Authors Note:
The big one-oh. Chapter 10. El Diez. A baker's dozen after shrink-flation. You made it. We made it. And there is so much more to come. Thank you for making it this far. I hope you aren't looking for the quiet suburban home life. That's in the past. Anyway, um... Hell:
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"Deal?" Nico asked, unable to make sense of what Zeph meant.
Somewhere in the shallow valleys of the human brain, he was able to determine that the demon made a demand to listen to him. He figured if he proposed a condition as if it was a deal, he could trick the demon into saving him from the imps.
"I don't accept." The demon's voice was flat and cold. Evidently, Zeph was wrong.
"Wait! You have to accept the deal!"
"Oh really? Is that how deals work where you come from?" The sarcasm poured out, coating each word as they emerged. Nico seemed too delighted in Zeph's disappointment.
"But I thought..."
"Well, don't do that. Look where that got you." Nico almost sang it as he started walking away in triumph. "You thought you outsmarted me. You won't survive that mistake again."
Downcast, Zeph accepted his fate as the demon walked further away, parting the crowd of imps. The wall behind Zeph inched closer, hesitantly shortening the distance that Nico left behind. Their breath warmed Zeph's neck, smelling of rancid, rotted and charred meat that burned his nostrils.
Hell's denizens could be so cruel. So far, everybody he'd met in hell had tried to kill him, eat him or both. He barely knew the demon, but Nico seemed like the closest thing to being civilized in this forsaken place. He seemed nice enough, even helping him solidify his form but just threatened to murder him if Zeph ever tried anything-
"Wait, again?" Zephaniah looked up to see Nico only a few feet away from him, clearly walking at a slow, deliberate pace.
Nico didn't turn around to let Zephaniah see his smirk. "Catch up, fallen. Let's talk business."
Zeph blinked, either not believing his eyes or simply not comprehending it, before his legs finally pushed him toward the relative safety that Nico offered. He scurried closer to the demon, slowing just short of him and lagged slightly behind them as they walked the beach together. Despite the imps keeping their distance, he still wondered if there would be a need to defend himself from them or Nico.
Could he even defend himself against Nico? He could feel the force delivered in that uppercut earlier. That was no joke. He doubted whether a human could survive such a punch, let alone block it with one hand. It was a new strength for him, for sure but doubted he could replicate it again.
Still, Nico blocked it with one hand.
He wondered whether he was in the frying pan or the fryer.
As they walked, he finally had a chance to examine his escort's features. Nico looked human. He was slightly shorter than Zeph, but somehow held himself higher. He looked more like a butler than a demon, wearing matching crisp black pants and a matching vest over a white, pressed, long-sleeved shirt.
The material of the shirt looked like cotton but seemed to refuse so much as a stain or an errant string despite the rusty, dusty landscape of hell. His hair was long, silver, and restrained in a ponytail. Despite his formal attire and calm demeanor, Zephaniah didn't feel like he could let his guard down around him.
"You can relax." Nico didn't turn back to say it, as if reading the mortal mind like subtitles.
"How do I know?" Zeph watched the walls of imps on either side of him as they walked, still angrily growling and likely considering the pros and cons of chasing lunch.
"You still draw breath, do you not?"
"Yes, at least I think I do... but why do I feel like you aren't helping me out of the kindness of your heart? Do you- have a heart?"
"As a matter of fact, I do have a heart. As for your presumption about my intentions," Nico pivoted on the next stride to spin around, stopping face-to-face once more, with no clear regard for personal space. He was about to speak but looked over Zeph's shoulder before continuing.
"I think you might have some value after all. I want to make a deal. A real deal" He didn't look at Zeph at all before facing front once more. "First, we need to go somewhere with a little more privacy."
Zeph audibly gulped, "I know you are keeping me alive and all, but I'm not really that kind of guy. I'm flattered but..." He scratched the back of his head, slowing his pace as much as he dared
"Not that sort of deal, Zeph," Nico said before changing the subject. "Did you know not everyone ends up at heaven's gates?"
"No, I did-"
"Hush, fallen. It was rhetorical" The demon's hand snapped to the air above his shoulder, quieting him. "Most people enter hell through the undersea trenches. Couple those facts with your story and I am willing to bet that you were never supposed to go to hell in the first place."
"That's what I said! Pete told me I didn't belong here either!"
"Are you going to keep interrupting?" Nico turned his head over the same shoulder his hand once was, offering a face of exasperation. "First of all. You never said that at all. Second of all, you may be a cambion."
Nico stopped in the sand to look over his shoulder again at Zephaniah, expectantly. He raised eyebrows in wait but Zeph wordlessly returned confused eyebrows before averting his gaze.
"You aren't going to ask?" Nico turned his body a little more and tilted his head. Zephaniah squinted a little, unsure if he should speak up.
Nico gave an encouraging nod.
"What's a cambi-"
"Don't interrupt." Nico turned back around and pressed onward, hiding a wide smile. Zeph threw up his hands before following the demon close behind.
"I think you got a demon in you, fallen. That's what cambion means, and I think that's why Heaven rejected you." The sands they walked on mixed into pebbles and soon became gravel. As the terrain transitioned, the imps stopped, not daring to follow. They stood at the edge of the beach, watching their meal walk deeper into hell before, little by little, they dispersed. Zeph wanted to ask about them but decided against it.
"When you told the angels the name of the blade, you said it boiled up from within you. When you told me the name of the blade- well, suffice to say I don't think your possessed friend called it Dumb Ball."
Zeph could only flinch at his own idiotic explanation. Nico continued.
"I think that blade was a shard of Dunbal. A demon. A big and very old demon." Nico led Zeph further from the beach. "I think when you got stabbed, they left him in there. In you."
"There is a demon in me?" Zeph looked down at himself. It was only then that he noticed the body he stood in.
It wasn't the same as before he died but it was close. It felt taller and had a distinct muscular tone despite his clothes. As for those clothes, he was clad in his favorite red t-shirt from his closet and his good pair of jeans, the ones with no holes in them. He was like a much better version of himself before he died. He distractedly pondered how all this was possible when Nico corrected him.
"Not the whole demon. You would pop like a little pimple if that whole demon was shoved inside you. Either way, that could never happen. Most of Dunbal is up there." Nico pointed to a nebulous cloud in the sky and continued through what was quickly becoming a barren waste. "Should've been all, but evidently..." He trailed off, gesturing toward Zeph and all of hell.
"You see, fallen, Dunbal is a thing of legend. Ancient. More so than me. He was the leader of some rebellion that attempted to overthrow The Council." Nico stopped to turn around again.
"Demons like him don't die so easily so they shattered him into tiny pieces. They casted his shards towards that neutron star and now he's trapped in careening towards the edge of destruction with no escape. At least he should be. It's like a final prison for demons the council can't control." Nico jabbed two fingers into Zeph's chest in the exact spot where he was stabbed. "There are only a few assholes who could pull it off, but my bet is someone snuck a sliver of the big guy and stabbed you with it."
His demon fingers tapped against the middle of Zeph's chest with each word for emphasis. "Right. Through. Your. Little. Heart."
"So, what does any of this matter?" Zephaniah rubbed his sternum.
"Okay, I am getting the sense you aren't the sharpest cheese in the pantry so I am going to explain this slowly. If someone wanted you out of the way, they would just kill you. Shoot you, strangle you, slit your throat, run you over with a delivery truck- you get the picture."
Through Zeph's face, it was evident he wasn't getting the picture. Nico sighed and continued his explanation.
"Tainting someone's soul is the nuclear option. You don't use nukes to kill one useless nobody unless you really need that nobody out of the picture. I'd wager that wasn't the first time they tried to kill either."
"I think I would notice if someone tried to kill me."
"Zeph, I haven't known you very long– and I mean this is the nicest way– I don't think you would notice. Regardless, the point I am desperately trying to explain to you is that if someone went that far to stop you from getting in the way, then I don't think it's over for your son."
"Uhhh, he's not my son."
"It doesn't matter. Whoever possessed your girlfriend is probably still after that boy."
"She's not my girlfriend!"
Nico waved a dismissive hand. "Wife, partner, baby mama– look, Zeph it doesn't matter! Now, I can't pretend to care about that kid, but if you want to help him, I think I can get you back there."
Zeph glared at Nico skeptically. "And this is where the catch comes in."
Nico feigned offense with the back of one hand pressed to his forehead. "Oh Zeph, you cut me! I only seek to ensure this deal is mutually beneficial. You wouldn't want to just take advantage of me, would you?"
"Okay, okay! Just tell me the deal!"
Nico dropped the act without delay. With a smile, he placed a hand on Zeph's shoulder, gently at first.
"Follow me."
Without warning, Nico's grip tightened like a vice and wind rushed around them, the ground became distant beneath them. They were soaring through the air at an inhuman speed. The surroundings smeared into a blur of red and brown and black until everything stopped and it all became clear again.
They were in a new place, hewn from hell-rock and hot like the pits, but alas, Zeph was again completely lost and confused.
Nico smiled.
"Welcome to my Oasis."10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNsyhEduo6c
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10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoJ2c5cpgXm
and then Add to home screen.