Page 7 of Judge of Saints and Sinners

But that wasn’t true. When I had lost control, they had locked me below, far from the light and my family. They had chained and bound me for nearly fifty years. In all that time, Lucifer must’ve found another of my brothers to do his work for him.

Surely not my Dream King brother, though. Arafel wouldn’t have the stomach for retrieving the Corrupted from the living world. These souls who had been stolen from the Underworld and given bodies to take over in the living world were an unholy combination of the knowledge that they couldn’t be killed normally and the power of the one they would not serve.

I wasn’t sure Arafel would be able to handle those tasks. After all, these Corrupted often looked like normal humans. It wasn’t until you had them cornered that you would find out exactly how dangerous they could be.

But then, the same could be said about me. I was the firstborn son of Lucifer and the first witch, a product of their great, tragic love story. But I wasn’t what they’d expected. And as my mother’s belly grew again, my father assured me that he understood what needed to be done. Each of my brothers was less demon-like, more and more human. By the time they were done, they’d had the perfect little half-demon creations.

That plan resulted in Kadmiel, my youngest sibling. He was the most detached from the rest of us. Father kept him busy running errands from the Underworld to the Seraphim, our pompous sky-dwelling cousins.

Kadmiel spent more time among the living souls than the rest of us combined. Perhaps that’s why he’d accrued the nickname “the guardian,” a sort of dark avenger. He hunted those who were in danger from Underworld creatures and brought VIP souls straight to the Underworld. My father claimed he was the best at gathering souls.

That much was obvious. Kharon, my soul-wrangling, ferry-driving, gill-throated brother was not exactly palatable on his most human days. Arafel hated being in his human form, and Elon was the punisher. He hadn’t been able to face the living world since the first great Underworld war, when he’d been injured beyond any of our magic’s repair.

The Judge.

The Dream Lord.

The Ferryman.

The Punisher.

The Guardian.

All trapped here together in the world our father and mother made, surrounded by creatures and the forgotten souls of the living world. Heaven or Hell were fragments of speech. The Underworld was the destination for all souls.

And it was up to me to sort and categorize them based on their time in the living world. Once I’d been thrilled at the prospect of sorting the good souls into Elysium and the bad into Tartarus. But now, it all seemed futile. Once my brothers and I lost our powers, we would lose the ability to keep the souls where they belonged. We were seeing it even now.

The souls that were convinced by the Drude to push the boundaries. While we had a legacy of aggression and power on our side, it wouldn’t last long once the souls realized how weak we had become.

Everything would be doomed. At least, that was what the Drude, a rising power that had begun to steal souls from the Underworld to do his bidding, hoped. Arafel believed that the Drude was a demonic creature like us. My father believed he was the first corrupted soul, meaning a soul that had gotten lost in the Underworld and had gained power by gathering more lost souls to themselves.

I didn’t give two fucks what he or she was. They were ruining my plan at an honorable decline. By stealing more souls, they stole more power. When my mother had split each of my brother’s and my souls, she’d unavoidably severed our magic in half. Only with our souls returned to us did we have a chance to fight the Drude and those they commanded.

Propping up a booted foot, I stared at my lantern light, letting the fire burn its way into my eyes before I slammed them shut. My fingers flew across the parchment that had been waiting for me. The bit of charcoal that constantly waited alongside this chair leapt into my fingers. They were still stained by the constant use, but I ignored that, focusing on the feel of the lines on the paper, the way my hands moved, without me even knowing it.

Up and down, smoothing across, filling in the blank part of the parchment as I shuttered my eyes. I didn't need to see the artwork to know where my hands were moving. This was the only part of me left, this useless talent that meant nothing for a judge of souls.

Even so, it was one of few things that still brought joy to my quiet, dull heart. My fingers flying across the parchment, I lost track of time, only realizing that it must’ve been hours when I finally looked up and saw that my candle had nearly burned out.

That and a demon leaned against the corner of the room, his features familiar. And irritating.

“Hiriam. What do you want?”

My father’s second—or third, depending on the day and whether he or Alecto had killed each other lately—gazed at me with fiery red eyes. He was in the dark uniform of those who served the Hell household, complete with a cloak that pooled at his feet.

He clucked at me, the split length of his tongue softening the noise. “Always so suspicious, Lord Nephesh. So suspicious.” One taloned foot stepped into the light, the shining black claws that adjourned his toes showing as he observed me with wide black eyes.

I groaned. Clearly he was intent on staying. Setting my drawing to the side, I picked up my wine, sipping it as my gaze wandered down the now illuminated lines of the demon male. Once a great human king, he’d fallen into one of my father’s deals and was now spending his afterlife running errands for my father’s needy court and checking in on a bunch of demon children that the King of Hell hadn’t wanted in the first place.

“Can you blame me? I have spent a lot of time alone lately, Hiriam.” I nodded at the door. “And honestly, I’d like to keep it that way. Get out.”

“You and I both know that I cannot do that. Your father sent me.”

I stifled a yawn as I stretched languorously, knowing it pissed him off to have been so lackadaisical about his presence here, but I was tired, magically burned out. I didn’t want to play his stupid games.

“And what does dear Papa need?” With a grunt, I heaved myself up and out of the chair. My legs were on autopilot, carrying me over towards the kitchen, where I refilled my goblet, downed the contents, and then refilled once again, emptying the bottle. One small perk of my powers receding, possibly the only perk, was that I could feel the beginnings of drunkenness. It had been exceedingly helpful on the nights that I attempted to lie down or rest.

Most days I didn’t dare to close my eyes unless I was truly depleted or desperate. The nightmares would always come, no matter how hard Arafel worked to keep them out of my head. At least exhaustion left less of me to experience their horrors.