~~Day 39~~

  ~~Mia~~

  “I get it,” Mia said. “Really, I do. Too much, even.”

  “Oh?” Yosepha said, eying her suspiciously. The angel was not convinced.

  Mia and Yosepha both sat together in a random alcove away from the other demons. Not the fancy, out-of-the-way one from earlier, but a great pce to have a quick chat. Both dies also wore their potram rune, which was absolutely awesome.

  “He is really sexy, in that psycho madman kinda way.”

  Rolling her eyes, Yosepha shook her head. Such a beautiful woman. The dark skin, eyes so dark they were obsidian, super short curly hair, the lean warrior woman physique, it all fit her white silks and gold jewelry perfectly. Not that she needed it to look beautiful. All angels were unfairly gorgeous. But it was her stubborn, proud attitude that drew Mia in.

  “He is a menace.”

  “Romakus is… okay, yeah, probably. But on the menace scale, with people like Vinicius or the rider near the top, Romakus is probably a lot lower, right? It seems like he wants to be… good? Good as far as demons are concerned.”

  “A rebel in an ocean of killers.” Yosepha looked down, but her usually serious face softened. An even better tell was her wings, and how they fluttered slightly, like a dog who couldn’t keep their tail still.

  “You like him.”

  “I do not.”

  “Oh come on. You like him!” Oh my god, girl talk. Mia never got to do this! This was fun. “He’s a cssic bad boy.”

  “He is a demon, Mia. Male-female dynamics do not exist for angels and demons. He is not even technically male, but merely looks it. The same for myself. I am not, by surface standards, female.”

  “Okay, sure, there’s some key differences between surface life and how demons and angels work. But that doesn’t mean the important stuff isn’t there. Romakus is fun, and smart, and”—she leaned in close—“isn’t afraid to be naughty with you.”

  “Naughty? Heaven is an unending orgy, Mia. Sex is hardly considered naughty.”

  “Yeah, but that’s between angels and humans, right? Romakus is a demon. A big one. And he’s comfortable being aggressive with you. How many humans or angels are aggressive with someone like you? Sexually?”

  “It is Heaven. Aggressiveness has to be… considered carefully. Many souls wish for someone to approach them in a sexually aggressive manner, but the gabriem manage that. They are experts in such matters. And we mikalim do not approach each other so casually and—”

  “Right. So, none. He’s a bad boy! He knows you well enough to know when he can get away with ignoring your words, and that’s hot. Guys who know how to approach that line without crossing it are hot. They’re infuriating, and frustrating, and hot.”

  Yosepha frowned. “I am not some school girl reading about a vampire stalker, Mia.”

  “Noooo, but come on, you’re an angel! I bet all the souls in Heaven look up to angels like you’re all super deadly and unapproachable, right? Especially mikalim.”

  That got a deep sigh out of her.

  “They do.”

  “So now there’s Romakus, who’ll happily approach you, dismiss your ‘silly’ resistance, and take you… roughly. And when a smart — and hot — guy who knows how to read you does that, that’s fucking scintilting.”

  With another heavy sigh, Yosepha sat up a little straighter and gestured to Mia.

  “You say you studied psychology?”

  “Yeah, but I only got to my second year. I enjoyed it, though.”

  “I can see your passion for the topic.”

  Mia beamed. “Thanks.”

  “Romakus was not pnned. I never intended for this retionship to exist.”

  “Well yeah. That’s part of what makes it so spicy!” She scooted in closer until she was touching knees with the angel. “Does he always… you know.”

  “Does he always what?”

  Squirming, Mia gestured to Yosepha.

  “Choke you and stuff, and… anal, and stuff.”

  “You are one of the most sexually obsessed souls I have ever met, Mia. If you were in Heaven, you would take advantage of the gabriem every single moment of your time there, wouldn’t you?”

  “Hey! I… I mean, maybe?” Mia looked left and right, as if a demon might have snuck into the alcove to eavesdrop. “W-What sort of stuff would they do for me?”

  “Whatever you desired. My good friend Janiya, endowed as well as a zotiva spire mother, frequently enjoys indulging men their breasts obsession in whatever fashion they wish. Often in a shared pool. Last I spoke with her, she was in the middle of giving a man a handjob as he suckled on her, and only ten feet away sat the gabriem Masada, enjoying slow, gentle sex with a woman. Angels must often be slow, to make sure the soul’s body can comfortably fit their girths.”

  “Can comfortably… How big are angels? Er, I mean… you know.”

  “As rge as an incubus’s, if you must know.”

  That was big, then. Like, nearly a foot long big. Not that Mia was obsessed with dick size, nope nope.

  “So, I mean, if I desired… a few angels… taking turns with me, passing me around like a toy, I could have that?”

  Yosepha ughed. It was a short burst, but a delightful sound, borderline a giggle.

  “You would not be the first to request such a treatment, or receive it.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Many souls speak to angels for therapy, as well.”

  Mia sat up straight. “Really?”

  “Yes. The gabriem are well versed in how to heal an ailing mind. The pains of the surface are unique, and many strike the soul so deeply, they leave scars. For many humans, they stay in Heaven until those wounds heal, and for some, it can take centuries of deep, often painful conversations with gabriem who have seen the rise and fall of entire civilizations. Or, a conversation with a fellow soul, guided by a gabriem for the two to meet and share their pains.”

  “Wow. That’s… That’s the kind of stuff I got into psychology for.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to help people. But, I mean, I aimed to be a psychologist with a specialization in sexuality.”

  “Of course.”

  Mia frowned. Yosepha held a neutral gaze. Either she was being sincere, or she had the best poker face. The former, definitely.

  “I’m kind of surprised Heaven is so cool with sex. I mean, it’s pretty common for religions to treat sex like it’s bad, or should only ever be done post marriage, you know?”

  “That… is a complicated question, and one better suited to the gabriem. Suffice it to say, sex has indeed caused many problems for humans. Some of the greatest sins in the history of mankind have been due to sex or sexual desires, by both sexes.”

  “But, that’s like bming a weapon for violence and not the wielder.”

  Yosepha held up a hand. “I am not the one to ask. But here in the afterlife, you cannot acquire resonance. All resonance here in the afterlife is that which has been brought by those who lived on the surface. Acts that could be considered… potentially problematic, do not exist in Heaven or Hell, at least not as far as resonance is concerned.”

  “Resonance… I don’t suppose you can expin to me how all that works? Why angels and demons need it? Why the universe works the way it does? Why—”

  “No. It is not my pce, and I am no expert in the nature of our universe. But, I can tell you that resonance is acquired from the surfaced based on you, your choices, your desire to aid, and your desire to harm. It is experience.”

  “Experience.” It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the idea that life itself was about experiencing it, so that a greater being or entity could somehow experience it through its smaller pieces.

  David probably would have made some dumb, quiet little joke about experience meaning leveling up. She would have ughed, too.

  “Here in the afterlife, you may have noticed demons do not go through the same… mental gymnastics, when coming to terms with their actions. They are simpler than humans, in a way, as are angels. Perhaps we ck the spark needed to create resonance. Perhaps it is the surface itself that creates the resonance, and souls absorb it. I am not sure. It is not how the afterlife works. The rules here are different.”

  “What rules?”

  “Exactly.”

  Mia ughed and buried her face in her palms.

  “So what you’re saying is, all the reasons the surface came up with rules and stuff, none of that really applies anymore?”

  “Correct. In Heaven, for the better. In Hell, for the worst.”

  Sighing, Mia nodded a few times, but a kernel of a thought built up inside, and despite her attempts to stop it, she smiled.

  “It’s not… always, for the worst, right? The sex is—”

  “How lucky you are,” said a new voice.

  Both girls snapped their heads to the alcove entrance. Julisa stood there, and her rgest talon gently tapped the ground as she grinned at them and licked her lips. How could a demon that huge be so quiet?

  “Lucky?” Mia asked.

  Without invite, Julisa sat down with them, and towered over them. But her body nguage was anything but imposing. If anything, she looked excited to be talking with them.

  “Is this what the scrying pools call… girl talk? Speaking of sex and boys and our boss who doesn’t appreciate our efforts?”

  “We speak of greater things than such small-minded concerns,” Yosepha said, gring.

  Mia slowly raised a hand. “I like talking about sex and boys and, if I had a boss, a boss who doesn’t appreciate my work. But, that st one isn’t really girl talk.”

  Julisa ughed, brought around her tail, and poked Mia in the thigh.

  “What else would girl talk include?”

  “I’m… not entirely sure. I’ve never been that close with other people, not as a teenager, anyway. But according to really shitty TV, girl talk should include taking bad pictures of each other with our phones, showing off new clothes, talking about music and TV, talking about the bitches at school making our lives miserable, stuff like that. And boys.”

  “The size of girths?” Julisa asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “Did… Did you come here just looking to talk about Vinicius?” Mia clutched her neckce. “You want me to force him to fuck you again, don’t you?”

  With a heavy sigh, Julisa’s tail poked at her again. It was almost as long as Mia was tall, and thick as Mia’s leg at the base, but Julisa was gentle.

  “Please?”

  Oh god.

  “No! No I’m not going to force him to do anything.”

  “But you enjoyed yourself st time, did you not?”

  “I…”

  Julisa leaned in closer. “Perhaps you would prefer to take the beast inside you this time? I could help.” And imitating st time, she held out two hands in front of her and wiggled them left and right, like she did when pushing Mia down onto Vin’s tongue.

  “Aren’t you Damall a little more concerned with big things?” Mia asked, doing her best to suppress her blush. She couldn’t. Ginger curse. “Like… big, political war things?”

  “Of course. But while we sit here and figure out how to deal with this absurd situation that has never, in the history of existence, ever occurred, we must rex.” Julisa leaned in closer again, and with how tall she was, she loomed over Mia. “You have to understand, little soul. Vinicius is the st child of the Old Ones that we’re aware of. Perhaps there are more, hiding, or on the other side of Hell, but as far as the Damall are aware, there are no children of the Old Ones alive in Death’s Grip, or the Bck Valley or Grave Valley. Rare beyond rare. And you have one under your thumb.” It was a good thing the fujara tetrad was wearing armor, or she’d have touched herself, given the sighs she made. “How can you not indulge?”

  “Mia,” Yosepha said, “may have the sex drive of a succubus, but she is no succubus. She would not debase herself by using the leash so.”

  “Ha! Any human girl would love to have Vin’s tongue inside them. And if they could handle it, his—”

  Mia put up her hands. “As much as Vin… is pretty hot, he’s also a killer. The really big, bad, wipe-out-an-entire-country-for-fun kind of bad. There’s bad boy, and then there’s that.”

  “It’s Hell,” Julisa said. “It’s not as if he went on a rampage killing innocent souls on the surface.”

  “What if he somehow got to the surface? What would he do? What would you do?”

  Julisa opened her mouth, and closed it as she looked down. She furrowed her eyebrows and tapped some cws with her four hands on the stone ground as she thought about it. Getting to the surface was not something she’d ever considered. Did demons never daydream or fantasize?

  “I… do not know what I’d do.”

  “No demon would know,” Yosepha said. “Many are convinced if they got to the surface, or to Heaven, they would have a feast. But I do not think so. These creatures”—she gestured to Julisa with a wing—“have spent their entire existence surrounded by only the worst humanity has to offer. To them, humans with sympathy, empathy, and compassion, are merely images in a scrying pool.”

  Julisa growled at the angel, but she didn’t retort, either. The angel had her.

  “I dunno,” Mia said. “I… I knew a girl, here in Hell. Hannah. A betrayer. She had a horrible past, yeah, and she definitely had some dark edges to her. But she… she saved me, when the rider attacked. I don’t think she knew doing that would… get her killed, but she saved me anyway. A reflex. Yanked me out of the path of his axe. Not all souls in Hell are scumbags. Or maybe, they don’t stay scumbags? Maybe they can change?”

  Yosepha looked down in thought, too, and her wings settled as she pondered.

  “I cannot say I have ever heard of a human changing their colors while in Hell,” the angel said before looking to Julisa.

  “Me neither,” the demon said.

  Mia frowned and hugged her knees up to her chest. The fun was gone, sucked out of the room, and that blew. Fun was hard to find in Hell.

  “I’m not surprised,” Mia said. “Hell is mean. The demons are mean. The angels offer no help. All the souls sent here just… die, and get tortured, and…” She shook her head. “What’s the Great Tower like?”

  “I don’t understand the question,” Yosepha said.

  “When people die in Hell or Heaven, they go to the Great Tower, right? Uh, here in Hell it’s different. They have to die as remnants until their number hits zero, right?”

  “You would have to ask the council about remnants, but, yes, that is what we believe.”

  The fact Yosepha didn’t know for sure was infuriating. No wonder she was trying to figure out what was going on, and didn’t trust the council anymore.

  “So, they go to the Great Tower, and… what? What happens?”

  “They are reborn on the surface. It is a cycle. On the surface, they gain resonance.”

  “Then they die, and bring the resonance to the afterlife.”

  “Yes.”

  Mia shook her head. “Only people on the surface can acquire resonance, but that doesn’t mean that only people on the surface can change. So if someone who’s a horrible person comes to Hell, and manages to change, then… what? They still have to die, and die hundreds of times more, painfully, horribly, until they’re purged clean of all the bad resonance before they go to the Great Tower? Like, someone cleansing seeds before pnting them? That’s fucked up!”

  Julisa and Yosepha looked at each other like Mia had just lost her mind.

  The demon spoke first. “You think you can create a better system than God?”

  “What God!?” Mia jumped up and gestured up around at the rock and amber veins that surrounded them. “Where is God!?”

  Again, the demon and angel shared a gnce.

  “I didn’t join this conversation to question reality,” Julisa said, “or be sad — ha — about damned souls suffering their due punishment.” With an annoyed growl, the tetrad got back to her feet, and walked away. “I think I will try to seduce Vinicius once more.” She didn’t even wave.

  Alone again, Yosepha and Mia shared gnces before looking back down at the stone.

  “Sorry,” Mia said.

  “Don’t be.”

  “But, I was enjoying the girl talk. Especially with someone who isn’t an asshole.”

  “Yes, well, you remind me of gabriem quite a bit, little soul. And some of my closest friends are gabriem.”

  Mia perked up. “Do gabriem talk about boys? Do angels?”

  “They do. Though, it is generally discouraged for angels to become romantically attached to a soul. They never stay forever.”

  “Aw, that’s sad.”

  “Yes, it can be. Some angels become romantically entangled with each other, as well, but in Heaven, souls outnumber us by many fold. The gabriem have their hands full, and often the rapholem and mikalim find themselves socializing with the souls, as well.” She leaned forward a little and poked Mia in the forehead with a wing feather. “And they talk about more than boys and sex.”

  “Sorry! Sorry. But hey, I’m nineteen years old. I should be hanging out with girls and talking about sex, right?”

  Yosepha ughed. “If you were in Heaven, yes, that is what you would be doing, both with angels and other souls.”

  They smiled. Both knew they were avoiding the topic Mia had brought up, about the distinct ck of God’s presence, but either Yosepha didn’t want to talk about it, or she didn’t know. Probably both.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ~~David~~

  The death pits was an apt description.

  Death’s Grip was a province of rock and bone, with veins of va. Mountains, jagged and harsh, with only bloodgrip vines and the occasional burning bush to remind him that pnt life was a thing in Hell. The tunnels weren’t much different. Hell also occasionally grew some artful statues and stuff, but mostly, Death’s Grip was a barren wastend.

  The death pits were a stark reminder that Hell wasn’t just some rocky desert from Earth’s surface.

  David and the eight demons with him all stared down into the whirlpool of limbs. The remnants screamed, tore at each other, ripped off clumps of hair, chunks of skin, jaw bones, and killed each other. But the moment a remnant died, another grew into their pce.

  A giant hole in the ground in the shape of a funnel fifty feet wide and deep, filled with remnants, and at the bottom, remnants were jammed face to face, endlessly tearing each other to death.

  David forced down the rock in his throat and looked around at the cavern. No remnants on the walls, as if Hell wanted to save every nearby one for the death pit. It was dark, with only a few amber veins. Around the pit, metal poles grew from the upper edge horizontally over it, maybe five feet long and pointing inward, like bck teeth. It was oddly simir to a sarcc pit.

  “What the fuck,” David said.

  “Don’t fall in,” Caera said. She kept her body pressed to the wall, and began the trek around the pit. An exit waited for them, rge, and far as David could see, another pit awaited, and beyond that, a bunch more. It was the death pits, not pit, and the distant screams confirmed.

  There was only a few feet of space around the pit at their feet.

  “I’ve never seen this,” Jes said, and she walked up to the edge of the pit. With one of the bck metal teeth sticking out and over the pit in front of her, chances were good if she fell in, she’d grab the metal and pull herself to safety. But that didn’t mean it was a good idea, and Daoka pulled on her lover’s tail.

  But the Las didn’t care. All four of them hopped out onto the metal poles, and perched on them like birds as they looked down at the pit below. The remnants reached up for them, but couldn’t reach.

  “Las!” David said. “Be careful.”

  Lasca looked at him, tilted her head to the side, looked at her kin, who all tilted their heads too, before they shrugged and glided back to him.

  “We were fine,” Lasca said.

  “Yeah, you probably were. But what if a Cainite showed up and threw a rock at you and you fell in? What if an earthquake or hellquake knocked you in? What if—” Sighing, he shook his head and gestured down at the pit. “Be careful, okay?”

  All four of the little dies looked between each other again, and traded raised eyebrows. They didn’t understand his concern. Or, they didn’t understand concern in general?

  “Acelina?” he asked. “You think you can get around this?”

  The demoness leaned forward over the pit slightly, and one of the remnants growing on the edge reached up over its lip for her ankle.

  “Acelina! You—”

  She lifted her hoof and crushed the remnant’s hand. Truly crushed, like a hydraulic press squashing a grape, and the hand broke apart into a mess of bone and flesh.

  “I will be fine,” she said. “Let us do this quickly.”

  David looked up at her and did his best to read her face. Pointless. Unless she opened her mouth, her face was a smooth obsidian mask that betrayed nothing. But his wasn’t, and he knew he probably had ‘worried’ stamped on his face in big red letters.

  Daoka clicked a few times up at Acelina, and tugged on her tail, too, pulling her away from the pit. David braced for the inevitable tongue shing the huge demoness would give the comparatively small satyr, but none come. Whatever strange retionship the two eyeless demons had developed, it was enough for Acelina to listen to Dao, and back off from the edge.

  The problem was, they still had to actually get around the pit. Caera already had lead, and most of the Las followed her, but Lasca stayed with David. Jes and Dao followed Caera and the other Las, then David and Lasca, then Acelina. Three feet of space between the cavern wall and the pit.

  David wasn’t afraid of heights, but anyone would be afraid of this, three feet to work with, and a painful death waiting for anyone who stumbled. If it was a video game, this would have been the section where he’d have been terrified of getting ambushed. Someone was bound to show up ahead, with a gun, and force him to run down the narrow path, avoid bullets, and do his best to not fall in.

  Thank god that did not happen. They circled the huge funnel of death, and the cave tapered before opening up to another pit, again filled with remnants screaming and crying. No wonder demons were so desensitized to violence. Even a normal human would eventually grow deaf to suffering if they were surrounded by it twenty-four-seven.

  They got around the second pit, and the cave changed. The next cavern was bigger, and filled with death pits, some partly overpping. Like the va rivers, finding a path around the pits would have been a nasty process of trial and error, but Caera knew the way.

  “Watch your footing,” she said. “The path shrinks.”

  Acelina hissed and gestured out ahead of them with a torn wing.

  “This is ridiculous. What led to such a concentration of remnants?”

  “That was part of the reason I was exploring these tunnels,” Caera said. “There are a lot of memories down here, more than even Zel knew. Belial was up to something down here, something fucked up if Hell responded like this.”

  “How do you know it was Belial?” David asked.

  “The temple. We got another couple days travel to get there, and we should stop by Renato’s hole first. He’s past these pits. I know the way.”

  “The temple was dedicated to Belial? Not Lucifer?”

  “I didn’t get to see for sure, but I think so,” she said.

  David peeked down over the edge of the closest pit.

  “That doesn’t sound like something Lucifer would allow.”

  “You knew the archangel?” Acelina asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “No, but, if someone’s willing to go up against God and Heaven and all that, I have to assume they’re pretty egotistical, right?”

  “Maybe,” Caera said. “Maybe God was a giant asshole, and Lucifer was trying to break free of those chains?”

  “Satan was a revolutionary?” It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that idea. Sympathy for the devil, and all that. “I guess we’ll—”

  Acelina let out a harsh hiss, and fell.

  David threw himself to the right, straight over the pit. All the pits had the metal poles sticking out over their edges, and for the half a second it took his chest to crash down against it, he prayed it’d hold his weight. And Acelina’s.

  Thunk. The metal vibrated with his weight, and bent with the second impact of Acelina’s weight suddenly pulling on David’s wrist.

  “Fuck!” Pain ripped through him, and every muscle clenched into steel as the great weight of the huge demoness pulled on him. The only reason she didn’t dislocate his shoulder was her enormous wings, fred wide to catch air, but it cost her. She screamed, loud, a banshee shriek that crashed against the cavern walls as the holes in her wings, almost healed, tore open. But it was enough to keep her from ripping his arm off.

  She got her free hand around the metal pole, snarling endlessly, but it got her weight off David’s wrist. With both her hands on the metal underneath him, David was free to sit up, and stare down at the death pit and the remnants below who wanted them. Don’t fall.

  “What happened?” Caera asked. “What—”

  More shrieks followed. They weren’t Acelina’s.

  “Look!” One of the Las said, pointing down into the pit.

  They all looked, and all of them gasped. Hands came out of the pit, tearing and grabbing at anything they could. Human hands. And then arms. Shoulders. Heads. Torsos. And legs. One by one, and then by dozens, remnants pulled themselves out of the swirling mess of gore, and climbed. And not all from the bottom. Some pulled themselves free closer to the pit edge, exposing the bloody rock underneath, only for another remnant to repce them. And then climb free, too.

  One of them hung from Acelina’s ankle.

  “Begone!” Hissing, she kicked her leg hard, and the metal pole shook and bent more as the spire mother threw the dangling remnant from her ankle. The remnant came off, but their arm did not, and it dangled uselessly, fingers wrapped tight above her hoof.

  “What the fuck is going on?” David yelled. The remnants and their unending screams only grew louder as more of them began their ascent.

  “I don’t know!” Jes yelled back. Unlike everyone else, she didn’t so much as hesitate to tear up the first remnant that got out of the pit close to her. Remnants were soft, flesh and bone, and one swipe of her cws was all it took to almost split an emaciated woman in half. “Let’s go back!”

  “We’re not going back!” Caera’s voice. She turned around and got to work, slicing a couple of remnants apart at the waist, and unlike Jes, she got all the way through. Blood rained onto the remnants below, lost in the chaos. “Get David!”

  “That pole is going to break!” Jes gestured to the metal tooth. “David, get over here!”

  “Not without Acelina!”

  “She can handle herself.”

  David looked down at Acelina and squeezed the metal until his knuckles turned white. It was all too scary how she dangled from the metal, like some sort of action movie where she’d slip and die. But not only did she start pulling herself up, she did it easily.

  “Go,” she said.

  David gulped, and watched the huge woman do a pull up, and then a muscle up, until she’d pushed herself high enough the bar was under her against her waist, both hands pressed down against it.

  Of course, the huge metal tooth had already started to bend, and Acelina driving her weight down to push herself up was the tipping point. It broke, and the metal ripped out of the stone at the lip of the pit.

  “Shit!” Gravity went out from under him, and the world turned upside down as both he and the huge demoness fell. They didn’t fall far. The metal pole only stuck out half a dozen feet from the edge, and the wall of the pit itself went down maybe forty-five degrees. But it was a steep enough angle David hit the yers of remnants, and rolled down.

  Acelina didn’t roll. She hit the remnants and hit them hard. Unlike him, she managed to get right side up before nding, and her hooves ground into the remnants beneath her as she slid down the wall of flesh hard enough the remnants tore apart. She smmed her cws into the wall of gore deep enough she came to a stop, earning more death screams from the emaciated souls, and another rain of blood.

  Her tail snapped out, and slipped under David’s arm. He grabbed it, and earned another shriek of pain from the demoness.

  Daoka stood at the edge of the pit, clicking like an angry cicada and looking around in a panic.

  “David!” All the Las yelled. “David! David! David! Da—”

  Before they got to do anything about his problem, remnants crawled out of the hole, and created a new one. Dozens of remnants. Hundreds. Some groaning, some weeping, some shrieking like demons, they climbed out of the pit, stood with hunched backs and dragging limbs, and looked around with tear-filled eyes.

  Movement underneath David yanked his eyes down. Remnants, half buried in flesh, rock, and blood, reached out for him. Fingers wrapped his wrists, his ankles, and arms hooked behind his shoulders and knees.

  “Let go!” He pushed down against the sea of flesh, and cringed from head to toe as his fingertips slipped into soft things. One broke through someone’s skin on their cheek. Another pressed into organs sitting between the shoulders of remnants that’d rolled down from above. Another stabbed into one of their eyes.

  The remnants squeezed, and bit into him. Their jaws were weak, and so were their fingers, but there were dozens of them directly underneath him, and each of them had him within reach. They bit, scratched him until their fingers ripped off, and pulled on anything they got their hands on.

  “Climb!”

  Climb? He snapped his gaze up. That was Acelina’s voice.

  “Your tail—”

  “I said climb!”

  He clenched his eyes shut for half a second, and got climbing. Acelina’s tail already had a dozen hands pulling on it, and the remnants were pulling on David, too, trying to drag him down deeper into the huge pit. The moment he pulled on the tail, the demoness shrieked again, and her tail, thinner than even Jes’s, went rigid with flexing muscle. It was not a prehensile tail, and his weight, combined with all the remnants trying to pull it off, hurt her.

  Every inch he pulled himself up her dark, leathery red skin, was torture. Every inch earned more growls of pain from her, and each sent a pulse of nausea through him. He hated it. God, he fucking hated hurting her.

  “Acelina, you—”

  “Shut up and climb you stupid child!”

  He climbed. He pulled with one hand, pushed with one leg, and used the other limbs to rip and kick himself free of the desperate souls. Where his blood ended and theirs began, he didn’t know, but in the midst of cwing fingertips, gnashing teeth, and pouring blood and torn bodies rolling down the pit wall from above, he climbed. He broke their jaws and skulls with his heel. He broke their fingers. He climbed.

  Once he got to Acelina’s back, she had a few spikes he could climb, but scaling up them wasn’t easy. The huge demon twisted and cwed at the remnants underneath her, and she smmed her hooves down against them as she fought to get her footing somewhere solid. There was nothing solid. Every swipe of her cws drew fountains of blood, only to expose more remnant flesh underneath growing from the stone. Her hooves found the same. She slid deeper into the pit.

  Daoka clicked furiously from the edge. More remnants joined her, most ignored by the other remnants, as if they knew the only way they were getting out of the pit was if they stopped killing each other. It was easy enough for the satyr to shove them off and send them back into the funnel hole, or cut them open using the dagger, but each time she did, another one repced them.

  The Las ran around in a panic. Effortlessly light, all four of them jumped onto the teeth jutting out over the pit, and equipped with a piece of David’s armor in hand, they bludgeoned the remnants that crawled up the pit wall underneath them. Well, at least they were safe. Mostly.

  “Jes!” David yelled. “Help Dao!”

  “The fuck do you think I’m doing!?” she said, backing away around the pit until her back nearly hit Dao’s.

  “Dao, get ready!” he said.

  Daoka didn’t hesitate. She squatted down at the edge of the pit over Acelina, but out of reach of her. Acelina couldn’t risk lifting her hands to reach for her, not when every swing of her cws was a desperate attempt to keep her from sliding any deeper, and only half successful.

  Now or never. Don’t think. Just go.

  He got a foot on Acelina’s back, and jumped. With only his breastpte on, he wasn’t weighed down too much, and he got enough air to get the tip of his fingers to graze Dao’s. It was enough. She squeezed, cmped them around his fingers, and earned a yelp from him when she pulled on him. Another quick tug and she readjusted her grip onto his wrist before his fingers broke, and pulled harder.

  David snapped out his other arm, and got a hand on Acelina’s wrist. He had to reach down to do it, which meant getting a knee down onto the remnants underneath him. They gred up at him, a thousand emotions running through their wide, panicked eyes. Rage. Desperation. Misery. Whatever thoughts they had, it all boiled down to some simplistic, mindless need to grab, tear, and bite. Their teeth sank into his flesh, but the pain disappeared under the new tearing pain of his pectorals stretched to their limit, as Acelina’s weight pulled on his arm.

  She aimed her bnk, onyx face up at him. A moment’s hesitation?

  “Come on!” He yelled, and looked back up to Dao. “Jes!” Poor Dao. She’d known what he was going to do, and she’d already squatted deep so the angle didn’t pull her into the pit. But even a satyr couldn’t handle his weight, Acelina’s weight, and a dozen remnants tched onto them.

  Roaring in frustration, Jes threw a remnant into the pit, ripped open another one about to climb up onto Dao’s leg, and reached around Dao’s waist. She pulled back, and Dao unleashed a roar of her own as every muscle in her body flexed.

  David wanted to feel bad for her, but his mind was gone. Every muscle in him was flexing, too, but there was a direct line of searing agony from one hand to the other, straight across his chest, as he pulled on Acelina. And he pulled. He squeezed her huge wrist until he was shaking, until his fingers went white, until his insides burned. He fucking pulled.

  Progress. Acelina still had three limbs to work with, and she used them, sshing wildly at the remnants underneath her, each nudging her upward with the help of David and the girls. Her hooves kicked and stomped, like someone trying to run up ice, but it was enough, and slowly but surely, she scaled the pit wall.

  The remnants did not appreciate that, and five of the souls tched onto her legs. Weak and soft as they were, there were too many, and they slowed her ascent until Jes and Dao were both groaning with exhaustion. David was too, but all he could do was hold on for dear life and pull hard enough for Acelina to not rip his arm off. Even if he somehow could pull harder, all that’d do was pull Dao and Jes into the pit with him.

  With Jes busy, and Caera off doing her own thing ahead of the group, no one was there to stop more remnants from climbing up onto the edge, and hobble their way toward the two busy demons.

  “Las!” David yelled.

  All four little dies responded immediately. He didn’t have to beg, or even guide them. They sat up straight on their perches, looked to him and what he was doing, and threw themselves onto the pit edge beside Dao and Jes. They may have been small, and even the remnants towered over them, but they had no trouble with damned souls. They sshed legs, stomachs, bludgeoned the remnants with the pieces of David’s armor, and sent them back into the pit, where they tumbled down a few dozen feet and disappeared into the churning mess of bone and flesh below.

  The grem Latia squatted down beside Dao, got a hand around David’s wrist, and pulled. Laria joined her on Dao’s other side, and an array of fingers and cws squeezed David’s wrist until he was half convinced they’d break bone. But his body held together, and the four demons pulled him up onto the edge.

  The moment Acelina got her other hand onto the pit edge, she was free. Remnants couldn’t stop her once she had something to grab, and the stone at the pit edge was more than enough anchor. The girls still helped, switching from David to Acelina, but Acelina mostly pulled herself up under her own strength, and sughtered the remnants tched onto her legs and wings as she did.

  A pause in the insanity was all they had before the remnants would fall on them again, enough for David and Acelina to trade a look. How someone with no facial features could share a look was a mystery. Maybe it was the body nguage. Maybe it was the fact she wasn’t showing her mouth and scary teeth. Whatever it was, David smiled up at her, and Acelina didn’t say a thing. She didn’t have to.

  Roars from ahead turned him around. Caera had pushed into the next area of the increasingly huge cavern, and stood between four of the death pits. Just like the va rivers, the path between them was a maze, with some pits connecting, while others did not. Only Caera knew the path.

  “Caera!” Jes yelled. “You bitch, hold up!”

  “I’m clearing a path!”

  “You’re gonna get yourself killed!”

  David gestured forward. “Dao, Las, can you take lead? Clear us a path. Don’t let them gang up on you.” A billion stories, movies, TV shows, and video games ran through his mind. Zombie apocalypse mode. He had experience in this area. The remnants didn’t have any sort of infection they could spread, but getting swarmed to death was still a very real threat.

  The satyr, two grems, and two impas didn’t hesitate. They nodded, slipped past him on the narrow path, and tore ahead, the Las using his chunks of armor to knock remnants back into the pits, while Dao used her horns and his dagger. Zombies were, supposedly, a fear demons had, and between swings of their weapons and cws, he spotted fear in the Las’ eyes, big and wide. Even Daoka grimaced hard enough he could see it on her nose and lips.

  “Jes, your side okay?” he asked.

  “Good enough.”

  “Take rear. Acelina, you good? Can you stay with me, and crush any remnant hands that get us?”

  The huge demoness rumbled, took a quick peek down at her naked body and the dozens of scratch and bite marks, and nodded.

  “I am fine. Let’s go.”

  Fine. Sure. Her skin was mostly dark red and tough right now, but a desperate remnant willing to literally break their own jaw when biting someone meant half of the scratch marks on her body were bleeding. It was a lot of blood.

  David wasn’t much better off, and his skin was a lot softer.

  He did a double take on Jes as she got behind Acelina and immediately got to work. She didn’t resist his order or fight him on it, or even take the opportunity to let an errant remnant grab Acelina. With wing and tail and cws, she pushed back and sliced open the dying souls as they climbed out of the pit.

  David followed the Las and Dao. The path to Caera was easy enough to follow, but every step they managed was like walking a tightrope. It pulled away from the wall as the cavern opened up, and as they passed the death pit they’d nearly died in, a dozen more waited for them, like giant whirlpools. To get to Caera, they had to follow a specific path, and it grew increasingly bloody with each passing moment. And the remnants were endless.

  Hissing until David’s ears hurt, Acelina sshed out with her hands, hard enough she had to fre her wings to keep her bance as the path shrank to only a couple feet wide. Remnant hands reached past the metal teeth of the pit edges, up onto the path, and grabbed at their ankles, but Acelina was quick to stomp them into oblivion. Crunch.

  As much as Acelina and David had a coating of blood on them, they were nothing compared to Caera. The tiger continued to lead on, the Las and Daoka now at her back, and she shredded and tore up each remnant she could, even when she didn’t have to. Some she skewered on her horns, taking advantage of how they pointed straight up and forward from the top of her head. Others, she eviscerated. One, she ripped their head off.

  She was angry. It was a wonder she wasn’t using her sin aura; they’d be dead if she did. But she had enough control to keep her anger limited to herself and was happy to unleash it on every remnant that so much as got close to her.

  Dao got a little too close, and Caera turned, standing on her hind legs, and raised a hand, cws out.

  “Caera!” David yelled, running forward, but the Las stopped him. Tiny, but they had big wings, and he couldn’t get around them without knocking them over or risking falling into one of the pits. All he could do was stand there as Caera, eyes wide with bloodlust, stared down at the satyr.

  Dao, hands raised to block the potentially fatal cws, clicked a few times. Whatever she said, Caera growled, turned back to the path she walked, and on all fours, resumed the sughter.

  Everyone fell into a routine quick, crushing and killing remnants in formation. Caera stopped rushing so far ahead, and moved slower, taking her time and killing remnants that got behind her as much as in front of her.

  “How much further!?” Jeskura screamed at the top of her lungs, but even that sounded quiet among the growing screams of the remnants. They weren’t just making random noises anymore. They were screaming like monsters.

  “Three more pits!” Caera yelled. “Come on! They’re getting faster!”

  Not exactly right. The remnants plodded along not much faster than a regur zombie might, but the amount of them was increasing. A lot.

  “Is this your doing, boy?” Acelina said, gesturing out to the death pit to their right. More remnants crawled up the slope of gore.

  “I don’t think so? I don’t feel anything. No aura.”

  “I feel panic!” Jes yelled. “That’s your aura!”

  “Well I’m sorry that I’m panicking!”

  “That doesn’t mean you need to create an aura making us panic!”

  “I can’t control it like that!”

  “Fucking try!”

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a fraction of a moment, looked for the fingers inside plucking the strings that flowed through him, and he muted them, like palm muting on a guitar; which meant there was still sound, but at least quieter. It was enough.

  They pushed through the path. It shrank down to only a foot wide at one point, and the remnants didn’t care, reaching for their ankles from the all-too-close pits. Acelina handled it better than he figured someone her size would, but she did, using the metal teeth poking out from the pit edges to keep her from falling in when she needed to. The Las got off the path entirely, and hopped from metal pole to pole, sshing and bashing remnants as best they could, particurly around David.

  The impas and grems wanted to run. He could see it in their eyes. Skittish, like Jes said, but every so often they looked his way, and something stern and… courageous, cut across their faces. They fought, even though one slip meant their death. Acelina was big and strong enough the death pits didn’t spell immediate dismemberment for her. Grems and impas, not so much.

  The batm rune glowed in his mind, and he reached for it. Nothing. Something was missing, wasn’t clicking. It wanted him to use it, equip it, wear it, and use whatever gold light it’d summoned before to defend himself, but it refused to align with his brain. Like a Rubic’s cube that he couldn’t solve.

  He didn’t need to. A remnant caught his ankle, pulled, but before he fell into the pit, Acelina grabbed his hand and yanked him free. Without so much as a word, she put him back on the path, and crushed the hand that’d grabbed him under her hoof.

  The path was covered in blood, Caera’s sughter ahead drowning the stone walkway in crimson liquid. Daoka slipped. David opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Laara reached down from a metal pole, grabbed Dao by her horns, and pulled. Damn strong for a little creature. She got Dao up high enough the satyr grabbed the metal pole, pulled herself up, and jumped back onto the path, straight onto the back of a remnant walking toward David.

  She chirped at him with a big smile, turned, and followed Caera through the maze.

  It didn’t st forever. It felt like it, sweat pouring down David’s body with each step until it joined the mess of blood and fingers underneath him, but they made it to the other side of the cavern. He almost tripped at the finish line, but Acelina grabbed him again and righted him. His next step was also a trip, and she didn’t grab him, but at least he fell forward onto the expanding path as they walked past the st two death pits at the end of the cavern.

  A tunnel waited for them, same as the others, full of bloodgrip and uninviting, but compared to the pits, it was paradise. There were hundreds of remnants behind them. Groaning, screaming, they climbed out of the pits, and where remnants would usually cw at each other, these did not. Something else had their attention. Freedom? Or, David? It didn’t seem to be David they focused on specifically, and their crazed eyes stared at every demon and David with equal hunger and rage.

  Hundreds turned into thousands, maybe more, and the lumbering, half-dead souls marched their way.

  “Let’s go,” Caera said. “I know the way to the temple from here.”

  David gred at the tiger’s back, down at his bleeding legs, and then back at Acelina and the blood trickling down her limbs. Everyone was out of breath, the Las especially, and they half walked, half dragged themselves along beside David and Dao. Dao looked back over her shoulder at David, eyeless gaze tired, limbs dangling. Exhausted.

  “We need to find a pce to rest,” David said, and he jogged past the Las and Dao to get to Caera. Not so easy with bloodgrip everywhere, and Caera doing her best to keep a good pace. With a horde of zombies chasing them, he didn’t bme her. But that wasn’t really the reason she was moving so fast.

  “Later.”

  David checked back again. Acelina wasn’t limping, but she wanted to. The only reason her wings weren’t getting caught on the vines was some effort from her, doing her best to keep them up and out of the way, but they were huge and didn’t have the same spring as Jeskura’s or the Las’.

  Jeskura, still behind Acelina, reached down, and lifted the lowest hanging bit of the bigger demon’s wings off the ground. Acelina gnced back, and David braced for yelling. None came. Acelina sighed, set her eyeless gaze back on the path, on David, and her posture rexed a little, limping included.

  “Not ter,” David said to Caera. “We’re torn up. I’m bleeding. You’re bleeding. Everyone’s bleeding, and exhausted.”

  “Renato is only a day from here. We can get there before twilight if we hurry.”

  Shit, Renato. The tregeera had a bunch of reasons to push it.

  “Caera, we’re not going to be able to help anyone if we get there beat up.”

  “Then don’t get beat u—” She hissed and yanked back a hand from some bloodgrip, and a new gash ran the length of her forearm. It wasn’t shallow.

  “Caera! Slow down!” He risked another quick peek back. The remnants were way too slow to catch up, and they couldn’t navigate the bloodgrip beyond stumbling over it and continuing on with a host of new wounds.

  “Remnants on our ass, walking free!” Caera said. “Cainites ahead of us with imbued weapons? Renato might be dead! We can’t wait!”

  The horde was quickly becoming a distant shadow in the huge tunnel, hidden behind wings and yers of bloodgrip the girls had to weave around. Only the Las were navigating the mess without hurting themselves.

  He did the only thing he could do. He grabbed Caera’s tail.

  Caera snapped her eyes back at David, stood up, turned, and gred down at him. He stared back up at her.

  “Remember what I told you?” he yelled up at her. “I fucking remember! Well, this is me getting in your way, because you’re going to get us killed! Slow the fuck down, and find us a pce to rest!”

  This had to be what Daoka yelled at her earlier, because Caera gred down at him with the same animal fury. She was halfway gone berserk from the look she was giving him. A demon.

  Growling deep in her chest, she lifted her gaze past him to the others. David didn’t look, but he could hear the girls panting, and Jeskura and Acelina both cursing as they probably hurt themselves on more vines. Dao chirped a few times from behind him, and set her cws on his shoulder, but he kept his gre on Caera.

  After a few long seconds, Caera sighed, turned back to face the path, and resumed her march forward on all fours, more slowly this time.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “Here,” Caera said. “I’ve been here before.”

  It took them a while to find a pce, taking several branching tunnels, but they didn’t run into any problems other than the winding path being a pain in the ass. At a certain point, there weren’t any more vines though, and the tunnel connected into a bigger tunnel that Caera seemed to know. She knew the way forward for sure, now.

  The alcove connected to the big tunnel by a winding path that blocked line of sight, and had a small, tapered entrance. Easy to guard. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very big room, not even as big as the st one, and everyone got shoulder to shoulder as they sat down. Caera sat by the entrance, and David stood with her.

  “You’ve been here bef—” David bit his tongue. She’d been here before with her old friends, then.

  Caera opened her mouth, but she stopped herself instead. David didn’t dare look at her. They’d had a moment yesterday, but now he might have ruined that, yelling at her, getting in her way. So, painful silence instead. Normally he was perfectly comfortable with silence, and he’d made it clear to Caera he wouldn’t hit her with empty ptitudes, but this hurt.

  He took a breath and forced himself to look at her. Her eyes were still full of rage, and pointed straight ahead at the exit path, as if the enemy was already running down the tunnel into their little room.

  “I’m gonna check the other girls,” he whispered, and backed away.

  Acelina sat in a very un-feminine way, which was a first, but she had to so Daoka could get access to her legs. The satyr clicked quietly as she plucked a thorn from Acelina’s hoof, and showed it to David.

  “Fucking hell,” he said. “That looks nasty. That hurt?”

  “Not in the hoof,” Acelina said. “But, given time, it would crack the hoof, and then I would be unable to walk for weeks.”

  “Yeesh.”

  Daoka clicked in agreement, got on her back, and held up her hoofs to David.

  He smiled as he squatted in front of her and checked her hooves. It was easy to forget sometimes they were actual hooves, and not high heels, especially with how they made Acelina and Daoka walk with a strut. But hooves they were, glorified toenails, and susceptible to damage.

  “You girls need horseshoes,” he said, earning some giggles from Dao, but an annoyed scoff from Acelina. He dug his fingers into the hard surface and traced its undersides, looking for imperfections. Nothing. “You’re good.”

  “Me next!” both grems said. They got on their backs in front of him and waved their hooves up in the air.

  It was too cute. David couldn’t help but ugh, and he sat down in front of them and got to work. Much smaller hooves, and tracing them didn’t take any time at all. But it earned some giggles from the little critters, so he did it a few times, anyway.

  Jes rolled her eyes and spped them both across their stomachs with her tail with one good swing. Both squeaked and dashed away.

  “Meanie!” Latia said, daintiest of the Las. She hugged her fellow grem, but it wasn’t long before they were giggling again, and again approached David. This time, they kept David between them and the gargoyle, until they could squat beside him and touch his arms. They didn’t do anything, they just wanted to touch him and check his wounds.

  “Do we pn to speak of the problem at hand?” Acelina said, shifting to sit-lean on her hip in her usual way. “Remnants rise!”

  “I’ve seen them walking around before,” Caera said. “A few years ago, near here.”

  “And you did not think to mention this?”

  “I didn’t see them again after that. I thought it was just Hell being random, as she has a tendency to do.”

  With an annoyed hiss, Acelina gestured down at her body. Her wings were torn up again; maybe not as bad as they’d been after the angel attack, but still. She had at least a couple dozen small cuts and scratches on her, not bleeding anymore, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in pain.

  “Every step we take, we are injured. Me most of all.”

  It was Jeskura’s turn to hiss. “And of course you matter most of all.”

  “That is not what I meant!”

  David put up his hands. “Ladies, can we—”

  Caera joined them, and gred at everyone as rage dripped from her eyes.

  “You all probably think this is my fault, dragging you all on some vengeance quest.”

  Acelina snarled. “Is that—”

  “It’s more than that! Cainites are running around with imbued weapons. They’re based at the temple. Some guy named Greg has something to do with it, another unmarked. There are answers at that temple! Answers about what’s happening. Answers that could save our lives!”

  Silence fell on the room hard, with only distant remnant screams reaching their alcove as quiet echoes.

  “And Renato?” Acelina asked.

  “Renato is alive, and I’m going to find him. He’s my friend. And you think having a tetrad help us isn’t worth it?”

  The spire mother growled, but quietly this time, and she aimed her eyeless gaze at Jeskura.

  “If we’d known about all this shit earlier,” Jes said, “about Cainites with imbued weapons, another unmarked, and remnants going crazy, I’d say we should have left and just reached the surface asap. We’re going to get killed on this side trip.”

  Caera smmed her tail against the ground. It bled.

  “We’re not going to get killed. We’re not. Just stay close and…” Sighing, Caera looked down at her own body. She was covered in bite marks and scratch marks, too, and her bad arm still wasn’t completely healed. She looked Jes’s way, only to find the gargoyle lower her hand from her bad side where she’d been stabbed by the Cainites.

  Caera didn’t bother looking back to the Las, but David did, and all four dies, squatting behind David, squirmed. They didn’t like all the yelling, but they were exhausted, and were probably agreeing with Jes right now.

  Except…

  “Hey,” David said, “we wouldn’t have met Lasca, Laara, Latia, and Laria if we hadn’t taken this detour.”

  That earned the biggest eye-roll he’d ever seen from Jes, but the Las loved it, and they chirped and giggled as they swarmed him. Four sets of arms hugged him, and four sets of horns pressed against him as the little dies rubbed their foreheads on his shoulders and back. It was too damn cute.

  Daoka nodded, clicked a few times, and gestured to the Las.

  “Oh yes,” Acelina said, “the greatest reward for this perilous journey. Imps and grems.” She settled one wing on her shoulder, but pulled the other in front of her so she could inspect the damage. “What is the word humans use for such creatures? Cockroaches?”

  All four Las looked down and whined. High pitched, sad, puppy whines.

  Daoka clicked angrily at the huge demoness as she scooted closer to David, and stroked the back and wings of the closest grem. Latia turned to Daoka, whimpered a few times, and hugged her straight on, burying her face against Dao’s chest above her breastpte.

  “Sensitive,” Jes said, chuckling.

  “I’m just trying to see the bright side of things,” David said.

  “I think,” Acelina said, “we should—”

  “I think you should shut the fuck up,” Caera said, smming her tail again, “before we stop providing the protection we’re giving you.” After a heavy snarl, she marched away from the group, and disappeared down the tunnel.

  David stared after her, and looked to Jes and Dao. They didn’t look surprised or bothered, and even the Las seemed unperturbed by Caera’s behavior. Latia’s fit of whimpers from Acelina’s insult had sted a whole two seconds, and now she sat behind Lasca, inspecting her wings for damage.

  “You… don’t think we should go after her?” he asked.

  Jes shook her head. “She’s in hunt mode.”

  “Hunt mode?”

  “You already know what it is. She’s got prey in her sights.”

  “Yeah, but…” He scratched his head, tugged on his shaggy hair, and set his eyes on the path out of the alcove again. “I was talking to her yesterday. It wasn’t this bad.”

  “She’s a demon. She’s not going to be happy until she’s killed what she wants to kill.” Jes reached out with her tail and poked him in the leg. “She’s going to get angrier and angrier, more violent, all the good stuff.”

  That… made sense, as much as he didn’t want to think about it. The girls were so awesome, it was easy to forget sometimes they were demons, killers, and lived on violence. It wasn’t just something they did, but who they were.

  His talk with Caera before had been a talk aimed at a fellow human being. No wonder Caera had told him to just stay out of her way.

  Well, that just wouldn’t do. She was vital to the team, and basically their de facto leader. If it wasn’t for her, they’d be lost, he’d be lost, and curled up in a ball somewhere hoping someone else would deal with the problems dumped on his p. Dao and Jes wouldn’t be doing this journey, either, content to hide in a mountain and live their lives.

  This wouldn’t do.

  “Stay here,” he said, and he got up.

  “David,” Jes said, “I know you wanna be a nice guy, like one of the souls in the scrying pool, but—”

  “I’ll be fine.” Hopefully. This wouldn’t be like the st conversation.

  He walked down the winding path, and peeked around its curves a few times, going slow in case Caera decided to jump anyone who came after her. Or maybe she’d actually left them, and decided to search for Renato on her own? Shit. Shit shit. He walked faster.

  Caera sat at the alcove’s long, winding exit, peeking left and right down the tunnel it connected to.

  “Thank god,” he said. “I thought—”

  “I’m not an idiot, David. I’m not going anywhere without someone to watch my ass.”

  “Right, right.” He stood beside her. Even with her sitting in cssic cat fashion and him standing, she was almost as tall as him. “About what happened back there, at the death pits.” He waited, but she said nothing, and didn’t look his way. Okay, ball was in his court. “I guess I was expecting… I don’t know. I figured… hey, Caera’s determined to get this done, but she’s level-headed, and she’ll make smart decisions to make it happen.”

  She growled, and her cws dug at the stone, but she still said nothing.

  “But Jes made a good point just now. You’re demons. You do demon… things.”

  Slowly, she turned her head and looked up at him, and the anger in her eyes burned him to ash. But still she said nothing, waiting for him to make his point. He was now officially walking on thin ice, over a va pit.

  “We’ll look for Renato,” he said, “and we’ll get to the temple, deal with the Cainites, all that. But holy shit, Caera, you charged ahead and almost got—”

  “Almost got you killed? I was clearing a path—”

  “Not me, you! You almost got yourself killed!”

  The rage melted from her eyes, and she set her gre on the ground instead.

  “What?”

  “You ran ahead and started… I don’t know, doing the demon thing Jes was talking about. That you’ve talked about before. You go berserk and just kill whatever’s in your way until you get to the thing you’re trying to get to. But you nearly got yourself killed.”

  “I was fine.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I… I thought I’d… st time we talked, I thought I’d made obvious that… I’m not just asking about this because I’m worried about you getting us killed. I’m worried about you getti… you. I’m worried about you.”

  She growled again, but it didn’t st, puttering out like a dying engine.

  “You know how most demons die?”

  “Hellbeasts?”

  “No. Most demons die fighting other demons.”

  “That… was my second guess, yeah. Demons don’t seem to get along.”

  She shook her head. “It’s more than that. Demons… they…” Whatever it was she wanted to say, she couldn’t, and let silence hang over them instead.

  He was an idiot. He’d thought maybe his conversation with her before had helped her. Maybe it had a little, but reality spped him in the face good and hard. He wasn’t Mia. He didn’t know shit about how to help someone mentally. On top of that, demons weren’t humans, and treating her like one was narrow-minded and short-sighted.

  Ugh. Why did reality have to be so messy? In TV and movies and books, one good, heart-felt conversation was all it took for people to overcome their mental barriers. Cue the sad but uplifting music, some tears, maybe some hugs and kisses, and all problems were gone. Shit didn’t work like that in the real world. Or the afterlife, apparently.

  “Just promise me one thing,” he said. “Be careful, okay? You looked like you were ready to attack Daoka for a second there.”

  “I would never.”

  “You almost did.”

  “I… was caught off guard.” She looked up at him again, frowning. “It won’t happen.” This time, she held his gaze, bck and red eyes gring into him, daring him to refute her.

  He didn’t.

  “Okay,” he said, and waited. She said nothing more though, eyes going back to scanning the tunnel.

  Well, fuck. He bowed out, and walked back to the girls. So much for being able to settle this issue with his pro psychology skills.

  It only took half a minute to get back to the alcove, and he’d only been gone a few, but apparently it was long enough for the entire world to flip upside down.

  “Thank you,” Acelina said, to Jes, in a voice so quiet it didn’t sound like her at all, “for helping with my wings while we fled.”

  Jes, sitting behind Acelina, tended to the much bigger demon’s utterly enormous wings, and she peeked past the spire mother to raise an eyebrow at David.

  “Yeah, well, I saw how fucked your wings were getting. And much as you piss me off, you did good work back there.”

  David smiled, but did his best to make it look like he wasn’t staring.

  “I have never navigated such tunnels before. What is a zotiva to do with all this bloodgrip hounding me ever step?”

  The Las, already checking each other’s wings, chirped and clicked, and giggled at each other as they made nervous jokes about the fact a horde of remnants were behind them. Daoka chirped a few times too, sat beside Jes, and both girls combed over Acelina’s long wings, searching for thorns and rocks. It was dangerously simir to human girls doing each other’s hair, and so cute and… dissonant. Caera was just down the hall, being sour and angry and very demon-y, while seven demons sat in front of David right now, not acting like demons at all.

  “It’s a bitch,” Jes said, “for sure. Took me years of hunting in tunnels until I stopped tearing my wings. And your wings are too long to ever really make that possible.”

  “I belong in a spire.”

  “Hey, no argument here. There aren’t many tunnels in the Grave Valley, far as I know, though. Should be easier on you.”

  David watched Acelina, but the huge demoness kept her featureless face aimed down, examining her cut legs. The longer he watched her, the more he noticed body nguage he hadn’t before, like the way her wings gently shifted in the girls’ grip, instead of drooping or draping on her shoulders. Her tail gently and slowly wagged on the stone ground, and every so often, she ran the blunt side of her cws along her legs. She seemed… rexed? Rexed demon behavior?

  Where was Mia when he needed her?

  David got back up and walked back out of the alcove.

  “David?” Jes asked.

  “I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry.” But after seeing that, he had to try again.

  Caera still sat in her cat-like pose, on her butt with her two front arms straight down in front of her, cws on the ground. Her tail was dead still.

  “David, go back to—”

  David sat beside her, earning an annoyed gre from her.

  “You had me fooled, you know.”

  “What?”

  “For a second there, I thought demons were these very… un-human things that I shouldn’t be trying to talk to like a human. But that’s not true, is it? Sure, you’re a demon, and that means you’re different. You get angry in ways humans don’t. You get bloodthirsty in ways humans don’t. But you’re still more simir than not.” He scooted closer until their legs touched. “I’m not Mia. I don’t know shit about what to say to help someone. But… I know you’re hurting. The least I can do is be here, with you, if you’ll let me. I want to be here.”

  Too cheesy? It sounded like something he’d heard in some shit 90s sitcom, or a worse, an awful modern show full of self-therapy writing. But it was still true.

  Caera looked at him, eyes softening. She opened her mouth, stopped herself, sighed, chuckled, sighed again, and shook her head until her short dreadlocks bounced.

  She leaned in and kissed him.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ~~Mia~~

  “It happened long before the great fountain of Ravid birthed me,” Yosepha said. “The council and the records say Lucifer disagreed with the great pn. They did not agree with the purpose of Heaven and Hell.”

  “Which is…?”

  Yosepha gred at her. Okay, still not going to get an answer on the purpose of the Great Tower then. But considering how stingy the council apparently was with information, she probably didn’t know.

  “God cast Lucifer down to Hell and stripped them of their wings.”

  “Lucifer had wings?”

  “Metaphorically, I assume. The archangels were the first, and beyond beings of simple limbs. God did not want Lucifer to have the freedom to traverse the three realms as the archangels did. Punishment, for their betrayal.”

  “Oh. So Hell was always a nasty pce?”

  “Yes. Hell and its hellbeasts is unwelcoming territory for everyone. Back then, there were no demons, though. Lucifer used their power to create the nine spires, bastard versions of the Heavenly Isnds. From them, Lucifer created the Old Ones, the original demons.”

  A cold shiver worked through Mia’s body. It happened a lot, talking with Yosepha about this stuff.

  “I know their names,” Mia said. “The book put them there. Malphas, Molech, Beelzebub, Astaroth, Apollyon, Asmodeus, Belial, Azazel, and Abaddon.”

  It was Yosepha’s turn to shiver. “Indeed.”

  “I’ve heard some of those names. I mean, when I was alive, I did. How did those names reach the surface? And Lucifer’s name, for that matter?”

  “That is… not a secret, but not something I should discuss. Angels have affected the surface at various points in the history of the world, and sometimes the names of entities were left to be found. Of course, names changed over the course of millennia, and across nguages, but the seeds remained.”

  “So much for being atheist.” She summoned her best smile. It was enough to earn one from Yosepha, too. Success.

  “The religions of the surface are… misguided. But I am hardly one to judge them. I am not God.” Sighing, her wings drooped until they borderline fttened to the stone floor. Talking about God depressed her. Pretty much the opposite of what you’d expect.

  “So, um, what’d Lucifer do?”

  “Lucifer and the Old Ones concocted a great pn. With the power of sacrifice, they killed untold souls in Hell, and cast their hearts into the fires of False Gate. Lucifer used one of the tools they had created, the anvil, and tore a hole into Heaven. Lucifer would not need an archangel’s ability to travel the realms, if they could simply enter Heaven directly. The result was the vortex.”

  “Scary.”

  “Quite so. Anyone who touches it would be destroyed, except for an archangel.”

  “But I thought angels went back to Heaven using it?” Mia asked.

  “We do, but it is dangerous. We must be careful about how we navigate the edge of the vortex.”

  “Oh. So… what happened next?”

  “It is painful to admit, but we angels are not entirely sure. Perhaps the council know, but it would not surprise me if they do not know the details, either. We do know a few things, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Lucifer and the Old Ones defeated Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.”

  “Fuuuuck.”

  “Yes. But something happened to Lucifer at the Frozen Heart. Perhaps Lucifer’s kin defeated them. Perhaps God intervened. What I know is Lucifer is gone, as are the Old Ones, and the corpses of the other archangels litter the hellscape.”

  “They—oh! Angel’s Spine!”

  “Indeed.”

  Mia gulped and hugged her knees to her chest. They had to get through Angel’s Spine, once they got past the Bck Valley. No wonder it used to be called Heaven’s Tears.

  “Their bodies are still there?”

  “Their bodies are Angel’s Spine.”

  Mia tilted her head. “Uh… what?”

  “The corpses of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael are the province Angel’s Spine.”

  “But that’s hundreds of kilometers long, and wide!”

  “Indeed.”

  “Holy shit. I’m struggling to picture that. What did the archangels look like?”

  Yosepha’s wings drooped even more. Damn it, Mia.

  “The art we have of them is… abstract, and beautiful. If you reach the province, you will know.”

  “Like, I know back on the surface there’s some weird art about what ‘biblically accurate’ angels looked like. Like that?”

  “I am not sure. Perhaps.” With a heavy sigh, Yosepha stood up, stretched out her wings, and spent some time picking at them with her fingers. “I must depart.”

  “Wait, what? You have to go!?” Mia hopped up and straightened out her dress. The potram rune held strong, even through sleep, taking as much effort to maintain as breathing. No reason to not keep using it, at least while with an angel and the Damall.

  “Yes. Heaven does not realize I am… betraying them yet. I must return and expin my absence, and…” The angel’s eyes drifted off to stare at nothing as she picked a few tiny bits of rock from her feathers. “I must lie to them.”

  “Aw, come on! You’re not betraying Heaven. You just… know something’s up, something bad, and you’re convinced the council is making a huge mistake.”

  “What is betrayal if not abandoning faith and obedience in your superiors?”

  “According to Hell, becoming a betrayer means drinking the blood of a willing demon, so, uh, there’s that?” Grasping at straws for a shit argument, Mia. “Come on, you’re doing what you’re doing because you think it’ll help Heaven, and everyone. That’s important!” She put herself between the angel the alcove exit. “Why did you decide to help the Damall in the first pce? Why did you decide to save me?”

  It would have been child’s py for Yosepha to push Mia out of the way. She could have brushed her aside with a wing like sweeping dust with a broom, no hands required. But she stood there, and folded her arms across her chest as she met eyes with her. Those were definitely the eyes of a sad, torn woman.

  “I was… friends… with Romakus, before I betrayed Heaven.”

  “Being ‘friends’”—air quotes warranted—“with a demon isn’t against the rules?”

  “No. And angels can come and go from Hell as we see fit, as long as a war procmation has not been made. We are not sves. Other angels in the past have been known to fraternize with demons, as even the council recognizes that demons are not truly our enemies. Usually.” Out came another heavy sigh, along with another wing droop, but she picked herself up and set her wings snug on her back. “I had been interacting with the Damall for some time before the unmarked arrived. When I asked the council about the unmarked, they insisted they were to be killed, and did not provide a true expnation. But there were signs before that. Hell herself has been… strange, for several years now. The hellbeasts have behaved oddly, and remnants have roamed free of their binds.”

  “Remnants roaming free? Fuck.”

  “The council refused to acknowledge it. When the unmarked arrived, Galon and I investigated at the request of the Damall. We found your brother. If he was not as obviously innocent and kind as you are, this conversation would not be happening. You would be dead. And so would he.”

  “Double fuck. Does anyone know you’re close with Romakus specifically?” Azreal and them had seen Romakus and Yosepha have the stand-off before they left with Galon. If they found out about their retionship, it’d put a hole in Yosepha’s lies.

  “Only my close friends.”

  “And if you told the council what you know and what you’ve done, what would they do?”

  “I… do not know. It has been ages since an angel has betrayed Heaven.”

  “It’s happened before?”

  Yosepha shook her head. “A story for another time. But, please, step aside. I must get back to Heaven and report my escape to my commanding officer. It will take several days of flying to reach the vortex. I will have time to think up a convincing lie.”

  “That… sounds awful. Lying to other angels, I mean.”

  “Yes, it is.” Yosepha reached forward with a wing, and gently nudged Mia aside. “I will return in a week or so.”

  “A week or so!? But, I have to get going as soon as Vin’s healed! I can’t wait that long.”

  The angel frowned down at her, and then at the ground as she hardened her dark eyes.

  “Galon was right.”

  “He was?”

  “Yes. In this regard, a gabriem knows best.” Nodding, Yosepha took a step back and gestured at the alcove around them with a wing. “I will teach you batm.”

  “Oh shit, really?” Batm, the rune that gave angels their armor and weapons. “I thought you didn’t want me to learn that one? I thought—”

  “Thank Galon, the next time you see him. I still don’t know if I can trust you with such power, Mia, but I have come to trust in Galon’s judgment of people. Now, equipping batm for an angel requires far more grace than potram or royam. And—”

  “Um, but if royam is easier, should you teach me that one first?”

  Yosepha shook her head. “Royam would not provide any use for you, except in a matter of negotiation. Maybe some day that will be required, but batm is far more important. I would teach you both, but I worry about teaching you batm at all, and I need to stay here for long enough to see if something happens to you for using it.”

  Mia gulped and nodded. “Okay.”

  With a face of stone, Yosepha gently pushed Mia away to make more room, and unleashed a gold glow. It took Yosepha no time at all to don the armor, as if she lived and breathed the glorious metal that now coated her. Silver, shining, with lines of gold, and hints of white silk underneath and beneath the joints. The helmet didn’t cover her face completely, leaving her stern mouth and hard eyes visible, just as deadly as the sword she now wielded.

  She sheathed the sword — by making it poof out of existence, of all things — and held out her armored hand to Mia. And Mia touched it.

  Nothing.

  “You um, have to do what you did st time, I guess?” Mia said. “Pour grace into the rune?”

  Yosepha sighed but nodded, and did so. Her body and armor glowed again, and stayed glowing, as if she was permanently in the state of equipping it. As if she was permanently in the state of saying a word, or signing it.

  They touched hands again, and the electricity flooded Mia’s mind. It wasn’t mild like st time with potram, but a tidal wave of jolts and shocks that coursed through her body, into her mind, and out into her limbs. She’d just grabbed a live, ungrounded wire. Lightning cut through her, burned her insides, and forced every muscle to clench sporadically.

  Her mind went bnk. Pain blocked everything. She fell back, hit the stone on her ass, on her skull, and everything inside her fought to get out of her, as if the blood in her body had begun to boil. Potram vanished, and only the tiniest hint of consciousness told her she was naked again.

  “Mia!” Yosepha fell to her knees beside her and scooped her head up. “Mia, are you alright? Mia!”

  The pain went away, eventually. Pain wasn’t even the right word. The rune had overloaded her, shocked her in a way her nervous system couldn’t understand, and had everything inside clenching until she almost broke. The best way her brain could think of it was electric, but it was a pale comparison.

  “That… sucks,” she said up at the angel. “Holy fuck, that hurt.”

  “You’re alive.”

  “Alive… in Hell.”

  “Semantics,” the angel said. Mia blinked up at Yosepha. That sounded dangerously close to a joke, but of course, Yosepha wasn’t smiling. “Why was your reaction so strong?”

  “I don’t know. It was… It was weird. I tried to do what I did st time, but it was like… like… trying to lift something too heavy? I don’t know. More like, I was trying to pull Excalibur out of the stone, while it had a billion volts going through it. Fucking… fried me.” She lifted her arms. Yeap, sore. Everything was sore. But unless her eyes were lying to her, she didn’t look injured on the outside, and her fingers remained intact. Lightning had a habit of destroying extremities.

  “Can you sit?”

  “I think so.”

  The angel pushed her up, and miraculously, Mia stayed sitting under her own power.

  “What now?” Yosepha asked.

  “You’re asking me? I don’t know…” Mia looked down at her naked self. She could probably use potram again, but she was tired, panting, and tasted blood. Of course an electric shock through the body would make her bite her tongue. “But, the rune is… it’s there. I mean, it was there before, but now it’s there there. I can try and activate it.”

  “Was learning it from me what hurt you, or trying to use it?”

  “I don’t know. I think learning it was the problem? It was… so much… like, bam! You smmed me with so much… energy, I guess?”

  “Then I must apologize.”

  Mia ughed. Mistake. Ow.

  “Don’t apologize. But, gimme a sec. I’ll try using the rune.”

  Yosepha didn’t like that, but other than a frown, she did nothing except stand up.

  “You may want to stay sitting, then.”

  “Good pn.” Mia rubbed the back of her head. Yeah, she’d hit that, too. Being light and having a lot of hair saved her from a concussion, or the Hell equivalent.

  She looked into her mind, into the array of runes, and found the two runes in her mind that made sense. Three, if she considered the control rune she learned from the tetrad’s horde mark. Her mind understood that one, but had no idea how to use it, as if it was missing the instrument to do so. But the angel runes she understood, potram and batm. They clicked in her mind, like pieces on a board puzzle.

  She traced the batm rune in her mind, signed it, spoke it internally in the nguage she didn’t know, and it glowed. A binding connection, like a string or chain, tched onto her, the real her, deep inside whatever it was that made Mia Mia. Her soul.

  Signing and using potram had felt like signing a small sentence. Something simple, and easy. Signing batm felt like trying to do that, while riding a small boat in the middle of a tsunami, while the anchor hung from her jaw. Her body just would not do it. She tried again, clenched her eyes shut, and ground her teeth until her jaw click, but her soul refused.

  “It’s too… heavy!”

  “Batm is heavy, I will not lie. As I said, it takes much grace to equip the rune, and some again to maintain it. Only angels who have spent years learning what they are and have received extensive training can wield it with ease.”

  As much as Mia wanted to ask Yosepha about angel life, how they were born, what were they like when they were born, what an angel elementary school looked like, it wasn’t the time. It was time to channel her inner David, and obsess about this rune until she could wear it.