~~Day 80~~

~~David~~

They spent the whole day talking. Incubi and succubi visited David in his cave, each eager to meet the unmarked, each suffering the same hangover he was.

They were surprisingly easy to convince. Instead of weeks of meetings, back-and-forth arguments about tactics and credibility, and overall distrust, Tacharius and Zabulon apparently had a lot of pull, or Zab did at least. Tacharius was tagging along, and Zab didn't seem to mind. They both made gestures to David, the party he kept, and asked him to make small demonstrations of his power. He did, summoning small auras or crafting spikes of blackstone. That was enough to convince the other volas that he was legit, and that he'd make a better ruler than Tarkissa.

He had no intention of becoming a spire ruler. An amber horn jammed into his forehead? No thanks. He had a journey to make and couldn't be tied down to a spire. Maybe he'd have to pick someone to rule in his stead?

More volas came and went, some with brutes and vrats, some with tigers and gargoyles, a couple with satyrs who immediately started a click conversation with Daoka, before asking David some questions in Estian. It was always a shock, hearing riivas not click. Daoka only ever clicked, but she smiled as she did, making grand hand gestures and almost bouncing with her enthusiasm. Hangover or not, she kept her optimism.

Moriah, on the other hand, looked one bad conversation away from cutting a fool in half, and everyone gave her her space.

Through it all, Acelina stood nearby, egg beside her. No one had been aware of the egg yesterday, but now they were, and plenty asked why she had an unusually large goort egg. She didn't answer them, and hissed when they got close.

Come twilight, they slept. Normally they'd only sleep eight of the twelve hours, and trade shifts to make sure they always had someone watching during those twelve hours. But David built up a wall, protecting them. And with how sleep deprived everyone was, everyone closed their eyes, and went out like lights. David sat back against Caera's side, his couch, and she curled up around and behind him. Anyone would fall asleep instantly with company like that.

~~Day 81~~

He woke up. Everyone else was still asleep, except Acelina. She knelt in front of him, featureless face pointed at him, and big egg on the ground between him and her, enormous breasts hanging underneath her chest. Gulp.

"Acel--"

She held up a finger over her nonexistent mouth, slid the egg closer to him, and came closer herself.

"You are a strange man, David," she whispered.

"What?"

She sighed, set a hand on the egg, and gently traced her claws along its leathery shell.

"I wonder what's inside this egg. A goort to carry you on your journey?"

"I... don't know."

She slid closer. "You really are concerned about the souls of the damned, aren't you?"

This again. He would have sat up straighter, but moving might wake up Caera.

"Yes."

She leaned in over the egg and brought her enormous, black canvas face within inches of his.

"Why?"

"I... I just am. It's just human."

"The humans of Hell would disagree."

"I don't know what to tell you, Acelina. Me, and plenty of other humans, would care. Not for any logical reason. We just would. We see someone else hurting, and we hurt."

She stayed inches from him, so close he could almost see the hints of something through the perfectly smooth, black canvas face. Hints of eye socket ridges, maybe. Hints of a nose that wasn't there.

"Empathy."

He gulped. "Yeah."

Sighing, she pulled back, looked back down at the egg, and stroked it some more.

"You will care for this egg, yes?"

"Yeah, definitely. I fucked up before. Wasn't really processing what was happening." It was hard to think about it. An egg had been plopped into his lap, born specifically for him by Hell. He had no idea what to think, no idea what to feel. Mia would probably be ecstatic to get a pet. He wasn't even sure whatever was in the egg wouldn't eat his face off the first moment it could.

"Promise me."

"What?"

She stabbed his chest with her second hand. He almost twitched, but held still, not wanting to wake Caera.

"Promise me you will care for this egg, David. I will protect it, but... this is not some random hellbeast egg. This is something more important."

He had a sneaking suspicion this wasn't about the egg, or at least not entirely.

Slowly, he set a hand on the egg. It was warm. And if he really paid attention, he could feel the slightest movement inside.

She set her hand on his again, and he froze. What was this about? There had to be more going on than just the egg. Had to be! He didn't move his hand, but Acelina didn't move hers either, and she kept her face aimed down at their touching fingers.

"You frustrate me, little boy. You are such a puzzle."

"You uh, you think? I thought I was pretty simple. I like metal music, video games, porn, and--"

"Nonsense. I see violence in you. I see a desire to do harm. Buried underneath this weak, pathetic, whimpering little boy who cares about others to the point of self-detriment, I see something made of fire and steel."

He stared at her, unmoving. "What?"

She leaned in closer again and nudged her forehead into his.

"You probably think I am an evil creature, don't you? Some old lover of Zelandariel's, twisted with hate, concerned now only with pursuing my own interests. You think I am helping you because I am smart enough to realize I must, or Hell is lost. You think I am--"

"No, no."

"You don't?"

He shook his head. With her forehead against his, the smooth texture slid across his skin.

"I mean, I'm not stupid. Demons are... You're not humans. You have different priorities, and think differently. But I don't think you're evil, Acelina."

"I don't believe you."

He pulled back a bit, blinking at her. She didn't move. Why was this conversation even happening? What words could he possibly say?

He leaned back in and bumped his forehead against hers.

"I trust you."

It was her turn to pull back. She kept her featureless gaze on him and held her breath. He held his. The room was deadly quiet, with only the sound of others breathing in their safe little cave.

"You trust too easily."

"Yeah, I get that. But I trust you."

"Why?"

He shrugged, carefully.

"Because you've been watching my back for a while now? Because you decided to take care of the egg, even though I was being a distracted idiot. Because that night when you... That first night you touched me, you had fun, right? It really seemed like you... wanted to join us. And I was happy you did." He nodded toward the Las. "I don't know what you were like when you were with Zel, but far as I've seen, you've grown to like us, right? You've grown to like the Las. I bet you even like Laoko."

She growled quietly and looked over at the biggest woman in the cave, sitting nearby, Jes and Daoka near her giant legs.

"She thinks she is superior to me."

"Not superior. Just, uh... older? And more... seductive milf?"

"I can be seductive."

He gulped again. "I believe it."

"You are easy to seduce, aren't you? I have but to hold you down and bury you in my perfect breasts and you would break."

He gulped louder. "I would."

"Though you seem to have become rather attached to the tregeera behind you."

He looked down at Caera, her head on the silk sheets beside his leg, a scar across one ruined eye. And the fact Moriah had given her that scar didn't bother Caera at all.

"Yeah."

"Then lucky for you demons are not humans." She smiled, that wide, scary shark smile showing through. But it didn't last. She sat back, stroked his egg, and while still looking at him, gave her enormous wings a gentle flap.

The breeze woke everyone.

Caera opened her eye, looked at the egg first, Acelina, and then up at David.

"Acelina?" she asked.

Acelina got up, scooped up the egg, and cradled the huge thing in her arms; not so huge in her long arms. It was oddly a little... motherly, the way she held it, gently ran her claws along it, and walked in place while everyone around her woke up.

Jes groaned and stretched out like a cat. A winged cat.

"Fuck me," she said. "I feel so much fucking better now. What the fuck, why would anyone do this to themselves?"

David shrugged, getting up too. "Got me. I've never done it, and I couldn't imagine doing it... Then again, I'm the nerd who doesn't do anything." Because he over-thought everything until he did nothing at all, according to his sister.

Daoka clicked at him several times before gesturing around. She was right. That was a lifetime ago.

Everyone got up and got dressed. And damn it, David couldn't help but watch Acelina. Considering the conversation, now he had images of Acelina from that first night together, when she'd woken him before and had taunted him, pressed her breasts against him, and had wrapped her long fingers around his cock.

He clenched his eyes shut, grabbed the strings, and made them silent. No aura. Exercise some self-control.

The fact his girlfriend didn't seem to mind any of this only made it harder. She rubbed up against his leg, practically purring, and when she noticed where he was staring, she rubbed a little harder. He looked down, and she smiled up at him.

The tiger would kill Naoko if she touched him without her permission, but she didn't feel the same way about Acelina, or the other girls in the group. It was so strange. Hell, Moriah had rode him and looked straight into his soul, and Caera had watched him, happy it was happening.

How the fuck was he supposed to navigate this?

Daoka came up behind him and hugged him, squashing her breastplate against his back. She giggled and rubbed her horns against his head, and gestured down at the Las.

"Las find friends!" Lasca said, joining them. "David should speak to imps and grems. They fight, if David prove strong! Others spread word already, felt aura. But David should prove he strong! And, that David like imps and grems."

"Prove that I like you?" He held up his hands. "Can we do that without sex?"

The Las whined, but nodded.

"Come," Latia said, and she pulled on his hand. "Come. We show. Everyone come."

The demons and angels traded glances.

"Imps and grems," Laoko said, "do not go to war. I have been in many battles, and I have seen the Spires War firsthand. Imps and grems stay out of it, usually."

"Not this time!" Laria stomped a hoof. "We fight! Strong together!"

If David had some sticks, he'd make an 'apes strong' reference no one would have gotten.

"I'd really prefer you stayed out of it," he said. "But we need all the help we can get. We have to get this Scar problem dealt with quick and now."

Lasca nodded and aimed her sword up high. "We go!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Pointless," Zabulon said. "You can't control imps and grems. Auras don't affect them as strongly as other demons, spire auras, too. They just don't have the brains for it."

The crew walked along the base of the Scar, the bottom, where the burning sky barely reached. On their left and right were the rising steps of the canyon, each four or five meters tall, terrace steps that reached up and up. And the further the group moved through the Scar, the less the terrace edges looked like natural formations of stone, and more like structures.

Hanging silks. Hanging chains. Thousands of skulls arranged in ornate patterns on walls as if they'd been carved out of white marble. They weren't. They were human skulls, tens of thousands of them, attached to the walls by hooks, or set up on stone shelves, or hanging from chains like beads. The ground was smooth, worn down by millions of claws living on it.

There was more. Metal spikes stabbed up from the ground, each a twisting shaft decorated with black skulls grown in the blackstone. Not something the volas made. Something Hell made. And the deeper David and the crew went, the more Hell's own decorating joined in. Gone were the plain stone terrace steps of the canyon. Spikes rose from the terrace edges, and chains dangled from them. The ground changed from rocks to perfectly flat ground, blackstone not just worn smooth, but practically tile.

Daoka huddled in close to Jes and David, held their hands, and clicked up at the arrangement of skulls dangling over their heads.

"Indeed," Laoko said. "The Scar only shares similarities with Death's Grip near the two mouths. Most of its length is this, metal and beauty."

It was beautiful, in a scary kinda way. What was that movie series? Hellraiser? It was like someone had taken the fashion design of Hellraiser and turned it into decor.

It was more than black spikes and skulls. The walls changed, still covered in skulls, but spikes jutted out from them, thousands of them, each a meter long; climbing the walls would be easier, and deadlier. Someone had taken leather, absurd amounts of it, and somehow stitched enormous walls of it together with black chain. The leather was dyed black somehow, and metal chains were hooked onto its edges to pull it flat over tunnel entrances like a drum skin. Or, in the case of horror films, human skin pulled taught by torture devices.

What in the ever-living fuck.

Torture device was the appropriate word, too. Some caves they passed were filled with remnants, and imps and grems inside killed them for scraps. The tunnels weren't random stone anymore, but walls of sharp metal decorated with black silk and blacker chains, each holding skulls in patterns David couldn't understand. And it only got worse when they passed one of the slave tunnels.

Not remnants screaming this time. Humans screaming. Laoko put herself between him and the cave, blocking his view, but he peeked past her into the tunnel long enough to see the humans huddled together, naked, spiked chains wrapped around their throats. A succubus was laughing at them and pulling the chain, herding them, dragging them into another section of the cave. A cage awaited, reaching from floor to ceiling, bars of spiked metal their new prison.

The humans were crying.

David clenched his eyes shut and looked away. Remember. They're damned. They are horrible people, killers, rapists, sadists, traitors, all the people full of hate, narcissism, indifference, self-infatuation, all the people who spread nothing but pain and misery on the surface. Stop feeling bad for them.

Stop it.

He covered his ears and looked straight ahead, directly into Tacharius's back. The incubus looked back at him, eyebrow raised, but said nothing. It was a good while before they were past the slave tunnels, and David covered his ears the whole way.

Acelina came up behind him and set a hand on his shoulder, other hand still grasping his egg.

"I can feel your aura," she said. "What are you doing?"

He lowered his hands and took a second to analyze. She was right. The screams, the begging voices, the pleas, they were nails on chalkboard, cheese grater on his flesh, and they were getting to him. Something was coming out of him in retaliation.

He wanted them to stop. He wanted the demons hurting them to stop. He wanted the voices to stop. He wanted everyone to stop.

The demons around him slowed and stopped, looking around in a daze. No more movement. They were confused, and looked back at him. Even Moriah and Tsila looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

He crushed the aura, and they started moving again, though they spared some curious glances back at him.

"How strange," Acelina said. "That was an interesting sensation. I wanted to stop."

"Yeah, sorry. I... I don't normally create auras, other than sex ones."

"But you crafted one now that told me to sit and do nothing. A strange aura. And not one I have ever heard of a spire creating."

"Anyone even know how spires create auras?"

"No. Only spire rulers would."

He looked behind him. "That reminds me. Azailia is probably going to come after us, or send people after us. We have to deal with her, and Tarkissa, and the unmarked girl coming our way through the Red Pits. And the aliens. And maybe more angels."

Acelina laughed and poked his back with her tail. "Yes. You'll probably fail and die, and Hell and the Great Tower will be lost. Aliens will lay eggs in our heads, and strange maggot creatures will eat our brains."

He stared up at her, and she looked down at him, showing her big shark smile.

He laughed. He laughed hard, grabbed his knees to keep from falling, and laughed some more until people stared at him. At least until Jes started laughing, and Daoka and Caera did, too. But just them. Either the others hadn't heard Acelina, or didn't share her dark sense of humor.

Moriah rolled her eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lasca pointed ahead, and the group followed. The group at this point was no longer just Tacharius and some other volas and a few betrayers. Natalie, Naoko, and Fuad were there, following Tacharius and Zazee, but behind them were hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands of demons and betrayers. Some followed along the Scar's base with David, eyes forever glued to his back. Most followed from up on the terrace edges above him on his left and right.

Maybe a thousand people on his left. A thousand more on his right. And somehow they'd found weapons and armor. Not a lot, and not the heaviest armor. A chunk here. A slab there. But it was enough.

Anything so he didn't have to entertain making meera metal himself. Killing demons and mixing their bones with blackstone? Forging it in the heat of lava? If the knowledge spread that he could forge armor, the ramifications could be awful, demons lined up with dead demons draped over their shoulders, convinced they were getting a free ticket to a nice new weapon or something. He couldn't handle that.

And if they ever found out he could imbue weapons with hellfire, they'd show up with dead humans in droves, carts full of them, ready to dump them into a furnace so he could melt them down; it didn't work like that, but that's what they'd do. They'd bring living humans, too, with chains around their necks, pulled in a line for David to sacrifice over an anvil. If that ever happened, David knew exactly what he'd do.

He'd shut down. He'd break, freeze, go statue, just like at the funeral.

David half watched the people ahead, the angels, Laoko, the Las, and Caera. She prowled beside him and glanced up at him now and then, and he pretended to not notice; a lifetime of avoiding eye contact made that easy. So many demons, murmuring, whispering. Some tested their weapons, gave the swords or axes a swing or two, as if they hadn't used them before. Maybe they hadn't, being volas and all that.

Would volas be able to fight? Probably. They survived the hatching pit, same as the other demons. They could fight, kill, hunt, and if they couldn't do it with weapons, they could do it with fang and claw. From what David saw of them, they looked strong enough. And if the numbers continued to grow like this, he'd have ten thousand, maybe fifty thousand demons following him before reaching the spire.

The numbers the others had told him weeks ago were wrong. They'd thought the provinces had maybe a hundred thousand non-imp or grem demons, and probably the same amount in imps and grems. No way. There were more. A lot more.

What would it be like if he used his aura to call a horde? Spires could do that. Mia had done it, according to Moriah. Why couldn't he? It was easy to imagine, him wearing his angel armor, staff in hand, summoning his army, literally. They'd flow over the rocks, pour over the spikes, rush through the crevices, an army of hundreds of thousands of demons, maybe more, wielding black metal, a horde aimed at his target.

He could. He could make the demons do his bidding. He could break them all, maybe even Laoko, and make them attack whoever he wanted. The strings were there, he just had to pull them hard enough.

Think about something else.

"Lasca," he said. "The imps and grems congregate down here?"

"Congretate?"

He smiled. "Get in groups."

"Yes! Lots of imps and grems down here, we found out. Lots. Big tunnels go nowhere, but full of remnants. Imps and grems eat safely, don't bother volas."

David looked up again. There were hundreds of grems and imps, but none of them walked with the volas, other demons, or betrayers. They were in a class of their own, a lower class, but not slaves. Other demons were annoyed by them, but David couldn't figure out why. Imps and grems were like goblins, mini adults that were strangely cute, and very fun. Not the brightest brunch, but that didn't matter to demons. So why the disrespect? Because they were remnant eaters?

"In here!" Laara yelled. She pointed to a hole barely a meter wide. "Big cave, lots of imps and grems."

Everyone except David groaned at the sight of the hole.

"I do not like this," Laoko said. "I know of these hiding holes. These are tunnels that go deep underground, but most of us cannot fit."

David squatted down in front of the hole with the four Las, and he held out his hands. Quick size comparison... yeap, that was a small hole for anyone bigger than him. Even Daoka would have trouble because of her spikes.

"Can you expand this?" Jes asked. "Use your wizard powers, Harry."

He rolled his eyes, set his hand on the small tunnel, and felt. A tunnel, like any other, but it went on for a while, a long while, until several terrace steps above weighed on it.

"I could try," he said. "But it wouldn't be easy. And it might be dangerous and collapse this whole wall of the Scar."

Zab waved his hands. "I'd prefer you didn't destroy the Scar while moving through it, unmarked."

"It's fine!" Lasca giggled, got on hands and knees, and climbed into the hole, wings snug to her back. "Come! David talk. We protect."

Moriah sneered. "I don't trust the Las to provide you with adequate protection."

"I'll be fine," he said. "I can defend myself, you know."

His girls traded glances. No one liked this idea.

But holy fuck, he burst out laughing when Caera approached the tunnel on all fours, pushed her shoulders against it, and hissed when the width of her shoulders blocked her.

"I could fit--"

"No," David said, "you can't. I can tell the tunnel keeps going like this and only gets narrower. You might be able to fit, just barely, but if you get stuck--" He choked down a gag, and a shiver worked up his spine. He wasn't claustrophobic, but you didn't have to be to find the idea of getting stuck in a skinny tunnel, unable to escape, to be the most horrifying idea imaginable. And the surface had a few examples to prove it.

But he could feel the shape of the tunnel with his sixth sense. It was safe for someone his size. The joys of being short.

"David safe!" Latia said. "I protect."

"See?" He gestured to the little lady. "I'll be fine."

The demons and angels traded some more glances, but Latia's words had weight. They knew how hard she'd tried to protect David before.

He leaned into Caera and kissed her cheek.

"I'll be right back."

She sighed, pressed into him, almost knocked him over, and licked his cheek.

"Hurry up."

He smiled, waited for Laara to go in, and followed. Two impas ahead of him. Laria and Latia followed behind him, two gremlas. It was slow going. Crawling on hands and knees in a tunnel that was only barely big enough to not paralyze him with fear was annoying, but it was his knees dragging on rock that slowed him down. Ow.

Laara smiled back at him and wagged her tail in David's face.

"David trust imps and grems?"

"I trust you four."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "You four ran into us and didn't run away, remember? You stuck around when the other imps and grems avoided us. You helped us take on those Cainites. You stuck with us, when we left Death's Grip." He tugged on Laara's tail. "You four little ladies fought angels! How many imps and grems can say that?"

"Only Las!" Laria said behind him, smile beaming.

"Only the Las. I think a better question is why you're helping me so much?"

Laara shrugged and gave her wings a flutter, as much as she could in the tight tunnel.

"David is unmarked. David nice."

"Yes," Latia said from way in the back. "Only see nice humans in scrying pools. Never here. Only mean people."

"Nice David," Laria said. "And neat. And pretty."

He laughed again. It felt good, laughing so much, especially with millions of tonnes of stone pressing in on him so tight his shoulders brushed against them.

"When I first arrived in Hell," he said, "the first thing that happened was I fell into the red river, Adam's Blood, and woke up to a bunch of imps and grems ready to eat me. They didn't seem very nice."

"Imps and grems nice!" Lasca said from ahead. "But also hungry. And mean souls are mean. We kill, eat mean souls. They didn't know about David."

It was easy to think of any demon trying to kill him as the bad guy. But that was the circle of life down here, demons killing the shit stains of the material world. Except, that wasn't always the reason. Some demons were genuinely fucking horrible, too.

The tunnel opened up. He knew what he'd find. A colossal cavern with amber veins growing on the walls. Plenty of spikes, but none of them were the same black, metal ones from the Scar. None of the leather, or metal chains, or silk. This was a giant, classic cave of rock. And it was alive with movement.

Thousands of imps and grems hung from stalactites, climbed stalagmites, and perched on rock outcroppings. They chatted, tugged on tails and wings, butted heads, and practiced gliding. It was like one of those gigantic, hidden caves in the jungle, full of bats, except these bats were awake and having fun, munching on nearby remnants instead of bugs, and they climbed on each other as much as the walls. So many wings.

Other tiny tunnels connected to the cavern, and the little demons came and went. But once they spotted David, they froze, went silent, and patted each other on the shoulders. He watched, half smiling at the way the crowd turned to face him, a moving ripple of wings.

Lasca climbed onto a rock perch, pulled David up to join her, and faced the audience.

"Impas! Gremlas!" she said. "Impins! Gremlins! This is David!"

David froze as at least a thousand pairs of wings flew down to him and filled up the base of the cavern. A thousand more stayed on the walls, or climbed to the top of stalagmites, or hung from stalactites with ease. A few impas had strong enough feet-claws to hang upside down.

Barely any of them wore armor or weapons, and they stared at the Las as much David. From the look in their eyes, they were in awe of the four little ladies and their gear.

"David," one said.

"David."

"David."

Lasca nodded. "David! Some saw David fight angels. Some saw David fight weird aliens. Some saw David fuck!" If they did, they hadn't seen it from up close. Besides the Las, imps and grems weren't allowed in the cave during the orgy. But his aura had reached well beyond the cave.

"David special," Latia said. "We from Death's Grip. Helped David. He helped us!"

"We help David now!" Laria said. "And we fuck David!"

Thousands of big eyes looked at each other as much as David, and whispered words. A lot of those words were 'fuck'. Apparently, sleeping with imps and grems wasn't common, and a big deal.

"Unmarked!" a random gremlin said. He had a big scar on his face, destroying an eye, and he wore some pieces of armor. Everyone around him grew quiet. Someone important. "David. Grems and imps say you want to kill Tarkissa."

"I don't want to, but I know I'll have to. Azailia and Tarkissa want to sacrifice me. I don't know how. I don't know to what. But I have to keep journeying around Hell to reach False Gate, and I have to do that to stop the aliens. Tarkissa will try to stop me. So, I'm going to kill him, and take over the Scar instead."

The little demons chatted with each other, sometimes clicking in their throats, all fluttering their wings with growing excitement.

The boss gremlin spoke up. "Imps and grems say you nice to imps and grems."

"David nice!" Lasca said. "Very nice. Big nice."

"Nice!" Latia said. She hugged him from behind and kissed his cheek.

Cue the other Las joining in, draping over him, with Laria sitting on his lap. In their armor, they were not light, and David groaned.

The other imps and grems stared, wide-eyed.

"Look," David said. "I'm here because I need your help. Lasca, Laara, Latia, and Laria tell me you want to fight. I don't want you to fight, but I need help. I need a secret weapon, something I can use that Tarkissa won't see coming. From what I've been told, imps and grems don't normally fight."

The gremlin nodded. "Imps and grems take care of ourselves. For ourselves." The little man thudded his chest. Verbose, for a grem.

"And it was my plan to let you continue doing that. But the Las say you can help." He sucked in a breath, set Laria aside, and leaned forward. "Will you?"

They were skipping months of politics, months of tests to prove loyalty, years of history, and decades of strife, to come to this conclusion. But that was Hell. Demons just went with their gut on things, didn't think about it, didn't plan, just acted. And right now, that was useful.

The crowd looked at the gremlin, and the gremlin looked down, thinking.

"What will David do when David rules the Scar?"

"Honestly? Nothing. I'm not sticking around. The Scar will continue as it is."

Lasca whispered in his ear. "Make better! Change bailiffs. Make demons be nice to imps and grems!"

He nodded. Las for advisers. Whoda thought?

"I will remove Tarkissa, and the bailiffs Priscillian, Tatiana, and Septima. And I will make sure imps and grems get better treatment in the Scar. I treat the Las well, and I think all imps and grems should be treated just as well."

"Join orgies?" the gremlin said.

David choked on a laugh. "I'll make sure you get to join the orgies. I mean, I won't force anyone to fuck anyone, but it's not fair you're not allowed to come into the Floor caves during those rave parties."

The imps and grems raised their hands and wings, and cheered.

Of all the things to unit the grems and imps, and get the thousands of little demons to maybe get themselves killed helping him, he didn't expect sex to be the tipping point. And he was an idiot for not thinking that.

He didn't get to say anything more. The imps and grems roared with glee, danced, flapped their wings, and more than a few threw their naked friends up in the air so they could glide around in circles. Happy times. He'd just told them they were going to war, and they were excited.

Demons weren't humans.

After a few more minutes of happy squeals, the gremlin crawled up to David and held out his hand. David shook it, earning more awe from the gremlin. He hadn't expected that.

"David says spire rulers want to sacrifice him?" he asked.

David nodded. "That's what I heard. But I don't know how, or to what."

The gremlin nodded and gestured down at a nearby tunnel. "Have idea. Can show?"

"Another tunnel?" David asked.

"Yes."

He reached out with his sixth sense. "It... goes deep." Further than he could mentally map.

"Yes."

"Dangerous?"

"Yes. Big cave. No one goes down there. Demons die."

Because of course they did.

David sighed and stood up. "I'll go. But I need to check back with the others, first." Before he went and got himself potentially killed for the millionth time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Day 82~~

~~Mia~~

"You're not human?" Yosepha asked.

"I saw Ramiel," Mia said. "I saw what she did."

The angels stared at her. They always looked so serious, so calm, so perfect. But they'd spent all day either on a knee with their face hidden, or with masks off, jaws dropped.

Mia sat down. Cerberus pushed up against her, and she half hugged him, half guided him to sit beside her. He really was getting bigger, big as a Great Dane already.

The demons stayed standing, though Kas came and stood beside her; he stood on his dinosaur feet and giant hands, so it was kinda half sitting. The angels each got on a knee in front of her, waiting with bated breath; literally, far as Mia could tell.

"Ramiel showed up on Earth a hundred years ago," she said. "She found a boat. Random people going to America, far as I can tell. She was carrying this... amber egg. Kinda amber, kinda red. It was beautiful. Big as a football. Ever see something like that?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"And she followed the man. I think she saw something she liked in him. He was just a... wanderer. A random wanderer." Mia sighed and rubbed Cerberus's heads. "The man went to an apartment, or hotel room, or something. Ramiel followed him home, and she... put the egg inside him. She used an ancient rune--can angels use ancient runes?"

"No others," Azreal said. "Only the three you know. Potram, batlam, and royam."

"This was something else. Something that meant... gestate, I guess. She cast it from her hand, like a spell or something, and the egg absorbed into the man. And then she... she... killed herself." Mia sucked in a slow, wavering breath. "She summoned an arrow, stabbed herself in the heart, and then she... she put some sort of gold dust on the man." No more crying. She'd cried enough, today. "Any idea what that gold dust was?"

"It was the material world," Noah said. "I can't imagine anything you saw is something an angel would understand."

"It felt like she was there to put the egg inside the man, like that was her purpose. And then she, I don't know, gave part of herself to the man, or to the egg?" Again, Mia leaned into Cerb's heads and rested her forehead against boss head. "And I think I recognize the man she put the egg in."

The angels waited, watching. The demons watched and listened, too, even Vin.

"He looked... a little like David. Just barely, you know? Just a teeny little bit. But I saw a bit of me and David in him. I think... I think that was my grandfather, or maybe great grandfather. Some random drunk guy who'd survived World War I, and had the scars to prove it. He was... broken."

"Does that knowledge bother you?" Azreal asked.

She lifted her head and blinked at the angel. That almost sounded like he was genuinely concerned about how she felt about something personal.

"I mean, not really? I don't know. I don't know enough to make any judgments. But--" The memory of the daughter and her parents punched Mia in the gut. If the man in Raphael's memory really was Mia's ancestor, he was partly responsible for Mia's life, in a strange way. She'd never had parents because of that man.

Not fair. She didn't know that. She was just bitter because of that beautiful, wonderful memory, something she'd never felt. And she was looking for someone to blame.

"But," she continued, "he was definitely a wanderer sorta guy. I guess maybe the angel thought he'd go around and get... a lot of different people pregnant? Or, I dunno, be nomadic or something. She definitely had better picks, but went with this... poor guy." The longer she talked, the harder it grew, and her voice trembled.

Noah put a hand on her shoulder. "You now know more than any angel, Mia. Millions of us have wondered what the Great Tower is, its true nature, and many of us have wondered what Ramiel did."

"Yeah, I guess. I..." That was strangely empowering information. She knew stuff no one else did. Even telling the others didn't really get across the power of the metaphors, the weight of the memories, the message in the lesson she couldn't put into words.

Vinicius stepped forward. "You said nine dots."

Everyone looked at him a second longer than usual before turning to Mia.

"Right," she said. "Nine glowing red dots in Hell."

"Was that a scene of now, or before?"

"I... don't know. I got the impression I was seeing a memory. So, I'm thinking there were nine children of Hell at first. Makes sense, right? Nine seems to be a pretty important number." Biblical numerology, David called it. Some numbers showed up more than others, and were attached to various ideas. What any of those meanings were, she had no idea. "Nine floating islands in Heaven. Nine spires in Hell. Nine Old Ones. Nine council angels for all three angel types, so twenty-seven there, but you get the idea."

Vin nodded, squatting down near the group. "Six left."

"Yeah. David killed one, and angels killed two more. And for the children we know about, there's David and me, and James. So there's three out there we don't know about."

"Terrifying," Azreal said.

"Terrifying?"

"Yes. The power of the unmarked is absurd. You rival the power of guardian angels, and even reapers. If your power continues to grow, not even they would be able to stop you."

She shivered. "I'm surprised they haven't come down and tried already."

"They might, but reapers, guardians, and muses move with all the swiftness of an iceberg. To them, a century means nothing. When they do act, the result is powerful and world-altering, but do not expect it to happen often, or quickly."

"I thought they were just angels? Like, special angels."

"They are," Noah said. "But they are weighed down by their power, in a strange way. And they usually save their power to affect the surface world. When a gifted angel does act, they rest for months. They must recover."

Mia groaned. "That really sucks. 'Cause, I mean, if some reapers came down here and took care of the rider for us, that'd be pretty awesome, right?"

Vin snorted. "I have faced a reaper only once."

Everyone turned and stared at him, angels included.

"You have?" Noah asked. "I do not believe you."

"Ezekiel."

The three angels froze mid word.

Vin snorted. "Ezekiel fought the rider and I. He defeated us both. I was wounded. The rider is immortal. He recovered, and Ezekiel killed him again. But he rose again, and Ezekiel retreated."

Mia buried her eyes in her palms and rubbed them until she saw spots. If the rider was immortal, truly immortal, the fuck was she supposed to do? He could chase her across Hell too, apparently.

"We can't imprison him?" she asked.

Vinicius shook his head. "He always escapes. Always."

Well, fuck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She closed off the walls. It was getting easier every day, like playing an instrument. It didn't hurt her inner fingers anymore, and she didn't have to hit as hard to make the effect, just know where to strike.

The problem was, she couldn't move the flesh of the archangel, so they had to move ahead until they found a place where the tunnel was rock, not muscle and blood. And the place they found had a flesh ceiling, a giant cavern with a ceiling covered in eyes.

No remnants. No chance of Hannah showing up again and ripping Mia's heart out. She sighed with relief, and closed off both ends of the cavern, finding rock underneath the layers of archangel flesh. Closing the tunnels meant squashing and tearing the corpse flesh of Raphael, but Raphael said himself he was dead.

They sat in the center of the cavern, on a patch of dry rock ground surrounded by flesh floor and the flowing gold tears of the eyes above. Mia pulled the patch up, raised the ground a few feet into the air and spread it out, giving them a nice, wide platform to sit on, relax, and watch the gold rain fall.

It was disturbing, and beautiful.

Mia watched the group and took some mental notes. It wasn't like she'd abandoned her idea of becoming a psychologist, so, time to put in some work. Maybe she could use the scrying pool to read more books? For now, she observed the group as they settled down for the night.

The leader of the Damall in Death's Grip, Romakus, a man who knew way more stuff and more demons than he let on, was the biggest question mark in the group. Chaotic, quirky, but he could be scary when he wanted to be. He still had some skulls hanging from his belt, and a few dangled from his wings; he had to be careful when he moved to not make noise. Clearly, the man had a past full of violence, conquest, and all the good things demons loved. Maybe that's why he wanted to help Mia so much, because he was just a demon looking for a good time, and the alien invaders were ruining that? Or, maybe he really didn't want to lose his relationship with an angel.

Julisa was just a bitch who wanted power. No reason to over-analyze her. Maybe she'd surprise Mia someday, but probably not.

Kas, as awesome as he was, seemed simple enough: he followed Adron. Maybe he hated Death's Grip, too, after Zel used him in her war. Or maybe he actually liked Mia and wanted to help her? He was hard to read without any facial expressions. And she was afraid to poke him for more information about his past. She didn't want to ruin what they'd built.

Yosepha was now committed to Mia's journey. There was no going back for her. If this didn't work out for her, she might be stuck in Hell forever. And as much as she liked Romakus, probably more than she told herself, the angel clearly missed home. Maybe that's why she was connecting with him so openly lately? She'd given up on going home, ever, and was finding respite in Romakus?

Mia would fix this. David would fix this. And Yosepha would get to go back home.

Vinicius was here because Mia had a leash on him. But there were also his desires guiding him. He wanted to fight. He wanted to save Hell, too, but it seemed like that was mostly just the excuse he needed to do what really interested him: killing. But, then again, he'd said some strange things to Mia that didn't sit right. It was like he wanted to kill Mia, but also not. Like he wanted to eat her, but also not. Internal struggle, maybe?

If she poked him and tried to get more out of him, he'd just push back. She had to wait.

And then there were Azreal and Noah. Close friends, which was endearing. Dedicated to doing the right thing, even at the cost of their place in Heaven. Even more endearing. And unlike Yosepha, they could both probably go back, if Alessio and her bailiffs didn't tell the angels about them. But they stuck around, ready to die for the goal, a goal none of them really understood. A goal that might take them to Satan himself.

And they were intense. Kas had a quiet intensity to him, like a grumpy old man who hated everyone and everything, but was too old and done with it to bother complaining. But the two angels? Every time they looked at her, she saw something she wasn't sure she liked. David and she had seen a few war films, and while they'd both found them overwhelming, she had broken into a million pieces each time. Just a blubbery mess of tears for an hour after the film was over.

She saw things in their eyes she saw in the soldiers' eyes in those films; the actors had done a good job, apparently. The two angels were just so... intense. Yosepha was intense, too, but those two had something going on she didn't. Anger? Sadness? Mia couldn't put her finger on it. But unlike Vin and Kas, she could ask them, if she really wanted to know that side of them.

She'd probably have to go through a war to understand it, though. All the times Mia had had to be violent in Hell, there was a disconnect, a distance. She'd killed plenty, but never with her bare hands, and even then, it still ate at her. But those two? It was different.

She missed Adron. She missed Faust and the boys. She missed having people around who could make her laugh, and not with Romakus's both funny and scary sense of humor. Maybe when they got to the Forgotten Place, things would be different? Maybe she'd get to talk to James or the other children of Hell? Maybe she'd get to see David again?

Cerberus walked up to her and pushed up against her in classic giant dog fashion, clearly unaware of how big he was getting. She giggled and pushed back against him, shoulder to his, and she hugged him.

"You're what I needed," she whispered. "I'm... surrounded by so much bad stuff, all the time. And I thought you might be bad too, you know? A big hellbeast who might eat me. But you're so sweet. It's like you're... made just for me." She combed his big mane of spikes. Much as it'd be even better if he had fur, he still felt warm and inviting, like a leather couch. A really tough leather couch.

She giggled and held the middle head, big boss head, in her palms and squeezed his cheeks. He half growled, half harrumphed. Wolves did that too, far as Mia knew, made growly sounds when they were being social with each other.

She held dopey and serious's heads in her palms too, and they both relaxed their chins on her hands. Three sets of red and black eyes watched her, hellhound eyes, dog-like and cat-like at the same time.

"It's a shame you can't talk," she said. Cerb harrumphed some more and licked both her cheeks with two heads. Rough tongues, almost like a cat's.

Azreal and Noah approached. No longer wearing their weird royam armor, their togas hung from a single shoulder, half exposing their chests. Gold gladiator sandals, unlike her black version. They had a few pieces of gold jewelry, nothing that stuck out, and they both had some gold tattoos here and there, subtle things that poked out from under bits of their white silk, gold lines that flowed almost like beautiful tree vines.

They both got down on a knee in front of her, and she froze.

"Um..."

"You said you recognized the man," Noah said. "The one Ramiel bestowed the egg upon."

"Yeah. I mean, a little? Just a little bit. I thought I saw a bit of David in his facial shape, you know? He wasn't ginger, but I know a saw a hint of David in there. And me, I suppose."

"You believe he is your ancestor."

"I guess."

Azreal nodded. "You must be part human then, if you share a part of his visage."

She sighed and sat back, palms to the ground. "I suppose? I'm gonna guess and say he's my ancestor, and I'm not crazy. But that still means an angel put some kinda Hell egg thing inside him, and that Hell thing got spread out over generations. Nine of us, and we all died at the exact same time." She pulled her long red hair around her shoulder and combed it with her fingers. "I wonder if we were all the same age, too? The three I saw die looked kinda my age, ish."

Noah flapped his wings once. "Perhaps. If this egg drove your great grandfather's behavior, it perhaps drove the behavior of other people. And perhaps affected biology in strange ways. Highly improbable for nine children, siblings and cousins and second cousins, to be born at the same time. But Ramiel affected the world, the material world, something even the reapers, guardians, and muses need great power to do. Whatever gave her her power, whatever tool she used, I can imagine it aligning biology to create such a coincidence."

"Agreed," Azreal said.

"Okay," she said. "So that means, Ramiel came to the material world, brought some kind of Hell egg, used an ancient rune, and did something to a random human, my great grandfather. He had children. Those children had children. And those children had nine children of Hell. So I guess they're all my cousins or second cousins."

Azreal walked over to her and sat beside her. It was so casual, she almost didn't realize what he was doing. A foot away from her side, he gestured out at the cavern with a wing, but really gesturing at nothing at all.

"Ramiel," he said. "She reached Lucifer."

"I... I guess."

"She acquired something from Lucifer. The egg. The rune."

"You sure she got the rune from him? Maybe she stole it from the great library and the council angels? I'm assuming the council angels have runes, or have them stashed away in old books or something."

"Perhaps," Noah said. "But the council guards its chambers well, where the old books are stored." He sat on Mia's other side, all three facing the same way. All they needed now was a fire in the middle of the group and some marshmallows.

Mia shook her head. "You say the Forgotten Place is hard to get to?"

"Yes. The black clouds above are turbulent and bury the island in constant destruction, lightning and deadly cinders. But if you fly low, the river Styx will reach up and drag you down with its raging waves. For an angel to fight against the wind and land on the island would be a difficult feat."

"Difficult, but possible?"

"I must assume so."

"So Ramiel reaches the Forgotten Place and speaks to Lucifer. All we know about Lucifer is that he's bound for all eternity, and considering the real name of that place is the Frozen Heart, I'm guessing he's bound in ice, like in the Divine Comedy."

Azreal looked at her and raised a brow. "You know the Divine Comedy? Written by Dante Alighieri, an Italian man, 700 years ago?"

"I know a bit!"

Noah shook his head. "You are nineteen years old."

"So?"

"No one your age learns things. You spend your time spiraling into depression, watching media feeds with information of events you cannot affect in any capacity, and absorbing opinions from people who are lying to you."

"No I don't! I... Okay, I do a bit. And other people my age do more. But I'm better than that."

Noah squinted at her. "Do you miss your phone?"

Fuck yes, she missed her phone. She missed music, and audio books, and accidentally wasting hours scrolling on video feeds she knew shouldn't be watching. Even stupid online communities she never partook in, she'd found herself absorbed in, reading about stupid people doing stupid shit, usually girls trying to ruin each other. That drama was addicting to read, and Mia avoided most of it, usually. How some people got out of bed in the morning after reading that crap for several hours a day, every day, was beyond her.

"No," she lied. "I was impervious to the addictive power of phones and the media."

The man smiled. Rare. "I'm sure."

She laughed.

Ahead of them, everyone got comfortable. Vin sat by himself, as usual. Kas sat not too far from him, and Julisa sat between them, probably looking to manipulate them, or looking to excite them and get laid. Romakus sat, and Yosepha sat a few feet away. Not good enough for Romakus. He grabbed her and yanked her onto his lap, earning a surprised squeak from the angel. She punched him in the chest, but that was just part of their game.

Yosepha rolled her eyes, sighed, and relaxed back against Romakus's chest. It was so cute, it hurt. Did the two realize how much of a classic trope they were? Or was this an angel-demon thing, just operating on a different wavelength than humans, and were oblivious to it? Mia wanted to grab them and squish them together, like two dolls when she was young.

When she was young.

She pulled her knees up to her chest. Cerb didn't hesitate, came up to her immediately, and laid a head by her face. She rubbed his heads with one hand, other warm still wrapped around her knees, but even the bestest dog in the world couldn't keep her thoughts from spiraling down to the memory. That wonderful, perfect memory of a little girl getting a gift she didn't think she'd get, made a million times better because her parents weren't originally going to get it. But her dad had worked hard to make sure she got it, anyway.

It was such a wonderful, beautiful present for a little girl who had dreams. A big toy cash register, with beautiful pictures on it, and it made wonderful sounds when you pressed the buttons. She'd gotten other toys, too. Dolls, a nice brush with a princess on the back, a big soft map of a city, big enough you could kneel on it, and put little toy cars on it and drive them around on the streets. But the cash register was expensive.

The gold dust that'd fallen on Mia's hands had slammed her with dozens of other memories, almost like she'd eaten a heart. The little girl had played with that cash register a lot, and every time she did, gold warmth filled her. Some of that was because she really wanted to run a store, be a member of a community, share life, and help... create. Create wasn't a big enough word, but it was the closest English -- or Estian -- could give her.

Most of the gold warmth had come from the memory of love from that Christmas morning though, and stuck with the little girl for years, a permanent memory. The hug she'd given her dad.

Mia took a slow breath, but it was too late. Her breath wavered, and her eyes warmed. Tears blurred her vision, and she hid her face on her knees.

"Mia?" Noah asked.

"It's nothing. I'm just being selfish."

"Selfish?"

"Yeah. The memory of the little girl. It..." She took another breath. Stop crying, big baby. "It was so sweet and perfect, but at the same time, it made me... angry."

"Angry?"

"Yeah. I never had anything like that. Just tossed around from family to family, and every new guardian I got was just... I don't know. They tried to connect with me and David, and we -- or at least I -- tried to connect with them. But it always felt shallow. There was always something missing." She looked at her palms in front of her. Open, waiting for something to fill them. "I never realized how much I needed something like that, how much any kid needs something like that. I read about it in my textbooks, about how important it is for kids to have loving parents, especially when they're very young. At least one parent! Non-negotiable! But I never got that. I never got it, and neither did David, and I... I... never really knew..."

Her head fell forward onto her knees again, and she kept it there, forehead planted to her kneecaps as she wallowed in self-pity. This was pathetic, but she didn't care. For five minutes, she wouldn't care. Let her have this.

Something soft settled on her shoulders. Feathers. She looked up, expecting to see Yosepha.

Noah. He didn't look at her, eyes pointed ahead toward the center of the platform. But he remained beside her, sitting, with his closer wing behind her, enormous thing resting on her back and shoulders.

"In Heaven," he said, "souls come to us, and while many are joyful saints that spend their days spreading cheer, most are broken, damaged, missing a piece of themselves many didn't even realize they were missing."

She blinked at him and wiped away some tears. "Yeah?"

"Yes. I am no gabriem, but I have known many gabriem and worked with them many times. There are far more people in Heaven who nearly drowned in the pains of life, than there are people who enjoyed life and enjoyed spreading that joy. Life is suffering."

She raised a finger. "You quoting Buddha? David told me that quote is often misinterpreted."

Noah cracked a smile. "I suppose that is true, but I am not quoting Buddha. I am being literal. Life is pain. You are born in pain. You die in pain. Every moment on the journey is full of pain, physical and emotional." He patted her back with his wing. "Pain is what gives life context. Without it, where would you find joy?"

"Oh, we're gonna get into a conversation about relativity?"

He shook his head. "I am not equipped for such a conversation."

"Neither am I."

He laughed. Wow. She hadn't expected that from him. It was a warm sound, too.

"My point is, if life were easy, the depth of the human experience, the thing we angels can only admire from a distance, would not exist. The struggle is what creates the power of life. And that struggle is..." His wing fell off her back, and the man's eyes fell with it. "We angels watch the surface through our own scrying pools, and we ache. We cannot understand the depth of the human mind, the millions of interactions that shape your psyche. An angry mother sharing her hate with her son. Two adoring parents, sharing their love with their daughter. We cannot begin to appreciate the ways this affects you. All we can do is watch.

"Gabriem speak with humans every day, and some gabriem, thousands upon thousands of years old, speak of the trials and struggles of humans, and how they leave scars on the soul. They are what make you beautiful, according to them. Like a vase that has been shattered and put back together, the beauty is in the cracks. But those cracks take their toll, and all gabriem spend much of their time helping humans overcome the pains of life."

"Yeah? I kinda just... assumed most people arrive in Heaven super happy." Dumb of her to think that, too. She'd read enough data for her psych classes to know better.

"They are elated when they arrive in Heaven, for moments. But once the novelty wears thin, the scars emerge. Gabriem work hard to help those souls."

Mia frowned. "That kinda... makes me sadder. I mean, I know a lot of people are struggling. Part of why I wanted to become a psychologist, you know? To help people. But I thought, when people died and went to Heaven, everyone would just be immediately happy."

Azreal shook his head. Mia almost forgot he was there.

"Angels are not humans. We do not perceive time as you do. And humans need time to heal."

She wasn't sold on the idea that demons and angels were fundamentally different from humans. They perceived time differently, sure, but that seemed to be on a macro level. On a micro level, the day-to-day interactions, they seemed very human. Mostly. Kinda.

Noah sighed and leaned back, palms behind him. "I suppose that wasn't the most encouraging bit of wisdom, was it?"

She laughed. "Wait, what? You were trying to help cheer me up?"

"Yes." His frown mirrored hers from moments before.

She laughed harder, until her lungs burned and her abs ached.

"You really suck at saying the right thing."

"I am no gabriem."

"I get that!" She giggled and wiped away new tears. Nicer tears. "You're supposed to say something comforting, when a human is in pain. Something like: you deserve to be loved. Or maybe: you didn't have parents, but you have us. Or something really stupid but heartfelt, like: he may have been your father, boy, but he wasn't your daddy."

Noah and Azreal stared at her, each with an eyebrow raised, and she laughed harder.

"Movie quote," Romakus said. Mia stopped laughing and stared at the demon with the angel in his lap. He shrugged with his wings, and she laughed harder again.

Either Cerberus wanted to laugh with her, or he thought she was under attack, because he pushed up against her and knocked her on her back.

"I'm fine, Cerb!" she said, sucking in some needed breaths as her bestest boy rubbed his three heads against her torso. "I'm fine."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Day 81~~

~~David~~

"I don't like it," Caera said.

"I'll be fine."

"Fine? You're going deeper underground!"

Back outside with the girls, David stood with the Las around him, about to go back into the tight tunnel. Not just him, but the gremlin with the eye scar was with him too, arms folded across his chest, hard gaze on all the girls. Like the confidence of a chihuahua facing off against a mastiff.

Jes stood over the gremlin, frowning, and poked him with her tail.

"And who's this guy?"

"Domnius!" Lasca said. "Strong gremlin. Big leader."

Tacharius shrugged. "I've seen him around. Lot of imps and grems seem to listen to him."

David glanced back. The incubus nodded. So did Zab, and some of the other demons, too. Back outside, a crowd had gathered again, and more than a thousand demons and betrayers either stood on the base of the Scar, or on the terrace edges, watching from above.

Caera prowled over to Domnius and eyed him, one-eye to one-eye.

"How far is this thing you want to show David?"

"Six days? Seven days?" He shrugged. "Can't count."

David spun. "Wait, seven days? Crawling?"

"Yes, seven days in tiny tunnels. Long trek! Fun times." Domnius nodded and showed his teeth in a half grin and sneer. "We eat remnants! Many remnants. Stay full."

"Know the direction?" David asked.

Domnius gestured down the Scar's long path, the road David and the girls had to take to reach the other side.

"That way. Maybe. Think? Can't tell underground." He shrugged. "Matter? We go through tunnels. Eat remnants."

Laoko squatted in front of the little man. From the look in Domnius's eye, he'd never gotten this close to a tetrad before, and he gulped.

"Domnius," she said. She slowly reached out and touched the gremlin's shoulder. Her hand was almost as big as his torso. "You say your kind will fight for the unmarked?"

"Yes. Probably. We follow, learn. Probably fight! David nice. Las proved it. David strong?"

"Yes," Moriah said.

He'd likely never talked to a tetrad. Guaranteed he'd never talked to an angel, and he stared at the winged warrior beside Laoko.

"But," Laoko said, and she gave the little man's wing a playful tug. "David cannot go through your little tunnels, crawling on his knees, for fourteen days. He has business up here on the surface."

"Fourteen?"

"The return trip would be seven days, as well, if he has to take the same tunnels back."

Domnius squinted with his one eye. He wasn't wrong about the counting thing.

Daoka shook her head and clicked several times.

"Other tunnels connect," Domnius said. "Grems don't use them. Dangerous tunnels. Tarkissa's tunnels."

"Tarkissa has secret tunnels?" Zab asked.

"Secret? Don't know. Tarkissa and big demons kill other demons who use it. Connects to big cavern underground. We take safe tunnels."

Laoko looked back at David. "It is important we understand what Tarkissa and Azailia's plan was, but we cannot lose two weeks with you crawling around on your knees. I suggest we push forward. You say you can sense the body of Hell and its tunnels. Perhaps you will find tunnels that lead to what Domnius suggests on the journey?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan." And thank god. He didn't want to lose his knees.

Laoko nodded and faced the gremlin. "And of course, Domnius and his companions would join us on that journey. Yes?"

The gremlin looked down. He'd followed David, full of courage and ready to speak for his group, but facing a ten-foot-tall woman from inches away, not to mention a warrior angel next to her, shook him.

Daoka came around, squatted beside the gremlin, and clicked in his ear.

"Yes," Domnius said, raising his head and nodding. "Domnius get friends. We follow!" He disappeared back into the tunnel.

Laoko stood back up and leaned over David. "This is a waste of time. We should move on without him."

"What? I thought you said imps and grems can be a force to be reckoned with or something?"

"They can be, but it has been hundreds of years since they have been such a force. They are scattered."

"Scattered," Lasca said, nodding. "But there! We unite!"

The tetrad shook her head. "We will see, but do not get your hopes up."

Latia flared her wings. "We strong! We fight!"

Jes rolled her eyes. The nearby incubi and succubi rolled their eyes, too. No one believed the Las.

David didn't know what to believe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back on the march. Domnius returned with a half dozen fellow imps and grems, and insisted the rest would follow eventually, and come from other tunnels. They walked along the terrace edges above while David, the girls, and Tacharius and Zab walked along the very bottom of the Scar with him. The people following grew in number until their many heads and horns blocked out some of the fire sky above. The imps and grems navigated the black spikes and hard metal, the hanging chains and skulls, and watched David with curious eyes.

Maybe Tacharius had a point. Random people following him, expecting a miracle, like he might serve bread and fish and feed thousands, was a bit on the Jesus mark. Except he wasn't traveling around, spreading the message of turning your cheek. He was instigating civil war.

He looked up. A few imps and grems crawled out of a tiny tunnel. He looked left. A few more hopped from terrace edges far above. He looked right. A dozen of the little men and women poked out from behind a boulder.

They were very good at hiding, the imps and grems. The demons didn't notice them, their small wings, their little claws and hooves and tails. It was almost as if the tiny demons just didn't matter.

Ants. They were ants. And to someone like David, or anyone with a scientist's mind, that meant they were one of the deadliest threats around.

"Caera," he said, and he patted the tiger beside him.

"David?"

"You ever heard of the war of the ants? On the surface."

"Ants? You mean those little nasty things on six legs? Crawl around? Live in hives and stuff?"

"Yeah. A lot of insects work like that, a hive that's run by a queen, and the group of little insects do everything in service to the hive's whole. But, I meant specifically ants, and the concept of ants."

"I haven't." She looked up at him, waiting, listening, single eye locked on him. She was curious.

How fucking lucky he was to have a girlfriend to talk to about his random obsessions.

"Ants," he said, "some breeds of them anyway, are super dangerous. They spread and kill. Spread and kill. And unlike almost everything they fight in their path, they work together. They can sometimes even adapt. So they outnumber everything they fight, use those numbers to their advantage, and their many minds allow them to adapt to many situations. Sometimes they fight each other, trillions upon trillions upon trillions of ants ripping each other to bits, along borders of land thousands of kilometers long."

"Wow. That's... I didn't expect something so tiny to be warring on such a large scale. I've never seen humans in scrying pools treat bugs as anything other than annoying pests."

"There's a lot of things like that on the surface, little things no one notices and never realizes are foundational pillars of the entire ecosystem of the planet. If they fail, the whole planet shakes. If they grow too big, the whole planet shakes. And ants are one of those things. Normally they just clean up dead animals and plants, but some species go on the full warpath, and suddenly, the entire world notices. Even right now, on the surface, humans don't realize how problematic ants are going to become. They will eventually, when ants wipe out entire farmlands, livestock included."

He leaned in toward Caera and gave her a wide eye. "Imagine millions of those little things crawling on you, each taking a tiny bite out of you, each bite not big enough to do more than draw a bit of blood to the skin. But millions of them, each taking a bit, each boring through you from the outside in, taking off layers of your skin, then muscle." He shivered. Caera shivered. "Ants are terrifying. Legitimately one of the, if not the scariest thing on the entire surface, if circumstances ever turned them that aggressive. Not even bees, hornets, wasps, or anything else that flies is comparable. They'd wipe out every species on the planet, humans included. Best we could do is live near the poles, where it'd be too cold for them."

"Are you trying to give me nightmares?"

"No nightmares in Hell."

She laughed, but it was a little shaky. "Good!"

He smiled and rubbed his arms, still shivering a little. "I think the imps and grems can be like that."

"I thought you were leading this metaphor to that comparison."

"Shit. I thought I was being sneaky."

"You weren't."

"Damn."

Caera laughed and nudged his leg with her shoulder. "I can see why you think that. But you heard Laoko. It's been ages since the imps and grems were considered a threat to anyone, and even then, it was Rekath when he controlled the Grave Valley, a spire ruler, thousands of years ago. He somehow got them to help him defend it from the Scar, when Vinzar attacked during the Spires War."

"We know how?"

She shook her head. "Laoko might know more than she's told us, but I haven't read anything much about it. I imagine Rekath used a spire aura to help persuade the imps and grems, but we know they resist auras."

"Resist, or the auras just don't work very well on them."

"Because they're stupid."

He winced. "Come on, be nice."

She shrugged, looked back, and flicked her thick tail. The Las walked with Acelina, giggling as they ran between her giant thighs. Laria got a little too brave, tugged on Acelina's tail, and got a giant hoof to the breastplate for her courage. She flew back and landed hard, but got up in seconds. The squeak was too cute, and David choked on a laugh.

"I was being nice," Caera said, smiling.

"Okay, they're not smart," he whispered. "But you didn't see what I saw, thousands of imps and grems sitting around in a cave, just minding their own business, having a merry ole time. And that was just one cave. Thousands! I can feel nearby caverns below me. They go nowhere, except tiny tunnels connecting to other caves that go nowhere, too. I bet there are lots of imps and grems down there, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe fucking millions, in these underground tunnels. Just. Like. Ants."

Caera looked up at the imps and grems following them. "You might have a point."

"I should ask Acelina. She's a treasure-trove of information about what eggs get hatched."

Caera nodded, and the two of them slowed until Acelina walked beside them. The spire mother had wrapped her wings around her shoulders to let them hang like a cape, a half-hearted attempt to block the Las from running between her legs. It didn't work. They ducked under the long wings and got tangled up around her hooves. Acelina didn't let their antics stop her from strutting in her typical sexy queen style, but more than a few times, David spotted her hesitating her next step so she didn't squash one of the little ladies.

"Acelina," David said. "I have a sneaking suspicion there are more demons in Hell than we realize."

"Yes, that is possible. Zel told us to let more eggs be born many years ago. I imagine the decree was made in many provinces."

"So there are more."

"Yes. I surmise the demons -- at least in Death's Grip -- have grown at least to double their number." She paused. "Perhaps more."

"More?"

"Yes. Zel had suggested we may need more demons long before the decree, and we... grew lax in what we let live." She stroked the goort egg and used her wing arms to gesture instead as she spoke. "Zelandariel was rare. She saw changes where others were too short-sighted to see them. She saw the shifts in Hell, saw changes in the weather, the turbulence of the portals that bring us our food, hellbeasts hunting outside twilight hours, and heard the whispers of remnants breaking free of their gardens of stone. She wanted to prepare.

"Zel also visited the hatchery regularly, and I believe she had been gently suggesting for us zotiva to grow the numbers of demons in Hell for many years more, long before she gave my sisters and I an official order. And we did." Acelina tilted her featureless face up at the growing mob following them above. "Perhaps the other spires were doing the same. But doing such a thing is dangerous. If Zel was wrong about war, there would be too many demons." After a pause, Acelina stroked her chin with a claw. "But she was subtle about how she spoke of it. She did not want us telling other demons about this, even though it could mean starvation."

Right. If there weren't enough souls to feed the demons, letting too many demons run around meant not enough food. They'd starve, or kill each other. If you didn't find the right balance with how many eggs you let hatch, and how many of them survived the hatchery, you'd end up with too few demons either through lack of eggs or lack of food. Demon economics.

"And imps and grems?" he asked.

"What of them?"

"I suspect that there's more of them than we realize. A lot more."

"Because of one meeting with one group?"

He motioned her down, and she leaned down to meet him.

"There were thousands of imps and grems in that one cavern, Acelina. I can feel there are more caverns around, too. They don't seem to go anywhere, except to follow the Scar's path. If those caverns are full of imps and grems..."

She tilted her head, waiting.

"Then there are probably hundreds of thousands of imps and grems, maybe literal millions, just... chilling, hanging around in tunnels and caves, eating remnants, and no one even knows it."

She stood up straight and looked down at the Las. The little ladies ran ahead, giggling and waving their wings up at their fellow imps and grems watching. The other little demons were too nervous or scared to approach David's group, despite the Las' attempts to invite them. Even Domnius hung further in the back, and he watched with a raised eyebrow as the Las ran up to Laoko and zigzagged through her legs, too. Easier to do with her than Acelina, enormous as the tetrad was.

"Fifth La!" Lasca said.

The others cheered. "Fifth La!"

Laoko chuckled, a pleasant sound, feminine, playful, and from the way she looked back and smiled at David, an obviously practiced, fake sound. She enjoyed playing up a role. What would Mia say? She was a queen bitch and she knew it, or something.

"Perhaps," Acelina said to him. "Perhaps there are more imps and grems than we realize. The zotiva often let them hatch. They are useful for clearing out remnants, and demons often eat them for an easy snack."

David winced. "Can we not do that?"

Acelina rolled her nonexistent eyes and shrugged. "Regardless, we allowed plenty of the little vermin to be born. Perhaps zotiva in other spires have been doing the same, and contrary to our beliefs, they have been surviving in greater numbers."

"Resilient, and adapting." Like ants. The scary kind.

"Or," Acelina said, leaning down over him, "they are simply too cowardly to hunt anything but remnants. And you think these cowards will fight for you?"

He looked ahead again, at Latia, and smiled. "Yeah, I think they will. Maybe not for me specifically"--though Latia had--"but for... something."

"Something?"

"Yeah. You've watched the Las. You've seen them fight. Fight demons, fight aliens, even fight angels."

She shrugged. "Demons fight when they must."

"Yeah I guess, but they've fought some pretty crazy stuff, even when they were scared. I think they want to be part of something bigger, you know? Maybe they're just aching to get away from a life of eating remnants all day, I don't know. Maybe--"

The Scar changed. Tacharius and Zab gestured to the side, and everyone stuck to the right as the ground opened up in front of them. A ravine at the bottom of the Scar canyon. The Scar was already a giant canyon, the walls made of enormous terrace steps each five or six meters high and ten meters wide, like a wide staircase built for a giant. But this was different. Laoko and the others led the group, David in the middle, and he risked peeking out over the edge of their ledge down at the ground below.

There was no ground below. That was a giant ravine, the sort you found hidden between rocks and ice in the arctic, the sort that swallowed you up and sucked you into darkness. Thankfully, no Cthulhu-like presence waited at the bottom, no swirling obsidians and shimmering onyx that betrayed ethereal movement, far as David could see.

He reached out with his sixth sense. They were on the bottom step of the Scar, and a glance across the ravine proved that. But now, instead of walking on a cascade of steps, they were walking on the final step, the bottom step, while a giant split ran down the center of the Scar that went down, and down, and down.

"Holy shit," David said, risking another peek. His stomach almost fell out through his ass. "Times like this, I'm glad I don't have acrophobia."

"What's that?" Caera asked.

"Fear of heights. I mean, everyone has a fear of heights, but a phobia is a different beast, and--nevermind." He gestured down. "That is fucking scary. That reaches down to the guts of Hell. I can sense the hellfire down there, flowing lava. Only reason we can't see it is because the ravine walls are jagged and twist and turn. If someone falls in, they're gonna break every bone in their body on the way down."

Caera stepped around him, took a peek, and took up post between him and the edge.

He smiled at her. "If I fell in, I could summon a ledge for myself."

"You really think you'd have the presence of mind to do that, falling to your death?"

"I... Probably not. But you--"

"If I fall in, I'll grab the wall and climb back up. And unlike you, weak little man, I can do that." She nudged him further away from the pit, frowning up at him, and kept going until his shoulder almost hit the inner wall.

"Okay okay!" He put up his hands in surrender.

Daoka chirped and nodded, hopping behind him.

"True," Jes said. She stepped out to the ledge and stared down. "And I bet that's where a lot of the imps and grems are."

"What?" David asked.

She gestured out at the ravine, and Caera let him come closer.

There were holes in the ravine walls, little ones barely big enough for a dog to fit through; David hadn't noticed, sixth sense aimed down at the nigh bottomless canyon. And from the little tunnels, imps and grems crawled, and glided from one canyon wall to the other.

Time went by. The group walked further along the ledge, and every so often, Caera let David get a peek. More imps and grems. And more. The further they walked, the less it looked like a few little demons hiding in their little holes, and more like a swarm of tropical birds, flying from tree to tree.

David was right. The further they went into the Scar, the more imps and grems filled the ravine, flying from tiny tunnel to tiny tunnel that his sixth sense told him led to enormous, hidden caverns. And the other demons of the Scar had no idea.

He looked back at Domnius. Domnius grinned.

The Las perched on the ledge, spread their wings, and jumped. David almost screamed out to them, but the little ladies glided across the canyon with no trouble, clearing a hundred meters without issue. They hit the opposite wall a bit below the ledge, climbed up the wall without issue, and joined the demons and betrayers walking along the terrace edge opposite David. More followers.

They spread their wings and flew back, big eyes gleaming and wide mouths showing off all their sharp teeth as they tried diving down, used the speed, spread their wings, and caught air and flew up. They couldn't truly fly, but when they sank too low, they hit the wall and climbed back up.

And those four giggling, playful little ladies were going to go to war with him. For him.

David clenched his jaw, and walked. He wouldn't lose anyone. He would not allow it.