"Speak the shame of eternal rage. I am faking the truth. I am going insane."

- Black Veil Brides

                                                                              ***

They walked in silence as they descended more deeply into Hell, not risking their voices being overheard by anything. Sirius kept a hand on Rick's shoulder, the Hunter guiding him as he sought out one particular stench among millions in this rotted place. His eyes were half-closed, all of his concentration thrown into his sense of smell.

He sorted through each thread, searching for one in particular, half-hoping he'd stumble across the one he loved instead.

But she wasn't his objective. Not yet. 

Sirius wasn't having much luck catching Theron's scent of rot and deceit either. Granted they were a level above where Theron usually dwelled, but it still made him anxious.

He smelled them before he heard them, his hand tightening on Rick's shoulder. He grunted in pain and Sirius looked down to find his claws out and currently embedded in the Hunter's skin.

Releasing him as gently as he could, Sirius whispered, "Something's coming this way."

Rick drew the sword resting against his back, metal whining softly as it was freed from its sheath. Sirius closed his eyes, listening to and counting footsteps, marking the number of different gaits.

Three. His fingers flexed, his claws sharpening. There was nothing particularly familiar about their scents... but they could handle three.

Rick seemed to feel the same way, shooting Sirius a reckless grin.

Shadows lingered in this hall, like every other one in Hell. Sirius and Rick staggered themselves slighty, each taking a position along opposite sides of the hall. Whispering under his breath, Sirius directed the darkness to thicken in the hall, to wrap around both him and the Hunter, hiding them.

Rick was no more than a pair of bright grey eyes in a matter of moments, the rest of him cloaked in pure night. The shadows hissed and skittered along the blade of his sword, complaining to Sirius that they didn't want to touch the golden metal.

Every few seconds, they would scatter and swirl away, letting the faintly shimmering metal flash into view. Rick shifted enough that Sirius could hear his rough jacket scraping against the wall behind him, and the gold finally disappeared. 

By now they could hear the demons snarling and laughing at one another. There was nothing special about them. They were just grunts without even the moldy-sweet tang that marked a Crossroads Demon.

It was probably a waste of time and effort, but his rage and bloodlust had been roaring in his ears for what felt like hours now. He needed to take the edge off or he knew something stupid would happen because of it later.

The demons rounded the corner leading into their hall—two males and a female—sauntering down the length of the corridor. Grey eyes met his own, crinkled at the edges in a sort of amusement that could only be found right before a fight, and still only by certain warriors.

Sometimes he loved Hunters. So delightfully bloodthirsty.

He waited until the first demon—one of the males—was two steps past where he stood, invisible to their eyes. Then he released his hold on the darkness, his scent and Rick's flooding the corridor.

The first demon didn't even have time to turn around. Sirius brought a clawed hand around his throat, ripping it open in a single, brutal swipe. There was a ragged gurgling sound, and the demon was bleeding out across the floor.

A female shriek of rage had him turning in time to watch Rick swing his sword, taking the other male's head clean off. Blood vaulted into the air and Sirius paused for a second to see if the demon would get back up.

It didn't.

A patter of swift steps had him throwing himself into his wolf form. His claws slid and skittered across the obsidian floors as he chased after the female demon.

It was absurdly easy, enough that he actually lagged for a moment, delighting in the chase itself. But a blind corner was approaching. He couldn't smell anyone else in the immediate vicinity, but it seemed stupid to take risks.

He leapt, slamming into the demon's back and sending her crashing to the floor. The darkness flowed over him, melting and rearranging his flesh as he landed on top of her.

The demon snarled and raged as he flipped her onto her back, pinning her with the weight of his body. She quieted when he placed clawed fingers against her throat.

One swipe and she'd be choking and dying right there beneath him.

A step behind him alerted him to Rick's presence before the Hunter stepped around them and crouched beside the demon's head, sword at the ready. He raised an eyebrow at Sirius, not bothering to wipe the spray of black blood away from his face as the demon began to growl.

"Sh, sh, sh," Sirius hushed, smiling when the demon's eyes turned liquid black, obliterating iris and white. "We don't really have time to do this the hard way, so humor us, won't you, sweetheart?"

The word slipped out before he could stop it and he grimaced, making the demon cackle. She spit in his face and snarled, "Look who decided to come crawling home. Did you come to find her?" She laughed, the sound heart-rending. "Hades' pretty little whore."

He couldn't decide if she was talking about Galloway, or about him.

"Take off a finger." Sirius wiped his face clean with the sleeve of his shirt, trying mightily to keep his temper in check. 

"What?" Rick asked, rocking backwards slightly with the surprise.

Sirius clamped a hand down over her mouth after she began swearing at them, not looking at Rick. "Cut off a finger," he repeated slowly, more for the demon's benefit than Rick's.

He chanced a look to the side when the Hunter hesitated. The look on Rick's face caught him off guard. The edge of the sword wavered over the demon's outstretched hand, but the look in Rick's eyes told Sirius that he wasn't seeing what was really before him.

That torn out confession of Rick's seemed to echo around them once again—what he'd been forced to do under Set's thrall.

Sirius sighed as he realized his mistake. Moving smoothly, he replaced the hand he had on the demon's arm with his knee. She thrashed, attempting to dislodge him but Sirius shifted, keeping his center of gravity crouched low over her body, making it almost impossible to throw him off.

Rick didn't balk when Sirius held out his hand, but as soon as the enchanted metal touched his skin, he flinched back. With a hiss, he looked at his hand to find a bright red burn across the top of his palm where the sword had touched.

The demon laughed, stopping abruptly when Sirius let his canines lengthen into proper fangs. Voice thick, he said, "I suppose we can still get old-fashioned about this."

"You haven't asked anything," Rick muttered, shifting nervously but not shying away.

"I know," Sirius said calmly. "She's a demon."

The reminder didn't seem to make much of a difference to the Hunter. He just shot Sirius a droll look then went back to watching the demon, ready to kill her if she so much as breathed wrong.

Sirius returned his full attention to the demon, debating on the best way to start. The black receded from her eyes and he could feel her sneer beneath his palm. He didn't have the time to be creative about this anyway.

He dragged his hand sideways, letting his claws tear into her face, shredding her cheek and part of her upper lip. She screamed, making Rick flinch, but Sirius just laughed, something deep inside of him truly delighting in the blood and pain.

"Funny thing about Hell," he said. "Everyone will hear you scream, but no one will care." He laughed again. "Or come. Can't tell the difference between your screaming, and every other poor bastard down here. And even if they could, why would they bother?"

Fear flashed in her eyes and Sirius smiled, bloody fingers brushing the messy, brown hair back from her face, gently enough that she flinched.

"Sirius," Rick warned, looking back and forth down the hall. "Wrap it up, would you?"

"You know Theron?" Sirius asked casually, tracing a sharp claw around the edge of her left eye. "Is he here?"

She panted, chest rising and falling rapidly with pain and terror, the sharp tang of the latter burning Sirius' nose. Her eyes flickered between Sirius and Rick. "Why should I tell you?" she hissed. "You're going to kill me anyway."

"Well, yeah," Sirius drawled. "But you get to decide how long it takes for you to die."

"I thought you knew where Theron was?" Rick asked through gritted teeth.

"Yes," Sirius said patiently. "But that hardly helps anything if he isn't in Hell."

The demon laughed, choking on the blood pouring into her mouth from her shredded cheek. "He's here all right," she managed to snarl. "He's busy with the Hunter bitch. We've all enjoyed hearing her scream." She smiled, the expression horrific. "And moan."

White-hot rage speared through him, practically blinding him. He didn't care if the demon was lying or telling the truth. He didn't care to try and discern which of those she was doing—he didn't even care if she was right about Theron.

He saw a flash of teeth, the demon opening her mouth to say more, probably thinking she'd gained some sort of upper hand. Her words turned into a scream when he gutted her, tearing his claws through the soft tissue of her belly.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Rick muttered, standing up and moving away as blood started to seep across the floor.

Sirius didn't stop until he was literally elbow-deep in gore and able to rip apart her heart while it was still in her chest. Her scream was cut off by a sickening gurgle and she fell still.

It didn't help. The rage and bitter hatred still coursed through him—a never-ending river that turned him into pure poison. Slowly, he freed his hand from her chest cavity and stood.

The blood didn't bother him beyond the thought that it would make his hand slippery if he decided to use anything other than his own claws to skin Theron alive. Absently, he wiped his fingers off on his pant leg, frowning at the blood still spreading across the floor.

"So much for leaving as little evidence as possible," Rick said dryly, staring at the three bodies, the dark blood pooling over the floor.

Sirius shrugged, looking up and down the hall. There were no doors here, no room for him to stash the bodies in. He wasn't certain that it mattered. Whoever or whatever came after him now would pay a wicked price, one of blood and pain.

"That was more for their benefit than ours," Sirius admitted. "We won't run into anything we can't handle." He grimaced and corrected himself. "Not on these levels, at least."

"Yeah, sorry. That doesn't leave me exactly brimming with confidence." Rick huffed out a heavy breath, shaking his head. Silence reigned for a moment, but only for a moment. "What Nyx said..."

Sirius muttered a few choice words under his breath, but didn't stop the Hunter from continuing. 

"How about we start with what are the fighting pits?" Rick finally said.

A snort clawed its way free and Sirius shook his head, his nose thick with the sulfur stink of demon blood. "Pits that you fight in. What about the name was confusing, exactly?"

"Don't be a dick." The Hunter cleaned the blade of his sword off on the pant leg of one of the male demons before sliding it back into its scabbard. He rose from his crouch and they started walking down the hall, trying to put distance between themselves and the bodies.

Sirius wasn't terribly worried about leaving them. It wasn't unheard of for a Hellhound to lose their shit and tear into a couple twice-damned souls. Though... the neat beheading might raise a few eyebrows.

"Come on, Sirius," Rick prodded. "Fighting pits. What the hell was Nyx talking about?"

"I already told you I don't know," Sirius snapped. He growled, wincing when one of his fangs punched through his lower lip. "The fighting pits are just what they sound like. They throw Hounds and demons alike in and take fucking bets on how long you'll last."

"So, what? Like a demonic Colosseum?" Rick actually grinned a little. "Russell Crowe moment?" At Sirius' raised eyebrow he said, "Are you not entertained?"

"I... shut up." Sirius sighed. "Yeah, I guess gladiator fights would be the best way to describe it. The underworld gods run it."

"Gods? What gods?" Rick swore, quick and vicious. Very quietly, he asked, "Set?"

A chill ran its way down Sirius' spine. But he wouldn't lie about that—not to Rick at any rate. "Probably. But since we're not going there, does it matter?"

"Dude, the goddess of night made a concerted effort to warn us that that's exactly where we're going to fucking end up," Rick said, disgust and fear lacing his tone. He ran a hand through his short, brown hair, shaking his head. "What did she mean when she said you couldn't have them all? Them all who? Us?"

Sirius' mouth tightened. He still didn't know if telling Rick about his little side project would be worth it, or just cause more arguments and trouble than he had the patience for. Especially when he didn't know where the Hellhounds who had killed her were.

He'd lost Selene's scent hours ago, and hadn't so much as caught a whiff of any of the others. Not even Bane, who had spent as much time in the upper circles of Hell as Sirius had.

Neither of them had been much for obedience, no matter how many times the demons or Hades had tried to torture the principle in.

"You tell me right now," Rick said, his voice low and grave, "or I stop right here. I don't care if you try doing this alone. I'm not going in blind, Sirius. I'm just not." He sucked in a sharp breath. "Not if Set could be involved."

Sirius drummed his fingers against the top of his thigh, grimacing. With a long exhale, he decided he might as well throw his cards on the table here. His jaw clenched for a moment, before he said, "I know the Hellhounds who killed her." A snarl he couldn't stop tore at his throat.

The Hunter paled slightly, and Sirius knew his next words weren't really all that necessary. He said them anyway. "They hunted her down and slaughtered her. The least I can do is return the favor."

"And Nyx's warning?"

"The problem with the gods?" Sirius smirked a little, though the expression was difficult to maintain. "They never give anything or anyone who is less than divine enough credit. You'd think they'd maybe start hedging their bets after so many millennia of generally being wrong, but that apparently has yet to happen."

Rick shook his head, lip curling with disdain. "That wasn't an answer."

"She meant I wouldn't be able to kill them all. But she's wrong." Sirius' claws stretched as he flexed his fingers. "Theron, Selene, Bane, Malechi, Lucia. Their blood belongs to me. Their pain, their suffering, their fear—it's mine for what they did to her."

Silence engulfed them once again, and Sirius was happy to let it thicken. He didn't feel like arguing with Rick over something that was happening one way or the other.

"And if your pound of flesh, or whatever the fuck it is you think you're owed, if that jeopardizes this whole thing? If it comes down to a choice between your revenge and getting her back?"

He should have asked a harder question. Perhaps the Hunter could sense he wouldn't like the answer.

Sirius smiled, though there was nothing joyful about the expression. "I'll always pick her. Nothing else matters. Revenge, life, whatever. I don't care."

He decided to conveniently ignore the oath he'd made to Sekhmet, promising her Galloway if Rick didn't make it out of Hell. It didn't really matter, he decided. Even if she ended up bound to Sekhmet at least she'd be out. 

"Whose life?" Rick asked, his voice too quiet. "Whose life doesn't matter to you?"

Slowly, Sirius met his eyes. "Whoever's."

Rick snorted, the sound bitter. "Just like that, huh?" He shook his head. "Why am I surprised?"

Something twinged deep in Sirius' chest at the words, but he just kept walking.

It didn't matter. It couldn't matter. 

Not when she was still lying on some table at the non-existent mercy of Theron and every other demon asshole in this wretched place.

His loyalty belonged to her. His heart and life belonged to her. She even owned his death. Sirius would do anything and everything he could to get them all out of Hell safely—or as safely as could be expected—but not at her expense.

Not if it would cost her, even if the price was himself.

Rick sighed and said, "Don't make me regret helping you. Please."

That same wretched feeling wrapped around his heart again. This time he recognized it as guilt. Sirius offered an apologetic shrug that made the Hunter swear at him. "I don't want any of you to die here," Sirius admitted quietly. "I would have no way to explain that to her. No real way to justify it. But it doesn't matter."

"Yes it does!" Rick snapped. "Yes it fucking does." He grabbed Sirius' elbow, jerking him to a halt and forcing him to face the Hunter. Rick's eyes were hard as steel when he said, "Look, I get it. I don't know your girl from Adam but that doesn't matter. I know enough, just knowing that she's a Hunter, just knowing that she's got people like Caleb and Logan and even fucking Rhys so goddamn loyal to her."

Sirius stayed silent, figuring it was best to just let him get it out of his system. He growled in warning when Rick's grip on his arm tightened, fingers biting into his elbow, but the Hunter ignored it.

"What's the damn point?" Rick hissed. "What's the point of busting your ass to get her out of here if she's just going to hate you? Either for something you did, or something you let happen? Because that's how it'll be. You'll get her out of here, but if one of them dies she'll hate you. She'll hate herself for the fact that she ever loved you."

"At least she'll be free," Sirius snarled, ignoring how the words cut into him. Ignoring how they reached inside him and strangled him with fear. Rick blinked in surprise, his grip loosening. Sirius pulled away from him and continued, "I'd rather her be free and hate me than anything else."

They stared at each other for a moment, neither willing to yield on their point. Finally, Sirius laughed. "You still don't get it, do you?"

Rick's mouth thinned into a line of warning. His eyes begged Sirius not to say it.

The words got caught in his throat for a moment before he could force them out. "I don't want any of you to die," Sirius repeated. "I just can't care if you do if it means I'll be able to get her out of here. You can hate me if you want. That's fine. But that's how it has to be, Rick. I can't put anyone else ahead of her. She's what matters to me. The only thing that matters."

Their run-in with the demon minutes ago had reminded him of that. Sharply.

Rick's eyes had gone flat and cold, like they used to be when Sirius had first met the Hunter. What he now recognized as regret hit him briefly before he shoved it away. He couldn't afford regret. Not now. Not when he was so close.

"It's that easy for you, huh?" Rick asked, his tone flat. 

"Easy's got absolutely nothing to do with this." Sirius turned away from the Hunter before he said, "None of this is easy. It's just what needs to be done."

"Yeah." Rick started walking again, his shoulders tight and defensive. "Whatever you tell yourself, Sirius."

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Okay, I just wanted to take a moment to apologize for the major lag between chapters. The monster known as writer's block bit hard.

Thank you so much for your patience. I appreciate you sticking with this story more than I can say.