Eyeless skulls stared back at us as I was pushed down the stairs and led before the throne.
The dark form seated upon it shifted. Clawed feet descended into the light: scaly bird’s feet, with long ebony claws.
Her power was impossible to resist, as cold as the grave. It was her iciness that wrapped around me, making me shake until my teeth chattered to together. I ground them tightly shut, resolved to stay silent.
She leaned forward, exposing her face to the light.
Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead.
The Eater of the Damned.
30
Melisande
I refused to cower.
Ereshkigal rose from her throne, descending the steps on her clawed feet. The nails screeched against the ebonite.
I’d never seen anything like her before.
Her first step into the light revealed a beautiful woman, with a cold, proud face, her eyes as black as midnight against death-pale skin. A silver moon gleamed on her forehead.
She took another step, and suddenly her body was shifting. She became thin, her skin sagging, until a skeleton stood at the bottom of the steps.
A pair of feathered wings dragged behind. As I watched, the graying feathers suddenly became glossy black, and they rose behind her shoulder blades.
The skeleton filled out and she was beautiful again, her onyx gaze fixed on Satan.
This close to her, only steps away, her power was overwhelming. It took all my concentration just to draw breath into my lungs, which felt like they were shriveling in my chest.
“Beloved,” she said, holding out her arms to Satan. “Lover of mine.”
He released my ropes and stepped forward, meeting her in a kiss.
The moment his lips touched her skin, her beauty faded and she became a skeleton again, her wings sagging downwards.
I wanted to fall to my knees in front of all that power, but my legs were locked stiff, holding me upright.
I couldn’t move an inch, shaking in place, as Satan kissed the skeleton.
He released her and she turned to look down at us, her beauty shifting back into place. Watching her continual shift from youth to old age was almost dizzying.
I caught the faintest hint of revulsion on Satan’s face. In another time I would’ve wanted to smile at his disgust, but now it was impossible. Not with the dark goddess right there in front of me, her power vibrating through my chest.
He deserved to be caught in a skeleton’s arms forever, never giving him what he wanted the most.
Several of the Irkallan guards strode down the steps and dropped something on the ground with a heavy thud, bowing to Ereshkigal over the form.
It was Lucifer. My lungs contracted as I turned my head just enough to see him. He was unconscious, but blessedly alive.
Alive, and pale, with red streaks still emanating from the wounds. They’d climbed around his shoulder and were slowly working up his neck and down his torso, almost as sickening to see as the soul-bonds.
“Your son.” Ereshkigal looked down at him with depthless eyes. “How handsome. He’s so close to death I can almost taste it.”
As soon as she finished speaking her tongue flicked the air, like she really could taste the sickness running through Lucifer’s veins.
Every part of me wanted to run to him as she strode closer, her silk skirts swishing around her clawed feet, but I refused to move. If I gave away the slightest sign of weakness, they would have the perfect Achilles’ heel for me.
She bent down and picked him up by the shoulders, her long black nails denting his skin and threatening to draw blood.
My stomach rolled again as she cocked her head, and her tongue flicked against his cheek.
If I could move, if I wasn’t bound, I would’ve cut that tongue right out of her mouth. Lucifer wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t, not while I was still alive and ready to fight.
I needed my men to come for us. Where are you?
Please God, let it be soon.
Ereshkigal let Lucifer drop back to the ground. I carefully kept my eyes fixated ahead, praying she wouldn’t see me. It was easier to look at the bodies and cages than it was to look at her.
I wondered if my fate was waiting for me in one of those cages. Satan’s little songbird, ready to scream whenever he pleased.
One of the bodies on the wall caught my eye. It was ancient, long desiccated, but a little residual power remained inside it. That power called out to me, begging me to look.
Tangles of long golden hair still hung from the body’s skull. The woman had been naked when she’d been placed on the hook, her skin somehow turned to leather in death, except for the open, dried-out wound over her chest.
A creeping chill ran down my spine. It was impossible to fight the shiver.
The call of the dead woman’s power didn’t feel unfriendly. It felt despairing, desperate, hopeless.
I wondered if this was her sister Inanna, who’d been stripped in humiliation before she was allowed to enter Kur.
There was a cage on the opposite wall. An old demon was trapped inside it, still alive, staring plaintively at the body. He was utterly ancient, his eyes almost glazed over, but he gazed at the corpse like it was the sun.
Where are you?
My prayers went unheeded. Nobody was coming for us. Lucifer would be hung on the wall, and I would be put in a cage, forever staring at him and praying for a break in the darkness.
I drew in a shuddering breath and held it, terrified that Ereshkigal had heard me. Satan was at her side, wearing her husband’s skin, but his eyes were on me, malicious and greedy.
My stomach flipped again as Ereshkigal’s dark eyes followed his, landed on me, and lit up.
No. That was the last thing I wanted.
“Oh, look at her.” Even her voice was beautiful. “Just like Inanna. You did this for me?”
She pressed her hands against her heart and looked at Satan, shifting from beauty to skeleton and back again as she drew closer.
A look of panic crossed Satan’s face, but he quickly schooled it into submission, looking at the Queen of the Dead with perfect adoration. “She’s just a little pet that’s been a thorn in my side for so long… I thought she might like a taste of endless night.”
Ereshkigal gave him a sharp look, but her full lips stretched wide. Two pairs of pointed fangs pressed into the lower one, drawing blood that she lapped up before it spilled down her chin.
“She’ll have it at my hands.”
Ereshkigal reached out, and I closed my eyes, hoping that if I died now, it would be quick and merciful… but I knew there was no mercy in this place.
Long claws stroked through my hair, sending sand and ash drifting to the floor.
“A little pet.”
The claws trailed through the feathers of my wings.
“A little bird.”
I felt her lips against my ear, warm against my icy skin, and the sharp jab of a skeleton chin against my shoulder.
“So like Inanna. You almost look the same… not as beautiful, but there’s something about you.”
I usually prided myself on my ability to look back in the face of my impending death and talk back.
Now, I was just terrified, shaking to the core. She was so powerful that being this close to her was painful, the drumbeats echoing in my head and threatening to shatter my skull apart.
She was genuinely a goddess, one of the Prime powers.