~~Day 91~~

~~Mia~~

They ran. But for all the dread and fear the rider brought with him, he wasn't catching anyone without a mount. Like some shitty slasher horror movie, he practically walked after them, and as long as they kept their distance and ran, he couldn't catch them. Maybe the rider would find another mount eventually, but for now, he didn't have one.

It took a little effort to convince Anianus that fighting the rider wasn't a good idea. For all the bailiff's supposed intelligence, he and his demons had been eager to fight the legendary, immortal human. Only when Vin had said no did they finally smarten up.

It'd be evening twilight soon, and they were still surrounded by archangel flesh. And no way Mia would go to sleep surrounded by all these strangers, especially with the rider behind them.

A brute ahead of her with a half breastplate, a sword on his back, and a single arm, looked back at her. Brutes were so damn scary. Something about how skull-ish their faces were, with small eyes deep in the eye sockets. Sure, brutes would be hard pressed to beat a tetrad in a fight, or a sarkarin like Kas. And sure, they had no chance of killing someone like Vinicius, but that didn't change the fact that brutes were extremely dangerous. And Anianus, bailiff of this side of Angel's Spine, walked with a dozen of them, escorting Mia and the crew to his spire ruler Dobasi.

Romakus walked up to the brute and poked his armless shoulder with his wing claw. "What happened to you?"

"Stone crawler."

"A traslk took your arm?" Romakus had mentioned mud crawlers and stone crawlers a while back. Giant centipedes. Maybe traslk was their proper 'Hell' name. "Surprising."

The brute shook his head. "I was a hatchling. And it was mutated."

"Ah. Makes sense."

"What makes sense?" Mia asked. "Wait. Why would a hellbeast be in the hatching pit? There's only demons in there, right?"

Anianus chuckled and walked backward, literally, very Romakus-like.

"The spire here in Angel's Spine is not like other spires. When the archangels fell, the spire was driven deep into Hell, and damaged it. And with aeons, the flesh of God's first have warped the flesh of Hell, the hellbeasts, and even the spire itself. Such is the power of the archangel, warping flesh." With a soft chuckle, he smiled at Mia. "Our hatchlings are sent to the hatching pit, as in every spire. But here in Angel's Spine, there are tunnels that connect to the hatching pit, and hellbeasts roam within."

"Oh," Mia said. "Oh!" Wincing, she looked around at the many demons and their many scars. That's why everyone was covered in old wounds. They had to fight off hellbeasts, mutated and strong, as kids, or at least the demon equivalent of a kid. "That's horrible!"

"Horrible?" Anianus asked.

"Well, yeah." She gestured at the one-armed brute. "He lost an arm so young."

"But he was armed with a purpose!"

She glared at the bailiff. Romakus burst into laughter. Assholes.

Anianus winked, shrugged his wings, and returned to walking with his group.

"I like him," Romakus said.

Yosepha rolled her eyes. "You like chaos."

"Chaos makes the world go 'round."

"That's money," Mia said. "Not that Hell has currency."

"Souls," Romakus said, and he adopted a deep, evil cackle. "We trade in souls!"

If he thought he'd get a laugh out of Mia, he failed. She glared up at him and punched his leg, beside the armor. Might as well have punched the armor for all she accomplished. At least Cerb got the message, and he growled up at Romakus and snarled at him, ready to go for a bite.

"It's okay, Cerb," she said. "Come on, boy. Heel."

She headed toward the back of the group, where the true resident asshole walked side by side with Noah. Exhausted, Noah had dismissed his armor, and held his gut as he walked. Vinicius, on the other hand, ignored his wounds, even as blood trickled down his body. They had to find a place to sleep soon, but at least everyone was well fed. A well-fed demon or angel was healing a demon or angel.

Problem: Noah and Vin's wounds weren't minor. Noah's guts had almost come out, and Vin was covered in bite marks, gashes, and had been stabbed several times. They needed proper time to sit and heal, and it was several days to the Angel's Spine spire.

"You okay?" she asked Noah.

"I live."

"That's not what I asked."

The angel peeked at his wound under his hand. "The wound is closed well enough I can move and fight."

"Yeah? Because after you got those two hellhounds off Vin, you didn't contribute to the rest of the fight. I'm guessing because you knew your insides were about to become your outsides?"

He grimaced. "Perhaps."

"Well, at least you're willing to admit it. Vin and Azreal would probably fight until they passed out, wouldn't they?"

Noah looked up at the titan walking beside him, and then ahead to Azreal, walking in his armor, giant shield at the ready.

"You really think you have us figured out," he said.

"What?"

The angel looked down at her, and his silver eyes struck her still.

"You do not know us."

"I..." She gulped. Where did this come from?

They walked in silence for a while, speed-walked, considering the rider was on their ass. She looked up at Noah, but the angel kept his gaze ahead, wearing a permanent frown. Whatever she'd said, it'd annoyed the angel. So much for developing a rapport.

"We must find somewhere to sleep," Vinicius said. "Or hide. The rider does not rest."

Kas clicked once, nodding.

"We still have a day's walk to get out of here," Anianus said. "And that's to the nearest exit."

"Then we do not stop," Julisa said. "The rider cannot be killed."

"I'd love to try," Anianus said, but raised his wings before anyone could say anything. "But I believe you. We go."

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

~~Day 92~~

Finally, a wall. All night and most of the next day, they walked in the dark, unable to see a damn thing except for the foot-deep blood around their shins, Yosepha and Azreal's glowing weapons, and the torches of Anianus's demons.

Demons did not like hiking. The more they walked, the more they slowed, and much as Mia was not built for hiking either, it was painful watching big, strong demons get weighed down by time. In the end, Mia didn't ride Kas or Vin, fearing her weight would be a burden, and dragged her sandals through the blood.

But they found a wall. Anianus had steered them right. A hole in the flesh took them out of the endless dark into a cavern, and Mia almost wept at the sight of amber veins in the massive cavern below.

Hell. She could feel Hell again, feel the strands of her body, her lava rivers below reaching up into the rock walls as amber veins. Burning bushes below, growing from rocks poking up from rivers of archangel blood. Enormous bones, white, jutted up from the ground like the colossal ones from the Black Valley. And one such bone touched the edge of the tunnel exit Anianus and his crew stood in, in a curiously perfect spot to be walked on like a stairway going down.

"We go," Anianus said. "Make sure to follow us, unmarked. We are deep, and if we go deeper, we risk stirring that which lies below."

"That which lies below?"

"Yes."

"You... quoting a movie?"

He smiled back at her. "No." He gestured ahead, and his army went first, down onto the wide bone slab, down into the massive cavern.

They walked down a giant spine, like stairs.

Azreal and Yosepha took to the air and hovered. They scouted, flying around, above, and under the giant bone structure sticking up from the blood river below. Remnants shrieked and cried, and Mia was almost thankful to hear them.

The ceiling was all flesh, and it dripped blood in various places, little bloodfalls that made little blood pools. A few burning bushes stuck up from dry places, and some not so dry places, fighting against the blood to stay lit. Amber veins were few, climbing up the stone walls, but far better than complete darkness they'd just left behind.

There were giant bones everywhere, sticking up from the ground, growing from it, and they created stairways to raised chunks of rock, pathways in the cavern that was actually a giant tunnel. It was strangely beautiful terrain. Or maybe that was just Mia feeling better, now that she could feel Hell once again.

She peeked down over the edge of the bone stairs, to the ground below. Remnants wandered, free of their prisons. Would Hannah be down there? She took a deep breath and followed Anianus and Romakus down, keeping them both close.

Cerberus felt no such need to stay close. He half barked, half roared, and ran down the giant spinal cord, weaving past the demons on the way.

"Cerb!" she yelled. "Cerberus! Come! Heel!"

Cerberus didn't listen. With cat-like agility, he bounded down to the blood river below, and wasted no time unleashing his predator instincts on the wandering remnants.

Mia held up her hands. "Yosepha!"

Without argument, Yosepha swooped down, grabbed Mia's wrist, and flew down to the blood river near Cerb. Body aching, head throbbing from a night of zero sleep, Mia summoned her armor and staff and slammed its base into the ground. The blood river was a foot deep, just like the dark cavern they'd escaped, but not wide, and she pointed at the embankment.

"Cerberus!" she growled through her teeth. "Come!"

Cerberus, teeth locked around a now-dead remnant's leg, lowered his head and walked toward her, dragging the remnant with him.

"Drop it."

Cerberus did not drop it.

"Drop it!"

If Cerberus got aggressive with her, growled at her, roared at her, or fought her to keep his prize, she wasn't sure what she'd do. What did actual dog owners do if their dog suddenly got aggressive or started showing signs of food aggression?

Cerberus let the dead remnant go.

Mia sighed and rubbed her big dog's heads. Rubs for dopey head, serious head, and boss head, her hands massaging the leathery skin before stroking back the mane of spikes.

"Good boy," she said. "Come." She looked up at the spinal cord stairway overhead, the many demons walking down it, and the angel beside her, chopping down remnants by the pair with each sword swing. There were a lot of remnants.

"I think it best," Yosepha said, "now that Cerberus has obeyed, that you let the hellhound release some frustration. It has not slept either."

"Yeah, you're right." And hopefully Cerberus, like dogs on the surface, wouldn't have the memory span to think he was getting rewarded for running off. "Cerberus, get 'em!"

Cerberus launched at the wandering remnants and ripped them to shreds. Mia watched only long enough to make sure he was fine before she walked out of the river onto some hard ground. Such a massive cavern, with remnants growing out of stalactites and stalagmites, and giant bones sticking up from random chunks of ground. Not so giant, really, compared to the archangel's bones, but still, huge slabs of white that the crew and Anianus's army walked on like boardwalks.

"Alright," Mia said to Anianus once he'd joined them. "Now that I can sense Hell again, I can help out."

"Oh?" The gorujin tetrad jumped down the last few meters of the bone stairs, and flared his wings on the way down. "Is your strange hellhound mutant going to help us? Take care of all these zombies for us?" Shuddering, Anianus wrapped his wings around his torso. "Creepy."

"What? No. I mean, I guess he's already doing that." She gestured to the blood river, and Cerberus running around inside it, taking down remnant after remnant. As long as he didn't run off, that was fine. "I mean, I can use my powers now."

"Ah, the abilities of an unmarked. I've only heard whispers of such powers. Not even Dobasi has told me what you're truly capable of." Wearing an evil grin that Romakus could have worn, the giant demon squatted in front of her, tilted his head, and his long dreadlocks rolled off his shoulder.

He didn't believe she had power. Or he didn't think they were dangerous. Apparently, her fancy armor wasn't proof enough.

She frowned at him, held out a hand, and pointed it at the bone stairway they'd walked down. A few demons were still on it, but she wanted to make a point.

The bone structure vibrated and groaned, and changed. It bent and warped, more malleable than rock, and Mia was free to play music for it and curve and twist it like a snake. Sculpting it was easy enough, but she had to be careful she didn't play the music loudly. A delicate balance of loud, but not so loud Hell would jump on board and help her.

The bone grew, its tip flared, and she guided the strange stairway up and pressed it against the exit of the flesh cavern they'd escaped, blocking it. But that wouldn't be enough to stop the rider. She summoned more bone, thick pillars in the shape of spinal cords, and she guided them like a host of centipedes up from between the demons, and brought the giant structures to the exit. They pressed against it, like bracing a wall of boards jammed against a door, or a chair under the doorknob.

White spots danced in her vision, and her legs didn't listen. She fell on her hands and knees, sweat dripping down her body, but when Anianus approached, she smiled up at him and his shocked face.

"That," she said, "is what I can do when I am fucking dead tired, and with no help from Hell."

The tetrad nodded appreciatively and looked up at her work. "That is very impressive. Good job."

She blinked. That was a straight compliment, from a demon. Weird. She wasn't sure whether she liked that or not. A backhanded compliment like Romakus would give her, she'd expect from a demon, or maybe a dismissal like Vin would give her, or just a click or grunt from Kas.

She did not trust this Anianus. Dobasi had used a spire aura, for a little while, and Mia's runes had blocked it. The spire aura was gone now, but that didn't change Dobasi had used it in a bid to find her. Capture the unmarked, the spire aura had ordered. Maybe it still lingered in their hearts, or sins.

"This," Anianus said, gesturing around at the cave tunnel, "is our world. We do not normally enter the areas of Angel's Spine where there are only the holy bodies of the three to find. It is dangerous inside their veins. But here where their flesh meets stone, you will find many demons, and many hellbeasts."

"So just as dangerous," Julisa said.

Laughing, Anianus pointed down the colossal tunnel, and without a word, he and his demons started the march.

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

They found a spot to rest, a quieter section of the cave with a raised chunk of rock ground where the remnants couldn't reach them. Everyone climbed up onto the stone, and Mia stared out from the edge at the surrounding tunnel. A ten-meter drop into the blood river below, but the river was too shallow to stop her from breaking a bone if she fell. Don't fall.

"Okay," Mia said to Anianus. "I'm making my friends and me a home. You all can go do... Well, it's your home. Do whatever you want, I guess. We're sleeping alone."

Anianus squatted in front of her and tilted his head. "Are you giving me orders, unmarked?"

"Nope. Do whatever you want. But I am fucking exhausted, and I trust you as far as I can throw you. So we're going to sleep."

Before Anianus could respond, she turned, faced the wall their raised path of rock ran along, and played the silent song. From the wall she summoned rock, a thick slab of it a few meters thick, pulled it down to the ground, and bent the sides to connect the wall and ground. A door in the front came last, and tadah, she had a cave built in the wall, complete with some small holes in the upper walls for air.

Anianus stared. She grinned at him, scrunched up her nose, and entered her cave. The crew followed. Once everyone was safe within, Anianus stood at the door, head tilted.

"A safe den for you, but not for us?"

"I'm tired," she said. "Maybe next time." She raised her hand, lifted a chunk of ground up into the doorway, and sealed them safely away in her cave.

Surrounded by friends and no one else, she collapsed on her ass, panting. Cerberus pushed up against her, and she leaned on him, hooking an arm between the spikes along his back.

Her voice came out a trembling whisper. "Fuck me, I am drained."

"You antagonize him," Yosepha said.

"Anianus? I don't trust him."

"He saved us from Vicente."

She shook her head. "I know, but I still don't trust him, or Dobasi."

"Smart," Romakus said. "I'm certain Dobasi hunted down and killed all the Damall here in Angel's Spine. He despises me, and intruders."

Mia sat up straight. "He's going to be a problem. No way he's going to just let me go. Or maybe he won't let our angels go, thinking he should get to eat them! Or something. Whatever happens, I just know it won't be good."

Everyone nodded, except Vin, and the crew got comfortable, finding their usual places to sit. Mia made the cave big enough for them to have some room, and they spread out, Azreal and Noah taking one spot, Yosepha and Romakus taking another, and Kas and Vin taking another. Julisa, the wildcard, sat between Vin and Kas, leaned against Kas's side, and ran a claw along his shoulder. Side by side and sitting, they were the same size, though Kas was a meatier beast. She was playing with fire, teasing him. Knowing Julisa, it'd make her happy if Kas got angry at her and smacked her around a little.

Mia glared at her. Julisa returned it with a wicked smile and traced claws along Kas's chest. What a bitch.

"Vin," Mia said. She crawled over to the big guy, sat in front of him, and glared at him. If she asked if he was okay, he'd dismiss her. She had to play his game and be aggressive. "You're wounded. Badly."

"I will be fine."

"You really took the initiative when you jumped Vicente. You could have died, you know, if they'd been faster."

Vin snorted, and said nothing.

"And," she said, "Anianus thinks, once Alessio finds you, you might have triggered a war, killing her bailiff and all."

Another snort, and click, deep in his throat.

"I didn't tell you to attack him," she said.

Vin leaned over her, breathed into her face, and her hair fluttered in the hot air.

"I don't need your permission."

"It's not about permission, Vin! You burned down the Maze in the Black Valley, so now Alessio thoroughly hates us. And now you've killed Vicente. Don't be surprised if she sends her entire army after us now! She might use a spire aura, summon an army, seal that aura in with her tools, and then we'll have, oh I dunno, a few hundred thousand demons chasing us!"

The demon snorted. "I will--"

"You can't fight a few hundred thousand demons at once, Vinicius." She dropped the full name like a mom scolding their child. "We're trying to get to False Gate quietly. You're making it anything but quiet."

He didn't back off, and again snorted in her face. "Your indecision will cost you your life. I am the reason you are alive."

Mia frowned her hardest frown and looked at the rest of the crew for some backup. The three angels had nothing to say, so she settled for Romakus.

"Hard to say," he said. "Vicente was looking for a fight, both times. Maybe in the second encounter, Anianus could have convinced him to leave, but... Well, I can't entirely blame Vinicius for attacking when he had the chance."

"Indeed," Julisa said, slipped her tail around Vin's leg, and winked at Mia. It was so performative, it caught Mia between angry and laughing.

Sighing, Mia inched away, sat in the middle of the cave, and lay on her back. With her flimsy red silks, she had to keep her legs snug together to keep the others from getting a peek.

"Cerberus," she said, and held out her hands.

Her big, beautiful lion-wolf dog lay beside her, facing her, and set all three heads on her chest. She hugged them as best she could, scratched the underside of his neck, and combed back his mane's spikes with her arm. And the bestest boy in the whole world rumbled happily.

After a quiet few minutes, Vin spoke up. "And Vicente deserved to die for what he said."

Mia blinked up at the titan. "What?"

He didn't answer. In his typical, stupid, stoic, grumpy way, Vin leaned back and closed his eyes, ignoring Julisa's obvious attempt to get the man's attention.

The tetrad shrugged, leaned into Kas's ear, and clicked and chirped quietly in his ear. Apparently Hell froze over, because Kasimiro laughed, a strange, rumbly sound, and nodded.

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

~~Day 95~~

No more spire auras. Maybe Dobasi knew they'd been 'captured' already.

It took a few days of walking to reach their goal, and with bellies full of Vicente's demons' hearts, everyone healed quickly. Everyone except Noah. No amount of resonance would quickly heal a hellfire wound, and the angel clutched his gut the whole way.

Demons looked back at Noah and licked their fangs, but they quickly put distance between themselves and Mia's crew when their eyes met Mia's glare. She'd made a few demonstrations of her power in the past few days, including nearly killing a brute who'd stepped out of line. It was amazing how quickly demons obeyed once they realized you could kill them with a literal thought.

And that, Mia, is how people get addicted to power. She thumped her forehead, stepped ahead of her crew, and walked with Romakus and Yosepha, Cerb at her heels.

"The rider is after me," she whispered. "We sure this is a good idea? Going to the spire? Considering Dobasi was willing to use an aura..."

"We got a choice?" Romakus asked.

"I could get us out of here. Maybe. I could try and break through the roof." She gestured up at the flesh ceiling raining blood on them. "I'd have to try really, really hard, and it'd take Hell's help. A lot of it. It'd probably make a lot of noise, the silent kind, and the aliens would find us."

The tetrad nodded and looked up. "It could get us all killed."

"Yeah, but there's no way we trust Dobasi, right? He'll try and do something, and I bet the rider will show up and ruin everything. We'll have an enemy on both fronts. You don't win battles fighting on two fronts."

Romakus raised a brow and grinned at her. "Since when were you a tactician?"

"I got a smart brother. So, let's just stay on our toes, or talons, or hooves, okay? If I see things are going sour, I'll break us out, and you just know things will go from bad to worse when I do."

Yosepha patted her back with her wing. "Must you be so cynical?"

"I got a cynical brother." She gave her best leader's nod and spoke louder. "Anianus."

The tetrad, walking in the center of his army, slowed until he walked with her.

"Mia Uh-A-Secret?"

She blinked and stared. Right, she'd told him her last name was 'It's uh, a secret'. She groaned.

"We there yet?"

He laughed. "Through this tunnel."

He wasn't lying. They moved through a long tunnel of stone and bleeding walls, and came out to yet another cavern, colossal, walls only visible as hazy silhouettes of rock and bone with tiny slivers of amber.

In the center was the spire, except instead of a rising tower of spiky black metal interwoven and covered in flesh and bone, the tower reached down from the ceiling. It stabbed down, piercing the flesh ceiling high above, and into the ground below, like someone had smashed it down with a hammer. The spire's bottom half was too big to fit inside the cavern, so a good chunk of it was somewhere above the flesh ceiling, and a good chunk was below the rock ground. So Mia and the crew were actually below the center point where you'd normally enter, and they were looking at the bottom half, or what was visible of it.

Giant flesh tubes connected to its sides. Like a heart with veins connected to it, the flesh tubes reached out and connected either with the ceiling above, or the distant walls, and as Mia and the demons grew closer, she gawked at the size of them. They had to be big enough for even Vin to walk through without trouble.

A million spikes covered the ground, a mix of black spikes skewering demons and damned souls alike, and bone spikes with strange skulls growing on their sides. And between the spiky landscape, were demons. Thousands upon thousands of demons. They scurried in the dark, or lumbered through it, big and small, each chasing after some unknown task, each covered in a myriad of scars or missing a wing or horn.

It wasn't long before the surrounding demons had formed a crowd, split down the middle to let Anianus and his army walk through. Thousands of eyes in the shadows and the raining blood, each staring at the angels, Vinicius, and Mia most of all once they realized what she was.

"Unmarked," they whispered. "She's unmarked."

Anianus spread his wings but kept walking. "You know what Dobasi has decreed," he yelled. "Touch the unmarked, and he will make you wish the zotivas crushed you in your egg."

The onlookers nodded and kept their distance. Maybe Angel's Spine was a bit more organized than Death's Grip, or maybe they just feared Dobasi more, but the demons didn't so much as take a step toward Mia. And from the way they spoke with each other, nudged each other's shoulders or wings, it was almost like they were comrades or companions. Maybe growing up in hatching pits where hellbeasts were the biggest threat, not each other, had formed more bonds than in Death's Grip. It almost seemed nice, host of hideous scars aside.

"It really got nailed in," Mia said.

"Hmm?" Yosepha asked.

"The spire. It just got nailed down into the ground. The bottom half is supposed to be in the ground already, but I guess it got pushed down deeper when an archangel landed on it. So the top half is all mixed up in the ground and in the archangel's body, and the bottom half is..." She gestured at it. "How are we supposed to get in?"

"Just follow me," Anianus said.

Follow they did. Everyone was healed, save for Noah, but if any demon thought they could take on the wounded angel, none tried. Azreal and Yosepha walked in their armor, and as they approached the tower, Yosepha took to the air.

Anianus looked up, snarling. "I didn't say you could fly."

"And I didn't ask for your permission."

At least the angel extended an olive branch and dismissed her sword and shield. Still in her armor, she slowly circled the spire, and tens of thousands of demons stared up at her. Some imps and grems leapt from holes in the spire's side, exits that should have connected to ground tunnels, but had none to connect to since the spire had been displaced. Mia and her gang had gone so deep underground, they'd gone deeper than the spire had originally been, only to arrive at the spire anyway. The little demons glided, some trying to join the angel, or at least see her from up close, but demons could only glide, and eventually they landed on the crowd below.

Anianus walked up a raised slope of rock. Not a slope. Stairs, demon-made, giant boulders piled on each other and worn into stairs over millions of years. The stairs connected to one of the many big holes on the spire's outside, and blood leaked from the exit down the stairs. Whether it was archangel blood or the tower's blood, Mia couldn't tell. The fact the spire itself had its own flesh and blood and bone, all connected by black metal, made everything so much more complicated.

But once they were inside, it all became familiar. That answered that question: all spires looked the same on the inside. Inner balconies of black with spiked edges, with a giant hole down the center that reached from top to bottom. The walls were thick, filled with rooms, and each floor had a stairway of bone going up and down, but only the betrayers used them. The demons just jumped up or down, using the center hole as a shortcut.

"Please," Mia said. "Please tell me we're not going to the top."

Anianus grinned back at her. "We're going to the top."

Anianus's demons spread out and did whatever it was they normally did after multiple days of wandering, trekking, and hiking. They borderline collapsed and dragged their tails, wings, or asses up and down to different floors. Some rooms were massive, filled with hundreds of demons, coming and going through the giant holes on the walls that should have connected to caves, if the spire had been where it was supposed to be. It was chaos.

Mia climbed onto Kas's back, and the gang followed Anianus up the floors, jumping up the inner balcony ledges. Sure enough, she spotted a couple of big-time hitters. A female tetrad, a bolstara like Zel, hooves, no tail, four arms. She stood on a balcony, covered head to toe in armor, and watched Mia jump past on the way up the tower.

Mia looked back down. "Vinicius?"

The titan snorted and jumped to the next floor with no trouble. He didn't have to jump very far to reach, big as he was, but he was so damn huge and heavy, if it weren't for all the hearts he'd eaten, his wounds would have ripped open.

Azreal stayed ahead of Mia, flying. Noah stayed with Vinicius, still without his armor. Dangerous being around demons in the center of their home with no armor or weapon. Vinicius would protect him if it came to it. Hopefully. He damn well better. But Yosepha flew in and joined them, settling Mia's nerves.

By the time they got near the top and found the room with the giant skull entrance, everyone was exhausted, even Mia just holding onto Kas's back and neck. And instead of posturing, all big and tough like the other demons, both Anianus and Romakus were happy to groan, pant, and fall to a knee. Everyone was exhausted.

"Come," Anianus said, and he stepped through the giant skull, through its mouth, into the throne room.

Mia got on her feet and followed directly behind him, Azreal directly behind her, and the demons directly behind him. She didn't feel so vulnerable anymore, and if she had to fight, she could. While the spire wasn't a part of Hell, and she couldn't control it directly with the music, she could feel and hear the strings of music connecting to Hell beyond its walls. If push came to shove, she could make something happen.

And besides, she had a juggernaut of an angel a meter behind her, huge spear and enormous shield drawn. She probably looked intimidating as hell with him as her bodyguard, let alone Vinicius.

While the walls were a mix of black metal and spire flesh, the furniture was made of bone. Like the bone structures outside the spire, it was all grown into weird shapes that made no sense, the kind no animal in Hell or on the surface would have had. Spinal cords shaped into chairs. Rib cages shape into tables, with the sternum as the flat top. Skulls with open mouths for doors.

And on the throne of bone sat a tetrad. A korgejin, hooves and no tail, but otherwise exactly like Anianus and Romakus, with a huge wingspan and at least ten feet tall. But unlike them, he had a single, massive gash down his chest. It wasn't made by a sword, judging from how the scar's edges were frayed. A claw?

The metal walls jutted with huge black spikes, each holding a skull that was neither human nor demon. Hellbeast skulls. Along the walls both around Dobasi and the sides of the room, blood oozed, seeping out of muscle flesh in the seams where ceiling met wall, and the blood flowed down into hidden holes. The room's floor had a literal half-moon of blood circling it.

Dobasi sat naked, but a colossal axe rested against the arm of his throne. No, wait, not naked. The huge demon stood up, and as he walked toward them, his cape of skulls dragged behind him. A hundred chains dangled from his back, shoulders, neck, and horns, and each was lined with a skull from top to bottom. His honor guard of six brutes, scarred and decorated with metal and skulls, followed.

He didn't bring his axe. His sharp, demony, skull-ish face, his large orc teeth, and hard, deep-set eyes painted the picture of a really cruel man.

"You resisted my spire's aura," he said. Skulls dangled from hooks at the base of his wings' fingers. "You bring angels to my door, and a child of the Old Ones."

"She brings more than that," Anianus said. "The rider is chasing us. Still chasing us, I imagine."

Mia glared at Anianus, but he winked at her. Unreadable.

Dobasi grumbled and glared down at Mia. "I am Dobasi of Angel's Spine."

Poke the bear? Poke the bear.

"You mean Heaven's Tears."

Dobasi's eyes widened for half a second, but it was enough to give him away. He knew the real name for the place, likely from whatever connection he had with the archangel flesh his spire skewered. And if he knew stuff, that meant Mia could learn something from him.

"Yes," he said, earning a raised eyebrow from his bailiff. "You are the first unmarked I have encountered."

"We're pretty rare. I'm Mia."

"Mia." Dobasi grunted and aimed his glare at the angels behind her. But it was Romakus who caught his eye. "The Damall are dead and buried, traitor. Give me one reason I shouldn't kill what's left of your group?"

Romakus stepped up, wearing his jackass smile. "Because my angel friends, and even Vinicius here, would take issue with that."

"Three angels and one ragarin would not stop me."

Romakus knelt down behind Mia and set a hand on her shoulder. "And this little pipsqueak could destroy your entire spire."

Dobasi's grunt turned to a growl, and he came closer, an aura of violence flowing off him and filling the room. "I should strike you down where you stand."

Azreal stepped forward, but Mia held up a hand. When in Rome.

She closed her fist, and shook the spire. A hard pluck of the strings, just enough to make the ground tremble. She couldn't touch the archangel flesh above, or the spire itself, but there was plenty of rock around, above and below, and she made it vibrate.

Dobasi didn't stumble, but his glare widened. His brutes each snorted and reached for their weapons, but Dobasi held up a hand, and his guards settled down.

"What is your plan, unmarked?"

"You know about the alien invaders?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I'm on a journey to stop them. I was passing through Angel's Spine when you sent Anianus to fetch me. Which I agreed to because, apparently, this spire of yours allows you to communicate with the archangels? They might have information I can use."

Dobasi glared at Anianus. Anianus shrugged and gestured back to Mia. How infuriating it had to be, to be a big, tough demon like Dobasi, all dressed up in skulls and sporting the most badass scar ever, only for one of your generals to be a joker.

"We will speak with the spire," Dobasi said. "Tomorrow. Rest for now."

Mia sighed. "Can we trust you?"

"No. But the archangels said you are the key to defeating the alien invader. The aura I summoned days ago was an order to capture you, not hurt you. I will not harm you."

Well, that was probably as good as she was going to get.

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

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

~~Day 88~~

~~David~~

It took a bit to get to the far right side of the chasm. They were down inside a giant cave, with no front or back, a hollowed-out section at the bottom of the ravine wall. A perfect recipe for a cave-in, but the cave had colossal pillars holding it up, each ten meters wide and a hundred meters tall. David and his group walked through the strange cave, the shadow of its depth on their right, and a deadly pit on their left. A pit with an Old One in it.

"I don't understand," Caera said, walking the edge beside the old monster. "Why do you have piles of skulls?"

David winced. Caera was smarter than he was, or at least had a better sense of survival. And yet there she was, speaking with Azazel, tail practically wagging. Without a spire aura to worry about, David walked beside her, doing his best to keep an eye on the nine-headed monster on his left, and the army on his right weaving around the titanic pillars.

There were remnants, deep in the cave's shadows, and their screams doubled over each other with delayed echoes. For someone with a loud voice, it would have made for amazing acoustics. And Azazel had nine of them. Each word it spoke gently vibrated the cave, so even as it walked beside them in the pit instead of the cave itself, every demon felt its words in their bones.

"I am one of the ancient, little tregeera. I am one of the first. Before there were demons, there was I, birthed from the blood and flesh of mother Hell, and Lucifer's ritual. I am to be worshiped. I am to be adored. My servants bring me food. And the skulls are to honor my greatness."

David gulped. That was a little damning, practically admitting to being an evil god right off the bat like that.

Caera continued. "So if you feed your blood to a human, they become a betrayer, too?"

"Yes," Azazel said. "They are mine."

While the hydra walked in the pit beside them, most of its body was below the harsh drop of the edge of their cave. They couldn't see the bottom, where Azazel's feet walked. The thick darkness hid most of its heads, but the Old One kept one head near, on the same level as David and the group. A titan's head, big enough to swallow fifty demons in a single bite, and it hovered along beside them, literal meters away from Caera, as they walked through the long cave.

"You've been eating and resting for millions of years?" Caera asked.

"Billions."

Demons and angels didn't experience the flow of time the same way humans did. But still, damn. Apparently, Hell, Heaven, and their contents might have looked different back then, compared to now. What did Azazel look a couple of billion years ago? A microbe?

"And demons?" Caera asked. "Lucifer created demons, right? Or the spire did. What are they? How did Lucifer do what he did?"

Azazel chuckled. "Large questions. What does a demon care of history?"

Shrugging, Caera shook her head. "I always have."

"Lucifer saw a great flaw in the plan of his Father. Humans, souls, are flawed. Why entrust the Great Tower's growth to them? What could these broken, inferior things bring to fight against the endless oblivion beyond the Great Tower's embrace?" With another chuckle, Azazel leaned in a little closer, bringing his head up over the edge of the pit so the mansion-sized skull hung over them sideways, eye pointed down at David. "What say you, unmarked? You are the first soul I have ever spoken to worthy of Heaven. What say you?"

David looked up. It seemed disrespectful to avoid eye contact, but staring into an eye that big was an introvert's nightmare.

"I don't know. I mean, the human experience is a tiny, mangled thing. But maybe that's what the Great Tower needs? What good is the experience of an entity as powerful as an archangel?" He shrugged and looked down. Too much eye contact. "On the surface, humans get... emotional. Really emotional. We pour our hearts, minds, and souls into so many things, often pointless things, because we are broken, flawed beings. Maybe that's what the Great Tower needs?"

Again, the monster chuckled, and brought its head back to hover side-by-side with Caera and the nearby demons.

"Perhaps. As for your question, little tregeera, Lucifer created the nine spires using the flesh of Hell and the Great Tower, his first act against God. The spires first birthed me and my kin, and then birthed demons, using the same flow of afterlife Hell herself does. Lucifer took that life cycle, tainted it, corrupted it, and through it the first of our soldiers were born. The children of the Old Ones. And as eons passed, the spires birthed different demons, just as Hell herself births different hellbeasts."

Caera nodded. It wasn't like they hadn't already guessed it was something like that, but to actually get confirmation from a literal Old One had the tiger almost bouncing.

"So demons were created to be soldiers?" she asked. "And the Old Ones were... generals?"

"Yes. Hell produces hellbeasts to ensure the great cycle continues. That souls who come to Hell die, that their resonance joins the mother, and that their essence fuels the bodies of the hellbeasts themselves so they may yet perpetuate the cycle. Remnants rise, and either die to the ravages of Hell, to the crueler hand of time, or to the claw and tooth of especially hungry hellbeasts. When remnants' slates are finally wiped clean of the vile taint of the surface, of the black notes that poison their resonance and souls, they rejoin the Great Tower."

It really was an ecosystem. Hell took the nasty souls, wiped them clean, and put them back into the cycle.

David looked back at Moriah and Tsila, and both angels stared at the giant snake head hovering beside them. Both still in their armor, they walked with their weapons out, as if they could fight the Old One if he attacked. They both shared David's glance. They were listening to every word Azazel had to share, devouring the knowledge like starved children. The council didn't tell them shit.

"But... why?" Caera asked. "Why the cycle?"

"I do not know. My creator spoke of the purpose of the Great Tower, a great tree, floating on oblivion, forever reaching higher, chasing ascension. A task, a goal, and the great purpose of the cycle. He could see beyond the Great Tower, to the endless darkness beyond. But my kin and I cannot."

Nodding, Caera looked back at the rest of the group, giving other people a chance to speak. It was a long trip, and Azazel said it'd follow them until it was time to go back to the surface. A few days of walking with an Old One, each of its steps vibrating throughout the titanic cavern.

No one else spoke up.

"Do you know anything about the other wars? The second and third? Cain's War, and the Spires War?" she asked.

The hydra hissed, and a second head hovered over the other. "There have been countless wars between the spires. Children of the Old Ones, first born of the Spires' bellies, have sought to claim the ruins of Lucifer's creations since the beginning. With time, the wars grew quieter, and our children fewer. But with Cain, war again rampaged across the land. The first souls ever to devour the heart of an angel, him and his wife Lilith."

Caera almost vibrated. "That's how Cain and Lilith got their power?"

"Only partly. Cain and Lilith killed many angels, growing stronger with each. They devoured the hearts of demons as well, and bore the power and aggressive desires of demon blood in their guts. Most souls who eat demon hearts succumb, become addicted to violence, and destroy each other. But those two were above the addiction. To them, murder was a way of life."

David gulped and looked back at the two angels again. Tsila had mentioned something about bearing the taint from eating demon hearts. And David almost asked why it didn't seem to affect him that way, far as he could tell. And why, when he ate a demon heart, he absorbed memories.

But the Great Tower absorbed memories, right? A person was their memories. If a soul went back to the Great Tower like Azazel said, then the Great Tower was absorbing their memories, too. Which meant, if he was a child of Hell, he was part... Great Tower? The fuck did that even mean?

David raised a hand. "Partly gained their power?"

Azazel nodded. The head flowed down into the darkness of the endless pit, and another head replaced it.

"I know not what happened, but somehow, those two visited the Frozen Heart. Thousands of years later, they returned, covered in aera armor, wielding aera weapons infused with hellfire, and had become immortal. They could travel through the blood of Hell herself. They used their power to take the Unholy Lands and the vortex for themselves, and they united the spires. With all spires working together, they thought to use Lucifer's vortex and breach Heaven. Only through the intervention of Heaven and countless angels were they defeated. Now, they wander Hell with no army to call their own, and I know not what they do."

Aera armor. Aera weapons infused with hellfire. The rider.

The rider was Cain. Shit.

David stared at the snake head. "How do you know all this?"

"I listen, unmarked. Through mouth and music, I piece together what information I can."

Caera almost hopped in place. "And the Spires War?"

Azazel's hiss turned into an annoyed snort. "Meaningless. What few first born of the spires' bellies, my and mine kin's children, wasted their lives on a pointless war. Only Belor understood how meaningless their existence is without my father Lucifer. But the other spires resisted him, fought each other, and Heaven dared not let another Cain's War occur. They interfered, and all but a few of the last children of the Old Ones were slain."

"We saw one," Jes said. David almost jumped. He'd forgotten she was there. "Vinicius, a ragarin. Child of Belial, right? He's alive. Or was a couple months ago."

Azazel chuckled. A proper, amused chuckle. It sounded a thousand times more evil than his usual, quieter, sinister laughs.

"I will take pleasure in taunting Belial then."

Jes smiled at David and winked. David rolled his eyes. No way she'd known Azazel would have been happy to hear that.

Caera walked a little closer to the edge. "Lucifer. What was he like?"

Azazel rumbled deep, the slow, heavy breath of someone thinking hard.

"My father was an archangel, little demon. An archangel is not 'like' anything. They are beyond the simple knowing of simple minds. But, sometimes, Lucifer deigned to speak, lowering himself to our understanding of word and rune. He was proud."

David almost laughed. That was so on the nose for Lucifer, a dozen stories from a dozen different religions ran through his mind.

"Imagine," Azazel said. "An entity so vast and beyond powerful, being tasked with tending a garden and its denizens with minds and souls as meaningless as dust mites are to humans on the surface. Can you blame such a being for resenting the task?"

"I can't even see dust mites," David said. "Too small."

"Exactly."

Gulp. That definitely put a bit more context into Lucifer's betrayal. Bowing down and serving something so tiny and meaningless you couldn't even see them? Or in this case, metaphorically couldn't even see them? Yeah, he might take issue with that.

"One day," Azazel said, "things will change. But we must defeat the invader. Only then can a great reckoning be had."

David watched the hydra out of the corner of his eye. This wasn't some random monster giving them a helping hand for the possibility of freedom. This was one of Lucifer's nine, one of his first born, or first created, a creature who obviously had faith in Lucifer. If the other Old Ones wanted power for themselves, Azazel was the odd-monster out, and that meant it might want to revive Lucifer, free him, and attack Heaven again.

David needed its help. David might need Lucifer's help. He most definitely did not want either of them attacking Heaven, no matter how much the angels were being assholes.

"Twilight comes," Azazel said, "and the mother aches. Remnants break free, like pus from wounds. Hellbeasts roam in the night and day, disrupting the rhythm. The mother aches."

"That's why remnants are walking free?" Caera asked. "But that's been happening for years now."

"Yes. The invader has been here for years, probing in the dark, looking for us, hurting mother Hell as it lashes out. That is why it is deadly when two unmarked grow near. They are children of Hell, and their notes resonate with each other, announcing the location of Hell in the endless oblivion to the invader. Only then can the alien direct its gaze on a specific point."

Septima glared at David, and he avoided eye contact.

"So we keep the unmarked away from each other," Laoko said. "And the aliens won't invade."

Azazel shook his head. "For now. But with years, the alien grows closer, and its awareness of where the Great Tower floats in the oblivion, more exact. With time, it will not need unmarked near each other to know where to strike, and to rip this Great Tower asunder."

"A time limit," David said. "Any idea how long we have?"

"No. I am no archangel, unmarked."

"How do you know so much, then?"

The snake head loomed closer over him, burying him and the girls in a heavy shadow, in an already dark cave.

"I can hear the music of the Great Tower, and I can hear the mother cry. I listen to the demons and their betrayers, the blasted Cainites, and the silly prattle of imps and grems. I listen to the remnants and their chorus of pain. If you listened to them closer, you might learn something."

The remnants? David looked to his right, to the giant cave and colossal pillars. Deep in the dark, hellbeasts supposedly roamed, and Cainites, and from the pillars and ceiling and floor, remnants grew. Not a lot, but enough. All David ever heard from them were desperate pleas for mercy, freedom, and pure, unfiltered hatred. He'd never tried to really understand them, and the idea of sitting and listening to a thousand remnants scream at him, begging for death or an end to their pain, made his stomach sink.

David sucked in a breath, but Azazel cut him off.

"Rest," the monster said. "The beasts of the mother will not approach. Go." A hand reached up from the black, over the edge of the pit, and gestured out at the giant cave. Way too many fingers. "In three days, we reach the stairway. From there, two days to the spire."

Three days of walking around in the dark with an Old One. David gulped, nodded, and gestured to the cave. The army following moved into the shadow, and Azazel lowered himself back down into the pit, disappearing into blackness.

The group moved deeper into the cave, away from the pit. A distant wall eventually showed itself, lit with amber veins, but too far to provide much light. A sparse amber vein here or there lined the columns, but most of the light came from Moriah and Tsila and their glowing weapons.

"I wonder," Jes said, leaning in close to David. "You can grow forbidden fruit. I wonder if Azazel can't? I wonder if it can only get food from hearts." She looked back at the armies, volas, imps, and grems spreading out, and avoiding Septima's heavy hitters. "You know, like ours? I wonder if it--"

"It?"

She shrugged. "I don't get 'he' vibes from a nine-headed monster. I wonder if it's tricking us so it can eat us."

"I mean, maybe?" His voice grew quieter. "You saw those piles, and skulls don't last forever in Hell. Azazel has been eating wandering demons and souls for a billion years or more. So maybe it can't eat forbidden fruit at all, or can't make any grow? It said it was bound. Maybe this is one of the binding... things, that it can't recover."

Jes shrugged and poked his shoulder with her wing's thumb claw. "Be careful with that thing, David. No one even knew it was down here, except Tarkissa."

"I'm being as careful as I can. Not like I have a lot of options."

"Think you can fight it?"

Septima came closer. "Fight it?"

David grimaced and shrugged. "Maybe? He's, it's, whatever, is big. Means I'd have to play some big music. Draining, and I'm already fucking tired." For good measure, he gave Septima a glare. "Not too tired to deal with you, if I have to, by the way."

The threat bounced off the tiger. "You could actually fight the Old One?"

"At my best? Yeah, probably. I'm getting better with the music every day." He held out a hand, and without his staff or armor to help him, he crafted a spear from the ground. Inner fingers aching, he pushed through the pain and lifted the stone spear from the floor. Not just a sharp stick, but an actual spear. And for good measure, he fashioned two more. "Zazee, Tacharius."

Zazee, Tacharius, and Zabulon stepped up. The succubus and incubi had stayed close this whole time, quiet as mice.

"For us?" the succubus asked.

"For Naoko, Fuad, and Natalie."

Zazee laughed, but took the spears and handed them to the three betrayers. Zazee, Tacharius, and Zabulon stayed with each other, sex demons keeping an eye out for each other. The three betrayers stuck by their sides, and they stared up and around at the nigh endless cave with almost as much wonder as they had Azazel.

"Unmarked," Zazee said. "I don't suppose you'll be using your talents on us any time soon?"

"Talents?"

The long-haired succubus grinned.

Acelina strutted between them and nudged the succubus aside with a wing. "David can fuck to his heart's content when Tarkissa is dead. For a while. And then we head to False Gate. Until then, control yourself, volara."

Zazee rolled her eyes, which turned into a few up-and-down glances at Acelina. Sexy thoughts, no doubt. Acelina noticed it, too, but to someone like Acelina, being admired was just a normal, expected part of life, even in a crazy scenario like this.

Everyone found a place to sit, clusters forming near the giant pillars. The pillars themselves were smooth stone, not natural, or at least not natural by the usual standards. The whole place looked carved. Maybe Azazel's servants had carved it, a bazillion years ago? How'd they reach so high? Then again, how did Egypt build the pyramids? Aliens, obviously.

"David," Caera said, and she pointed up at a pillar.

Runes were carved in the stone a few meters up, but not written in amber. More like someone had taken a hard chunk of blackstone and etched in a message.

"The numbers grow," David read. "Here we wait, until Lucifer sends us to fight."

Caera bounced in place, literally, hopping from side to side. "The children of the Old Ones! I bet they had an army of them down here, getting ready to fight off the angels. Let's explore."

David raised an eyebrow and looked at the others. They all shrugged, but Daoka nodded and chirped.

"I guess a bit of exploring won't hurt," David said. "Your feet don't hurt? I know demons don't like hiking." He almost said paws. She most definitely did not have paws.

"They're killing me," she said. "But I want to see more."

And so they went exploring.

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

"Alright," Moriah said. "Now that we're far and alone from the group, what did you wish to speak of?"

Caera looked back at the angel. All the girls were with her and David, Las included, while the succubi, incubi, Septima, and her forces were a couple minutes walk away.

"What?" Caera asked.

"You... wanted to get us alone, yes?"

"No. I wanted to explore."

Moriah flared her wings, groaned, and lifted her sword high overhead like a torch. "Ridiculous."

"I think it's cute," Laoko said.

Daoka clicked, nodded, and gestured up at Laoko.

"Cute," Acelina said, egg in her arms, "but ridiculous, as well. We do not have time for this."

"We're just looking around a bit," Caera said. "Come on! We're in the depths of the Scar!"

Caera rarely got like this, and she never literally bounced from side to side. Once, David had sat with Caera when they were hunting Cainites, and they'd talked about how dark, violent, aggressive, and single-minded demons could be. She'd talked about how, no matter what, she'd kill the Cainites who'd killed her friends, get revenge, and feast. The need had consumed her.

The demon in front of him now was smiling, excited, and bubbling with more energy than he'd ever seen, even when she'd first learned he could read the old runes.

They found some more, carved lower in a pillar. "Datarius is dead. Hell is better off." They found another. "Valzeelia conspires. Be wary." And another. "I, Cilia, live. I was here." David laughed. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

"They wrote in the ancient tongue?" Tsila asked.

"I guess," David said. "I mean, if these were written billions of years ago, and have survived all this time untouched, what languages did they have back then? What language are your oldest books written in?"

"The old tongue," Tsila said, nodding. "No one can read them, save for the council angels."

"What about Ezekiel?" Jes asked. "And the other super angels."

The angel shook her head. "Not even they. The First War is from before their time. They were born as humans rose from the soup of evolution, so the texts say. But the First War was fought while the Earth itself was raw."

However that worked. What were Heaven and Hell like back then? Was Lucifer a blob? The Old Ones writhing masses of bacteria? Angels just floating motes of glowing dust?

"A couple billion years," David said. "That's a long time for things to change. I--Caera!" He jogged after his girlfriend, and the tiger disappeared around another pillar.

"This one! Read this one!"

He laughed. He wasn't used to seeing a girl get this... nerdy, about something. It was beyond cute, and he had no idea how to handle it.

A little more exploring led to another discovery. A tablet, massive, and standing upright where a pillar should have been. Blackstone statues stood around its edges, holding up the giant slab of stone. Statues of children of the Old Ones. One looked like that Vinicius demon.

The tablet showed war. An etched drawing showed a battle between the children, tearing each other to bits. From the giant pillars in the picture, the tablet was showing a fight that'd happened where David stood. And at the top of the picture, amber runes glowed, flowing with the handwriting David had seen before. Hell's handwriting.

David read the runes. "The children fight, for it is all they know."

Caera stood up and gently ran some claws down the tablet. "I suppose... Hell drew this?" Slowly, her claws slid over to the statues, and she tapped the forehead of one of the big demons kneeling and holding the tablet from the bottom. "A whole bunch of children of the Old Ones, all down here, soldiers to be used for battle, and they just killed each other."

"They couldn't get along," David said. "On the surface, Earth, countries fall all the time for two common reasons: the people in charge are corrupt or tyrants, leading to a revolt or downfall; or, they don't get along, and they destroy each other. With a bunch of giant, power-hungry demons, I guess it was inevitable they'd kill each other."

"Guys," Jes said, and she pointed past them.

David didn't have to look to know what he'd find. In the darkness, past the tablet and toward the back wall of the cave hidden by shadow and pillars, were more statues. Each a child of the Old Ones, each a towering example of strength and brutality, and each was locked in battle with another.

Caera bounded toward the statues, and the group followed. So much for being tired from a day of hiking. The tregeera circled some statues, stood up and touched others, and gave a few a hard shove. But blackstone statues were heavy, and each demon braced in a position to stay standing.

"I wonder," Acelina said, standing by a statue, "if there are any other of the ancient children still alive, save for Vinicius. I have never seen another."

"Maybe," Laoko said. "I met Rekath, when I was young and he ruled the Grave Valley, thousands of years ago. Then, there were few children of the Old Ones, only the spire rulers and a few nomads, carving their own territory or wandering the land. I met Vinicius, but I knew to keep my distance."

Nodding, Acelina poked a statue with a wing's thumb claw. "Vinicius killed hundreds in a single battle before Zelandariel finally captured him, and she spent hundreds of years trying to break him. And failed. Imagine a soldier as strong as that, but numbering in the thousands." She gestured out to the statues surrounding them, and the thousands more in the dark, with only small shimmers on the blackstone giving them away. "Perhaps millions."

Everyone stared at the statues, waiting for them to come alive, announce their power, and account for their folly. But the only sound or movement was the Las, the little ladies scurrying around the statues and climbing up their bodies. The joys of being light.

Lasca perched on one's head, a Vinicius look-alike. Barely humanoid, the demon would have walked with a hunched forward posture, giant tail behind him, four arms hanging, short dragon snout ahead. His back's spikes and head's horns were colossal. David could have easily climbed them and stood on them to ride the demon.

"Ever meet Belor?" Jes asked. "This is him, right? Or an abdarin like him." She gestured at a statue that looked surprisingly like a korgejin tetrad. Two arms and two legs, hooves, no tail, and large wings. But unlike a korgejin, a child of Abaddon had two black tusks jutting from the sides of the mouth. Giant wings, bigger than Acelina's, and far thicker. And like all the male children of the Old Ones, the face was something between demony, skull-ish, and a dragon.

"I assume," David said, "spires only give birth to children they're connected to. So Death's Grip gives birth to children of Belial, like Vinicius. But we see all nine breeds here."

Laoko shrugged. "The First War likely lasted thousands of years, or perhaps millions. I imagine many of the old children drifted through the provinces."

"I suppose."

"Fuck," Jes said. "Look at this bitch." She pointed at a female statue, surrounded by other dead statues.

"That," Laoko said, "is a kalatara, a child of Azazel."

David came closer and stared up at the twelve-foot woman. While the men had dragony, skull-ish faces, the women were the opposite, with barely any nose at all, and flat-ish faces that almost looked like masks. Which made the ones with open mouths, showing off the many shark teeth inside, fucking scary. Almost like Acelina's face, except not solid black.

Acelina clicked once and poked the statue's mouth. "If this were the surface, on Earth, I suspect we'd think they were our ancestors. But demons do not breed. Hell does. The spire does."

"Yeah," David said. "It's gotta be something about how Hell and the surface interact."

Moriah stared up at a close statue and poked it with her glowing sword. "This sight is... unsettling, demons slaughtering each other. Not since the First War have angels struck--"

Laoko spun and faced the angel. "You killed Galon practically yesterday, angel."

Like she'd been punched in the face, Moriah stepped back and lowered her head. Tsila played interference and got between them.

"Moriah," Tsila said, "thought she was helping the council. How was she, or I to know the council were corrupt? We still don't know that for certain!" Frowning, something David hadn't thought the gabriem capable of, Tsila stepped up to Laoko and glared up at her. "Leave her be."

Undeterred, Laoko leaned down over Tsila and snorted in her face. "I do not blame the angel for killing Galon, no matter how much it angers me. What angers me, holy warrior, is your righteous attitude and ludicrous belief that you are better than demons." She took a step closer, and Tsila had to take a step back. "You holy warriors are bloodthirsty. You want to fight. You want to kill. You want to come down to Hell and unleash your sick desire to 'purge the unclean' and 'lay waste to the enemies of God', all under the illusion you do it for God. But truly, you do it for yourself. Or have you not met angels who wear their violent desires on their arm?"

David gulped and looked at Moriah, but she kept her eyes down, and slowly lowered her sword, a torch aimed at the ground. Her ex-boyfriend Shaul, the angel who'd nearly killed Daoka, had been just like that.

Tsila flared her wings. "I--"

Laoko stomped her hoof. "I am sick of hearing your inane babble and empty words about the desire to do good, to help souls, to nurture and protect. Did you think I wouldn't notice the three betrayers who shared our camp had damaged feet, and you, a gabriem, chose not to heal them?"

"They are damned souls!"

"They are souls! Food to us demons. But less than that to an angel. You would rather pretend they didn't even exist." Glaring like she might cut Tsila down with nothing but her thoughts, Laoko pushed past her and started the trek back to the army. "Let us sleep."

And just like that, Laoko dropped a nuke that shut everyone up, and went back to join the others, leaving the rest of them standing and squirming.

"She... is right," Moriah said. "Angels are no better than demons."

Tsila spun on her friend, opened her mouth, and stopped herself.

Daoka joined them. The satyr leaned in, nudged her ram horns against Moriah's shoulder, and chirped twice at her, but to no avail. Moriah shook her head, raised her torch sword, and followed Laoko.

Caera sighed and followed. "It was fun while it lasted."

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

~~Day 91~~

A few days later.

Laoko went back to normal immediately, quiet and calculating, a little playful and flirtatious, and otherwise unfazed by the argument. David knew better. There was zero chance Laoko wasn't thinking about it, ruminating, and wondering what words she could have used or would use in the future to destroy Moriah even more.

Moriah, on the other hand, walked as if she had a rucksack on, eyes downcast, wings drooping. Her small wing was almost completely regrown, and in a couple days she'd probably be flying again. Maybe that'd make her feel better?

The groups walked along, endless pit on their left, colossal cave on their right, ravine walls overhead. Azazel walked with them. No one died, not since David had killed that one gargoyle. Things were going way too well.

David looked back. His girls were with him, and the Las dangled from Laoko and some of her back spikes, weightless to the bolstara tetrad. Laoko didn't mind. Like Acelina, the Las had a way of getting the big, angry women to not be so angry.

Acelina still had the egg with her, too, and made no effort to dump it on anyone else. He really owed her.

"Azazel," David said.

The titan kept a single snake head close enough for them to see, and it loomed closer.

"Yes, unmarked?"

Practically polite. Yeah, David didn't trust it at all.

"The egg we have. I felt something from Hell, a note I didn't recognize, and it drew me to a hellbeast den. And right there in front of me, an egg was birthed. I swear it's different from other eggs. Do you know anything about it?"

Azazel shook its head. "You are a child of Hell, that much is clear. I can only surmise Hell wishes to help you survive."

"Hard for me to think of Hell as an actual entity, with her own thoughts and desires."

"Yes," Azazel said, with a touch of venom. "it is. But she ignores my music, while she listens to yours."

David winced. If he said the wrong thing, or poked the wrong spot, the Old One might get a little too angry to be polite, a little too envious, and swat David like a bug. If David had time, he could defend himself, turn the entire canyon into his own weapon, and fight Azazel and his music. With the help of Hell, David could play music that'd shake the entire Scar province.

And then he'd summon the aliens, and they'd all die.

Azazel raised a second head from the depths. "A few more hours and we will reach a tunnel back to the surface. A terrible stairway."

"Terrible stairway?" David asked.

"The tunnel to the surface is perilous. You may need to use your music to survive."

David groaned, voice drowned under the quiet rumble of 1500 demons walking.

The hydra leaned in closer until the eye was only a few meters from David. "If you survive, unmarked, and take the spire for yourself, do make sure you make the correct choice. Belial, Astaroth, and perhaps my other kin are only interested in their own power. They will devour you if they can. Free me, and I will help you reach my creator."

"You're sure I can even do that, Azazel?"

"With the power of the spire, you will either be able to free me, or take the first steps to do so. And with my power, we will kill the unmarked ravaging the Red Pits, and you will reach your destination."

David sucked at lying. He really, really sucked at it.

"I suppose I don't have a choice, do I?" he said. "Angels, demons, Old Ones, and even other unmarked are in my way. I need your help."

Azazel nodded. "Wise."

David nodded too and flicked his eyes to Laoko. They'd already discussed it, and she mirrored his nod. They were in agreement.

Do not release the Old One. You couldn't trade one evil for another. Azazel would free Lucifer if it could, and if it couldn't, it'd just eat David or another unmarked hoping to gain their power, and do what its kin already wanted to do: take over Heaven and Hell.

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

Deep in the cave, pillars surrounded them, along with the statues of the children of the Old Ones. And above, a tunnel bore straight upward.

Azazel wasn't wrong about the stairway. This shit was something out of a fantasy story, Lord of the fucking Rings, a zigzagging mess of stone that worked its way up the enormous shaft.

"We're expecting to climb this?" David asked.

Azazel, still in his pit hundreds of meters away, reached out with one of his heads and necks across the cavern floor and weaved it between the pillars. It couldn't reach them, but holy shit it got a lot further than it should have. How long was that neck? A hundred meters, two hundred? Godzilla had nothing on the size of that creature.

"Yes," it said. The distance did nothing to quieten the rumbling bass of its voice.

"Can you help us out? Use the music--"

"We are close to Belial and Astaroth. They crush my song as I grow close, as I crush theirs. You must be careful, and if you use your song, be quiet. They will hear it and try to crush yours, too."

David closed his eyes and reached out with his sixth sense. Azazel wasn't lying. The strings of existence flowed within everything, and if David listened really hard, he got a mental map of nearby Hell. But everything was blurry, muddy, mixed with someone trying to play the strings, and someone else squashing their vibrations.

That was the problem with playing the music. If someone else could affect the strings, they could directly affect your own song. It turned everything into a weird game of whether you tried to create new notes, or crush the enemy's notes.

But according to Azazel, their songs weren't powerful enough for them to escape. So what the fuck were Belial and Astaroth doing? Just... fighting? Fighting Azazel all the time? Or maybe each other too?

"So I just climb?" David asked.

The snake head nodded. "Climb. You will be a two-day walk from the spire. Take it for yourself, and then make your choice."

Make your choice? David turned and faced the distant hydra, squinting. From the way the earlier conversation had gone, he'd figured Azazel assumed David would free it. Choice implied maybe the Old One knew David might not?

"Come on," Laoko said. "This will take hours."

Caera groaned, waited for David to get her on back, and started the climb.

"Sure you don't want me to climb on foot?" David asked.

"You weigh nothing," Caera said. "Just hold on."

He frowned down at the tiger between his legs. He was a light guy, but still, that was a scary staircase.

Behind him, Septima and her brutes followed, as did the rest of David's group. Beneath them, a mix of the two demon armies started up the stairway, the winding stairs only one or two meters wide. Jagged rocks, some jutting out in their path, some dipping down, creating harsh slopes you had to climb instead of walk.

"Azazel created this path forever ago," David said. "But it said no one uses it. So be careful Laoko. See anything suspicious, let me fix it."

The tetrad nodded. Tall as she was, Laoko was the best equipped to handle the mountainside. Hooves helped, but it was her height that gave her a climber's advantage, and the four arms. Four hands made for easy holds.

Caera didn't have as easy a time, and stumbled in a few places, each slip sending David's heart up into his throat.

"Okay, nope," he said, and got off her back and walked behind her instead. "Tsila?"

Tsila flew beside them, hovering, and occasionally perching on the tunnel walls. A massive tunnel going straight up. A colossal hole. It had plenty of ledges for the angel to perch on.

"If you fall, I'll catch you," she said. "Or, try to. Flying straight down faster than gravity is... difficult."

"Damn. I guess this isn't a movie. They do that in movies all the time."

Moriah didn't fly. Her shorter wing didn't look shorter anymore, maybe even fully healed, but she walked along the path regardless, with Septima and the rest of David's girls ahead of her, and the two armies beneath her.

"I will catch you," Moriah said. "Tsila should scout."

David smiled down at the angel, a couple zigzags below him. "Agreed. Tsila?"

"On it." The angel flew higher, earning some growls from Septima and her brutes.

"Angels," Septima said, directly behind David, "may be waiting for us at the top."

"If they are, I'll do something."

"Azazel said Belial and Astaroth will try to flatten your powers."

"Then I'll have to play really fucking loud, won't I?" He glared back at the tiger literal inches from his ass. "You remind me of me."

She raised her head. "What?"

"A cynical asshole."

Unless he was going crazy, that got a smile out of her.

"Are all unmarked like you?"

"No," he said. "My sister is nicer than me. Usually."

"Usually?"

He nodded, and ran his fingers along the sharp wall of rock beside him, finding occasional grips.

"She tries to give people the benefit of a doubt, a lot more often than I do. But when people throw that chance away? I've never seen anyone get as angry as her. That might have something to do with the firestorm."

"Firestorm?"

"Yeah. There was a firestorm burning in Death's Grip, near the Black Valley. We saw it burning from the border of the Grave Valley. Far as we could tell, it wasn't going anywhere."

Septima snorted. "This is insane. Old Ones, beneath our feet. A child of Hell in front of me, with powers grand, and the ability to speak with Hell herself."

"You're telling me. Three months ago I was sitting in my chair, eating breakfast, when I just keeled over. Died, on the spot. No reason. Sister, too. We wandered around as ghosts for a while before we took a gold, glowing door, right to Heaven's doorstep."

Again, Septima snorted. "You saw Heaven?"

"Saw. Touched, kinda. Tried to walk through the golden gate, but it stopped us."

"That is beyond strange. I cannot--"

Septima slipped.

David spun and grabbed her hand, but the tiger was massive, hundreds and hundreds of pounds, and probably a couple hundred pounds of body armor, too. The tiger slipped through his fingers, roaring, and his back smacked the rock wall behind him.

"Moriah!" he yelled.

Moriah flared her wings, reached out, and grabbed the tiger as she careened down the vertical tunnel. They were a couple hundred meters up. If she hit the bottom, she'd splatter.

Large as angels were, Moriah was small compared to the tiger, and she plummeted down with her into the darkness. A flurry of clicks joined the roars of panic, Daoka's clicks.

"Moriah!" David yelled. "Shit shit. I'll--"

Moriah spread her wings, and gold engulfed them. Every demon in the tunnel covered their eyes as gold light hit them like a flashbang, but David kept his eyes wide open, staring. Her wings flapped hard, both working like a humming bird, fighting against gravity and Septima's great weight.

Moriah flew back up. Slowly, forced to hover, she flew upward, her armored hands hooked under Septima's shoulders. The huge tiger hung from her arms, tail limp underneath her, eyes wide under her helmet as she looked up at Moriah, and then back down at the deadly fall.

"Holy shit," David said, just as Tsila flew down past him. She joined Moriah, and two hovering angels brought the heavy tiger back up to the path.

They set her behind David again, and Septima, panting, pressed her side against the wall and dug her claws into the rock underneath her.

"Thanks," David said, and he smiled up at the hovering angels. "Wing works?"

"Apparently," Moriah said.

"You... didn't know?"

Moriah shook her head and looked at her regrown wing, gold glow now gone. "I thought it might, but I hadn't tried to truly fly yet. Gliding and flying are different." A smile appeared behind the t-slit opening of her helmet. "I can fly again."

"You risked your life saving Septima," David said. "I didn't know you didn't know you could fly yet."

"Yes. Well, you called my name." The angel nodded, gave Septima a small nod too, and took her position back on the stair path.

David sighed and checked his pulse. Yeap, racing. "Septima, you okay?"

The tiger snorted again and looked at the path under her. A rock had broken off the edge, nearly spelling her doom.

"I am fine."

"Sorry I couldn't catch you myself. You're, uh, pretty damn heavy."

Caera mirrored the snort and glared back at David. "If we weren't an inch from death already, I'd hit you. Moriah was supposed to catch her. Why did you try? You almost fell!"

"I--"

"She weighs ten times as much as you do, and you don't even have the strength of a betrayer or Cainite!"

He put up his hands. "I'm sorry! I just... I just reacted."

"Let the bitch die if she can't balance."

"I can balance," Septima said. "This path is... problematic. And I was distracted."

Caera ignored Septima, glared back at David, and prowled ahead once Laoko started again. He was in the doghouse.

He sighed, but dared a peek back at Septima and smiled at her.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I said I'm fine." She growled up at him. "Your companion is right. Do not risk your own life on stupid things."

"Sorry. Couldn't help it."

Septima grumbled.

David grinned, looked back to the path, and to Laoko. The tetrad looked back at Moriah with an expression David couldn't read. Where was Mia when he needed her?