Magic - Chapter 56
We arrived in Hell inside a sewer pipe filled with bile and sludge. It wasn’t unlike a sewer pipe on Earth, except that it was made of clay instead of concrete.
This is the second book in The Godsverse Chronicles, a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
Ollie wasn't looking for trouble, but after she saved the Antichrist from being slaughtered, it came for her.
Ollie lived by one rule. Never get involved with anyone for any reason; humans, demons, fae folk, it didn't matter. They were all trouble. Keeping her distance was how she survived in the criminal underworld for so long.
Keep your head down and don't piss anyone off. That was her motto, especially since her clients all had access to powerful dark magic.
She thought she had a flawless system for keeping her nose clean, so how did she wind up in a stolen car, with a demon spawn in her back seat, driving away from her ex-lover and a gang of demons ready to skin her alive?
That's a good question.
And why did she agree to help save the demon's life so she didn't get sacrificed to open the gates of Hell?
An even better question.
She had one rule. One stupid rule. And tonight...it goes right down the toilet.
Now, the only way for Ollie to get her life back is to save the girl, prevent the Apocalypse, and track down the people who betrayed her.
They will pay. Oh yes, they will all pay.
We arrived in Hell inside a sewer pipe filled with bile and sludge. It wasn’t unlike a sewer pipe on Earth, except that it was made of clay instead of concrete. I knew we had arrived in Hell by the smell. The air was tinged with sulfur and brimstone and was so dry it hurt to breathe.
Drownt the ogre studied the map he’d pulled from inside his armor. “This way.”
He led us through the slop until we reached a ladder. He pointed at Igor and Bob to go ahead of us, then Blezor, before he grasped the ladder and began to climb.
“After you,” I said to Aimee as we looked up at the open manhole. “Please.”
“What do you think is up there?” she asked.
“Whatever it is, it won’t be good.”
“That’s a given.”
She pulled herself up the ladder, and I made my way behind her. When I rose above the sewer, a big, orange hue lit the air. Aimee gestured from the end of the alley, and I walked toward her until the alley broke into a busy and bustling street. Hundreds of monsters walked around just like people did on Earth, completely nonchalant and effortless. A market lined either side of the street, with vendors of all sorts selling shoes, weapons, tools, and all kinds of products.
The monsters did not have to hide their true faces. Not one of them wore an illusion charm. I had never seen anything like it. Even when I found a pocket of monsters on Earth who seemed truly free, they still were forced to wear a fake face to prevent humans from finding them. Here, in the middle of a bustling city, these monsters were unrestricted in a way I had never seen before.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Dis,” Igor said with a wistful tone. “This is where most of the monsters and demons that work the pits live. Think of it as your New York City, except instead of working stocks and bonds, these monsters work pits.”
The pits. “Is that what it sounds like?”
The inferi nodded. “Where they torture away the sins of humanity.”
“Fun,” Aimee said.
“Work is work,” Blezor said with a shrug. “I’ve done torture before. It’s not my favorite thing to do, but it’s fine.”
Igor snorted. “True enough. After centuries, it becomes rote. I barely thought about it in the end.”
“Why did you leave?” I asked.
“Would you stay?” Igor asked. “This is my home, but it’s also Hell.”
I chuckled. “I know exactly what you mean, actually. You can love a place and want to escape it at the same time.”
“Exactly.”
“Enough gabbing,” Bob said. “Let’s get this over with. This place gives me the creeps.”
Drownt nodded and walked out into the street, where we were quickly swept away by the ocean of monsters. After five blocks, he pulled us out of the flood and into a side street where the traffic was much lighter.
“We should stay on the back streets to keep from splitting up,” Bob said.
The rest of us agreed, and Drownt led us through the back streets and alleys that wrapped around the city. Most of the monsters in Dis wore simple robes, which made our armor and weaponry stick out. A few of the monsters were wearing armor, though they clearly hadn’t repaired it for many battles. It was full of dents and holes and hadn’t been polished in ages. We looked like we had just rolled off the assembly line.
Eventually, we made it to the waypoint on the map where we were supposed to meet Charlie, at a bar called the Old Hat. Before Blezor could grab the door handle, two centaurs lunged out of the entrance, grappling with each other in combat. A small cadre of various types of monsters flooded into the street to catch a glimpse of the scuffle, but none did anything to stop it.
“You Ollie?” I heard behind me. I spun to see a familiar face. It was the same imp that talked to me outside of The Bar on Earth. “Oh, hey. I recognize you. Small world, eh?”
“You’re Charlie?” I asked.
“That’s right.” He nodded, gesturing us to follow him. “Let’s go. We got a long way to go and a short time to get there.”
We turned down an alley, and Charlie stopped to grab a robe from a clothesline. As he moved through the alley, he kept looking back, mumbling to himself, and then pulling different sized robes off the lines.
“Is that legal?” I asked.
“Legal don’t mean much around here, at least not these days.” He tossed the robes at us. “You guys look terrible. First, only demons wear that kind of armor, and then—there’s everything else wrong with this picture. Everybody, strip down and put on the robes instead. I’ll pull some sheets to carry the armor.”
“I’m not stripping down,” I said.
“You look like a human, and in case you haven’t figured it out yet, humans aren’t welcome in Dis.” He grabbed my sunglasses and pulled them off my head. “These are a big no-no here, too.” He looked at my swirling eyes before stuffing the sunglasses into my chest. “That actually helps.” He turned to Aimee and looked her up and down. “You, though. God, you are just the living end. I hear you’re a Firestarter. That true?”
She nodded. “It’s true.”
“Can you light yourself on fire or something to cover your body?”
“Oh yeah, duh.”
Aimee lit herself on fire until she glowed like the inferi. We all finished changing while Charlie packed our armor into sheets and tied them off. None of us liked the fact that we were pretty much defenseless, but we were also not on our home turf, so we had to go with the flow. The last thing we wanted was to blow our cover because we didn’t understand the customs.
When we were done, Charlie scratched his chin and nodded. “Well, you look pathetic, so you’ll fit right in. Welcome to Dis.”
This is the second book in The Godsverse Chronicles, a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.