Page 7 of Indecent

Daniel’s head twisted around, and he gasped.

Chaol tried to see it as a human might see it for the very first time. They didn’t have a sun or moon. The sky, during what was considered ‘day,’ was a greenish-gold that reminded him of what sunlight might look like through darkly stained glass. At night, it was blacker than black. Traveling at night would be hard. Hell was never pleasant for a human, but things came out at night to prey on the human souls. It would be best to hole up somewhere when night fell, for Daniel’s sake. Of course, there were also places like the Pit that were always dark, which was where the worst demons would be, but Chaol had no intention of letting Daniel go anywhere near there.

Right now, it was day. The sky was as bright as it would get, which was still dim enough for the world to be cast in relative shadow. In the distance, the city of Pandemonium rose like a specter from the grave, slender stone buildings rising up toward the sky. There were other villages in Hell, but Pandemonium was the biggest. If Hell had a capital, Pandemonium would be it. Human souls passed through it on their way to the Pit, and because of that, it had the largest population of demons in Hell.

Other winged things were visible in the distance, some moving fast and others floating lazily. There were many mighty creatures here that had never been to the surface before. Daniel wouldn’t have any frame of reference for some of the beings here, no matter how much his guild thought it knew about Hell’s creatures.

The tunnel they’d entered through was part of an enormous cave system, the roof of which still sheltered them from the rest of the world. Chaol plummeted to the ground, snort-laughing at Daniel’s yelp of fear. Just before they reached the ground, he slowed with a powerful beat of his wings, landing gracefully with an armful of quivering human.

Daniel didn’t move at first, panting against his neck. “Jesu—mmph.” Chaol pushed Daniel’s head so the word was muffled against his skin.

“Don’t say that here,” he warned. “Many things here are burned by the words. You mustn’t speak of holy things, human. Understand?”

Daniel squirmed out of his arms and dropped gracelessly to the stone floor. “Yeah, I understand. Sorry.” He stood, brushing his clothes off.

Chaol softened. “Don’t be sorry. You said one of them in Purgatory. I should have warned you before we arrived.”

Daniel turned away from him, looking out at the foreign landscape. “Wow. So this is Hell.”

“Is it what you expected?”

Daniel shook his head. “No. I expected fire and brimstone. This is… like another planet. Is that a stream?”

Chaol shifted back into his human form, stepping up beside him and following his gaze. “Yes, but don’t drink it. It isn’t water.”

Daniel’s nose wrinkled. “Trust me, I don’t plan to eat or drink anything here.”

“That would be wise. And you shouldn’t have to. You have no physical body here. You shouldn’t feel hunger or thirst.”

“Oh. Good. One less thing to worry about.” He cocked his head thoughtfully. “Although it makes more sense now why even demons want out of here. Where’s the fun in living forever if you can’t enjoy a good burger or beer every now and then?”

Chaol smiled. “Exactly.”

“Wait, do you know what those are? Have you been to the surface before?”

“I have. I’ve only been in Hell since the nineteen-seventies.”

Daniel studied him curiously. “Why are you trying to go topside now?”

Chaol didn’t have all the details about what had happened to his brother, but he knew the paladins were involved somehow. He’d known Amon was planning an attack on the guild at his lover Lilith’s behest. What he hadn’t expected was for other demons to get involved in stopping him. He wanted to find out who was responsible. But Daniel was a former paladin. Telling him he was going to avenge his brother, paladin-killer Amon, probably wouldn’t go over well.

“I have friends on the surface,” he said instead. “I’d like to see them again.”

Daniel hummed. “Same. I guess we should get moving, then?”

“Yes. Stay close. The goodness in your soul will be a beacon to all. I’ll do my best to protect you, but you’ll still be in danger.”

Stress lined his face, but still Daniel tried to smile. “Well, it wouldn’t be Hell if it was easy, would it?”

Chapter 3

Daniel

There was something poetic about literally walking through Hell to get back to his loved ones. Daniel tried not to look too hard at his surroundings as he put one foot in front of the other. If asked, he never would’ve guessed that something like street lamps would exist in Hell, but having met people like Talon and Shadrach, who enjoyed the finer things in life and were born here, it made sense that demons had some sort of civilization. Of course, those street lamps were few and far between and were made from human spines, so it was in keeping with the atmosphere, at least. It made him wonder what the city would look like.

They didn’t follow the road for long, and Daniel had to assume it was because Chaol didn’t want anyone or anything discovering that he was here. With a gentle tug to his wrist, Chaol pulled him off the road and through a forest of spindly trees. The branches themselves were thin, but there were so many, they tangled together and almost completely blocked the sky from view.

Against his better judgment, he liked Chaol. He reminded him of the demons back home with the Sentinels, but something about the way he looked at him made Daniel tingle in ways none of the other demons did. His dark eyes were like black holes with their own gravitational pull. Daniel often found it hard to look away. With his gravity-defying hair and skin-tight pants, he looked roguish and devil-may-care.