Balance
Shebariel Mekonnen isn’t just any archangel. She’s a rogue, swooping down on souls designated for Heaven and sending them directly to Hell. Her rationale is that Hell is unfiltered muck, and a few good souls in residence may help to cap the evil that spilling over onto Earth. But when she takes a soul bound for the seraphim group, both committees of Heaven and Hell decide they’ll need someone to bring her back in line.
Kaladriel is a demon who comes with his own demons. He’s keen to help humans extend their lives wherever possible and turn their wicked ways around. But some mysterious entity is sabotaging all his efforts. They’re stealing souls from right under his nose and leaving trauma and despair in their wake. When his friend Lila is sent to Hell, he becomes one of the millions of other demons seeking to find and eradicate the rogue.
Shebariel isn’t what he expected. Beautiful, impulsive, and outspoken, she tramples over people’s desires, steals property, and does it all without conscience. Their partnership is definitely not a match made in heaven. When Hell overspills releasing fervent activists seeking converts, it threatens to bring catastrophe to all three realms.
Can the pair find a common ground to save Heaven, Hell, and Earth? Or will their rising passion and conflicting desires bring everything to a fiery end?
Excerpt
1: Tamarshirin Khan
Sixteen Hells
Tamarshirin Khan’s first sexual encounter in hell had been no fun at all. Minutes after he arrived, the ice had spotted him wandering, dazed and naked. Without any negotiation of a fee, she had raced up, mounted him and taken her full pleasure of him where he stood.
Afterwards, her payment wasn’t a golden hairpin any Yangzhou courtesan would have coveted. Instead, she’d gifted him with a blanket made from his own pus that prickled madly. Looking down, he’d immediately seen why. He was blue. He looked like an utpala water lily from the gardens of a Jin emperor.
Drawing on the spirit of his yellow horse with the red-striped fetters, he drew a breath. Despite the cold, the smell in the air was like that from still-glowing embers in a fireplace. Above him, stone-faced peaks delivered their message. You are in the range of the Diamond Mountains, on a journey to The Hell of Sixteen Torments. This is where you will be frozen, boiled, stuffed, roasted, cracked open, disembowelled, and decapitated.
The moment this announcement ended, his skin began to blister, spearing his veins and shooting arrows into his nerve endings to form pustules. At first, these moved slowly, but swiftly increased in speed. They began erupting all over his body, tiny explosions of yet more pus vomiting out the punishment of a thousand gods.
In these sub-temperatures, he dared not open his mouth. In any case, no one else cared if you were screaming, since they were similarly occupied. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the ululating cries of others who were journeying through their own hell. Every now and then, their screams ended in a shriek that made a fine accompaniment to impalement and decapitation.
Keeping his lips firmly locked, Tamarshirin Khan let loose an internal wail. But that gesture in itself was rebellion, and as he could attest, resisting further pain and torture only brought further pain and torture.
A moment later, his stomach began to gurgle, before undulating madly, as if something inside were desperate to escape. He watched in terror as the skin over his navel bulged, then split. What emerged was white, lumpy, and multi-limbed. It twisted this way and that, like the looping tentacles of a giant octopus.
He recognised it. It was his intestines, looking like a Death Worm. Sensing the cold, they recoiled immediately, and attempted to return to their original haven. Unfortunately, all efforts were in vain. Realising a different door was needed, they began to seek out his other orifices.
Unable to hold back any longer, Tamarshirin Khan opened his mouth to scream, upon which his tongue withdrew in shock, then froze and shattered. Meanwhile, his intestines, which seemed slightly more impervious, continued to flail helplessly around his ears, eyes, mouth, and nostrils. Coiling around his neck, they slithered at speed down his back.
Through it all, the mountains looked down in indifference. Mercifully, a moment later the environment became warmer. Much warmer. The soles of his feet began to burn. One glimpse at the ground was all he needed. He knew this place. Everyone in his village spoke of it in hushed tones.
This was Sañjīva, where the ground was made of iron and heated from underneath by an immense fire. Stumbling forward, he remained bowed by the weight of his intestines. In looping disarray, now their terror came from the heat. As if that were not enough, in this place your own fear brought to life men made of bone and ash, with hollow red eyes, and iron clubs.
All too soon, they came running over the distance.
“Vile whoreson, you will be punished for every drop of blood your father has spilled.”
“Which means you will be here for eternity.”