Read Hades for Free Online Page B

you.”
    What they wanted from her? How had they even found her?
    They came at her in a rush. She swung her club, catching one in the jaw hard enough to knock a few teeth out, but as she swung again, something struck her in the head. She tasted blood and heard a scream, but only later did she realize that the scream was hers.
     
    * * * *
     
    “My lord.”
    Inside one of the hundreds of tiny cells in the Rot’s lowest dungeon levels, Hades turned away from the broken body of one of the two demons he’d captured three days ago. Silth, the fallen angel commander in charge of the 5th Ring, stood in the doorway. “Tell me you’ve located the rest of the insurgents.”
    Silth inclined his blond head in a brief nod. “Yes, but––”
    “I trust you’ve dumped them into the Rot’s acid pit?” That was one of Hades’s favorite punishments. The demons would splash around as their bodies were dissolved slowly and painfully, until only their souls remained.
    That was when things got fun. Exposed souls were delicate, and the acid was even more agonizing on their raw, tender forms. The demons would take another physical body, and then the acid went right back to work, starting the cycle again. It usually didn’t take more than a few days before the bastards started talking.
    And if that didn’t work, dropping them into one of the graves in the cemetery for a couple of decades would.
    “Of course.” Silth shifted his balance nervously, making his chain mail rattle, and Hades stiffened. “A situation requires your attention.”
    A dark, slithery sensation unfurled in Hades’s gut at both Silth’s words and the grim tone. “Tell me.”
    “The entire 5th Ring is becoming unstable, and the violence is spreading into the 4th Ring. Intelligence indicates that a large-scale escape from Sheoul-gra is in the works.”
    “Bullshit.” Hades kicked at the straw on the floor and watched a hellrat scurry into another filthy pile. “There’s no way they could gather enough power to accomplish something like that.”
    Silth, who Hades had personally chosen as the 5th Ring’s warden because he was an evil sonofabitch who liked pain and feared nothing, suddenly looked as if he’d rather be anywhere but here. He even took a step back from Hades, as if he expected to be slaughtered.
    Which meant the guy had some fucking bad news.
    “Somehow,” he growled, “they got hold of an Unfallen.”
    Hades blinked. “An Unfallen? Like, a living, breathing fallen angel? How? Azagoth wouldn’t have allowed anyone inside without telling me.” No way. Any living being who was given access to the Inner Sanctum had to be escorted and contained to prevent exactly what appeared to be going on right now in the 5th Ring.
    “I saw her myself,” Silth said.
    “Her?” Hades frowned. “Who?”
    “I know not. I caught but a glimpse,” Silth said, reverting back to what Hades like to call his “medieval speak.” The dude had fallen from Heaven in the late 900’s and had spent way too much time messing in human affairs and picking up their annoying habits. “When I captured one of the rebels, he admitted that she was an Unfallen being used in a ritual that would break down the Inner Sanctum’s walls.”
    The hellrat poked its head out of the straw and took a bite out of the unconscious demon on the floor. They were cute little buggers.
    “Something’s still not right.” Hades tore his gaze away from the rodent. “It would take more than a single Unfallen to unleash the kind of magic that would destroy the Inner Sanctum’s boundaries. What else do they have?”
    “Unknown. But I fear that if we don’t act now, it won’t matter if the walls fall or not. The uprising is spreading, and if it reaches all of the levels...” He trailed off, knowing full well that Hades understood the seriousness of the situation.
    A large-scale rebellion might not result in the destruction of the Inner Sanctum’s walls, but it would force Azagoth to halt