~~Day 83~~

~~Mia~~

"The surface?" Yosepha asked.

"Yes," Mia said. "If I can--"

The giant hearts stopped beating, and the dead silence cut through Mia like a knife. She looked up at the eyes on the ceiling, but the eyes were slowly closing. The gold tears, their only source of light, slowed, and stopped. The pulsing flesh grew to a halt. The presence around them died.

"Raphael!" Mia spun and pressed a hand against the bone wall. "Raphael!"

Slowly, new runes wrote across the bone, amber glow soft.

"Be careful, child of Hell."

"Careful? Careful of what?"

New runes. "The flesh of my brothers has twisted many here, in Heaven's Tears." Angel's Spine. "And our corpses hide the remains of Lucifer's war. Your music will draw their eyes, and ire. You must be careful."

"What? Remains?" No response. "Raphael?" No response.

Sighing, she ran her fingers down the bone wall, and watched the runes fade. Instead of healing over like before, the runes faded into scars, and remained. The last words of a giant.

Romakus sighed. "Dobasi said this place was important. I just figured he was being obnoxious."

"You've spoken with Dobasi directly?" Yosepha asked.

"Yeah, long time ago."

The angel poked her lover with a wing. "You keep too many secrets."

"A girl needs her secrets."

She eyed the man, but her eyes drifted as the room grew darker and darker. The gold, shining tears faded away, and the runes died. Since the walls, floor, and ceiling were all archangel flesh, there were no amber veins, and eventually the room turned pitch black.

The angels changed their clothes. All three switched to their battle armor, and all three lit up the blades of their weapons, two swords and a spear tip now glowing gentle gold like the archangel's tears had before.

"Mia," Azreal said. "Is James still playing music?"

"No. I don't hear anything."

"Is he still alive?"

"I won't get the vision until I sleep."

"Then I go. I must return to James immediately." He held out a hand to Noah, and his comrade shook it without hesitation. "Be safe, old friend."

"Be safe." Noah shared a knowing nod, and Azreal took off.

He got halfway toward the tunnel exit, and lava burst up from the ground. The harsh amber light was blinding, and Mia squeaked and covered her eyes as the deadly fluid gushed up, splashed against the ceiling, and burned the surrounding flesh. The geyser settled into a slow flow, but the lava spread wide, blanketing the tunnel's path.

"It's him," Vin said, rumbling.

Azreal flapped his wings hard and launched himself back toward the group, summoning his giant shield at the same time. Yosepha and Noah joined him immediately, both summoning their smaller shields and taking up formation on the rapholem's flanks.

"Him?" Mia asked. Stupid question. The moment he said it, it was obvious who it'd be.

She stepped back, and Vin and Kas got between her and the rising lava. Julisa and Romakus both crept further to the sides in the large cavern, drawing their weapons. And Mia summoned her batlam rune again. Back in her full suit of black metal armor, spiky black crown, and wizard's staff, she peeked out from around Vin's leg, and watched the lava flow.

A wing of fire pushed up from the lava, and then another, each the size of angel wings. They flapped once, twice, and a head followed. A skull? A human skull poked up from the lava, and a single bone arm did, too. Bone fingers from a bone hand pressed down against the lava, pushing the body up higher, and the rest of the skeleton crawled out of the inferno too hot for anyone to approach.

Mia would have done something, should have done something, but the whole area was surrounded in archangel flesh. She couldn't control that, and she'd have to reach far and deep to grab a piece of Hell to do anything. Even if she had the wherewithal to do anything, she couldn't, eyes locked, body frozen, as a human skeleton stood upon the lava, and two giant wings of flames slowly flapped behind it.

It stuck out a hand, and heat waves from the lava flowed around the fingers and wrist, air solidifying into bronze, red, and gold. The rest of the arm followed, and--

Noah and Yosepha both swung their blades and unleashed gold arcs of energy. The two beams ripped through the air and crashed against the entity, but not quite. One slammed into the aera armor hand. The other crashed around the skeleton's body, but stopped shy of actually hitting the bone, hitting the air around the skeleton instead. Both gold arcs shattered like glass, and their shards scattered into useless, gold fairy dust.

More armor followed, beautiful swirls of amber that split into red and bronze with gold trim, each coalescing into solid shapes around the feet and legs, wrapping the bone limbs within. Gorgeous aera armor, shining like it'd been polished by a thousand slaves. Colossal and heavy, a suit of armor so thick it was as bulky as Azreal's, maybe even thicker and bulkier.

The breastplate came next, an embossed gold skull at its center. Greaves, legs, waist, shoulders and pauldrons, many carried a gold skull carved into joints. But it was the helmet that struck Mia still. A great helm, David would say, with its front in the shape of a large gold skull, a thin T-slit in front, and two horns.

The lava cooled and solidified, darkening into black rock. The rider's fire wings fell away. A tall man in absurdly massive armor remained, and he grabbed his two axes from his back. Their blades flickered with flame of their own, the only source of light in the cavern of flesh except the angels' weapons.

"Where is she?" the man asked, voice dull, quiet. Boring.

The angels spread their wings, weapons at the ready.

"You will not touch her," Azreal said.

The rider took a step forward. Clink, went the heavy metal.

"Stop," Noah said. "Or--"

"Where is she?" Another step.

Vinicius was behind the angels, but he stood over them and glared at the murderer. His tail wagged, just slightly. Excited to fight, maybe? Excited to see an old friend? Excited to kill said old friend?

"You can see her," Vinicius said. "What do you mean?"

The rider slowly hook his head. "My wife. She helped you. No more." The axes danced with flame, alive, chaotic, hungry, at complete odds with the gentle pulsing waves of the angels and their gold glow. "Where is she?"

Mia gulped, stepped around Vin's leg, and came close enough the rider could see her under the spread wall of angel wings.

"Wife? She... She's not here." The woman in aera armor was his wife?

"I felt her."

"She was here! Not here here, but did help us a few days ago. She left."

The rider stopped moving, arms at his sides, axes in hand. Like a statue, he just stood there, waiting for something more, but Mia had no idea what to tell him. No one did.

He turned around and walked away.

Yosepha flew after him. Everyone froze, but the angel flew over the rider and stopped between him and the tunnel.

"Where are you going, old monster?"

He said nothing.

"You seek the other unmarked, don't you?"

He said nothing.

"You seek to kill the unmarked. You seek to kill the woman in armor because she is helping the unmarked."

"Get out of my way."

"I cannot let you leave! The council has sentenced you to death, old monster. And you seek to stop the unmarked, the ones that can save us from the invaders. You must be stopped." No answer. "You have slain thousands of angels! You--"

"Millions." His flat voice cut through Yosepha's words like a wrecking ball.

Mia gulped. Yosepha wasn't wrong. Problem: they'd all just seen what happened. The rider had literally climbed out of a lava vein, a skeleton, his armor and weapons had been created after, and Mia could think of no rune that allowed for something like that. And when the armor had formed, she'd seen no flesh. A walking, talking skeleton.

He'd climbed out of lava! In Hell, lava wasn't just lava. It was sort of like the blood of Hell, and had the destructive power of hellfire, like it was hellfire's sister or something. It was special, and destructive in ways regular fire wasn't. And the rider had literally stepped out of it.

Was he a lich or something? A revenant? How would that make sense in the afterlife? How could they kill something like that?

"I will not move," Yosepha said, flaring her wings, sword and shield up.

"Then die." The rider charged forward and brought both axes down on Yosepha.

The angel blocked with her shield, but instead of standing her ground, she fell to a knee instantly, and her shield broke. The impact of metal on metal rang loud, somehow echoing in the flesh cavern, and a second explosion of sound followed: fire. The two axes unleashed an explosion of hellfire, and it flowed outward, crashing against everything. The flesh walls burned. The floor of muscle and blood burned. And only Yosepha's quick thinking kept her wings snug to her back and out of the path of the flames.

Noah and Azreal flew toward her, but Romakus jumped over and past them, wings out, and he flew the last dozen meters to reach the rider in silence. And unlike the angels, his weapon didn't glow. He tucked in his wings, let gravity pull him down, brought the giant meera sword down on the rider's back as he landed, and sparks erupted, white glowing dots that rained.

The rider almost fell to a knee, turned, and smashed both axes back against the giant sword. Metal on metal raged, and Romakus fell back, pushed back by the rider's swings. Noah and Azreal flew above, and just before the rider sank an axe into Romakus's chest, the rapholem put himself between the rider and the tetrad. His giant shield glowed gold as he summoned a wall, but a single hit from the rider's axe shattered it, and the rapholem slid backward across the burning flesh floor, physical shield still up.

It was enough of an opening for Noah, and he sent a gold arc of energy at the rider. And another. And another. The rider took each straight to the chest, and each knocked him back a few inches. But that was all.

Yosepha charged his back. But instead of wielding her blade and stabbing him, the angel abandoned her weapon and broken shield, and jumped him.

"Yosepha!" Mia screamed.

The angel got both her hands on the rider's helmet, and pulled. The warrior woman, still dressed in glorious armor, unleashed every bit of strength she had, and her screams proved it. Her wings glowed brilliant gold, and she flapped them hard, her boots planted against the rider's shoulders, and her hands clasping the bottom rim of his helmet.

The rider stood and prepared to cut Yosepha off of him. But Noah dove and brought his sword and shield to bear, and the rider had no choice but to block a slew of attacks with his axes. He was too fast. He hit too hard. Noah stepped back, fell to a knee, and blocked the two axes.

Noah's shield shattered in a rain of gold sparks, and he fell to his back. The rider brought up his weapons.

Julisa dove in and brought all four of her swords down. Again, the rider was forced to block, and he turned and faced the second tetrad. But it led to the same thing. Julisa wasn't Romakus, and she attacked with all four swords like she was a chopping machine, each sword striking in quick succession, and the rider blocked them all. Eventually he brought both axes up, blocked all four of her swords, and pushed her back hard. She came back, but he slammed an axe into the muscle ground, and hellfire exploded over the area, driving back Noah, Azreal, Romakus, and Julisa.

Yosepha held on, pulling as hard as she could, and making zero progress.

The rider brought up his axes again, but stopped as a quake shook the cavern. Vinicius. The child of the Belial charged forward, feet tearing up the flesh floor. He bulldozed through the flame, and crashed his full bodyweight into the rider. Yosepha was sent flying, and she crashed against the flesh of the tunnel, but that was a million times better than getting hit by one of those axes.

The rider fell on his back. Vin got on top of him, many times the rider's size, got all four hands on his helmet, many fingers overlapping, and yanked. His tail went rigid, and every muscle on his enormous back flexed hard. He roared, and his heavy voice shook the cavern, sending tingles up through Mia's spine.

Kas got between her and the carnage ahead, low to the ground. His presence shot awareness through Mia, and she looked down at her side. Kas was protecting her, and so was Cerberus. The hellhound roared and snarled, all three heads unleashing a barrage of sounds, but under the sound of metal on metal, screaming angels, and roaring demons, Mia hadn't heard him.

A helmet went flying. Vinicius jumped back, launching his enormous body into the air, and he landed hard, feet almost sinking into the flesh with his tremendous weight.

The helmet rolled toward Mia, and she scampered over and scooped it up. No idea why, but her legs moved on their own, and she stared down at the large helmet and its gold skull face with the T-slit down the front. Scoop quickly turned into deadlift when she realized how absurdly heavy the helmet was. Seventy kilos? A hundred? And it was gloriously, morbidly beautiful. Even angel armor didn't have such amazing detail.

She dropped the helmet, and it sank an inch into the flesh floor.

The rider stood up, true face exposed. Mia half expected the helmet on the ground to disappear and reappear on him, like it did with angel armor. Maybe it could, if the rider spent the energy to make it happen. He did not. He stood there, facing the group as hellfire burned shallow on the flesh floor around him.

It was as before, a skeleton's skull, but the rider slowly turned and faced Mia, and she froze solid. His eye sockets were filled with flame, flame normally hidden in shadow by the helmet.

"What are you?" she asked. A pointless question. He wouldn't answer.

The creature kept his flaming gaze on Mia, and began his slow walk toward her.

"Then I will kill you first."

He got five steps before everyone fell on him. Vinicius got in his path, and the rider took a swing at him. The ragarin jumped back, and again a small explosion of hellfire erupted where axe met archangel flesh. Romakus and Julisa came at him, swinging at the same time. The rider blocked Romakus with one axe, two of Julisa's swords with another, but she had two more, and two of them crashed down against the skull.

Mia couldn't see, but in the chaos and turning bodies, the skull remained, a few chips put in the top by Julisa's attack. How they'd all come to the conclusion to go for his head, Mia had no idea, but they were. But Julisa's attack didn't slow him at all, and he struck back with his flaming weapons. He swung back out at Julisa, she blocked, and stumbled back. The rider came for her.

Azreal got between her and the rider, and again summoned energy to his shield. The rider drove both axes down against it, and the room shook with the sound of unbreakable metal denting under the impact. Azreal stayed behind the shield, but fell to a knee as again, the rider brought both axes down and bathed the glowing shield in hellfire.

Several gold arcs crashed against the rider's back, but accomplished nothing. Noah and Yosepha flew up and unleashed a barrage of gold destruction, raining more arcs of energy down onto the rider. Eventually, Yosepha stopped, but Noah roared down at the skeleton, pointed his sword at him, and sent down a beam, the same beam he'd tried to kill Vinicius with the first time he'd met Mia.

It crashed down on the rider's back and skull, and the armored man fell to a knee. And while the beam smashed into him and buried the room in gold and thunder, the rider stood back up, faced Noah, and summoned his fire wings. He flew to the side, out of the path of the beam, and launched himself up at Noah. How was he so fast?

He brought his axe in from the side. Noah ceased his beam and blocked the axe with his sword, but the impact sent the angel back, and his arm flung violently to the side. The rider came in with the other axe, and Noah blocked it again as best he could, but the strength of the madman was too great, and Noah's sword fell out of his hand and disappeared in a gold blur.

Noah's roar of anger died, cut off, as the rider's axe sank into his stomach.

"No!" Azreal abandoned his shield. The wall of metal and gold vanished, and with both hands around his spear, he flew up to meet the rider, screaming a warrior's cry, and drove his spear directly into the rider's back. Gold erupted, and the rider's wings flared as the spear pushed through the aera armor. Barely.

Vinicius held out a hand to Kas. Kas took it without question, and Mia almost squealed as Vin threw the sarkarin up at the rider. Holy shit. He didn't have to throw Kas very high, but still. At the apex of the throw, Kas got his claws on the rider's legs, held on, and the rider spun out of control like a helicopter going down.

Vin, Julisa, and Romakus were on him in an instant, but Mia didn't watch. She ran to Noah, Cerb on her heels.

"Noah!"

The angel lay on his back, armor dented in at his stomach, and blood oozed out from around his waist, seeping out between the grooves of his beautiful, ruined armor. He forced himself up on his elbows and stared at the wound from within his helmet, eyes hard with rage.

"Mia. I--"

Vin roared in triumph, and the demons jumped away from the fallen rider. The madman fell to his knees, but didn't fall over, refusing to collapse even as he went limp. His head was gone. With a raised arm, Vinicius turned around and held out his hand, where the rider's skull sat, eyes no longer flaming.

"You got his head?" Mia asked. "Wha... How... Kas!" Oh no, not another one. The shark dinosaur limped her way, a burned cut on his arm. Not just him, but Romakus too, a burn and cut in his wing. Azreal's shield arm hung limp at his side. Julisa's shoulder had a nasty burn mark, but not cut; probably from a hellfire explosion. Yosepha had the same.

The group limped her way, but froze halfway when Vin snarled and dropped the skull.

The skull melted away, turned to lava, and dripped through the archangel flesh floor. Mia spun. Sure enough, the helmet she'd dropped was melting, too.

"Look." Yosepha pointed her sword at the rider's kneeling body, where a heat haze formed around his neck. Color formed, bronze, red, and gold, swirling mists that built up around the rider's missing head. And white, too, as a skull began to form.

"This is insane," Mia said. "He's immortal!"

"Invincible," Vinicius said, snarling. "Let us go." He gestured to the tunnel, the path back to James.

When Vin wanted to run, it was time to run. Azreal and Yosepha got an arm under Noah's, and together the three of them took to the air and--

And turned back when a dozen hungry roars filled the tunnel.

"Other way," Yosepha said.

Mia got up and waved her staff. "No no, we have to go that way! That's the way to James! I can't tell where this tunnel leads with all this archangel stuff blocking my senses. We--"

"No choice." Vin scooped her up, and the group got running. At least he had the decency to put her on his back, and she dismissed her staff and held on, still in her armor.

"Cerberus!" she yelled. The hellhound stood by the rider's body, snarling at it, but the rider's body began to move, and his flame wings began to rise and flap. "Cerberus! Come!"

Cerberus snarled one more time and took off after Mia. He fell in beside Vin, and the group took the random tunnel onto a random path they didn't know at all, and Raphael wasn't around to guide them anymore. Every step was archangel flesh, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, all of it, and the wide tunnel spiraled down deeper into the ground.

Where archangel flesh ended and Hell began, she couldn't tell, like trying to hear with earplugs on, or see in the dark, all a blurry mess her sixth sense couldn't make heads or tails of. At least the archangel's body was quiet now. No more pulsing meat and flowing blood.

They were descending through the insides of a twice-dead god corpse.

Demon shrieks and roars echoed down the tunnel, and Mia looked back, expecting to see a tide of hungry demons on her tail. But distant clangs of metal settled her stomach. They were fighting the rider.

They'd all die, but at least they were slowing him down.

"Noah," she said. "Are you okay? I can grow some fruit for you! We have to find a place and camp, and I'll build us a safe place, and you can eat, and I'll make sure everyone gets food, and--"

"Mia," Kas said, using one arm to walk. "Be calm."

"He found us! He found us, and he's immortal and invincible. There's nothing we can do to stop him. Even if we get somewhere I can use Hell against him, it won't kill him! He came out of lava! Lava is a part of Hell! It's like Hell's blood or something. And he used it to get around!"

"The rider," Vin said, "always found a way to continue his slaughter, no matter what happened to him. Now we know how." He pushed past everyone so he took the lead. Which meant she was in the lead, because she was on his back.

"You've never seen him do that?" she asked.

"Not directly."

No point in asking what he meant by that.

"Yosepha! How are the boys?" she asked.

"Noah will survive. He is strong enough to keep batlam equipped. He is not in immediate danger of death."

"Immediate!? I--"

Julisa held up a finger and gestured back. "Quiet. Those demons are likely from Dobasi's spire, summoned by the sound of battle. It is best if they do not know we are here."

Mia nodded. "Okay. Kas, how about you?"

"I will be fine," he said. Even with one arm, he kept up a good pace, walking like a gorilla might with an injured arm. Maybe a bit easier because of his giant tail.

"Azreal?"

The angel shook his head. "My arm is damaged but functional. Impact wound."

A response befitting a soldier who'd long suppressed any emotions and had become a robot killing machine. Mia almost rolled her eyes.

"Yosepha?"

"Burns."

"Julisa?"

"Just a single burn. Hellfire is... painful."

Painful was a word. Vin had cooked an entire room of prisoners alive the day Mia released him from Zel's prison. She could still remember the screams.

"Okay," she said. "Let's just... Let's just keep going. The moment we find a spot with no flesh covering the walls, I'll set us up a place to sleep." Nodding, she peeked over Vin's shoulder, and looked back to the angels. "Yosepha?"

"Yes?"

"You went for the helmet. Why? That something you guys agreed on before?"

"No." She shrugged her wings. "I was hoping to expose a weak spot."

Apparently, the rider didn't have a weak spot.

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

Hours later, they found a spot, a small cavern where the flesh left a wall exposed. It was coated in archangel blood, but with a bit of effort and focus, she pulled the rock out from behind the crimson curtain, and created a small room for them to hide. It took time, and each second had her heart racing. They didn't have time. Demons were coming, or the rider was.

She made the walls of their little hideaway sphere-cave extra thick. Hopefully, it'd just look like a rock wall, and no one would see the tiny hole at the top letting air in.

The angels set Noah down, and all three abandoned their armor. Back in potram, the white, revealing togas left their wounds exposed, and Mia winced hard at the sight of Noah's abdomen. The axe had both cut and burned him, but not burned him well enough to seal the wound. Though considering how hellfire worked, bleeding was probably a good thing. Better that than getting his insides turned to ash.

Still in her armor, Mia aimed her staff down, reached out with her sixth sense, and dug for rivers of resonance. They were there, but distant, buried under Raphael's flesh, and finding them felt like digging for water. She plucked the strings hard, guided the resonance toward her, but no matter how hard she played, only tiny trickles reached her.

Shit load better than the absolutely zero she'd have been able to summon just a month ago.

Slowly, a little tree budded up from the ground. Not enough. She squeezed her staff and plucked the invisible strings as hard as she dared risk. Agony shot up through her limbs, and the same pain she'd felt the first time she'd ever played the music hard burned her inner fingers. But it passed quickly, and she played again. She needed resonance, all the resonance. There were millions of remnants nearby, but navigating the archangel flesh and pulling the invisible streams of resonance through it was hard.

Sweat dripped down her body. She ignored it. Her thighs and shoulders ached. She ignored them. She focused on the little forbidden tree in her little cave, and grew some forbidden fruit. Cerberus nudged the growing tree with his snouts, but didn't steal a fruit for himself, and sat beside Mia instead. Waiting for her to give him the go-ahead to eat, maybe? She'd hug him if she wasn't busy trying to not pass out.

Eventually the tree was complete, with half a dozen fruit ready to be eaten. She sat, panting, and released her batlam rune, like slipping out of a heavy backpack filled with books. Sitting turned to lying, and she stared up at the ceiling of the cave, panting, a few amber veins above giving some light.

"Mia," Yosepha said. "If you burn through all your energy growing fruit, you will need to eat all the fruit, rendering the effort moot." A pluck sound followed. The angel was getting a fruit for Noah.

"You're right. But it should be more than enough to cover for that and everyone. Cerb, eat." She took deep breaths and swallowed down the fear bubbling up through her guts.

Eyes still on the ceiling, she didn't watch, but listened to the sound of shuffling feet and claws as everyone either got a bite to eat, or split a fruit between them. Forbidden fruits were fleshy red things, so the tearing sounds were not pleasing. And claw sounds, scraping the dirt, came close to her. Judging from the weight of impact, it was Kas.

She sat up on her elbows and smiled up at her bodyguard. He looked down at her, eyeless, his shark head and forward-pointing horns aimed at her, the top half of his head solid black.

"Eat," he said, and held out a hand to her, fleshy fruit in his palm.

Smiling at him, she took the fruit and ate it. It tasted way too close to a well-seasoned medium-rare steak. And the tingling warmth it sent through her limbs was delightful.

She sat up, back in her potram clothes. It was cramped in the cave. Julisa wasted no time snuggling up to Vin's side, and she grinned at Kas, waiting. No room anywhere. He sat beside Mia, which was also beside Julisa, and the four-armed bitch winked at Mia. The fuck? They all nearly died to the rider, and she was trying to steal Kas from her? Worse, she was doing that while Noah was half dead only a few meters away!

Mia crawled over to the angels and sat at Noah's feet. His potram clothes were bloody, and Yosepha kept a hand on his stomach, keeping the burned, red wound mostly closed. Mostly. Azreal also sat with him, eyes locked on the wound as if he could use his intense gaze to seal it.

"We should hire a gabriem," Romakus said, cradling his wounded wing. Some skulls that dangled from it were shattered.

"Not hire," Yosepha said. "But it may be prudent we recruit one, if this continues."

Noah coughed, and a grimace reached down from his face into his limbs. "If the rider will chase us across Hell, we may need help. Of any kind." He coughed again, and every muscle in his body flexed. Yosepha kept her hands on the wound throughout his spasms.

"You ate?" Mia asked, voice shaking. Much as she wanted to look Noah in the eyes, her gaze locked onto Yosepha's bloody hands, just like Azreal.

"Yes."

"And... you're going to live, right?"

Noah summoned a small smile. "I will."

Mia sucked in a breath and got closer. Bad as the wound was, Azreal and Yosepha didn't look afraid. Intense and angry, but not afraid for Noah.

Well, Mia was. She touched the man's shin, leaned forward, and slowly set a hand on his stomach.

"Mia?" he asked.

She closed her eyes, reached out, and felt...

"Sorry," she said, sitting back. "I can't affect you. Not even a little bit. I can change Hell, but not the people in it. But then... how do angels do stuff? Shoot beams." She gestured at Yosepha and Noah. "Or make big gold walls." She gestured at Azreal.

"Grace," Yosepha said. "A human has a soul. A demon has a sin. An angel has a grace. Through our grace, we can turn our resonance into essence with a specific purpose: to annihilate, to protect, and to heal."

Mia frowned, reached inward with her mind, and took a stab at it. If she could wield angel runes, maybe she could do other angel things? Grace? She had a soul. How different could it be?

Completely different, apparently. No matter what muscle she flexed, how hard she squinted or squirmed, or how deep she reached into herself, she could find nothing she could engage to make things just come out of her. Plus one in the human column.

Cerberus came up to Noah, sniffed his sandal, and nudged a snout against his leg. Noah ignored him. But Cerberus was more dog than hellbeast, and he came closer and nudged all three noses into Noah's leg.

Sighing, Noah touched the closest head, serious head, and rested his hand there, some spikes jutting up between his fingers. It was adorable. Mia smiled down at her bestest boy, and rubbed his other two heads, but the smile faded away in the silence.

"What do we do?" she asked. "The rider is a skeleton. He can go through lava! You ripped his head off, but he just started... re-materializing. That's weird, right?"

"Extremely," Julisa said. "We have no choice but to run, and hide." She gestured around at the cave walls. "Will the rider find you through this? There is no chance he sleeps."

"If he finds us," Mia said, "I'll try and wrap him in this rock so we can run. It'll slow him down, right?" She looked to Vin.

The juggernaut nodded. "He cannot be stopped. He can be slowed."

"Better than nothing." She got up on her sandals and stood in front of the child of Belial. "You've really never seen his face?"

"Never."

"He's always had that armor?"

"Always."

"You said he changed a long time ago, right?"

Vin nodded. "Thousands of years ago, he once had fire, and rage. But now he is cold, and desires only murder. There is no joy in the slaughter. He has changed."

Any other day, she'd argue about how bad it was for anyone to enjoy slaughtering anything. Maybe if the demons stuck around her long enough, they'd change? Not likely. At least Kas was rebelling against that demon instinct.

"Is that why?" she asked. "I mean, do you think that has anything to do with why he's a skeleton now?"

"No. If his invincibility is connected to his form, then he has held such a form for longer than I have lived, never removing his armor. A form older than his new coldness." Vin snorted. "He said wife."

Mia gulped. "He did say wife, didn't he?" And there was no getting around the implications of that. Sighing, she sat on her ass by the tree in the center of the group, held her knees to her chest, and buried her face against them. She had a theory, and she bet the others had the same one, too.

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

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

~~Day 86~~

~~David~~

Four days later. No more fights, but there'd be more, eventually. For the time being though, David just kept walking forward, and the demons following him grew in number.

It was almost morning. The group slept in a cave, this one with some nice silk piles, and David did the usual, blocking off the cave so they were safe.

Caera smiled down at him and licked his neck. He lay on his back, and groaned as the enormous tiger climbed onto him, lay on top of him, and squashed him into the blankets. Without her armor on, she pressed her large breasts down against his chest, and got cozy between his thighs, her long body reaching well past his legs.

"Ready for another day?" she asked.

He groaned and shook his head. "No."

"You have thousands of followers just outside, waiting for you."

"They just want Tarkissa gone."

She licked the other side of his neck. "I think a lot of them want to see what the unmarked will do. Drawn to power."

"That's not much better."

Shrugging, she wagged her enormous tail; he could feel the weight shift, almost rolling him from side to side.

"Well, they are demons. They're not used to the idea of someone trying to make things better, someone fighting to make changes."

He'd never thought of it like that. He was the first person, ever, to wage a war in Hell, or at least get ready to wage war, who also had the goal of making things nicer for the people in the province. Then again, what he thought was better, was probably not what a lot of demons thought was better.

Caera grinned down at him, kissed him with her short cat-like snout, and gently ground her body down against him, shifting back and forth a couple inches. Her weight squashed her breasts to his chest, molded them to the shape of him, and he shuddered at the sensation of them softening.

"I admit," she said, "there's something really hot about knowing thousands of demons, thousands of betrayers, and even thousands of imps and grems are out there, all waiting to see what you do." Attracted to power, apparently.

He raised an eyebrow. "It's just terrifying for me."

"You hide it well." She buried her face in his neck and nudged her horns against the side of his head. "We haven't fucked in a while."

David turned his head, just for a quick peek at Laoko. She sat on the opposite side of the cave, waking up with a stretch, but when she noticed him looking, she looked away. Cold shoulder. She wasn't happy with him. He wasn't happy with her.

"Just... got a lot on my mind," he said, and almost choked on the cliché.

"We still have a week before we reach the spire, and Septima is probably there. I don't think we need to worry about her until then."

"Hopefully." They still had two more bailiffs to deal with. Septima, a tiger who patrolled the whole topside of the Scar and kept the Dens in check. And Tatiana, a succubus who ran the other end of the Floor. Hopefully, by the time they ran into Tatiana, they'd already own the Scar, but there was a good chance they'd have to fight and kill Septima and Tatiana, maybe at the same time.

And from the stories he'd heard from Tacharius and Zabulon, Septima would not be easy to deal with.

"Don't think about it," Caera said. "Do what demons do and focus on the now."

"That's pretty much the exact opposite of how to win a war."

"True, but it's how you win a battle. And that's how demons do things. Battles. If you try and strategize and figure out what a demon is going to do, you're going to make a mistake. They'll surprise you."

That was a good point. As stupid as it was to go to war without a strategy, demons weren't always predictable. They had the instincts and desires of predators, very similar to big cats, but they also had enough intelligence to form social structures and battle plans. It was a strange mix.

Caera nudged her head into his neck and ground her body against him more.

"You should fuck me," she said.

"Me? You're bigger and stronger than me. You do the fucking." He sneaked a peek around at the rest of the crew. Daoka and Jes sat with each other. Acelina sat with David's egg. The Las still slept, draped over each other in a dogpile. Moriah and Tsila were getting up, and both took time to stretch out their wings, filling the cave with the brilliant white of their feathers they never shed.

And Laoko remained by herself, as she had since the incident.

Caera leaned in and whispered in his ear. "You should talk to her."

"What?"

"Laoko. Talk to her."

"I'm angry with her."

Caera nodded and kissed his ear. "She's angry with you, too."

"Hard to talk to someone you're angry with."

"Demons are always angry with each other. That's just normal. Go talk to her."

"And say what?"

Caera squirmed, rubbing her breasts against his chest. "That you know she's a bitch, but a smart bitch. And you miss having her close."

He squirmed, too, less from lust, more from embarrassment.

"I miss her?"

"You miss having a sultry, smart person to talk to."

"I have you."

Caera laughed, and everyone looked her way. She dismissed them with a wave of her tail and leaned back into his ear.

"She's really tall."

"So are you," he whispered.

"She's taller."

"Too tall."

Not convinced, Caera licked his jugular. Fantasizing about eating him, maybe?

"She has enormous breasts. Four times as big as mine."

"So does Acelina. And we like her more than we like Laoko." And there was something really, strangely hot about getting to literally drink her milk. Sweet and warm. That was never a kink David had, but he definitely had it now.

"You're all about the tits, right?" Caera's body was only growing softer by the moment, especially her breasts, and she leaned her weight onto her shoulders, left and right, rubbing them into him.

"I admit, it's true. And you are very busty."

"Buuuut." She licked her fangs and gnawed on his neck some more. "Not like her."

"You can't mend bridges with tits." This was the strangest conversation he'd ever had, and they were doing it in the tiniest little whispers.

Daoka crawled over to them, chirping and tilting her head. She wanted in.

But Caera shook her head and pushed Daoka away with her tail, literally, and the satyr fell on her ass. Uh oh. Clicking and frowning, she got back up, crawled on her hands and knees, and head-butted Caera's side, like a goat.

Laughing, Caera rolled off David. Play fighting? Cats did play fight. Goats, too. David looked to the angels, but Tsila just watched and smiled, while Moriah rolled her eyes and examined her short wing. The angels were the only two wearing clothes, besides David.

Jes stood over him, gently flapping her wings. "What are you two whispering about?"

David shrugged. Caera shrugged. Daoka crawled onto David and lay on him, doing the same as Caera a moment earlier. Unlike the enormous tiger woman, Daoka was only a bit over six feet tall, with a very curvy body, and she chirped down at him, grinning, as her body softened, too.

"We do not have time for this," Moriah said.

Acelina got up, stretched out her wings, stretched out her legs and tail, and the angel cast a glance her way. And unless David was going crazy, Moriah looked at her body a little longer than they needed to.

Laoko got up, and the result was the same. No one could help but look at her. Acelina was nine feet tall, with hooves, a tiny waist, wide hips, and thick, curvy legs. Laoko was the same, except ten feet tall, and no wings or tail. Both had hooves, but Laoko had four arms, and a bit more muscle to her frame. Plus the whole 'having eyes' thing.

Both naked ladies looked at each other, making no effort to disguise that they were analyzing the other. Mia would say they were both queens, and bitches, trying to control the group, and both realized the other was a problem and would need to somehow force the other out. And maybe that was true for Acelina, but Laoko was more devious than that. Maybe Mia could figure out what Laoko's deal was, why she acted the way she did, but all David could do was watch and grasp at straws.

Did Laoko even like any of them? Was this all just a ploy to get her more power? Sure, the tetrad wanted to save Hell, but for all he could tell, maybe she was just using David to get her power back. She used to be a roaming tetrad in the Grave Valley with a little army of her own. She used to have powerful friends. Her old friend, spire ruler, half betrayed her, and Laoko, in turn, fully betrayed her.

What was her game?

Daoka chirped up at Jes, buried her face in David's neck, and hugged him tight.

"She said she's not going anywhere," Caera said, "until she gets some love."

Moriah approached and peeked over Daoka's shoulder down at him. For a moment, her typical angry face was gone, and she looked like she did that morning way back when, when she'd fucked him, alone. Soft. But it was gone a second later, and she brushed her wing along Daoka's back.

"We don't have time for this, silly girl."

Acelina picked up two Las by their feet, one each, and held them out in front of her upside down, the two of them giggling incessantly. Lasca and Laara.

"We have time," Acelina said, and she shook the two little ladies, earning some more giggles from them. "It is another hour before morning twilight is over, and it has been several days since I've last had an orgasm. Unacceptable. In Death's Grip's spire, I was taken care of nearly every night by whomever I desired. And I refuse to journey further until I have been properly pampered."

Tsila laughed. Moriah groaned.

Nodding, Daoka sat on David's chest and gestured to Laoko.

But the enormous tetrad shook her head. "I think not."

Undeterred, Daoka got up, stood with Laoko, and tugged on one of her many hands.

"Because," Laoko said, eyeing David. "We do not all need to get along with each other all the time, riiva. I am not here helping you for the sex. I am here, helping you, so we can save Hell from destruction."

Daoka shook her head and tugged harder, clicking several times. Whatever she said, it got an annoyed sigh out of Laoko, but she relented and followed the satyr until she stood a foot from David, towering over him.

"And what do you say?" Laoko asked, forever wearing her calculating gaze and aiming it straight down at David like a gun.

"What do I say?"

"We need not be friends to accomplish our goals."

"I... suppose not."

"We need not be comfortable with each other or be intimate with each other."

"I suppose not."

She tapped a hoof on the ground on the pile of blankets. "Then we are in agreement."

He blinked up at her and looked around at the girls. Everyone looked at him, waiting for him to say something, like he knew the magical sentence that'd mend the bridge between him and the tetrad.

Tsila sighed, walked up to Laoko, and nudged her back with her wing. The angel was over six feet tall, a child compared to the ten-foot-tall four-armed four-horned enormous, curvy demoness. But her wing nudged Laoko forward, and she took a step to keep from falling.

"David," Tsila said, "is a human."

Laoko folded two arms across her chest and gestured with the other two. "That remains to be seen. Do you know humans with two cocks?"

David raised a finger. "Diphallia is a thing, and--" Jes hit his shoulder with her tail. "Ow!"

"My point," Tsila said, "is that David certainly behaves like a human, has the emotional depth of a human, and the empathy of a soul worthy of Heaven. So it is only natural that he cannot be a cold vehicle of conquest. He does not want that. He cannot operate like that. If he were still on the surface, he wouldn't be able to sleep, torn apart by his need to mend fences and make sure everyone worked together."

David raised another finger. "I'm pretty sure that's because I'm on the autism spectrum, and--ow!" He glared up at Jes and the growing red mark on his shoulder.

Tsila patted David's face with a wing. Shitload softer than Jes would.

"Regardless," she said. "David is not some ancient general. He is a young man, and a caring man. And a man forced to deal with Hell. You cannot expect him, Laoko, to handle conflict in his own travelling group and not feel uncomfortable." The gabriem was going full couple's therapist mode.

"Conflict?"

"For a human, yes, this is conflict. So if you want David to be successful on this journey, you must make the effort to reconcile."

Laoko's eyes opened wide. "Reconcile?" She threw out an arm and pushed Tsila's wing aside. "Do not make me laugh." With a heavy Acelina-like snort, she walked away, grabbed her armor and weapons, and got dressed.

David released a breath burning in his lungs and looked at the others. The demons didn't look surprised at all, though the Las went from giggling to sad. Moriah shrugged and waited. Tsila looked disappointed.

Mood destroyed. Everyone put on their armor and weapons, and once again, the trek toward the Scar spire began. David lowered the cave wall, and everyone stepped back out into the light of the burning sky.

Over ten thousand demons at least waited for him.

"This is getting freaky," he said, and gestured left and right to the demons nearby. Many had slept out in the open, but many others had slept in the tunnels. The Scar was too wide for anyone to cross without flying, so most stayed on his side, and he watched as the swarms came out to join him. Thousands of volas, many armored with a meera weapon, many wearing some scrap of meera armor. They packed shoulder to shoulder to fit on the terrace edge, and more than a few times someone fell off the edge onto the step below. A harmless drop for a demon, usually.

And the steps below were filled with even more demons. David gulped and peeked over the edge. Sure enough, more and more swarms flowed out of their tunnels, and imps and grems practiced gliding as far as they could from terrace edges, some crossing the ravine between the two sides.

"David!" a gremlin shouted. He climbed up the terrace edge to join him, wearing his big shark smile. Like the Las, gremlins and impins were miniature demons with the proportions of goblins, four feet tall, and when they smiled, they had big smiles full of sharp teeth like Acelina. Combined with the scar on his face, he looked simultaneously cute, badass, and maybe a little scary. David had seen what those teeth could do.

"Domnius. How goes the forces?"

Domnius saluted. Something he picked up from the Las, maybe.

"Ten million imps and grems follow, sir!"

David raised a brow and peeked down over the edge again. "I think your counting is a bit off."

"Yes, but many imps and grems!" The little man paused, aimed his eye down, and dug through his memories for something. "Enough to tear down the gates of Heaven!"

Everyone froze and looked at the little man, and the gremlin beamed with pride.

"Pretty sure," David said, "I've heard that somewhere before. Television show? Video game? Book?"

"No no. Domnius original."

"Pretty sure--"

"Nope."

David laughed. "Domnius, you said there were secret tunnels leading down to something you wanted to show me? Something dangerous?"

"Yes! We closer now. If keep going, we get overhead. Can take tunnels down."

That sounded a lot better than crawling through tunnels for half a month.

"Then we keep going. If we get overtop of what you want to show me, maybe we can take a detour. If it has anything to do with what Azailia and Tarkissa had planned for me, I want to know."

"Sir, yes, sir!" Domnius saluted, jumped down the ledge to join his companions, and they poured down the terrace steps.

There were so many imps and grems. The thousands of volas and betrayers, and hundreds of the other demon breeds, all stared down at the flowing throngs of imps and grems pouring over the terrace steps. At the base of the canyon, they jumped across the ravine, glided to the other side, and scurried in and out of tiny tunnels along the ravine wall like flocks of birds or bats.

Down there, on the bottom steps of the Scar, was the Floor, and after what David saw before, he didn't want to go back down there. The Floor had a lot of disturbing shit. But it was inevitable. In a couple days, Domnius would tell him that, at the bottom of the ravine, something dangerous lay in wait, and David and the crew would check it out. A delay in taking over the Scar, but a necessary one for necessary information. Hopefully.

"Okay," David said. "Let's--"

The strings of existence vibrated. David turned and faced the length of the Scar and the path toward the spire, listening. Waves of silent music flowed out from the direction, poured over David, the canyon, and everyone.

Capture. Target. Bring to me.

A far more nuanced aura than David could create yet.

David ground in his heels, built up mental walls, and let the aura crash against them like tide breakers. The aura filled the Scar, resonated on the rocks, the metal spikes sticking out of the walls, the tunnels and cages below, and the Den caves nearby. It felt like one of David's auras, too, something that hummed through Hell until everyone and everything resonated with it. A spire aura.

"David!"

David spun around. Caera, up on her hind legs, clutched her skull and writhed, giant tail snapping left and right randomly as she bent in strange positions. She glared at him with her single eye, pupil dilating, and her feet's claws dug at the ground.

"David," she said between sharp teeth. "Run."

He took a step back and looked at the others. Jes and Daoka clutched their skulls too, snarling and growling, and the gargoyle slowly set her animal gaze toward him. Daoka grabbed her own horns and pulled herself back, but she didn't get far before she aimed her head straight back at David.

Acelina flared her wings and shrieked, clutching her black face and smooth skull, tail flicking up and down. The Las around her squealed, avoided her enormous, stomping hooves, and ran away. All the imps and grems ran away. Thousands of little demons screamed and bolted, diving off the terrace edges and gliding away from the others.

The others. Laoko roared, two hands holding her skull, two reaching out and grabbing both Daoka and Jes as they ran toward him, stopping them in their tracks.

She snapped her head and glared at David. "Run!"

"Run!? Where the fu--"

Daoka broke free and dove for him, ram horns aimed directly at him. He jumped to the side, and her horns and skin grazed him. Her hooves caught the ground hard, and she bounced back and dove for him again.

"Daoka!"

She didn't listen, and ran straight at him full speed, while thousands of demons behind David set their now animal gazes on him, too.

Tsila drowned the ground in gold light, grabbed David from under his shoulders, and took to the air. Just as a thousand volas dove for him. The betrayers did their best to get out of the way, but the aura was affecting them, too, and they grabbed their heads and fell over each other. They were trampled under the roaring crowd, dozens of the larger demon breeds, and thousands of volaras and volarins, all staring up at David as he flew overhead.

A riot. A stampede.

His stomach shot straight up into his throat, and almost fell out of his ass as Tsila took him higher. Moriah took off after them, also wearing her armor, but she couldn't fly yet. Gravity got a hold of her, and she fell to the side and crashed into the mountain wall, too steep to climb. She got a boot on a groove of rock ten meters above the crowd, and the demons below ignored her. All eyes were on him.

Caera, Jes, Daoka, Acelina, they moved with the group, following under David and stomping anyone in their path. Only Laoko didn't chase, but she couldn't stop anyone anymore either. She had something in her hands.

"That is not a weak aura," Tsila yelled over the sound of wind. "That is a spire's full power!"

"Fuck me!"

"Take solace in knowing Tarkissa cannot use this aura without a great drain. A spire's power is not infinite. He has drowned the entire province in this aura."

The entire province, holy shit. Provinces in Hell were over a thousand kilometers long. Far as David could tell, his aura could hit a few kilometers at best so far?

He clenched his eyes and pushed out the aura. It throbbed in his ears like tribal war drums, a hundred of them, playing in tandem while a thousand horses galloped down a hill. He wanted to listen to it, to let the overwhelming, overpowering vibrations pour through him. Any metal lover would. But he blocked it out as best he could, even as a tiny piece of him envisioned himself walking into the spire with hands behind his back.

The imps and grems were a mess. From above, the pouring swarm of little demons looked like red water flowing down the terrace edges. Some spiraled in place, gliding down and down deep into the ravine, and disappeared into the darkness below. Some crouched in groups, holding their skulls. Every one of them avoided the army on the top step of the Scar.

Something whipped past his head. Tsila dove right, and something heavy and black flew past him, clipping the edge of his toga. One of the black clubs he'd fashioned. Another one came up at him, and another. They were a hundred meters up! Tsila dove left, dove right, and more clubs came flying, thrown up at them by demon hands.

"A bow and arrow," Tsila said, "would be our undoing."

"Fucking right. Good thing demons don't make them."

He stared down at the crowd. The demons were roaring and screaming like raving lunatics. If Tsila banked toward the ravine and crossed the Scar, the demons might follow her and run right off. Most of the demons didn't have wings, and they'd plummet to their deaths. If spire auras were used to wage war, would it make demons so stupid they'd walk off a cliff? No good. He needed them.

Tsila took them higher, and the air grew hot and loud with the burning sky. She stopped eventually, and the two hovered high in the air, while David's own army swarmed below, waiting for him to come down. If Tsila weren't there to fly him, Moriah and Laoko would have had to protect him, and they'd have been overrun immediately.

"Can you do something?" Tsila asked.

"Do something?"

"You create similar auras. There is some sort of connection between you and the spires. Can you block the aura?"

"For myself!"

"Block it for everyone else!"

"If I do that, if I even can, I might summon the aliens!"

"Spire auras are not momentary, David. Tarkissa has unleashed the spire's aura, and it will continue for hours, perhaps days! You have no choice!"

Of all the problems he'd expected to run into, this one was at the bottom of the list. An aura normally used for war? Tarkissa was desperate.

"Okay," David said. "I'll try. Get me down there."

"What?"

"I can't do shit flying up here! Can't hear myself think! Get me on the ground. I'll protect us."

Tsila turned and dove straight for the ground. And David yelped. The wind slapped him in the face, roaring wind burying the roaring demons, until Tsila came to a hard stop just above the crowd.

David summoned rock, a pillar of blackstone, straight up in the middle of the crowd on the top terrace edge. It pushed demons aside, bodies over bodies, and it only got worse as David spread the rock apart. The pillar became a cylinder, a gap in the center, and David grew it tall and wide.

Tsila took them down into the center of the pillar immediately, and David closed the top, sealing them in. Total blackness. Tsila wasted no time and summoned her bow and quiver, drew a glowing arrow, and lit the circular cavern in gold.

The cavern rang with the impact of weapons crashing against the outside, but the screaming chorus of demon voices was gone, at least.

"Plan?" Tsila asked. "Can you silence the aura?"

David summoned his armor and staff, red light joining Tsila's gold.

"I can try."

He closed his eyes, slammed his staff's base into the ground, and listened. His vibration was a tiny, muted note, buried under the thunderous drums of the spire. The spire was still far away, but the music poured out from it and through the land. The entire province was resonating with it.

It was insane. The power was absurd, and touching the vibration directly with his inner fingers rocked David until his brain rattled in his skull. Until his soul rattled in his guts.

But that was good news. He didn't need to play music. He just needed to stop the spire's. He wouldn't be summoning any aliens.

He slammed his staff down against the ground again, and his inner fingers grabbed as many of the vibrating strings as he could. David had never been electrocuted, but it had to feel like this, live energy pouring through his body. It hurt. David screamed, and his voice echoed inside the chamber, tearing his ears apart. But he didn't let go, and squeezed the strings harder.

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!

Slowly, the aura died away. The vibration pulsing across the land hit him again and again, but with David pressing down on them, the song grew quieter. Each pulse had less to work with, and the song grew weaker.

David squeezed his staff until his real fingers ached, and his metal gauntlets trembled. Shut up!

The song shut up.

Tsila took a breath and came up beside him. "The aura no longer rings in my grace. You silenced it."

Panting, sweating, David found the strength to smile, fingers still wrapped around his staff.

"Good. That's good."

She peeked at him through the open face of her beautiful helmet. "Are you alright?"

"Yeap. Yeap. Just... give me a minute."

She nodded, stepped back, and David took a deep breath. The spire's song didn't stop, but as long as David kept his grip on the invisible strings, the song couldn't affect anyone nearby.

Nodding, he held out a hand, and played a little song. Auras used different strings than the ones that manipulated Hell's physical body. But lowering the protective cylinder he crafted with one set of his inner fingers while the other kept the aura suppressed, was like trying to play the piano with one hand while holding an angry badger in the other.

The cylinder cave didn't melt away like he wanted. It crumbled. Tsila dove for him and blocked several heavy rocks from splitting his skull open.

The rocks rolled away, and thousands of demons and betrayers stared at him, eyes wide.

"What happened?" a betrayer asked.

"Spire aura," a demon said.

A brute snarled and shook his head. "Aura's gone."

"Not gone," David said. "I'm muting it. You'll have to stay near me to keep from being affected. Spread the word."

"What?"

David slammed his staff against the ground and glared up at the huge demon. "I said. Spread. The. Word! Stay near!"

The demons nodded, and thousands of voices spread out like a wave, sharing the information. Stay near the unmarked.

"David?" Moriah's voice. He looked up and sighed with relief as the angel hopped down from the mountainside and joined him. "You've stopped the spire aura?"

"Only for anyone nearby. I can't tell the distance. A kilometer? Maybe a few?"

"A couple miles," a new voice said. David spun, and Jes stepped out from the crowd. "Shit me, you alright, David?"

"Y-Yeah. Yeah I'm--"

Daoka burst out from the crowd and wrapped her arms around him, clicking profusely, and squeezed him until he couldn't breathe.

"Daoka," Tsila said. "Be gentle with him. He is fighting to suppress the spire aura even now."

With a quiet whine, Daoka let him go and rubbed her forehead against his.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm fine. I got the aura. We're safe."

"You don't look fine," Jes said. "You're sweating."

He laughed, but the exhausted sound probably gave it away. "Yeah. This is... hard."

Volas parted as a tregeera stepped out from the masses. Caera prowled up to him, eyebrows furrowed, and she pressed her large head up against his side.

"I almost killed you," she said.

"You were the first to tell me to run. You probably saved my life."

She growled. "Not good enough."

More of the crowd parted, stepped around the stones and over the grooves of sunken rock; David had drawn rock up from the ground, and the ground had sunken in random places to fill his need. Laoko and Acelina joined him, and the Las crawled between their legs, each with tears in their eyes.

"David okay?" Lasca asked from between Laoko's hooves.

"I'm fine."

"Imps and grems ran. Aura scary."

"Good. I want you to run, remember? Especially if you can't do anything." One hand still holding his staff, he set his other on Caera's head at his hip. At first he thought she might find the gesture demeaning, like he was petting his dog, but she never pulled away. "I'm just glad I took care of that quick, before..." He gestured out at the demons surrounding him. There was blood on the ground, betrayers run over by claws. Not only betrayers, but past the shifting legs, he spotted a couple dead volas, and a few dead imps and grems.

The aura had stirred everyone into a frenzy. And the only thing keeping them from succumbing to it again was his tight grip on the strings. They pulsed under his touch, like an electric buzz that pushed through his soul. Keep the grip.

He let go of batlam. Losing the weight of the armor was amazing, but without the staff, his focus was gone. The aura stirred for a moment, and the surrounding demons twitched, but he grabbed the strings and forced them down, falling to his knees.

"David!" Caera pushed up against him.

"I... I might have trouble walking."

Sighing, Laoko picked him up and set him on Caera's back. He blinked up at her, and the tetrad met his gaze for half a second before looking away.

All the girls fell in around Caera, and the tiger began the march along the top terrace edge. And the army followed behind him.

Daoka touched his arm and clicked at him.

Jes played interpreter. "She wants to know if this is hard, suppressing the spire aura."

"Honestly? Yes. It is."

He took deep breaths. A headache was coming, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Of all the things he disliked about his small body back on the surface, he'd always been thankful he rarely got headaches. But it came at him, a slow throbbing that didn't hurt at first, but the longer he held the strings, the more it built up.

"And the invaders?" Acelina asked from behind him. He didn't look.

"We're safe," he said. "I thought I might need to play music to stop the spire, but that wouldn't work. I'd be playing music constantly. Now I'm just squashing it, like I do with my own aura sometimes. It's... rough."

Laoko snorted and looked back at him. "Spire auras come in many forms. Full-scale aggressive, nuanced ones such as this cannot be maintained for long. Spire rulers seal auras into flesh with tools, both so the aura persists after they leave the province, and so the spire ruler is not forced to maintain the aura forever."

"Any idea how long this one will last?"

"No. A day? Perhaps three."

He choked on a weak laugh. "Lovely."

"You will need to suppress this aura throughout the night."

"Thought so."

She frowned back at him. "Can you maintain this for the next three days? You are--"

"I can do it." He clutched Caera's back spikes and forced himself to sit up straight. "Got no choice."

Laoko watched him, frown fading. "If necessary, Tsila should take you somewhere safe, and--"

"I said I can do it." He tapped his temple. "It's in here. As long as I keep telling my... soul, to mute the strings, I can. Like I said, I do it to my aura all the time. This is just on a bigger scale."

Tsila flew overhead, gently flapping her wings and smiling down at him, back in her potram clothes too.

"I will help you any way I can, David. Just tell me if you feel your grip slipping."

"Yeah, I will. I--Acelina!" He spun, and the spire mother stepped up and walked with him, egg in her arms. "You... kept the egg safe?"

The huge demoness nodded, stroking the egg's shell. "I did... somewhat."

"Somewhat? It looks fine."

"The aura overtook me. I was not strong enough to resist it." Growling at the ground, she slammed a hoof against a small stone and crushed it. "I did the only thing I could. I gave it to Laoko. She kept it safe while we succumbed."

David sat up straight and looked at the tetrad. She smiled down at him with her usual little smile, dragged a hand along her breastplate like she was dusting it off, and marched ahead.

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

~~Day 87~~

This fucking sucked.

No sleep for him. The girls had taken shifts keeping an eye on him and keeping him company while he spent all night keeping the aura suppressed.

The headache was bad. He clenched his eyes, took a deep breath, but nothing helped. Earlier, they fed him a heart from one of the dead, and it helped, but only a little. He wasn't lacking for resonance, he could feel that. He was lacking for willpower. And slowly but surely, his insides ached.

Moriah and Tsila were awake while everyone else slept, and they both looked at him, marred with worry. Tsila made no effort to hide it, but at least Moriah tried to look stoic. It didn't last. She walked up to him, squatted in front of him, and met his eyes straight on from a foot away.

"We have less than a week to reach the spire. If Laoko is correct, the aura will end before then. If not, can you withstand it until then?"

"I don't have a choice."

"That's not what I asked. You have been up all night, David, while holding back this tide. We can feel the spire aura pushing through, weak, but there."

Fuck. He nodded slowly, eyes heavy. "I got another day in me. Maybe two."

"Then we will make sure Tsila is ready to take you from here. My wing is almost healed, but not quite yet."

"But the girls--"

"Everyone might get hurt, or perhaps even die, when the aura takes them. Laoko can resist. The imps and grems can escape its grasp. The others will do all they can to obey it, and they will do so with no other thoughts. You cannot be here when that happens. So, will you tell Tsila when and if you are about to break?"

"I--"

She leaned in closer until her nose almost touched his. "Well?"

"I... will."

"Good."

He sighed, let his increasingly heavy head hang, and the girls woke up.

"David?" Caera asked.

"I'm fine. I... I'm not fine, but I'm still holding on."

She sighed, nodded, and rubbed her head against his. He leaned into her and gave her a kiss, something to show he wasn't so fucked he couldn't move. To prove it, he got up on his own, earning some annoyed growls from the tiger.

"David not okay," Latia said, and she stood in front of him, frowning. "David tired."

"I stayed up all night."

"Even more tired! David--"

He held up a hand. "This army has to keep going, Latia. I have to keep going. So let's just... keep going." He gestured toward the tunnel exit. "Can you girls give me a moment? I'll be out in five minutes. Just need to catch my bearings before we get moving."

Everyone frowned at him, Moriah and Jes especially; they were natural frowners. But slowly and surely, everyone left, though Caera made sure to eye him before she did.

Daoka didn't leave. She stood in front of him, lips in a small frown, and she took his hands.

"Come on," Jes said, sticking her head back into the tunnel.

Dao shook her and clicked.

Jes nodded. "She said she wants a moment alone with you."

David tilted his head, but nodded too, and soon he was alone with the satyr.

"Dao?" he asked.

She frowned a little harder, leaned in and down, and nudged her forehead against his. She clicked once, and he had no idea what it meant.

"I'll be fine," he said. "This happens a lot, right?"

She nodded, but the frown didn't go anywhere, and neither did she. What was the problem? He'd done a number on his body before, playing the music louder than he probably should have when he was still learning. He always bounced back.

"Is this... because you almost got me?"

Slowly, she nodded, the hard bone surface of her black forehead rubbing on his skin.

He sighed, set his hands on her hips, and gave her a half hug.

"Caera was two seconds away from pouncing on me, Dao. She isn't beating herself up like this."

Dao pulled back and scrunched up her nose.

"Or... she is, and just isn't telling me."

Nodding, the satyr leaned down, kissed his cheek, and hugged him snug, burying her face in his neck. Short compared to everyone else except the Las, but still almost a foot taller than David. Lots of leaning required.

She put her lips to his ear. "Don't die." A voice so soft, it sounded like silk.

He yanked his head away. "What?" The spire aura vibrated in his grip, and he grabbed the strings and silenced them, body wrestling between fighting the strings, and his jaw dropping as he stared at the riiva.

She pulled him back into a hug and whispered again. "You always hurt yourself and do everything yourself. You always take everything on yourself."

"You're... ta--"

"I know you have to. There's nothing me, or Jes, or Caera can do to help... but at least we can be a soft place to rest your head, right?" She kissed his ear and hugged him a little harder. "But I almost hurt you." Her voice wasn't just soft, but had a brightness to it, too. A whispering songbird.

"I have the aura under control. It won't affect you."

"But what if it does? I don't want to do something against my will. Not again."

"Again? Is... this about Tacitus?" Jes had told him Daoka used to be under Tacitus's thumb, and Daoka had escaped him. A bailiff of Death's Grip.

She nodded and set her forehead on his again. "Jes knows, but... but she's stronger than me."

"What do you mean?"

"She's not scared, but I am. I knew this would happen, we all did. Spire rulers aren't going to just let you walk through their territory. Every moment I'm around you, that she or Caera or the Las or Acelina are around you, the others..." She squeezed him harder, voice trembling. "It'll happen again."

Oh god, she'd been following him this whole time, terrified a spire aura would randomly come along and get him killed? Would make her do something against her will?

"We're safe," he said. "It won't happen."

"It might."

"It won't." He hugged her back and stroked her back. The straps of her breastplate weaved between her back spikes, and he stroked the spikes like he did Caera's. "I'll figure out a way to stop it from happening."

She sighed, chirped at him, and kissed his nose.

"You can talk," he said.

She giggled and nodded, still whispering. "I don't like to. It reminds me of what Tacitus did to me. But with you and Jes, I... I can."

He gulped down the desire to ask. Whatever Tacitus had done to her, if she wanted to tell him, she'd tell him. But holy fuck he wanted to ask, and he clenched his jaw.

"Thank you."

She nodded and rubbed a horn on his hair, stepped back, and took his hand. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

He took a deep breath, squeezed her hand, and Dao escorted him through the tunnel outside. Jes waited halfway, wearing a grin. Close enough to eavesdrop, maybe.

Tacharius and Zabulon waited, and both looked him up and down with raised eyebrows.

"You kept the aura suppressed all night?" they asked in unison.

"Yeah."

Tacharius came closer. "You look like shit."

David laughed.

"You sure you can keep this up, unmarked?" Zab asked. "Tacharius is right."

"I can. How much further until the spire?"

"Six days."

"Then let's go." He dragged his ass over to Caera, and Daoka helped him onto her back.

Dao had spoken to him. She'd actually spoken to him, and her voice sounded so sweet, like candy. Maybe that had something to do with what Tacitus did to her?

"Acelina," he said. The spire mother approached. "How's the goort?"

"It grows." She stroked the shell's surface.

He nodded, carefully avoided looking at Laoko and her doubtless arrogant smile, and focused on Caera's back instead.

"Let's go."

And they were off.

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

The sky churned. Flames swirled. Embers above the flames exploded like fiery suns, and red lightning crashed against the mountaintops of the Scar. Thunder echoed through the ravine and across the terrace steps, and David flinched. Each thunder crack loosened his grip on the invisible strings, but he reestablished each time. For now, it was his only job. The rest of the world could crumble around him right now, and the only thing he needed to worry about was getting his mind focused on the spire aura trying to ruin everything.

If there were a better way to deal with this, he'd find it. He had to. Maybe Khazeer would play nice and he wouldn't need to worry about the aura in the Red Pits, but like Laoko said, demons considered anyone who exposed their back to be good prey. In the Navameere Fields, they'd definitely have to deal with a spire aura. False Gate? No idea.

Something hot landed on his head, and he winced. He looked up, and blocked his head as a tiny red thing landed on his shoulder. And another.

"Ow! What the fuck?"

"Bad weather," Caera said. "Jes?"

"On it." The gargoyle ran up to him and held out her wing over his head. Grinning at him, she walked along beside him, unfazed as red hail fell on her. Embers. They bounced off her black tendril hair, her black and red skin, and off her wings, complete with the quiet patter of rain sounds on her wing membrane. Except, where they landed on the ground, it sounded like stones.

"Fucking christ," he said. "This is some plagues of Egypt kinda shit."

He looked back and winced. The burning hail struck demon skin and bounced off, hurting the volas but not enough for them to worry about it, only groan and complain. The other demons, especially the brutes, ignored it entirely. But the betrayers couldn't. Some yelled. Some screamed. Plenty ran into tunnels, but were dragged out by the demons who owned them.

Making this journey with betrayers screaming in pain behind him would make him vomit before they ever reached the spire.

"Caera," he asked. "How long do these storms last?" Another lightning bolt flashed across the sky, and the thunder slammed his ears only a moment later. It was close.

"Half a day. Sometimes longer."

"We should stop."

Jeskura snorted and hit him with her wing. "Stop worrying about the betrayers. They'll get burned. Big deal."

"It's a big deal to me."

Daoka came up on his other side and patted his shoulder, even as the little embers bounced harmlessly off her head and horns.

He tried to smile at her, but it didn't come. Weary, drained, and fucking exhausted, he squeezed Caera's back spikes and shook his head.

"The moment shit hits the fan," he said, "Jes won't be able to keep me protected like this." He gestured up at her wing umbrella.

"Yeah," Jes said, "but Acelina can. She's got bigger wings, and she's just staying in the back, protecting your egg. We'll be fine if--"

"Incoming!" Domnius yelled, and he pointed down the terrace edge.

Fuck.

Caera approached the edge, Jes staying with her and keeping David's head hail free. Everyone stared down the terrace edges, dozens of them, giant stairs that went down and down until they reached the ravine.

There was a bridge.

The terrace steps were mostly rock and stone up top where he stood, but the lower you went, the less it was stone and the more it became black metal, dyed leather spread tight by chains, spikes with fresh skulls hooked on them, and tunnels filled with cages grown by Hell herself. The Floor, where all the parties happened, and all the sins. And a bridge made of the same spiky black metal only Hell -- and David -- could grow, crossed the ravine, with dozens of enormous metal bars sticking out from the ravine wall to hold the colossal bridge up.

Hundreds of demons were crossing it, and not a single one of them was a vola. Like Priscillian's forces, it was all big hitters, brutes and vrats, gargoyles and satyrs, with a few tigers, too. One of those tigers walked in front of the group, and she was big, bigger than Caera. She was covered in meera metal, a full set of armor that left little skin exposed, like a demon knight walking on all fours. Even had a helmet that fit around her horns and left her short snout exposed.

"David," Laoko said. "Destroy the bridge."

David reached out with his sixth sense. The bridge was a part of Hell, grown from her body. But the moment he tried to pluck a string, play a song, tell the bridge to move, exhaustion weighed his inner fingers down.

He couldn't do shit.

"I can't."

Laoko snorted and slammed a hoof on the ledge's edge. "Then we have no choice but to fight."

"Yes," Jes said. "No choice. I wonder whose fault that is?"

The tetrad drew her four swords. "Be silent and focus. Battle comes."

"You can't be serious," David said. "It's raining fire!"

"Laoko is right," Moriah said. "This was bound to happen. Tarkissa likely timed this."

"He couldn't have known I could suppress his spire aura."

The angel shrugged. "He thought Septima would arrive to find you already ensnared by demons. And she, also ensnared, would take you to him." The angel summoned her armor and pointed her sword down the canyon toward the oncoming army. "Is she close enough to be protected from the spire aura now?"

"Y-Yeah. She is." Which was a weird thing to think about. How many demons were coming for David right now, only to get within a few kilometers and find they weren't being controlled anymore? "Maybe she'll want to--"

"She wants battle," Laoko said. "She is loyal to Tarkissa and wants battle. And she will not make Priscillian's mistake."

Fuck. David squeezed the strings hard and held on, the only damn thing he could do, while everyone else got ready for another fight in a fucking hailstorm of fire, while thousands of betrayers cried out in pain behind them, doing their best to hide in tunnels when they could.

A new thunder crack echoed in the canyon, and David looked up. High above, between the waves of swirling flames, streaks of gold cut across the sky, and crashed into walls of gold.

Moriah and Tsila looked up, and gasped. Another battle.