Free Renegade by Cambria Hebert

neighbor would do and just ring the doorbell.
     
    I crossed the wide drawbridge, noting that the moat was stocked with demons, and then approached the front door. Shame there was no doorbell. I raised my hand to knock and the door swung open, revealing a demon in a suit and tie.
     
    “Who are you?” the demon asked, looking me over.
     
    “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”
     
    “Do you have business with Leviathan?”
     
    Figures. It was the backbreaker’s castle. “Actually, I do.” I lied, looking past him into the castle, which was completely lit up—with lights.
     
    I pushed past the demon and walked into the expansive foyer, noting the marble tiles on the floor, the huge black chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, and a staircase that had been carved out of granite and polished until I could see my reflection.
     
    This place made my castle look like a dump.
     
    “Wait here. I will tell the master you have arrived.” The demon took himself off into probably what was another fancy room.
     
    Of course, I didn’t listen to him. I wandered through a large room with a fireplace, a desk, and paused beside a large flat-screen TV. I shook my head sadly. All this time I could’ve been watching football.
     
    How had he pulled all this off? Electricity, nice furniture, television. Why didn’t Beelzebub have any of this?
     
    There was a door off the room I was in so I opened it and looked inside. I think my jaw hit the floor. It was a showroom. For Harleys.
     
    I rushed into the room, taking in every chrome and leather detail of fully restored Harley Davidson Motorcycles from just about every year. Man, they were sweet. I’d always wanted a motorcycle.
     
    Heavy footfalls from behind had me looking over my shoulder as Leviathan entered the room. “It is you,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What do you want?”
     
    “Nice place you got here,” I said.
     
    “You weren’t invited.”
     
    “Sure I was. Your little demon there”—I motioned to the one who let me in and hovered at door watching—“told me to make myself at home.”
     
    Leviathan’s eyes flared and he turned an accusing stare on the demon who shook his head profusely. “No, no, that’s—” He didn’t get a chance to finish because he was incinerated where he stood. I stared at the small pile of dust.
     
    “That was harsh,” I said.
     
    Leviathan swung back to me. “What do you want?”
     
    “Well, really, I stumbled upon this place by accident, but now that I’m here, you can explain something to me.”
     
    He arched an eyebrow.
     
    “How in the hell do you have electricity and TV?”
     
    He smiled. “Are you envious?” That idea seemed to please him. Then I remembered another little fact about the seven Princes. They each encompassed one of the seven deadly sins. Leviathan’s must be envy.
     
    “Just because those things aren’t important to Beelzebub doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t enjoy such luxuries.”
     
    “But how?”
     
    “You just saw me incinerate my servant with the flick of my hand and you ask me how?”
     
    “So you have all this through your power?”
     
    He nodded.
     
    I knew Beelzebub was collecting power. Leviathan said as much when he stormed my castle. He’d been greedy in collecting it. He must be saving it because his land was derelict and primitive. So what exactly was he planning to do with it all?
     
    It all came back to the stolen souls and the power they generated.
     
    “Where are the stolen souls?” I asked, gauging the Prince’s reaction.
     
    His face snapped up to mine. “What do you know about the souls?” His voice was deadly quiet.
     
    “I know they’re here, somewhere in hell, chained to the floor.”
     
    His eyes narrowed and suspicion vibrated off him in waves. “Is that why you’re here? Do you seek the power of the souls for yourself?”
     
    I would go with that. Better than him knowing I wanted to help set them free.
     
    Then he turned