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  “I am his Wrath,” I whispered.

  Despite the heat coming from Astaroth, I felt my body turn to ice.

  I was the Knightmare.

  Not by choice, not by a mishap of magic. Someone had put this tick inside me and taken over my body. Used me. Abused me. Forced me to behave in a way counter to the kind of person I was. I had acted like the worst monster I had ever put down, like Crowley and my dad. Like Greede.

  Wrath.

  The Sin of Wrath. Someone had turned me into one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

  Angels hunted me. Demons worshipped me. My family persecuted me.

  I threw myself at the fireplace and vomited. And since I hadn’t eaten for a whole day, nothing came out except bile and blood. But the pain was comforting. At least it was a temporary reprieve from the ache inside me, deep down in a place I could never reach.

  Astaroth watched coolly as I sat back.

  “Get it out of me,” I said. “Now. I’ll pay any price. Just… Get it out!”

  The demon cocked his head. “It will take time. I will need hours to prepare and collect all that is needed.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I’ll wait.”

  Astaroth nodded.

  “I must warn you, Erik,” he said gravely. “There is considerable risk. The creature has bonded with your powers. Extracting it will be painful, and will result in a significant loss in your powers.”

  I didn’t hear him. I was too busy being in shock.

  “Do it,” I heard myself say. “Whatever the cost. Do it. Even if it kills me.”

  Astaroth stood up.

  “It just might,” he said, before walking away, and leaving me alone with my despair.

  Chapter 23

  Astaroth took his sweet time, leaving me to wander around his castle.

  Here’s a piece of advice: do NOT wander inside a mad demon’s castle.

  After several near-fatal accidents involving all sorts of monsters, something resembling several swirling purple-colored portals like miniature versions of the Milky Way, and one door holding back a pit of black fire, I refrained from opening any other doors and stuck to just plain old safe walking.

  I passed the laboratory on my way around and peeked inside. It was far less chaotic than before, with only a dozen machines running around, carrying stuff from one bench to another. Others assembled pieces of machinery. A small litter of kitsune huddled in a corner, contentedly snoring and occasionally yawning a small lick of flame.

  Astaroth was inside, hunched over something and muttering to himself.

  “No, brother, no. Brother, bother. You’re being a bother.”

  He rolled up the sleeve of his lab coat and injected something inside his arm.

  An anguished moan escaped his mouth, and he fell to the ground. The ground around him darkened, ever-expanding until it reached my shoes.

  Water.

  I stepped in the puddle and tapped my boot, splashing some of it around. It was just ordinary water, nothing strange or magical.

  Except that it came out of a Fire elemental.

  The four elemental brothers were a living representation of their elements. The primordial elements themselves. Having water come out of Astaroth was like watching a guy walking down the street with a fish tail swinging behind him.

  “Astaroth?” I asked.

  The demon leaned left and right, writhing as more water emerged from his body. Steam hissed, making it dangerous to touch him.

  I felt a pressure come over me, like an internal warning tugging at my consciousness. Something was very wrong here, and it wasn’t the agonized demon. If I could describe it, I’d say it was killing intent personified. It was hatred condensed into a single purpose.

  I walked past Astaroth, stepping over him. One of the kitsune hissed at me but it stayed put. I caught my reflection on one of the more polished machines:

  A massive dark silhouette loomed over me, unseen but felt.

  The killing intent pulled at me again, aching to be discovered. All the while, echoes of previous conversations from the last time I had been here replayed themselves in my head.

  Mephisto mournfully saying Astaroth had crossed a line.

  Amaymon casually mentioning his fourth brother, Baal, the Water elemental.

  Astaroth exhibiting far more power than Amaymon or Mephisto.

  The pieces fell into place.

  I found myself standing in front of a giant sheet of grey satin. Reaching out, I pulled at it. The satin fell, revealing a giant vat full of liquid. Inside were several organic pieces, some resembling bits of leg, strong and powerful, while others looked like disembodied shards of ice with bits of flesh still attached.

  Seeing the remains I immediately understood. The thing inside was not alive, but creatures that powerful left an echo even once they were gone.

  I stepped back and swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Astaroth’s voice was chilly and menacing.

  I turned to look at him. “I was gonna ask you how things are progressing,” I said. “But I saw you were otherwise occupied.”

  Keep calm, Erik. Do not agitate him.

  It was pretty much my only hand to play. Astaroth would incinerate me before I could reach for my, or any, weapon, and I shuddered to think what he would do with my remains.

  “I am.” Again with the level voice and dead expression. “So now you know.”

  I raised my hands. “I don’t know anything.”

  He cocked his head.

  I sighed. “But I can guess.”

  “There is a rule amongst my brothers,” he said, pacing around. Suddenly I was aware of the silence in the lab. The machines had all died down. The kitsune were nowhere to be seen.

  Even the firelight of the candles had turned cold and blue.

  “We cannot kill each other,” he said. “I am sure Amaymon told you why. We maintain a primordial balance, and if one of us were to tilt that scale…”

  “Bad things?” I suggested.

  “On a cataclysmic scale,” the demon said. “And yet I killed Baal and assimilated his essence.”

  I forced my heartbeat to slow down.

  “That’s why you understood my condition,” I said. “And why Mephisto commented that he had never seen your powers like that. Baal still lives inside you.”

  Astaroth nodded. “I knew Mephisto would be the first to notice. I hoped he would have told you by now.”

  “Guess he didn’t get the memo,” I replied.

  “Ask me why,” Astaroth murmured.

  “Look, man, I don’t really need to know,” I said. “This is none of my business. I just want to get rid of the Knight-”

  “It IS your business!” Astaroth snapped. “What I’ve done affects every single living being.”

  “Then why did you do it?” I demanded.

  “Because I saw the light of creation,” he replied. “It is here, you know. Right here.”

  I looked around me. “In the castle? Or in Hell?”

  Astaroth was shaking his head.

  “He still does not see. I had to do it, break the balance, for that was the only way to mitigate a change. I have given you a chance, Erik Ashendale, one small chance to change the world, to redefine your destiny.” He held out his hand. “Take it.”

  “Take what?” I snapped. “What are you talking about?”

  Astaroth cocked his head again.

  “Astaroth?” I called.

  The demon’s head reared up and the goofy smile returned.

  “Erik! You’re here! Listen, I got some good news and bad news. Good news is you are not dead, did you know that?”

  “Yeah,” I said, sighing heavily. “We dealt with that already.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry, my bad,” he said, rubbing his head. “Sometimes I have trouble keeping up.”

  “You mentioned bad news?”

  “Ah, yes, right. So the bad news is that I cannot help you. Bye bye.”
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  “What? Astaroth, what the fuck, man?” I yelled. “You promised.”

  “Did I?” He shrugged. “I shouldn’t have done that, huh? I can’t help you because the Sin has bonded to your soul, so I can’t remove it. Only you can.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “How?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Ah, come on!”

  “You can go to whoever placed it inside you,” he suggested. “They would probably know how to retract it.”

  “I don’t know who or what did this to me,” I said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here!”

  Astaroth waddled over to me and before I could react his arms were around me, giving me a loving hug.

  “There, there,” he said. “It will be okay. More snake tea?”

  “No, I don’t want more snake tea,” I said. “I want to be normal again. Or as normal as I was.”

  Astaroth glanced behind me. His eyes widened as if noticing for the first time Baal’s exposed remains.

  “Oh no. No, no, no.” He quickly summoned one of the machines to life and had it cover the tank again. “This is bad. You have to leave, Erik. You have to, you have to.”

  “I already saw the tank, man, and like I said, it’s not my problem,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “No, no, no. Sorry to be rude, but you have to go. I cannot help you. Please leave.” He turned around. “But you will be back, I’m sure. We are friends after all, right?”

  When I walked out of the crazy demon’s castle and towards the small horde awaiting for me, I had no plan.

  I was just as clueless about my condition as I had been when I first entered.

  Actually, that was wrong.

  I wanted to be clueless but now I had proof from a demonic Dr. Frankenstein that I was the Knightmare.

  But I also wasn’t. Not voluntarily.

  Yet somehow, I failed to see how Berphomet and Paimon would see it that way. Demons weren’t big on philosophy.

  Trickery, on the other hand…

  I walked in between the two demons, and said,

  “I have good news and bad news.”

  Berphomet raised his guns. Paimon palmed his trumpet, ready to send his Asmodaii horde into action. Kulshedra just gleefully listened and watched the freak show.

  “Good news, or bad news, depending on your perspective, is that I am NOT the Knightmare,” I said.

  I quickly turned to Paimon. “But I am mentally linked to the creature and can lead you to it.”

  It was a pretty thick slice of bullshit but they seemed to believe it. Guess my goody-two-shoes reputation extended towards other dimensions as well.

  “We need to find the source of all this,” I went on, alternating my gaze between the two. “This person will likely be housing the Knightmare, probably have it under their control. So, Paimon, I can lead you to the guy you wanna serve, while Berphomet, I can lead you to the guy you wanna kill. Meanwhile, I can get the asshole who started all this and once they’re out the picture, so am I. Then you two can race to see who gets to the Knightmare first.”

  I grinned.

  “May the best demon win.”

  That sealed the deal. There’s an old saying: always give the customer what they want.

  Demons wanted blood and war above all else. That thirst cut further than anything else, including their self-preservation.

  Wow. Guess having one as a pet gave me firsthand insight to how their minds worked.

  Three cheers for Demonic Psych 101.

  Paimon cocked his head at Berphomet. “I do like a contest.”

  Berphomet exhaled roughly, then looked at me.

  “Where is this source you speak of?”

  I smiled. “Actually, you’d know better than me. The source is Greede, but the location… Well, I’m guessing he’s gone back to the deepest hole he could find.”

  Berphomet thought for a minute.

  “Not a hole,” he said. “A castle town, nestled deep inside a pocket dimension inlaid over a remote town in the Swiss Alps, just along the Italian border.” He spun his revolvers and holstered them. “All of his allies reside there, old and new. The town is approximately twelve kilometers across, with a castle at the northernmost point. The Castello Del Relampago. The Castle of Flashing Lightning.”

  Chapter 24

  We made it back to Kulshedra’s ruins, where the giant snake lady curled around a small mountain of oversized bird eggs and began swallowing them one by one, using her six arms to just plop them in her open maw.

  It was enough to ruin eggs for me.

  Or food in general.

  Thankfully, Paimon and Berphomet took shelter inside the remains of a temple, so I followed them as they spread out a piece of weathered parchment.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A map,” Berphomet said, in a tone that indicated I was a simpleton.

  “For?” I trailed.

  “The entrance to the third circle,” Paimon responded.

  I shook my head. “Okay, I’m lost.”

  Berphomet rolled his eyes at me, while Paimon’s hooves clomped on the ground in annoyance.

  “We have decided to recruit one more member,” he said. “Twelve kilometers are too much ground for the three of us to cover.”

  “Four,” Berphomet corrected. “Kulshedra will be joining our expedition to the human world.” He shrugged. “She seems to have grown bored.”

  “Three demons,” Paimon said, glancing at me. “The human is not to be trusted. Thus, we will need one more.”

  I stayed quiet. Adding one more demon was the equivalent of having four nuclear bombs to deal with instead of three. It really wouldn’t make much of a difference in the end.

  And besides, demons are selfish creatures. This sort of alliance usually ended up with them turning on each other. Paimon likely knew this, which meant he’ll suggest splitting the party, and letting each demon inflict their own brand of violence on the populace.

  Which was well and fine by me. This was the Black Ring Society HQ—if Paimon wanted to bring more firepower to distract from my real mission, more power to him.

  “So who’s the lucky winner?” I asked.

  “A prisoner named Lhorax,” Paimon answered.

  I chuckled. “What, like in Ghostbusters?”

  They both looked at me. I cleared my throat. “Prisoner, you say?” I asked, frowning. “You guys have those?”

  “Of course,” Berphomet answered. “The closest one, which luckily is where Lhorax is kept, is in the third circle.”

  “Okay. How do we get there?”

  Paimon sighed. I didn’t know Nucklavee could sigh, what with the decayed face and all, but he did a very good job of sighing.

  “There are seven accessible circles to demons, human,” he said. “This one is the second.”

  “Really? What’s the first then?”

  “I believe your kind refers to it as Limbo,” Paimon replied. Both he and Berphomet shuddered. “We hate it there.”

  I barked out a laugh. “What, you’re afraid of ghosts and Wraiths?”

  “No,” Paimon said. “But it is quite annoying. Human souls reside there. They can be quite… unnerving.”

  I burst out laughing. “Hah! So Limbo is Hell’s equivalent of Florida.”

  Paimon cocked his head. “I do not know what that is.”

  “I do,” Berphomet said. “The resemblance is uncanny. Both are to be avoided at all costs if possible.”

  “Dangerous territory?” Paimon asked.

  “To one’s own sanity, yes.”

  I shook my head. “So how do we go from the second circle, where we are, to the third and this Lhorax guy?”

  Berphomet sighed. “It will not be easy. Crossing to the third is straightforward.” He pointed towards the horizon. “We can simply plummet down.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Hell’s planes are flat earths?”

  Berphomet nodded. “More pyramidal, but yes. In fact, humans believing that their own earth i
s flat was the result of an experiment. We once let loose a horde of imps to implant the idea and have on occasion even brought humans around and thrown them over.” He brayed out a chuckle. “We did not count on the belief holding on though. Humans are so much more feeble and dumb than we gave them credit for.”

  “Fuck you, goat-boy,” I retorted.

  “And yet, here you are, in Hell, with your would-be assassin and a demon you once killed,” he said.

  I opened my mouth for a retort but said nothing. Score one for the demon I guess.

  “Getting into the prison will be tough,” Berphomet went on.

  “I have contacts there who owe me favors,” Paimon replied. “Several of the Stygian guards were former comrades of mine before the creation of Asmodaii.”

  “That’s a long while ago,” I said. “Think they’ll still make good on their word?”

  “No,” Paimon said matter-of-factly. “We are demons.” He reared up and flourished his swords. “But I doubt they would want to cross me. Would you, mortal?”

  It was a weird sensation, staring down the edge of the world. Clouds and mist and ice covered as far as the eye could see, with cold vapors coming upwind.

  “So we just jump, right?” I asked. “I don’t see a bottom. Also how do we land?”

  “On our feet,” Berphomet replied. “One does not simply die from jumping between circles.”

  “And how do we get back up?” I asked.

  Paimon tutted. “There’s a rope.”

  “Really?”

  He looked at Berphomet. “The human is very stupid.”

  “I know,” the assassin replied. “Best we get this over with.”

  “Indeed.”

  Paimon turned, giving me his ass.

  “Hey, what-”

  Paimon reared forwards and kicked me with his back legs, sending me sailing over the edge of the world.

  I windmilled and screamed and to my side I saw Berphomet with his arms crossed just casually plummeting next to me with the same concern as if we were riding a bus.

  The world turned white, then icy blue, and then I was not falling anymore.

  Ice crunched beneath my boots, steady and solid, and I leaned over and vomited.