“I need to get home!” I gasped, swiping the last of the beads into their container with a hand that shook, and stashing it all away. I burst out of the activity room, racing down the corridor blindly.

I was shivering by the time I got to the car, although it was a balmy evening for mid-September. My insides felt like they’d been put through a tumble dryer.

It had been SJ.

I was sure of it.

And I needed to talk to him. I wasn’t finished with him.

I needed to scream at him for being such a coward to my face … and such a hero behind my back. I needed to know why.

But first, I needed to work out how the Hell I felt about it.

43. Wholesale Slaughter of Archangels

Chapter 43

Wholesale Slaughter of Archangels

SJ

“For the last time! Let me the Home out of here!” I roared, charging at the trio of figures, vaguely visible through the mist. I struck at the swirling fog, and just like the countless other times I’d tried this since I’d walked through a portal that I should have known wasn’t mine, I hit the invisible barrier between me and my captors. The barrier that dulled all my senses … and my ability to conjure portals.

I was well and truly caged.

Clang! The deafening gong sounded again, and I was thrown backwards … again … My body screamed with pain … again.

“What is this?” I demanded, pushing myself from the ground. Every time was harder than the last. “Where am I?”

The blurry males on the other side chuckled. “We’ve told you already, Son of Lucifer. This is Heaven.”

I growled. No words, just a furious rumble from my throat.

“Boss …” Beezle whimpered, nudging at my leg. “Maybe we … are in Heaven?”

“Yeah, Boss, it’s not … like … the most outlandish thing that could have happened to us,” Bub added.

“No!” I snapped, rubbing at my shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the last several attempts to break out of this weird little mist-filled elsewhere they were keeping us. “I refuse to believe that I’ve somehow been duped by Her machinations.”

Turning towards the shadows on the other side of the mist, I sneered. “If you are so smug that you have captured the Prince of Hell, and imprisoned me in Heaven, prove it! I want to be brought before Her!”

The smug chortling that met my statement had my horns straightening in fury.

“Why is that so funny?” I demanded, crossing my arms and then promptly uncrossing them when I realised how much I resembled a spoiled, petulant child. “You cannot hold me here, I have responsibilities! Just … let me out! For badness’ sake—please!”

I was supposed to have been making Soul Tokens for Hellen. What would she have thought when I hadn’t returned to Hell for … however many days these sadists had kept me locked up in their cloud prison?