Like a demonic venom.
Their maker must’ve weaponized their teeth.
“How did you get to the Redemption Circle?”
“By the time you figure it out, Hell will have fallen.”
I pressed my blade harder against his neck. “You know what this is?”
“A soul-eater, Ronen.”
A chill shot down my spine at the casual way he spoke my name.
“Then answer me.”
“Even if you trap me in your blade, it won’t stop us.” His confidence clashed with his erratic heartbeat, which vibrated against the metal of my sword.
“Who is us?”
He didn’t respond. The silence of the forest pressed in around us. Lifting his chin in defiance, exposing more of his throat, he began humming that same soft, twisted tune.
“Tell me who,” I demanded, digging my sword in deeper. The black liquid oozing down his neck caught my eye.
It had been a couple of days since I’d ingested the Damned Soul’s blood, and I hadn’t seen any dark veins creeping beneath my skin. Bonny couldn’t have been infected long—meaning the transition was fast. Still, the last time I drank their tainted blood, I’d puked it up hours later, my throat burning as it came out. I knew it would make me sick again, but we needed answers.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for in my mind,” he said, noticing the direction of my gaze.
He might be right. But I sent out my shadows anyway, absorbing a single drop of the poisonous blood before the wind could stop me. It would be enough for a few questions—long enough to dig for something useful, before I’d have to risk more to hold his mind longer.
I dove into his memories, burrowing deep into his deteriorating mind. “Who do you work for?”
Fragments of figures—blurry, disjointed—flashed by. I caught glimpses of blond, black, then red hair. Tall and short shapes. But nothing substantial. Every image bled into the next before vanishing completely, too fast to make sense of.
I pushed deeper. “Where are you coming from?”
A solid black void swallowed the fragments, devouring every trace of color and shape.
“I told you.” He grinned. “You won’t find what you’re looking for inside my mind. They were prepared for you, General.” His smug expression bled into his thoughts, taunting me.
Enraged, I tore apart every neuron in his brain, savoring his sharp, ragged gasps. When I finished with him, I had two choices.
I could let MJ burn him, sending his soul back to Lucifer for a second judgment—hopingthe disgusting soul would land in the Horde’s stomach, dissolving for years or centuries until he ceased to exist.
Or I could take matters into my own hands—slide my Soul Sword across his neck and condemn him to eternal agony.
Both options were brutal. One would trap his soul in the Horde’s relentless void, his existence erased when they deemed him ready to be unwritten. The other would bind him to an endless torment, his crimes remembered by those who survived him. Either way, he would suffer.
But I didn’t know which was worse—my sword or the Horde. Eternity in hopelessness… or horrific agony, followed by a permanent end, forgotten by all.
This time, I couldn’t take the chance. The Horde might spare him. Or, worse, bits of his soul might bleed into the ground, like Silas’s had. Even if Lucifer sent his soul straight to them, the Horde devoured as they saw fit.
The Damned Soul’s grin faltered, a flicker of understanding crossing his eyes. He knew.
He struggled against the arrows pinning him, jerking up and down, but never forward—like he thought he could somehow kill his own soul and recycle.
But in Hell, souls could only recycle once their bodies were destroyed by slow decay, fire, or—in the king’s case—ice.
“Enjoy agony.” I decapitated the Damned Soul.
