37
The road to the closest nexus portal took Amanda through the Bone Desert. Around the gnarly tree, wildflowers sprouted out of the dry sand. The valley was an oasis of beauty in a world where only ugliness existed. Being the Queen of Hell would mean ruling over a dead place full of hateful creatures. She would never have liked that – not in the long run.
As she passed the large tree, brightly in blossom, she reached up and picked a flower. Two rows of midnight blue petals surrounded the curling pistil. It was a pretty flower that would look nice on Marc’s grave.
She sighed and carried on. Her dress was stained and in tatters, but nothing really mattered anymore, and when she finally reached the shimmering portal at the end of the desert, she ripped off one of her shoulder straps and used it to tie back her hair.
The guardian of the gate stood at nearly nine feet tall, with bulky plate armor, and tusks sticking out of his mouth. A horned helmet covered most of his face, but a flat snout, much like that of a pig, sniffed intensely in Amanda’s direction.
“I need to use the portal to get to back to Earth,” Amanda said.
“Only Hell’s finest may exit the infernal plains,” the demon grunted, his fat lips parting slightly and stringy saliva seeping out. “Your smell… is that of a mortal.”
“I need to get through.”
The demon laughed. “Like I said, only Hell’s finest.”
Amanda crossed her arms. “Can I have your name, please?”
“For what purpose?”
“I’m the king’s lover, and one day I will be the queen of this realm. I need to write down your name so that I’ll remember the person who said I wasn’t fine enough to use basic transportation. I’m sure my future husband won’t be happy when he hears about this.”
“I can smell lies, little human,” the demon said, wrinkling his snout.
“Okay. How’s this for being one of Hell’s finest? I killed my friend. I killed one of Michael’s angels. I banished the archangel Uriel from Earth.” Amanda took a step closer to the demon, who nervously sniffed the air. “I drank Wormwood’s poisoned water, and I’m still here. I control all of the king’s forces. Now I’m going to hunt down Lucifer, and if you try to stand in my way, I’ll do everything in my power to transfer you to the Ninth Circle. Do you smell any lies now, little demon?”
The demon grunted something unintelligible but moved out of the way.
Amanda curtsied ironically. “Pleasure meeting you!”
She put the flower behind her ear and stepped into the whirling flames of the portal, thinking about New York City. The air whooshed in her ears, and her stomach fluttered with butterflies.
Amanda tumbled through space. Stars and galaxies flashed by. Then, with a jerk, her feet landed on solid ground. The journey only took a few moments but had brought her to an entirely different world – from dunes of sulfur, volcanic mountains, and a red sky, to towering skyscrapers, millions of lights, and noisy traffic.
The shift in temperature was instant. Whirling snowflakes glittered in the light from the street lamps. Amanda’s breath steamed and the winter’s teeth bit into her arms and legs. She shuddered and stumbled out of the alley.
With the wall as a crutch, Amanda followed the sidewalk. She was still woozy from having her soul pulled out of the river and stuffed back into her body, and every step was a wobbly struggle.
Amanda finally made it into a convenience store. Teeth chattering, she waited in the toy aisle for the other customers to leave. She then grabbed a pack of crayons and headed over to the liquor shelf. She really needed a drink for this.
Opening a bottle of vodka and taking a sip, she crouched down and started drawing on the floor. Her forehead wrinkled as she tried to remember the right symbols.
“Excuse me!” the cashier said. “Ma’am, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m summoning a demon,” Amanda said without looking up.
The man stared at her as if she was crazy. “I’m calling the cops.”
“You do that.”
She smashed the bottle against the floor and picked out a sharp shard. The blood from her palm soon dripped into the center of the first pentagram.
“Valefor!” Amanda said, and then moved her hand over to the second circle of unholy symbols, "Lix Tetrax!" and then the third, “Sorath!”
The shadows thickened and crept along the walls and ceiling, slithered between the aisles, and formed into a dark shape with wispy black hair. Lix Tetrax tittered. The phone slid out of the cashier’s hand, and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
Next, the symbols of the first circle started glowing, and in a fiery roar, Valefor materialized. His fanged jaws opened and closed, and his eyes gleamed with predatory delight. He tossed his copper mane and licked his lips.
Amanda turned her eyes to the third pentagram. The symbols flared, but nothing else happened. The corner of her mouth dropped. Maybe she’d messed it up somehow.
“Yesss…?” Lix Tetrax hissed, her lips barely moving.
“Lucifer is here somewhere in the city,” Amanda said, trying to ignore the crying and shouting of the cashier in the background. “She’s, supposedly, with a child or a dragon. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but Wormwood said something about a monument of freedom. I’m guessing he meant the Statue of Liberty.”
“We, and I, shall prowl the city,” Valefor said, several ghostly lion maws yapping beside his head. “On to the hunt!”
With a crash, he leaped through the store window, scaled the wall of the closest building, and disappeared into the night.
Lix Tetrax drifted closer and leaned in, her voice like a winter gust in Amanda’s ear.
Amanda nodded. “Yes, I remember our deal.”
The fallen angel licked her lips and smiled.
***
Elvira bobbed her head and awoke. A single bedside lamp cast a weak light over the hotel room. For a moment, she panicked at the sight of the empty bed, but then she saw Evan by the window. His blond hair now reached past his shoulder blades and shifted in a darker color. She had only slept for a few hours, but his back was broader now and his arms thicker.
“Humanity is sick,” he said, his voice deeper than before.
“But you will cure them all!” Elvira rose from the chair and stood by his side.
A wild beard hid the lower half of his face. In just two days, Evan had grown into a man, and even though he stood much taller than her, Elvira still felt like it was her job to protect him from the world.
“Look at them. They resent the people who I cured.” Evan pointed out the window at the crowd still flocking outside the hotel. “The man, whose legs I mended, is back. He wants to run – walking is no longer good enough for him.”
“Then make him run,” Elvira said, clinging to his arm. “Ignore the resentful ones. They will get their turn.”
“If I do, he will return again, asking for wings.”
“There are some bad apples. That’s to be expected.”
“But what do you do when the tree itself is rotten? How do you cure greed? How do you heal envy? It’s written on their hearts.” Evan sighed, scratching his arm. “There’s a woman down there, who is admired by everyone for her beauty. She wants me to remove the lines under her eyes, the cellulite on her legs, and every freckle and birthmark on her body. She’ll never be happy, even when all the angels look ugly in comparison. How do you cure vanity?”
“You’re tired, Evan,” Elvira said.
“The world is burning, mother,” he said solemnly. “And nobody is trying to put out the fires.”
“It’ll feel better tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Evan snorted. “There’ll be no tomorrow. The seals are opened. The trumpets are sounded. The bowls are filled.”
Elvira sighed. He sounded exactly like she’d felt her entire life – hopeless and resigned – but she wasn’t special. She didn’t possess the powers of her son.
“They don’t know any better,” Elvira said, glancing at the teeming crowd. “They’re scared and lost. They need someone to follow. Someone they know is good.”
“I’ve not come to lead. I am a healer, not a politician.”
“But they’d listen to you!” Elvira put her hands on Evan’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “I wasn’t meant to be a mother, yet here I am. Sometimes trying our best is all we can do. And these people need you to tell them to bring their buckets because the fire is spreading.”
Evan shook his head and turned away. “I need some fresh air to think.”
Elvira followed her son out of the hotel room and up onto the roof of the building. The snow creaked under their feet as they made it to the ledge. Below, the citizens of New York looked like an ant farm gone way overboard. Even in the middle of the night, light and noise came in abundance here, but Evan only had eyes for the sky.
“The stars are all gone...” he said, scratching his arm. “The sun won’t rise.”
Elvira held his hand, looking up at the perfect darkness.
“The Dragon is close,” Evan said, tears freezing into ice crystals on his beard. “It has come for me, but also for you.”
Elvira hugged him close. “You need to rest.”
“Soon we shall all rest.”