Had it been like that, I would have never given it up. The thought pops into my mind unbidden. A truth. A declaration of sorts. And one I don’t ever dare give voice to. The gratification I’ve found, that knowledge of it he’s left me with, is both profound and terrifying.
There’s no going back to before. No unknowing this. It’s the most pleasure I’ve had in my entire long life, and living with the knowledge of it may be a torment in the days ahead.
Because who knows if I will ever let myself indulge like this again. Or find a partner who can make me feel as he did.
A horizon of possibility and misery lies before me.
Going back to lonely, endless nights of achy need, unsatisfied desires, and unfilled hunger will be a version of Hell I’ve just opened myself up to.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Black Death
Tíarnach
In the shadow of the nearby mountain peak, I press my hand upon the earth, feeling the unrest and the sickness. Seismic activity thrums beneath my palm, the vibration stronger here than where I last tested. The ground is both warm and damp. Hot enough that it has begun to sweat.
When I lift my hand, dark soil clings to my skin. I analyze it as I rub it between my fingers, bringing it up to my nose to catch a faint metallic scent that doesn’t belong.
While surveying the area, I absently dust my hand off on my knee.
From the looks of it, the corruption has spoiled fertile soil and spread outward. The noxious, sulfurous gas seeps up from below, poisoning everything it touches.
Roots. Nature. The very air I breathe.
Minutes later, after I vault onto Mardoch, I drive him hard toward the epicenter of it—where the presence of evil coils thickest. I have yet to determine what I may be dealing with, only that my duty to locate the last of the worthy souls to rejoin Heaven is no longer my priority.
Stopping this—and whatever is causing it—is.
Had I not been delayed while playing doctor and scientist, I would be much further ahead in my hunt for the souls I’d been tasked to protect. But the Russian mercenaries were determined to find a cure before anyone else—hoard the vaccine and wield it as leverage for resources.
The greatest plight of humanity—and one that may ultimately be its ruin—greed.
Yet… they were not wrong in their assessment, only in their execution.
Because, yes, the immune are the key to man’s survival. Without them, all would be lost.
So I stayed hidden among them as long as I could, ensuring the cure didn’t fall into the wrong hands, but the right ones—the female doctor who proved herself not only capable but worthy of the discovery, and of seeing it dispersed far and wide.
In doing so, I entrusted the dawn of man to a single woman, hoping to restore the balance once disrupted by Lucifer himself.
But balance is a tricky thing, and never so easily reclaimed. Because at the very moment one scale righted, another tipped.
Hell’s gates had somehow been torn open, and thousands upon thousands of souls were unaccounted for. After learning of this from my brothers, I came when called for aid—crossing land and sea as fast as my wings could carry me. A summoning they wouldn’t have made unless the situation was dire.
Before even reaching this continent, I felt the truth of their claim and have been searching for the source of the unrest ever since.
Finally reaching the massive wound in the earth, I dismount quickly, unwilling to bring Mardoch any closer. Unease bleeds through the bond we share, but he stays where I command him to do so, as I continue on foot.
The land surrounding the crevice lies flattened. Not trampled but pressed. As if a great weight forced the breath from the earth itself. Dead grass bends in unnatural patterns, some of it fused in blackened patches, other parts stripped down to brittle husks that crumble at the slightest disturbance.
A carcass lies half buried near the edge. Not only are the gones picked clean, but they’re also warped and darkened as though exposed to the kind of heat unknown to this world. The skull is split clean through, not by tooth or claw, but by force.
I shift the carcass aside with my boot to get a better look at the old blood staining the soil. Black and thicker than oil. Long since dried and leaving behind a dark smear.
A demon long dead.
My gaze lifts. I note the heat rolling outward from the opening, distorting the air and bearing the sharp bite of hellfire and rot.
