Chapter 4

Read and find out.

It was dark in Hell. And cold. For some reason I always thought it'd be hot. I was numb. I could only think in facts, not emotions. I couldn't think about how Hell affected me. It would destroy me.

There were bodies next to me. I hoped they were my companions, Gaia and Azazel. I laughed hysterically in my head; when had I started trusting a demon with my life? At least he hadn't hurt me...yet.

There were also shadows slinking around everywhere I looked. Even though Hell was pitch black, the shadows were even darker. I couldn't describe it, there were no words for the color, except for maybe demon-black.

One of the bodies turned it's face towards me. There were red glowing orbs for the eyes. Before I could scream a hand smacked over my mouth.

"It's me," the body said. It was Azazel. I relaxed, then stiffened in fear again. We were in Hell, for the Lord's sake. Everything was starting to rush back. The numbness was fading. I wanted to scream.

The demon read my mind. "If you scream, it will alert the other demons. You don't want that. Are you going to stay silent?" He waited for me to nod. I did. He took his hand away.

"What about Satan?" I asked. Azazel shook his head. "Lucifer already knows we're here. We're in his domain. He literally feels everything that goes on here. Don't worry, he won't hurt you. He's not evil. Think about it, if he were evil, he wouldn't punish the evil. He will actually be happy to have you here. He will welcome you."

"But he is evil." I said. "God cast him out."

Azazel shook his head again. "It's a long story. I'll tell you later. When you're more mature and can understand."

The words sounded like an insult, but the tone was not, so I didn't take it as one.

The body on the opposite side of me turned towards us. "We're in Hell," Gaia said distantly. She sounded numb, too. Apparently she wasn't a demon in disguise, or on the side of the demons at all!

"Come on. I'll lead you two towards a small city, one of the seven cities of Hell," Azazel said, taking my arm. Gaia followed us.

I shivered. "The seven cities? Is that one city for each sin?" I asked. Azazel nodded. "We are going to the closest city, which is the City of Lust. You two need to be careful and stay with me. There are demons and humans in this city that'll be excited by the fact that you're an angel. What's your name by the way, dove?"

"Clariana," I answered, shivering again. For some reason I don't think he meant 'excited' in a good way.

"Clariana," he mocked with a sneer. "Such an angelic name."

As we walked on in silence, a dull spark of light began to shine farther ahead. It looked miles away.

Azazel seemed to notice this, too. "Clariana, I'm going to need you to fly. I'll hold Gaia," he said, then picked up Gaia bridal style, crouched, jumped, and flew. His wings were black, and they were in tatters. There was no way he should've been able to fly with them.

I was watching him, and as he got farther away I realized I was supposed to be flying, too. I jumped and flew, and this time I wasn't invisible.

I beat my wings faster to catch up with him, which wore me out a little. Azazel looked back at me as I took my place beside him. Gaia looked up at me, and smiled weakly. I smiled back to cheer her up.

We flew on in silence for at least another half hour. When finally we got close to the gates of the city, Azazel flew lower and dropped. I followed him.

"We cannot fly over the gates. There is a system above them that will shock and kill if you try. Trust me, I've seen it before. We have to talk to the guard."

We walked the rest of the way, and when we came to a demon standing with a black cloak and a long sword touching the ground, I stopped and shrunk back. The place also reeked of lust.

Azazel dropped Gaia and told us to stay where we were. Then he went to talk to the demon, who I assumed was a guard. After a few sentences back and forth, and a bow to each other, Azazel walked back to us, took each of our arms, and led us to the guard. I struggled, but Azazel leaned down and whispered in my ear, "it won't look good on either of us if you fight. I'm trying to protect you." Then he dragged me in front of the guard.

He introduced me formally. "Angel Clariana, Ward of Heaven. Daughter of 'I don't know' and 'no one cares'" I glared at him at his words. He ignored me. "Reason for presence, visitation. Reason for visitation..." he struggled for words, "conversion."

I whipped my head around to stare wide-eyed at him. What did that mean? I looked back at the guard. He was now staring intently at me with black eyes. Before he had had red. I hadn't realized that demons could change their eye color. Could Azazel do that? What did it mean? I thought of my own purple eyes, the color of the divine.

Azazel went to introduce Gaia. "Priestess Gaia. Protected by Goddess Gaia and God Cernunnos. Ward of Earth. Daughter of mortal..." Azazel glanced at Gaia and sighed, then began to speak again, "Sean and mortal Morgan. Reason for presence, visitation, reason for visitation, my w***e."

I gasped. She was his w***e? That meant she let him use her body for lascivious acts! Why would she do that.

The demon was staring at Gaia, but he didn't have black eyes anymore. He actually looked a little frightened.

The demon glanced back at Azazel. “You are granted access, Lord of Wrath. I will report to the Lord of Lust." He opened the tall wrought iron fence. Azazel led us through. We were in the depths of Hell.

**********************************************************************************************************************************************************

"Why are we here, Azazel?" Gaia asked. She was cold. I wanted to wrap my warm wings around her. I wanted to lead her to Heaven where she would be warm and happy forever.

"I have ulterior motives," Azazel said. I lowered my brows in confusion. Gaia voiced what I was thinking. "Why would someone say they have ulterior motives, if they do have them? I know you don't have them, because you are not like that. No matter what or who you think you are, you are not evil. You are here to punish not just other creatures of wrath, but yourself too. What kind of evil demon punishes themselves? Knowing what you did was wrong is half the battle of being better. You're not born evil. No matter who your parents are, it's your actions and decisions that define you." Gaia huffed like she had lost a lot of breath.

"Thank you for that speech," Azazel said sarcastically, trying to act like it hadn't gotten to him. It had though, I could tell; the way he was blushing said it all. "You're right. I don't have ulterior motives. I just said that because that's the only thing the little dove will believe." Azazel was staring at nothing; he seemed as if he hadn't realized he had called me dove. I sighed. Figures he wouldn't call me by my actual name, even though he knew it. I wasn't going to admit to myself that I was getting used to the endearment.

"So why are we here?" I asked. Azazel was lost in thought; it took him a while to respond.

"I have to be here," he said finally. He sighed. "Look, I'm a Lord of Hell. There are seven Lords of Hell, one for each sin, one for each city. Lucifer is basically the God of Hell. I know how you'll feel about that, but just trust me. No one is ranked higher in Hell than Lucifer. Not even your God in Heaven. If your God in Heaven were to even visit his friend Lucifer in Hell, he would be destroyed." Azazel seemed like he was done, but I was still confused. Gaia voiced my thoughts again.

"Ok, but why are we here?" This time she emphasized the 'we'. His eyes flashed red, and he smiled sinisterly. "Maybe I just want the company," he smiled.

Gaia's eyes widened. I groaned. Here we go with his attitude again. The niceties lasted for five minutes.

"Azazel," Gaia began. "You are not - " She was interrupted by a hiss. It had come from Azazel. I flinched and made the sign of the holy cross. They ignored me. "No. I know you think I'm not evil. Well, sorry to disappoint sweetheart. The true reasons you are here are the exact same reasons I told the guard. Sex and conversion." With that, he turned on his heel and left.

We were standing "outside", out in the open where demons of Lust had been spying us. Now we were fully exposed without Azazel. I shivered not just with cold, but with fear. If he didn't come to his senses and come back soon, we were doomed.

"No!" Gaia screamed. She started to chase after him, but I pulled her back. She spun to look at me wide eyed, then glared at me.

"What do you think you're doing?" she growled. I could tell Gaia feared for her life, she was in fight or flight mode, and she was taking it out on me. I shook my head, "let him go, he'll come to his senses. If we go after him, it might be longer." I silently prayed I was right.

Gaia then shook her head. "You don't know Azazel. No, he's not evil, but it does take him awhile to calm down. We will be raped and killed before he even thinks about calming down." She started hyperventilating.

"Ok, instead of getting all crazy and ending up killed, let's focus on a strategy. We need to get inside somewhere or something, and then we need to hide. We can find Azazel later, or he can find us." I started looking around for a store or an empty house that could work. There were lines of dark grey, connected apartment-looking buildings, as far as my eyes could see, and the red sky horizon was the only other color. I shivered. This place was so desolate and dead, except for the eyes that I could feel on the back of my head.

I finally spotted something we could hide in. It was an abandoned shop... or whatever they had in Hell. It was about a block down the street. I pointed it out to Gaia, and we walked over to it, the silence our only protection.

I tried the door. It was locked. I looked heavenward, but of course there was no Heaven, not here in Hell. No one would help me now. I felt lost. I wondered if this was how humans who didn't worship God felt like.

I had already given up when Gaia picked up a piece of loose concrete and threw it at the window. I put my hands over my ears and ducked as a shower of glass rained down around us. That had surely gotten some demon's attention. Gaia was determined, though, as she knocked the rest of the glass out so that we could hurry inside.

It was dark. I wasn't used to darkness and my whole body almost went into shock. I was used to the heavenly bright light, even the sun couldn't compare. Gaia led me to a small, closed in room inside of the store. We ducked inside and waited.

We waited for hours. I finally got exhausted; it was not the physical exhaustion I was used to, it was more than that. Deeper than that. As I laid my head down to rest, I thought I heard Gaia say that she was going to do a tracking spell on Azazel with a piece of hair she had stolen from him one time, just in case. I couldn't be sure if Gaia actually said that, or if it was a nightmare. Why would she openly sin in front of me, an angel, even if she was Wiccan?

That was my last thought before darkness overtook me.

Author's Note

As a writer, i want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly of my writing. So there is no need to sugarcoat your reviews. Be brutal, be ruthless.

Reviews

[warmachinerox]

There should be a new paragraph every time a different character starts talking. Most of the story is pretty good in that regard but it's a little more distracting in this chapter.

[WitchyWiccan)0(]

Thank you. I'll edit that. It always confuses me, especially when there's a lot of dialogue.