~~David~~

  It would have been funny if they weren’t surrounded. Demons, killing machines, armed with cws, fangs, spikes, horns, and big metal weapons, afraid of zombies? But they were afraid. David was, too. They didn’t stop coming.

  “Are they here for the unmarked?” Laoko asked, drawing her four swords.

  “They’ve been cropping all over, unmarked or not,” Caera said, growled under her breath, and reared back like an angry cat. “Just kill them and keeping going.”

  “Easier said than done!” The bat girl ran ahead and joined the other demons at the edge of the fog, cutting remnants down as they came. It looked easy enough. Demons were strong and remnants were weak, but as Ericia cut down a half dozen remnants in only a few seconds, a half dozen more appeared. Some walked in from the fog. Some climbed up out of the ground. All of them were free, not bound to Hell like they were supposed to be.

  Laoko walked forward, and with military precision cut down each remnant that grew up around her hooves. Four swords did kind of make it easy, but required a level of ambidexterity that made David gawk. Two higher swords held out for emergencies, the two lower swords cut each remnant in half with a sptter, and she pushed forward, refusing to stop.

  Daoka came up beside David, grinned at him, gestured at Laoko, and promptly cut down a remnant with her axe.

  “Keep your brain on the task, Dao!” Jes yelled, coming up on his other side, Caera ahead of them. She traded a quick gnce with David, including an annoyed eye roll.

  Acelina scoffed, but kept her thoughts to herself. She moved to the back of the group and let the Las be her protection, like a squad of knights, or dogs, scurrying around her feet and squeaking as they cut down remnants growing underneath them. As long as the remnants didn’t get out of the ground, they were easy enough to handle. The moment they did, they moved like zombies, even groaned like zombies, and put the demons on edge.

  David touched the strings inside him. Ow, ow. Nope, not doing that.

  This was stupid. How the fuck was he supposed to be helpful if every time he made something happen with the strings, he hurt himself? And each time he did, it wasn’t really him that was maniputing Hell. It was whatever, or whoever, was in the vibrations listening to him that did. Hell herself, maybe, he couldn’t be sure, but it definitely wasn’t him.

  He stabbed a remnant in the skull and pushed forward.

  “They’re only remnants,” Laoko said. “Why they walk free, I do not know. Stay on your guard and continue on.” Only remnants, but the nervous look in every demon’s eyes told another story. They didn’t like zombies, true, but they also probably hadn’t seen remnants walking free, ever.

  Continue on, they did. Their speed was cut in half, though, and frustrated growls joined the remnant screams. At least it was an easy fight with no danger. No pit to pull them into this time, and plenty of demons perfectly capable of sughtering each remnant from all sides.

  The issue wasn’t safety from the remnants. The issue was time.

  A quiet, long, warm sound filled the distance, and Laoko threw up a hand. The group stopped. More remnants crawled up through the ground, from underneath tilted and cracked tombstones, and the endless swarms walked in from the fog like moths chasing fme. But a new noise had joined their moans.

  “Uh, what’s that?” David asked.

  The demons looked at each other, as if one of them might know, but no one did. The humming sound grew louder, until familiarity tingled up David’s spine, along with ice. That was a music horn.

  Chaos erupted. The fog broke apart, split open by gold rays from above. Hell shook, tombstones cracked and fell on themselves, and the ones already broken on the ground shattered as more beams cut along the ground.

  “Move!” Laoko yelled. “Spread out! Hide!”

  An order for her crew, not for David and the girls. But they obeyed anyway. Caera ran at David, under him, and he grabbed her back spikes as she bolted around one of the golden beams. All the girls ran in random directions at first, but all turned, found Caera, and chased after her.

  Another gold beam cut through the fog, split it, and exposed the burning sky above, and the white wings glowing gold.

  “Angels!” Acelina yelled. That was enough. Every demon churned into a frenzy.

  Half a dozen beams of gold, each five feet wide, zigzagged along the ground, and caught demons in their wake. A brute crashed into the ground, crushed by the beam, and exploded in a violent mist a second ter. A gargoyle and her vrat friend screamed rage as another beam swung wildly and struck them from above. Other demons lost limbs, the death rays following random paths and hitting random things. Stones exploded. The ground burned. And remnants shrieked as they died by the hundreds.

  Angels swooped in, and the fog parted around their wings. Each fp of white feathers exposed more of the burning sky, fog churning and twisting around the endless remnants, and the holy warriors of Heaven swung swords and stabbed spears through their bodies.

  “The unmarked!” one angel yelled. “I knew it! Get him!”

  Oh no. Not her.

  A dozen pairs of wings fpped, dispersing the nearby fog entirely, and the White Lands became clear for all to see the battle. A dozen angelic weapons got to work, mowed a path through the remnants, and cut down the demons too slow to get out of the way. Four had spears with titanic shields. Four had swords and medium shields. Four had bows and arrows.

  One set an arrow on David and fired. It whipped past his head, and a snap of pain told him it’d nicked his ear. The ground flew by underneath him, and only his grip on Caera’s spikes kept him from falling off.

  “The angels want the unmarked as well?” Laoko asked, and she brandished her four swords at the closest one with a sword and shield. She crouched, aimed her head forward, and growled. Unlike the other demons, shrieking like banshees or roaring like tigers, she snarled with a quiet chuckle. “Azailia will want to see him for sure.”

  Of all the reactions David expected from the demons when they realized angels were here to kill him, that was definitely not it. Give him over, or use him as a human shield, sure, but double down on fighting?

  Moriah didn’t even bother negotiating, and dove for the biggest target: Laoko.

  The angel collided with Laoko’s swords. The sound was deafening, metal on metal, and Laoko stumbled back from the impact, while the angel continued forward against her, fpping her wings. Laoko didn’t fall, and she brought her two lower swords up in an arc the angel had no choice but to jump back to avoid.

  The angel with David in his sights lined up another arrow, but a brute charged him over. A seven-foot angel in light armor, retive to his companions, while the brute was over eight feet tall, all muscle and dark skin. But the angel spun with the tackle, grabbed the arrow, and stabbed the brute in the shoulder with it. The demon roared but didn’t relent, and the two went down.

  Remnants swarmed them. The zombies fell on them, pushed through the teeming mass of dead remnants around their feet, and others crawled up from the ground and got their bleeding fingers around the angel’s and demon’s limbs. They weren’t strong enough to give the angel and demon more than a moment’s dey, but that was enough for more demons to jump the angel and rip and tear.

  The angel burst out from underneath four demons, set his wings alight with a gold glow, and rained arrows from above. Each arrow glowed gold, almost blinding bright, and the arrows cut through flesh before exploding with small pops on the ground.

  It wasn’t going much better elsewhere. An angel with a great shield stabbed a demon in the chest with her spear. Another angel did the same with hers. The angels with swords were more aggressive, and they threw themselves at the demons, all on a charging path toward David.

  A mikalim broke free of the chaos and dove for David. Her wings glowed, and she swung her sword. An arc of yellow energy shot from it, and David’s stomach fttened into his gut as Caera jumped over the shining beam.

  She nded behind a broken tombstone, dashed around it, and came up behind an angel approaching Acelina. Somehow running silent, she bound off another tombstone, nded on the angel’s back, and tore into the man’s wings. A roar of pain mixed into the unending screams of the remnants, and the angel spun, only for Acelina to bring her axe down on him.

  The angel was too smart for that. He brought his shield up, and stabbed forward at Caera with his sword, forcing her to back off. The man was small compared to Acelina, but he knocked her axe aside, spun, and took another swing at her. Caera stopped him, biting at his wings again.

  Acelina saved. Mission successful. The angel spun yet again and came for Caera, and Caera ran off, bouncing off broken tombstones and weaving circles in the chaos. All David could do was hold on and ignore the chaffing against his thighs.

  He squeezed her back spikes as hard as he could.

  “We have to get out of here!”

  “I know, but we can’t do that if Laoko’s demons are dead! The angels will run us down!”

  Fuck. Fuck fuck! How’d the angels even find them?

  This was David’s fault. Fighting the rider and causing insane amounts of damage, probably visible to angels scanning the fog. Then the remnants now, screaming as a thousand-man choir, drew the already nearby angels.

  If they survived this, David couldn’t use his powers again, not like before, not if they wanted to survive. But surviving the moment was a little more important.

  He struck the strings inside him, and bit down a scream. It was like sticking his real fingers into a fire, and the searing pain shot out through his limbs. Attempts to focus backfired, and he clenched his eyes shut as he squeezed on Caera’s spikes.

  He did it again. Again, the pain hit him. He hit the strings again, and the pain wracked his body. Like pying the guitar when the fingertips were literally worn down to the bone, but he did it anyway. He couldn’t py them loudly, but he could py them.

  Two of the angels with bows broke free of the fight, aimed their bows at David, and fired. He summoned a wall. No voice within the ocean of vibration heard him this time. He didn’t even reach the ocean this time. He might as well have been a stone skipping on the surface of a small ke. But there were ripples in the water, and that was enough for something small.

  A tombstone shot up from the ground, smaller than the others, thinner, but it was enough. The two arrows collided with the white stone, and shattered it with small explosions of gold. More arrows followed, and David summoned another tombstone. Making the strings vibrate enough to affect the world under his own strength meant he had to py hard every single pluck, every single pick.

  It didn’t matter how much it hurt. Twelve angels were sughtering remnants and demons alike, and the only angel that was having any trouble was Moriah with Laoko. And Laoko was on the defensive. The ten-foot-tall bolstara tetrad hopped back, hooves sliding over white stone as she swung her four bdes down at the angel rapid fire, only for the angel to block each one of them. Moriah was faster. Moriah was stronger. She screamed up at the demon, and used her white wings to drive herself forward, each fp pushing her up into Laoko’s close range, and forcing the demon back more.

  There weren’t many demons left. Mikalim tore through them as if they didn’t exist, swords slicing through flesh and cws with no trouble. Their swords didn’t cut through demon armor, but whenever a mikalim’s sword bounced off meera metal, it glowed gold, and their next cut had no trouble dismembering every demon in their path, armor or no armor.

  The demons threw themselves at the angels, but this was no battle. David and the others pulled back from the fight as best they could, colpsing on the same position with some big tombstones between them and most of the carnage, but the fight was almost over. All the demons were dead or dying.

  No, Ericia was still alive, Laoko’s bat girl, and she threw herself at Moriah’s back.

  In a single blink, Moriah turned and cut her in half. The little bat woman split apart, head to crotch, and her blood coated the angel’s wings.

  “No!” Laoko shrieked at the angel and brought all four swords down, but the drenched angel was unphased. She blocked and pushed herself back into close range, and again forced the much bigger woman back into the defensive.

  And the other angels closed in. They took their time, spears pointed at Laoko, but several pointed David’s way as well, and the three free mikalim flew up, over, and behind David and the group in seconds. Trapped. Acelina and Jes turned and snarled at the angels, but just the presence of Heaven’s warriors was enough to force them back until David and the girls were all grouped up. The Las hissed and snarled, but stayed behind the spread wings of Jes and Acelina, axes and swords aimed at the angels. They were trembling.

  David pyed the song as hard as he could. It was barely enough to summon a couple tombstones around the group.

  “Don’t… make me kill you,” he said, gring at the angels.

  They raised their swords, took a step toward the pitiful barrier, and stopped. They looked behind them. The remnants stopped screaming long enough to gnce the same way. A quiet clink in the distance filled the sudden silence, and most of the angels spun and faced the sound.

  Something bronze slowly trotted in from the edge of the cleared fog, tinted with lines of gold and sbs of red. First the goort’s armored face, and then the rider on its back.

  A silent gong rang through the fight. The angels froze. The remnants didn’t, but the angels cut them down with less effort than a scythe to a wheat field. Everyone stared at the man on the armored goort as he came into view, and the angels lowered their wings. The clink of his armor hitting armor from the gentle trot of his horse was inaudible once the remnants began screaming again, but David swore he could hear it. Clink. Clink.

  Remnants, trying to kill everyone. Angels, trying to kill David. The rider, trying to kill David. Would this ever end?

  “The rider!” he yelled. He almost said something, like ‘run’ or ‘get away’. He clenched his teeth, and said nothing.

  Moriah snapped her gre at him, pointed her sword at him, and unleashed a death scream. Whatever she wanted to say disappeared under a grunt as Laoko threw herself at the angel, and Moriah jumped back, blocking four swords with the shining metal of her shield. The battlefield erupted into the sounds of combat again.

  “Stop the rider!” Moriah screamed, and back on the offensive, forced Laoko back. “He’s here to help the unmarked! Kill him!”

  The four rapholem disengaged from nearby remnants, and dropped themselves directly in front of the rider, between him and the rest of the battle. They aimed their spears at him, and their shields glowed gold.

  “Begone,” an angel said, and the four smmed the base of their giant shields against the stony ground in unison.

  The rider paused, goort and his skull helmet pointed directly at David. He didn’t look left. He didn’t look right. He slowly unsheathed his axes, and the goort trotted forward without so much as a nudge from the man in armor.

  All the rider had to do was say he was here to kill David. All he had to do was open his mouth, communicate, and David was absolutely fucked. But people in Hell didn’t like expining themselves. The rider trotted forward, and to anyone watching, it looked like he was riding toward the four angels and their shields and spears, not toward David.

  The angels smmed their shields down again, the giant sbs of metal pointed straight at the man on his goort, and a gold wall erupted in front of their spears, reaching far to the sides and high above, but see-through enough David could see past them to the rider. The rider was smaller than the angels, with armor just as bulky as the rapholem, armor that made the other two types of angels look like they wore silk. But the rider didn’t slow for a moment. He trotted forward up to the spears, stepped off his horse, and aimed an axe.

  “Get out of my way,” he said. The dullness of his perfectly normal voice drowned the battle in sheer indifference. He didn’t care.

  “I said begone, ancient creature. You are not—”

  The rider brought his axes down on the gold wall, and it shattered. Again, the battlefield went silent, even the remnants going still as an enormous crack shot across the barrier. It exploded and unleashed a sound like a gunshot as gold shards flew in all directions. The four rapholem fell back, wings fpping and failing to keep their heavy bodies from colliding with the ground.

  The rider walked forward.

  The mikalim, save Moriah, abandoned their post around David and joined the rapholem. All seven were back on their feet in a moment, as if a single man hadn’t just trivialized their special powers. They dashed back and put distance between them and the rider, and David sucked in a breath. If the angels didn’t attack the rider, they might—

  The four gabriem, flying above, unleashed their arrows upon the rider, and each struck home. Loud echoes of metal on metal preceded small explosions of gold, each strong enough to give the rider a moment’s pause. He didn’t fall over. He didn’t stop walking.

  The rapholem again put themselves in the rider’s way, and stabbed at him, but the result was predictable. One spear collided with his arm and slid to the side. He knocked the three others aside with his axes. But over the four rapholem, the three mikalim dove, swords pointed forward.

  Why were they so willing to fight the rider? They didn’t even consider that maybe he wasn’t here to help David.

  The rider swung his axes out and knocked all three oncoming angels to the side. They blocked his axes at the st moment, only when they realized the rider wasn’t going to bother blocking their swords, and the three went down, rolling. Sparks exploded when enchanted metal hit holy metal, burying the area in tiny embers that faded on the ground.

  If the rider wanted to add anything else to his original order, he didn’t. Silence was his answer, and he charged forward. Again he brought down his axes, but the rapholem had no gold barrier this time, and his fire crashed against the metal of their shields.

  His axes cut through the metal. Not in one swing, but he brought the axes down in rapid succession, putting lumberjacks to shame with the onsught, each collision sending more sparking fmes out until the battlefield looked almost like fireworks.

  “You will not stop us!” a rapholem said, got back up, and charged.

  The rider sidestepped their spear as if he weighed nothing, and brought an axe down on the angel’s head. Seamless. Instant. The axe half crushed, half penetrated the angel’s helmet. The rapholem died without so much as a grunt.

  The mikalim and rapholem colpsed on the rider, and their battle disappeared behind white wings. But David could hear the cng of metal on shields, and the scream of angels dying.

  “Caera,” Jes whispered. “Go, while they’re busy.”

  David shook his head. “Those four gabriem will shoot us if we try. And even if not, the rider will just find us ter. Maybe we should help.”

  “They think the rider’s here to help you, David. And I get the sense they want him dead for their own reasons. Either way, it’s a great opportunity to get the fuck out of here! We have to go!”

  He grit it his teeth. She wasn’t wrong. He didn’t want to kill the angels, but they were trying to stop him, kill him, and kill the girls with him. Maybe it was better this way.

  Acelina cut down a few remnants and gestured out toward the fog.

  “Quickly. Make up your mind,” she said.

  “David?” Lasca asked. “What do?”

  Fuck. Fuck fuck. He looked back to the group, to the angels surrounding the rider, and to Laoko still fighting Moriah.

  He shook his head. “We can’t keep crossing Hell if everyone we run into turns into an enemy.”

  “Yes we can,” Caera said. “We just stay low and—”

  “It’ll backfire, eventually. We’re talking about angels, Caera. They’re hunting us, and they can fly all over Hell. We have to find a way to stop them, to get them on our side. Something!”

  “You spared that bitch’s life before, David! And look what happened!”

  “That… That…”

  A shriek drew their eyes. Moriah stood over the tetrad demon, sword dripping with blood, and Laoko held her side, bleeding over the white stones.

  But a second scream stopped the angel. An angel scream. Moriah spun, burning ruby eyes setting on David, but the cries of her companions drew her gaze to them, and she dove into the air with a battle cry.

  “Everywhere I go, the past haunts us!” She nded behind the rider, and the angels with her backed off. Three y on the ground, and the rider’s dripping axes steamed, blood bubbling and boiling on the metal edges. “You have pgued our doorstep for too long, rider!” If rage could kill, the area would have incinerated.

  She brought her glowing sword down on the rider, and the man twisted at the st moment to block it with an axe. The angels now behind stabbed with their spears, while the gabriem flew down and helped pull the injured and dead angels to safety. Moriah didn’t slow down. She screamed death at the rider and swung fast, each hit crashing against his axes. But the rider retaliated smoothly, motions perfect, direct, without a shred of emotion or hesitation, and Moriah blocked an axe and disappeared under an explosion of fiery embers.

  The next axe came down harder, and smashed through her shield. It shattered, and Moriah fell on her back around disappearing shards of mirror metal. The other angels went for his back again, but he turned and swung with both axes, caught spears and swords, and the angels recoiled. He came at them instead, spinning, almost dancing, and another went down, axe to the side of their helmet. A gabriem went to help the fallen, and got an axe to the chest for her trouble. The rider’s burning weapon had no trouble piercing the breastpte and into the angel’s insides.

  There wasn’t enough time for Moriah to get back up and get out of the way, and the rider came for her.

  Save her? No. Don’t save her. Let her die. She was psycho and had it out for David. That’s what the girls would have said. Just let her die and probably let the other angels die. Turn and run, right now, use this opportunity to put some distance between yourself and the rider. Go. Get out of here.

  Fuck.

  David pointed a hand at the rider, and summoned the song. Every pluck was agony, but it didn’t matter. He had to do something, anything.

  He summoned a tombstone. A single one, not big at all, but he summoned it between the rider and the downed angel. It shattered, embers scattering over the battlefield. But it was another moment Moriah could use to escape.

  She didn’t. She dove through the explosion, straight into the rider, body almost fully pointed forward in a lunge. An axe collided with her wing, but she didn’t care, and as her right wing erupted in fmes, she drove her sword through the visor of the rider’s helmet.

  She screamed and fell to her knee as her right wing half disintegrated. Sword still lodged in the rider’s face, she stared at the body in front of her, and her wing reduced to a measly stump with some bone exposed. Only hellfire destroyed things that fast.

  But she got him.

  Laoko sucked in a breath, rolled onto her knees, and pushed herself to her feet. She didn’t get far. Red liquid trickled down her side, and she clutched it tight, but the blood didn’t stop. She hobbled away, looked David’s way, and froze.

  They all looked at the angels. They weren’t moving. Seven stood — Moriah knelt — around the rider, and stared down at the man and the angel sword still sticking out of the slit of his helmet.

  Snarling like a demon, Moriah forced herself back to her feet, yanked her sword free of the rider’s face, and stared at the blood on its tip. Holy shit, she’d killed him?

  “For thousands of years, this… beast, has preyed on one and all. How many angels have we lost to this mad dog? How many…” Her burning eyes gred down at the rider through the t-slit of her own helmet, and she slowly raised her death gre to David and the girls. “You. You thought the rider—”

  David put up his hands. “The rider’s been trying to kill me for weeks!” He almost added ‘and my sister’.

  The two living rapholem kept their shields and spears pointed at the rider’s corpse, but everyone else pointed their weapons at David and the girls. Moriah took another step toward David, and re-summoned her shield in a gold poof.

  “You lie.”

  “I’m not! You lot dropped in on us to kill me, right? And you found me probably because of all the destruction you saw nearby, right? The rider and… and me did that. Fighting each other.”

  Moriah fred her wings. Wing. She screamed in agony, aimed her gre at her burnt, half stump, half bone wing, and again pointed her sword at David.

  “You caused all that damage, as I suspected. The other unmarked did the same.”

  “Yes I did, to stop the rider!”

  “The other unmarked killed hundreds of angels!”

  “I… what?”

  Moriah came closer, and her helmet disappeared, fading away in a gentle glow of gold that didn’t match her rage at all. She had tan skin, long bck hair ft and smooth, and rge ruby eyes that would have been beautiful if not for the death-stare she wielded.

  “The unmarked girl has killed hundreds of my kind! The girl who looks just. Like. You.”

  Fuck. Well, that cat was out of the bag.

  “Mia would never do that! She’s the nicest—”

  “And you killed Tzipporah and… and Shaul.” Her gaze fell the moment she said his name, but reset and stabbed daggers through David’s chest. “And you expect me to listen to a single word you have to say, unmarked? The council has decreed the unmarked must die, and you have given us plenty of reason to agree!”

  “We should have run,” Jes whispered, shaking her head.

  Acelina hissed. “We cannot outrun angels, not out in the open.”

  “Acelina,” David said. “Can you help Laoko? If we want to get through this province, we need her help.” So far, she was the most cooperative demon they’d run into.

  “What difference does it make? We’re doomed.”

  “Please.”

  Again she hissed. He used the p word, knowing full well she’d probably never heard it before. Sighing, she marched over to the tetrad and stood by her, though Laoko stood on her own. But at least she’d have some help if some angels went for her.

  “Moriah,” David said. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why my sister did what she did, but I can guarantee it was probably in self defense or to save someone’s life. She can barely hurt a fly.”

  “Lies!”

  One of the gabriem lowered their bow. “Yosepha—”

  “Silence!” Moriah pointed her shield at the gabriem, but kept her eyes on David, not so much as gncing Acelina’s way. Laoko didn’t matter to her. “We have our orders. The unmarked must die.”

  A rapholem turned, the other one still watching the rider’s corpse. They didn’t think he was dead, either.

  “Galon died for these unmarked, Moriah.”

  That got her. She didn’t turn, but she did flinch.

  Another angel spoke up. “Yosepha and Galon—”

  “Galon is dead!”

  Another gabriem lowered their bow. “And whose fault is that?”

  “I—”

  “We came here,” the rapholem said, “on orders from the council. We joined this squadron, because you promised a swift result. But if the rider is chasing—”

  All the angels spun and faced the rider as the man sat up and got back to his feet. Even dressed in armor thick enough to survive a wrecking ball, he wasn’t as big as the angels, but in that moment, he looked huge.

  The angels stabbed him. Spears drove into his armor, and some slipped in between the joints to get whatever was hidden beneath. Arrows crashed against him, each unleashing little gold explosions. Moriah and her fellow mikalim dove for him, both with glowing swords, dashed between rapholem shields, and brought their weapons down.

  The rider’s back erupted with wings of pure fire, sending all nearby fog away in a burst of wind. He brought his axes down, and both mikalim’s swords went down with them, both angels nding on the ground at his sides. He fpped his fire wings, and unched forward toward the rapholem. They blocked with their shields, but the rider came at them too fast, too hard, and his axes broke through the shining metal. The spears lodged in his joints didn’t slow him down.

  “Get out of my way.” He ripped his axes free of their bent and broken shields, and with his fire wings, drove his weight forward and brought his axes down on their heads. Demons were fast. Angels were faster. The rider went from a slow monolith to a borderline blur, and both angels died, axes embedded halfway through their skulls. Unbelievably thick armor, split like a wood axe splitting logs.

  Moriah screamed, a death shriek that ripped through David’s insides. He’d heard that scream before. A woman, standing over a casket.

  Caera turned and ran.

  “Caera!”

  “They’re losing that battle! We’re getting out of here while we can.”

  The other girls didn’t hesitate. The group broke into a run, pushed past the remnants that remained, and the angels disappeared behind them. Laoko somehow kept pace with Acelina’s help, but she winced and hissed with every step, clutching her dripping side.

  “We can’t let them die!” he yelled.

  “Most of them are dead already!”

  “I can help them!”

  “You can barely hold on!”

  Fuck, she was right. He squeezed his eyes and held the spikes on her back as best he could, but everything ached, and his guts were trying to eat him from the inside out.

  More screams cut through the fog, and everyone looked back.

  “If… If the rider wins—”

  “He’s probably killed Teleius,” Laoko said, hissing. “And those wings… He’ll catch us. On goort or flying, he will catch us.”

  David shook his head. “We can’t run, Caera! We have to help.”

  “Twelve angels just sughtered forty demons, David! And the rider is sughtering them! There’s nothing we can do!”

  “I can do something. Just get me back there.”

  Caera gred over her shoulder at him, single eye half begging, half tearing into him. But after a staring contest, she growled and spun, guiding the group right back toward the rider.

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

  “We’re going to die to this madness,” Acelina yelled.

  “We’ll die if we don’t stop the rider! We have to stop him, at least for a little while. Long enough to put some distance between us. You saw what happened when Moriah stabbed him. He went down, for a little bit. And when I buried him, it took him time to get out. I just need to… do… something.”

  If he didn’t think of something, they were going to die. But if they didn’t do something, Laoko was right, and he’d run them down on his goort. They had to bring him down long enough they could put some serious distance between him and them.

  What he didn’t expect was for Laoko to follow them. He stared back at her, and she grinned at him.

  “Laoko, you—”

  “Give me an opening, unmarked.”

  “What?”

  “Give me an opening. I will handle the rest.”

  All the girls traded gnces. No one knew what she meant, and this was very strange behavior for a demon, but the tetrad followed, clutching her side and half running, half bouncing on her hooves. She kept up.

  They stopped on the edge of the fog and cut through the remnants wandering around. There were still hundreds of them, but it was a far cry from the thousands they’d dealt with minutes before. Past the corpses, the rider stood, slowly walking toward the st remaining angel. He’d killed seven in a matter of seconds.

  Moriah. She was on her ass, blood dripping down her armor, one remaining wing covered in red, and sword pointed at the rider.

  “Butcher. Mindless abomination. You kill, and kill, and—”

  The rider pointed an axe at the woman and drew closer.

  “I know those eyes, angel. You are no better.”

  “What?”

  The rider didn’t answer. He swung for her.

  Again, David pyed the strings, ignored the searing agony of his inner fingers tearing to the bone, and summoned a tombstone. The White Lands had plenty to spare, and grew one in front of the rider again. Same trick, same effect. The rider shattered it with a single swing and drowned the area in a rain of embers and ear-splitting thunder, but it gave Moriah a moment to react.

  She threw herself at the rider, sword aimed for his skull helmet.

  “Moriah!” David yelled. “Get out of there!” Of course the damn woman would use the opening to attack, not run. God damn it.

  It was too te. The rider brought his other axe down in a chopping motion, as if he’d expected the angel to lunge at him once he’d destroyed the tombstone. It sank into her shoulder and into her torso, and her arm erupted in fme.

  But it didn’t stop her, and she drove her glowing sword up through the armor under the armpit, into his flesh, and the rider’s arm lost its strength. She fell away, screaming as hellfire ate her armor and shoulder alike, and the rider stood there, unmoving, angel’s sword still lodged in his arm, and blood flowed down the mirror bde.

  What the fuck was wrong with this damn angel? This woman was suicidal.

  David summoned more tombstones. It was all he could do. He could feel the hellfire beneath them, the veins of va. He could feel the burning sky. He could feel the thousands of hard, sharp trees nearby. But the song needed to move them would take an orchestra, and he was a single man barely able to py a ukelele at the moment. Summoning a couple thin tombstones six feet into the air was enough to have his insides clenching as if someone was taking cheese graters to his fingertips. But he summoned them directly under the rider’s arms, and lifted him a foot into the air, both tombstones lodged under his armpits. The angel bde pushed up into his shoulder, not hard enough to push it out the other side, but a fountain of blood gushed from the wound, regardless.

  Laoko rushed in, grabbed the angel by her remaining wing, and threw her toward David. Tetrads were strong, and the armored woman borderline flew, single wing catching air and turning her until she crashed on her good shoulder at David’s feet.

  “I’m trying to help you!” He reached down and grabbed her good arm, and she jerked it away, gring at him.

  “You—”

  He grabbed her arm again. “Come on! I’m trying to—”

  Her eyes half closed, and her armor pulsed gold. It faded away, repced with nothing but white silks, exposing her broken, bleeding body. She snarled and summoned her armor again, enveloping her body in gold, but it sted two seconds before it faded away. Moriah’s head slumped, and she groaned as her eyes half closed.

  But she was alive. Alive, and each pulse of her armor she failed to summon sent electricity into David’s brain. Lightning spiked through the runes in his skull. Batm and potram lit up like Christmas trees, aligned with angel, and Heaven, and grace.

  He didn’t get to process any of it. An explosion deafened him, and he covered his eyes as a wave of heat crashed against his face. Fire scorched the air and drowned the area in red fme.

  Laoko stood in front of the rider, and fire and va dripped from her mouth. The ground burned in front of her, and the tombstones holding the rider crumbled and melted away. The rider fell to a knee, angel sword gone. And he was on fire.

  “The fuck?” Jes said from the edge of the fog.

  Daoka clicked. Caera stared. The Las gasped. Only Acelina didn’t react.

  “I think,” Laoko said, panting, “that… perhaps…” Her eyes opened wide.

  Slowly, the rider got back up. Fire flowed along his armor, and bits of the ember fkes within danced away and fell to the ground, the telltale sign of hellfire. It didn’t matter.

  Nothing they did mattered.

  With both axes in hand, he aimed his skull helmet at the enormous demon looking down at him, and came for her.

  Laoko stumbled back, blood trickling down her side and leg, and she turned with a scramble. But the rider was fast, fire wings propelling him, and he swung his axes sideways at the back of her legs.

  A much rger axe collided with his back, and the rider fell to a knee again. The rger axe bounced off, nded in the dirt, and a korgejin running out of the fog scooped it up and used two axes on the rider’s shoulders. Titanic axes hit metal shoulders, and the rider fell to both knees. Not because he was wounded, but because the ten-foot tetrad behind him was just that heavy.

  “Teleius!?” Laoko said, spinning around.

  The titan brought both his axes down on the rider’s back, and the rider fell forward, palms to the ground. Teleius didn’t stop. Again and again he smashed his axes against the rider, missing a wing, missing a chunk of his leg, missing a chunk of his side, burn wounds across his face and chest, but that didn’t stop him. The korgejin hit the rider hard enough it summoned sparks.

  The rider’s fire wings burned the demon, but Teleius didn’t stop.

  “Go!”

  Laoko hissed. “Teleius, we—”

  “Go!”

  David knew where this was going. Even from a distance, he could see the look in Laoko’s eyes. She didn’t want Teleius to die.

  Teleius had a giant hole in his side, big enough to kill a demon. But the rage burning in his eyes and erupting from his voice had other pns.

  “Dao, take the angel,” David said. “Acelina, Jes, get Laoko and drag her. We need her, and Teleius is giving us—”

  “Maybe we can take the rider!” Jes said. “He’s down and—”

  David shot her a gre, and the gargoyle recoiled. How quickly they’d reversed positions.

  “Get Laoko and run!”

  Acelina ran in first. No compints. No hisses or growls at David. The spire mother grabbed Laoko by the shoulder and yanked her away from Teleius and the downed rider. Jes joined her and grabbed one of Laoko’s lower arms before she could fight back, and the two demons dragged Laoko back toward the group.

  Only when they dragged her far enough the battle disappeared behind fog did Laoko finally give in and run under her own power.

  Moriah, still conscious, groaned at the satyr carrying her, but Daoka had no trouble lifting her. The angel didn’t even have her armor anymore, and demons were strong.

  The problem was the running. Running fast was difficult when David was holding onto Caera’s spikes for dear life, Laoko couldn’t sprint with blood leaking down her side, and Dao was forced to carry an angel. And because problems liked to come in groups, remnants barred their path, and the group had to mow through them.

  The sound of battle echoed behind them, and roars. They kept running. Teleius was sting longer than the angels did.

  “Now we run?” Jes asked. “Before—”

  Caera snarled. “Before, if we ran, we’d have this angel bitch we’re towing on our ass! I am in full favor of running from the rider.”

  Laoko didn’t look convinced. She stared down at the ground, hooves hitting the white stone shards lighter than someone her size should have; she’d run this ground before. Another roar from behind drew her eyes back, but she didn’t stop.

  “Don’t kill anymore remnants,” David said. “We’re leaving a trail. Just push them over or something.”

  They did as asked. A trail of corpses was easy to follow, even if it only sted a few hours. Problem was, remnants had hands, and they grabbed at the girls and David endlessly, like zombies. Each time, the girls hissed and bit back a desire to snarl or squeal, and they pushed the remnants down and ran over them.

  It went on and on, until a thousand remnants separated them and the battle they’d abandoned. They didn’t stop, and the girls kept running until each of their gasps hurt David’s insides. They’d gone at least a kilometer past the edge of the remnant swarm before Laoko hissed, stopped, and half colpsed against a leaning tombstone. Her side was soaked red.

  “I think we can slow down,” Caera said between pants. “I don’t hear him.”

  The group looked back. No signs of remnants or the rider in the fog, and the screams of the remnants were distant and faded. Teleius had sted far longer than they could have hoped for, all for Laoko.

  “The rider follows you?” Laoko asked.

  “No,” David said. “I mean, not just me. I think he’s hunting unmarked, like I said. And he seems to have some general idea of where we are, but he’s walked past me a couple times before.”

  “Then he does not know your exact location.” Sighing, she slumped back against the tombstone, sat, and gestured at her bleeding side. “I did what I could to keep the blood trail from being obvious.”

  “Smart,” he said. “The remnants bleeding everywhere probably covered it up, too.”

  Daoka, panting worse than any of them, set the angel down, back against a broken tombstone. Moriah’s eyes were closed. Unconscious, or faking it, maybe.

  “He only found us,” Jes said, “because of this bitch!” The gargoyle squatted in front of the angel and spped her. Her eyes snapped open. “You! You stupid fuck! Your friend nearly killed Dao! I should fucking—”

  Daoka tugged on Jes’s hand and pulled her away. Good thing, because the gargoyle looked ready to snap and rip out Moriah’s heart. Without her armor, it’d have been easy.

  Without her batm rune. The rune shined in David’s mind, spoke of armor, of weapons, of the ability to protect and attack, and if he could lift it, he could wear it. The angel couldn’t lift it anymore, injured, and now she wore her potram rune, white silks, some small jewelry, and gdiator sandals.

  Moriah was gorgeous. Dark tan skin and bck hair, smooth and long. But before his stupid horny brain could analyze further, the giant, burned gashed cutting through her shoulder into her chest spped him.

  “Think we can stop here for a bit?” David asked.

  Caera nodded, lowered herself, and David hopped off.

  “I think so. For a minute. Can the rider fly?”

  Moriah, eyes barely open after the sp, gred at David, but every attempt to lift her good arm failed, and she slumped back against the tombstone.

  “The rider cannot fly. That is the right of angels.”

  “We’ve seen him glide,” Caera said. “In the canyon. But, yeah, I guess he can’t fly. But that goort can outrun us.”

  “We’ll hear it coming,” Laoko said.

  David sat down in front of Moriah and forced himself to look her in the eyes.

  “Then we can take a quick break, and maybe get an answer from the angel.”

  Not likely. The angel stared at David, ruby eyes stabbing him. In any other world, a beautiful, tall woman staring at him like he was the garbage she’d accidentally stepped on would have shut him up hard. At this point, it felt like Tuesday, and rolled off him like gentle rain.

  “I will answer nothing.”

  “I want to know why you were willing to throw your lives away to kill the rider.”

  “What?”

  “I saw you go at the rider like killing him meant more than killing me, Moriah. And I know you hate my guts. You have orders to kill me on top of that. But when the rider showed up, you thought he was helping me, and you thought killing him was even more important than killing me.” He gestured back the way they came. “You can see the rider was trying to kill me, too, now, right? Can you at least tell me why you want him dead?”

  Moriah’s gre was unrelenting. On death’s door and still willing to fight, just like a demon.

  “You expect me to believe—”

  “You saw it.” Don’t yell, don’t yell. “The destroyed forest? I did that because it was the only way to get away from the rider. He’s after me, and I don’t know why. Can you at least tell me why you want him dead, too?”

  “I will share nothing. The rider’s sins are known.”

  “I’ve read about the rider,” Caera said. “He’s killed countless demons, but I don’t know of anything he’s done to piss off angels. If we knew why he was chasing us, we might avoid him better.”

  Moriah ground her teeth and gred. “Just kill me and be done with it.”

  “With pleasure,” Jes said, but Dao held her back, pulling on her arm.

  “With pleasure,” Acelina said, marching forward, but Caera put herself between her and the angel. “Step aside, tregeera.”

  “David doesn’t want her dead.”

  “David is a na?ve fool. Surely this second encounter has proved what the first apparently did not. Angels are cold and ruthless. They do not care about lives, especially those of demons. Worse, this angel is a killer, and—”

  “She’s from Azoryev,” Laoko said.

  “Say what?” David asked.

  “Azoryev. Heaven has nine isnds, and each has their own… dispositions. Azoryev is notorious for being brutal. It would not surprise me at all if they somehow enacted some of the more devastating acts of God in human history.”

  Everyone stared at the tetrad, Moriah included.

  Ceara prowled closer. “Uh, how do you know this?”

  Laoko grinned. “Ca a girl not have her secrets?” Caera opened her mouth, but Laoko raised a hand. “Keep me alive until we get to Timaeus and I’ll expin.”

  Leverage. He should have expected that.

  “Moriah,” he said. “I don’t want to kill you. You have to believe me.”

  “The council has decreed the unmarked must die. You will not reach False Gate.”

  This woman was a bundle of hate, and David could see his words bouncing off a skull as thick as steel.

  “You know I want to reach the False Gate?” Fuck. “That’s how you found me, I guess. Figured where I’d be after our run-in in Death’s Grip.”

  “Run-in? Do not make light of murder. You killed two angels. And your sister has killed hundreds. I should—”

  “I’m trying to save the fucking world, Moriah! I’m trying to…” Christ, maybe he should just kill her? This was like trying to argue with a religious zealot. But the thought of cutting her down now, helpless, made him nauseous. “I don’t want to kill anyone, Moriah. I don’t want to kill you. And if I’d thought you wouldn’t have killed me on the spot, I’d have helped you fight the rider from the getgo.”

  Laoko sighed, shaking her head. “She killed Ericia. Her group killed mine. I’d say we should have left her to die, but…”

  “But?” David asked.

  “But, she is an angel. Azoryev or not, she is an angel.” Nodding, Laoko leaned back and closed her eyes, horns against the tombstone. Not much of an expnation, but considering she knew about Azoryev and stuff, she apparently had reasons.

  “I am dead anyway,” Moriah said. “Missing a wing, and hellfire and axe cleaved my chest. I am fodder. Strike me down and spare me the misery, if you are truly so merciful, unmarked.”

  He threw up his hands. “Fucking sweet jesus fucking christ, Moriah! Do all angels talk like this? You sound like a kid who read too many fantasy books growing up.”

  “… what?”

  “I’m not going to kill you. I spared your life before, and I’ll spare it again. Fuck, I wish I could have done something to save the other angels but at the time I kinda thought they’d do to us what Shaul and Tzipporah — yes, I remember their names — would have done and just cut us down the moment we let our guard down. I am trying to do the right thing. I am trying to save the god damn fucking world, and the st thing me or Mia would ever want to do is kill an angel! I don’t want to kill demons! I don’t want to kill remnants! The only reason I am making this journey is because I was told it’d save the world, and considering the source and what happened at the spire, it might be true.”

  Moriah gred at him, but thank fuck something went ‘click’ behind her eyes.

  “Source?”

  “A woman, same as the rider. Same gear, same fire wings. Know her?”

  Moriah’s eyes fell, but only for a second. “Her. I… know of her.”

  “Can I trust her?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Well, something is definitely up. I shouldn’t be in Hell, and neither should Mia. That Greg fucker definitely should have been, but he was unmarked, too, so I dunno what the fuck is going on with this whole unmarked thing. All I know is, I should keep going.” He got up and paced, eyes down, hands squeezing at nothing at his sides. “Laoko, there’s no food out here?”

  “No. No demons. No souls.”

  “Not even a forbidden fruit?”

  “No. Ericia had to travel quick and far to find you a meal, and I am sure she was lucky. We do not have that luxury.”

  “Fuck. Fuck fuck.” Why couldn’t things just go smooth? “Too many people have died today.”

  Laoko ughed. “Have they? You sound as if this butchery is not common.”

  “It isn’t for us,” Moriah said. She’d probably meant to add some venom, but her head was too heavy, and it gently thudded back against the tombstone. “I lost friends today. Angels I would defend to the death. I lost… more than friends the day I met you, unmarked.”

  At a certain point, there’s only so much bullshit a man can take. David stood up, grabbed the angel by her good arm, and lifted. Anyone else would have screamed, but the angel bit down her agony and gred at David as he brought her to her feet. Heavy, even without her armor, but he managed.

  “I died in my cereal.”

  “What?”

  “I died in my cereal. My sister and me, we were university students, and the only sin we’d ever committed was we were probably a bit hornier than the average student. We were sitting down for breakfast in our dorm, when we both died. Randomly. We felt pain through our bodies, and we died in our seats in seconds. I face-pnted in my cereal.”

  The angel glowered. “Is there a point to this story?”

  “I died in my cereal! I was just a random nobody, just some guy trying to get through university so I can make video games and masturbate to weird hentai for the rest of my life. I fell over, dead, and wound up on the stairs to Heaven. Then a fucking portal sucked me and my sister up and now she and I, separated by a fucking canyon, are trying to do what’s right, get to the Forgotten Pce, and save the world! Save you, save us, save everyone! Invisible monsters are hunting me! The rider is hunting me! Demons want to either eat me or use me. And now angels are trying to kill me, because their bosses said they should. But no one knows what the fuck is going on. No one has expined anything. I’m just a random fuck and you’re acting like I’m some horrible fucking vilin that deserves to die for the horrible things I’ve done. All I’ve done is protect me and protect these wonderful girls who’ve protected me and fed me! Fuck me, I would do anything to cooperate with you fucking angel assholes, but you’re convinced I have to be an enemy when I haven’t even done anything! I died. In my fucking. Cereal!”

  No one said a thing. Moriah stared at him like he was yelling at her in a different nguage.

  “I didn’t want to kill Tzipporah,” he said. “But Shaul? I was in the cathedral when he flew in there and sughtered those Cainites. He enjoyed every moment. Full-on psychopath behavior. I’ve seen bloodthirsty demons who enjoyed killing less than that guy. And when he stabbed Dao, killing him was the only option. But you know what?” He leaned in close up to the tall angel, and returned her gre. “I didn’t want to kill him, either. But I had to. I had to, and these demons are trying to help me save the world. Even they know other demons are probably going to be more hindrance than help. That’s why we’re trying to sneak our way around all of god damn Hell. So I’m going to do everything I can to keep them alive, because they’re important to me and I’ll kill a psychopathic angel over letting them die any day of the fucking week!”

  It took effort to not punch her in the face, and he squeezed his fists at his sides until they ached.

  “So I’m not going to kill you, Moriah. And if I can stop you from bleeding to death, I will.” He gestured to Caera. “Can she ride you?”

  Caera rolled her eye and sauntered over. “David, you really are going to get yourself killed, and all of us along with you, you know.”

  “Maybe. But with everything happening, I’m gambling on cooperating or we all die.”

  “Angels, cooperating with demons? Not going to happen.”

  “It can happen,” Laoko said. Again, everyone looked at her, and again all she did was subtly smile.

  Moriah shook her head. “I refuse—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” David stepped aside for Caera, and the tiger y on her stomach beside the angel. “We’re going to save your life, whether you want us to or not.”

  “You’re taking me prisoner?”

  He dialed up the sarcasm to eleven. “Yes, I’m taking you prisoner.” And back to normal. “You damn well fucking know that’s not what I’m doing! I’m going to save your fucking life! And maybe, just maybe, we can figure out what’s going on in this gigantic fucking mess!” Breathe. Breathe. “Dao, can you help her?”

  Grumbling, Jes let her girlfriend go, and Daoka took the angel’s arm. Moriah resisted, but that sted a whole second before exhaustion dragged her down onto Caera’s back. At least she managed to sit and not pass out.

  “I know we’re trying to get to Timaeus,” David said, “but we should make a detour to a hunting ground, Laoko.”

  “The closest hunting ground from here is where Ericia went. We’ve moved since then. It will take a day to reach it.”

  “Then we take a day. You need food. Moriah needs food. And fuck me, I need food.”

  “You ate so much already.”

  David shrugged. “I don’t know why, but whenever I use my… powers…”—just saying the word made him want to gag—“I get super hungry.”

  “Powers.” The tetrad eyed him.

  “Hey, don’t give me that. You breathed hellfire!”

  “We waste time,” Acelina said. “If we must find food, then we must. Let’s be off before that abomination finds us.”

  Right. David shook out his hands, rubbed his temples, and looked to the tetrad.

  “This way, then,” Laoko said, and walked into the fog.

  The group followed. Jes and Dao fell in beside Laoko. David walked beside Caera, with Acelina directly behind them. The Las, quiet and staring at the angel, walked with Acelina, but Latia hopped ahead until she caught up with David.

  “Much stuff happened,” the little grem said, hooves tippy tapping on the white stones. Such a tiny, dainty little thing, it was a wonder she made any noise at all. It was a wonder she’d survived the day.

  “Lot of stuff happened, yeah.”

  “But David knows what to do?”

  “I don’t know. I just know not doing anything is worse. So I throw everything I know together in my head, come up with some kinda pn that goes forward, and I go. It’s better than sitting still.” Which was killing him. Every part of him wanted to sit down, carefully analyze all the information he had avaible, and make the most efficient, effective decision possible. But he knew that was a great way to get decision paralysis and doom them. Just get something that made sense together and push forward.

  If he fucked up and got them all killed, at least he’d be dead, too.

  “Angels scary,” Lasca said, joining them and looking back at Moriah. “This one scariest.”

  Moriah aimed her gre down at the little dy. “Leave me be, infernal vermin. How did you recruit the nasty creatures to serve you, unmarked? They serve no one.”

  “Fucking christ, they don’t serve me. They’re along for the ride because they like us, we like them, and they don’t want their friends to die, either.”

  “Save all the imps and grems in mountain!” Lasca said, and she aimed an angry cw at Moriah. “Many friends.”

  The angel scoffed. If not for the massive, bleeding wound in her shoulder and across her chest, she’d probably have struck out at Lasca, with the little dy walking only inches away from her. But Moriah had her one good arm firmly grasping one of Caera’s spikes, and every moment looked like a struggle to keep from falling.

  She’d fought so damn hard, her and the other angels, and the rider had run them over like they didn’t exist. No chance Teleius was alive, either. He’d sacrificed himself.

  “Laoko,” David said. “Teleius…”

  “He is dead,” she said without looking back.

  “I… I know. I just, I didn’t expect to see a demon do that.”

  “Do what? Fight?”

  “No. He came out of nowhere, half dead, and… sacrificed himself… to save you.” Wincing, he looked to Caera, and she returned his gnce. That was a somber gnce, probably mirroring his own. “I know I can expect that sort of courage from the girls, but from what I’ve seen of other demons, they’re…”

  “Selfish and obsessed with nothing but violence?” Jeskura said. “Yeah, they are. Not everyone’s like Dao.”

  Dao chirped back at David. Smiled and waved, too.

  “Teleius is… was, perhaps, a…” Laoko shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. He is dead. Leave it be.”

  David and the girls traded gnces. That sounded heavy, and sad, which wasn’t what David expected. In the fight, Laoko had lost a lot of demons, and it hadn’t phased her, except Ericia’s death. But the fight was over now, and dare he even think it, the huge tetrad looked kinda morose.

  It wasn’t like demons couldn’t be sad. If Jes lost Dao or Dao lost Jes, Jes would go into a berserk rage, and Dao would be inconsoble. Laoko’s behavior was a bit closer to how Caera had acted when she’d found out Renato was dead. Sad, and bitter.

  “Laoko,” Lasca said, hopping further ahead and joining the tetrad. “Laoko… La… oko.” She looked back and her eyes grew wide, big smile with shark teeth on dispy. “La!”

  “La! La! La!” The Las ran up and giggled as they fell in line behind Laoko. Directly in line behind her, like little soldiers. They waved their weapons high before setting them against their shoulders. Okay, not just like soldiers, but actually imitating soldiers doing drills, rifle against the shoulder. Definitely watched the scrying pools a lot.

  Laoko looked back, an eyebrow raised. “What in Lucifer’s name?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jes said. “Just… don’t worry about it.”

  Say one thing for the Las, they knew how to lighten the mood.

  “Unmarked,” Moriah said.

  “Yeah?”

  “If you insist on this insanity, at least tell me something.”

  “I don’t think I can convince you anymore than—”

  “You said you were hunted by invisible monsters. Expin.”

  Caera snorted. “Why should we tell you anything?”

  “You seem intent on saving my life, and you seem sincere in your desire to… save the world. Prove it. Expin to me this journey.”

  “I told you,” he said. “Some woman with the same armor and wings as the rider showed up. She saved my life. Mia’s, too. She told us we need to get to the Forgotten Pce, and if we don’t, everyone’s dead. Considering the thing I saw in the canyon, I was inclined to believe her.”

  “I have seen the… void, in the canyon. Though, truly, it is below the canyon. Below… Hell.”

  Oh fuck, he was afraid she might say that. The words sent ice through his veins.

  “Know what it is?”

  Eyes down and head hanging, Moriah said nothing.

  “We don’t either,” he said. “But it sure as fuck seemed like more than just a bck void. Before that whole thing, the girls and I were attacked by some invisible monster. Literally invisible. It could touch the ground, and it tried to attack me, but it couldn’t touch me. When it realized, it vanished. I mean, more than it already was.”

  “And… the presence in the bck void is reted?”

  “Probably.” For the love of god, don’t tell her if two unmarked get close, Hell gets torn apart. There was no way he could convince her to not kill him if she learned that. “So my sister and I, and hopefully other unmarked, are trying to get to the Forgotten Pce. Hopefully, we’ll get some answers there.”

  “You wish to visit Lucifer.”

  Everyone froze. Laoko slowly turned, and the Las did with her, the little critters emuting her dropped jaw. Dao and Jes did the same. Caera aimed her one eye at the angel on her back. Acelina, standing directly behind her, didn’t move a muscle.

  “He’s… They’re really there?” David asked. “Imprisoned by God?”

  Moriah gred at him. Was she trying to read him, see if he was lying? Because as far as David knew, and as far as everyone had told him, he was a shit liar. In this case, that was a good thing.

  “I was not alive during the First War. It was billions of years ago.”

  “Millions?” Caera asked.

  “Billions.”

  Holy shit.

  “So… you’re saying you don’t know,” Jeskura said.

  “I am saying the corpses of Lucifer’s kin cover Angel’s Spine, but not Lucifer’s. It is said that when God was still here, they locked Lucifer away. Even the humans and their ignorant religions say such.”

  “God is here no longer?” Acelina asked.

  Moriah sighed. Somehow, she looked even heavier.

  “This Great Tower we exist within is… a forlorn tower.”

  David looked to the girls, and they traded gnces with him and each other. The angel, rage incarnate and suicidally hostile, looked destroyed, and not because of the ruined wing or burned ssh across her shoulder, or even that David had killed people close to her. Something else had broken her.

  Laoko turned and resumed the march.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Moriah couldn’t stay awake. Whether angels slept at night the same way David and demons did, no idea, but it was still day and the angel’s eyes closed. She fell, rolled right off Caera’s back, and nded. Seeing her fucked up shoulder hit the stone sent agony through David’s nerves like someone hit his funny bone with an ice pick.

  “Of course she fell unconscious,” Acelina said, groaning as she picked the angel up. “I will carry her.”

  “Thank you,” David said. “Uh… please don’t eat her.”

  “I am tempted.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Acelina smiled. With her pure bck, smooth, featureless face, seeing an array of shark teeth appear was always bone chilling. The fact he’d had sex with her, multiple times, didn’t detract from how terrifying she was sometimes. Maybe made her even scarier.

  “I will not eat her. But I wonder about this party of angels she was with. If your sister truly killed hundreds of angels, and was responsible for the firestorm at the far edge of Death’s Grip, then the angels will respond with greater force. Thousands of angels should be roaming the skies.”

  “They probably are. We just can’t see them. Likes birds too high up.”

  “Birds.”

  “I suppose Hell doesn’t have those, does it? If I had to guess, I’d say there are thousands of angels up there already, maybe hundreds of thousands, looking for me and the other unmarked.”

  Acelina looked down at the angel she held horizontally in her arms.

  “Then expin this one’s actions.”

  “I’m guessing Moriah took a big scouting party on a hunch? If she learned that Mia and I are both trying to get to False Gate, and she knew where we st were, she took a guess where we’d be. I bet she’s been combing this area of the Grave Valley for days, looking for a sign of me.”

  “Of you, but not Mia? She said your sister killed hundreds of her kind, a feat not done since the angels killed Belor. Surely your sister has earned more of her ire.”

  “Maybe. But… I think this is about Shaul, the first angel I killed. The way she screamed when he died…” He looked down and ground his teeth. “I shouldn’t have done that. I should have found a way to get them to listen.” The words sounded stupid and hollow. He’d had no choice, and if anything, the angels were proving less communicative than demons. They wouldn’t have listened to him. He and the girls would all be dead.

  “I do not believe this angel will listen to you at all. I think she is biding her time until she can escape, or kill you and die for her efforts.”

  “Fuck me, I hope not. I really… really hope not.” Wincing, he looked at the bleeding, half dead angel, and up to Acelina. “Would you do something like that for Zel? To get revenge for her?”

  “If I saw the opportunity to kill the rider for killing Zendariel, and I knew it would cost me my life, I would be tempted, little soul. I would be terribly tempted. Revenge is always worth it.”

  Gulp.

  He moved to walk ahead, but stopped and fell back in line with Acelina, and his eyes settled on the angel again. Touching her when she’d tried to summon her armor had shot a lightning bolt through his mind, awoke the batm rune, and the potram rune, too, when she’d gone back to the white silk clothes.

  Batm. Armor. Weapon. Battle. Fight. Defend. Kill. Protect. Light arced from the rune and attached to the reted concepts, but it was a complicated web, and just looking at the rune made him feel tired. With all the string plucking, he was already exhausted, starving, and every moment was a trial. He’d ask Caera for a ride again in a bit, but looking at Moriah in her red-soaked white silk fabric and sandals brightened the potram rune.

  Potram rune. Rex. Be comfortable. Be attractive. Light, weightless even. As easy as breathing.

  He put on the rune. The other runes were to be wielded in some way, drawn or cast, but the angel runes batm, royam, and potram, were to be worn. And potram slipped on like an old glove.

  Gold light enveloped him, but after a second, it changed to red. And then it was gone.

  The demons looked at him, and the ones with eyebrows raised them.

  “Uh, David?” Jes asked. “What the fuck?”

  David looked down. The leather skirt had fallen off. So had the breastpte. Whatever magic engulfed him decided they weren’t important, apparently, and had repced them with a thin, red, one-shoulder robe. Silk? It almost looked ancient Roman or Greek, but far more revealing. He could feel the loincloth cradling his balls like he was god damn royalty.

  He had sandals. Sandals! Bck gdiator sandals, with straps almost reaching his knee. Holy sweet mother of fucking god he finally had something between his feet and the hard ground. Royalty had nothing on a good pair of shoes, or sandals.

  He had bracelets, too. Bck, metal. And a couple bck rings.

  “The angel rune. It, uh… It makes clothes for angels. Their armor, too. It’s supposed to be gold and white, I think. Not bck and red.”

  Jes grinned at him and joined him. “Like a demon.” She plucked at the red fabric draped over one shoulder, at his bracelets, his rings, and squatted and checked his sandals. “You’re an angel?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m not an angel. I got no wings, and, uh… yeah, the bck and red.”

  The Las stared at him, crept up, and plucked at his new skirt. It wasn’t much better than the st skirt, probably even worse protection-wise, but it looked infinitely better, reaching a bit past his knees. But the fabric was very thin and loose, held on by a silk belt.

  “This is pretty… slutty,” Caera said, sitting in front of him cat style. Laughing, she gestured at his stomach, and gave the skinny toga a light pull, exposing his abs.

  “I was more naked before.”

  “Yeah, but now you’re kinda clothed, kinda not, and that’s sexy.”

  He smiled, but exhaustion hit him, and he fell forward. Caera was there in a second, and he half colpsed against her back. The rune remained. He checked himself for any missing pieces, but everything was still there, especially the God-given — literally — sandals.

  “The rune?” Caera asked.

  “No. Using this rune is super easy. I’m just… fuck me, I am… tired.”

  “Get on.”

  “I… Yeah.” No point in arguing. He climbed, slipped, climbed some more, and straddled Caera’s back. It was wet with angel blood.

  Lasca picked up his half breastpte.

  “David want?”

  “I think I’m good. I’m gonna try and use the other rune ter, the one the angels use for their armor and weapons. But… just in case, can you carry it? I’d put it back on, but—”

  “But you’re about to pass out,” Caera said, and she nudged Lasca with her tail. “Carry it for him.”

  “Okay!” Nodding like she’d been given the most important task in the world, a task only she was suited for, she put the half breastpte on over her own. All it was was a couple pieces of metal for half the chest and half the back, and it didn’t fit over the pieces of armor she already wore. That didn’t matter to Lasca. She nodded firmly, and marched beside Acelina in the back, proud and ready.

  The group carried on.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Daoka walked beside him for a while, occasionally clicking and giggling at him whenever she plucked at the skimpy red toga. But after the jokes no one transted were over, she slid in closer, kissed his shoulder, and clicked up at him; riding Caera gave him some height.

  “Don’t say that,” Jes said. “His ego’s probably infted already, summoning tombstones and wearing angel runes.”

  He smiled at Dao, leaned over to her, promptly slid sideways, crashed on her, and groaned as she pushed him back onto Caera.

  “David,” Caera said. “Do you need Laoko to carry you?”

  “I’m wound and bleeding,” the tetrad said. “No thank you.”

  David leaned forward, kept a good grip to keep his suddenly million-pound body from sliding off, and whispered.

  “Caera, can you take us up to Laoko?”

  “Why?”

  “Just wanna talk to her.”

  Caera gnced back at him, eyed him with her one eye, but nodded and walked up to Laoko. At this point the Las had drifted back to walk with Acelina again, each of them eyeing and gawking at the angel. Room for Caera to side up to Laoko and walk beside her, a tiger prowling along with a giantess.

  “Laoko,” he said. “I wanted to—”

  “If you wish to speak of Teleius, don’t.”

  “I wasn’t. I wanted to ask about… you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.” He gestured up at the ten-foot-tall woman on hooves with ridiculous curves and super long dreadlocks. And four arms, with four swords. “Earlier you were talking about angels. You sounded like you knew you were talking about.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes,” Caera said, “you did.”

  “But I’m just a simple demon. Why would I know of angels?”

  Caera growled. On her back, the vibration pulsed up through David’s legs. He would have reached out and combed her hair, but his arms were too damn heavy at the moment. Once he had a night’s sleep and a thousand hearts in his belly, he’d be fine.

  “You clearly spoke of angels,” Caera said. “You knew about Azoryev. I’ve wandered half of Hell learning about history, and I never read the names of the Heavenly Isnds.”

  David knew, from Mia, and he’d mentioned them in passing with the girls. But no need to tell Laoko that yet. Not that they hadn’t already told Laoko way more than they should have, but the fact David could read ancient nguages and absorb—

  “How did you learn about the angel runes?” Laoko asked, eying him. “How did you know how to use one, as an angel does?”

  “I… um…”

  She grinned. “Until we reach Timaeus, we’re stuck together. But that doesn’t mean we need to share with each other every secret, does it?”

  Caera growled again. “No, it doesn’t. But—”

  “I think we should move and move quickly, before the rider finds us. If he expects us to run to the nearest bailiff, Timaeus, it is perhaps a good thing we are taking a detour to feed. And when we reach Timaeus, hopefully we find him intact.” She tapped a horn. “Describe to me the rider’s attack on the spire.”

  Okay, she wanted to take charge of the conversation. That was fine. He wanted her help, and she’d proven to be one of the few reasonable demons around.

  “He had a couple dozen demons with him, and a giant hellbeast. They all wore aera armor.”

  “Giant?”

  “Giant. Some kind of lizard dragon thing. All his demons were riding it with him.”

  “Hmm. Rider indeed. What else?”

  “His aura had everyone in a frenzy. I had to run past it all to get to my sister, and the whole thing was insane, demons dying left and right, not a single one trying to stay alive.”

  Laoko frowned, and even that was a subtle thing.

  “I think that is enough for today. The rider, angels, I have lost Ericia, Teleius, my entire brood, and now I escort an unmarked soul wearing an angel rune, in hopes we can find food before this hole in my side kills me, and before the half dead angel completes the second half. The unmarked soul has a host of abilities I do not understand, and now I am at his mercy. All in a single day. Forgive me if I do not wish to speak more.”

  David stared up at the giant woman. “Mercy? You think I’m going to hurt you? Eat you?”

  “I had considered it.”

  “Of course not! I—fucking christ, after what you just saw with me and Moriah, I figured that was obvious! We need your help. We were gonna try and cross this province on our own, and it was blind luck we even ran into Vicus. Not lucky, but, you know what I mean. It’s not like we can just force you to help us across the province, anyway.”

  Silence. Laoko watched the white stones pass underneath her, sighed, clutched her wounded side, and gestured ahead.

  “Jeskura. Daoka. If you’d be so kind as to take lead. Go straight, and before the day is done we will find a crater. A pce to sleep. We won’t find food until tomorrow.”

  Jes and Dao hopped ahead, joined Caera and David, and leaned in.

  “I can get us across the province without her,” Caera said, “but it’ll be a hundred times easier with her help. I say we do what she says.”

  Jes grumbled. “She could be leading us into an ambush like Vicus had been.” Of course, she didn’t bother speaking quietly enough for Laoko to not hear.

  Daoka clicked and chirped, and gestured up at the tetrad.

  “Fine, fine.” Jes held up her hands, sighed, and she and the satyr took the lead.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  It wasn’t the coziest hole in the ground, but it was better than sleeping out in the open. A literal crater, surrounded by tombstones like some sort of wall, and the ground in the hole cked the white stone shards of the White Lands. Soft bck dirt, comfy compared to the stones. Comfy compared to the church st night.

  Laoko went in first, and she had to duck and twist to get through the gaps between the huge tombstones. Everyone followed, and everyone y on the ground, panting and groaning, even the Las. They piled on top of each other, like they often did, and whimpered and whined as they clutched their damaged wings. Still not healed.

  Everyone fell into the usual rhythm. Caera took first watch, but in the walled-off crater, the best she could do without exposing herself was sitting by the inner edge. Acelina y the angel out on the dirt in the dead center of the crater where everyone could keep an eye on her, and she sat on the edge not far from Caera. Jes and Dao took a side and got cozy, and David joined them.

  The Las weren’t trusted to take shifts, but they did like to help, so Lasca and Laara joined Caera, sitting all proud and ready to fight. Laria and Latia joined Acelina instead, and they cozied up to her giant thighs.

  “Think she’ll live?” David asked, gesturing to Moriah.

  “I think so,” Caera said. “She’s pretty bad off, worse than Dao was. But, she is an angel. I don’t know much about angels, not nearly as much as Laoko”—she cast the tetrad a gnce—“but I’m guessing they can take a beating.”

  Laoko cast a knowing gnce right back at the tiger, but left it at that, and slowly sat against a tombstone.

  “She’s lost most of a wing,” David said, “and that gash in her shoulder is deep, and burned. Hellfire, too. She’s… in a rough spot.”

  “If she dies, she dies,” Acelina said. “This ridiculous attempt to keep her alive is absurd. She will betray you.”

  “An angel? Betray?”

  “An archangel is famous for betraying God and Heaven, little soul. Why would a normal angel not betray someone she does not trust in the first pce?”

  Laoko raised a finger. “Don’t be so quick to judge angels. They are not demons, zotiva. They stick to their word and their beliefs, to a fault.”

  Everyone looked at the bolstara tetrad, and Laoko returned their looks with the most subtle, innocent smile. What the fuck was going on in that head of hers?

  “Either way,” David said, “I think it’s important she lives. I don’t want angels as enemies. I don’t even think we would be enemies, if they just understood what I’m trying to do, me and Mia.”

  “And the unmarked you killed?” Laoko asked.

  “He was… pretty horrible. If he’d been able to do what I can do, and apparently what Mia can do, then… I can understand the angels doing what they’re doing. But far as I can tell, Greg didn’t know how to use the powers, yet. And there’s no way Mia would have killed angels if it wasn’t in self defense.”

  “No way?”

  David squinted at Laoko. “No way. I know my sister. She doesn’t have it in her to be cruel or violent, even to people who deserve it. She…” A memory struck him, and his eyes fell. It was true Mia struggled to hurt a fly, but when David had delved into the ocean of vibrations, it didn’t bring his whole mind with him. Some simpler part of him pyed the strings, and that simpler part of him didn’t have trouble killing people at all. It’d wanted to, revenge for hurting the people he cared about.

  And with Greg, he’d pyed no song at all. He’d jumped the man and smashed his skull in. Skin splitting. Bone, breaking under rock. Soft stuff coming out. Screaming death around him, almost meaningless compared to the sensation of David on Greg’s body, smashing his brains in.

  He could block that stuff out, but could Mia? Did she have to do anything like that?

  He looked at his hands, and squeezed the rock that wasn’t there. The murder weapon. The vision of Greg dying, seeing David through Greg’s eyes, it bubbled in his mind. He shook his head, held his temples, and stared down at the ground between his legs. Eyes wide until the air stung, he took a deep breath, another, and another, until his heart settled.

  The fuck?

  Daoka chirped at him and rubbed his shoulder. He didn’t respond. She shook him a little, he teetered, and she leaned in and pressed her bck forehead to his.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just… lost in a… memory.”

  Frowning, Dao nuzzled in closer, used her ram horns to nudge his head up, and pressed her lips against his cheek. Her cws snuck behind his neck, and she turned his head into her until they kissed. Despite how hard her ft forehead was, bck skin covering where eyes should have been, her lips were soft. She nudged her nose into his, kissed him again, and he leaned into her and rested his forehead against hers more.

  Laoko watched all this from her side of the small crater, an eyebrow raised.

  “You are all quite comfortable with each other,” she said.

  “Have to be,” Jes said. “Just a few days after Dao and I scooped David out of the river, shit kept falling on us left, right, and center. It’s been nonstop chaos.”

  Dao chirped, smiled, and y on her side against David’s side. She plucked at his new clothes, rubbed a hoof against his sandals, and kissed his shoulder.

  “He belongs to her?” Laoko asked.

  “He does,” Jes said. “I mean, we all kinda share him, but Dao has cimed him.”

  Dao nodded, chirped some more, and pressed her forehead against David’s chest, right under his shoulder. Nuzzled in, she sighed, rexed, and rubbed her forehead against him like a cat, nudged her ram horns into his chin very much not like a cat, and rexed.

  Laoko tilted her head. “Share?”

  “Yeah. David’s a total hornball. Horny twenty-four-seven. So nights we aren’t feeling horrible, we all fuck him.”

  “All?” Laoko tilted her head to the other side, eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, all.” Jes grinned, climbed over Dao and David, y next to him, and cozied up against him, too. “This special body of his has a lot of tricks.”

  All David could do was lie there, blush, and squirm as the two dies half buried him in their bodies. They were still in their armor, and he was fucking exhausted and aching from the inside out. But lying down on soft dirt, in new clothes, wearing new shoes, with two beautiful dies cuddling him? And better yet, they’d survived another night against ridiculous odds? It was a good night.

  Dao chirped some more, her lips nudging against his skin.

  Laoko raised a brow and looked Caera’s way. Caera smiled, clicked a couple times with her throat, and looked out between the tombstones again. Whatever she said, it earned some chuckles from Jes and Dao, and the two dies half hugged him as they got comfortable. He sensed girl talk. Potentially deadly girl talk. So he lifted his head, eyed Caera, but she said nothing, and waved her tail at him. The fact he’d just been kissing Dao didn’t bother her. The fact Dao had just been kissing him didn’t bother Jeskura.

  Demons were strange. They valued retionships, definitely, and he had a sneaking suspicion Laoko lost some tonight. But the physical part of retionships didn’t seem to matter as much. Or maybe it was just because he wasn’t a demon, and more of a pet?

  Whatever the reason, the feel of their skin on his kept his mind from going back to that moment, with the rock in his hand, the murder weapon.