Coldness. That’s what I felt. Like knives stabbing into every part of me, inside and out.

  And that was the key thing. I felt.

  I couldn’t say how long it’d been since I’d died. One moment, I was crumbling apart on the grass before the monument; the next, I was here. But where was here?

  Someplace familiar. Somewhere I’d been before or somewhere like it. When I’d delved through the hellmouth to rescue Rosa outside Crescent City. Only, there was no portal out this time.

  The tundra was vast, surrounded by an inky black void. No way out. No shelter from the biting chill in the air or the ice slashing my cheeks.

  Hell.

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  I looked side to side. Scattered across the ice were dozens of other men and women, all haggard and pale. Other damned souls, cursed to march across this lifeless plane for all eternity.

  One of them looked to me with those eyes I’d recognize anywhere. Only they weren’t cobalt blue. No, they were dull and gray, and they went wide with recognition. Then, his face scrunched with rage.

  “You…” he seethed.

  I grinned. “Me.”

  I thought he might charge me, but before I knew it, I was alone again in a plane of absolute darkness. I couldn’t see anything, not even my hands.

  “You have no idea the pain I will inflict upon you, James Crowley,” Chekoketh’s guttural voice emanated from the stygian dark.

  “What are you, Lucifer’s whipping man now?” I sneered. “Sounds like a demotion. Guess he found out about yours and Shar’s little plot too, eh?”

  No answer.

  “Well, I’ll be,” I said. “Justice is righteous, even in Hell.”

  “You will know nothing else,” Chekoketh said. “For all of eternity, you shall suffer.”

  “Do your worst. But trust me, I’m gonna enjoy every minute of it. I may be stuck here for an eternity with you, but you’re stuck here with me too.”