Beelzebub cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that so? And would you so readily believe anything that an archangel tells you? Do you really think that the high heavens truly care for your well being at all, little nephilim?” He laughed, waving a hand at my head. “But look at you, worshipping at their altar after all, wearing those foolish rings of light. Does it make you feel holier, Mason Albrecht? Like you aren’t truly the tainted product of sin, and that you somehow belong among the others?”
I looked up at the glow of my halo, momentarily distracted. “You’re full of shit, Beelzebub. This isn’t about celestial politics and power dynamics. Fuck you and your forked tongue. Azrael had no reason to lie to me.”
“Very well. Then she is alive. But it doesn’t mean that I didn’t eat her. Well, parts of her, that is.”
My heart dropped, my stomach turned. “What have you done to her?”
“Prometheus on the rock, nephilim. I take away strips of her soul and savor it on the back of my tongue. Oh, I never take too much, of course. Only enough to let everything regrow.” He patted his stomach. “Gives me an infinite supply.”
It was as though time had stopped around me. All I felt was the heat of the volcano, the rage swelling in my chest. I considered dismissing my sword and shield, my mind racing for something else I could use to inflict as much pain and suffering on Beelzebub as possible.
“It’s sweeter when I can taste her agony,” he continued. “There’s nothing quite like it, you know? The flavor of fearful anticipation. Yes, she is alive. But she lives in fear of me. And that, of all things, is the most pleasurable delicacy of all.”
“Why her?” I said, the anger frothing in my blood. “If that’s what you want, let her go, and take me.”
“She is a mortal touched by one of the fallen, the Grigori. A human woman who has given birth to angelic offspring, a mother of nephilim. Wouldn’t you agree that one such as she makes for a very, very rare treat?”
My fingers closed tighter around my sword, its hilt printing grooves into my skin. Any tighter and I’d split my hand open. “You’re repulsive. Let her go. I’ll give you what you want. Just let her go.”
Beelzebub’s laughter tumbled across the park, laced with the droning of unseen insects. “What use would I have for you, now that I have my own stable of nephilim souls?”
I frowned. “What the fuck are you talking about? You said you never knew a thing about the Hunger. You didn’t know they were taking nephilim and slaughtering them.”
“Oops.” He tapped the end of his nose. “I did lie to you, after all. That’s what you get for talking to a demon prince. I’m the Lord of Lies. It’s what I do.”
“You’re the lowest kind of maggot there is, Beelzebub. You’re the worst of your kind. The worst of the Seven.”
“Flatterer.” He tossed his head of hair and laughed, preening. “But you knew that about me from the very beginning, didn’t you? Gullible, righteous angels, thinking you know everything. Thinking you know anything. You’re just a pawn to the high heavens. You know that, don’t you?”
“Lies.” I shook my head, backing away. “More of your demon lies.”
“I’m not lying about one thing, though. Not about the nephilim souls I hold captive. Each and every brother or sister of yours that was slain and dissected in some filthy back room, on a makeshift table, a butcher’s slab? The flesh is worthless. The meat means nothing. But their souls all went to me, in my prime hell. The pride of my kitchens, the main course at my dinner table.”
So Asher had been right, way back when he said that he couldn’t detect any trace of the dead nephilim at all. Despite what he’d said back at Cornucopia, Beelzebub had set it all up from the beginning, capturing and siphoning away their souls as soon as they were killed. That was why there was no word of them in the underworld – there was no one there to speak.
“They’re not for you to keep,” I said, hating that I was falling for all the bullshit spewing out of his mouth, all this pomp and posturing. The others were close. I could feel it, the radiance of the gods, the essence of Raziel, even of Lina, burning bright. They were fighting their way towards the volcano, too. We just needed to surround Beelzebub, take him out, and end this.
“But that isn’t for you to decide. Leviathan has her hoard of treasures. Mammon has his menagerie of wonders. And I, I keep my larders full.” He sneered as he brought his fingers up to his mouth, kissing them like a chef. “A pantry full of your precious brethren. They squirm, you know? Every time I take a piece of their souls. They scream. Nothing in this universe tastes better.”
The others were even closer now. We just had to converge, then kill him, the way we’d teamed up against Leviathan and sent her slithering back to her prime hell. I smashed my sword against my shield, making a threatening bang, then pointed the tip of the blade at his throat.
“My brothers and sisters are not yours to keep,” I repeated. “Let them go, or I’ll kill you. Or I can kill you and free them anyway. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The souls of the nephilim will be freed. Release them.”
Beelzebub didn’t exactly react as I’d expected. He lifted his face, his smile wider than ever, and he raised his hands to the sky. Slowly his feet left the ground, and he hovered in the air, gleeful, malicious – worst of all, triumphant.
“Then consider them released.”
My heart leapt at the sound of distant screaming. I thought at first that it must have been mages of the Lorica struck down in battle, or worse,
