“What fix would that be?” he bawled.
I pointed to myself. “Me.”
He swallowed loudly and jerked at the chains once more. “Look, the past is the past. I am doing what I can to prove I have learned my lesson, trying to be flexible and loyal, but this narrative you are concocting about me is nothing more than a fabrication of your insecurities. It makes utterly no sense for me to correspond with Ambermourn!”
I reached into my pocket and procured a small golden knife, with a vial of liquid attached to the end of it. I spun the liquid in front of my eyes, peering through the handle at him. “Do you know what is inside this knife? More, what the knife is made of?”
“N-No…?” he stammered. I popped the lid of the vial and let a droplet of the liquid inside pool on my fingertip. I then crossed the room and tilted his neck up, smirking, before smearing the liquid across his cheek. He let out a horrified scream as the liquid burned his skin, leaving a sizeable welt across his face. “What the fuck is that?” he howled.
“Liquid Life energy: a demon’s kryptonite. The blade is made from the same substance. Ashlynn lent me one of her toys so I could make my point clear.” I took the blade and slammed it against his forearm, making his ungodly screams echo through the Layer. He thrashed in agony, trying to free himself from my attack, but I only pressed the knife deeper into his skin. When I pulled it away, the outline of the dagger was seared into his arm, making him pant on broken cries. “You will admit to me that you’re helping Ambermourn, or we will do this until your entire body is burned.”
“I told you, I’m not doing anything!” he pleaded.
“Oh, really?” I pressed the knife to his neck this time, really holding it in place, and this made him scream until he lost his voice. The sound was music to my ears, for many reasons. I had waited years, centuries, to hear him in this agony, and I was truly relishing it. “Admit you’re lying, Phillip! This will go a lot smoother if you do!”
“Fuck you…!” he sobbed.
“You must really like this. Tell me, does it get you off, to have your ‘bitch’ hurt you like this?” I kept moving the knife across every inch of his exposed skin, barely giving him seconds in between burns to recover. “What is it you told me in that cell? Oh, I think I remember. ‘Be a good boy and do as I say, and you’ll learn to like it.’ Tell me, Phillip: have you learned to like it yet?”
“Atlas, please, stop!” he yelled, tears and sweat spewing down his cheeks.
I grabbed hold of his face and worked his mouth open, forcing his lips apart. My eyes burned a horrid black in the reflection of his, my face contorted in such evil that I didn’t recognize myself. “Guess we’ll have to up the ante.” I poured half the vial of liquid into his mouth, then clamped my hand down on it. He fought desperately to not swallow the liquid but inevitably had no choice. Once it entered his body, his veins illuminated gold, and his eyes flashed open. An unholy screech radiated from him into my hand, and he sporadically flailed underneath me. His body hit the desk so hard that I expected it to snap under the weight. I waited for the side effects to wear off before letting go of his mouth. He let out weak pants, his jaw hanging open, frozen by pain and fear. “What did you tell Ambermourn?” I whispered in his ear.
“He asked me about the Original Gods…” he faintly began, his lips barely moving. “He wanted to know if they were awakened, and where they were. I told him what little I knew, on the contingence he would find ways to help me gain freedom down here. He said you two had been in contact, and that he could convince you to let me see Earth again, so I told him what he wanted.”
“What makes you think I’d listen to a thing that backstabbing asshole says?”
“You slept with him. Anything is possible.”
I pondered what he said before closing the vial of the knife. “What else did he ask you?”
Phillip sighed in utter relief when I ceased my attacks. “He kept asking about the rulers of Gehenna, about their lives and ambitions. Who was weaker, more fragile, hungrier for things you wouldn’t give them. He wanted me to inform him of when we hired new rulers, and when I told him, he was so fixed on Isadora that it was... concerning. I don’t understand what he wants with this information, but he has been begging me to get him in contact with her for weeks.”
“I see.” I set the knife down and sat on the edge of the sofa. “What about the Original Gods? Surely he didn’t ask just about their whereabouts?”
“If you’d let me up, I’ll tell you, so long as you keep that fucking knife put away,” he snarled at the end with a gesture to the knife.
I was hesitant to allow this, but snapped my fingers, making the chains dissipate. Phillip pulled himself upright and laid a hand on his aching, burned skin, flinching. I rolled my eyes and crossed the room so I could heal his wounds, much to his relief. “Don’t leave out any details. I still have more liquid.”
“Yeah, yeah…” he grumbled, exhaling through his nose. “He must have asked me about Pandora a thousand times. He absolutely wanted, no,neededto know where she was being kept, but I didn’t know, nor did I trust telling him. He was being…odd. No contact, no attempts to be civil for centuries, and suddenly he wants me to spill all this information to him? It was too fishy. I cut him off, telling him that he had to find Pandora on his own. He figured out quickly that Nicodemus knew something about her and left without another thought.”
“I feared you’d say that…” I sighed as I sat back down. “Has he ever had a fascination with them before?”
“Not that I know of. I don’t understand it myself.”
I rolled my lips loudly and set my chin into my palm. “I’m trying to connect some pieces here. He also has a sick fascination with my ability to become one of the Four Horsemen, and he’s trying to find all of the Original Gods. What ties the two together, I’m not sure of. What promise could Pandora have made him?”
“You should continue to sniff him out. You got him right where you want him, I'm sure.” He hesitated to continue but did so anyway despite the consequences. “If you’re willing to go as far as sleeping with him again, against your wife’s back, then I'm sure you can worm your way into his graces enough.”
“My wife is aware of my actions, just as she was when we first slept together. I would never do anything behind Ashlynn’s back,” I barked ferociously.
“Hey, I’m just saying. Don’t take everything I say so offensively.”
“That’s rich coming from you.” I stood and slid Ashlynn's knife back under my cloak. “By the way, if you wanted more freedom, you should have come to me directly instead of sneaking around behind my back. I'd be much more willing to comply if I knew where your loyalties were. Now, I trust you as much as I did before.”
Phillip’s shoulders sank. “I know. I don’t blame you for feeling that way. I should have reported Ambermourn’s actions to you, but I was so desperate for freedom that I... I just, couldn’t say no to the prospect.”
I threw a silver key down on the coffee table that he picked up curiously. “That key allows you access to a small apartment in Connecticut. It's on the beach, and down the strip from an assortment of stores and restaurants. You only have a twenty-five-mile radius, but you can take advantage of it as much as your heart desires. If you try to go beyond your allocated space, I will be informed immediately, and you willneversee the sun again. If you pull any of the shit you did when you were alive,with Humans or any other kind of creature, I’ll revoke your position and send your ass back to that cell to rot until I get bored of you.”
