Page 39 of Unholy Bond
Levi chuckled. “Nice work.”
Lilith kept writing, her hand steady and fast. “Once this is signed, there’s no going back,” she murmured, almost to herself. “The system will recognize the change, and so will the throne.”
The demon nearest me, something with too many eyes and a tail like a whip, bared its teeth in a smile. I nodded back.
“Is Lucifer aware?” I asked.
Lilith paused, just for a second. “His scrying is blocked. The Void’s got him spinning his wheels. He still thinks he’s in control.”
Aziz laughed. “He always does.”
I watched as Lilith finished the contract, then rolled it and pressed her seal into the wax. The Void in the floor pulsed, the cracks widening, sending a ripple through the chamber.
Levi looked at me, then at her. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Lilith finally looked up. Her eyes were black as the ink, rimmed with blue fire. “That’s it,” she said.
The air in the room changed, heavier, charged. The survivors of the purge, every clerk, every scribe, every notary, filed in, one by one, to witness the event. They stood at the back, silent, hands folded, the fear in them replaced by a dull awe.
I heard one whisper to another, “The throne will know. It will have to recognize her.”
I smiled, just a little. “Let’s see if it does,” I said.
The cracks in the marble widened, reaching the walls, the ceiling, the edges of the world.
Hell was changing. And for the first time since the world was born, I was the one holding the pen.
Chapter 21: Lilith
The ritual chamber beneath my quarters was never meant for this world. No architecture, no builder. Just a cavity deep in the black bone of Hell, shaped by negative space and obsession. I had prepared it myself, the intricate circle of sigils drawn one drop at a time from my own veins. The stone floor drank the blood, growing slick and cold under my feet.
I had killed all the lights except for the black candles, one at each quarter, their flames a dirty violet that warped the air into a swimming, dreamlike haze. The wax was rendered from the flesh of my enemies, easy to find in this place. The wicks spun from my own hair, shed during the last molting. The scent was acrid yet sweet, a little like burnt teeth. The Void inside me pulsed, more awake here than anywhere else. Left alone, itwould eat the world. I didn’t leave it alone; I taught it to be what I needed.
I stood naked in the center of the circle. The marks on my skin, from the last time Levi had bitten—or was it Aziz?—were still visible, deep bruises, crescent moons of purple. The black veins had spread since morning, fractal spirals across my chest and down my thighs. My cunt ached, not from need but from memory, the ritual already writing itself in me before a single word had been spoken.
The first to enter was Aziz. He moved without sound, the predatory glide of a thing that had been hunting for eons. He was already hard, his two cocks bobbing heavy and dark against his thigh. The sight of me in the circle made him grin, teeth glinting white against the deep purple of his skin. He drank in the candles, the sigils, then my face, pausing just long enough for a silent communion. I met his gaze, and for a second the world outside the circle stopped existing.
He walked the perimeter of the sigils, careful not to break the line. I had told them what would happen if they disturbed the boundary before I invited them in. Aziz respected the rules. He crouched low, fingers trailing over the symbols, then licked one stripe of blood from his own knuckle and flicked it into the circle. A test, a greeting, a challenge.
The black veins near my feet surged, drinking the blood. The circle pulsed in answer. I shivered, not with cold but with the anticipation of how much hunger there was beneath the floor.
The second to arrive was Levi, naked, green skin patterned in new scars and old, the knot on his cock already swelling and the head leaking onto the marble. He saw Aziz, nodded once, then sized up the circle.
He knelt, right at the edge, and cut a nick in his wrist with a claw, letting the blood fall. The circle shuddered, then went still.
“Nice work,” Levi said, addressing me, but also the Void.
The third was Ian, and he made no pretense. His blue cock was already hard, the head glistening, the barbs along the shaft visible even in the purple light. He ran a hand through his hair and bit into his finger, letting the blood fall.
The blood landed dead center on a glyph of my own design. The black veins drank it greedily, but Ian’s eyes never left mine.
“Are you ready for this?” he said.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
The air in the chamber thickened, cold as deep space. The Void in my belly stretched, arching like a cat waking up from a nap. The sigils on the floor started to pulse, not in unison, but in a syncopated, arrhythmic code that echoed the triple beat of my own heart. Each demon circled the edge, moving to the quadrant I had assigned them.
I raised my arms, spreading them to encompass the whole circle. The candle flames leaned inward, pulled by a gravity stronger than wind.
