t physical, so I don’t think there are any limits.”

“You could make everyone their own personal garden, or house, or whatever they wanted.”

“Yeah.” Which sounded great, but then I thought about how much time that would take. I wondered if there was a way for me to let them create their own little corners of paradise. Maybe I’d check with the other afterlife deities and ask them if they did something like that in their realms.

Meanwhile, Elliot and I went around and let the dead know they could wander the gardens if they wanted to. We also asked them for suggestions about what else we should add. One of the souls, who shared Elliot’s love of flowers and also loved growing fruits and vegetables, came up with a name that had a nice ring to it, “the Eternal Gardens.”

I repeated it to myself a few times. “You know, I think I might go with that.”

A demon popped into my newly named paradise. Elliot took a few quick steps away while I glared at the newcomer. “I told you no one was allowed here.”

It was the same demon who’d shown up at my apartment to tell me about Furfur. “I’m sorry, sir, but Naamah just stormed off. She says she’s going to the mortal world.”

I clenched my fists. “Did she say where?”

“No, my lord.”

I growled. “Fine. I’ll go look for her.” I looked at the demon. “Hey, what’s your name?” He’d tattled on his fellow demons twice. Maybe I’d give him special privileges to come to Earth as my messenger.

“Ernaz, sir.” He bowed again, pointed tail flicking.

“Thanks for telling me, Ernaz. I’ll take you home first, Elliot.” And we’d been having such a good day.

***

After dropping Elliot off, I went to the cemetery near his house and asked the ghosts if they could pass a message to the other graveyards that a demon had escaped Hell, and I was looking for her. I didn’t know how fast the message would spread or even if they’d be able to find her. I went to a few other cemeteries to help the message spread faster and farther, and I closed my eyes and tried to see if I could feel her.

I was able to sense ghosts, and see and feel the evil clinging to Satanists, but only if I was close. I had no idea if that would work for demons, or how to search for one over a vast distance.

After a few hours of searching I went back to Hell, frustrated. Maybe someone there knew where she might be. I asked several demons and got nowhere. They all said they had no idea where she’d gone, only that she was going to the mortal world. I paced the throne room, getting angrier and angrier. After dealing with the rescue effort yesterday, I really didn’t need this.

Out of the shadows, a very human-looking demon approached me. He bowed low and said, “I am Semiazas, my lord. I wish to help you.”

I gave him a skeptical look. Was he lying? Was his help going to be nothing more than screwing with me and stalling me so I couldn’t find Naamah? Or was he kissing ass and tattling like Ernaz? “Do you?”

“Yes, my lord. I want you to find Naamah and any other demons that have escaped Hell.” Growing from his back were little stunted wings. Black feathers, unlike the dragon-type wings that were more common here. The way he looked human except for those wings and the little horns on his head made me wonder. An illusion to make me feel more comfortable? But why keep the stubby wings, then?

“Why do you want to do that?”

The murmuring demons started to slink out of the shadows, some of them shouting insults at Semiazas. “Could we speak somewhere more private, my lord?”

A trick? An attempt to get me alone so he could attack me? That didn’t make sense, because it wasn’t like any of the demons would come to my aid if I was in trouble. They’d probably stand back and watch or jump in the fray to help try to kill me. “All right.”

I led him out of the throne room and down a flight of stairs. The same stairs I’d flown up not long ago, trying to put distance between Satan and me. I hadn’t explored the castle much, but I’d checked out part of this floor and knew there were several rooms. They were normal-sized with a few chairs and tables, and most of them had fireplaces. As if you needed fireplaces in Hell.

I picked one of the rooms without a fireplace and closed the door behind us. “So is this some trick?” I asked. “You want to get me alone so you can attack me? Or you want to give me false information so I think I’m getting somewhere when I’m really just running around so Naamah can have more time to enjoy herself?”

Semiazas stiffened a little, then moved to sit in one of the ornate chairs. “I don’t expect you to trust the word of a demon. We are very well-known as liars and schemers. You only have my word that I don’t hate humanity. I am one of the rare few who takes no joy in the suffering of the living or the dead.”

“So you’re glad I banned all of you from Earth and got rid of some of the areas of Hell?” I wanted to believe him. After all, I was proof that a demonic origin didn’t mean you had to be evil. Maybe he was born here and didn’t like it. Maybe he used to like it and changed his mind. But I also didn’t want to be gullible. I’d have to take everything he said with a grain of salt. A pound of salt.

“Yes. And I wish to help you locate Naamah so she has little time to spread her wickedness.” He shifted and looked me straight in the eye. “Hell, and especially this castle, is the seat of your power. You took Satan’s power when you agreed to rule Hell. I can feel his power in you, and the other demons won’t admit it because they don’t want you to realize how powerful you are. Alexander, you are a god, and this is your realm. You can do anything here.”

My stomach churned at the confirmation that I’d taken my father’s power. I didn’t want to be anything like him, yet here I was, ruling Hell with his power. “But Naamah is on Earth. So how can I find her?”

“She is your servant. We all are. No matter where she goes, you can find her.”

I thought about how Satan had always been able to find me when I ran away from home unless I was shielded by the power of a graveyard or in the realm of a god. Since I had his power, what Semiazas said must be true. “But I don’t know how that works. How can I use my power to find her?”

“Concentrate on her. Say her name. Repeat it over and over and let your power flow out and seek her.”

I started to close my eyes but paused. “Wait. How do you know how this works?”

He smiled, slight and brief, like a flicker: there and gone. “I have many demons under my command, and they are not always obedient.”

Was he waiting for me to close my eyes so he could attack? I set a hand on Animus’s hilt.
Do you trust him?

Her answer was a warm confidence that she could keep me safe no matter what. That put me at ease, so I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

I didn’t know what Naamah looked like, so I couldn’t focus on an image the way I did when teleporting. All I had was her name and that she was loose on Earth. So I sent my thoughts toward the mortal realm and the demon that wasn’t supposed to be there. “Naamah, where are you?” What was she doing right now? Possessing a kid, like Furfur? Whispering in someone’s ear that they should cheat, steal, kill themselves? “Naamah, you fucking bitch, I’m gonna find you and you’re going to pay.”

A little dark spot formed in my mind. Like a tiny pinprick version of the purple-black aura of evil that had surrounded Furfur when I’d found him in the boy. The same corruption that surrounded the houses of Satanists. I focused on the pinprick and tried to zoom in, like using the spread gesture on an iPhone map. It took some effort, but I managed to make it work. I kept zooming in and tried to make a connection. It was a bit like following the prayers of my worshippers, except they were trying to make a connection, but Naamah was trying to hide from me.

But it was also true that I had more power this time, and she wasn’t anywhere that could shield her. With a few more minutes of effort, I got a lock on her and went to Earth.

Chapter 8

Naamah was leaned over, whispering in the ear of a man dressed in a suit. She had deep blue skin, greenish-yellow eyes, and she was totally naked. When I appeared, both of them started. The man exclaimed and Naamah growled. “I am not going back!” she shouted, then turned and ran. She went straight through the wall.

I went after her, jumping over the huge desk and heading for the spot she’d disappeared through.
Wham!
I hit the wall and bounced off.

“What the hell?” the man said as I backed away, my hand held to my throbbing nose.

“Fuck.” My hand came away wet with blood. Probably busted my nose. It wasn’t the first time it had been broken.

The man stumbled out of his chair. “Who are you? How did you get in here? I’m calling security.”

I guess I couldn’t go through walls. Maybe that was a skill I had to learn. I closed my eyes and focused on her again. The connection was easier and faster this time, and I teleported out so I didn’t have to worry about the fucking wall.

Naamah was running down the street, dodging around and between people. It looked like she couldn’t pass through people the way she could go through walls. I ran after her, people giving me odd looks while they completely ignored her. Brilliant deduction: she was invisible. It would be smart to try to disappear myself, but I was using most of my concentration to stay locked on to her in case she tried any more tricks.

BOOK: Lord of Hell (Alex Holden)
8.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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