Of All The Demons In Hell

By Miranda Bailey

Far too young when I breathed my last breath, I found myself in the most unexpected of places: Hell. I had always imagined myself ascending to the promised land, a realm of fluffy clouds, celestial melodies, and heavenly angels when my time came. But fate had a cruel twist in store for me. Instead of the ethereal paradise I'd envisioned, I found myself surrounded by demonic bunnies and a devilish figure with a heart as cold as ice.

Thamuz, the demon assigned to me, informed me of my impending torment at his hands. It was a cruel fate, a never-ending cycle of anguish orchestrated by these infernal demons to make us humans pay for our sins. But I committed no sins, I was too ill to commit any, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. I'm in Hell and Hell is where I'll stay.

But as my torment begins, I see something in his eyes. Something soft that he tries to hide from everyone, especially Lucifer. And as that softness turns to something more, turns to something neither of us quite expected, Lucifer decides to make a change. I shall have another tormentor and this one has no softness in his soul at all.

Can Thamuz find a way to stop what is coming? Can a demon truly experience love, even one as ancient and fallen as he? Or will I be a toy for eternity, tormented until my very soul shatters and everything that is good and pure in me is destroyed?

Of All the Demons In Hell is meant for adult audiences. 18+ only. Also, this is not dark romance. The book has been re-edited and updated. I hope you enjoy it. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miranda Bailey
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224741410

Miranda Bailey

Miranda Bailey is the author of the Bear Club and Brothers of the Dark Places series. She sometimes makes forays into horror, lesbian fiction, and other realms. You can never be quite sure what you'll get with Miranda, but you can trust it will be different and it will be exciting! 

Book preview

Chapter One

Amy

Beep...one...two.. .three...four.

Beep...one...two...three...four...five...six...

Wait for it.

Seven...eight...nine...Beep.

The erratic beep of the heart rate monitor filled the silence, chasing away the sound of my mother’s soft, repetitive sighs and the slight gasps for air that were all my lungs could manage. The silence changed, a rustle of my mother’s clothing alerted me to the fact that she was about to do something. Speak? Leave me in the hospital room alone?

I didn’t want her to leave but I also didn’t want her to be here for what came next. We both knew it was coming, even if the doctors and my mother smiled and pretended I’d get over this latest hurdle. We all knew that wasn’t true.

Mom? I gasped out, my hand jerking on the bed, reaching for her as I always did when I needed comfort.

I’m here, baby. I’m here. I heard her sweet voice reply while her warm hand embraced the slim, far too slim, hand I held out to her. I’m not going anywhere, honey.

Okay, I whispered, my hand going limp as I drifted to sleep once more.

It won’t hurt, Amy. It won’t hurt at all. You’ll just go to sleep and then all of the pain, the anxiety, it will all be gone my little love. My bravest love. Mom gasped around a throat thick with tears.

I wanted to clutch at her hand again, to reassure her I wasn’t going anywhere and that she needed to stop being so silly, but I couldn’t. I was too weak. My time was running out.

For a moment before I fell into sleep, I wished for a million more seconds that felt like minutes that seemed like hours, that felt like days. I was only 19, I hadn’t lived very much, and I wanted to know what it was like to breathe freely again, without thick mucus drowning me from within. I wanted to dance to music and laugh, but all that was impossible now. I’d never dance, I’d never breathe freely, and I’d never see another birthday.

I was born the year Facebook launched, so it’s been there my entire life, in one form or another. It was also the year after Evanescence gave the world ‘My Immortal’ and my mom, to put it mildly, was a fan. That’s why she named me Amy Leigh. She spelled it differently than the singer, just to be a little different.

But I wasn’t immortal, and the Facebook page I created would be the only place my mother would find me after today. I felt my soul sucking away, dragged into the unknown and tried to look back one last time. To reassure my mother that all was well.

Mom had always seemed so much older than me, and as I looked back at her now, I realized she wasn’t old at all. In fact, she looked much younger than her 36 years, a mother who no longer had a child.

And then, suddenly, the world I knew vanished. There was only...blackness.

Was this real death, I wondered, seeing without eyes, listening with ears that no longer existed. Was this what real death felt like, being disconnected from the physical world and existing only in spirit? Did we all become weightless beings in the airless, motionless darkness?

I drifted in this midnight place of nothing, aware but...not. I could not tell how much time passed, I didn’t know if the world carried on without me or if this was the nothing some people theorized we became. But I wasn’t nothing, I was something. A very confused something.

Until I felt my suddenly-real-again eyelids flutter open on a world of red and black. There was a rushing sound, like a flooded river raging through a valley that I could hear with ears that existed again. And my nose? It could sense the smell of ash, burning coal, and something slightly...acrid. What was this place?

I looked out onto a hellish landscape, full of projecting points of solidified white-hot magma that oozed like wet clay and poured, inexplicably, up into the air, glowing orange and white with heat. Rivers of molten rock flowed on the ground, searingly hot, and turned their channels into rivers of amber glass. Looking up, I saw a sky scorched by the smoke of a million volcanoes, full of red clouds that rose from the rock.

Ahhh, come back here you little monkey, I heard a screeching voice cry and turned to see something out of a nightmare approaching me, a small rhesus monkey running for its life. The creature was a giant, man-sized neon pink bunny with pointed sharp teeth, and clown makeup on. It held a giant ax over its head as it ran, swiping at the monkey every time it drew near the poor creature.

I gasped when the monkey launched itself into my arms, wrapping its arms around my shoulders as I instinctively embraced it. I closed my eyes as the rabid looking rabbit came near, turning away so I wouldn’t see death coming.

No fair, give it back! The rabbit screeched at me, bouncing in place like some kind of nightmare creature on speed. Or well, like what it was. Because this had to be a nightmare right? Put it down, put it down.

The rabbit continued to hop in place, its long ears flopping with each bounce. I looked back at it and glared. What’s the meaning of scaring this poor baby?

Poor baby? The rabbit sputtered, hissing as the monkey turned its head. That poor baby ate my children.

I looked down at the monkey in horror and wasn’t at all surprised to see the guilty look it gave me before it sprang away from me. What was this place, I wondered as the monkey bounced away, the rabbit on its trail. Was I having a nightmare? Was that what this was?

I couldn’t figure out what was happening, so I did the only thing I could think to do, I kept walking. The loping gait turned into a full-tilt run when what seemed like hundreds of clowns came rushing out from behind each projecting stalagmite of lava I passed. I ran and ran for what felt like hours before I finally came to something that looked like a town.

Rocky houses and buildings cropped up from glass streets, with humans and other creatures walking by like it was any normal city, and not some hellish landscape my stressed out brain dreamed up for me.

It’s not a dream, sweetheart, it’s Hell, a woman with a broken neck said as I walked by, her head hanging between her shoulders.

Pardon, I stopped to ask, trying not to stare at her but how could I not? Her head hung down her back, instead of sitting where it was supposed to.

You’ve got that look of a recent arrival. You still believe it, right? That you’re dreaming? She sighed heavily and lifted her hands in the air as if to say ‘what can I do’? You’ll get used to it.

Okay, I said uncertainly, moving on from her because I felt terrible for not being sure where I was supposed to look.

Keep going that way, that’s where the new arrivals are supposed to go first, she said, pointing off in the distance.

Oh, thanks, I mumbled, my eyes on the line of people that stretched on for miles. I still thought that this was some kind of nightmare, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wake up.

I found my feet marching towards the line, as if they’d made up their own mind where to take me. I wanted to stop, to go back to where I’d started, but my feet wouldn’t stop. It was like I was on a conveyor belt that I couldn’t get off of, even though I wanted to. My feet stopped moving as I drew near to the last person in line.

It was another woman, this one with a gunshot wound in the back of her head. I couldn’t stop staring because the hole in her head allowed me to see the back of the person in front of her. I wanted to scream, tried to, but nothing happened. I must have made some choking noise because she turned to stare at me, her eyes blinking slowly.

Don’t worry, the hole will go away after a few hundred years I’m told. She assured me with a wonky smile. I wish this line would hurry up though.

How long have you been standing here? I asked vaguely, my head in whirl as I tried not to stare at the hole in the middle of her forehead.

Oh, I think it’s been about 10 years, but I’m not sure. Time is weird down here.

Right, I said, my eyes wide as I moved my eyes away from her and down the line. It did stretch on for miles. We have to stand here?

I guess, it’s what I was told to do. The woman shrugged and turned back around, her feet shuffling as the line moved forward. Finally, some movement.

I frowned and turned away. There were no signs saying we had to stand here, and even if the woman back at the city told me I had to stand here, that didn’t mean I had to, did it? I walked away, my feet moving freely once again, not interested in standing in a line that probably went to nowhere.

Clarity was finally coming back as it sank in that I was, indeed, in Hell. I was obviously in the wrong place. There had to be someone in charge here, someone that could fix this mistake. How could I be in Hell when I’d barely lived?

I’d never been on a date, gone to prom, or had a steady boyfriend because I’d been too ill to get out of bed, much less anything else. I’d never broken a law or done anything I would consider a sin. But there I was standing in an unfamiliar place with a seemingly endless nightmare landscape surrounding me. The air had an oppressive heaviness and smelled of despair. I was in the bad place, but I had no idea why.

Damn, I was dangerously close to asking to see a manager, and yeah, it finally sank in then. This is really Hell.

My vision swam with tears as I blindly stumbled down an alleyway, and I yelped as I slammed into a wall of rock solid muscle. I stumbled back, swiping at my eyes, only to find my gaze captured by a face so breathtakingly beautiful it could have been that of an angel. Or a demon. Considering his skin shimmered a deep dark onyx, I had to guess he was a demon. His expression was unreadable, but he seemed to be frowning down at me with a mix of curiosity and disdain.

What are you doing here, newbie? He growled, though I suspect that was his regular voice and not that he was annoyed with me.

Pardon? I asked, stumbling over the word before it came out clearly.

You don’t look like you’ve been here long enough to be wandering around. Go back to the newbie’s terminal, where you belong. You’ll be assigned a demon torturer and can go on your way. Eventually. His words came out with bland disinterest, though his deep red eyes studied me with interest.

Eventually, I repeated blankly, staring up at him. His skin constantly changed from black to a midnight blue, fascinating me. He was a stunning looking man, but the way his skin changed colors held my attention. Just as he moved to leave me, my brain kicked into gear again.

Wait! I don’t belong here. I’m in the wrong place. Who do I talk to about getting out of here? I called out and watched as his face went from unreadable to highly amused. He even broke out in a deep laugh that I felt in my gut.

Leave? Oh, you humans and your notions about where you belong do amuse me, he said with an imperious tone that made my back straighten up and my left eyebrow arch right up my forehead. Who did he think he was? You all say that, honey. Now, be a good girl and go get back in line. You aren’t allowed to skip it, even if you stand there for years. That’s part of the whole experience, I guess you’d call it.

He came up to me then, patted me on the bottom, and then gave me a little shove in the direction of the line. I gasped in shock at the intimate touch, glared at him but felt my feet captured by that invisible conveyor belt again. No, wait, stop! I really am in the wrong place.

His skin turned a dark blue as he laughed again, doubling over even as my feet carried me away. What a complete jerk! Alright, so he was a handsome jerk, he was still a jerk. I hate him, I decide as my feet stop behind the woman with the hole in her head once more.

I hate him and he’s ugly, even if he was one of the most attractive creatures I’d ever seen in my life. I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed out a breath. What would my mother think if she knew where I was?

That made me sad, so sad a sob broke out of my chest.

Oh, honey, don’t do that, the woman in front of me said, turning back to me to put a cold hand on my arm. You’ll attract the hungry lower demons that feed on tears. You’ll cry for years when they latch onto you, before you dry up, and nobody wants to spend years crying. Or dried up. It’s already bad enough all this heat dries our skin out.

I tried to get my emotions under control, worried that I’d become some kind of food to another unnameable being that would make me cry for years. I nodded at her, noting that she was kind of pretty with dark blond hair and kind brown eyes. I wanted to ask her why she was down here, if she’d been murdered, but then thought better of it. One, it wasn’t any of my business, and two, maybe that gunshot wasn’t murder. Maybe she’d done it to herself.

I didn’t think that deserved eternity in Hell, but who was I to say what was a sin and what wasn’t? I hadn’t done anything wrong in my life, and I was still down here, wasn’t I?

I smiled at her and took a deep breath. Hi, I’m Amy Leigh, what’s your name?

Ella. Nice to meet you. She replied, holding out her hand. It was 1944 when I left the world above, what year was it for you?

I stared at her, stunned into silence. She’d been down here in line all this time? Oh no.

Chapter Two

Thamuz

Istood in the dimly lit chamber, my gaze fixed on the flickering shadows that danced across the cold stone walls. A shiver coursed through me, a feeling I hadn’t experienced since my transformation from god to demon so long ago. My name is Thamuz, and it is my duty to torment humans