Hades (2 page)

Sheoul-gra––
A holding tank for demon souls. A realm that exists independently of Sheoul, it is overseen by Azagoth, also known as the Grim Reaper. Within Sheoul-gra is the Inner Sanctum, where demon souls go to be kept in torturous limbo until they can be reborn.

Sheoulic––
Universal demon language spoken by all, although many species also speak their own language.

Shrowd––
When angels travel through time, they exist within an impenetrable bubble known as a shrowd. While in the shrowd, angels are invisible and cannot interact with anyone –– human, demon, or angel –– outside the shrowd. Breaking out of the shrowd is a serious transgression that can, and has, resulted in execution.

Ter’taceo––
Demons who can pass as human, either because their species is naturally human in appearance, or because they can shapeshift into human form.

Vyrm––
The winged offspring of an angel and a fallen angel. More powerful than
emim
,
vyrm
also possess an ability that makes their very existence a threat to angels and fallen angels alike. With a mere second of eye contact, a
vyrm
can wipe out a fallen angel or an angel’s entire immediate family. Once hunted ruthlessly, they are now a protected class, by mutual agreement between Sheoul and Heaven, so long as none harm others with their unique power.

Watchers––
Individuals assigned to keep an eye on the Four Horsemen. As part of the agreement forged during the original negotiations between angels and demons that led to Ares, Reseph, Limos, and Thanatos being cursed to spearhead the Apocalypse, one Watcher is an angel, the other is a fallen angel. Neither Watcher may directly assist any Horseman’s efforts to either start or stop Armageddon, but they can lend a hand behind the scenes. Doing so, however, may have them walking a fine line that, to cross, could prove worse than fatal.

Ufelskala
––A scoring system for demons, based on their degree of evil. All supernatural creatures and evil humans can be categorized into the five Tiers, with the Fifth Tier comprising of the worst of the wicked.

Chapter One

The road to Hades is easiest to travel. ––Diogenes Laertius

Enjoy the trip, because the stay is going to be hell. ––Hades

If Cataclysm had to clean one more toilet in this demon purgatory known as Sheoul-gra, she was going to jump in and flush herself down.

She’d always assumed that when angels got kicked out of Heaven they got to do fun fallen angel stuff. Like terrorize religious people and drink foamy mugs of Pestilence ale with demons. But no, she’d gotten stuck wiping the Grim Reaper’s ass.

Okay, she didn’t
actually
wipe Azagoth’s ass. And if she did, his mate, Lilliana, would have had something to say about it. And by “say,” Lilliana meant “behead.”

Cat reconsidered that. Lilliana, who was still, technically, a fully-haloed angel, wouldn’t do anything quite so drastic. Most likely. But Cat still wouldn’t want to get on the female’s shit list. Anyone who pissed off Lilliana pissed off the Grim Reaper, and that...well, Cat could think of nothing worse.

Except maybe cleaning toilets.

Stop whining. You took the job willingly
.

Yes, that was true, but she’d only agreed to serve Azagoth because she wanted to earn her way back into Heaven, and doing that required her to A) keep her nose clean, B) avoid entering Sheoul, the demon realm humans often referred to as Hell, and C) do something heroic to save the world.

Easy peasy.

She snorted to herself as she carried a tray of dirty dishes from Azagoth and Lilliana’s bedroom, her bare feet slapping on the cold stone floor that covered every inch of the ancient Greek-style mansion. He’d surprised Lilliana with breakfast in bed this morning, which was something Cat would have been shocked by a few months ago. Who would have thought that the Grim Reaper was such a softie?

She supposed she should have known better after he gave her a job and a place to live so she didn’t have to worry about some jerk dragging her, against her will, into Sheoul for fun or profit.

No, Sheoul was off limits to her. Entering the demon realm would complete her fall from grace and turn her into a True Fallen, a fallen angel with no hope of redemption. As an Unfallen, she had a little wiggle room, but even so, very few angels had ever been given their wings back. In fact, she knew of only two

One of those two, Reaver, was now not only an angel, but one of the most powerful angels to have ever existed. His mate, Harvester, had also spent time as a fallen angel, but her circumstances were unique, and while Cat didn’t know the whole story, she knew that Harvester had saved Heaven and Earth, and she deserved every one of her feathers she got back.

The thought of being made whole again made Cat’s useless wing anchors in her back itch. Her luxurious mink-brown wings were gone, sliced off in a brutal ceremony, and with them, her source of power. She totally understood why an Unfallen would cross the barrier between the human and demon realms to turn themselves into True Fallen and gain new wings and new powers. But was the evil upgrade worth it? Cat didn’t think so.

“Cat!” Azagoth’s voice startled her out of her thoughts, and she nearly dropped the tray of dirty dishes as she looked up to see him striding down the hallway from his office.

In the flickering light cast by the iron wall sconces, he didn’t look happy. He also wasn’t alone.

Hades, Azagoth’s second-in-command and the designated Jailor of the Dead, was walking next to him. No, not walking. With the way his thigh muscles flexed in those form-fitting black pants with every silent step, it was more like prowling. His body sang with barely-leashed power, and she shivered in primal, feminine response.

Son of a bitch, Hades was hot. Hard-cut cheekbones and a firm, square jaw gave him a rugged appearance that bordered on sinister, especially when paired with a blue Mohawk she’d kill to run her palm over.  But then, she’d kill to run her palms over all of him, and she’d start with his muscular chest, which was usually, temptingly, bare. Not that she’d complain about what he was wearing now, a sleeveless, color-shifting top that clung to his rock-hard abs.

She tried not to stare, but really, even if she’d stood in the middle of the hall with her tongue hanging out, it wouldn’t have mattered. He never looked her way. He never noticed her. She was nothing to him. Not even worth a glance. Those cold, ice-blue eyes looked right through her. And yet, this was a guy who laughed with Lilliana, pulled pranks on the other Unfallen who lived here, and played with hellhounds as if they were giant puppies. Giant, man-eating puppies.

Azagoth stopped in front of her. “Cat? You okay?”

She blinked, realized she’d been lost in a world of Hades. “Ah, yes. Sorry, sir. What is it?”

“Have you seen Zhubaal?”

She nodded. “He was heading toward the dorms about half an hour ago. I think he said he was going to be teaching some of the new Unfallen how to be an asshole or something.”

Hades barked out a laugh, and she caught a glimpse of two pearly-white fangs. She used to think fangs were repulsive, but if Hades wanted to sink his canines into her, she’d gladly bare her throat and invite him in. She tapped her tongue against her own tiny fangs, the smaller versions that Unfallen grew a few days after being de-winged. For the most part, she’d gotten used to them. She didn’t even bite her lip anymore.

“Z is finally teaching them something he knows all about,” Hades said.

There was no love lost between those two, but Cat had no idea why. She did, however, know why
she
thought Zhubaal was an ass. Not that she wanted to think about it, let alone talk about it. She just had to hope that no one else knew.

Because humiliating.

“Thank you, Cataclysm,” Azagoth said, dipping his dark head in acknowledgment. “I hear you’ve been helping out with the Unfallen, as well. Lilliana says you advised them to use their Heavenly names instead of their Fallen names. You know that’s forbidden, right?”

Anxiety flared, but she lifted her chin and boldly met his gaze. “Not in Sheoul-gra. The rules are different in your realm. I figured that if they use their Heavenly names here, it’ll remind them to stay on the right track if they want to earn their way back into Heaven.”

Hades’s gaze bored into her, the intelligence in his eyes sparking. No doubt he was wondering why she hadn’t taken her own advice, but thankfully he didn’t have a chance to ask.

“Very smart.” Azagoth’s approval gave her a secret thrill, and then it was back to minion-chores as usual when he said, “By the way, my office could use some attention. It’s a little...messy.”

Azagoth brushed past her, and was it her imagination or did Hades linger for just a moment? Every inch of skin exposed by her blue and black corset tingled, and she could have sworn his gaze swept over her, appreciative and hot. But then he was as cold as ever, walking next to Azagoth as if she didn’t exist and never had.

With a sigh, she dropped off the dishes in the kitchen and grabbed her bucket of cleaning supplies before heading to Azagoth’s office. Once inside...well, he wasn’t kidding when he said he’d left a mess.

She ran a cloth over the stone and wood walls, wiping down the blood mist from whatever demon Azagoth had vaporized. And it must have been a
big
demon.

Apparently, he didn’t obliterate demons often; there was a price to pay for destroying souls. But when he did, the mess was considerable.

She went through two bottles of cleaner and dozens of rags before the office no longer resembled a slaughterhouse, and man, she was going to need a long shower. Relieved to finally be done, she started to gather her supplies when a dark spot on the wall behind Azagoth’s desk caught her eye. Cursing, she swept her cloth over the stain, scrubbing to make sure she got every sticky bit of gore. But dammit, blood had gotten into a crack, and...she frowned.

Putting down the rag, she traced the crack with her finger, squinting at what appeared to be a round recess in the wall. What the heck was it? Driven by curiosity, she pushed slightly. There was a click, followed by a flood of light coming from behind her.

Oh...
shit
.

She turned slowly, and her gut plummeted to her feet.

A huge chunk of wall had disappeared, revealing a portal from the human and demon planes. A stream of
griminions
filed through, their short, stocky forms escorting the souls of demons and evil humans into the realm of Sheoul-gra. The creepy little
griminions
chittered from under their black, monk-like hooded robes as they marched the souls, whose bodies in Sheoul-gra were as corporeal as her own, through the cross-sectioned tunnel, only to disappear into another portal that would take the demons to their final destination—Hades’s Inner Sanctum.

“No!” she shouted. “Stop! Azagoth hasn’t approved the transfers!”

But they didn’t stop. They kept emerging from the right side of the tunnel and disappearing through the shimmering barrier of darkness to the left. Panicked, she pushed on the lever again, but the
griminions
kept marching. She wiggled it, pushed harder, punched it, and finally, with a whoosh, the portal closed, leaving only a solid wall in its place.

Cat swallowed dryly, her heart pounding, her pulse throbbing in her ears. Maybe she hadn’t screwed up badly enough for anyone to know. Maybe no one would notice the souls that got through to the Inner Sanctum without Azagoth’s approval.

And maybe she’d just earned herself a place in the Grim Reaper’s hall of horrors, the Hall of Souls at the mansion’s entrance, where statues made out of the bodies of his enemies were on display for the world to see.

What made it all worse was that the people encased in those statues weren’t dead.

On the verge of hyperventilating, she slumped against Azagoth’s behemoth of a desk and forced herself to breathe slowly. How did she keep screwing up? And not just screwing up, but
royally
screwing up. Just last week she’d broken one of Azagoth’s centuries-old Japanese swords. And a month before that, she’d spilled pineapple soda all over a priceless rug woven from demon sheep wool by Oni craftsmen.

“Did you know that, unlike pineapple soda, fallen angel blood doesn’t stain demon wool?” he’d asked in a dark, ominous voice as she’d scrubbed the rug. And no, as a matter of fact, she hadn’t known that.

When she’d said as much, he’d merely smiled, which was far, far worse than if he’d just come out and said that if she fucked up again, her blood would definitely
not
stain that damned carpet.

Soda, however, did stain, just like he’d said.

It seemed to take hours before she stopped trembling enough to gather her crap and flee the office, and thankfully she didn’t run into Azagoth on her way to her quarters. She did manage to catch another glimpse of Hades as he rounded a corner though, the hard globes of his ass flexing under the tight, midnight black pants.

Maybe she could try talking to him someday. Try saying something more coherent than, “Hi, Mr., um, Hades. Or do you prefer Jailor? Or Lord? Or...?”

He’d looked at her as if she’d crawled out of a viper pit. “Hades,” he rumbled. “Easy enough.”

And that had been the sum of their conversation. Their only conversation. Ever.

Did he think she had freaking halo pox or demonic measles? And why was she dwelling on this anyway? He was clearly not interested in her, and she had more important things to worry about.

Like whether or not Azagoth was going to
not
stain his carpet with her blood when he found out that she’d allowed unauthorized souls to enter the Inner Sanctum.

Chapter Two

Hades had a lot of names. Lord of the Dead. Keeper of Souls. Jailor of the Baddies. Asshole.