Something screamed, a soul-deep, tortured sound that made Hades’s flesh crawl. Something was very, very wrong.
Kicking himself into high gear, Hades sprinted into the fire-lit, cavernous room...and then he skidded to a halt, his boots slipping in pools of blood on the stone floor. A hundred demons from dozens of species were gathered around a giant iron pot hanging over a fire. Inside the pot, a Neethul demon’s screams died as his body bubbled in some sort of acidic liquid.
“Stop!” Hades didn’t give a shit about the demon. What he did give a shit about was the ritual. In Sheoul-gra, all rituals were forbidden and came with a penalty of having one’s soul disintegrated, so they didn’t happen often. Oh, Hades had come across one or two loners performing religious rituals now and then, but this kind of massive gathering and ceremony? This was a first.
And, by Azagoth’s balls, it would be the last.
The mass of chanting demons turned as a unit, their creepy smiles and empty eyes filling him with a sickening sense of doom. Alarm shot through him, and in an instant, he summoned his power and prepared to blast every one of these freaks into the Rot, the prison meant for the worst of the worst, where suffering was more than legend, and where the only release came when Azagoth destroyed your soul.
With a word, he released his power. At the same moment, one of the demons overturned the pot of acid. The liquid, mixed with the goo of the dissolved Neethul, splashed on the floor in a whoosh of steam. Suddenly, as if Hades’s power had hit an invisible wall, it bounced back at him, wrapping him in a cocoon of blackness.
As he was transported by his own spell to the prison all demons feared, he heard the chant again. Ich tun esay alet!
Oh...shit. This time, he understood.
The demons weren’t trying to open a dime store. Somehow they’d acquired a forbidden object or person of power and were attempting to open Sheoul-gra’s very walls, to allow millions of souls out into the human and demon realms.
They were looking to feast.
Chapter Three
Hades had no trouble freeing himself from the Rot, although he’d had a hell of a time trying to convince one of the guards, a fallen angel named Vype, that he wasn’t a demon in disguise.
Once he’d talked the guy down, Hades gathered a handful of his fallen angel staff and returned to the site of the demonic ritual. Within a few hours, they’d captured two of the demons who had been there. They’d changed their physical appearances, but Hades could see through their costumes to their souls. Idiots.
After delivering them to the Rot, he went immediately to Azagoth, who was surveying his library’s vast shelves of books, some of which vibrated as his gaze landed on them. Hades hung back, a lesson learned after being bitten by one of Azagoth’s rabid tomes. Who knew books could bite? Vicious little bastards.
Hades cleared his throat to announce his presence. Azagoth didn’t even turn around, simply barked out a curt, “Sit.”
The Grim Reaper’s voice didn’t leave room for argument. But then, it rarely did. So Hades took a seat in the leather chair...leather made from the finest Molegra demon hides.
Azagoth took a seat on the plush sofa across from Hades and reached for a tattered book on the armrest. “So,” he said. “What’s going on in the 5th Ring?”
Hades didn’t bother asking how Azagoth knew. No doubt one or more of Hades’s wardens were agents for Azagoth. The guy’s spy network extended from the deepest pits of Sheoul to the highest reaches of Heaven.
“Hell if I know,” Hades said. “But whatever it is, it’s bad. I caught a bunch of assholes performing a forbidden ritual powerful enough to deflect my power and blast me to my own fucking prison.”
One of Azagoth’s dark eyebrows shot up. “I assume you took care of the situation.”
“Once I got myself out of my own jail, yeah. I only found two of the offenders, but I’ve got ’em strung up and awaiting your questioning. I believe they got their hands on something from outside. The power they wielded was like nothing else I’ve felt.”
“Dammit,” Azagoth breathed. “You’re losing control––”
“My ass,” Hades snapped. “The Gra is becoming overloaded with evil souls. You need to stop reincarnating only non-evil demons and start working on the baddies. Get them back to Sheoul where they belong. I’ve been spending way too much time moving Ufelskala Tier 4 and 5 demons to Rings less equipped to handle that kind of malevolence.”
The Ufelskala, a scale developed to categorize demons into five Tiers based on the intensity of evil inherent to their species, was also one of the tools Azagoth used to sort demons into the five Rings of the Inner Sanctum. Not that the guy couldn’t send anyone to any Ring he wanted, but in general, he followed the information laid out in the Ufelskala.