Demonic and Deserted (Eternally Yours Book 4) (4 page)

My heart hammered a wild staccato in my ears as I veered left, careful not to trip over rotting stumps and clumps of wilted vegetation while keeping an eye out for any signs of an arachnid attack. No sooner had I reached my designated target than I heard Cam’s whistle. I aimed at the top of the trees and unleashed my fire.

They crawled out of the vegetation faster than I expected, their high-pitched squeals of pain causing icy currents of dread to race up my spine. I slowly backed up, burning the creatures while they raced toward me. I jerked back, nearly stumbling over my feet as they pelted my helmet like balls of hail. Even through the thick protective layers of my suit, I felt them racing down my sides, no doubt looking for a way to break through. I fought the urge to drop my gun and run, swatting them off my face shield before they crawled down my chest. 

As I continued the spray of flame, I caught sight of Cam coming toward me. His suit was covered in the creatures as well, and my heart thudded when I saw they were trying to tie his legs with webbing. I hit Cam with a blast of flame, and the spiders squealed and fell to the ground. I held my breath when Cam turned his gun on me. My body heated up like a furnace, causing my limbs to itch and burn, but I was relieved when the creatures fell off me. The tension in my neck and back eased without them weighing me down. 

Cam turned away, hitting Callum with a blast, and then we were all backing up, alternating between scorching spiders, vegetation, and each other.

By the time we neared the atrium’s exit, the place was awash in smoke and fire, and our flamethrowers were nearly out of gas. My faceplate was blackened with soot, decreasing my visibility as eight-legged black shadows continued to rain down on us. Once we reached the door, we sprayed each other once more, then threw our empty weapons to the ground before making a hasty exit. Cam closed and bolted the heavy metal door while O’Connor and I pushed concrete blocks in front of it.

After we finished checking each other for strays, I finally unlatched my helmet and breathed in a deep gulp of air, though the simple act of breathing strained my lungs. We quickly descended the stairs, wasting no time in reaching the bottom of the pyramid, where the others waited for us.

I wished the priestesses had been admitted into Purgatory. That would have put my mind at ease. There was one priestess in particular whose soul I feared for. Melanie had always been kind to me and her sisters. She was a beauty, with wild crimson hair that hung down her back in waves. She was shy, too, unwilling to utter more than a few words, though I’d often times tried to engage her in conversation. I would have thought she wasn’t interested in me, except there were times I’d catch her staring in my direction, only to quickly look away.

The priestesses were a pious group, except for O’Connor’s girlfriend, Cara, who spent her days with him. But the rest spent most of their time working or praying. Whatever sin Melanie had committed before she died, I knew it had to have been bad. Why else had she been cast into the fiery pit? Her damnation alone should have been enough of a reason for me to avoid her. Yet, idiot that I was, I couldn’t help but have feelings for the girl. O’Connor had teased me that I was obsessed. Maybe he was right. But on the few occasions I was able to gaze into her big amber eyes, I sensed a haunting desperation that nearly made my chest implode. Whatever Melanie had done on earth, she was sorry for it, so sorry that despair consumed her. What I wouldn’t give to take away some of that pain, to hold her in my arms and tell her that her sins had been forgiven. 

It was difficult work, traversing stairs that had been built for giants, making thirteen flights feel like thirty. All elevators within the pyramid had been sealed off to prevent the spiders from reaching the bottom levels through the shaft, though I feared they may have already found their way down. And then there was the question of their mother. Based on what I had heard about her from the others, destroying her wasn’t going to be easy, considering the armor on her chest deflected weapons and magic. Though the Nephilim had supposedly banished her to the fifth level of Hell when they’d crushed her skull, she had to have found a way up to our level, and the spiders she’d referred to as her demonlings were here to enact revenge. Their poisonous stingers were lethal enough to make their victims die a second death, maybe even cast them to the lowest dimension of Hell, which was why it was imperative we killed every last one of those little motherfuckers. 

Some days I asked myself what the hell I was doing down here when I had earned enough credits to get into Heaven. I could have been living it up in a huge mansion with the valet of my dreams, not stuck down here, waiting to be demon bait. But then I reminded myself my friends needed me, and I wasn’t about to leave them, no matter how much those demons scared the shit out of me.

My lungs were burning by the time we reached the bottom. O’Connor stopped and leaned against the step, breathing with a wheeze. I patted him on the back, trying to catch my breath, too, then I nudged him toward the towering wooden doors at the end of the hall. I didn’t feel comfortable standing out here. The bottom of the pyramid looked like the inside of a tomb. The walls were made of large grey stones, and the floors were polished tiles. Wall sconces bigger than streetlamps flanked the stones, but even the light from the burning pyres didn’t pierce the shadows; the walls stretched into pitch darkness. 

We moved cautiously toward the safety of the dining hall, a void of emptiness stretching out before us. We’d nearly reached our destination when the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.  I shared wide-eyed looks with O’Connor and Cam. They felt it, too. We took off at a run, winded by the time we banged on the double doors to the hall.

“Let us in!” Cam cried.

A breeze blew through the cavern, and I heard whispering behind the doors and the heavy bolt unlatching.

Though I was terrified, I took a chance and looked up. I tasted bile when I saw thousands upon thousands of spiders descending upon us, suspended from somewhere beyond the darkness by long, gleaming white strands of web.

The door opened a crack, and we slipped inside, slamming it behind us and heaving the bolt back on its hinges. How long the door would hold, I had no idea, but of one thing I was certain—the spiders would soon overrun the entire pyramid and every soul in it.

* * *

Ash MacLeod

“W
hat floor are we on?” I asked Aedan with a tight chest.

A loud pop sounded above us, and the flickering light went out, leaving us in complete darkness. I screamed and tumbled into his arms when the elevator started moving again.

“Aedan,” I cried. “I’m scared.”

He squeezed my hand before letting go. “Hang on.” 

My limbs iced over with fear when he moved away from me.

“There’s an emergency switch somewhere,” he grumbled. And then the numbers on the panel lit up with an eerie glow as a red strobe light pulsed overhead.

“What’s happening?” I asked as I leaned against him.

He squinted at the panel before hitting the sub-level one button several times. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

A cold current raced up my spine and made all the baby hairs on my nape stand on end. I recognized that feeling, that “you’re totally fucked, Ash” feeling. And though I really didn’t want to, some crazy part of my nagging subconscious forced me to look up.

My heart raced. Though my mouth had fallen open, I was too stunned to speak, so I tugged on Aedan’s coat sleeve and pointed up at the thousands of black widow spiders, each about the size of my palm, that carpeted the ceiling and were racing down the elevator walls.

A litany of swear words that would have made Satan himself proud poured out of Aedan’s mouth as he cautiously moved in front of me, pushing me toward the door.

When the elevator opened with a hiss, Aedan and I slowly moved out onto the marble floor. After the spiders completely blanketed all four walls, the floor, and our luggage, they stopped at the elevator threshold. I should have been upset that my wedding dress had thousands of creepy crawly legs running all over it. I seriously doubted I’d be able to wear the gown, even after sending it through the dry cleaners a thousand times. I was relieved when the elevator door closed and shot back up into the sky. The last thing we needed was to be stuck in Hell on our wedding day with thousands of angry spiders.

Aedan spun me around, checking my head and back for any arachnid hitchhikers, and I did the same for him. I scanned the floor, making sure the spiders hadn’t spilled into the pyramid. That’s when I noticed the room looked different. Usually the elevator deposited us in the grand dining hall. While the floors were the same, and the walls seemed to be constructed of similar bricks, I didn’t remember the exotic potted plants, some so tall the ivy trellises extended across the room’s arched ceiling. And the long marble-topped counter along the back wall was different. It almost reminded me of a lobby in an expensive hotel. There were several gold-plated clocks hanging behind the counter, each one displaying the time in a different country.

Weird. Had our friends done some remodeling since the last time we’d visited? Speaking of our friends, where were they? The grim look Aedan shot me as he pulled me to his side wasn’t reassuring.

“This isn’t the pyramid,” he growled between clenched teeth.

My brain went numb from fear. If we weren’t in the pyramid, where were we?

I jumped back with an ear-piercing scream when a furry, squealing thing dropped from the ceiling, landing in front of us.

Aedan pushed me behind him and held up his fists. “Get back, demon! I’m warning you!”

I peered around Aedan’s shoulder at the creature that was hissing at us. It was a primate demon that stood about three feet tall. He wore a band with a swastika on one arm and had the oddest little black moustache, making him look like a miniature monkey Hitler. 

He pointed up at us. “No have bags?”

Aedan shook his head. “Our bags are still on the elevator.”

The monkey frowned and then shrugged. “No need bags. Master waiting for you.”

Aedan’s spine stiffened. “Who is your master?”

The monkey waved us forward. “Come meet Master.”

“We’re not taking another step until you answer my question.”

The monkey lurched toward us with a rabid hiss, revealing several rows of fangs I knew could easily bite off my hand.

Aedan kicked the thing in the gut, sending it careening across the floor with a squeal. Then he grabbed my hand, and we ran toward an archway at the end of the room. “We’ve got to find an elevator,” he said, as we skidded to a halt in front of the darkened hall.

“Where are we?” I asked, though I feared his answer. One thing for certain, wherever we were, we had to get out of Dodge fast before the monkey’s master found us. 

“There’s the lovely couple,” a dark, ominous voice as smooth as melted butter and as icy as winter frost said from somewhere in the dark recesses of the hallway. “I’ve been expecting you.”

I backed up with a gasp, pulling Aedan with me as a man stepped from the shadows. At least I thought he was a man. The curled horns sticking out of the top of his head indicated he was a demon, albeit a regal one. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a Renaissance novel, wearing a burgundy, gold-embroidered velvet tunic and black tights that fit his lean, tall form to perfection. He had slicked-back dark hair, ghostly pale skin, impossibly high cheekbones, an elegant nose, and full lips framed by a thin moustache and goatee. He would have been considered handsome, even debonair, except for the gleam in his beady, dark eyes, reminding me of a snake preparing to strike. Oh, and then there was the fact that his feet were hooves. What the hell? Was the guy part ram?

Though instinct warned me who this man was, I didn’t want to believe it. But somehow I knew I was staring down the Devil himself, and Aedan and I were trapped in the thirteenth dimension of Hell.

“Who the hell are you?” Aedan demanded.

A slow, devious smile split the ram demon’s face in two, revealing two even rows of gleaming white teeth. He unfolded long, lean arms, holding out his hands in a form of mock surrender. “Who do you think I am?”

I backed up a step, tugging on my fiancé’s sleeve. “Aedan, let’s get out of here.”

The man took a step toward us, his eyes cool and calculating. “Relax. You’re in the right place.”

Aedan clenched his fists, puffing up his chest as if he had a chance of defeating the Devil. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

I tugged on Aedan’s sleeve again, my chest hurting so badly, I felt as if I were breathing through a straw, and not the fat kind found at a certain popular greasy, processed-food chain, but the skinny kind used to stir coffee and prevent brain freeze while slowly sipping frozen margaritas.

“If you wouldn’t mind lending us a can of bug spray,” I squeaked, flashing the Devil a frozen smile, “and directing us to the nearest elevator, we’ll happily be on our way.”

He folded his hands again, a look of mock contrition on his face. “Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t have any permanent elevators on sub-level thirteen.”

“S-sub-level thirteen?” Aedan sputtered.

“We definitely got off on the wrong floor,” I whispered as a chill swept up my spine. My fiancé and I were stuck on the bottom of Hell on our wedding day with no way out. Somehow I knew the Devil was behind it. Talk about a major asshole. This guy was the wedding crasher from Hell—literally. 

“Of course you’re on the right floor.” The Devil laughed. “I’ve been planning this engagement party in your honor for years.”

I vehemently shook my head. Clearly he had the wrong couple. Maybe once he realized his mistake, he’d let us go. Yeah, and maybe psychedelic monkeys would start flying out of my butt. “Years?  We’ve only been engaged a few months.”

He frowned. “Yes, but time passes much slower at the bottom of the pit. What may feel like a few hours on level one is a lifetime down here.” He flashed a slow smile. “I imagine it will be a very long time before your friends in the pyramid even realize you’re missing.”