Kicking and screaming didn’t help. The guards held me tightly as I was dragged away. We must have gone outside again, because I finally managed to get a deep breath of fresh air. I shivered with cold, still wearing only a thin shirt. I was obviously being moved somewhere else.
“The dark lord will punish us for this. His blood is in her veins,” Rodriguez said, probably louder than he intended.
I was missing my magic, knowing that my cells needed my demonic energy to survive, and slowly that emptiness inside was becoming unbearable. I forced my tears away, telling myself that this wasn’t the end yet. I had to find a way out of this. I loved Zach and I couldn’t give up.
“Don’t worry, he won’t dare,” Alexis said. “His position in hell has been weakened. Our efforts will be rewarded once he is banished.”
In some ways Alexis was right. Lucifer didn’t acknowledge any of his other children. I was important to him because of my mother. He loved her, in his own way. Maybe he was going to come for me. He asked me to stand by his side and rule demons in hell. My father was willing to give me this—something that Alexis had been after for a very long time—to become his Queen, to stand by his side. That’s why she was so bitter, so disappointed with the way he had treated her.
Now I began to understand why she so desperate to bring him down.
I didn’t have time to think about this further, because shortly I was shoved inside a car and then we started moving. They had been keeping me somewhere close to the busy road, because I heard cars passing by earlier on. The larger guard sat beside me. Alexis and Rodriguez came along on this trip. I could smell that bitch’s perfume from my where I sat. I could recognise it anywhere.
The journey took a while. Rodriguez and Alexis didn’t talk. The silence was unnerving, fucking with my mind again. I had spent two weeks or more locked up in a tiny cell, and now I still had no idea what was happening to me. Without my magic I had little chance of surviving this, whatever they were planning to do with me.
“Where are we going? Come on. Are you going to keep me in the dark forever?” I asked, after an hour in the car.
“Take care of her, Cornelius,” Alexis barked. “I need some time to think.”
Cornelius must have hit me hard, because I passed out and some time later someone removed the black bag from my head. I found myself sitting in a chair in some dark place and my head was banging. My demonic soul had enhanced my vision and now I realised how bad my eyesight actually was.
“No one will disturb us here,” Alexis said, and nodded to her men. A cold shiver crawled over my spine when I saw a table with leather straps for legs and arms. They must have brought me to some kind of tunnel or a bunker. The air was filled with moisture and dread crawled through me when I saw a selection of small knives and other sharp things on the next table.
I kept reminding myself that Maxine Brodeur didn’t get scared, she was tough, but after two weeks in the cramped cell I wasn’t the same person anymore.
Moments later two oversized humans or demons grabbed me by my shoulders and carried me to the table with straps. I screamed, trying to kick them, but they shoved something into my mouth, kicking me in the stomach.
I was strapped to the metal bed in no time at all.
“Just cooperate with me, Miss Brodeur, and you will save us both a lot of hassle,” Rodriguez said stroking his long beard. Alexis placed her palm on his shoulder and smiled at me.
She had such a creepy smile. I wished that I could break her nose.
“Oh come on, I want to have a little fun with her. Pain and suffering are my tools for complete control and obedience,” the bitch said sweetly. “Now tell us, dear. The dark lord. There is a way to defeat him. Berith shared that little secret with you.”
I frowned staring at both of them and having no idea what they were talking about. I thought that Alexis was using me as bait, so that she could lure Lucifer to her trap.
“Berith? I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” I snarled back, trying to figure out if there was a way out of here.
“That’s not the answer I was looking for,” Alexis responded sweetly and then the straps tightened around my ankles and my skin felt like it was burning with raw flames. There was no warning, the pain ripped me apart, and I screamed. I didn’t fucking want to give them any satisfaction, but this was the worst pain I’d felt in my life. As a mongrel I was much more resistant, but now the pain was greater, stronger, and I couldn’t physically take it.
Drops of sweat rolled down my face and I started shaking, wanting her to stop.
“Where is that bastard child of yours? She is the key to all of this,” Rodriguez said, grabbing my head.
I was going crazy. He didn’t just ask me about my daughter, did he? She had nothing to do with Lucifer. She was just an innocent child. The old demon stared down at me, waiting for an answer. A second later an idea popped into my head. It was one of those things that could either bury me completely or save my life.
Chapter 20
“Then, over them, he made the holy cross, at which they flung themselves upon the shore. And he, as fast as he had come, went off.” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
This idea was absolutely crazy and unbelievably stupid, but I had run out of options. I was going to lose my mind if they forced me back into that dark cell again. Alexis had made me desperate, and I suddenly remembered Ronan’s unbelievable story from years ago that could possibly change my future.
Rodriguez leaned over me and I saw fear in his eyes, maybe for the first time since we met. Lucifer wasn’t going to spare him, and he must have been aware that he was going to be punished for conspiracy.
That idea seeded hope inside me and I was planning to hold on to it as long as that was physically possible.
It was clear that I was going to be tortured until I gave them something useful. Before I could speak, my mind started playing tricks on me. I was seeing Summer. She was standing on the other side of the room, waving at me.
Alexis was using her energy to get to my good memories. My eyes started to burn with tears, but I refused to cry, so I screamed instead.
Then the pain returned and Summer vanished in a white cloud. I screamed again, cursing those two monsters and thinking that surely they were going to get tired of this eventually. Alexis was laughing, using her skill to inflict even more pain. Tiny, sharp knives were piercing my skin over and over again. Waves of energy rolled down my skin and I was surprised that I felt it, until the raw flames began licking my skin again.
I was taking long pulls of air, trying to pull off the straps around my wrists. Sweat ran down my face and I prayed in my head for this pain to end.
“Where is that bastard child of yours? Where is that Warlock witch hiding her?” Rodriguez kept asking me, spraying me with spit.
“I have no idea. Our connection was lost the moment Alexis took my magic away.” I remembered that my idea could save me and hope turned into a small butterfly. “Besides, I learnt from my earlier mistakes. You will never find her!”
“What the hell is she talking about, Alexis?” Rodriguez asked, turning to face the woman that was essentially running this show.
“Nothing. She’s playing tough. She will talk. We just need to push her a little more,” Alexis said and then I felt like my joints were being stretched out of my sockets. I didn’t think that I could take this. She used her magic to make me feel worthless, squeezing nasty images into my head.
I started seeing myself standing in the lake and drowning my little girl. Ricky, Emma and Paul were there too. They all stared at me with detached, almost haunted looks on their faces. Her little body wasn’t moving and I’d gotten a great joy out of killing her.
The tiny voice in my head reminded me that this wasn’t real, that I would never hurt her. Alexis was implanting these cruel images in my head, so I’d give her what she wanted. But there was nothing else that I knew.
I blacked out and then I was back in the room,
breathing hard and seeing Alexis’s green eyes leaning over me. She was whispering to Rodriguez and I tried to focus on my good memories.
“I know the way you could defeat him,” I said, but my voice sounded weak, rough. Almost like it didn’t belong to me.
“What did you say, little whore?” Alexis asked, showing up beside me. She squeezed my cheeks and I kept my eyes focused on hers. The pain was slowly subsiding, but now my skin felt raw, like it had been burning for a long while.
“Lucifer. I know … I know how you could end him,” I repeated, knowing that I sounded desperate.
“She’s playing you, dear. Keep torturing her and she will tell us everything,” Rodriguez said.
“He abandoned me, and he poisoned my mother,” I said. Alexis moved her hand down my throat, releasing some sparks.
“The little whore is telling the truth for a change,” she said leaning so close that I could smell her perfume.
They had me. She and Rodriguez had united to bring my father down, and without my magic I was no one. I had no personality, no strength and I didn’t believe that I could defeat them.
“What are you talking about? How could we defeat the most powerful demon in hell?” the old demon demanded.
“There is a place where my mentor had hidden a spell. It’s an old parchment that could give you unlimited power. It’s been blessed by God,” I said, remembering what Ronan had told me a few years ago. I always thought that this whole story was silly. The legend about God’s tears that turned into a spell had been drifting from demon to demon for as long as I could remember. It was a long shot, but both Alexis and Rodriguez were greedy. They had nothing to lose, and a lot to gain. Obviously that was interesting enough and I just needed to keep on talking.
“Alexis, the child is the key. You promised me that bastard child,” the old demon was saying. “She’s making this stuff up. She’s lying through her teeth. The spell is just a legend.”
“No, there is something in that. The little whore isn’t lying this time. Berith and Mammon believed in that lost spell too, but I heard that it was somewhere in Rome, not London. How did you find out where the parchment is hidden?”
“I have seen it. My father told me the location. He sent me back to earth to destroy it,” I said. “I have promised myself that I would avenge my mother. Lucifer is weak, and Bianca’s movement scared him.”
The words were pouring out of my mouth and most of it was true. In some ways I hated my father, because he hadn’t protected my mother. She was dead because of him.
Because Alexis and Rodriguez wanted to see Lucifer go down, and they both wanted to matter in the new order, this was my chance—and I had no idea what I was going to do after they realised that this whole thing was a bluff.
Alexis was aware that Lucifer had never acknowledged any of his other children. She could feel his demonic mark on my soul. And then the rumours reached her. She found out that I was Lucifer’s legitimate daughter. He’d rejected her, as he had done with other women. I didn’t know how much truth was in what he told me. Maybe he had loved my mother, but I doubted that he ever had any real feelings for me.
Lucifer must have known that going after Alexis was a suicide mission for me. He didn’t want to dirty his hands. That’s why he made that whole test in hell.
“Well, part of what she is saying makes sense,” Rodriguez said. “Her mother had been poisoned, but I had no idea that it was the dark lord’s doing. I heard that Tarosh, a demon that was the head of the factions years ago, gave the order to kill her. She seemed important, and he needed her to be eliminated.”
This news hit me like an avalanche. The head of Lucifer’s faction ordered my mother poisoned. Lucifer must have known about this or he blatantly lied to me. Either way, that didn’t matter right now.
“Tell me, little whore, where that parchment is hidden or I’ll find the way to get to your bastard daughter again. I did it before, but this time around I won’t hesitate to slit her little throat,” Alexis said and her eyes were telling me that she wasn’t bluffing.
“I have to show you where it’s hidden,” I said, staring at them both.
Alexis exchanged a silent look with Rodriguez, probably weighing all the pros and cons. Her men were watching me from the other side of the room. I wondered if they were demons or humans.
“All right, sweetness. We all are going on a little trip,” she finally said, but Rodriguez didn’t look happy. “One wrong move and I’ll snap your neck. I’m tired of playing games.”
I licked my upper lip when her men started pulling my restraints off, trying to gather myself somehow. My head was spinning when I sat up on the table, massaging my wrists.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew where we would go. I was aware that stepping into the place called Suicide Lane was simply a suicide mission. Especially now when I couldn’t sense any supernatural creatures around. I was ready to take back everything I said before about being a human.
Mongrel or not, that past life was much better with magic than without.
“Move, little whore. Time is of the essence and you better pray that the ancient spell is there; otherwise this is going to be the last time you see the night in this life.” Alexis started walking towards the dark narrow corridor.
Rodriguez looked angry this wasn’t going his way again. The old demon had gone against his own master, joining forces with Lucifer’s enemy. He must have realised that this had its consequences.
Alexis’s men grabbed me and started dragging me away, presumably towards the exit.
My legs barely held me, but I told myself that I needed to recover fast, because in the end that was the only thing that could save me.
This time around no one covered my eyes. The larger guy asked me to climb back up the narrow metal stairs, through a tiny tunnel that could fit only one person. I struggled, thinking that it was just one more effort to get my freedom back. I was so weak and vulnerable I felt like the old Maxine didn’t even exist.
“Hurry up, mongrel girl, the mistress is waiting,” one of her men shouted, nudging me with a long sharp stick. My eyes were itching and every time I made a move nausea rolled through my stomach.
It took me ten minutes or more, but eventually I gritted my teeth and forced myself to move. By the time I got outside, I was drenched with sweat and my fingertips were bleeding.
I knelt on the ground as blood pounded in my ears. I heard Alexis talking to someone on a mobile phone. The necklace that allowed her to travel to hell and back was hanging around her neck. It belonged to Matilda and I needed to get it back.
“Get her to the van. She will give you the instructions for where we should be going next,” Alexis ordered. Rodriguez was silent for a change, but I didn’t like that look on his face. The old bastard had his own agenda in mind, and I had a feeling that he was ready to cut off Alexis, just so he could continue torturing me.
I was shoved back into the black van soon enough and told to keep it quiet. Suicide Lane would be thriving with life after dark, and I knew that showing up there filled with magic was a very bad idea. Ronan had told me about this place and warned me many times that the factions had lost control of that area years ago, when horrific stories started to appear in the papers. Alexis had no idea what was waiting for her out there.
Desperate humans used to go there in order to die. They would stand on that bridge, waiting for the train. However, by the time that train passed, those humans were long dead. It was suicide, and even the human police couldn’t question it. Watchers made sure that this was always the case.
One of the shorter demons started the engine when Alexis and Rodriguez got inside. I gave the driver the name of the village and he typed it into a sat nav. I concentrated, well aware that I was weak and in pain. It was going to be tough to even think about running, but I had to give it my best shot.
The silence was making me anxious and as we drove I wondered if Ricky and the rest had been locked up too. Things had never
gotten so bad and this time around I was on my own.
People had often told me that I was short-tempered and reckless. Nothing changed. I was still the same person and I was taking matters into my own hands. I needed to stay alive for Summer and for all my friends.
Chapter 21
“The colour that courage failing brought out so quickly in me, seeing my leader retreat, made him, the sooner, check his own new pallor.” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“The two of you stay in the van. This shouldn’t take long,” Alexis ordered, still scrolling through her mobile phone. As a demon she wasn’t supposed to be familiar with technology, but it looked like she embraced the human way of life to a full extent.
Rodriguez didn’t look happy at all.
He and Alexis had no idea that I had brought them down to Suicide Lane. I didn’t think that either of them had ever heard about this place.
We stopped right on the edge of the forest. I could make out shapes of the trees in the background. It was pitch black and I wasn’t looking forward to getting lost in there.
I could only count on my gut feeling, because all my demonic senses were lost. After that painful experience in the bunker my body wasn’t in the best of shape. I didn’t want to end up dead, especially not being a human. The police would label me as that girl that had an affair with the prince and in the end couldn’t live with her guilt, so she took her own life. After she murdered the prince.
“We are in the middle of nowhere, Alexis,” Rodriguez pointed out, sounding angry. “The girl is trying her luck. That parchment doesn’t exist. We all know it.”
“It does exist and we have to walk for a bit. We can only track it down in the dark,” I said, waiting for them to either follow me or take me back to my cell. It was a possibility, but I really didn’t want to go down that route. Alexis’s eyes told me that she was ready for anything just so she could get her hands on that spell. “You need to follow me.”