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Humiliation rushed through me, unbearably hot on my skin but sickeningly cold in my stomach. I squirmed against the hands that held me as they tugged the ruined shirt off me, begging softly, “Please, please, no, please…”
“Your ancestor was spared. God’s mercy must be repaid,” Kent said with a firm voice.
And then he began to slice into my skin.
My mind went black. Only Kent Hadleigh’s voice permeated the void I’d fallen into.
“Your soul was promised to the Deep One, my dear. Six generations have passed, and the oath must be fulfilled. Three lives spared, three souls given.”
The congregation echoed, “Three lives spared, three souls given.”
I was screaming, my voice ragged, “No,no, it’s just a story, it’s all just a story, it’s not real! It’s not real! There’s no God in the mines. It isn’t real!”
Why were they doing this? Why? Adults weren’t supposed to believe the stories; they told them to scare little kids. Teenagers told their own scary variations as they drank cheap beer in dark places. It wasn’t real.
The cuts burned, searing into my skin as if the knife was blazing hot. My own blood was smeared across my chest, and the sight made me so light-headed that I fell deeper, deeper into that protective dark void.
The next thing I wastrulyaware of was being carried through the rain. It was freezing cold on my skin, washing rivulets of blood from the cuts across my chest. What had they done to me? What the hell had theydone?
Were they going to kill me?
I was tossed down into the mud. I tried to crawl, tried to move, but perhaps they’d drugged me again because my muscles wouldn’t budge. My hands were seized up, clenched like claws, tight and aching. There was a sound like splintering wood amidst the pouring rain. The white cloaks surrounded me, and I reached out for them, clinging my muddy fingers on the cloth, hoping,beggingfor help.
There was no help. I was fifteen years old, and they watched me in silence. Dozens of them.
No one would help me.
No one cared.
“Victoria!” I screamed her name into the faceless masses. “Victoria, help me!”
But she didn’t help. She didn’t care. She’d brought me here.
“Send her to God.”
Dragged through the mud, the wooden frame of a dark, open mine shaft loomed up ahead of me. I clawed at their hands; I fought them with every bit of strength I had left.
There was nothing I could do.
They shoved me down into the dark.
2
Three Years Later
There are places on Earth that are cursed all the way down to their roots. Places that hold pain, that tasted blood and can’t get enough. Places where darkness grows, and even in daylight, they lie under a shadow.
Those places feel a lot like home, and I suppose that’s why demons are attracted to them. Not to say Hell is some wretched, unpleasant place. To the contrary, Hell is endlessly fascinating, even to an immortal. It’s vast, far more vast than Earth. It holds darkness, it holds pain and, in some places, misery and agony beyond words. But Hell is inhabited by those who have existed for centuries, for millennia. It has seen wars, uprisings, the growth and destruction of cities, of cultures. It is full of magic and memories.
Abelaum, like Hell, was built on a foundation of magic and memories. It was beautiful; it drew in curious minds and ensnared them, like a spider weaving its web. Some humans stayed there forever; others swiftly left.
But Abelaum had something not even Hell did: Abelaum had a God.
Gods and demons had never gotten along. We’d taken Hell back from Them, and They’d ended up on Earth, weak and asleep. But always, inevitably, curious little humans took things too far. Curious human hands went digging, and curious human minds woke something up.
Humans and Gods were a bad combination. Give a human knowledge, and he thinks he’s wise. Give a human magic, and he thinks he’s strong. Give a human religion, and he’ll think he’s right.
Demons were better off avoiding Gods, despite the intrigue a town like Abelaum held. Yet there I was in Abelaum, back again after several years away. I always came back, and I’d keep coming back, as long as Leon was there.
