Matt’s POV

All right, so maybe this trip to Hell hadn’t been all bad. I mean, just watching Pandora and Gates wrestle down the hallway was the highlight of the whole fucking trip. I loved a good fight, especially when it involved Pandora beating the shit out of Gates. Devil or not, he was no match for her and always ended up getting hurt and pissed off. Demon Girl had some serious skills, which is why he made her his head commander to begin with. I just didn’t understand why he always seemed to forget that little fact when he was pissed off and tried to take out his aggression on her.

I guess I should just be glad it wasn’t me he was pissed at this time. I swear if Gates came at me like that, I’d knock him into next year and wind up with my ass thrown in one of those torture chambers. Been there, done that, and I didn’t plan on ever going back. Though part of me wondered how Pandora made it through without being more fucked in the head. Most people that spent decades in the chambers nine rings of torture needed to be placed in an asylum. That’s how you knew the torture was affect. But with Pandora, something else seemed to change with her—something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. All I knew was that she wasn’t the same demon she used to be. Nevertheless, Demon Girl was still smoking hot.

I chuckled to myself as I leaned against the doorframe to Gates’ office, watching the two of them roll around on the floor. This shit was fucking hilarious—like watching one of those ridiculous Japanese fight shows. They rolled around and around, changing the dominant position as they argued back and forth like children.

“Now… are you gonna tell me the truth…?” Why wouldn’t Gates just listen to what Pandora was saying? She was fucking bound to him and couldn’t lie. Oh right, we were talking about the Devil here. Gates couldn’t take the blame for anything. Ever. So Pandora was currently his new scapegoat.

“I… already… told you.” Pandora rolled Gates over again just as the door down the hallway opened, revealing a very confused looking angel dressed in a skin-tight black leather dress. Damn… I might have to change my mind what I said about angels.

“What are you guys doing?” She looked like a startled baby deer as she gapped at the scene in front of her. Her wide purple eyes looked between Gates and Pandora like she’d never seen a fight before. Oh right… she was an angel and God frowned upon that kind of thing in the Silver City.

“What… does it… look like?!” Pandora panted before head-butting Gates. Okay, that right there might be the best part of this little adventure I was dragged on. Though, I still didn’t know how we planned on getting out of Hell without the damn key.

“They’re just expressing their ungodly love for one another.” I smiled down at the angel, giving her a glance before turning my attention back to the fight. “Nothing to worry about.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you?!” Pandora snapped, glaring across the hall at Gates. Damn, she was even hotter when she was all worked up. What? I’ve always had a thing for demon girls. I was a fallen for fuck sake! “You lost the fucking key, why are you taking it out on me?”

“I didn’t lose anything…” Here we go… the blame game. Rule number one when working with the Devil—always let him be right. If you even think about calling out his faults, you’ll wish you’d never opened your mouth. Gates was a spiteful bastard and it was his high way or the high way right to a torture chamber. I learned that pretty damn quick. Was I afraid to stand up to the Devil? Fuck no. He didn’t scare or intimidate me in the slightest. It was just less work to let him do what he wanted 99% of the time.

“Well then where the fuck is it?!” Rule number two: don’t argue with or challenge the Devil. As much as I hated to admit it, Gates was in change. And no matter what stupid deals he makes or what he says, if you rebel, you will be punished. It may not happen right then and there, but he’ll get back at you. Look at this situation right now. I wouldn’t be fucking trapped in Hell if I hadn’t agued with Gates about Pandora. This was my punishment…and now we were fucking stuck.

“Okay, guys, relax, I’m sure—” Tempest stepped forward with her hands out, ready to mediate the situation at hand. Oh, poor, innocent, little angel. She didn’t have a fucking clue how to handle this situation. It was better to just let them get it out of their system and not interfere.

“Teek… Don’t.” Pandora raised her hand up at Tempest as I pushed myself off the wall, ready to step in if needed. The last thing we needed was for the angel to get in the middle of this argument. “You fucking lost the key and now you act like I’m to blame for it…”

“Okay, enough, Pandora…” I turned my attention back to my boss, my brows pulled together in confusion. Wait. What? Was he throwing in the towel because of a little blood? Or was it because the angel was here now? Well, things just got a little more interesting, didn’t they?

“No!” Pandora yelled, her dark grays narrowing on Gates. Oh, this shit was getting good! “What do you mean enough… You fucking come at me, piss me off and now when you realize you’ll end up bleeding on the floor you say enough?!” Gates pushed himself off the wall and very calmly walked towards her, though I could see the vein throbbing dangerously in his neck. What was this? Restraint? Why? Never in all my time with him had I seen him flip his switch so quickly. Maybe he was fucking losing it.

“It makes no bloody sense, Gates—” Gates cut Pandora off by taking Pandora by the hand, opening the nearest door, and shoving her inside.

I blinked for a moment, shock etched in all my features. Did he really just lock our only hope of getting out of Hell into one of his torture chambers? I ran my hands over my head in frustration and utter disbelief. Does he even think before he does this shit? Come on, dude get your head out of your ass! “Have you lost your damn mind?”

Gates simply shrugged and turned toward a mortified looking Tempest. “She needed a time out.”

“A time out?” I laughed humorlessly. “You just put the one person who could get us out of this shit hole in a time out?!” Gates had done a lot of stupid things in his time but this may have been the dumbest besides starting a war with the Heavens. “Have you gone mad?!”

Hell was the one place in all the realms where no one wanted to be. It was like pure torture living down here, even for those that ruled the fucking place. It was either ungodly cold or humid as all hell, not to mention the rotting flesh and decay smell that lingered 24-7. The only thing that kept me from wanting to vomit right now was Tempest’s light and refreshing celestial aroma. Seriously, the girl was like a fucking air freshener for the fucking hallway! A person could only take so much pain and suffering before they went completely insane. Even the Devil, which is exactly what I think happened. Gates flipped his lid, screwing us all yet a-fucking-gain.

Gates turned to look at me with narrow eyes and I stood up to my full height. He didn’t fucking scare me and if he wanted another bloody nose, I’d give it to him for free. “No one talks to me like that. She needed to remember that. We will find our own way out.” Oh, so his feelings were hurt? Are you fucking shitting me?!

“But-but… what about Pandora?” Tempest swallowed hard, still looking at the door with concern. The expression on her face was mixed with terror and sadness, making me wonder what exactly happened to her and Gates in the chamber. “We can’t just leave her!”

“She got out once and she can do it again,” he simply shrugged, looking unconcerned with the whole thing. I fucking hated that guy sometimes. Why couldn’t he just grow up and sit on his pride like the rest of us?

“So how do you plan on getting us out of here?” I scoffed; following behind Gates who was dragging Tempest away from the door he just shoved Pandora though. “Because I’m sure as shit not planning on living down here again.” You couldn’t pay me enough to stay in Hell, especially after having living on Earth for so long. Let’s just say life on Earth was much more pleasant.

Gates stopped in his tracks, causing the clueless angel to walk right into him. He gently wrapped an arm around her shoulder and looked at me over his shoulder, a small smirk playing on his lips. “I’m going to leave that up to you.” With that he turned, led Tempest back into his office, and shut the door.

Was he fucking kidding me right now? How was I supposed to find our way out of here? Last I knew, there was only one exit and that was the elevator in Gates’ office that could only be accessed with a fucking key—the key that was conveniently missing. And the only other person who had escaped Hell was now locked in the torture chamber for fuck knows how long. I just hoped for Pandora’s sake that she had figure out the key to escaping the chamber quickly.

“This is fucking bullshit,” I grumbled, heading back toward the lobby. There had to be another way out of here, or at least a spare key, right? Gates couldn’t be dumb enough to only have one key. But then again, this was Gates we were talking about. He had proved time and time again that he didn’t always make the best decisions…

With a sigh, I moved behind the receptionist desk and started searching through all the drawers. I didn’t think I’d actually find the damn thing here, but who the fuck knows. Hell was currently empty so all the damned had to be getting out of here somehow. Where they went was a whole other story.

As I looked over the desk, I couldn’t help but notice that entry log. It seemed like the last time anyone had entered Hell was shortly after Pandora was sent to back to Hell following the war. “That was decades ago…” I mused, running my finger over the very old piece of paper. “Where the are all the damned?”

I looked up from the notebook to see one of the doors across the lobby wide open. Was that door open when Pandora and were sitting here? I couldn’t recall but something seemed very off about it. Never in all my time had I seen a door there, or a door open for that matter. All the doors were always kept closed, trying to cage the damned in a meaningless existence.

With cautious steps, I made my way through the door. The instant I passed through the new mysterious door, the room erupted in flames, illuminating a huge library. What the hell? This had been here the whole time and no one ever told me? I would have spent me time in here rather than lounging around Gates office, reading the same piece of crap books again and again. No offense, but Gates had the worst taste in literature, not that he ever read anything. That was usually my job.

“No way…” I muttered, walking between the huge stakes of ancient scrolls, books, and tapestries. “What is all this shit?” Whatever this room was used for, it was obvious from the amount of dust and cobwebs that no one had inhabited this room in a long time.

As I walked toward the back of the room, I noticed a large book lying on the back table. It was seemingly out of place in comparison to everything else. Well, it was the only thing in the whole damn room that wasn’t covering in a thick layer of dust. But why?

I looked down in the book to see a set of eerily familiar markings accompanied by something written in a language that I couldn’t read. Shit, why did those symbols look so familiar? I swear I had seen them before and quite recently.

I covered my mouth with my hand as I sat down in the old wooden chair in front of the book, studying the picture. In the middle was the leviathan cross, accompanied by the symbol of the Heavens and some other shapes that I wasn’t sure what they stood for.

“Fuck! Where have I seen this before?” I pinched the bridge of my nose and leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes. Suddenly the image of those marking on a very pale-skinned back appeared, surrounded by the darkness of Johnny’s Saloon. “Tempest!” I quickly shut the book and put it under my arm, and headed straight for Gates’ office.

Those were the markings on Tempest’s back, which had to mean something significant if they were in that ancient book. Did Gates know what they meant, or even notice them? I had no idea but I didn’t want to be blind sighted if she was some kind of celestial weapon from the Heavens. Though the better question was, who had been looking at this book before we arrived? And why?

“Gates!” I didn’t even knock before I barged through the door. He had the angel sitting on his lap with the back of the black leather dress undone, kissing up and down her neck. Her back was to me and from the doorway I could see that her markings were an exact match to the pictures on the page. “Gates you’ve got to see this!”

“Cant you fucking see I’m busy.” Gates narrowed his eyes and glared at me over Tempest’s shoulder. Oh don’t give me that look. You can take advantage of the innocent angel all you want to when we get back to Earth. “Cant it wait?”

“I think you’re really gonna want to see this,” I said, moving across the room with the book and laying on the broken desk in front of me. The room was still in utter dismay, but that didn’t seem to bother Gates at all.

“Ooh! I book!” Tempest squeaked with delight, turning around to smile at me with a dazed expression on her face. I didn’t even want to know what kind of effect Gates had on her. It honestly looked like the girl was on drugs.

“Does it tell us how to get out of here?” Gates looked up at me with an unimpressed look on his face as I flipped the book open to the right page.

“No, but it may have something to do with the war the legions want to have with the Heavens,” I pointed to the page and a frown instantly fell over his lips, his eyebrows pulling together in an unreadable expression.

“That’s like the markings on my back,” Tempest said, happily throwing her arms around Gates’ neck and cuddling into his sides. This was honestly the oddest sight I had ever seen. Sure Gates was always surrounded by women, but something about an angel sitting on his lap was unsettling.

I raised a brow as Gates leaned forward, seemingly reading whatever was written in the weird language at the bottom of the page. “Do you know what they mean?”

“My markings?” Yes, your markings! What else would I be talking about? Damn, I forgot how literal all these celestials are. I nodded and she looked thoughtful for a moment. “No… the archangels never really told me what they stood for, other than I had a special purpose.”

A special purpose? Like what? I looked back at Gates just in time to see him fling the book off the desk and look back at me with red eyes. Fucking hell… wasn’t once enough for the day? Did he have to be so fucking moody? It was like he had PMS or something.

“Did the book say anything about them?” Tempest asked, throwing her arms around his neck and placing a kiss on his cheek. In that instant he seemed to regain control of whatever was brewing inside him and closed his eyes. It was like the angel had an instant calming effect on him. Shit, where was she earlier today when he trashed the office?

“No,” Gates breathed, opening his eyes and looking directly at me. “But just remember you need to stay with me or one of my men from now on. No more secret adventures to Hell.” The whole time he spoke, his eyes told me I was on watch duty.

What the hell did the book say?!

Notes

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