~~Mia~~

  This wasn’t happening.

  She scanned her horizon. Back on the surface of the Bck Valley, remnant innards flowed past her, slowly making their way to the canyon she’d created, and they poured from its edge into the depths below. The demons and angels had crashed nearby, some too far to see as more than blurs, some very close, half buried in the muck. She hadn’t been able to aim the rising ptforms she’d created anymore than someone trying to aim throwing a baseball onto a rooftop. But they were out of the canyon and alive, tossed into the bck swamp, and now they had to deal with Asmodeus.

  They wouldn’t stay alive much longer. Asmodeus roared down at them as he approached, and reached out with a dozen limbs, some holding the canyon wall, the rger limbs coming for Mia and the group.

  A fsh of gold lit up the bck fog, and Asmodeus roared as one of his titanic hands came to a dead stop against the gold barrier. Azreal. A rapholem. He’d summoned his armor, his spear, his great shield, and he smmed the shield down and created his barrier of gold, bright enough it lit up the bck fog like a fre.

  It shattered against the colossal arm, and the angel fell to his side. Asmodeus set his other hands down to support his long, heavy body, and the titan pointed his many eyes at the angel who’d stopped him.

  Only half of Asmodeus’s body had escaped, lower half dangling in the canyon, and the simirities between demon and abomination centipede were now too clear. But he was wounded, had been wounded for who knew how long, and trapped underground. And even now, the creature burned, hellfire from the canyon depths coating his arms, his belly, and who knew what else that churned below.

  It, he, didn’t care that he was literally on fire. Asmodeus roared down at them, two mouths opening wide and hot air drowning them in the smell of blood.

  “The song will be mine. She will listen to me, once I have devoured you, unmarked. I will make Heaven weep!” He swung out again.

  Mia smmed her staff down through the guts up to her knees, and sank deeper into the song. Thoughts drifted above the current, pulled away from her. She could see down through the surface of the ocean, to the little ginger girl disappearing into the flowing waves. She could see up at herself, the little ginger girl, floating at the top, unable to follow.

  Save her demon friends. Save the angels. Save her egg. Kill Asmodeus.

  Asmodeus was the size of several neighborhood blocks, and even as hellfire burned on his body, he didn’t stop. She could not fathom the song that would kill him. But she could fathom the song to bury him again.

  For all his limbs, the creature couldn’t multitask. Noah, the mikalim back in his armor again, ran past his comrade, raised his glowing sword high, and swung it at the creature. A gold arc of holy energy shot out from the bde and crashed into the demon’s face, and Asmodeus reared back and shrieked down at them. A hint of blood trickled from a fresh wound, nothing more than a paper cut.

  Mia found the strings and pyed as hard as she could. Somewhere in the muck, her friends were injured. Somewhere in the muck, her egg y, exposed and vulnerable. Images shot through her mind of the Old One crushing Adron, crushing Kas, crushing Vin, and va burst through her veins. Images of the titan squashing her egg and the precious, innocent life inside sent heat into her eyes, and she smmed her staff down again. And the presence in the ocean spoke.

  I will help you, young one.

  The presence in the ocean didn’t just copy Mia’s song or dance to it. It emphasized. Empowered. Completed a song too grand and epic for Mia to py. What was a simple tune in Mia’s mind became a full orchestral piece.

  The canyon began to close.

  “No! The music is mine! I will not be denied!” The verbose, stupid creature swung out again, and again the rapholem got up in time and summoned a gold wall for him and his companion. But the titan shattered the barrier, and this time his arm kept going, crashing into the two angels. The arm’s wrist was thicker than they were tall, and both angels disappeared under it, broken bodies crushed and pushed down into the muck.

  He was distracted. Mia hit the notes again, and readied herself against the oncoming hellquake, both hands wrapped around the staff. Legs spread and knees bent, somewhere the girl above the ocean currents screamed in pain. Mia didn’t feel it. She barely felt the vibration as it shook the swamp and turned the endless streams of bck ooze into churning, bubbling rapids.

  “No!” Asmodeus tched onto the canyon edge, like a bug holding onto a wall, and struck the strings, as well.

  She expected a punch. With how big his two rger arms were, killing her would have been easier than squashing a grape. No punch came. Maybe she’d have summoned some bckstone around her to guard herself, like she had against the angels. Maybe she’d have thrusted stone up toward the creature’s face, and buried his eyes in bck ooze. But Asmodeus did not crush her. He wanted her alive, so he could eat her alive.

  Her song stopped, buried under the invisible weight of the Old One’s grip. Mia froze and stared down at the swamp around her knees. It no longer boiled. The canyon no longer closed. And the burning Old One roared a ugh and leaned down toward her as he pulled more of his body out of the depths. He’d muted her song.

  “Her song. I can hear it, unmarked. She pys your song!” Laughing, he crawled closer, half on his belly, and reached for her. “She will py my songs. She will dance to my music, unmarked. She will—”

  The ocean currents twisted and twanged, and the entity flowing in the ocean of strings erupted. Mia didn’t ask it to. She didn’t py a note telling it to. Something shot up from the ocean depths, deep in the vibrating currents she could not see or hear or feel, until it crashed up against the notes. A symphony, an explosion of silent sound, shattered Asmodeus’s grip, and the Old One shrieked with a pain no living or dead thing could imagine.

  He slipped. Several of his hands sank gargantuan cws into the muck, but the creature’s weight pulled on them, and his colossal mass dragged him back down into the canyon. Partly.

  “No!” He set his eyes on Mia and roared. Buried in the sound, he hit the strings, and the Bck Valley erupted. The ground shot up around Mia and her demons, giant bck pilrs that pierced up through the ooze, and they came by the hundreds, monumental pieces of rock and stone that shook the ground. The pilrs twisted in the bck muck, and from underneath them an explosion of rock pushed up and toward Asmodeus, but from behind Mia and the group. A tsunami of death rushed their way, and Mia stared back at the boiling wave of remnant guts and bones crashing toward them. If that hit them, they’d get sucked along with it and straight into Asmodeus’s awaiting maw.

  He did all that with his own song. He didn’t summon the entity in the ocean currents. He pyed the strings himself, plucked them, crashed upon them, and an orchestra of doom buried Mia’s ears. But it wasn’t as loud as the gentle voice that spoke to Mia.

  Bury him.

  Mia summoned stone of her own. Walls, many of them, as thick as she could muster. Bckstone erupted from under the muck, the same as Asmodeus’s pilrs, but lower, wider, thicker, and she swallowed herself, her friends, and the angels in the wall. A half circle a hundred meters wide, something they threw themselves against, and Mia stood with her back to it as the tidal wave crashed over them. Bck ooze poured over the wall, over and past her, and crashed into the swamp before her, a waterfall of obsidian grossness, and it rushed into the canyon Asmodeus still struggled to escape from.

  He tried to use a tidal wave to pull her and the others toward him. He failed.

  She smmed her staff. It pierced the muck, crashed into the stone below, and summoned the song. Another crack shot through the rock, a splintering canyon of shattered gss, veins of destruction that flowed out through the swamp in front of her and toward Asmodeus, cracks hidden under the muck. For all his strength, the Old One was injured, and had been trapped in a hole in the ground for millions of years. He could barely handle his own weight. And once the cracks reached him and his canyon wall, the canyon couldn’t hold his weight either.

  Bury him, young one. Bury him.

  “Unmarked!” The creature screamed at her, two mouths drowning Hell in rumbling bass that rattled her aching brain in her skull. But his fury didn’t help him. The canyon wall he’d tched onto broke away, rocks peeling, boulders falling, and the centipede monster sank into the canyon. “I will have you, unmarked! You shall be my meal! The song will obey me! She will obey me!”

  Mia smmed her staff again, and sent another lightning crack through the ground. It wasn’t as strong as a tidal wave, but it didn’t have to be. The canyon wall crumbled, and for all his frantic scraping of his many sets of cws, the Old One sank back into the bck. It almost looked like slow motion, the creature’s size disguising how fast he was truly falling. He disappeared past the edge, and it was an eternity before the thud of impact resonated through the canyon and swamp.

  Mia pointed her staff. Vision blurred. Pain sneaked back into her mind, radiated from her arm and leg, and she almost screamed. But the ocean currents washed it away, the song took her, and again she pyed the note. She found the scale she’d used to open the canyon, and pyed it in reverse, high to low, a sinking sound that conveyed the swallowing of depth and existence.

  The canyon closed, burying the nd in a hellquake as rocks ripped each other apart, until the two sides of the crevice fit to each other and crushed all between into powder and mulch. Asmodeus’s voice disappeared.

  She looked around and leaned on her bck staff. Her demons were missing. Her egg was missing. The angels were missing.

  “Vin!” She stabbed her staff into the muck, took a step forward, and fell.

  The ocean quietened. She floated upward. The closer her mind grew to the surface, the heavier everything became. She’d heard about how the human body actually sinks instead of floats at around fifteen meters deep in water, and when she’d pyed the song, it’d been like that. Wearing the batm rune had been easy, deep down in the ocean depths. But as her mind broke through the surface, the weight of the rune hit her, and knocked the wind out of her.

  She fell on her ass. Batm disappeared, potram repced it, and agony spped her in the face.

  Her arm and leg. She stared at them and the unnatural bends in their shape, and a scream bubbled up in her throat. She bit it down.

  “Adron!? Kas!? Someone!”

  “Here,” Kas said, and he climbed up out of the muck. “Adron?”

  “Here.” The vrat pushed himself up, too, not too far from his friend, and dragged himself back to his feet. “Mia, you okay?”

  “I… I’m…” She stared at her arm and leg again. Broken. Seeing other people, remnants especially, with broken limbs, had become a normal part of everyday life. Seeing her own flesh bend where the bone wasn’t aligned anymore was a different thing entirely. The screaming pain pouring from each break was the only thing keeping her from fainting. “Puppers! Where’s my egg!?”

  Adron stared at her with his single eye before ughing and looking around. If the fact they’d just fought a literal Old One bothered him, he didn’t show it.

  Slowly but surely, everyone climbed up out of the ooze. The incubi seemed mostly uninjured. Julisa popped up, hissing and snarling, one of her arms dangling, and she gave it a hard yank. Pop. Mia cringed, and clenching muscles tightened and sent more pain pulses through her brain. Don’t cringe. Cringing bad. Moving of any kind bad.

  Something bck and white climbed out of the muck next. The angels. Azreal stood with Noah’s arm over his shoulders, and the angel locked his purple eyes on the rest of them. Noah looked barely conscious, silver eyes half open and head lulled to the side. Both wore their potram clothes, armor and weapons nowhere to be found. Their wings were mangled beyond recognition.

  But no Vin.

  “Vin!” Mia spped the muck with her good arm. “Vin!”

  Faust raised a hand, and his fellow incubi ran to his position. The group squatted around a pile of muck and got digging, cws in the bck, and uncovered pieces of something big and red.

  “I live,” Vinicius said, sitting up. The incubi helped him, and he tried to shrug them off. Tried, failed, half roared, half choked, and set his weight on two of his palms behind him. Asmodeus’s grip had probably broken every rib he had.

  If Mia could stand, she’d have run over to him. Some inkling of an impulse even made her try, but she got half a centimeter before her muscles screamed at her.

  “Egg! Puppers! Someone—”

  “Here,” a different voice called out. Azreal. He pointed at a lump in the bck.

  Adron joined them, looked the two huge angels — shorter than him — up and down, and scooped up the egg.

  “It’s fine, Mia,” he said, picked up its sling, eyed the two angels again, and joined Mia. “And you—oh shit, you’re hurt.”

  “I’ll be… I’ll be… I won’t be fine. My leg’s broken! My arm’s broken! And I can feel Asmodeus below us, pying music, trying to make something happen!” The distant creature was too far and too weak to py the music very hard, and now that she was looking for it, it was easy to find the notes he pyed and silence them. Pying a song was so much harder than simply pcing a finger on a string to deaden it. Even if she hadn’t, the Old One sounded weak and distant. He’d burned through a lot of energy trying to stop them.

  They were safe? Maybe.

  “Are we in danger?” Kas asked. He drifted closer to the angels, rumbled, and forced his tail side to side in the muck. Very much like a crocodile.

  “I think so,” Mia said. “For now. Let’s put some distance between us and this pce, soon as we can. Maybe I’ll find a way to… hide my song? I don’t know. I’ll think of sssssssow!” She gred down at her broken arm. This was bad. This was so very bad.

  “And these two?” Julisa asked, three swords pointed at the two angels. “Easy meals, and I would love to taste angel heart.”

  “Don’t,” Mia said, and she bit down the urge to cry. There was pain, and then there was the pain of two broken limbs hitting once the adrenaline wore off. “Don’t. Just… Azreal, Noah, can you come here? The bitch won’t hurt you. The boys won’t, either.”

  Noah lifted his head long enough to gre at her, gre at Julisa, and gre doubly long at Vin. But he didn’t say anything. His head lulled forward, and Azreal’s grip tightened.

  “I suppose,” Azreal said, taking a step forward and dragging his friend with him, “we have no choice. But we must make haste. The others will find us soon.” His voice was dark, grumbly, and exhausted.

  “Others?” Adron asked.

  “The angels. Noah and I came to speak with you, but the council has decreed full battalions march on Hell and search for the unmarked, with orders to kill on sight. Not everyone agrees with that order, but…” He shook his head. “Noah will expin.” The rapholem didn’t like talking. He’d probably get along with Kas.

  “Hide?” Mia asked.

  “The angels saw this battle, or at least heard it. They’re coming. We must hide. Now.”

  “I… I mean… Maybe I can create a bunker for us? Or something?”

  Azreal stared at her. “You can do this?”

  “I think so? I… I mean, I did some other stuff, and this’ll be harder, and…” And unless it was to do something big, and only when in full panic mode, she couldn’t ask the thing in the ocean to do it for her.

  “Then do it. Now. We have minutes.”

  “Minutes?” Okay okay okay. Think. They needed a pce to hide. The only way to hide in the middle of a big bck swamp was underneath something.

  Her inner fingers ached, but not nearly as bad as the st time she’d done something crazy. Maybe she could make something happen?

  “Okay, uh… Shit. Everyone get in close.”

  That was easier said than done, for more reasons than just how big some of them were. Vin got up, managed two steps, fell, and dragged himself the rest of the way. Julisa didn’t help him. Adron and Kas didn’t, either.

  “Julisa! We don’t have time!”

  She grumbled, but listened and helped Vin. Of course the big guy resisted, and of course Julisa chuckled at the demon and helped him, anyway.

  Azreal and Noah stood a ways off. While the mikalim was barely conscious, Azreal kept his gre on Vinicius, even as he came close enough that any of them could have jumped him. He stood near Mia’s feet, and the rest of them stood around her, Vin on knee and palm, and they all shared uneasy gnces with each other.

  Adron knelt beside Mia, her egg and sling hooked under an arm.

  “How you gonna do this?”

  “How long are angels going to scout the area, Azreal?” Mia asked.

  Azreal frowned. Thinking, or maybe he didn’t like she recognized him and recalled his name.

  “They will scour the area until twilight.”

  Shit. She nodded, reached for the strings, and hit them hard. Something simir to, but not quite pain struck up her arms, and she bit down until her face pulsed with her heartbeat. The ocean of vibration responded, but only to her impact. Whatever swam in the ocean with her and controlled its currents, it didn’t hear her.

  It’d helped her against Asmodeus, of its own choice? But it, or she, must have heard Asmodeus’s music, right? He pyed so much louder than Mia.

  But she didn’t need loud right now, not that loud, anyway. She told the ground to push out small walls of stone underneath her to make an opening in the muck for them, a dry spot. It did. She told the ground to open up, and it did. A gentle crater at first, wide enough for them all, barely, and it sank half a dozen meters into the ground. Minimal rumbling, minimal quaking, she drew on the rock and told it to act like liquid. Encase them whole, hide them, and leave a chimney hidden in the muck so they could breathe.

  The rock encased them all, slower than she wanted, but making it move at all was difficult, and sweat beaded down her forehead. A few tiny amber veins lined the rock walls, and the stone curved as it covered them in a grown ceiling.

  “In the Lord’s name.” Azreal sucked in a breath and stared up at the rock ceiling that slowly encased them. “I… I wasn’t there to see what happened, unmarked, when you… at the battle of Death’s Grip. But to see this with my own eyes…”

  Mia closed the ceiling overhead, officially trapping them all inside a small cave. Very small. The demons had to move in closer to fit, and it couldn’t be done without sharing space. Vin sat against the wall, and Julisa was more than happy to crouch between his legs. The incubi stood shoulder to shoulder, while Kas and Adron sat around Mia.

  Everyone gave the two angels a little more room.

  “Azreal,” Mia said. “Is Noah okay?”

  “He’ll live. He’s drained. He—” Azreal fell. No one caught him. Mia gred hard at the incubi, earning some winces from the very bad boys, and they helped Noah and Azreal sit back against the wall. Neither angel was in the condition to shove them off, but from the way Azreal set his purple eyes on them, he wanted to.

  “Okay,” Mia said, and she gestured to a hole in the ceiling, a pipe of rock that only stuck up high enough to barely pierce through the yer of muck above; she couldn’t see it, but her sixth sense told her the chimney idea was a success. “We won’t suffocate, and we should be fine if we whisper, I think.”

  Azreal nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Good. Asmodeus is still trying to py notes and pull me back down, but he’s failing. I think he really drained himself doing that tidal wave. So, I’m going to… lie down… and cry.” She set her head down, let the pain wash over her for half a second, and looked at Adron. “My—”

  He set her egg beside her.

  “Right here. It’s fine.”

  She scooped the egg in to her side with her good arm, and let out a low whine. Tears filled her eyes, and she forced down the urge to legit cry. Too much noise.

  Kas put a hand over her mouth, gave her arm a small yank, and before she could even realize what the flying fuck he was doing, he did it to her leg, too. She screamed into his hand and tears washed her vision. The only thing stopping her from giving away their position was the asshole suffocating her.

  He tilted his head and slowly removed his hand.

  “S… Sorry,” he whispered.

  Mia stared at him, panting, and gnced down at her limbs. As long as she stayed lying down, both limbs were now straight. The pain was less, too.

  For all Hell’s tortures, it wasn’t too concerned with the minor details of healing wounds. Bone slightly out of pce? Not an issue. As long as she got food and rest, she’d heal just fine, hopefully.

  “Kas, I—”

  He shook his head and adopted his usual half squat, half crouch position beside her, like he’d done when he’d been her bodyguard. If only she could hug him. How did he know how to set a broken bone?

  Thoughts no longer drowning in pain, she looked around.

  “Vin?” she asked. “You… You got crushed. You going to be alright?”

  Vin snarled, but even that was enough to force a hiss from him.

  Julisa mirrored the snarl and aimed it at Mia. “An Old One squeezed him hard enough to kill a lesser demon. His insides are destroyed. And he used hellfire. He needs food.”

  Don’t we all.

  “Azreal,” Mia said, head lying back and eyes aimed at the low ceiling. “You were both really beat up, when Asmodeus showed me your bodies. How’d you manage to fight?”

  The angel sighed. From the sound, he’d probably turned his head and looked down.

  “We… We were… still absorbing….”

  “Right. We found the bodies of some of your comrades. You ate their hearts?” No response, and Mia couldn’t lift her head to see the misery in his eyes. But she heard it. Not exactly tactful, Mia. “Asmodeus said you fought the invaders. The monsters. Is that what killed them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m… sorry. The monsters are probably trying to kill me. I don’t know why.”

  “Everyone wants to kill you,” Azreal said. “And no one knows why.”

  “She is insufferable,” Julisa said. “But I doubt that is why.”

  “Kas,” Mia said. “Can you… sit me up a bit? Slowly.”

  Her shark dinosaur nodded and did as asked. Far more slowly and gently than someone his size looked like he could manage, he slid her along the stone and helped her sit up. A very shallow sit, mostly just her head, so her broken arm and leg were free to lie limp on the ground. Good arm holding her egg, she looked at the two angels and winced. Their wings were torn up, ruined, and pretty much ripped in half.

  “Asmodeus hurt you, to learn about me?”

  Azreal shrugged, regretted it, and let his arms go limp too. “We told him little.”

  “Thank you. That must have been hard.”

  The angel raised a brow. “You’re welcome.”

  “Did you know he was alive?”

  “No. There is always talk of cultists scurrying in the underbelly of Hell, worshiping Cain or the Old Ones or Lucifer, but the targets of their reverence have not been seen in ages.”

  Mia nodded. “I… I’m surprised you came down here to talk to me.”

  The rapholem kept his beautiful eyes pointed down. “I heard about what happened, what Moriah did to Galon, and what Azoryev did to Yosepha. Something… is amiss. I can’t live with myself knowing something is wrong, and simply let it be. Not after you stopped him from eating us.” He gestured to Vin with a tiny nod.

  Vin snarled, but just like Mia, rexed back against the wall and let his body go limp. Too injured to even throw an insult.

  “Yosepha’s still alive,” she said, “with the Damall. Now that we’re back topside, maybe we can find them.”

  Julisa snorted. “If we survive. Finding food in this swamp will not be easy.”

  “Right,” Adron said. “The demons who live here know how to hunt this area, but the food I’d found here before was more luck than anything.”

  “Food.” Mia frowned down at her arm and leg. If she didn’t move, the pain was only extremely uncomfortable instead of blinding, but her inner fingers could still move. They ached, but despite literally crafting a tiny cave to hide in purely under her own power, they only hurt. She gently touched the strings, waited for the inevitable pain, and smiled. It hurt, but not nearly as much as it had before.

  She was adapting.

  Her weird music powers had one giant fw: they could only manipute Hell. She couldn’t create something from nothing. She couldn’t breathe hellfire or shoot angel beams. But in the Bck Valley, they were surrounded by Hell, by millions of remnants getting churned by the bone machines it grew to grind through the damned, and they were surrounded by the essence and resonance that they leaked into the bck.

  She lifted her good hand, aimed it at the empty ground in the center of their tiny cave, lifted her palm, and curled her fingers toward herself. This didn’t require some explosive strike of the strings. What she wanted to do was gentle, and a gentle song was all it took, a cute, cheerful tune, bright, and perhaps pyed on a flute.

  It was a shame the others couldn’t hear the beauty of the music.

  A tiny tree sprouted from the stone. It may have looked dead, with dark brown bark, nigh bck, but it was alive. It was alive the same way Hell herself was alive. And with a little coaxing and honeyed notes, Hell siphoned the endless nutrition of the swamp into the spot Mia focused on. The tree grew slowly, but slow was still ridiculously fast when watching a literal pnt grow in front of you.

  It stopped a few feet up, and tiny buds grew on its branches, little red acorns that grew into flesh-colored fruit, shaped like human hearts.

  “What is this madness?” Julisa asked, gring at the tree, at Mia, and back again. “We had been starving for days, and now you can create food for us?”

  “I didn’t know!” Shit. Whisper, damn it. “I didn’t know I could do this. I probably couldn’t have. It’s getting easier to py the music, okay? And to feel stuff. I can… I can feel all the energy the Bck Valley is churning through, how it created those forbidden trees we found, and…” She gestured at her little tree. “I just told it to do it here, instead of down in the cavern below us. I bet there’s trees all over the Bck Valley hidden in the muck we’d never be able to find, where there’s no cavern to grow them in. They’d have to grow on the surface, instead. Maybe… Maybe that’s how the demons who live here survive?”

  “Maybe,” Adron said. “But those are—” The tree grew, and the fruit grew with it. Everyone stared. It took only a few minutes for the fruit to finish growing, and for the tree to stop at three meters high, almost touching the ceiling of their little cave. “Wow. That is… a ridiculously amazing talent, Mia.”

  She smiled. Okay, that was a delightful ego stroke, and she relished in it, complete with a half grin and scrunching of the nose up at Julisa.

  “Here.” The vratorin plucked a fruit and handed it to her. “I mean, I assume it’s good to eat?”

  “I think so.” She used her good arm, took a bite, and smiled. No nasty memories, just delicious goodness. “They are.”

  The incubi each made a silent cheer, rubbed their hands, and reached for the tree.

  “Vin first,” Mia said. “And Azreal and Noah.”

  Azreal again raised a brow. Did he know just how ecstatic Mia was? If it wasn’t for the broken limbs, she’d have been hugging him and thanking him for finally talking to her, for giving peace a chance, for doing all the things she’d wished the angels she’d killed would have done.

  Faust handed Vin two fruits. Gallius handed Azreal two, as well. Vin looked at the small fruits of flesh, set his dragon gaze on Mia, and for just a fleeting second, it almost looked like he wasn’t so frustrated and angry anymore. If anything, he looked… tired? He swallowed them down, closed his eyes, and rested.

  Azreal bit off a piece and pushed it into Noah’s mouth. The angel stirred, eyes opening, and he sat up straight with a jolt. Azreal pushed him back.

  “Eat,” he said, and handed Noah the fruit heart.

  Noah stared down at it, at the tree growing in front of him, at the cave that surrounded them, and at Vin and Mia. A triple take at that. Mia would have grinned, but Noah would have probably thought she was insulting him. He seemed like the kinda guy to get angry easily.

  “We’re alive,” he said. “Where are we?”

  “Hiding from our brethren,” Azreal said. “The unmarked created this… little cave for us.”

  “Oh.” He blinked down at his beaten, cwed, bleeding body, and at the partially eaten fruit in his hand. “This… isn’t how things were supposed to go. Naumova, and Jordan, and Vaneva, and—”

  Azreal shook his head and set a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Their hearts are the only reason we’re still alive, Noah.”

  Oh no. Happiness vanished like someone popping a balloon, and Mia watched the two angels sink into the stone wall, their mangled and useless wings drooping more than their heads and shoulders. They’d eaten the hearts of their friends to survive.

  Julisa snorted. “The invisible monsters, the invaders, were strong enough to kill angels?”

  Azreal set his amethyst eyes on the tetrad. Even broken and battered, he looked ready to y down his life if it meant killing a demon. Which was exactly the situation Mia wanted to avoid, and she gred at Julisa with a big sign over her head saying such. Julia rolled her eyes.

  “The monsters were strange,” the angel said. “Their forms were… human-like, but rger, stronger, and as they fought, they changed. Their cws grew hard. They grew a sharp spike, hidden inside their tentacled mouths. The way they attacked changed each moment, until they found something that worked. There were a hundred of them, and only twelve of us.” He shook his head. “Four of us died. We… ate the hearts of our friends. But it didn’t matter. When we found Asmodeus, we were in no shape to avoid his attacks. He summoned rock and stone to pull us toward him, the same way you did, unmarked, to lift us from the canyon that… you created.”

  Mia forced herself to maintain eye contact with the stupidly handsome angel. Purple eyes, tan skin and clean shaven, with messy dark hair that didn’t quite reach the ears. He had the brooding look down perfectly.

  Noah looked more… dangerous. He had silver eyes, piercing, and long blonde hair with some facial stubble. All angels were ridiculously handsome, unfairly so, but Noah had an edge to him that made Mia watch him a little more than Azreal. Maybe he was anxious. Maybe he was a psychopath like that Moriah angel.

  “I’m sorry,” Mia said. “Asmodeus said he only grabbed you because he heard, uh, my note on you. I guess because you got close to me, once?”

  “Which means,” Julisa said, “we’re all tainted.” Clenching her teeth, she sat beside Vin. Not enough room to do that without pressing against him, but of course she didn’t mind. Everyone had gotten a piece of fruit now, and Vin would probably heal well enough to move again in a day or two.

  Her? She had no idea. How long would it take her to repair a broken limb? Her body wasn’t normal. Maybe it wouldn’t take long at all?

  “I guess,” Mia said. “But, I mean, can angels hear the note?”

  “No,” Azreal said. Noah shot him a gre, but Azreal didn’t respond, and kept his eyes on Mia. “There’s no getting around it, Noah. She saved us from an Old One we’d long thought dead, my friend. She’s saved our lives twice. We must work with her.” Even as he spoke to Noah, he kept his gaze on Mia. It was intense.

  “She could be lying.”

  “You truly think she is lying?”

  Noah slowly moved his eyes from Vin to Mia. “No. But that doesn’t mean she’s not capable of mistakes.”

  “Mistakes? I’ve made hundreds of those,” she said, and she gave Noah her best olive-branch smile. “Made plenty of them while down here, too.”

  Attempt to make the angels smile: fail. Damn.

  “Fine,” Noah said. “The council has made no mention of these… invaders. We did not know of their existence before we decided to speak with you. Our ten comrades came, because they’d heard what… what happened. News of Moriah’s insanity, Yosepha’s betrayal and crucifixion, it… it has stirred some angels to question. The council has gone thousands of years without a word. Not even when we marched on Belor did the council speak to us directly. The Spires War was the st time we heard the council give us a direct order until now. Until the unmarked showed up at our door, and…” He colpsed back against the wall and took a bite of his fruit.

  “This decision did not come lightly,” Azreal said. “But when our comrades attempted to question the council about the unmarked, about what you did, Mia, they went unanswered.”

  “Blind faith,” Vin said, chuckling. “Where is your faith now, angel?”

  Noah set his gre on the child of Belial, and his silver eyes cut the air in two.

  “You are not but a ravager, a monster, unable to see past your own bloodlust. How dare you speak of things you do not understand.”

  This again. What history the angels had with Vin, Mia could only guess, but it’d probably be an accurate guess. Vin had doubtless been causing so much chaos that the angels investigated; they didn’t want Hell getting too uppity. Vin, and maybe even some demons who served him, maybe even the rider, fought and killed the angels. Azreal and Noah had been a part of that group, which meant they were hundreds of years old, too, at least. And it meant they had good reason to hate him.

  “Shir,” Mia said. “The angel that… that Vin hurt. Is she alright?”

  “She lived,” Noah said, eyes still on Vin. “Though she chose to be reborn, and leave her scars behind.”

  “Reborn?”

  Noah didn’t answer. Azreal looked at Mia, and his stare was deep, and, of course, brooding.

  “Your plot is known,” Noah said, finally breaking eye contact with Vin. “Yosepha’s torture was… effective. The council has sent battalions to scour the sky in all provinces, searching for you and for any other unmarked. If the woman in aera armor told you to go to False Gate, then it stands she told other unmarked. Though why she does not escort you herself is beyond us.”

  “The rider,” Mia said. “He can track her. She’s worried if she helps one of us directly, he’ll follow her and track us down and kill us.”

  Noah nodded. “Beyond that, we know that you can use angel runes, as is obvious. We know not what the music is Asmodeus spoke of, but it seems it is a force the Old Ones can wield, as can you.” He cracked a knuckle using his thumb. Angels could do that? “And we know you can read and speak the ancient nguage. That alone will make you a target from spire rulers who will want your knowledge.”

  “I still don’t know what the ancient nguage is.”

  The two angels traded a brief gnce and shook their heads.

  “A question for the council,” Azreal said, grunting. “But they will not hear you.”

  “Right.” Mia nodded and took another bite of fruit. The tingling warmth flowed out through her limbs, and she sighed with relief as another sliver of pain disappeared. Plenty of food and a magical body meant fast healing, maybe. “I’m really sorry, about all that’s happened. I didn’t know about any of this, about the music or Asmodeus—fuck I didn’t even know about Asmodeus just an hour ago.” Holy crap, how much things could change in an instant.

  “No one did,” Noah said.

  “Still, I’m really sorry about… about getting you two involved.”

  “But not us?” Faust said, touching his chest, but he had a joker’s grin on.

  Mia returned it. “I’m paying you back plenty!”

  “True.” And he winked, because of course he did.

  Okay, time for the expnation she’d been practicing in her head for a week. “I’m trying to save the world. The woman in armor was pretty convincing. Vin believes her, too. I have to get to the Forgotten Pce, and… and…” She gulped, but kept her eyes on the angels, no matter how much the conversation might hurt. “I suppose, if he, they, are still alive, I need to talk to Lucifer.” Both angels sneered, and she put up her good hand. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything, except that invisible monsters — not so invisible anymore — are trying to kill me, angels are trying to kill me, the rider is trying to kill me, and demons young and old are trying to eat me or use me. So… what else can I do?”

  “You could die,” Noah said. Everyone save Azreal looked at him.

  Mia took in a slow breath. “If dying is how to save everyone, then that’s what I’ll do.” Big words. It was easy to sound heroic and self sacrificing. Not so easy to throw yourself on your sword if it came to that. “And I know I don’t need to do that myself, because I trust the Damall to do it for me if they have to. Or Yosepha. Or… you two, right?”

  Both angels raised a brow.

  “Us two?” Azreal asked.

  “You’re wounded. Your wings are ruined. It’ll be a while before you can go back to your fellow angels. So, I mean… we can go our separate ways, I suppose, but I thought you’d come with us, maybe?”

  “Our comrades are above us right now,” Noah said, grinding his teeth. “They search the swamp for an expnation for the chaos that just occurred. Why would we not rejoin them?”

  “Because,” Azreal said, “they suspect us the same way they suspected Yosepha and Galon.”

  “Shir—”

  “We did not share our plot with Shir because we didn’t want her caught by our choices.” Azreal turned and gred at his friend from point bnk. “She is safe in her ignorance. But our friends joined us on this quest, knowing they would gain the suspicion of Ravid and Arioch.”

  “Arioch?” Mia asked.

  Vin snorted, half smiled, and he swallowed down another fruit. The tree was producing plenty.

  Noah shot him a death stare. “Arioch leads the mikalim division of the Heavenly Isnd Ravid.”

  “Sounds like someone Vin knows?”

  Vin chuckled again, a quiet one, the ‘I know you hate me and I love it’ kind.

  “I think,” Adron said, “that we should just all be quiet until tomorrow. We sit here, let the other angels leave, let Mia heal, Vin too, and then we can figure out what we’re going to do. Sound good?” Silence was his answer. “Good enough.”

  Mia smiled at the man and patted his leg. He sat beside her, careful to not touch her broken limbs, and he closed his eye like he was making a statement.

  It took a while, but others closed their eyes, too. Kas stayed awake. Faust, too. First shift.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  It took a while, but Azreal eventually closed his eyes. Noah didn’t. He’d take the first shift making sure the demons didn’t kill the two angels while they slept. Mia didn’t try expining it was unnecessary. She’d kinda hoped Noah would go to sleep first, since he seemed a bit votile, but better than nothing. Mia motioned to him with her good hand.

  “What?” he whispered.

  She rolled her eyes and motioned again, earning an eye-roll in return, but he came over and sat beside her, nudging his wing against the sleeping incubi to make room.

  “What?”

  “I wanted to thank you.”

  “Why?”

  “You shot Asmodeus, when Asmodeus caught us. You didn’t have to do that.”

  Noah set his eyes on the ground underneath him. “If I hadn’t, we might have been trapped down there.”

  “Maybe. But you knew for sure if you shot him, you’d get his attention. And if you’d waited a little longer, he might have really hurt Vin.”

  That got something out of him, an eye twitch, a clenched jaw, and squeezed fists. But he sighed, shook his head, and let out a breath carrying a million tons.

  “Vinicius has rampaged across Hell,” he whispered between clenched teeth, “challenging angels wherever he found them. But…” He looked at Mia, as if waiting for her to interrupt with the cssic ‘but’ continuation. She said nothing. She watched him and listened. “Vin is an animal, as are all demons. They do what animals do, mindless and bloodthirsty.”

  “I…” She bit her lip and shut up.

  “Angels have tried to control the wars between the spires on several occasions, the st being our… police action against Belor. It always ends with angel deaths. Sometimes I think it would have been better to simply let the demons rip themselves apart. Would it be so bad if someone united the spires? Demons cannot fly. They cannot use the vortex to attack Heaven. And that would not change if Belor had gained control of all nine spires.”

  Mia blinked. Wow, he’d really been looking for someone to talk to about this. Heaven sounded strict, totalitarian even, and if talking about this sorta stuff was viewed as treasonous, maybe talking about it with other angels would walk a line too thin? Considering what the isnd Azoryev did to Yosepha, angels weren’t unwilling to get brutal.

  “Maybe your council thought it’d be a problem if someone who controlled all the spires reached the Forgotten Pce? If Lucifer’s imprisoned there, releasing them might be possible?”

  “Perhaps. But the council refuses to answer that question, to inform us.”

  “Maybe they think ignorance is safer?”

  Noah stared down at his fists and clenched them until he shook.

  “When I heard about what happened between Moriah and Galon, I knew something was wrong. An angel has not struck another angel down in millennia, and…” Again, he released a breath a thousand years old. The fuck had this man been through? “You saved my life, the first day we met. To hear Azoryev tortured Yosepha on the cross, to learn of you? That Moriah killed an angel to reach you? Azoryev is reckless, but I fear the council is letting these problems fester. They’re aware of them, but refuse to act. They are…”

  “Not doing anything?”

  “To put it lightly.”

  “I saw what Moriah did. It was… pretty bad. She was really angry.”

  “I’ve heard she’s lost two close companions, Shaul and Tzipporah, to another unmarked with red hair and freckles. A young man. Your brother, I assume? I pity him. Moriah and Shaul were once an item, for many centuries. Angel retionships are very rare, and…” Sighing, he rexed back against the stone wall. “I can tell from talking to you that you are not some violent, horrible abomination, Mia. I could tell that from the moment I met you. So could Azreal, and Shir. But we… had our orders. We—Mia?”

  Mia stared at him, unblinking. “The two angels David killed. Tell me about it.”

  Noah opened his mouth, closed it, and slowly nodded.

  “I do not know the details. But, part of what led to your battle in Death’s Grip, was Moriah intercepting Yosepha. She’d returned from a failed mission. A scouting party led by Shaul ran into your brother David, and he defeated them. And… I suppose he let Moriah go.”

  Mia sighed and almost pulled her legs up to her chest. But, nope, broken leg, not doing that.

  “Moriah said that, before she killed Galon. I… didn’t want to believe it.”

  “You killed hundreds, unmarked.”

  She gred at him. “That’s not the same as two. Two sounded… like a personal battle, you know? That battle in Death’s Grip was so… disconnected. Everything was at a distance.” Shivering, she stared down at her broken leg and arm. If not for the fruit, and her weird body, she’d have been in agony, only made worse by the memories Noah dug up. “If I had to look someone in the eye and kill them? I don’t think I could.”

  “Even to save someone?”

  “Even to save someone. Maybe. Probably not. I don’t know.”

  He nodded and rubbed his jaw. Scratch scratch, she could hear his fingers against his stubble. “It’s a turbulent time for us angels. From since before I was born of the fountain, there have always been angels who are reckless and spend their time in Hell, for reasons I couldn’t fathom. But as the centuries have gone by, I…” He gnced around. Kas and Faust were awake and didn’t hide it. Kas wouldn’t repeat the conversation. And Faust, the angel could crush with a single hand, if he wanted, and a threatening gre was probably enough to silence him for the future. “I shouldn’t speak of this while the others listen.”

  Faust put up his hands and drew a zipper across his lips. Kas wagged the tip of his thick tail. None of the other demons responded.

  “I mean, they’re going to learn everything you’re telling me eventually,” she said. They both knew at least one demon was only pretending to sleep. “I’m surprised you’re telling me anything at all.”

  “I speak because you are correct, and… this is all inevitable. With Heaven now on the warpath, it won’t be long before the knowledge spreads. Other angels hide in Hell, convinced the council is making a mistake. There have not been this many… traitors… since the First War.”

  “You mean, when Lucifer fell? Is that how that even happened?”

  “The details of the fall are known—”

  “Only to the council, right.”

  He winced. “But it is known that some angels joined Lucifer in their quest. None live. Traitors, all.”

  “And… you think you’re a traitor, too?”

  She might as well have torn his heart out. He didn’t flinch, but his face hardened into steel and his eyes gred at the ground.

  He opened his mouth, closed it like before, and turned into a statue. Yeah, that was too much. Ideally he’d have said something like ‘of course I’m a traitor’ and she could have veered the conversation into some self-discovery for him, help him learn about his own motivations, and help her learn about his motivations, too. There were definitely some self-hatred vibes coming from Noah, all probably to do with him leaving Heaven to talk to her.

  But they’d only just met, barring that one encounter weeks ago. It wasn’t like she could pry open his brain and figure out what made him tick, no matter how much her inner psychologist wanted to.

  “You don’t trust me,” she said.

  “It was Shir who convinced Azreal and I to see you.”

  “What?”

  “Before she was reborn, she told us you and her… That she met your eyes, when she stabbed Vinicius’s shoulder. Shir is no gabriem, but it would not be the first time she has understood the character of someone quickly. She insisted you could not be what other angels believe you to be. And after learning about Moriah and the battalion of angels Avital led, Azreal and I realized we had no choice. We left; we did not tell her to spare her that secret.” He sighed again. “Something is wrong in Heaven, with the council, and is it linked to the unmarked.”

  “Are there any other unmarked?” she asked. “I know two are dead.”

  “There are. We do not know where.”

  “Well, I bet we’ll find them, especially if the woman in armor gave them the same directions she gave us.” She patted the angel’s leg. “Thanks for talking. Helps keep my mind off the pain.”

  “This is the afterlife. Pain won’t stop you from sleeping.”

  “True. Still, I… I kinda expected you and Azreal to keep me at sword’s length, you know?”

  He winced again. Better than statue face. “Angels enjoy the company of humans, even mikalim. And you… behave like a human, just like a soul in Heaven, one worthy of her waters.”

  Mia smiled at the man, and made damn sure to keep smiling at him until he saw how happy that comment made her.

  “Thank you.” She leaned back, stroked her egg, and closed her eyes.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ~~Day 56~~

  ~~David~~

  Laoko knew where to go, every square meter of the Grave Valley identified and understood. She hadn’t just lived in the province. She’d explored it thoroughly, up and down, left and right, who knew how many times. Caera knew her way around Death’s Grip, too, but Laoko had them all more than a little stunned with how easily she recognized a bck tree, or particur tombstone.

  She also watched Acelina a few times, eyes lingering on the spire mother. David almost said something, but Laoko never said anything, and Acelina didn’t seem to care.

  The journey to Timaeus’s was uneventful. Thank god. No one saw them, no soul or demon or angel, thanks to Laoko’s knowledge and the relentless white fog. No rider, either. Carting around a one-winged angel on a tregeera’s back wasn’t exactly discreet, but so far, so good.

  “If we go any further,” Laoko said, and she gestured to a line of colossal tombstones, “we will be seen. Timaeus has several thousand demons under his thumb, and they will obey his command. Mostly.”

  “Mostly?” the angel asked. “Pathetic.”

  “Demons are demons. Think what you will. I only say that if we keep going, we lose the chance to stash the angel away.”

  They had considered that. A hole in the ground might be a better option for Moriah, some pce she could hide and heal. But there were too many risks. She might get found out before she’d healed enough to defend herself, and with how serious her wounds were, she needed more time and more food. If they kept her with the group, they could at least try and keep her alive themselves.

  And it wasn’t like Hell was at war with Heaven. Right? Angels weren’t a kill-on-sight target for demons. It was just that demons were hungry and angel hearts were supposedly very filling and even empowering. Like Laoko said, demons were demons.

  “Intimidation going to take us far here?” David asked.

  Laoko grinned at him. “Perhaps. Did you have something in mind?”

  “Maybe. I’m just wondering, if we’re gonna walk into a den of demons, hundreds and hundreds of them, what’s it gonna be like?”

  “Timaeus controls the rgest building in the Border Stones. There are many buildings grown here, but his is the rgest. We walk up to it, accept that we will be surrounded on all sides, and walk in through the front door. Timaeus will see us before his throne, and we will make our case.”

  Surrounded. David did not like surrounded.

  “The angel’s heart is valuable,” Acelina said. “If—”

  “Not happening,” David said.

  With a heavy sigh, Acelina fred her long, thin wings, shook her head, and wandered off a bit. Yeah, about what David figured from her. But Acelina had pyed ball so far, and some compints from her were expected, almost enjoyed. He identified with compiners. They were his kin.

  “So,” he said, “if we look weak, we might get attacked by some hungry demons?”

  “Perhaps. Demons wander Timaeus’s hold of the Border Stones without fear of death, usually. He doesn’t want needless violence.”

  Jes nodded. “Makes sense. The provinces are all trying to toughen up, I bet, just like Zel was. They all sense trouble brewing. Have for years.”

  David mirrored the nod and went into thinking mode. “Still. You think if we arrived looking, uh, more imposing, it might help us, Laoko?”

  “I suppose.”

  Time to see how much Moriah trusted him. He walked up to Caera and looked up at the angel on her back.

  “Teach me how to use the batm rune.”

  “I will not!”

  “Please?”

  That stunned her. She stared at him, ruby eyes wide, some ratio of fury and surprise he couldn’t guess, but she recovered fast and returned to her dagger gre.

  “No.”

  “I figured out potram without your help, you know.”

  “Potram is as easy as breathing. Angels freshly birthed of the fountain quickly learn to use it. Batm takes training. And even if it were easy, I still wouldn’t want you using it.”

  He tilted his head. “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Why wouldn’t you want me using it?”

  “Because it is an angel rune! A gift from God themself! It is not some piece of armor to be passed around with abominations who wander the hellscape. You—”

  David put up a hand. “I get it. I’m figuring this out on my own.” What fun. He stepped back and shook out his arms and legs. “Batm.” He rubbed a temple and concentrated. The rune glowed in his mind, a million times heavier than potram. “I have to lift it.”

  “You won’t be able to.”

  “Yeah? I destroyed an entire forest just a few days ago.”

  “I don’t know how you can manipute Hell herself, but you are not maniputing Hell to wield an angel’s rune. You are exerting your own self, your own power. You do not have the strength to wield it.”

  That was an insult.

  He stared at the angel, and stare turned into gre. Fists clenched, he ground his teeth and did his best to ignore the fire coursing through his veins. Like a flint spark to tinder, her words sent burning heat through his eyes.

  Deep breaths. He closed his eyes and pushed the anger away like had a million times before dying. Don’t argue. Don’t get upset. Don’t lower yourself to her level.

  He wanted to, though. He’d yelled at her before, and he wanted to again. The burning in his gut told him to freak out, scream, bury her in facts. He wanted to make her understand. He wanted to yell and smash things and—

  “David?” Caera said. “You okay?”

  His eyes snapped open, and he grabbed and killed the aura strings. He’d been touching them, pying them, and now everyone looked at him with raised eyebrows. It’d not been a very nice aura.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’m fine. Just frustrated and tired.”

  Caera watched him, but the silence settled, and she nodded and shrugged. “If you say so.”

  He smiled at her. The knowledge about Mia killing Zel burned in his gut, too, and begged him to tell her. He’d grown closer to Caera over the weeks, and keeping a secret was hard enough under normal circumstances.

  But, ter. For now, time to prove the angel wrong. “I think I can wield it.”

  “I doubt it,” Moriah said.

  “Yeah, I get that.” He found a tombstone to lean against and took another breath. “I can see the rune, see where it connects to other runes, see how it aligns with angel, and heaven, and God, and battle. I can feel how heavy it is.” With his invisible fingers, he traced the edges of the rune. The sensation was immediate, and familiar. Anyone who’d deadlifted a lot of weight knew the feeling. Full-on engagement of every muscle, and dialing up focus on the central nervous system to the point just thinking was exhausting.

  Mia sucked at that. If she had to, she could walk across a desert long after he’d colpsed, but to get her to hyper focus on something and pour every bit of effort she had, every ounce of energy, every microscopic speck of determination, into a single moment? That just wasn’t her. It was David, though. It was something he did well, even to the point of injury.

  Hopefully, he didn’t injure himself now.

  He took another breath, stood up straight, spread his legs a bit, bent his knees a touch, and got ready to lift something very heavy. Heavy wasn’t the right word to describe it, though, but getting his body aligned with the goal helped get his mind aligned. And luckily it did, because the weight of the rune hit his brain and he stumbled back.

  He dropped the weight, panted and sweated, all from a whole ten seconds of effort.

  “As I said,” Moriah said, wearing a condescending bitch frown, “the rune is heavy.” At least she wasn’t smiling.

  He gred at her. She didn’t know every insult was fire in his gut. This had happened many times in the past, ego challenged, pride put on the line, and David had pushed himself to do some pretty ridiculous things. Climb stupidly high trees. Lift weight a cssmate said he couldn’t. Get into some heated debates that bordered on violence.

  He had the self-awareness to know his problem wasn’t finding determination. It was not letting it destroy him from the inside out. But the way Moriah gred at him, down at him from Caera’s back, raked coals down his back and burned him.

  Lift. The. Fucking. Rune.

  He grabbed the rune’s sharp edges, and lifted. Every muscle flexed. His teeth clenched. Closed eyes saw white spots. Lungs froze. Abs constricted into steel. His inner and outer fingers squeezed until pain entered the mix of overload.

  He lifted the fucking rune.

  Spots turned into a snowstorm behind his eyelids. Nausea overwhelmed him. Dizziness followed. Ass pnted against the tombstone, he groaned through his teeth and lifted the rune until it snapped into pce. Gold light consumed him, turned red, and the soft potram rune faded away. The hardness of batm repced it.

  “Holy shit,” Jes said.

  Gasping, and probably dying if he was being honest, David took a step forward and leaned his weight on his staff.

  Staff?

  He looked himself up and down. Not the silver and gold of angel armor, but the bck and red of something far more Hell-ish, and maybe a little sinister. It had some spikes on the joints, even on top of the boots, and hints of red silk and padding lined pces between sbs of thick bck armor. Red rubies decorated his chest. He raised a gauntlet — holy shit a gauntlet — to his head, and removed a bck crown covered in spikes, and dotted with red rubies as well.

  He put it back on, almost fell over, and again leaned on his staff. A long staff, with various grooves for holding, with a spiked grip at the top clutching a ruby. The ruby wasn’t perfectly red, though. Amber glowed inside it, swirling hues of orange and yellow encased in red fme. Like hellfire.

  Jes came close and circled him. “You’re all… spiky, like Dao and Caera.”

  Dao clicked several times and circled him, too. The Las watched, jaws dropped. Acelina smiled just long enough to let him see her shark teeth before her mouth closed and hid her features. Caera grinned. Moriah gred.

  “My my,” Laoko said, and she squatted near him. “Are you okay, unmarked? You look drained.”

  “Yeah. This is heavy. Up here, heavy.” He pointed at his temple with his free hand, sted half a second, and grabbed his staff so he didn’t fall over. A wizard’s staff. It wasn’t even subtle. “Does it look… imposing?”

  “Fuck yes, it does,” Caera said, and she prowled over to him. “Doesn’t it, angel?”

  Moriah snarled. It probably sounded more demony than she wanted.

  “How dare you turn our sacred runes into abominations.”

  “Abominations? Hey, I just put it on. I didn’t tell it to turn bck and red.” He pointed his staff at her, and smmed it back down. Almost fell over. “I didn’t tell it to… I don’t even know what this is.” He nodded to the ruby in the staff’s cw grip. “Looks almost like hellfire, but I don’t think it is. I… think it’s just… an extension of me?”

  “How did you put the rune on?”

  “You saw how. I nearly fucking killed myself.”

  Moriah glowered. “It is not that easy!”

  “Easy? I said I—”

  “How could a thing like you—”

  “I am not a thing!” He smmed the staff again. Metal hit a shard of broken tombstone, and the ding resounded through the fog. “I… am just a guy, with some weird fucking abilities. I don’t know why, but if I can use them to do some fucking good, then I will. I got that one goal in front of me, okay? Just the one. Get to False Gate, from there get to the Forgotten Pce, and if the woman with the fire wings wasn’t lying, maybe I can save the world from being destroyed.”

  “You’ve said this before.” Walls of brick were softer than the angel’s attitude.

  “Well, it’s still true. So instead of making everything harder for me, you could try helping.”

  “Help?”

  “Yes, help. I need to wear this armor, so when we strut into Timaeus’s headquarters, no demons think they can mess with us. Laoko’s helped us a lot, but with an unmarked and a wounded angel, something tells me some demons will step out of line and try and take a bite. So, if you can help me wear this rune without it breaking my back, I’d appreciate it.”

  Queue the gring match. He stood up straight, set his eyes on the angel’s, and the two of them held each other’s gazes while everyone else watched in silence.

  The angel sighed. “You must learn to think of the rune as something you are wearing, not something you are lifting. It is heavy, yes, and you must lift it. But you lift it as something that covers your body, not something you grab and haul like some barbarian.”

  He smiled. Progress. Finally.

  “Thank you.”

  She squinted at him, almost said something, but settled for nothing.

  Okay, wearing it. He could do that. One of the pros of being a small, light guy, was how easy it was to lift his own weight. But that meant using his own weight in training wasn’t very effective. He was well accustomed to wearing a weighted vest, or wearing a weight belt with a chain and hooking on more weight.

  He took a step. Physically moving wasn’t the problem. Mentally moving was. He took another step, stood up straight, and banced the rune on his mind, around it and over it, envisioning it draping over his shoulders and hips. Weight to wear, not carry in his hands.

  “Yeah, that helps,” he said. “Still feels like I’m about to be crushed, but… yeah, that helps.” After some heavy breathing and sweat wiping, he gestured out to the tombstones on their path. “Laoko?”

  The giantess smiled down at him, tilting her head. “You’re sure you can wear that armor for the next mile, unmarked?”

  “I—no. No, I can’t.” And like slipping a twenty-kilogram vest over his head, he let go of the rune, and it all went poof. He sucked in relief, checked his potram silk toga was back on — it was — and he leaned back against the tombstone again. “Okay, yeah, that’s going to take some practice. I’ll save it for when we really need it.”

  “It does get easier, unmarked,” Moriah said. “How you are able to wield angel runes at all, I cannot fathom, but if the process is simir, then it will grow easier.”

  “Good. ‘Cause holy damn, the fact you angels can wear that all the time is crazy. You’re strong.” If his compliment earned a smile, he didn’t see it. “And royam? What’s that angel rune do? I didn’t learn it when I touched you.”

  “Royam is… not important. Leave it be.”

  “You sure? I mean—”

  “Leave it be, unmarked.”

  He put up his hands in surrender. Pushing her when she’d already helped him — a bit — wasn’t a good idea. It was taking some effort to not give her a jackass grin because she’d helped him, maybe tease her a little. And because he’d succeeded when she’d said he couldn’t. But the cruel reality knocked the thought aside. She’d lost friends only days ago, and he’d killed two of them a couple weeks before that. It was a wonder she was being helpful at all. Maybe she actually believed him?

  He eyed her. She eyed him. What was going on in that brain of hers? With Laoko, the friendly smiles and subtle grins told him she was analyzing the situation and making sure she pyed her cards right to come out on top. Moriah had none of that. She was a wall of rage, and if there was something going on behind that inferno, he couldn’t see it. Mia could have.

  It didn’t feel like rage about her dead comrades, though. Maybe they weren’t close. She’d definitely been close with Shaul, though, the first angel David ever killed. And sometimes, just for a second, he was sure Moriah was imagining skewering him in the same way he had Shaul.

  “Okay,” he said. “I think I’m ready. You girls ready?”

  Each La raised a hand. “Ready!” They all stared at him with wonder.

  He smiled down at Lasca, slipped off her extra breastpte she’d still been carrying for him, and tossed it away. Knife, too.

  “David sure?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’m saving energy walking around in potram, and if shit hits the fan, I think I can summon batm again and defend myself. Better than carting around all that weight.”

  “Breastpte not heavy.”

  He ughed. “Heavy for me!”

  She smiled up at him, beaming and showing off her huge shark smile.

  The rest of the girls double-checked their weapons and armor, and gave him the go ahead.

  “Then we march,” Laoko said. “Stay behind me.” She spared a peek at Acelina, a little smile, and led the way.

  The curvy tetrad walked through the tombstones, and the group followed, Caera, Moriah, and David right behind her. The Las ran around randomly, darting through and hopping on tombstones as expected, while Jes, Dao, and Acelina stayed close to Caera’s tail. It was one thing to wander a province and defend yourself against random encounters. It was another thing entirely to walk into the lion’s den.

  It was a vilge.

  “What the fuck?” David asked, looking around. Not just a vilge. A haunted vilge. Old, decrepit wooden or stone buildings, most only a single floor, some with wooden doors and some with doors hanging off their hinges. The rooftops were old, broken, falling in. All around the buildings were small, white tombstones, appropriately sized for a human graveyard, and they decorated the ground randomly like weeds.

  The haunted part came in when they passed some buildings close enough to see inside. Skulls. Piles of skulls. From some buildings, groans and moans escaped, but there were no ghosts, only demons having orgies, often with their betrayer sves in the middle. Often, while surrounded by skulls.

  Dozens of demons drifted around, some randomly grinding weapon edges on tombstones, some shoving each other and arguing about certain zones, a few fighting over a betrayer they both clung to. Some stood on broken rooftops and plucked at their wings, or sat and plucked at their hooves if they had them. A few took the time to clean a skull of dirt, and delicately force a metal hook through the bone before letting the trophy dangle from their belts.

  Every single one of them stopped what they were doing, and stared at Laoko, the angel, and David.

  “Unmarked,” they whispered, and a few ran down the dirt path. Barely better than a road, it was covered with small shards of white, all likely from the tombstones, all ground into smooth pebbles in the dirt by frequent use.

  Laoko looked back, smiled, and marched on. Her side was mostly healed, and she walked with a strut; the hooves helped, like high heels. She was the only tetrad nearby, and she towered over the gorgas and vratorins they passed. Even devorjins, with their bulky mass and ck of spikes, were only around nine feet tall, and looked tiny compared to the ten-foot giant demoness with four arms.

  One tregeera, a little smaller than Caera, stepped out of the fog on their path, walking on her hind legs. She wore armor, and several skulls hung from a belt, big skulls with horns broken off.

  “Laoko. You return.”

  “I do. I must speak with Timaeus.”

  The unnamed tiger dy looked past Laoko at the rest of the group. David finger waved. Dumb, but he did it anyway, and the stranger narrowed her eyes at him.

  “You bring an angel, a zotiva”—she spared a gnce for Acelina—“and… one of the unmarked!” She hissed and took a step back. Not the reaction David was looking for, but a useful one. If they were already scared of him, this might be easy.

  “I do,” Laoko said. “Now either join me or get out of my way.” A threat spoken with a smooth, almost soft voice. It was enough to make the tiger sneer.

  A standoff. The two girls knew each other, but if Laoko wasn’t going to say her name, it couldn’t have been a friendly retionship. And Laoko stood a little straighter, four hands at the ready. Definitely not friendly.

  “Fine. If you bring doom on us, Azailia will have your head.”

  “You know she won’t.”

  The tiger snarled, fell to all fours, and prowled back the way she came. Laoko followed.

  It wasn’t long before a crowd gathered. No riivas like Dao, but he saw devorjins, gorgas, vratorins, a couple diloja bat girls, one more tregeera, plenty of imps and grems, and even a borjin. You didn’t see many borjin minotaurs out in Hell; they stuck near spires or bailiff HQs, apparently. Big guys, even bigger than devorjin brutes, bulky and forward-leaning, with hooves and a tail, big horns, and big spikes on their back and joints. Humans called them minotaurs, because of the thick bull horns, and the short snout.

  The sole borjin worked on a building, stacking fallen rocks and bck lumber, trying to fix a broken wall. He wasn’t doing a very good job, and it all came crumbling down when he stared at the passing group.

  They came to a church, a big one, with walls of bck stone and wooden windows and doors. Not fancy. Borderline falling apart. But the doors worked well enough, and the tiger pushed them open.

  It was what David expected. A big church. Not a cathedral, but the kind of church people back in the 1500s would have built, using wood where they could, stones for walls, with random wood pilrs to keep the ceiling stable. Giant wood pews lined the floor, with three isles all coming to the short stage. A big enough church for a thousand people, probably more, and a throne of piled stones sat on the stage behind the pulpit.

  “Ti—”

  “Timaeus,” Laoko said, interrupting the tiger, and she spread her arms. “My old friend. How fairs your war with Ricillia?”

  The tiger gred back at Laoko, but a small grunt from Timaeus sent her away. She stopped at the door, and watched. The church had plenty of demons in it, with more than a few gorgas perching on rafters above, and a couple brutes standing beside the bailiff. Each of them stared, unable to pick a target for their lingering eyes.

  Their jaws dropped when they looked at David, his clothes, and his ck of a mark.

  “Ricillia lies dead. But of course you know that.” Timaeus stepped off his throne and walked down the isle. A tetrad gorujin. David had never seen one up close before. They looked a lot like korgejins, ten feet tall with wings, but a gorujin like Timaeus had cwed feet instead of hooves, and he sported a tail. His dreadlocks were short, and he wore four horns as big as Laoko’s.

  A giant sword hung from his hip, a dozen trophies from his belt, and a few of them looked big enough to be tetrad skulls. Gulp.

  “Of course.”

  “So tell me, what does Azailia’s favorite want with me? I thought you and Teleius were off gallivanting along the edge of my Border Stones.”

  “We were.” Laoko winced and looked back at the group. “The rider killed them all.”

  Timaeus stood up a little straighter. “The rider is here?”

  “We lost him. But he’s out there, on a killing spree.”

  “Teleius—”

  “Dead. He sacrificed himself fighting the rider, so we could escape.”

  Timaeus groaned and paced in pce, shaking his wings while his tail drooped. A little more animated than David figured he’d be.

  “A good death?”

  “It was.”

  “And the rider killed them all?”

  “It’s… complicated.” Laoko stepped aside and gestured to the angel. “The angel is our prisoner. Sort of. We will bring her and the unmarked to Azailia, and with any luck, something can be done about the rider, and the doom in Death’s Grip.”

  Timaeus came close and squatted in front of Caera and David. All gorujin and korgejin tetrads had very demony faces, almost skull-ish, with very defined brows, hard jaws, and a few teeth poking out from around their lips like a crocodile would. Hyper masculine, even, in a monstery way. Badass, but intimidating when staring at you from two feet away.

  “You’re unmarked.”

  “I am,” David said.

  “And the clothes?”

  “Long story.”

  Timaeus waited for the story. David didn’t give it to him.

  “I told them,” Laoko said, “that we will save our story for Azailia. It’s a sensitive matter.”

  The gorujin leaned in closer, almost kissing distance, and set one red and bck eye on David.

  “I have heard the spire of Death’s Grip has nearly fallen into some sort of abyss. That a crater has ripped Hell in half. Is this true?”

  David shook his head. “I don’t know about all of Hell. Death’s Grip was ripped in half, though, yeah.” David didn’t pull away. This was a typical man test, getting in each other’s personal space and seeing who backed down first. In high school, David might have made some ape noises and thudded his chest, calling out the ridiculous behavior for what it was. Probably not a good idea with a ten-foot-tall demon.

  Timaeus spread his wings and tilted his head to the side. “Why shouldn’t I simply eat your angel? I hear they provide great power and nourishment. You can keep the unmarked, Laoko, and I’m sure Azailia would appreciate another zotiva in her tower. But the angel? Why shouldn’t I simply devour her?”

  “Because I won’t let you,” David said.

  Timaeus didn’t blink. David did, because that was the normal thing to do and he would not get into yet another staring contest today.

  “You think you can stop me, unmarked? I can feel that aura, tingling around you, but it means little.” And because of course things had to go this way, Timaeus nudged David in the shoulder, earning a snarl from Caera and Jes.

  David held up a hand for the girls. They didn’t attack.

  He might have crazy powers that allowed him to level entire areas, but they weren’t so useful when a target was already in his face. Maybe he could summon some ground spikes, like he had the first time he’d used his powers? Not easily, not like this, with the demon an inch from his face.

  He really was kinda like a wizard, wasn’t he? RPG rules kicked in, and he framed the afterlife in a whole new light. He was the wizard, and he needed a frontline to protect him if he was going to do what wizards did.

  For now, maybe a little intimidation would get the giant demon to back off.

  He summoned the batm rune, and wore it. Like putting on a weighted vest, the burden pressed down on his insides. More weight, and more, like ankle weights and wrist weights and a weight belt and other things he’d never tried. The weight buried him, but not as badly as before, like learning how to lift furniture with the proper technique.

  He wore the rune. Red light encapsuted him, and the huge demon jumped back with a snarl. The light vanished, and David stood with staff in hand and body decorated in red and bck armor, spiky, with red rubies, red silk between the joints, a crown, and a staff in his hand. And just so the point was clear, he smmed the staff’s base into the wood floor. It echoed, and nearby demons stared.

  “I’ve had a long journey,” he said. “I’ve had to kill a lot of people to get here, demons and angels. So if you’ll be so kind as to listen to Laoko, give us a pce to rest, and—”

  “And feed us,” Jes said, waving a cw.

  “… and feed us, then we’ll be on our way to Azailia’s. Laoko says you’ll want to escort us. Is that true?”

  The demon stared down at him, eyes set between surprise and rage. He didn’t like being challenged in his headquarters, especially not where his demons could see. If it’d been a few weeks ago, David would have happily pyed meek and helpless and let Caera or Jes or Acelina or Laoko do all the heavy lifting. Now? Now he almost looked forward to doing it himself.

  “It is true,” Timaeus said. “I will escort you. This is too important to leave to someone else.”

  “Very well.” Ugh, the fantasy-talk dialect was coming out already. Don’t do that. Gross. “Where can we stay tonight?”

  “There are many buildings grown here. I assume you’ll want one where you feel protected.” For all Timaeus’s obvious annoyance, he was pying ball. Maybe he was intrigued by all this, and by David’s attitude considering the way he kept looking at him. Maybe he was interested in the angel armor.

  Or… maybe the big guy wanted to fuck him? That was a lingering gnce he gave David. Gulp.

  “Yes,” Laoko said. “You can understand why.”

  “I can. And the unmarked. How dangerous is he?”

  Laoko grinned. “Very.”

  “And you’re taking him to Azailia?”

  “He can be trusted, more than you know. But enough of these games. Let us eat.”

  “Very well.” Timaeus gestured to a doorway along the side wall and led the way.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Dining with demons. Talk about strange. Squatting around a pile of corpses, ripping out their hearts, and munching them down would have felt more natural than this, sitting on chairs of bckwood around a bckwood table, on a bckwood floor. The walls were stone and decorated with hundreds of chains and skulls. There was even a firepce, except a burning bush stood within, fmes forever dancing.

  “This pce is an affront,” Moriah said, gring around as she took a seat. Even the near seven-foot angel woman looked too small for her chair.

  “I didn’t make it,” Timaeus said, grinning at her as he sat at the head of the long table. “Darilius, Priscil, bring us a dozen hearts.”

  A brute and tiger left the room, leaving the gorujin alone with David and the girls. The guy was confident for sure if he thought it safe to be alone with them.

  David dismissed his armor, did his best to hide the sweat on his skin, and climbed a chair. All the girls joined in except the Las; they’d never be able to sit still at a dinner table, anyway. The little dies wandered the room, examined some dangling skulls, and poked at the burning bush growing in its chamber of stone.

  “How long to reach Azailia?” David asked.

  Timaeus watched him for a moment or three. “You lead the group?”

  Shit.

  “I don’t lead. But, things do kinda seem to revolve around me.”

  Caera stood and leaned on the table, palms on its surface. She didn’t really have the butt for sitting comfortably on a chair, not with her giant tail in the way.

  “I was taking us across the Grave Valley,” she said, “before we ran into Laoko. And then the rider, and then angels. As you can guess, we’re—”

  A few demons walked into the room, each with several hearts, and they set them on the table in a pile in the center, and went on their way. No bowing, no words, no nods. Any eye contact was the typical kind, curious demons looking at Moriah and David like they’d probably taste delicious, or at Acelina with wonder. Tetrads were rare. Spire mothers were extremely rare.

  They did a double take, once they realized David had no mark.

  “It will take a week,” Timaeus said. “That’s assuming the rider doesn’t catch us and kill us all.”

  Or if angels didn’t. David didn’t say it.

  “It is important,” Laoko said, and she grabbed a heart. Her three other hands each grabbed a heart, too, and set them all in front of David along with a 1950s house-wife smile.

  He returned the smile, and got to eating. Eating three hearts was not something souls did, and Timaeus raised a brow when David didn’t share.

  Laoko also grabbed a rge heart and gave it to Acelina. Acelina looked down at the tetrad’s hand, sighed in some strange tone David couldn’t figure out, and took the gift.

  “Whoever you bring on the journey,” Moriah said, “don’t bring many. I’m sure you’ve seen angels about.”

  The group gred at the angel. She wasn’t supposed to talk.

  “I have,” Timaeus said.

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed remnants freeing themselves of their torments.”

  “I have.”

  “And with the rider on your doorstep, you should do everything you can to be as unseen as possible.” Without blinking, Moriah bit into her demon heart, and gred at Timaeus. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  The gorujin stabbed a heart with a single cw and, like he was eating cotton candy on a stick, bit into it.

  “Wonder?”

  “You demons think you control your little provinces. You act like the spires are your domain. But the rider can walk into a spire and kill a spire ruler. Angels could easily swarm every spire in Hell and execute each spire ruler, at once. For all your supposed power, demon, you are helpless against circumstance, and even now all you can do is follow the suggestion of others and hope escorting the unmarked to Azailia will help you.” She bit off another chunk of her heart. “You’re just a pawn, unable to affect the grand game. And here you are, with a wounded angel and an unmarked in your grip, asking for your help. What will you do?” And with a heavy sneer, she took another bite.

  Timaeus watched the angel, eyebrow raised, and he finished his heart; big guy only needed a couple bites.

  “I’m going to help, of course.”

  Moriah raised her head. “What?”

  “Laoko needs my help. I will help.” The gorujin ughed and leaned forward, elbow on the table so he could meet the angel in a staring contest. “You think I’m going to seize the opportunity and eat you?”

  “That’s… what you threatened earlier.”

  “I was just testing the water, of course.” Laughing, Timaeus bopped the table with a fist and spread his wings. If demons drank, he’d have a mug of ale or something else ridiculously cliché in hand. “You’re right. Things have been weird. Angels have been touching the sky and remnants have been wandering free for years, now. And now a giant canyon rips open underneath the Death’s Grip spire? I’d be a fool to think my stomach is more important than that.”

  David blinked and looked at the girls. Jes and Caera shrugged. Dao clicked once. So did Acelina. Maybe not all demons would be problematic, after all?

  “Of course,” he said, “if Ricillia lived, and you’d run into her instead of me, I’m sure she and her brood would have happily devoured you, no matter what you said.”

  Or maybe not.

  “Thank you,” David said. Uh oh. Bad choice of words.

  Timaeus raised a brow, stared at him for a second, but grinned and gestured to the pile of hearts. Acelina grabbed one, and without looking, held it below the table. The Las grabbed it and giggled as they ran off into a corner to enjoy. Laoko smiled at her.

  “Eat. Sleep,” he said. “You’ll be safe here tonight. You might not think it, warrior of Heaven, but you’re not the first angel I’ve dealt with. And you won’t be the first angel who enjoys their stay here.” And with a pyful wink that looked all too evil on his demony face, he got up from the table and left. “We leave tomorrow.”

  The girls and David looked at each other. Laoko ughed, rolled her eyes, and ate her heart.