We finally exited the narrow, dark passageways into the wide open expanse that shimmered with the heat that roiled just below the surface of the rocks. The Pits might have been the place, but it was definitely not the moment to act. For starters we were still missing one very key component for the Requiem ritual; Jesse.

Jesse was a prisoner in the Shadow Cells, and I was certain that getting him out of there wasn't going to be simple. But, of course, I should have known that Frank already had a plan.

The Pits were still bustling with life, even though the executions were over. There was always something happening down there. It not only the place that human bodies came to die under Lucifer's watch, it was also the place that human souls were imprisoned and punished for their sins. There was never a quiet moment, that was too much to hope for. As indeed was hoping to stroll through the very hub of Hell's activity without someone noticing that we were there.

I mentioned as much to Frank and it was only then that he revealed his grand plan for getting us into the Cells to find Jesse.

“Well, it's simple really, love,” he said with a broad grin that showed off those serrated grey teeth. He reached out a hand and took a firm grip on my upper arm, drawing me up to his side and keeping hold so that I could not move away. “It's common knowledge that Lucifer confined you to your quarters, and that you escaped. So now he's having you thrown in the Shadow Cells, far more secure. Simple, isn't it?”

“Yeah.” I smiled nervously, holding back a wince as he squeezed my arm too tight. “Really simple, don't know why I didn't think of it myself.”

My tone was far more sarcastic than I had intended, but I was afraid again and trying hard to hide it. I would never not be intimidated by Frank, no matter how much he might appear to be working in my favour, but it was his eagerness and gleeful demeanour that set me more on edge. He could try a little harder to not appear so excited about all of this, I was already having a hard time keeping myself together when all I really wanted to do was break down.

Keeping his grip tight about my arm, Frank set off again at a frog march. His long legs ate up so much ground with every step that even at a run I struggled to keep in step with him. I had a feeling that if I happened to stumble or fall he would not even notice and continue to drag me along behind him like a bag of bones.

“Ow, hey. Frank. Dammit, slow the fuck down! You're going to rip my arm off. I can walk on my own y'know.” I complained, but he didn't reply.

Instead he paused for a second, reached down and scooped me up in one swift movement and threw me over his shoulder. I let out a shriek at the sudden movement and tried to wriggle out of his grip. I might be heading for my own death, but I was damned if I was going to get there in such an undignified manner.

“No time to dawdle, love. But do keep on struggling, put on a show, the gaoler will be more likely to believe the story.” He cackled as he took up his previous pace once again.

“Ugh, you're an arse, you know that.” I aimed a kick at his bony abdomen and felt a flash of satisfaction when he let out a grunt as my boot connected with his ribs.

He shifted his arm and threw my weight further over his shoulder so that my legs were pinned under his gripping arm, meaning I couldn't kick at him again. At least I got to do it once.

The motion of Frank walking whilst I hung almost upside down made me feel sick, as if I wasn't already feeling queasy enough at the thought of what was coming. It would be just my kind of luck to die in a pool of my own vomit. I would never be in for a classy demise, would I?

Lucas was, once again, puffing to keep up with us and, craning my neck into a highly uncomfortable position, I managed to meet his eyes. His expression made me nervous, well, more nervous, and I couldn't have that. Jesse would not be in a good state when we found him after a day or two stuck in that darkness, Frank could not be the only confident one in our little party. That was just much too dangerous territory to venture in to.

I shook my head at him. I'd have said something rousing – well, perhaps not rousing, more anxiously snippy – to encourage him not to bow down to just anything that Frank wanted. This plan did have, the more that I thought it over, the potential to work, but one of the trio could not be seen to have more power than the other two. Frank could not just make himself the leader, as much as he wanted to. If anything, I was then even more determined than ever to come back and kick all of their arses into line. I had come to the conclusion that if anyone was going to be in control, then it was going to be me. Fuck knows I'd been through enough shit to get there.

This new surge of determination helped me make it into the darkness of the Shadow Cells. Frank exchanged a few short, passing words with the gaoler who stood guard at the door. I did put on a bit of a show for the sake of it, struggling in Frank's grip just to show that I was not going willingly into that prison, but I'm pretty sure that the Gaoler barely even noticed I was there. In the end he placed one large hand over the metal locking mechanism, screwed up his eyes in what looked like painful concentration, and waved us through as the door swung open.

We stepped into the dark tunnel and the door immediately closed the moment we were all across the threshold. On one side of the tunnel a rack held a row of flickering torches. Five in all stood burning, cutting a small light through the thick darkness but even all grouped together the light barely penetrated a metre ahead of us, it was as if the darkness down there was so thick and absolute tat the fire struggled the burn a hole through it. They might help us find our way to Jesse, but even being in possession of a light didn't make the labyrinth of dark tunnels and chambers feel any less terrifying.

Frank and I both plucked a torch from the wall, the last thing I wanted was to be chasing the Whisperer through pitch black tunnels while he held onto the only source of light. Besides, I also wanted to take my last chance to hang back a few steps and speak with Lucas about my concerns, about what I expected from him. How he had to stand up to Frank and, most importantly, not let himself get killed before I came back – if I came back. There would not be another opportunity to say anything out of earshot of Frank. Once we found Jesse I was sure he'd be eager to get the ritual under way as quickly as possible.

With a flourish Frank waved his torch in front of him, the light flickering off of his angular face, making his tar like skin glimmer and shine, while his eyes were pitched into shadow. “Now comes the fun part,” he said, simply to the pair of us, then he made off down the tunnel, stooping low so as not to hit his head.

I watched the light from his torch start to shrink for a moment before I motioned to Lucas and we began to follow. While I did not want to walk with him, I did not dare lose sight of his torch. The thought of wandering aimlessly in those dark tunnels with no way of knowing where we were heading nor where we had been filled me with dread. Lucas fell into step right beside me, keeping close so that we did not lose each other, why he had not picked up a torch of his own I would never know, I had other more pressing matters to discuss with him.

“You need to get a grip,” I hissed through gritted teeth as I carefully followed the halo of light that surrounded the Whisperer into the darkness.

“What?”

“You need to get a grip,” I repeated, “take some control. You can't just let Frank dictate everything that is going to happen. I know we're both in the dark about what's going to happen, quite literally at the moment, and he seems to know everything, but he can't have all the power. You think Malick would be bad? Well, he's not going to be much different.” I made sure to keep my voice low, though in the narrow, dark space it still seemed to travel and echo so much I was sure Frank with his sharp ears would hear us. Would he care?

“Then why are you still here, why are you going through with this?”

I shook my head, not sure he could even see the gesture. “You should know it's not like I have much choice. One way or another one of them will get to me. Either than or Lucifer will have me hidden away down here for the rest of my life. I've got to hope, Lucas, I've got to hope that this works out and that I can actually do something worthwhile for once.

“It turns out my whole life is some screwed up experiment. I've had little to no choice in anything that has happened to me. So if this does work out, if I do come back as the Revelator, whatever that is supposed to be, then I'm going to do things my way for once. And for that to happen you need to get it together and make sure that this Triangle is still a triangle and not just a single point by the time I come back. Okay.”

I just about managed to make out his nod in the light of the fire, though his shadowed face didn't look any less nervous. “Alright, I'll do my best. I guess I need to make things up to you, so I will do what I can. And when you come back, I will be on your side, I promise.”

His last words and their sincerity surprised me, even brought a lump to my throat; maybe I wasn't entirely alone in this. We weren't used to all of this, needing to work together, have each others backs, we could get along but it was always every demon for himself. Perhaps we weren't all too messed up to change. If I had my way, big changes would be on the horizon, I'd had enough, and I needed support on my side, Frank on his own just didn't count.

I took a deep breath to compose myself, I knew I'd need a brave face for what was coming. These emotions needed to be swallowed. It was time for the demon part of me to have her say, to take her control, for the human in me, it seemed, was about to die. I wasn't sure how this would affect the way I felt, would I feel I'd lost a part of myself, or would I finally feel some synergy between the two halves of myself? I hoped greatly for the latter.

Reaching out a hand I grabbed a hold of Lucas, with a shaky smile on my lips I muttered a word of thanks and dragged him along more quickly as we struggled to catch up with Frank's slowly shrinking torch light.

The next, most pressing question, how in the hell did we find Jesse in this maze of darkness?

Frank, at least, seemed to have some idea of where he was going. But of course, he had been the one who'd brought Jesse to Hell in the first place, it made sense that he would know exactly where the human was being held.

We followed the original tunnel as far as it went, ignoring several dark archways on either side of the wall which branched off into other tunnels and void-like chambers. Eventually the passage ended in a solid wall, and Frank turned right, so we followed, unquestioningly.

Since entering the darkness he had not so much as glanced back at the two of us, and I was a little afraid he was going to disappear on us. There was nowhere more perfect for him to take on his shadow form and creep up on all of us by surprise.

The thought really wasn't helping my nerves in any way. Wandering through pitch blackness, just the flickering of the flaming torch to guide us, and imagining that the moment we finally find Jesse, Frank will materialise out of the dark and slaughter us all. I could picture him, head thrown back as he cackled, teeth bared, hands dripping in blood as he revelled in his violence and blood lust. It was an unsettling picture and I couldn't help but jump every time one of us made a heavy footfall, or one of the prisoners moved inside their chambers.

I knew I was foolish for imagining such things, I could still see Frank's torch flickering up ahead, but of course that was exactly the function of the Shadow Cells. It isn't the darkness itself that instils such fear, but the not knowing what might lay within it, unseen and lurking perhaps mere inches away, just waiting to reach out and grab us. Thus was its beauty, and its horror.

Another beauty of the Shadow Cells that actually did work in our favour was the lack of doors and locks. Save for the first door at the entrance from the Pits, the labyrinth of tunnels and chambers were entirely free and open, its inhabitants locked away only by the darkness itself. For creatures that generally relied so heavily on their eyesight, I did have to wonder how long someone would have to spend down there before they grew accustomed to the darkness and began to rely on their other senses, and were they ever again allowed out of the dark, how would they cope with that change?

It made me wonder what kind of a state we would find Jesse in. Two days was not long enough for him to have grown accustomed to the darkness, but was it long enough to have started him on some descent into madness?

The light from the burning torches seemed to keep any of the prisoners from coming out of their chambers in curiosity. I could hear them, even occasionally would catch a glimpse of a fast retreating form slinking away out of the harsh orange glow of the flame. A perpetual itch between my shoulder blades made me sure they were watching our progress, but nothing ever seemed to follow. I presumed that whoever, or whatever usually carried the torches was something to be feared, so they stayed away. It made me even more glad for choosing to carry one of my own.

The more branching forks and twisting turns that we took the narrower the main tunnel became. In the end Lucas and I could no longer walk side by side, instead he fell in step behind me and took a grip upon my shoulder. Though I didn't intend to walk fast enough to lose him, it was a comfort to be able to feel he was still there.

When we'd walked for what felt like miles, following Frank's sure footsteps as he traversed the incomprehensible maze, he finally stopped in front of one of the dark gaping mouth-like doorways that hung open, admitting entrance into the chamber beyond.

“He's in there?” I asked, already knowing the answer to my rather redundant question.

Frank nodded and gestured for me to enter first. “After you, love. I'm sure you're the only one he might me mildly relieved to see.”

I wasn't so sure about that, but I probably was the only familiar face least likely to send him running in fear. So, with a deep breath, and holding the still flaming torch out in front of me, I stepped into the dark chamber.