~~Day 84~~

~~Mia~~

The rider lost them.

They heard him walk by, heavy armor announcing each step with a clink and clank, but despite walking within what had to be a few meters of her hidden cave, he didn't notice them. Even Cerb knew to keep quiet when everyone else shut up and listened.

A few hours later, Mia tore down the wall, and they headed in the opposite direction, back to the path that'd take them to James.

"Noah?" she asked.

"I'm fine." He walked under his own power, but he held his stomach with a hand, and a hint of a grimace broke through his stone face.

Cerberus walked beside the angel and sniffed him. For just a moment, Mia braced to stop him if he attacked Noah, thinking him an easy meal. But the large, three-headed dog rumbled and walked further ahead with Mia. If she read him right, he really was adopting classic guardian dog behaviours, which was pretty damn weird from a cannam hellbeast. Hell had definitely birthed a special creature, just for her.

She patted his heads as they walked. She didn't have to reach as far down anymore.

"He is not fine," Vinicius said. "Hellfire takes time to heal."

Julisa nodded and frowned down at her burned shoulder. Kas was actually walking upright like some sort of large-armed T-Rex so he didn't have to put his weight on his injured arm. And Romakus made a show of lamenting his wing like it was a dying pet. Azreal, not wounded by hellfire, looked fine, though he was still favoring an arm. Probably had a hairline fracture in the bone that'd mostly healed overnight.

Vinicius walked in the lead, and Mia walked with him.

Mia froze. Everyone froze. Silent thunder and unfelt vibration pulsed through the mountain, and everyone turned, facing random directions.

"A spire aura," Kas said, snarling.

"Oh shit." Mia ran up to Kas and waited with an outstretched hand. "You okay? Is the symbol working?"

"It is working. I can feel the aura, but it does not control me."

"Julisa? Romakus?"

The two tetrads nodded and looked at their wrists and the runes. They were fine.

"Angels?" Mia asked.

"I feel it," Yosepha said. "It says to capture the unmarked."

"Yeah. That's... scary. You sure you don't need a rune?"

"It is only a whisper to an angel's mind. Annoying, nothing more."

It wasn't a whisper to Mia's mind. She might as well have been walking on a concert stage with the way the vibrations pulsed through her. Could the others feel it? Feel how far the spire's aura reached? A hurricane of muted sound, vibrating through the strings and burying everything in that one command: capture the unmarked.

Thankfully, the runes she'd learned to block out spire auras were in her mind, and easy to mold in her thoughts to block out the aura for herself. If she hadn't burned the runes on her friends, she'd have had to grab the strings and mute them, like she did when keeping her horny aura under control. Except the spire aura was playing big strings, and playing them loudly. Muting them manually would be brutally difficult.

"You okay, Cerb?" she asked.

Cerberus pressed up against her hip, and dopey head licked her hand. He was fine.

"The rider was not mounted," Vinicius said. "The rider is rarely without a mount. He will find a new one."

"Until then," Romakus said, "let's just keep moving."

They kept moving. In the cavern where Mia had learned from Raphael, they found the corpses. Dozens. Hundreds. Demons piled on top of demons, corpses burning, meera metal shattered and scattered everywhere.

"Holy shit," she said, and knelt by a corpse. Chopped in half from head to crotch.

Kas approached the largest pile and quickly combed through the charred flesh.

"Untouched."

"What?" Mia asked.

"Their hearts remain," Kas said.

Vin snorted. "The rider does not eat."

"He has to eat," Mia said. "I mean... doesn't he? He spends energy doing stuff."

"He will feed his mount, if he has one. But that is all." Vinicius shrugged and walked past the corpses. If there'd been any hearts to eat, they were lost to the spreading hellfire. Even the cavern itself was charred, walls black, and it all smelled very weird, like metal and meat and chemicals. Only tiny bits of hellfire still burning on the corpses lit the dark cavern.

"The rider," Azreal said, "is no soul, or hellbeast. He may not even be alive. What rules he follows, no one knows, not even this creature." He gestured to Vinicius.

Vinicius snorted back at his old enemy, but nodded. "The rider and his wife are unknowns to all."

Mia raised a finger. "He really called the woman his wife. And Vinicius says the man is basically murder incarnate. I... I can think of a man from a certain book who could fit that description. A pretty important guy, so important he might have a special presence in Hell, or something?"

Romakus chuckled, nodding. "Cain."

Vinicius rumbled, but kept walking, and the group followed him out of the cavern of death.

"I never asked him," the child of Belial said. "But I had thought it before."

"Cainites exist," Julisa said. "At some point, thousands upon thousands of years ago, someone taught the damned that they can fight back, and if they're strong enough to kill an angel, they could eat the heart and gain great power. Someone taught them that. And someone gave them their name."

Everyone looked at Vin, but he slowly shook his head.

"Cainites have existed for longer than I."

"How old are you?" Mia asked, knowing full well what he'd say.

"Old."

She rolled her eyes. "Can you tell us anything, Vin? Anything? You roamed Hell with this guy for... how long?"

"Centuries."

"Fucking christ, Vin. And you never asked him what his name was?"

Vin squatted in front of her, growling. She stood her ground, and the beast leaned in closer until the air leaving his nostrils pushed her hair back.

"You think a name means something?"

"I..."

"Violence is our language. And the language of man." He poked her chest and her necklace, his leash. "Only when your life is near its end, and sword and claw come for you, will you truly know the person beside you."

It wasn't the first time she'd heard that line. A part of her curriculum was reading testimonies from people who'd experienced heavy, scarring aspects of life, and because she was a masochist, she'd read stuff from soldiers. Damn David and his war movies. In the journals she'd read and the recorded interviews she'd watched, there was a recurring theme: you didn't really know a man until the bullets came flying.

Of course, none of those men went to war expecting a good time. Vin did. And the rider probably did.

Kas snorted at Vin and walked between Mia and him. He had to shove Vin's head aside to fit, and he did, earning a heavy growl from the child of Belial that Kas ignored.

"Come on," Kas said. "Dobasi's demons came here once. They will do so again. That aura will have the province stirred into a frenzy looking for you, Mia."

"Shark Boy's got a point," Romakus said. "Let's get back on the path and--"

And sure enough, the sound of roaring, screaming demons filled the silence. It punched through the dead archangel flesh, through the still, pooling blood of Raphael's remains, and into the cavern.

Or not demons? They sounded different. Deeper, and scratchier.

Romakus chuckled and drew his sword. "Hellbeasts."

Vin rumbled, turned around, and marched in the direction of the rider. "Let's go."

"That way?" Julisa asked. "I thought we wanted to reach James, or at least get on his path."

"I recognize those sounds," Vin said.

"Something you cannot defeat?"

He flicked his tail. "Something I would not fight in these tunnels."

Romakus hooked his sword on his back again and gestured back to the tunnel out of the cavern, the one the rider took.

"If ye ole' asshole here says it's dangerous, I believe him. Let's go. Unless you can do something for us, Mia?"

"I can't," she said. "I can still barely feel Hell at all. I guess we just... keep walking until we find a chunk of ground like last time, hopefully."

"Didn't you say you summoned a geyser of hellfire and killed a giant Old One with it?"

"I didn't kill him! And there was plenty of Hell around to use, there! The archangel's body is like a blanket on the strings, not that you'd know what that means!" She marched up to Romakus and punched him in the thigh. Might as well have punched stone. "We need to get to James. Azreal needs to get to him."

Vin shook his head. "It must wait. There are creatures in these tunnels worse than sercanos."

Mia groaned. A sercano was that giant lizard thing the rider had ridden in Death's Grip, the one they'd found in the Black Valley. Not even Vin could beat something like that in a fight, and he was saying this place had worse things?

"Fine." She followed the big guy, and the group followed her, straight on the path the rider had taken when he'd passed Mia's hidden cave. Hopefully, he was far enough ahead that they wouldn't run into him again.

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

"Noah," she said, walking beside him. "You really should let the others help."

"I can walk."

"Kas, can you--"

Noah raised a wing and shook it instead of his head. "I am not riding a demon."

She sighed and looked at Yosepha, expecting maybe to share a 'ugh, men' moment, but the angel looked convinced Noah's actions were the correct ones. An angel thing? Nah, Galon wouldn't be like that. A mikalim thing, then? Mikalim and rapholem were the badass warrior types. Gabriem were the kind, fun, caring types, apparently.

"Maybe when Cerb grows big enough, he can carry you?" she asked.

"Cannams do not grow that large," Julisa said. Walking beside Vin in the lead, she idly dragged her claws along the flesh wall beside her, spilling still blood. Mia had asked her to stop once already, to no avail.

"Cerberus is the guardian of Hell, in Greek and Roman mythology," Mia said. "He was super important! And a lot of interpretations say he was big. So if the surface world and the afterlife affect each other, maybe Cerberus will grow big?"

Julisa snorted. "That is not Cerberus. You chose the name."

"Because he's a three-headed dog."

"A cannam. He is no dog."

Mia frowned, but Cerberus rumbled. It was true. Much as Cerberus looked dog-ish, he also looked cat-ish, with his tail flowing behind him instead of mindlessly wagging. And the mane of black spikes made him look almost like a lion. His heads and snouts were kinda cat-ish, and dog-ish, and wolf-ish.

"Are there other cannams with three heads?" she asked.

"Unlikely."

Mia beamed. "Then he's special, and maybe he'll grow big and strong, too. He was born big. He might even grow big enough for me to ride. Maybe even Noah."

The tetrad laughed and shrugged. "Maybe then it will actually earn its keep."

That wasn't fair. You couldn't ask a baby to earn its keep. And Cerb was just a puppy, a baby. Right on cue, Cerberus ran ahead of the group, sniffed the ground, and aimed all three heads in different directions.

A fork in the road.

"Well, fuck," Mia said. "Which way?"

"Left," the three angels said at once.

"How do you know?"

Yosepha shrugged. "That is the general direction counter-clockwise around Hell. Whether the tunnel follows that path, I do not know, but that is the direction."

Right. Angels rarely lost their sense of direction if they had a clue where they were.

Vin went left.

Roars poured down the new hallway of flesh, bringing the group to a halt. Before anyone could make suggestions, Vin turned around and walked down the other path. No one argued. They had no choice if they didn't want to fight their way through.

"James might die if we can't reach him," Mia said.

Julisa snorted. "You have never spoken to the man. Why do you care so much about him?"

"He might be a blood relative."

"So? Blood ties are meaningless. What matters is context, history, events, memories."

Mia didn't disagree, and all she could offer in retort was a shrug.

"Okay. I care because he's human? And according to you, a nice guy?"

Julisa rolled her eyes.

The tunnel opened up into a giant cavern. And then closed into a tight tunnel that had the big demons crawling. Then opened into a giant cavern, with a dozen tunnels connected to it. They picked a tunnel based on the angels' directions, but they didn't know where they were going, just the general direction of the way around Hell. And each tunnel they picked only took them deeper into the ground.

"This is getting ridiculous," Mia said. "We're lost."

"Think we should head back?" Romakus said. "Fight our way through?"

Kasimiro shook his head. "I heard the voices. There were many creatures. It would be a risk."

Risk was bad. But this was risky, too, taking random tunnels and going deeper and deeper into the mountain. Not even a mountain of stone, but of the twice-dead corpse of an archangel.

Vinicius ducked. Shrieks filled the air. Everyone ducked a moment after, and Mia squealed and threw herself to wet, bloody flesh floor.

"Bats!" She covered her hair and glared up at the black and red things diving from and through holes in the flesh walls. "Bats. Hellbats!?"

Julisa laughed, drew her swords, and cut down several of the giant, spiky bats.

"Virlkir," she said. "Yes, souls call them hellbats."

"I thought only angels could fly?"

"The stupid creatures glide well."

Kas crawled over her, covered her, and reached for her. Something tugged on her hair, and it wasn't Kas. She squealed again and flailed, but Kas pinned her with one hand and pulled a small, squeaking thing from her hair with the other.

Romakus stepped over her and laughed. "You are such a girl."

"Shut up! Baldy!"

Asshole that he was, Romakus scoffed and ran a finger down his bald head. Him and Julisa both, bald, with four big horns. Zel hadn't been bald, so it wasn't like all tetrads were.

Groaning, Mia got to her knees, glared up at the giant asshole, and ducked again as more of the little creatures flew down. They were as big as fruit bats, and maybe they'd eat forbidden fruit, too, but they were going for her, and she waved her hands frantically as they flew overhead. They had absurdly massive fangs and sharp teeth.

Kas swung a giant arm through the air over her head, and a dozen more of the little creatures disappeared into tiny tunnels. They had to go through dripping falls of blood to reach their burrows in the flesh walls, burrows they'd probably chewed through flesh to make.

Romakus gestured at the nearest wall. "They don't normally get teeth that big. The archangel's flesh has mutated them."

Mia sighed and got back to her feet, but stayed crouched, hands ready to block any more of the stupid creatures. This was a new kind of Hell. Things-in-the-hair Hell.

Cerberus was having the time of his life. He growled up at the creatures, pounced, and caught one straight out of the air. And a second later, he caught another one. He tore them apart, swinging his heads wildly, and the bats died within seconds.

"Good boy," Mia said. "Get 'em!"

Cerb wasted no time and pounced up at any more bats that had the gal to dive-bomb Mia. Most got away, but he caught a few more and growled excitedly as he ripped them to shreds. Hellbeasts didn't eat hellbeasts, since they didn't store resonance to be eaten, so he was doing this for fun. Or for her. Or both.

"You sure it's the flesh?" Mia asked. "Cerberus isn't a normal hellbeast, right? Maybe--"

"It is different," Vinicius said. "In Angel's Spine, all the creatures mutate."

"How much do you know about Angel's Spine?"

He shrugged, barely, and again led the group down the flesh tunnels.

"I explored. I killed all who tried to stop me, demon and beast."

Mia climbed onto Kas's back, and her trusty bodyguard joined Vin's side.

"You explored this whole province?" she asked.

"I have explored every province," Vin said, "except for the Forgotten Place."

"Did you ever meet Dobasi?"

"No. This was before he took control of the Angel's Spine spire."

Mia looked back at Romakus. "How long has Dobasi been in charge?"

"Two thousand years? Longer."

Mia blinked up at the child of Belial, but Vin ignored her looks. Two thousand years was a stupidly long time, but to a demon or angel, time just didn't mean the same thing. And the more they walked, the more she started thinking Vin was way fucking older than any of them realized, him included.

Last child of the Old Ones, Zel had called him. He was probably a hundred thousand years old and didn't even know it.

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

The tunnels went on, and down. At certain points, they found more giant eyes, but they were all closed. In other places, they found more bone walls, 'walls' because the caverns they touched were too small to expose the entirety of the bone that was probably a kilometer thick and twenty long. They found more giant hearts, but they no longer beat. And the blood that forever oozed down the walls had slowed considerably.

It was always dark. Death's Grip had dark tunnels, but they usually had at least a few amber veins. The Black Valley was always dark because of the smog, but it had all those little blue flames everywhere that gave at least some light. But in the guts of the dead archangel, it was always dark, and Yosepha summoned her armor and kept her sword drawn, glowing gold.

"Raphael's really dead now," Mia said. "Will that change anything for this place?"

Everyone shrugged.

She guided Kas back a bit to Romakus, like guiding a horse, and she poked the big guy's wing.

"The other archangels are here, too? Michael and Gabriel? We'll eventually run into them, too?"

"I guess," Romakus said. "Everything's a mess in Angel's Spine."

"Think they're alive?"

Vin interrupted. "No."

"No? You know for sure?"

The ragarin looked at the flesh walls and the blood oozing down them. "Only this part of Angel's Spine beat with life."

"Damn. No more echoes of the past to help us out." Though, for all they knew, maybe Michael and Gabriel were still partly alive, but just didn't have enough energy to make their corpses beat with life?

She peeked back at the angels. Yosepha looked sullen. Azreal looked like an angry statue. Noah would probably have looked like Azreal, but he clutched his gut with each step, wincing every so often.

Sighing, she leaned over Kas's shoulder, half-dangled over it, and let her arm go limp.

"I think it was a mistake coming down here," she said. "We're lost."

Kas snorted and shook his head. "We're lost, but you learned much."

"You don't think Raphael could have taught me stuff on the surface? I had to literally go into his body for him to talk to me?"

"Yes."

She rolled her eyes. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"Yes."

She laughed and patted the dinosaur shark on his flat head. "It still kinda surprises me," she whispered, "that you and Adron followed me, you know."

He clicked once in his throat. "Why?"

"Because you barely knew me. Did you really leave the spire because you don't like Diogo?"

"Diogo is... problematic. And he wanted you dead. That was enough reason for us to leave."

She petted his head, and waited for an inevitable headshake from the man trying to dislodge her hand, but it didn't come.

"And because my aura summoned you," she said.

"We were looking for you anyway."

She smiled and kissed his shoulder. "Don't think I haven't noticed how cozy you had it at the spire, Kas, and how much harder you made things on yourself, helping me out."

A deep, bassy rumble flowed through him. She recognized that rumble. Vin made those too, a happy sound, almost like a transport truck purring.

"Adron insisted."

She grinned. "I'm surprised you didn't join the Damall years ago."

Kas looked back at Romakus and Julisa. "They are aimless." He didn't whisper that.

Julisa growled down at the demon. "The Damall are not aimless. We seek to prevent another Spires War."

Not taking the bait, Kas said nothing, but flicked his tail, and Julisa had to step back to avoid it.

"An excuse," Kas whispered. Mia leaned in closer. "She wants violence. So does Romakus. They all do."

"I remember you telling me," she whispered back, "that you've seen... things, in the scrying pool, when you were young. Things you didn't like. Things that... you think are why you're..." Different from other demons. She couldn't say it. Too on the nose.

He nodded. Getting Kas to talk about himself was a rare treat, and she wasn't about to miss the opportunity.

"Children," he said. "War. Death."

She winced. Enough said.

"I've seen a few war movies," she said. "They hurt to watch, and those are just actors."

"This was real."

She winced harder.

"What's the youngest soul you've seen in Hell?"

"Not that young."

Sighing, she nodded and sat up. Hands on his shoulders, she gently stroked them as she looked down and back at the angels. They hadn't heard what Kas said, busy talking to themselves about their home Ravid, and the future struggles the angels would face.

"I miss Adron," she said. "Do you think I should tell him about Hannah?"

Kas shrugged.

She continued. "I'm afraid to tell him. He really liked her, you know? I don't know what a demon-betrayer relationship is like, and romantic doesn't really seem like the right word." Especially after all the sexual shenanigans with Adron, Kas, and Zel. So Hannah hadn't really been Adron's lover, not in the traditional sense. So what were they?

Whatever it was, it hurt Adron losing her, more than he realized.

"Think Adron is getting along with James?" she asked.

Julisa came closer and walked beside them. "Adron is likely fucking Silvina, Livian, and Yulia as we speak. And James is, too." She smiled and stretched out her arms and tail. "If you think the man is sad over his lost pet, do not be."

Kas snorted up at her. "If they're alive."

"Yes, if they're alive." Shrugging, she hooked her swords to her back and rotated her head, stretching out her neck in that 'I'm super relaxed, look at me relaxing' kinda way.

"You trust Livian and Silvina to keep them alive?" Mia asked. The tetrad and tiger were strong, but Mia barely knew them. Romakus's Damall group had shrunk to almost nothing on this journey.

"No. I trust Faustinus, Gallius, Oudoceus, and Locutus to keep them alive. You underestimate how devious those four are. Volas rarely do anything but be some other demon's sex toy. Yet those four are different."

"And," Kas said, "Adron is with them."

Mia smiled. Adron was sneaky, too, and unlike the volas, he had the muscle to back it up. And unlike Vin, he wasn't walking around with a giant target on his back. If they kept James out of sight, no one would think more of them than some random demons wandering around. But people knew Vin, last of the children of the Old Ones, from a distance. And they'd recognize three angels even more easily from just as far.

James and the others were safe, though. Probably. Maybe.

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

~~Day 91~~

A week later, no sign of the rider, and no sign of Dobasi's demons. Noah was feeling a bit better, but hellfire was a bitch, and he clutched his wound with every step. Sometimes it bled again. Sometimes Mia got a peek, and saw a little more of Noah's insides than she wanted to. Hellfire wasn't letting it heal nearly as fast as it should have, and Noah was obviously the type to pretend he was fine when he wasn't. None of the angels would admit to being in pain.

"Yosepha," she asked from Vin's back this time. "Moriah really cut down another angel."

Cerberus prowled alongside Vin's giant feet, boss head occasionally looking up to take a peek at Mia and see if she was fine. Serious head was always looking straight ahead, and dopey head looked around randomly. She wanted to think he was scanning for more of those hellbats, but knowing dopey head, he was looking at anything that moved, thinking it was a squirrel. A hellsquirrel.

"Yes," Yosepha said, joining her at the front of the pack. "Angels do not fight other angels. But the situation in Heaven has been growing more and more tense for centuries. The council ignores us, and the amount of angels who kill themselves grows larger every year. Our numbers dwindle. Heaven does not birth new angels quickly. And I fear far more angels have perished than the Heavenly Islands have admitted."

Mia sucked in a breath between her teeth. "That's horrible, being ignored while... while everything just crumbles around you."

"Maddening. And it did drive some angels mad. Mad with rage." She sighed and shook her head. "More angels than the islands admit visit Hell regularly, purely to unleash their rage in secret."

"Really?"

"Especially angels from Azoryev and Yathael, and Moriah is from Azoryev. I did not know her until..." Yosepha sighed and flared her regrown wings. "But I saw the same rage in her eyes I have seen in other angels' eyes. It consumed her, and she struck out." Slowly, the angel looked down and fiddled with the small pouch still hanging around her neck.

Mia resisted the urge to yank the pouch off her neck and throw it into a random hole to be forgotten like it should.

"So Moriah did something other angels haven't done in forever?"

"Supposedly some angels joined Lucifer in the First War, billions of years ago. And some angels were interrogated after Ramiel's betrayal became known, but none were found guilty."

Interrogated. If she meant using the cross of truth, that meant some angels had their wings cut off, wrists and ankles nailed to a cross, and none of them even knew what Ramiel did. How fucked up did a society have to be to use such a tool on people they weren't one hundred percent sure were guilty of something?

"What will the ramifications be? If this is something that's never been done..."

Yosepha sighed and looked back to Azreal and Noah, but the two angels said nothing, leaving her holding the hot potato.

"The Heavenly Islands themselves will not go to war, not officially. The council is united, and the council rules all nine islands. But that does not mean there will not be... issues. Battalions on the field are run by captains, and captains have the freedom to act as they see fit. If any captain disagrees with the council, the angels under the captain's command will obey the captain. Such is the price of the council's silence."

"And," Mia said, "I'm guessing some captains will disagree with what Moriah did? Considering how big a deal it was."

"Yes. There are multiple captains I trust to take issue. There will be words between the captains. Those words may turn violent."

"What about the reapers, guardians, and muses? They're super strong, right? Super mega strong? They might do something."

Yosepha shook her head. "The guardians, muses, and even the reapers, will do what they have always done. They will sit back and do nothing."

Mia whined and rubbed her forehead on Vin's shoulder. "It'd be nice if we could recruit them to help us, you know? We're talking about the fate of the Great Tower. The, uh, mega angels, they have to care."

"Perhaps," Yosepha said. "Sometimes I think they do not care about the Great Tower at all. Perhaps they suffer the same depression many angels suffer. They are ancient."

Depression was a killer. Mia had been sad many times in her life, but genuinely depressed? She didn't know what that felt like, but her textbooks had convinced her it was something to take deadly seriously. If angels were suffering it by the droves, it was a massive problem.

Vin snorted and nodded toward the path ahead. The tunnel opened up, and Mia rolled her eyes. Another giant cavern, colossal, but instead of a high-rise ceiling, the ceiling didn't go up at all. The floor, on the other hand, went down. And down. And down.

"Well, fuck," Mia said. She hopped off Vin's back and gestured down at the winding pathway of literal flesh that took them down into the cavern. If there was a bottom, she couldn't see it, or feel it. She couldn't even see the walls. It was all flesh, and dark. "If there's anyone in here, they'll spot us a mile away." She gestured to Yosepha's glowing sword.

Yosepha lowered the glow on the sword to almost nothing and took the lead. "There is a path to follow. Demons use this regularly." She gestured down at the path.

Vin crouched low and ran a hand along the flesh floor. The slope down was steep, but the path of flat, hard flesh snaked left and right almost like a zigzag stairway, and didn't cut down too fast. A nice way down into the dark.

Romakus peeked over the edge. "I have a sneaking suspicion the rider is down there, waiting to ambush us."

"How far are we from the spire?" Mia asked.

Romakus shrugged, but Vin spoke up.

"A week."

"You know where we are?"

Vin shook his head. "A blurred memory. Nothing more."

Cerberus peeked over the edge, made no noise, and started down the path until he disappeared from sight.

"Cerb!" Mia half whispered, half yelled.

Cerberus wandered back into the light and waited, tail slowly wagging.

"Hellbeasts see well in the dark," Julisa said.

"Oh, that's good." Mia gestured for her bestest boy, and the increasingly large dog joined her side. He was as big as a proper wolf now. "Heel."

Cerberus heeled, shoulder against her hip.

"It learns quickly," Noah said, sauntering over. "Truly a strange creature."

"Agreed," Romakus said. "Hellbeasts are almost impossible to tame. I think Cerberus is brain damaged."

Mia punched the giant tetrad in the leg. No comment needed.

Vin started down the path with Yosepha, their source of light. Azreal walked in back with Noah, and while Noah stayed in potram, Azreal summoned his armor and spear, and set a gentle gold glow on the weapon's blade. Kas and Julisa walked with Mia and Cerb in the middle. A well-oiled machine. At least, before the fighting started.

The path went down for kilometers, darkness swallowed them, and all they had to fight it with was a couple yellow dots, both only bright enough to light up a few meters. They had no idea where they were going.

"This reminds me of a movie," Mia whispered. "The Descent."

"Never seen it," Romakus said, almost getting a chuckle from Mia.

"Yeah, uh, horror movie, about some girls going cave diving. Super deep in the dark, no light sources except what they brought with them. Monsters waited in the dark depths. Gave me nightmares."

Noah gestured to her with a wing. "Why did you watch it?"

Mia looked back. Noah, interested in her personal life?

"Because some girls in my high school dared me. And because I'm stupid."

The man smiled and nodded. Mia almost pointed out how banter-like his question had been. Nope, don't do that. She wanted more.

It took them hours to reach the bottom, and the bottom greeted them with a shallow pool of blood, halfway up her shins. Whining, she climbed up Vin's back again, and he didn't say a word as he slowly trudged ahead in the red blood. The walls and ceiling were out of view. All they could see was a blood lake, and nothing else.

"It's like we're back," she said. "Back in the Black Valley. Except red, not black. I am sick of the grossness."

Romakus shook his head and swatted the blood floor with his tail. "Blood is beautiful."

Kas snorted and tested the red water with his hands. "It also hides holes."

Mia squeaked and stared down. She hadn't even thought of that. Blood wasn't transparent, so Vin and the others might walk straight onto a big hole and sink like stones! Mia grabbed Vin's back spikes and shook her head.

"Vin! Vin do--"

"I fell through no hole when I was last here. Just keep walking." Without hesitation, the titan walked forward, each step of his giant T-Rex feet splashing the blood around his steps, only barely deep enough to reach his ankles.

Kas and Cerb followed beside the titan.

"Get behind Vin," Mia said, "just in case there are holes. Cerb, here." She pointed down at Vin's tail. "Heel. Here."

Getting most animals to understand what pointing meant was a challenge, with or without the 'here' word, but she'd spent the past week doing just that. And Cerberus obeyed. He got behind Vin and looked up at her with all three heads, waiting for his next command.

"Good boy! Good boy, yes you are."

Cerberus harrumphed happily with all three heads, and his tail slithered like a cat's. Yeah, no matter how much she treated him like a dog, he wasn't quite a dog. Wolf cat.

Mia shrank on Vin's back as the winding path disappeared behind them, and all that was left was the foot-deep blood pool. No walls. No ceiling. Just endless black, and crimson liquid underneath every step.

"This," she whispered, "is worse than The Descent. How the fuck do you know which way you're going, Vin?"

"I keep walking forward."

"How long did it take to cross this last time you were down here?"

"I do not remember."

She whined more and thudded her forehead against his giant shoulder. Even up against his back, surrounded by his giant spikes, she felt completely exposed. Once, as a kid, she'd tried to fight her fear of the dark by standing in the hallway leading to her bedroom, in absolute blackness. It'd terrified her, and had done nothing to suppress her fear of the dark. This felt way too similar to that.

"Romakus," she said. "If we get into a fight, can you stick your sword in the ground?"

"What?"

"Sword in the ground, at an angle, so when the fight's over, we can use the sword's angle to point us in the direction we were walking."

The man chuckled and nodded. "Well aren't you a smart little girl?"

"I was a second-year university student."

"So you dropped out."

She glared. "I died!" And she quickly covered her mouth. Stop yelling, goddamn it.

A rumble pulsed through the blood water, and everyone froze. Another followed, and everyone set annoyed glares at Mia. She shrank on Vin's back. Woops.

Ripples moved through the blood, and Yosepha aimed her sword toward their source, but all that awaited was darkness. Yosepha increased the glow until it was near blinding, but even with a gold flare burying the area in light, the walls and ceiling were beyond sight. The cavern was so much bigger than Mia had imagined.

The rumbling grew closer. Noah summoned his armor to join the others, but it was slow to form, and Mia stared back at the injured man. Standing tall, he summoned his sword and shield, and bathed the area in the gold glow of his sword, too. Azreal's spear glowed, and the man stayed next to his friend.

Whatever was out there in the shadow would have no trouble spotting them now, gold torches in the black.

It charged. Shrieking a banshee cry, something far out of sight came for them, and the sound of splashing water joined the noise.

A wurm? No. Wurms were fifteen or twenty meters long, big snakes with heads as big as Kas's body. This thing was longer, heads bigger, and had two arms connected to a chest beneath its towering neck. It would have looked like a two-legged hydra, dragging itself along on its belly, if not for the lack of extra heads.

It didn't hesitate. Snake eyes wide with animal hunger, it dove straight at them, and the blood pool spread around its body like an incoming tsunami. The red water splashed hard against Vin's legs, and Mia jumped off and ran for cover.

The only cover was Azreal. She squeaked and got behind him, and Cerberus followed, growling back at the colossal creature, but following her. And it was a good thing he did, because Mia's voice disappeared under the creature's deathly shrieks. She couldn't give him commands, and she couldn't play any music. She was defenseless.

Azreal summoned his gold wall from his gargantuan shield, and Mia summoned her armor and staff; better than being basically naked.

"What is that!?" she yelled.

Romakus shrugged. "Some kind of mutant wurm."

She almost yelled about the hydra comparison, but the creature struck out with its snake neck and head, and she froze. Azreal's shield would protect her, but the waves of blood flowed around him and knocked against her legs. She slammed her staff down against the flesh floor, planted herself, and watched in horror as the colossal creature snapped out at the largest target: Vin.

Vin caught its teeth. The creature screamed and tried to bite the giant demon, but as it pushed forward, gnashing its teeth, Vin held on, two hands grabbing two of its upper fangs, two grabbing its lower. His feet's talons latched onto the flesh floor, but the creature pushed hard, and the ragarin slid back, colossal weight not able to stop the beast.

But it was distracted. Yosepha flew over, and like a thrown spear, she shot straight at the beast, sword out, and sank the blade into the monster's forehead. It pulled its head up and swung around wildly, long neck working like a whip, and Yosepha flew back, sword left behind. But she held out a hand, re-summoned the blade to her grip, and flew higher, a firefly buzzing around a monster. It snapped at her, snake bites trying to snatch her out of the air, but she weaved left and right, dodging each strike by inches.

Romakus, Julisa, and Kas wasted no time, and ran to the creature's chest. But the skin there was black, a darker shade than a wurm's belly skin, and Julisa's blades bounced off its hide.

Kas changed tactics and climbed. The dinosaur demon got his claws deep enough into skin to pull himself up, and scaled up the hellbeast's side and up onto its shoulder.

"Kas!" Mia yelled.

Kas perched on the creature's spine and waited, body rocking back and forth as the monster turned and twisted, still trying to catch Yosepha. Kas held out a hand, and Julisa threw him a sword. Miss. She threw him another sword, the ragarin caught it, and sank the blade's tip into the creature's back. It howled, set its snake eyes on the nine-foot creature holding a blunt, black metal sword a few inches in its back -- tough hide -- and snapped down at him instead.

Kas moved. Kas was as big as a tetrad, shorter, always hunched over, with enormous arms, thick and long. Seeing him move fast was a weird sight, but he did, and slipped out of the path of the creature's bite just enough that the creature sank its fangs into its own flesh.

It shrieked again, biting and tearing like a crazed animal, not realizing the source of pain was itself. And before it did, Kas yanked the sword out of its back, between its jaws, and drove the blade into its right eye. A new scream pierced the darkness, the wurm lifted its head, and Kas held on, one set of claws clutching the monster's huge head, the other hand holding the sword and driving it deeper through the creature's eye as it whipped its head around in the air.

It collapsed. Its arms gave out under it, chest falling forward into the shallow blood, and its neck went limp and fell like limp string down toward Romakus and Julisa. They jumped out of the way, and Kas let go of the creature's head and fell a good ten meters straight down onto the hellbeast's back. He bounced off and fell into the blood.

Mia ran around Azreal, past the demons, and found Kas on his side beside the hellbeast's armpit, panting, black sword sticking out of the flesh floor beside him.

"Kas! Kas you dumbass, you nearly died!"

He shook his flat shark head and set his eyeless gaze on her. "We do not have time to waste on hellbeasts."

"Waste!? This thing is huge! It could have killed you, and the others!"

He got into his usual gorilla pose, favoring his still-burned arm, and walked past her, giant tail slowly slithering behind him as he handed the sword back to Julisa.

"Agile thing," she said, grinning. "Aren't you?"

He snorted and sauntered by. Of course he wouldn't dignify Julisa's obvious flirting.

"Kas," Mia said, standing proud for her bodyguard, "was who Zel relied on to make sure her dueling laws were obeyed. He's been keeping demons in line for ages."

Vinicius mirrored Kas's snort and stretched out his four arms. But he said nothing. No praise for his new friend or anything. Boys.

Yosepha flew around the area, dove for something, and landed beside Julisa with the demon's other sword in hand. The demon took it without thanks, and rearmed with all four swords, gestured to the wurm's giant head.

"This," Julisa said, "will be a problem. Are all mutant hellbeasts so large?"

"No," Vin said.

Romakus poked the thing's bleeding forehead with a claw. "But most mutants are bigger than their normal counterparts."

"Something to do with Cerb?" Mia asked. On cue, Cerberus walked up to her and waited for an order. When she didn't give him one, he dashed around the giant corpse, and bit the one-headed hydra's face, literally. He clawed at it, tore at it, and growled at it. Mia let him. Gross as it was, watching her pup slowly get his claws and teeth past the creature's thick hide, it was a good outlet for some of that hellbeast aggression.

Noah limped over, dismissing his armor and weapon with a relieved sigh. "I have never seen such a creature."

"Few angels have," Yosepha said. "I haven't. I do not imagine angels explore the depths of Angel's Spine often."

Noah and Azreal flicked a glance at each other. No one noticed except Mia. A secret?

"Let us go," Vinicius said. He snarled down at the giant head he'd wrestled with earlier, and moved on, steps a little slower than before.

The big sword! Mia had completely forgotten. Vin hadn't. Neither had Romakus. The tetrad's sword stuck out of the ground at an angle, and Vin walked in the direction the hilt pointed.

Yosepha kept her armor and sword, and lowered the glow to nothing but gentle candlelight like before. Azreal dismissed his armor and weapon entirely. Everyone got back into typical formation, like nothing had just happened, though Vin did spare a quick, annoyed glance to Mia. Yeah, her yelling at Romakus hadn't been the smartest idea.

Mia didn't climb Kas or Vin's back yet. Gross as walking through shallow blood was, she looked at Noah and Azreal beside her. They didn't reciprocate, eyes scanning as the group fell into a tight formation, mostly all behind Vin so they didn't risk stepping into hidden holes.

The two angel men glanced at each other again, and again, Mia caught it. What were those two thinking about?

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

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

~~Day 86~~

~~David~~

"Angels are fighting," Tsila said, jaw hanging open. "Angels are... fighting."

Moriah clenched her eyes shut. "This is my fault. I did this. I opened the floodgates."

"That you did," Laoko said, and she snarled down at the angel. "You killed a good man in your blind righteousness." Unlike the others, she made no attempt to stop the burning hail embers from hitting her face, and they harmlessly scattered off her dark red skin.

"I know. You need not remind me, demon."

Laoko stomped a hoof. "What now, unmarked?"

"I don't fucking know." He gestured down at the oncoming demon army below. How many was that, five hundred? Six? David's group would probably win, but his was almost entirely volas and imps and grems. It would not be an easy battle, and he couldn't help. "Tacharius? Zabulon?"

The two volarins grimaced, each with a hand raised to stop the fire rain from hitting their eyes.

"Septima is loyal to Tarkissa, and she's one of the few tregeera to go up against tetrads and win."

Laoko smiled, nodding. "I have met her. She is quite strong."

Caera hissed. "I can see that from here."

"So we have no choice," David said. "But angels are fighting above us right now."

Tsila spread her wings and took to the air. "I must go."

She got two meters up before Acelina grabbed her foot and yanked her back down.

"Zotiva!" Tsila said. Only her flapping wings kept her ass from hitting the ground.

The spire mother shook her head. "It wasn't long ago you'd come to Hell with your captain with full intent on killing any unmarked you found. Do not be stupid, gabriem. If there are angels up there, fighting, then some of them are looking for David. They will kill him."

Sighing, Tsila let her head hang, and covered it with her wings overhead.

Acelina continued. "The angels are distracted, but when they notice this army, they will conclude David is likely here, and if the winners of the battle want him dead, they will come down here and kill him. And this time, David cannot stop them."

Laoko joined Acelina, nodding and smiling at the only other demon even close to her height.

"Acelina is correct. We have no choice. We must go back down to the bottom step of the Scar. We must go to the Floor, and hide in the shadows of this canyon as we fight."

David winced. He didn't want to go to the Floor for a bunch of reasons, but tactics was a pretty big one. Being up was good. Being down was bad. His inner gamer screamed at him to take the high ground, but Laoko was right.

"David?" Jes said. "Make a decision."

He clenched his eyes shut and squeezed the spire aura's strings. Don't let go.

"We go down there and talk," he said.

Laoko snorted, but Caera spoke up first.

"She won't want to talk."

"Yeah, I figured. But we give them the chance anyway. If we fight, guaranteed the angels above are going to get involved. Especially if someone jumps the gun and breathes hellfire everywhere."

Laoko's snort changed to a snarl. She hopped down the terrace edge, and the surrounding demons jumped out of the way, lest they get squashed under her.

David sighed, clutching Caera's spikes, and held on tight as the tiger crawled down the wall after the tetrad. She couldn't climb the whole way down though, like a cat climbing down a cabinet and getting halfway off the edge before leaping down. No wonder girls were better at riding horseback, but at least David saw it coming and adjusted his ass before impact. Balls saved.

Fire rain hit his head, leaving tiny burns, and Jes quickly guarded him again with her wing. This was going to be problematic.

The demons followed, and the demons already on the lower terrace steps moved with him. Some stayed above, probably for the tactical advantage. But sure enough, thousands of volas, imps, and grems followed him step after giant step, deeper and deeper into the Scar canyon where the angels were less likely to notice them.

They stopped a step shy of the bottom, where Septima had finished crossing the bridge. Each terrace step was only ten, maybe fifteen meters wide, and Septima was only one step away. More than close enough for a conversation.

"Septima," he said from above. The crowd went silent.

Septima snarled. A tregeera covered head to toe in meera metal armor, like some sort of battle cat that could stand up and fight on her hind legs if she wanted.

"Unmarked." Even her voice was gruff.

"Call me David."

She snorted again and shook her head. "Why?"

"Because... it's my name?"

Another snort, like an angry, caged animal. "You killed Priscillian. Do not act like this parley is nothing more than a precursor to battle."

David blinked and sat up straight. Okay, angry barbarian woman was smart, at least with her words.

"I have no desire to fight, and Priscillian couldn't be trusted." He spared a quick glance at Laoko. "He had to die."

Show no fear. Show no weakness. Don't show your back. Demons were predators and considered all those things a reason to attack. David would make better progress raging and yelling than he would through quiet negotiation, but maybe he could find a middle ground.

Whatever he'd said, it warranted a moment's hesitation from the tiger. Maybe a raised eyebrow, too, but her helmet hid those.

Tacharius stepped up to David's side, smiling. Brave of the scoundrel.

"Septima. Come to visit our half of the Floor? Been a while since your last visit. I was thinking you didn't care."

Oh boy. David didn't look Tacharius's way, but he wanted to glare at the man and maybe incinerate him with said glare. Of course the incubus had a history with the bailiff, one he hadn't mentioned. If David guessed right, that history included a lot of special treatment, likely drowning the tiger in incubus dick and other indulgences.

Septima stood up, giant tail lowering to the ground behind her, and at least five hundred big, hungry demons behind her snorted and snarled.

"What happened to the spire aura?" she asked. Tacharius might as well have not existed.

David held up a hand. "I'm squashing it. I don't want any demons getting in my way on the trip to the spire."

The tiger snorted, spared a glance up at the gold light show above the raining fire, and set her angry gaze back on David.

"Angels are fighting," Septima said, and she flicked her tail. "They visit our spire. They make demands, explain the unmarked must be killed. And then weeks later they fight among themselves in absurd numbers. They could swoop down on us now and kill you easily."

"Or protect me and kill you. If they're here, and fighting, then some group of angels is trying to stop another group of angels."

Septima looked to Moriah and Tsila, both already in their angel armor, before she glared at Laoko.

"And this bitch," Septima said, "thinks to wander the Scar again after all these years."

Of course Laoko knew the bailiff, too. And apparently, wasn't her friend. Maybe that was part of the reason Laoko had put them on this path of violence, so David and his army would have no choice but to kill her old enemies. Crafty.

"This spire aura won't last forever," David said. "And when it's gone, there'll be little to stop me from marching on the spire, killing Tarkissa, and taking the spire for myself, same as that other unmarked from the Navameere Fields is."

Septima was not deterred. "Rumor has it the unmarked have a nasty habit of summoning a new enemy, an invader, if they use their powers too much."

Well, shit.

"Maybe," David lied.

"And Tarkissa has promised us the invader can be stopped if we take you to him."

"And you believe him?"

She shrugged and gestured up with a claw. "Angels have come and meddled in our affairs. Strange, alien invaders have broken into Hell in several places, with the face of surface squids. The spire births more and more demons. Hellbeasts wander in twilight hours. Remnants walk free! Everything has changed. If Tarkissa says he has a way to stop this madness, I have no choice but to believe him."

David tilted his head to the side. "But... you don't believe him."

Septima slammed her tail against the ground, but the brutes and vrats, tigers and gargoyles, and others behind her stirred and traded glances and whispers.

"Tarkissa--"

"Hasn't done shit." David climbed off Caera's back and stared down at Septima from the terrace step edge, Jes's wing over his head. "That other unmarked from the Navameere Fields has come to kill and claim, Khazeer can't stop her, and Tarkissa hasn't done anything about it, has he? Angels came, gave him an order, and I bet he bowed his head and complied, didn't he?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He held out a hand and squeezed it.

"I have squashed his dreaded spire aura. He has no power over any of you. And unlike that other unmarked raising chaos, I have no intention of being a poor ruler, or killing any of you."

Zabulon stepped up and squatted on the terrace edge next to Tacharius.

"David's not lying. We've been with him for over a week. We won't have to hand Tacharius his meals anymore, bow to his whims anymore, anything."

Septima laughed. "You can't be serious. I'd rather Tarkissa rule the Scar than some damned soul."

David shook his head and gestured to Moriah and Tsila. Both angels hopped down the terrace step onto Septima's.

"David is a soul worthy of Heaven," Moriah said.

Tsila nodded. "Yes, he is." She nocked an arrow, but kept it pointed down. Her wings, too, as if raising them might draw the attention of her kin above.

Septima snarled and paced in place, still on her hind legs and walking around like a fucking dinosaur, weight balanced by her huge tail. No weapon, but with that much armor, she probably felt comfortable getting in close and going for the kill with her bare claws.

"I don't believe you," Septima said.

David tilted his head. That was a strange language choice. In serious situations, people didn't normally say things they already believed. They just acted on them.

Look at him, learning from Mia.

"Yes you do," David said.

Septima stopped and growled. "How dare you?"

"Tarkissa's time is up, Septima. Step aside, let me deal with him, and then let me deal with the other unmarked on her way here. I'll deal with the alien invaders, too. That's the whole damn point of my journey! So just--"

An impin yelled and pointed up. Ten thousand heads looked up a second later.

A hundred white dots hovered in the sky, growing closer, and they glowed gold.

Tsila put her bow and arrow away and took to the sky. "Run! Get into the tunnels! Run!"

People ran. Volas, imps, and grems unleashed a chorus of panicked screams. Betrayers, huddled next to their demons in futile attempts to get out of the fire rain, shrieked, and ran for the tunnels. Thousands of feet on the stone, metal, and leather, sounded like thunder under the rain of embers. But it wasn't fast enough.

Beams of gold crashed down on the Scar, a hundred of them. Each a meter wide, they smashed into the metal spikes of the canyon walls, the hanging and spread tarps of stretched leather, the darkened stone, all of it. And they crashed with the impact of wrecking balls. Stone ripped out of the ground and went flying. The metal spikes broke off and shattered, scattering shards of blackstone to the ground. Tightened chains with hooks snapped and shot off in random directions.

David grabbed Caera's back, swung on, and the tiger took off for the nearest tunnel. A beam of energy cut her off, shredding the ground, and she jumped back and onto the terrace step below. Septima's step, with the giant bridge behind her.

David's grip on the aura weakened. He clamped his eyes shut, squeezed his girlfriend's back spikes, and squeezed the strings just the same. The aura could not slip free. He wouldn't be able to get it under control again if it did.

As if they were being carpet bombed, shrapnel and debris exploded outward, combined with an onslaught of limbs and blood.

Septima approached, roaring at the top of her lungs. "What is this madness!?"

"The angels are attacking!" David yelled. "And they're going to kill everyone they can! Run!"

"What? You--"

"Run Septima! Run!"

This was not how it was supposed to go. This was all wrong.

"Tsila," David said. "What--"

"Jebediah and my fellow gabriem convinced some angels of our plight," she said, ducking low and flying alongside them as they bolted past the bridge. "That is a battalion above, fighting another battalion. They must have seen an opening, and assumed you were among the crowds. They will kill everyone in hopes of killing you, David."

"Vermin," Septima yelled. "Vermin hiding in the sky!"

Moriah shot the woman a glare, but Jes shook her head, running alongside them.

The others! David looked back, and relief overwhelmed him. Daoka was right next to Jes, and Acelina was right behind her, egg in her arms. Laoko caught up in seconds, with an impa or gremla in each hand. The Las. Tacharius, Zabulon, and hundreds of others ran after them, hands up to block raining fire, or debris from landing on their heads.

Groaning rock and metal drew their eyes. A dozen gold beams crashed against the bridge, and the titan structure shook with impact, pieces of blackstone warping and cracking. The bridge groaned as it bent, before gravity got its claws in her and pulled the enormous structure into the bowels of the ravine, thundering echoes of stone joining the madness.

On the terrace steps, a thousand small explosions, each only a meter wide, followed the holy beams of destruction, each preceded by an arrow with a glowing gold tip. The demons were in a shooting gallery.

Demons yelped. Betrayers screamed. Voices died out by the hundreds, cut off hard like soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, disappearing under the hail of gunfire. David looked back only long enough to see his army doing their best to either follow him, or get into the nearest tunnel.

Caera tried to veer into a tunnel again, and again a beam of holy energy cut her off.

"Just run!" David yelled.

Caera ran, zigzagging to avoid holy beams, each leaving small craters or ditches in their wake. But she had cat reflexes, and so did the demons behind her, many narrowly avoiding gold arrows or the gold beams. Not everyone, but many.

Music rose from beneath the slaughter. Not real music. Silent music, inaudible, felt only by David. It pushed up from the depths, rippled through the stone, buzzed in the air, and echoed through the ravine between the canyon walls of the Scar.

A song.

"Guys," he yelled. "Someone is--"

The terrace edges above exploded outward. Rock shot across the sky from the highest terrace steps, pulling down enormous avalanches from the mountain walls above. The rocks crashed and merged into the giant steps, only to get pulled and drawn out by the song. The avalanche stopped, and the million tonnes of stone spread over the sky like a blanket, reaching over their half of the Scar and blocking off the angels. A canopy of rock, formed by the music.

David knew those notes. He'd used those notes before, heavy, thick notes that moved the ground of Hell. And whoever played them, played them loud. Different strings moved different things, and the aura strings David kept his grip on were unaffected, but that didn't stop thick, bass-filled vibration from filling his skull, half from whoever was playing music, half from the mountainside reaching out to block out the sky.

David looked back. Demons scattered, pouring down the terrace steps and getting under the outstretched canopy of the mountain. As David, his girls, a bunch of his army, and Septima and her army ran along the bottom of the Scar with the ravine on their left, giant steps on their right, the canopy of stone followed them. Giant ceilings of rock formed along with them, and the terrace steps rumbled with the force of stone being ripped out from above them to fuel the growth.

It wasn't enough. The stone canopy hid the Scar, but David could still hear the explosions of angel beams and arrows landing on it, even over the roar of the demon army behind him. At least the fire rain wasn't landing on them anymore.

"Unmarked!" Septima yelled. She ran alongside Caera on all fours, snarling. "Are you doing this?"

"No! Someone else is. Is there another unmarked around?"

She stared at him, eyes wide. He'd just admitted that, while he wasn't doing this, the unmarked had the power to do this.

"I know of no other unmarked!"

Laoko hissed. "Keep running!"

"Run where!?" David yelled back. "The angels can just swoop in and--"

Death cries filled the air. Again he looked back, and his insides clenched as a dozen pairs of wings flew around the canopy and attacked from the side. The outstretched ceiling of stone covered each terrace step, but it didn't reach across the entire Scar, and angels flew down and around it. With bows drawn, swords out, their weapons glowed gold and unleashed hell.

Until a geyser of Hellfire shot up from the ravine, from deep down in the dark, ripped and tore its way through the winding walls, and unleashed death on everyone and everything over the ravine. Usually that'd include winged demons gliding across. In the middle of battle, it only included the angels shooting at David's army like they were targets at a carnival shooting game.

It didn't stop the angels. As a dozen of the holy warriors fell into the ravine, bodies burned to cinders in an instant, a dozen more flew under the canopy, got directly over David's army, and again unleashed gold beams of destruction. Demons and betrayers exploded, bodies ripped apart by the gold energy, but before the onslaught reached David, more angel wings flew in from around the colossal stone ceiling, and crashed into the other angels. Allies.

Tsila took to the sky.

"Tsila!" Moriah yelled. "You don't know what will happen!"

Tsila froze twenty meters up. "I must--"

"You promised you would help David! He needs a gabriem!"

It was like asking a combat medic to let their comrades die so she could take care of someone else. Tsila flew back down and joined them, flying overhead, and David caught a peek of her face through her helmet's open front. Destroyed.

"David," Moriah said. "What is going on?"

"I don't know! Someone's playing music and helping us out."

"Another unmarked?"

"I don't think so. If they're close enough, we'd have hellquakes ripping Hell apart already."

The angel shook her head. "Isn't this music loud enough to summon the invaders?"

"I don't think so. It's different. Whoever's playing this music isn't getting Hell's help. They're just doing it on their own!"

Acelina caught up, egg snug in her arms. "Who could do such a thing?"

"I don't know! I--"

The ground ripped out from under them. The music ripped through Hell with a heavy bass note, and tore down the last terrace step David and everyone else ran on. The ground collapsed and sloped. Rolling stones and falling debris had everyone sliding, hooves and claws crashing against the now forty-five degree hill pulling them down. Even as they half-slid, borderline rolled down the hill, the hill formed before them, silent music pulling more rock and blackstone out from the terrace step and ravine wall to create their new path. A path that took them down into the ravine.

"David!" Jes yelled. "Uh, it's taking us down!"

Caera snorted. "It's that or we climb up! With the angels!"

The gargoyle looked back. Angels of all kinds crashed into each other, giant shields blocking swords and arrows, and blades cutting through feathers or stabbing between the joints of armor. Angels were drawing blood.

David glanced back long enough to see most of his army had disappeared into caves, but plenty were still directly on his heels, running side by side with Septima's army as angels continued to shoot beams and arrows down at them. With so many demons cramped together, no matter where they shot, they killed someone, but as the battle went on, more and more shots reached the front of the fleeing army, near David and his girls.

The slope went almost straight down, half slid became full slid, and David and everyone sucked in a breath as the ravine swallowed them. If the path were any steeper, they'd be falling to their deaths. But demons were quick on their feet, agile, and took the new slope with ridiculous grace. Those with claws half ran down the slope, matching gravity but staying in control. Those with hooves ran down like mountain goats on their home turf. The volas didn't have such an easy time, but all their betrayers had disappeared into caves, leaving them with only themselves to worry about.

All except Fuad, Naoko, and Natalie, directly on Tacharius and Zazee's heels. The incubus and succubus, right alongside Zabulon, had stuck with them, even as angel arrows exploded around them.

Darkness swallowed them before bright amber light shattered it. Another geyser of hellfire exploded upward, reaching a few hundred meters in either direction, all of it straight up from the ravine. Some angels avoided it. Some didn't. David and the crew reeled back toward the wall, away from the rush of destruction only a few meters away and the insane heat it brought. It was like they were going down a slope into a fucking volcano. Oh god, was this how he was going to be sacrificed? To some volcano god?

There was no stopping. The slope was too steep, and hundreds of demons were coming down the slope with them. The angels above tried to pursue, but other angels interfered.

"Run!" an angel above yelled, the first word any angel had spoken so far. "Run! Hide!"

David risked a peek at Tsila and Moriah, both angels flying over his head. Even with a shorter wing, Moriah stayed airborne. A second peek back showed more than just the angels flying, but all the demons with wings flew, too, and Jes and Acelina eventually took to the air as running down the slope grew harder and harder. Gliding down was easier.

Jes swooped down, got her arms under David's shoulders, and carried him. Without a passenger, Caera pounced down the slope without issue, Septima right beside her, and the two giant cat-like demons practically zoomed down into the depths of the ravine.

"Just like old times," Jes said. "No fucking rider on our ass this time." She and the other flyers stayed over the forming slope, in case another hellfire geyser shot up beside them.

"No, just a thousand angels! I think I'd rather take my chances with the rider."

She snorted, but risked a peek back, too. "Yeah, point taken."

Down they went, and the sound of battle above died away. The ravine didn't just twist and turn on the way down, but bent side to side, and the ravine wall leaned over them at certain points. An avalanche would kill them all, even the flyers, and David still had his fingers around the aura strings. He was utterly helpless to do anything.

They reached the bottom. The slope ran straight into the dark ground of the ravine, and a river of lava awaited them, flowing by at fast speeds, crashing against boulders of blackstone, and bubbling with heat. It was wide, a few hundred meters at least, and each side had an embankment only twenty meters wide. That sounded wide until you realized you were walking next to lava.

On Earth, on the surface, lava was so hot you couldn't even approach. No one was ever literally sacrificed by being thrown into a volcano. You couldn't even get close to one because of the heat.

Hell was different. It was hot enough that David started sweating instantly, and every breath was a labored mess, but it didn't burn him if he didn't get directly over it. It just really sucked. Hell couldn't torture you if you were dead, after all.

Jes glided down the last few meters, landed beside Caera, and David wasted no time crawling onto his girlfriend's back. If they had to bolt, he wanted to be on someone fast.

"What is this madness?" Septima asked. "What have you done?"

David gestured back at the slope up. "I didn't do this! But I have no choice but to keep walking, so why don't you go back--"

The slope melted back into the ravine wall. It still had plenty of demons on it, and they roared and ran down what was left of their road before it vanished entirely. Thankfully, no one died or fell too far to get hurt.

"Well, shit," he said.

Domnius stepped out of the crowd and hopped over to them on all fours.

"Domnius lives," he said, and he stood up straight and saluted.

David sighed with relief and looked at the others. Everyone on his crew looked fine. Tacharius and Zab looked fine, even their succubus friend Zazee. Natalie, Fuad, and Naoko looked burned, but they were breathing. A lot more than could be said for a lot of demons and betrayers today.

Laoko panted beside him. Originally, she'd been carrying the Las, but the four little ladies had glided down when everything had turned into an unwanted run down a slope. They landed on the ground near David and hugged his legs.

Septima growled and approached, but Laoko slammed a hoof against the stone, got between her and David, and drew her swords. Other demons drew theirs. Demons got ready to pounce, claws out. Septima stood up and roared at the tetrad.

"Enough!" David yelled, and his voice echoed between the ravine walls.

Everyone shut up and looked at him.

"I am keeping a spire aura suppressed. I do not have the time or energy to deal with this bullshit. Angels are both trying to kill me and save me, and the killer ones are more than happy to kill any demon in their way to get to me. And while that insanity is happening, someone just rescued our asses, but I don't know who! So unless one of you actually knows who the fuck just made that slope that took us what had to be a couple kilometers straight down into the bowels of Hell, shut the fuck up!"

The crowd's looking turned into staring, and he squeezed Caera's spikes a little harder.

"Has anything like this happened before?" he asked.

Septima shook her head. Tacharius and Zab shook their heads.

Sighing, David gestured down the ravine path. "Then we keep going. When Tarkissa ends his spire aura, I can sculpt us a path out of here. Until then, we're all going to get along. And if you think you can climb that ravine wall and get out, go ahead!" He gestured at the rock wall beside him. Unless you were good enough to climb slabs of rock that occasionally stuck horizontally, no one was climbing out that weighed over thirty kilos.

Well, at least they were out of the fire rain. The curving and sloping rock made sure it all landed in the middle of the lava river.

"Domnius," David said. "I'm going to take a guess that the secret thing you wanted to show me isn't far from here."

"Not far. Day's walk. Maybe two."

"You come down here to the bottom of the ravine often?"

"No! No no. Dangerous down here. Hellbeasts. Cainites. We stay in tunnels too small for them. Go around. Fly across. Never down."

"Well, someone or something summoned us down here. Getting back up won't be easy." Impossible, but he couldn't say that without giving away that he was too weak and busy to so much as play a single note.

Septima got in his path, stood up, and glared down at him. But even standing, the giant tiger looked small compared to the tetrad at David's side.

"We were sent here to capture you," she said.

"You still want to fight me? After what just happened?"

"The angels were after you, not me."

He gestured around. "And yet we're both trapped here at the bottom of a ravine. The imps and grems could climb out, maybe, but the rest of us?"

She snarled. "Then make us a new path to walk out."

"I'm busy keeping an aura suppressed so we can all keep our heads." Careful, David. "And angels above are trying to kill me. They'll happily kill you as collateral damage. And something or someone else that can play powerful music brought us down here! Worth investigating, don't you think?" He leaned forward over Caera's shoulders and head. "Try and kill me, and my army fights you. Assuming you win, you're stuck down here unless you can find a tunnel up. Domnius, there a tunnel that connects this low?"

"Don't know. Don't think so. Nope nope."

David nodded. "And if the imps and grems don't come this low, what makes you think you could find a way up from here?"

Septima glared, but didn't move either, tail going still behind her.

Laoko matched the glare and stepped closer to the smaller demon.

"She is a threat," she said.

"Agreed," David said, "but she might also be useful."

Time for the inevitable glaring match. He stared up at Laoko, and she stared down at him, both doing their best to look like they were chiseled out of stone. Unfortunately for him, he was exhausted, sweating, and every breath ended up a little shallower than he wanted. And someone might as well have driven a railroad spike through his skull with the way his brain was throbbing.

Laoko looked past him to the two armies struggling to share space at the bottom of the ravine, a colossal, unscalable wall on their right, a wide, flowing river of lava on their left. Even a couple kilometers down in the depths and darkness of Hell, they could still hear the rumbling of battle above, angels unleashing their absurd power on each other. If they had any mercy at all, they'd leave the demons and betrayers still up there, hiding in tunnels, alone.

"Agreed, useful," Laoko said. Say one thing for the bolstara tetrad, she didn't let pride impede reason, a quality David suspected most demons lacked. "Septima, gather your personal guard and walk up front with us."

Moriah opened her mouth, but stopped herself. Instead, she remained in her armor, as did Tsila, and both angels walked at Caera's flanks, Jes and Dao right behind them. Acelina walked close to the wall, egg in her arms, Daoka in front of her, and she hissed at any demon that grew too close.

David looked back at Acelina and gave her his best smile. It was shit, probably doing nothing but telling her just how tired he was. But she looked at him with her black canvas face, no eyes or nose or mouth to give away what she was thinking. She nodded and stroked his egg. Their egg.

Septima gestured to a few in her army, and three brutes all stepped up. Of course they'd be brutes, nine-foot-tall juggernauts of muscle with clawed feet. No tail, no wings, no spikes or horns, no hair, just titans of power and nigh black skin, with small demon eyes in their skull-ish faces. And these had armor. Not a lot, but brutes rarely wore armor, so some greaves, vambraces, and half breastplates on them was imposing.

They also had axes. Giant axes, like Acelina's. They were not regular brutes.

Laoko growled down at them. They growled back at her. Caera growled at Septima, and Septima, now back on all fours, growled at her.

Yeap, this was going to be a fun walk.

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

The aura stopped.

David sighed with relief and did his best to not fall off Caera's back as every mental muscle got to relax. Like stretching when standing up too fast, except on a spiritual level.

Septima snorted. "The buzzing in my ear is gone."

"Yes," Laoko said. "I bet Tarkissa sits on his throne now, exhausted from using such a powerful aura."

David wiped the sweat off his brow. "He tells the province to find and capture me, but can only keep the aura going for over a day? I thought it'd last longer." And if it had, he'd probably have broken.

Acelina stepped up and shook her head. "Auras are complicated. Zelandariel would tell me to compose and enact a spire aura was like a human playing music. Something loud and powerful need not be difficult, while something extremely difficult to play could be soft and quiet. Tarkissa crafted the aura to capture a specific target, and to escort the target back to him. It would require but a fraction of that aura to send the whole province to war, a far simpler command."

"Sounds dumb of him," David said. "I mean, we're still a week away from the spire."

Laoko shrugged. "Whoever was left holding you when the aura was over would still want to bring you to their ruler, in hopes of a reward." She grinned down at him. "And when he recovers, he may use the aura again."

David returned her grin with a wince. "I assume that amber horn on Azailia's head is how they funnel their will into the spire?"

"Yes."

"I wonder..." He trailed off, and Laoko didn't ask. When David played the music loudly, sometimes Hell herself listened and joined in. Maybe it was like that for spire rulers and their spires, except the spire wasn't a presence, but a tool, like an amp.

Or all the metaphors, comparisons, and analogies he could make didn't really make sense when talking about silent music that changed the literal fabric of the afterlife.

He sat up straight, held out his hands, and flexed his fingers. His inner fingers tried the same, but they ached like a son of a bitch, and yet felt numb. The strings flowing through him didn't move. He gave them a hard pluck, and still they didn't move, like he'd stuck his hands into ice water and left them there until they'd frozen.

He leaned down to Caera's ear and whispered. "I'll need a night to rest before I can do much."

"Just one?" she asked, half turning her head and smiling up at him. "You look horrible."

"Hopefully."

He sat up and looked around again. Where were the girls? All nearby. Even the Las were with him instead of running around with their fellow little demons, playing and chucking pebbles in the lava. Instead, they walked at Caera's sides, right behind the angels, and occasionally peeked out from behind them at the three brutes just ahead, frowning but never getting close to them.

Behind Septima's little band and David's, were the two armies, but while most of Septima's army had chased after her and David down into the ravine, only a small portion of David's had. The rest had run into tunnels to hide. Perfectly understandable from an army composed mostly of volas and betrayers. David would have done the same. But now instead of the thousands upon thousands of demons he'd had with him, now he had maybe a thousand, almost entirely volas, to fight Septima's four, maybe five hundred heavy hitters.

David would still win. He had two angels with him, and a tetrad, and Jes and Caera were formidable fighters in their own right. Even Daoka and Acelina could fight. But without the music, it'd be a bloodbath.

Someone shrieked. David turned and spotted a gargoyle grabbing an impin by the wing.

David shot up a hand. Everyone stopped.

"Put the imp down!" he yelled.

The gorgala looked at him, tilting her head, and the nearby demons stepped away. One of Septima's.

"I'm hungry," she said.

"That's nice. If you eat any of my demons, I will skewer you on a pike and feed your heart to that impin. Do I make myself clear?"

The gargoyle stared at him, impin still in her right hand. She slowly drew her sword with her left.

"It's just an imp. An easy meal."

"I asked you a question."

She snorted and thumped her breastplate with the hilt of her sword.

"You can't keep me from eating, unmarked. You--"

David squeezed his inner fingers hard until the headache threatened to explode his brains against the inside of his skull. He grabbed a string, plucked it, and through the exhaustion and agony and frozen fingers, he summoned a sharp spike of blackstone straight up from under the gargoyle. Up between her legs, up through her insides, and out through the top of her head, showering the nearby demons in a layer of blood.

Everyone froze, eyes locked on the instantly dead demon. The impin in her deadlock grasp squirmed, freed himself, and ran and hid behind Domnius near David's girls.

"Keep your demons in line," David said. "I don't care if it's an imp, grem, betrayer, vola, or anyone else. Your demons don't touch mine, or I will skewer or eviscerate every last one of you."

Septima stared at him. Laoko smiled at him with that quiet, sneaky little smile of hers. The other girls stared at him, blinking.

The fuck could he say? He was cranky? Tired, cranky, head throbbing, body aching, fucking exhausted, and every part of him just wanted to lie down and sleep the moment evening twilight came.

"Let's go," he said. And the march renewed.

"David," Domnius said, staring up at him with his one eye. "David helps?"

"I'm trying," he said, quiet enough only those nearby would hear him. "Fuck me, I'm trying."

Domnius touched his leg. "David helps."

David smiled down at the little guy. "I guess I do, when I can. I--" His voice cut off as a new sound rose above the constant rumble of the flowing lava.

He knew what it was before he saw it.

They stepped around a curve of the ravine wall, and a million remnants greeted them. Some grew out of the path, a carpet of fingers, noses, and eyes, no remnant growing more than a few inches up from the ground. A million grew from the walls, each freed to their waist, each clawing and grabbing at the stones that bound them, tearing each other's skin or breaking off their own fingernails.

In places where the ravine wall loomed overhead and reached out over the lava river, the heat was powerful enough it brought the remnants over the heat's path to blister. Their screams were unending, and some clawed at their own bubbling skin, peeling it off as it sizzled. David could smell the cooking meat.

It did not end. The ravine went on and on, twisting and winding, and the path drowned them in the damned. David peeked back, and sure enough, Naoko, Natalie, and Fuad stuck close to Tacharius and Zazee, eyes wide and staring up at the remnants above, bleeding straight down onto their heads. This was their future if they died.

The living walls and their outstretched, desperate arms awaited, and David and the two armies marched forward.