Countless numbers of demons turned their heads toward me.

  And then they all fell to their knees. For me.

  * * *

  I was welcomed with open arms.

  Inadvertently, I’d discovered a place that the human world wasn’t even aware existed. The demons and monsters that populated this great city lived their lives without human intervention. Above us was the world of humanity in their sprawling urban cities, living completely unaware of our presence as they slept in their beds. Even the Demon Hunters had never known this place flourished right beneath their feet.

  The beasts that lived here called it the Hellmouth.

  It was to become my kingdom. When I arrived, they had called me their queen and I hadn’t fought them. They had knelt before me. They’d spoiled me with fresh blood, always served to me inside heavy metal goblets decorated with the most beautiful rubies I had ever seen. I had no idea who the source was or what had happened to the human sources, but I didn’t ask questions because I didn’t want to know the answers.

  Vampires primarily served me, but there were a fair number of other monster species allowed to be in my presence. There were night fae, goblins, trolls, werewolves, and a great many that I didn’t recognize. They all treated me with reverence, and I began feel comfortable in their company. I began to feel safe. Protected even.

  They’d made me royalty. They recognized my power and bowed to me because of it. I was sired by a vampire older than time itself and that made me the most powerful demon outside of the devil. And Cain.

  I began to plan my next move. I knew Cain was going to come for me and nothing I could do would be able to stop him. I would have to figure out a way to fight back against him without being able to actually hurt him.

  Somehow, I had to figure out a way to make him weak.

  First though, I started to prepare my own army. If Cain was going to come for me, he was going to have to fight his way through to me. And he’d have to shed some of his own blood to do it.

  I spent an inordinate amount of time training side by side with the other vampires, learning how to use my speed and heightened abilities to my advantage. I excelled, already having a solid base from my days with the Demon Hunters. Eventually, I learned enough to best each and every demon that fought me, but I didn’t stop training. I wasn’t going to be overconfident in my fight against Cain.

  There was always more to learn, and I was never going to stop.

  As much as I trained though, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hurt him. My mark would prevent it. I’d tried to punch him, and the resulting pain had been excruciating. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to cut or maim him, but I didn’t want to find out how much worse that felt. I had to figure out another way to contain him and that’s when I started to ask questions.

  When I began to ask those who served me, I was introduced to one woman, an immortal voodoo priestess who might be able to see to my needs. Her name was Tituba. I was escorted to her home, where she operated her own shop selling magical wares, potions, and all manner of things I had yet to understand.

  “It is an honor to meet you,” she drawled with a heavy accent.

  “You as well,” I responded carefully. The very air crackled with ancient power and for the first time, I felt as though I had found the one person in the Hellmouth that might have control of as much magic as I did.

  I had heard of her name before, but I hadn’t realized that she was an immortal. She’d walked on Earth once a very long time ago and went by the same name. She was the very first woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. After confessing her guilt, she proceeded to accuse several other women of witchcraft. Her actions helped create a formidable site of magical power rising from the agonizing deaths of humans and actual witches alike. Today, it was a mecca for newly discovered witches and the place of a great many academies teaching young women how to harness their magic.

  I should be wary of her.

  “You have a problem, I’ve heard,” she started, a distinctive judgmental tone on her tongue.

  “I do. I’ve been told you might be able to help,” I answered carefully.

  “Tell me more about the one who made you,” she replied.

  “His name is Cain,” I said, all while watching her expression with much reservation. Her brow ticked and her lips tensed. Then her face went calm.

  “I have heard of him. He had a great deal of power that has never been properly collared,” Tituba said, her tone giving no indication of her true feelings. Telling her more might be similar to releasing a wild tiger from its cage, but I had no choice. I had to figure out a way to weaken Cain in order to prevent him from coming for me and right now, she was my only option even if she was a dangerous one.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know much about the demon world, yes?”

  “I do,” I answered.

  “Tell me, there are a great number of witches on Earth’s surface, yes?”

  “There are,” I replied. What was she getting at?

  “And how many wizards or warlocks?” she answered.

  “Those are a myth. There aren’t any in existence,” I replied.

  “Why do you think that is?” she questioned.

  I paused. I had literally never thought about it before. Witches were universally female. Wizards and warlocks were popularized in the movies and in literature, but there was no evidence that any had actually existed since the beginning of time. Male witches just weren’t a thing.

  “It’s the magic. The powers of the Earth are distinctly feminine. The trees, the very air we breathe, the flowers blooming beneath our feet are all a product of Mother Nature and so is the magic that pumps in your and my veins. Cain wasn’t gifted his magic as you and I were. He was granted it through improper means,” she explained.

  “How?”

  “He made a deal with the devil, but he had to pay a very high price for it,” she continued.

  “Which was what?” I pressed.

  “He had to kill his brother,” she replied.

  I swallowed heavily, finally grasping at her meaning.

  Abel.

  “By killing him, he was cursed with an eternal life of pointless wandering, but he was blessed with magic from the devil. Regardless of all that though, he gained his power through unnatural means and that makes him vulnerable,” she explained.

  “How?” I asked. I hadn’t thought he had a weakness but if Tituba would help me to exploit it, I would do whatever it took.

  She stood and opened a drawer. Tentatively, she pulled out a silver ring. It was a metal collar.

  “I can weave a spell through the steel; the only thing you’d have to do would be to lock it around his throat yourself,” she suggested.

  “What would it do?”

  “It would block him from accessing his power. He’d just be a vampire without it,” she said, and the full weight of her words hit me. He wouldn’t be able to bind me. He wouldn’t be able to stop me from moving like he’d done in the forest and in the alley behind the hospital. I’d be able to get away and he couldn’t stop me. I’d be able to do that as many times as I needed to.

  “It would weaken him,” I murmured.

  “By a great deal,” she replied.

  “When he first captured me, he had an amulet that weakened him. It contained an ancient power that I set free. As a result, my own magic awakened. Are you familiar with such a thing?” I asked her.

  She pursed her lips in thought.

  “I’ve heard whispers of such a relic, but it was before my time. I do not know what you released as not much is known. It is rumored to have been created in the clash of Cain and Abel. That’s all I know about it,” she answered.

  “Thank you for your candor. Let’s move forward and spell the collar. Cain will come for me and when he arrives, I want to be ready for him.”

  “As you wish, my queen,” Tituba murmured. “I’m going to need a few things to complete the spell though, including a vial of your own blood.”

  I stared back at her, trying to assess if she was telling the truth. I felt like she was slipping through my fingers like grains of sand and if I wasn’t careful, she’d take me down just as soon as she did Cain. Her magic was strong too and I was sure that she was capable of much more than she was letting on. I was still unclear whether or not she thought of me as a friend or if she saw me as an enemy. I didn’t know what her motivations were.

  Trusting her was a risk. Not using her though was an even bigger one.

  I stood and walked over to a display shelf with bowls and decorative knives. I took one and quickly sliced my wrist, before turning it over and allowing my blood to drip into one of the medium-sized vessels. My healing ability sealed the wound quickly and when I was finished, I picked up the dish of my lifeblood and carried it over to Tituba, placing it in front of her.

  “I need more than that,” she answered.

  I cut myself again. And again, until I’d filled that bowl.

  “What else do you need?” I said curtly.

  “A lock of your hair,” she said next.

  I provided that for her too.

  “Anything else?”

  “I’m going to need a few days to prepare, but you are going to have to be here while I perform the ritual. I’m going to need your power combined with mine to do what needs to be done,” she said, and I nodded.

  I would do whatever she wanted in order to spell this collar because I was going to use it to put Cain back in his place.

  * * *

  Several days went by before Tituba called for my return. I passed the time by ramping up patrols on the walls surrounding the Hellmouth. I sent a number of sentries to the human world in order to find out where Cain had gone, but upon the return of each one, they had nothing to report. He had gone silent, leaving no trace of his whereabouts whatsoever. That made me nervous and I did my very best to ignore those feelings.

  I’d be ready when he came for me, whenever that would be.

  When the day finally came to spell the collar, I paused outside Tituba’s shop, taking in the décor and the advertisements on the window. She sold spells and black magic, though it didn’t stop there. She also peddled human blood and various organs of mysterious origins, along with any kind of curse that you could imagine. She was a dangerous witch and tonight, I was about to climb into bed with her in order to weaken the man who had taken everything from me.

  The Hellmouth was in perpetual night and in the traditional sense, daytime had little meaning. The city revolved around the rising and setting of the moon rather than the sun and it had just set, leaving the streets in very dark shadows.

  The ritual was to be performed during the darkest phase of nightfall.

  I walked inside and put on a brave face. Whatever was about to happen tonight would be a step toward my goal of freeing myself from the man who wanted to keep me as his own. I hoped that it would all be worth it in the end.

  Tituba had another woman running the shop, a dark elf female who had a black patch over her right eye. The attendant nodded in greeting. Tituba was waiting for me by her side and didn’t introduce her, and I decided not to ask. Tituba indicated for me to follow and I did.

  The two of us walked into the back of her shop. There was already the heavy scent of burning incense that smelled of sage and jasmine and something else that reeked of death. The ceiling was hazy with smoke, giving the dark room a very ominous and dangerous aura.

  There was a table in the center of the room. In the middle of it was the bowl filled with my blood. Floating on top of that was the lock of my hair, tied tight with a piece of twine. All around that fated vessel were a number of other small bowls filled with various powders and liquids. I didn’t ask what any of them were. On the floor was a hexagon with a star inside it painted on the floor in white. Around the perimeter of the room was a thin line of salt.

  “You and I are going to go on a journey together tonight,” Tituba murmured.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to sneak past the gates of hell,” she answered, and a shiver of terror raced down my spine.

  “Why on Earth would we do that?”

  “Because in order to complete the ritual, we’re going to need the tears of an angel,” she answered.

  “Why would an angel be in hell?” I questioned.

  “Because Cain put him there,” she replied.

  I paused for a long moment before I met her eyes, swallowing heavily as her meaning dawned on me.

  “We’re going to find Abel, aren’t we?”

  “We are,” she said tersely. She was clutching a bundle of smoking incense in her hand so hard that her knuckles had turned white.

  She was scared too.

  I didn’t know why she’d be doing this for me, but I almost didn’t want to know because I was afraid of what that reason might be. There had to be something for her to gain out of helping me to bring down Cain and neuter him of his power, I just didn’t know what that was yet.

  I should be more careful, but I was a desperate woman on the run. For now, I would ignore my reservations and I sincerely hoped that I wouldn’t regret it later.

  We took a seat across from one another and she told me to lay the backs of my hands on the table, a symbol for our journey beneath. She began muttering softly under her breath and my bowl of blood started to boil. She mixed in several different ingredients and soon the boiling liquid turned black as night. When she was finished, she took a sip and indicated that I was to follow suit.

  It tasted sweet although I couldn’t place the flavor.

  She took my hands in hers after that as she continued to speak in tongues and after that, the floor started to rattle beneath our feet. It grew stronger and then, all at once, the ground opened up under us and we began to fall straight down into the unknown. I swallowed my screams of fear as a massive updraft of air slowed our descent until a new ground hurtled up from beneath us, forcing us to land hard on our feet.

  The darkness was oppressive, so pitch black that I couldn’t even see my fingers in front of my face. All of a sudden, a single candle flame brightened in front of Tituba’s face, illuminating the shadows and revealing a very tall stone door right in front of us. On it was the carvings of an untold number of tortured individuals and screaming faces that would haunt me until the end of my days. In Tituba’s other hand was the bowl of my spelled blood. She poured some of it onto the ground at her feet and a terrible groaning echoed all around us.

  The gates of hell were opening.

  I heard the crack of a whip escape through those doors. After that, a scream. Followed by another. And another until the only thing I heard was the misery of the damned.

  Tituba walked forward and I followed. For a moment, I felt like lamb being led to the slaughter, but I swallowed my fear and continued on into hell right behind her.

  We entered into the Great Hall, but much of it was hidden in shadow. From what I could tell, it was enormous inside and a great number of miserably grotesque stone statues lined the entryway to either side of us. Each face was splintered with a terribly realistic expression of abject terror and pain that would haunt my dreams for days to come. More screams echoed all around us and I did my best to turn my focus away from all of them.

  I wanted to ask Tituba where we were going yet I elected not to. I was afraid of giving away our position and exposing us to monsters that were far more dangerous than anything that inhabited the Hellmouth and the Earth. The scrolls in the Demon Hunter library hinted at beasts capable of true annihilation and devastation and those that fed and thrived on the souls of the innocent. The last time one of those demons had been released had brought about the Dark Ages, killing an undocumented number of people in a time where deaths weren’t recorded, thousands of pure souls, all consumed in the name of the devil.

  I shivered. The air around me stirred. It felt treacherous to even breathe it in.

  A hellhound howled, announcing its presence to us. The rest of its pack followed. Defensively, my magic pulsed inside me and I lifted my palm, igniting my own flame that hovered just above my skin. I poured more of my own power into it and the light grew bigger, illuminating even the deepest shadows in this immense foyer.

  We were surrounded by at least three dozen gigantic hellhounds. They were at least three times the size of a wolf, with sharp canines that extended at least six inches as well as blood-red eyes that glowed in the light of my flame. Every single one of them was pitch black in color, making it easy for them to hide in the shadows.

  In an instant, they could be on us, ripping us into pieces.

  They didn’t move. Instead, they just stood there, watching as we walked forward, like our very own demonic welcome party.

  Tituba continued to murmur in soft tones, muttering words in another language as she fluttered her fingers in rhythmic patterns. The ground started to tremble beneath our feet. I wondered if we were going to go even deeper.

  A gray wooden hatch appeared right in front of us. Tituba walked forward and gripped the steel latch, pulling it open as hastily as she dared. I looked down and saw a decrepit winding metal staircase that led down into the darkness. I couldn’t see where it ended.

  “We’ll find who we’re looking for in the Hall of Innocents,” she whispered, before descending herself. I followed even though I really didn’t want to.

  Upon entering through the gates of hell, I thought I would encounter burning flames and even more hellish sights. Instead, it was dark and hidden in shadow, but as we plunged downward deeper than ever, I began to see a soft glow far beneath. The closer we drew toward it, the brighter that light became. Along with it though, so did the haunting echo of the screaming prisoners of this dark place.

  When we finally entered the Hall of Innocents, we were greeted with piles of burnt bones, terrified faces of the damned in cages, and the piercing screams of those being tortured not far away. In the center of the entryway was an even bigger cage with only a single person inside it. The first thing I saw was a pair of brilliantly white angel wings that would have been magnificent if they had been pristine, but they were vividly stained with blood. Many of the feathers were askew, marring their beauty in a painful presentation of the cruelty he had endured in his time trapped down here in hell.

 

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