“What have you done?”
This time Beelzebub’s laughter thundered. “I can only imagine how much you’ve moaned about your fallen family, all these unmet half-siblings of yours. ‘Poor me, poor them, all lost and alone.’ Well? I have done you a service, little nephilim. I have done you a kindness.” Beelzebub kicked once at the air, rising even higher in his flight. “I have organized your family reunion.”
For a second I thought about engaging my wings, to chase after Beelzebub, wherever he meant to fly. But the screaming was even louder now, so close to the volcano’s rim. Fingers scrabbled at the earth, glowing bright red like irons from a forge, clawing molten grooves in the stone.
“Come out and play, little ones.” Beelzebub’s gloating laughter fell across the field, every peal a dagger in my heart.
And then I saw them. Spindly humanoid bodies caked in lava, what were once people reduced to suffering, shrieking husks set on eternal hellfire, kept for a demon prince’s nourishment and delight. I backed away in horror as what was left of these young men and women – of boys and girls – staggered towards me on unsteady feet, leaving burning footprints in their wake.
“No,” I muttered, tears and anger choking my throat. “What have they done to you?”
Six mouths opened, joined by more voices that rose from out of the depths of the volcano.
“Brother,” they said, reaching for me with outstretched hands, with the bones of flaming, fleshless fingers. “Save us. Release us.”
The first of many burning tears spilled down my cheeks. “I don’t know how. I’m sorry. I don’t know how.”
One of the dead nephilim, her hair blazing in long, flaming tresses, raised a shuddering hand for my cheek.
“Mason!”
Raziel barreled into my body at full speed, knocking me out of the nephilim’s reach, sending us both crashing and tumbling into the underbrush. I panted and groaned, my face against the grass. Raziel pulled me up by the back of my shirt, shaking me.
“Focus,” he shouted. “Focus on what matters. Survival. Do not let your emotions distract you from what we are here to do.”
“They’re suffering,” I said, my insides strangely empty. “Because of me. Because I failed them.”
He gripped me by both shoulders, glaring. “We can save them. We can save them by freeing them. And the only way to do that is to release Beelzebub’s hold on their souls.”
There were a dozen of them now, stumbling towards us, trails of fire in the grass at their feet. And I could hear their words, moaning for mercy, for salvation that I couldn’t give them. But another voice spoke from somewhere close by, just at the rim of the volcano.
“Mason,” it croaked. “Please. Help me.”
My sword and my shield clanged against each other as I dropped them in the grass. I fell to my knees, staring at the fires of the volcano in disbelief.
“Mom?”
27
After everything else, after all I’d seen – the undead, demons, cannibalism – after all I’d known? This was the very worst thing of all.
She looked very much the same as the last time I’d seen her, which was days before I heard about the accident. I hated thinking back to it, knowing now that it hadn’t been an accident at all. She always went to the jetty to be alone, to have time to herself. That was normal. We liked to be together, but we liked to be alone, too, as individuals. Some time in a coffee shop, reading something, maybe surfing on the internet with a good latte, that was my idea of alone time. And for her, it was a few hours by the sea, maybe eating an ice cream cone. That was all she needed to be centered again.
But it had all been a lie. Mom never fell off the jetty, that one afternoon. She never tripped on a faulty plank. She didn’t smash her head open against the rocks. Her body didn’t drift off, never to be found. I could never live with the thought that I would have had to bury an empty box. Even that wasn’t something I could afford.
And now, the truth. Beelzebub abducted her, for no other reason than being my mother, for loving enough of Samyaza to be with him a single night.
She stood at the volcano’s rim, an apparition, gaunter than the day I’d last seen her, eyes sunken from sadness, and terror. Her hair and skin weren’t aflame, not like the nephilim. It was all part of Beelzebub’s taunt, to show me that this part wasn’t a lie. This was what was meant to hurt me the most.
“Mason?” She took a step forward, uncertain, her legs weak and shaky. “It’s been so long. Mason, is that really you?” She took another step, then faltered, then tripped, crying out as she fell to the ground. Her voice joined the others, now dozens of nephilim souls still aflame with the agonizing fire of Beelzebub’s prime hell.
I clung to Raziel’s shoulder for strength, my knees buckling underneath me, my breath lost. “Tell me that isn’t her,” I muttered. “Tell me, so I can fight.”
He shook his head, his eyes dark, and dim. “I sense a human soul. A human mind and body. It’s your mother, Mason. In the flesh.”
I straightened myself up, willing away my shock, summoning what strength I could muster. “Then I have to save her.”
Raziel grasped my arm with a grip like iron. “He’s baiting you, Mason. Don’t you see?”
“Then how do we help her?” I shouted. “Tell me what we can do. We can’t just leave her like this.”
Raziel raised his head, glancing up at something in the clouds. “We kill her captor, sever his influence long enough so that it’s safe to retrieve her. There is a chance for us in this. But you mustn’t fall for his tricks.”
Beelzebub’s laughter came from up on high. The clouds parted, and
