Chapter 15

The next morning, Bo, Tamsin, Bilith and Vug met in the living room downstairs.

"So," Bo started. "A lot of crap has happened during the past few days. We've got two gravely injured and…we did a lot of waiting and panicking but not much talking. I think now is a good time for us to have a serious conversation about…everything."

She looked at Bilith, who rested on the coffee table, then Tamsin who sat beside her. Moving her eyes to Vug, who was noisily munching dog food, she suggested, "Vug will speak first."

The hellhound raised his head from the food bowl and scanned the other three. "Oh, okay, Vug will speak first," he repeated. Then, he pondered while smacking his lips and licking his nose.

"Actually…my name is not Vug."

"What is your name then?" Bo asked.

"Well I…don't really remember. I've been in this skin for so long that sometimes…I forget that I'm not actually this hellhound whose name is Vug."

Bo frowned. "What do you mean you are not actually Vug?"

"In this skin like a skinwalker?" Tamsin raised the question.

"Or did you go through the shapeshifting spell?" Bilith asked.

"Yeah, I went through the shapeshifting spell," Vug bobbed his head. "I'm actually a Demon and…a long time ago, I took the identity of one of the King's hounds."

He paused briefly, so he could take another bite from his bowl. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone about this, but…I guess it won't hurt to tell y'all that I'm a member of the resistance force."

"The resistance force against my father?"

"Mhm," Vug nodded. "My job is mainly to pretend to be this Vug so I could stay close to him and gather intel."

"Like what kind of intel?"

"All kinds of stuff. Anything I hear from him or his lieutenants. Anything I see in his throne room. Like when I heard that he was looking for the Book of the Dead, I immediately reported it to my chief, but…it turned out that the whole Book of the Dead thing was a scheme to catch the spies around him."

"Wait, what do you mean? My father was looking for that thing just so he could figure out who the spies were?"

"Yeah, I mean, he's not really looking for it. He made a big deal of it so spies like me would pop out. Well, he caught me. I was interrogated but I didn't tell him nothing…."

Bo's frown got deeper. For all this time, she had thought finding the Book of the Dead would be the key to free Kenzi's soul, and she worked really hard to locate it. And now, she learned that it was nothing but a plan to expose spies. How could it be? How could her father not tell her?

"Well that's about all I know," Vug concluded. "Lord Bilith knows a lot more than me."

"Because…?" Bo raised her eyebrows at Vug, then Bilith.

Bilith rolled his eyes and let out a deep sigh. "Because, I am also a member of the resistance force and I outrank him a lot."

Bo gaped at him. "You are? How could you not have told me about it before? I mean…don't I deserve a little bit of truth from…any of you?"

Bilith lowered his head in guilt. He approached Bo and rubbed his forehead against the back of her hand. "When your father found you and took you back to Hell, it seemed that…the two of you were quite close, or at least you acted like you were. I wasn't sure if you could be trusted then."

"Am I to be trusted now?!" Bo raised her voice.

"I…yes, but he has so many eyes and ears in Hell, and…my job is mainly to protect you anyway. I thought I'd just stay close to you and stay quiet."

"Your mission is to protect me? From what?"

"From whom," Bilith corrected her. "I was sent to protect you from your father, Bo."

"You think he would…do something to me?"

"We are not sure. When he announced your return, we didn't know what his true intention was. We didn't know if he'd harm you."

"Well, if he wanted to harm me, he'd already have done so, right?"

Bilith shook his head. "It's not that simple, and I don't mean he'd hurt you physically. Most likely he'd use you. He'd manipulate you-"

"For things like going on a fake mission just so he could figure out who the spy was?"

Bilith sighed. "No, things like…lure you to the River of Guilt."

Bo's eyes shot wide open. "You think it was him? He left that notebook in my room?"

"I don't know for sure, but…I couldn't find who did it, and the only person who could cover their tracks that well would be him, or one of his minions."

He paused briefly, before he suggested, "why don't we hear what the Angel has to say?"

Tamsin rolled her eyes. "Well, I was captured and…whatever. I think the Dark Lord is looking for something."

"The Book of the Dead?" Vug muttered as he stared at her.

"No, moron. You just said it yourself. He wasn't really looking for that. It was nothing but bait," Bilith threw him a punch on top of his head.

"He's looking for a device," Tamsin explained.

"What kind of Device?" Bo asked, a bit surprised at the answer.

"I have no fucking idea. I was barely conscious. It sounded really important to him, though."

She tried to recall the things she had heard while being interrogated, but she could only remember bits and pieces. "I think…he was convinced that at or around the time of the war between Heaven and Hell, a raven carried a device to…the fuck knows where, and somehow it gave that device to my family, or to me."

"Do you have it?"

"No! I mean, I don't even know what that device is! All I could remember was war, a raven, some sort of device."

"War…raven…device…." Bo murmured. "What could a raven possibly carry?"

Strangely, she had a feeling that she should know that answer. She should know how those things were connected, the war, the raven and the device.

They reminded her of something she had seen, a glimpse, a vision, something that could either be a distant memory or a hallucination.

She reached deep down into her memories, until she remembered something.

"When I was in the Dark Temple…" she explained in haste. "I mean, the ghost version, not the real one. When I was in there, I saw these…these paintings on the wall. They would move like scenes in a movie. Then…I had these visions, like…I was surrounded by flames. I think I heard someone talking and chanting. I heard something collapse. I smelled brimstone and….It was just chaotic."

"Sounds to me like you had a vision of the war," Bilith concluded, and earned a nod from Tamsin.

"Anyway," Bo continued, "in the flames, I saw a pale horse. Then…I saw a red salamander, a really small one. Then there was this…black raven…."

"Was it carrying a device?" Tamsin asked nervously.

"I…I don't know. I mean…I think it was holding something in its beak."

"What was it holding?" The other three asked simultaneously.

"I have no idea. It was so brief, and so vague. I only saw a flicker."

"A flicker? In the raven's beak? Like…something shiny?" Tamsin furrowed her eyebrows.

The image of a black raven holding something shiny in its beak emerged in her mind. It felt like a memory, something she had seen before. Something that she had seen many, many years ago. Or…was it just something she had seen in a dream while she had been unconscious?

"So…did he say why he was looking for it, or what it would do?" Bo asked.

Tamsin shook her head. "Whatever they mentioned, I don't remember much. It was…."

Bo sighed and held her hand. She gently squeezed it while giving Tamsin a comforting smile.

"I have a question for you, Angel," Bilith jumped to the other side of the coffee table so he could be closer to Tamsin. "About that voicemail you left Bo."

"What about it?"

"You asked if that human Kenzi's soul was in the King's dungeon, remember?"

"Yeah?"

"Why would you think that her soul might be there?"

"Well…I asked one of my former colleagues to pull her soul out of Hell, but she said that she couldn't locate her."

She paused briefly as she combed her hair with her fingers, while trying to hide her subtle embarrassment.

Bo licked her lips as she turned to Tamsin. She thought she'd ask Tamsin why she would do that, asking some Angel to pull Kenzi's soul out of Hell. Then, she thought, there was no point asking that question, for she already knew the answer.

"Well, that made me think," Tamsin continued, "why couldn't an Angel like her locate a human soul in Hell, hmmm?"

"So, the soul has to be in a location that is unreachable by her," Bilith murmured.

"Right," Tamsin nodded. "Only two places down below would qualify: the uncharted and the dungeon. A human soul like Kenzi's won't be able to travel to the uncharted, so the only option would be the Dark Lord's dungeon."

"Bilith and I…we checked all the cells in the dungeon, but Kenzi wasn't there."

"That's odd," Tamsin frowned hard. "If she's not there, why couldn't she be located?"

"Are you sure that colleague of yours is doing it right?" Bilith narrowed his eyes at Tamsin.

Tamsin rolled her eyes hard. She didn't even bother to answer Bilith's question. "How is it possible that she's in the reachable region in Hell but an Angel couldn't pull her out?"

As she pondered that question, she suddenly realized something. "Unless…she's looking in the wrong place."

"Well that soul is not in the dungeon. We checked," Bilith told her. "There was absolutely no human soul down there."

"No, I meant…what if she's not in Hell?" Tamsin suggested. Then she turned to Bo and asked, "I know that you have met her soul in Hell, and you definitely didn't meet her in the dungeon, right?"

"Mhm," Bo nodded.

"Are you sure that it was her? I seem to remember you saying that it didn't feel like her at all."

"I…I don't…" Bo stuttered. She had met with that soul multiple times, and it never felt like Kenzi to her. But, could it really be someone else instead of Kenzi? If that was true, where was Kenzi's soul, then?

"Why are you so sure that her soul is in Hell?" Tamsin asked.

"Oh c'mon, she was a painfully average human," Bilith explained on behalf of Bo. "She must have had desires just like the others. She wasn't under the age of 7 when she died. She must have sinned somehow, therefore Hell."

"That is not always true," Tamsin argued. "If that were true, Hell would be way overpopulated and Heaven would be filled with snot-nosed rugrats who couldn't even tie their shoelaces."

"Actually," Bo replied. "It was my father who told me that Kenzi was in Hell."

She paused briefly, before she elaborated, "it was…almost a year after Kenzi's death. My father appeared on my doorstep. He explained to me that I was his daughter and tried to persuade me to return to Hell with him. He gave me all those big talks, like how hard he had looked for me and how he wanted us to be reunited like a family again. At first, I refused. I mean, I didn't even know him, and I certainly didn't want to have anything to do with Hell, but then…."

"But then he told you that if you would return to Hell with him, he'd free Kenzi's soul from Hell," Tamsin guessed.

Bo nodded. "He said, being the King of Hell was really overwhelming and he needed help. If I agree to do a few things for him, he'd help me find Kenzi's soul and revive her."

She fisted her hands on her knees. "Has he been lying to me all this time? If she's not in Hell, where could she be? Could she still be alive?"

Her heart fluttered at that thought, though she knew it wouldn't be real, since it was her who identified the body and buried Kenzi.

"Oh, I know, I know," Vug jumped up and down in excitement. "A human's soul can only be in two places, Heaven and Hell. If her soul is not in Hell, it must be Heaven."

Bo gaped at Vug. Then she turned to Tamsin. She wanted to ask the Angel if what Vug had said was true, but the look in Tamsin's eyes had answered her question already.

"It shouldn't be too hard to see if she's really in Heaven, should it?" Bilith murmured as he glanced at Tamsin, and Tamsin shrugged.

"If…if her soul is really in Heaven," Bo said slowly as she clenched her fists, "it would mean that nothing my father had said to me was true, nothing. He lied to me about the Book of the Dead and made me think it was really important. He neglected to inform me how dangerous the River of Guilt would be and possibly lured me to the river…."

She laid her eyes on the hellhound who was happily licking his empty food bowl. "When I noticed that Vug was gone, he made me believe that Vug was in some sort of dog training class."

Then, she turned to Tamsin, her eyes brimming with tears. Those were tears of guilt and rage. "He sure as hell did not say a word to me about you being captured and tortured. He has never mentioned the device to me either."

After a long pause, she took a deep breath. "Why would he lie to me like this? Why would he even want me to be close to him? I barely knew anything about Heaven or Hell. I made it very clear that I wouldn't stay in Hell for long. What does he want from me?"

"You must have something that he wants but doesn't have," Tamsin concluded.

"It must be important too, at least to him. It must be so important that…he can't just ask you for it," Bilith added.

"Like what? The device? Or maybe information about the resistance force or something? I don't know anything about either of them. He has never mentioned the device to me. He has not told me about the resistance force until very recently."

Bo frowned at Bilith and Vug. "What's the deal with you guys anyway? Are you just trying to dethrone him or something?"

Vug and Bilith exchanged a look, before they both nodded. "Yes."

"Because he's…too cruel?"

"No," Vug answered, "because he's illegitimate."

"Illegitimate?"

"Only half Demons should be crowned," Bilith explained. "Your father is not a half Demon."

"How did he become the King then?"

"At that time, there was no heir left," Bilith explained. "The Queen had died. The City of Damned was under siege. The only heir, you, was nowhere to be found. Everyone was scrambling and hopeless, until your father, who was heavily injured at that time, made a very convincing argument that he was the only person who was qualified enough to lead. There had been a few others who thought they'd have a shot, but in the end he was the one who got crowned. It was expedient at that time, but it wasn't….We never gave up looking for you, Bo."

"Yeah…" Vug agreed. He had found an open bag of chips and chewed them loudly.

Bilith shot him a cold glare, before he hopped on his head and started to slap his nose.

"Chew. With. Your. Mouth. Closed!" The little panther yelled, and the hound shook his head trying to get him off. Soon their scuffle took its course all the way into the kitchen, with growls, hisses and punches.

Bo put her hand on her forehead and sighed.

"There's something I need to tell you," Tamsin told her in a low voice as she squeezed Bo's hand.

"Okay?" Bo raised her eyebrows.

"Not here," Tamsin rolled her eyes at the noises those two animals were making. "Let's just…go upstairs, shall we?"

As the two of them entered Bo's bedroom upstairs, Bo closed the door behind her.

"What is it that you want to tell me?" Bo asked as she sat down by the bed.

Tamsin paced nervously for a while, before she sat down beside Bo. "I…ummm…I need to tell you something about Kenzi. About her…death."

Bo frowned slightly. "Okay?"

"Shortly after I ascended, I started to collect souls just like other Angels," Tamsin began. "One time, I went to collect the soul of a drowning woman…at Silver Froth Lake."

"Silver Froth Lake, the soul of a drowning woman…you mean, Kenzi?!" Bo exclaimed in shock.

"No, not her," Tamsin explained. "This was long before her death, like…many decades before her death."

"Oh, okay. What does this have to do with her death, then?"

Tamsin sighed. She could barely look Bo in her eyes. "I was supposed to collect that soul, but my superior told me not to. Instead of bringing it to Heaven, I was told to leave the soul where it was."

"Why?" Bo frowned hard.

Tamsin huffed out a light laugh. "At the time, I was confused too, but I didn't question him. Being an Angel was all about discipline and following orders. So, I did what I was told. I left the soul at the lake….For years, the soul just…rot there. Unable to go to the afterlife, it became malicious. It eventually turned into a Kelpie who haunted the lake. It took many lives."

"The Kelpie who took Kenzi's life…it was that soul? It was that soul that you left there?"

Tamsin closed her eyes and gave her a nod. "Yes," she admitted. "For decades, I was told to collect the souls of the victims, until I couldn't take it anymore. I refused to do it, and then I-"

"And then, you fell."

Tamsin nodded. "Before I left Heaven, I told the higher management everything. They had promised that…this wouldn't happen again. I thought they meant that they'd cleanse that Kelpie, but I guess they did not. It still lived in that lake, until you killed it."

After a long, nervous pause, she whispered, "I'm sorry, Bo. I really am."

Bo let out a heavy sigh. She put her arms around Tamsin and pulled her close. "I forgive you," she whispered back.

And Tamsin knew, the forgiveness was for more than what she had just confessed. She hugged Bo back as she closed her eyes.