you roll around in it.”
Aza’zel rushed up to the angel. “What’s it taste like?”
“What’s what taste like?”
“This green…?”
“Um, grass .”
“This has its own flavor?” the slave asked with wide eyes.
Elliott smirked in disbelief. “Yeah.”
“You will take me there? To Earth?”
Elliott groaned. Really? He sighed. Wait…he had an idea. “Tell you what, maybe we can help each other out. You want to see Earth and I’m looking for someone—”
“Who? Was this why you came here? You seek someone?”
Goats weren’t so dumb after all. Elliott knew it was foolish to make a deal with one, but he didn’t have a whole lot of options. “I’m looking for a woman. She’s not supposed to be here. Your Lord abducted her.”
“Stay right here.” Aza’zel trotted off.
Elliott stayed right there, fastened to the wall. Angels couldn’t take off Abaddon’s shackles. After a few minutes he began whistling the Jeopardy theme, distracting himself.
A rush of clip-clops echoed outside the cavern. One by one six goat demons entered.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Amalya
Voices echoed all around Amalya. The cacophony made her cringe. She felt weightless, lying on a slanted hard surface, her head lower than her feet, the dress bunched up to her waist. She was sweaty and her face was streaked with ash. With her hands pinned straight out on either side of her, she couldn’t move them. In this position it was impossible to do little more than kick her legs. Already feeling weak, she tired quickly.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Amalya adjusted the position of her head to see what the noise was and where the sound was coming from. Then she remembered the hooves like a goat or more like a bison. “No! No, no, no!” she screamed.
“The human’s awake,” one of her captors said in sinister tone.
The beasts had red skin and furry legs. Their knees were all messed up, bent in the wrong direction, or maybe they had too many joints. Each of them had a set of horns, the shapes and sizes unique to them. Patches of black hair was smattered across their chests and their hairless tails touched the ground.
“What should we do with her?” another one asked.
“Aza’zel will know,” a third voice offered.
“Let’s not bother him. New souls come here all the time. Nothing to—”
“Not ones that run through the halls of the church!”
The creatures bantered back and forth until they were screeching at each other. When they were thoroughly entrenched in their debate, she looked around for anything she could use to her advantage if given the opportunity. Leaning up against a corner alcove were two machetes. On the other side of her was a sunken fire pit, the flames barely licking above the surface of the ground. Long metal rods with tips that glowed were placed around the opening.
Shit!
She couldn’t breathe. An involuntary whimper came out. “Demons,” she whispered. The struggle against her bindings started again. She prayed her dress would somehow work its way down to her legs. Another stab of fear made her yell. Was she wearing panties? Christ, she couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember when she’d been running or when the man-creature grabbed her waist.
A deafening shrill filled her eardrums. Pain shot through her head and her throat. She was screaming. And not an ordinary scream, a scream worthy of the most terrifying horror film victim except this was her reality, not a movie.
“Lookie here, the human, she’s scared,” a demon drawled.
They collectively lurched toward her. One demon walked over to the fire pit and began tossing the red-hot ended rods to the others. The pokers whistled through the air and were caught with well-practiced precision. Not one bounced on the ground.
An iron was laid across her left thigh.
Sssssssss.
Ear splitting screams pierced the air. Amalya panted, tears springing from her eyes. She screamed as another—
Sssssssss .
This