That name… it reminded her of something. Out at the edge of her consciousness, like a word on the edge of her tongue, but in this case it felt like a lot of memories she couldn’t quite capture. Again, she recalled the slap of skin on skin as he pounded into her in the weird whitescape hell.
She shook her head, and realized the voice had stopped speaking. If it had answered her, she missed it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch what you said.”
“To hell, sugarlumps. He went to hell to face his demons,” the voice answered before laughing again.
She wasn’t sure if he’d said his demons or The Demon, though, since the static sort of distorted right in the middle of the sentence. “Take me to him,” she ordered.
“You say you’re a human, and you want to go to Hell?” All of the sudden, the room was filled with the twisted tornado of spirits, all of them crushing closer to her like a misty fog of faces and hands. “Oh, honey, that would be our pleasure.”
The world shifted, the hands forming something like a tunnel that she was unceremoniously shoved down.
Once she landed with a crash that rattled her bones, she realized she wasn’t in the mansion anymore. This hallway was far too clean, sterile even. The greenish tiles and nondescript walls reminded her of a school or other institution of some kind. There was only one door in the hallway, all the way at the end, and it was metal painted white with a single silver knob. Madeline got up and brushed herself off before heading down the strangely disorienting hall. Once she got closer, she could read the single brass plaque in the center of the door.
HELL.
Well, she’d found the right place, she supposed. She stuck her hand on the knob, prepared for just about anything. Maybe it would be hot. Maybe the room inside would be all lava and lakes of fire. Maybe it would be some kind of river of souls…
Instead, twisting the knob revealed a room that looked suspiciously like the DMV.
“What the hell?” she mumbled to no one in particular.
A man at the back of the line with a hole in his forehead turned around and answered. “Exactly. Welcome to Hell. Take a number. Took me three months to realize that was what I was supposed to do…”
Chapter Five
Tamerlane
“I know I left my station and my punishment, but I think we can agree that the circumstances were particularly unique,” Tamerlane tried to explain. He still couldn’t look the Big Bad in the eye, but he wasn’t ashamed of that fact. Few demons could bear to stare down that much evil. The very power of the presence before him was like a weight, crushing his spine. To look upon it would be even worse.
Something like a tentacle crossed into his vision and he cringed away from it. The tentacle in question wasn’t covered in suction cups exactly, more like spikes. He’d heard a rumor about another demon who had one of those tentacles shoved up his…
Better not to think of it, especially when he’d already annoyed the monster.
“Not altogether unique. Many demons are upon the earthly plane. It is only logical that you’d run into one another. That didn’t give you the right to leave your station, weakling.” The Devil sounded pissed, but then again, he never sounded happy.
“She said she wasn’t Magdala, but she clearly was. How can she be the other and not at the same time? Am I right? Is she under some kind of punishment?” Tamerlane tried.
A sound like a growl and the scratch of nails on a chalkboard was issued by the creature, but Tamerlane wasn’t sure if the noise signified a laugh or a growl. “What right do you have to demand answers of me?”
Tamerlane sighed and just waited. Sometimes, patience was the best way to deal with Big Bad.
“Fine, yes, she’s being punished. When she was raised from underling to demonhood, I gave her a simple task. Inhabit one measly mortal. She and six other demons were assigned to the task.”
“Mary,” Tamerlane agreed. “I remember.”
“If you’re going to interrupt me, perhaps you need more lessons in silence, boy,” the greatest evil in the universe said.
Tamerlane cleared his throat and tugged at his collar. The tentacle moved back into his range of vision and he automatically put one hand behind him to protect his ass.
The creature released a moaning hiss, which Tamerlane decided to translate to be a laugh.
“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” Big Bad continued. “She betrayed me when she was released from the woman by that man… who we shall not name.”
Tamerlane grunted, not interrupting Big Bad and hoping the response wouldn’t cause offense while letting the creature know he understood exactly who could not be named.
“Due to that betrayal, I punished her by taking her memories of demonhood and forcing her to live on the mortal plane. Currently, she’s serving out her time until eternity or the apocalypse—whichever comes first—as a cashier. Seemed a valid punishment. Hell on earth, after all, is far worse than anything I’ve come up with yet.”