Demon Bound

against hers. The skin over his jaw had paled.
    “Let me guess. They ripped their way out.”
    Alice closed her eyes. Dear God. Only a man would voice that.
    Or a half demon. “ Ate ,” Khavi corrected. “But you must see that it was for the best.”
    “No, not exactly.”
    “The women were willing. I am certain that Anaria arranged the bargains. They traded the service for a fast burn rather than prolonged torment, and were released from Hell shortly after giving birth.”
    “They were released?” The questions lined up in Alice’s throat like soldiers, eager to fire. “The punishment in the Pit isn’t eternal?”
    “Of course not. Only the frozen field is; the others are reborn after they’ve been cleansed—given another chance. As for the nephilim, the nature of their surrogate mothers prevented them from holding their forms outside of Hell. That is best, for it means the nephilim need to possess a weaker human body while on Earth.” Khavi paused, studied their faces, and must have seen the confusion there. “The humans in the Pit aren’t flesh,” she explained, and touched her fingertips to her forehead. “They are this. Spirit, energy. It takes form in this realm. So the women in the Pit had bodies to carry the seed.” Her mouth twisted. “Zakril and Anaria’s seed.”
    “Their children,” Jake pointed out, “but the nephilim serve Lucifer.”
    “They serve the throne .” A smile ghosted over her lips before she faced the wall again, placing each hand over a crimson symbol. “I imagine that was Anaria’s doing; once she realized how their experiment had failed, she made the best of it. And so Lucifer used the nephilim to enforce the Rules against his demons on Earth. A Guardian could find little fault in that. And if in Hell, Lucifer used them to keep other demons in line—slaying, for example, any who rose against him—a Guardian might not fault that, either. The grigori might, however, even though the demons slain were not as they once had been.”
    “Lucifer was killing each of your demon parents because they were rebelling against him,” Alice realized.
    “All but Belial,” Khavi confirmed. “And only because Anaria intervened, and led the nephilim against Lucifer.”
    “Even though they served him?”
    “If they had succeeded, Anaria would have been on the throne. As it was, disobedience only risked Punishment or death. When they were defeated, Lucifer destroyed half and imprisoned the others. I suppose he thought he would have use of them again.” She cast a wry look over her shoulder. “I could have told him for certain.”
    One of the sarcophagi had been missing from the rephilim’s prison. “Was Anaria locked in with them—then rescued?”
    “Yes. Zakril, Michael, and I went for her. Lucifer was too arrogant to guard the prison well, and it still took half our blood, our combined voices, and all of our knowledge to release her.” She smiled. “I believe he moved the prison after that, and shored up its defenses.”
    “He put it in the spider,” Jake said with a faint grimace. “Good hiding place.”
    Khavi nodded. “Afterward, Anaria told us what she had done—all of it with the best intentions and kindness: to give Zakril children; to liberate Hell from Lucifer’s tyranny. She’d intended to abolish the Pit, to let the humans be free in Hell, and never feel pain from the flames.”
    “Oh, man. Yeah, I can see why it’d be hard to give her a slap for that.” Jake shook his head. “But I’m guessing the ones who are burning deserve it.”
    “Yes.” Khavi pushed against the wall, grunting the words. “And without flames, never cleansed. Never released or reborn. Never given the chance to be human again.”
    Alice and Jake moved forward to help, but she stopped them with a sharp glance.
    Oh, how she loathed feeling useless. Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, Alice asked, “What were your responses to her?”
    “Michael and I were more forgiving than Zakril”—this time, it was the wall that groaned beneath the pressure; Khavi’s feet dug into the floor, her back and arms shaking with strain—“who felt betrayed. For a time. Then he returned to us. I do not know how many years passed before Anaria decided to . . . make humans . . . better .”
    With a final shove, a seam split the center of the wall, ran along the ceiling and floor. Doors now—and they opened easily, revealing an empty black stone room.
    A familiar hum filled the