Devil in Her Heart (Hell's Heroes Book One)

Chapter One

Trigger/Content warnings: mild transphobic, homophobic, and sexist comments from villainous characters. Brief instances of sexual harassment, war/gun violence, and brief references to a sexual assault and murder. One brief scene of intense sibling on sibling child abuse. Scars, blood, flashbacks, and a near drowning.

Chapter One

The Pearly Gates

                                                                        Hesper

Life did not prepare Hesper Bray for the sight of a golden-winged angel storming the Pearly Gates while an army of terrified children clung to the skirts of their ballroom gown. She previously thought herself prepared for anything. No music played to announce their entrance though Hesper heard harps strumming from some place in the distance. Muzak, like on an elevator or in a doctor's waiting room. The exquisite, child-rescuing being seemed to come straight out of Hesper's dreams.

The surrealness of this scene drew Hes out of the fog she'd been in for the last few days. Three days or four, I can't tell? She struggled to measure the exact passage of time. One detail she knew for certain, though. Hesper Bray was dead and in the afterlife: a world made almost entirely out of sky and clouds, Heaven. Or at least the place you went where someone—a slightly uncomfortable looking angel in a cheap, grey suit—decided what would happen to you next. A few pesky thoughts kept tickling away at the back of her mind.

How can I be dead? What happened? Whenever Hesper tried to access the last of her living memories, her mind went all fuzzy. Almost like in a dream. When she first arrived, she could not see either end of the line. By the time Wings arrived, she found herself with only two other souls ahead of her. The one thing she found most curious: the sheer volume of souls standing in line with her. Some wore modern clothing, but she could see the occasional soul in a Zoot Suit or chainmail and armor set. Wait, how did I die? Her mind skipped over the question when she last tried to remember.

Maybe it was her brain's way of protecting itself from something too painful to think about. Maybe she'd been distracted by the scene playing in front of her. Across the way, Wings screamed at Desk Angel. All the little kids stood behind the angel watching with wide-eyed admiration. She tried to focus on whatever memories she could access.

She went to a party with Stella... For some reason, the other woman's name brought a sharp pain where Hesper's stomach used to sit. As if someone kicked her, hard. Thinking about Stella triggered a hurricane of sense memories.

She recalled the smell of citrus shampoo and someone with onion breath talking way too close to her face. Her arms and the back of her head rubbing against gritty asphalt. Someone laughed. Someone else sobbed. An ambulance wailed in the distance. She could taste ice cream on her tongue, sweet and vanilla-y. Her mouth identified another flavor, this one tinged with a coppery bite almost strong enough to make her vomit. She turned her attention back to Wings and Desk Angel.

The wingless angel—who wore a legit halo—produced a flaming sword, which he clutched between two sweaty palms. Heaven, or at least Heaven's waiting room smelled sterile with the slightest hint of nutmeg on the breeze. This angel looked like he'd been waiting for an excuse to kill the beautiful one, though Hesper wondered if he actually had it in him to hurt them. She felt a return of the sinking sensation in her...not belly.

Heaven looked nothing like what she expected from the afterlife. Her own soul did not react the way she thought it might either. She didn't have a physical body, per se. Mostly, when she touched parts of herself, her hands went straight through whatever patches of herself she touched. The image of her body remained. She could see herself, though she looked and felt simply less than solid. She didn't look see through like a ghost. Nor did she appear real or alive. When she concentrated and in the rare instances she could relax, her form became more corporeal.