~~Day 96~~

~~Mia~~

They stood in Dobasi's throne room, rested and ready to rip his head off if they had to.

But the bastard had Anianus with him, and a bunch of brutes. And vrats. A couple of gargoyles were with him, and a tiger. Three bat girls hung from the ceiling, and a minotaur wearing an absurd amount of armor stood nearby. All had some nasty scars.

Minotaurs supposedly weren't a threat. Big and slow, they built things, and that was it. But this minotaur, missing an eye, looked ready for battle.

But it wasn't him that had everyone worried. Or Anianus. It was Dobasi, wearing a full suit of meera metal, but also a third tetrad, a woman, also wearing a full suit of meera metal.

A demon decked head to toe in black spiky metal armor was a scary thing. Two was especially scary.

"Who's this?" Mia asked, gesturing to the bolstara tetrad. Hooves, no tail, but otherwise looked just like Julisa. No hair, four arms, four giant horns, and busty. And standing with some of that absurd confidence that got under Mia's skin.

Mia's whole gang was there, Azreal and Noah included, so she had confidence to match.

"This is Cillia, my lover," Dobasi said.

Mia tilted her head and looked the woman up and down. Cillia returned the look with a steel gaze through the open face of her helmet. A cold and brutal woman, missing several fingers from two of her hands. She matched Dobasi's energy perfectly.

"Looks more like a bodyguard," Julisa said.

Cillia spat on the floor. Mia took a step back. In all her time in Hell, she'd never seen a demon do that.

"Where's Cato?" Mia asked. Dobasi tilted his head. "I know you have another bailiff. Is she not coming?"

"Angel's Spine is large," the spire ruler said, voice deep and grumbly. "Anianus was lucky to find you and return as quickly as he did. Cato may take several weeks to return."

"I hope she doesn't run into the rider then."

"She can defeat--"

Mia shook her head. "No. She can't defeat the rider. Romakus, I thought this guy was supposed to be smart?"

Dobasi glared, flared his wings, and stepped toward her. But that was the game, a pissing contest assholes like this Dobasi engaged in. Mia didn't have a dick for pissing, but she'd been dealing with chest-thumping assholes for months now. She stood her ground, and Vinicius stood directly behind her, glaring down at the spire ruler. And because the bastard was too head-up-his-ass arrogant, Dobasi wouldn't dare look up.

But he was smart enough to take a step back.

"You give the rider much credit," Dobasi said. "You ran from him, with Anianus and his forces at your side."

"Yes," Noah said. "We did."

None of the angels had their weapons out, but they didn't need them to look intimidating. And their white and gold armor stood out against the black and red of everything else.

The room was split down the middle, Mia's versus Dobasi's forces. An errant pin drop might stir a fight.

"He cannot be killed," Vin said. "Only slowed."

"And," Julisa said with a crack of her tail, "the rider can defeat most demons single-handedly. He could even defeat Vinicius."

Vin snarled down at Julisa, but she returned it with a devious smile.

"He's after me," Mia said. "If I stay here, he'll attack eventually."

Dobasi stared. "Attack a spire?"

"Yeah. Last time he attacked with a couple dozen demons in bits of aera armor, and riding a sercano."

That was enough to break the tetrad's composure.

"A sercano?"

"Giant lizard thing? Looks like a spiky komodo dragon?" She knew he didn't know what a komodo dragon was, but it added to her whole 'I'm a big deal' image she was aiming for right now. "Yeah, he charged the Death's Grip spire with it. He is called the rider, right? Likes to force hellbeasts to be his mount? It got away after, injured. The rider's demons were all killed, but he pushed into the spire, slaughtered everyone in his way, and nearly got me." No need to mention David. "He took down dozens of demons by himself and nearly got Kasimiro." She gestured to the sarkarin at her side. "The rider has killed many tetrads, even tetrads surrounded by other demons. And he's killed angels. We even tore his head off, and he just regrew it! So believe me when I say the rider is a threat, and we need to be leaving quickly before he pins us down here. That means you, Dobasi, need to show me what you want to show me, now, so we can be on our way."

Dobasi and Cillia glared down at her like they wanted to incinerate her with their eyes. She was used to it.

Romakus and Julisa chuckled. No one else did. But that's what you needed to be a member of the Damall: a bad sense of humor.

A brute approached, heavy feet hitting the metal, axe at his side. From the look on his face, he had words to say to Mia, angry ones, fisty ones. Maybe he approached just a little too fast for Vin's liking, but the moment he got close, Vin slammed his colossal tail into the juggernaut's chest, and sent the demon onto his ass.

Vin didn't have to do that. He did it anyway. Either he just wanted some violence, or he was taking the initiative in protecting Mia again. And she had no idea how to feel about that.

Every demon drew their weapons, but Mia held up a hand.

"Thank you, Vin," she said, smiling back and up at her titan. He snorted. "Don't get me wrong, Dobasi. Anianus didn't capture us. We came of our own accord. This is a temporary visit, because I think we can help each other. So let's get this done. Show me what you wanted to show me."

Cillia stomped a hoof. "You think you can simply leave when you--"

Mia pointed a finger at the tetrad, and shook the world. Or at least that's what it'd feel like to the asshole woman. It took effort, but no precision, a simple chord that told the ground to vibrate and bring the bloody floor and walls of the throne room to ripple like it was Jurassic Park. They didn't know Mia couldn't affect the tower directly, and she planned to keep it that way. Vibrating the ground outside the tower did the job.

Cillia took a step back, but Anianus laughed.

"She is a devilish little thing," he said. "Isn't she?"

Mia smiled at the bailiff, looked back to Dobasi, and waited.

It took a minute, but Dobasi gave in eventually, nodding and gesturing to the exit. Mia and her crew went first, Dobasi followed, and they stood on the inner balcony, looking down the hole. High as they were, falling down the hole meant many seconds of freefall, and either hitting another balcony on the way down, or going straight to the bottom. Gravity would have a few things to say to whoever reached the bottom that way.

"I've seen the ritual room in Death's Grip," Mia said. "Bottom floor?"

Dobasi nodded. "Bottom floor. Though here in Angel's Spine, it will look different."

Mia nodded and held out her arms. "Azreal?"

With a grunt, the man in an absurd amount of armor slipped his hands under Mia's arms, and took her down. Easier this way than riding a demon's back and hopping down each floor. Cerberus rumbled and jumped down after her.

It was a long way down. She looked up constantly, checking to make sure no one attacked her crew. Noah had his armor on, but she spotted a few strange movements from him, hinting at his injury, but otherwise he kept right beside Azreal, while the demons hopped from floor to floor. Down, and down, deep into the bowels of the tower, where the tip of the bottom penetrated the ground.

In the spire, light came in a couple of varieties. Dangling metal skulls with fire burning inside behind the eyes, almost like burning bushes. And amber veins that snaked their way across the spire itself as if they didn't belong, burning spire flesh or cutting across the metal in strange places, like weeds pushing up through sidewalks.

Both almost disappeared when they hit the bottom, and the spire greeted them with the unending chorus of thousands of remnants coating the walls.

Dobasi landed softly, bending his knee and letting his wings catch his weight enough he didn't break his legs. Vinicius had no wings to help his landing, and the ground rumbled lightly with the impact. Superhero landing.

"Sarrius," Dobasi said, and gestured to the walls.

One brute joined them in the dark pit and got to work. He and his brethren drew their weapons and cut down remnants in swaths, silencing them with all the finesse of a lawnmower to grass.

A voice cut through the screams. "Mia!"

Mia spun. A brute cut a dozen remnants down, silencing whatever remnant had formed a name above the cries for mercy, freedom, and death. No one said her name again.

"Mia?" Kas asked.

"Nothing," she said. Maybe the others hadn't noticed, the voice blending in with all the others. But like being in the center of a crowd, hearing someone's name punched through the noise, a ping in the dark, and had grabbed her attention. Now it was gone.

Mia clenched her eyes shut and took a deep breath. Focus. Deal with this for now.

Dobasi walked forward, body blending into the dark, and his amber horn provided the only light. The angels summoned their weapons and a gold glow with them, and stayed with Mia as she followed Dobasi. Cerberus stayed on her heels, closer than usual.

It was just like the Death's Grip basement. Bone, everywhere.

Dobasi grunted, his horn glowed a fraction brighter for a second, and an enormous door opened up.

"Come," he said.

Everyone followed.

The same tunnel. Bone floor. Bone walls. Thousands of thousands of bones. Thousands and thousands of remnants Dobasi, Cillia, and the brutes cut down like jungle vines.

They came to another door. Last time, Zel insisted only Mia follow her through this door, leaving Adron and Kas behind. Dobasi held up his hand and turned, likely to say the same thing.

"This is sacred ground," he said. "Do not touch anything."

"We're all coming in?" Mia asked. "Zel wasn't so kind."

"You made your point. And this is Angel's Spine, not Death's Grip." He gave his wings a small shake, rattling the skulls hanging from them, turned, and opened the door.

It was a sight Mia knew, but from the look on the others' faces, Mia's crew did not. Dobasi's demons had seen it before, but even they looked in awe at the scope of a vast castle made entirely of small human bones, charred black, all inside an even bigger cave.

The colossal cavern wasn't in the spire, not really, only connected to it by the tunnel. Did it regrow when the archangels had fallen on the spire and sunk it deeper into Hell?

Mia could feel this room far more than she could a few months ago in Death's Grip, before she'd started learning her powers. She could sense it. This strange room was a connection point between the spire and Hell herself.

Vinicius growled at the sight. Maybe he'd seen it before, but that didn't stop him from staring at the massive bone walls and their windows, along with the hanging braziers full of flame.

Yosepha finally took an audible gasp. "I have never seen the unholy room of a spire."

"As you should never," Dobasi said. "This room is for demons only. But these are interesting times." He marched forward, the bone floor quietly fighting not to break under his hooves. And like the bone castle in the cave deserved reverence, he spread his wings wide, like he was paying respects.

His horn glowed, and he pushed the two doors open, exposing the many pillars inside.

Things were different. In Death's Grip, the inside had been like the inside of a cathedral made of bone, complete with a pulpit. The pulpit was there, pillars too, but the center of the room was empty, save for the giant blood pool within. That was new.

"Holy shit," Romakus said, staring down at the deep red. "How deep is that?"

"No one knows," Dobasi said. "And several volunteers have entered, never to return."

Well, at least he said volunteers.

Nodding, Dobasi stepped behind the pulpit too big for even him, fetched the book, and stood over the blood pool. The pool rippled.

Wasting no time, Dobasi flared his wings again, and held out the book in front of him, still closed.

"Michael. Raphael. Gabriel."

The blood rippled again, and Mia gulped. The liquid wasn't natural. If she looked hard, she could see her reflection, distorted by the waves. The pool was responding. This was a far cry from the written communication she'd had with Raphael, but it was still something. Except, how was this communication?

"I bring one of the unmarked," Dobasi said.

The blood changed. Like a scrying pool, the strange liquid swirled, and an image faded in, hiding the crimson beneath a veil of illusion.

"That's me," Mia whispered, staring down at the pool. Her, standing in the room of eyes with the giant bone wall where she'd talked with Raphael. Everything was a blurry mess, with movement bleeding colors like horrible compression artifacts in a video. Except her. She was crystal clear in the dead archangel's memory.

"Deciphering the noise," Dobasi said, gesturing down at the pool, "took hundreds of years. The archangels do not speak clearly. What echoes are left of their minds, I struggle to understand. But whatever is left of them, is aware." He snapped his head toward Mia. "Or it was. The noise has grown quieter since your conversation with them. What did you do?"

"I spoke with Raphael." She gestured down at the blood. "And I didn't need a crazy blood pool to do it." Poking the bear. Lots of bear-poking.

Dobasi gave his wings a small rustle and held out the book to Mia. Lucifer's book.

Taking a deep breath, Mia took the book, and opened it. She knew what would happen, and she knew the others didn't. Runes exploded out from the book, lit up the pillars, lit up the walls, lit up the ceiling with them. Floating, glowing amber runes, not written in amber but a visual illusion. The alphabet and thousands of words, powerful words that danced in Mia's mind in some web of connections she'd never be able to decipher.

Potram. Batlam. Royam, too, but she hadn't activated that last one yet. The rune for suppressing spire auras was there, nine versions of it. And the rune for traveling between realms, a rune Mia had never expected to awaken. But it was there on a wall, and in her mind. The connecting wires were live, like electricity, but even without trying, Mia could tell the rune was beyond her. Too heavy, too large, too grand. For now.

Dobasi and the others stared out at the runes, and Mia couldn't help but wear a small grin.

"You deciphered these?" she asked. "I can read them, but how did you manage to learn?"

"I can read only a few," he said, gesturing to the book. "I have never summoned these runes, but I deciphered a few from the book, using what little the blood pool can show me." Dobasi leaned over the pool again. "Heaven's Tears."

They all looked back at the pool. Images flowed along it, showing scenes within the mountain, giant eyeballs crying gold tears, enormous bones the size of city blocks, the blood rivers, strange hellbeasts with too many heads -- Mia glanced at Cerb -- and of the landscape itself. How the archangels got a view from outside their bodies, she didn't know, but it panned across the mountainscape of Angel's Spine from up high, showing colossal white blankets covering the mountains.

Not blankets. Archangel bodies. Great white feathers, thousands of them, each the size of huge buildings. And closed eyes with flesh-white skin. Thousands of them, too, of different shapes and sizes, some leaking gold tears along the seams in their skin and creating flowing gold rivers.

"That's interesting," Mia said. "Raphael told me he couldn't see anything other than me or other unmarked."

"That is true," Dobasi said. "Much of what these ancient, dead things show me is nothing but memory. But sometimes, they can glimpse the current if it happens within their bodies or nearby."

Mia shivered. Awareness of what was happening in her own body sounded gross. Being able to see her innards digest food? Bleh.

"How does this help me?" she asked. "If you've managed some rudimentary communication with the archangel corpses, what do you know?"

Cillia snarled down at her, but Cerberus returned it, staying forever at Mia's side. Good, because every other demon in the place was distracted by the glowing lights and the blood pool, even Vin.

Dobasi slowly plucked the book from Mia, glaring at her with every inch he pulled from her loose grip.

"Archangels," he said. "Show me Beelzebub."

Mia froze. Ice shot through her veins, and her badass girlboss image shattered around her.

The image changed. Darkness swirled. Piles of skulls followed, each surrounded by emaciated souls, each with 666 etched on their foreheads. Amber veins lined the rocks below, but few and rare, showing only hints of something alive deep in a pit of stone and black. Something moved, growling with slow, lumbering motions, and its voice stirred the cave to vibrate. Skulls rolled down the skull piles, and the slave betrayers did their duty, piling the skulls yet again.

"I've faced an Old One before," Mia said, staring. "It... was a tough fight."

Dobasi and Cillia traded glances, but Anianus spoke up.

"You have?" he asked.

"Yeah. Asmodeus is buried under the Black Valley, injured and trapped. He -- it -- almost got out, but I don't think it could have stayed out. It was really injured, and not by me. I just knocked it back into its cage."

Dobasi nodded and gestured at the blood pool, the image slowly panning over a great chasm and some creature mostly hidden in the shadow. What little of it was visible stretched long, and with the betrayer slaves for size context, Mia got a guess at how big it was. As big as Asmodeus, and that meant bigger than fucking Godzilla.

Just an ant compared to a single archangel, but that ant was big enough to topple cities.

"Beelzebub stirs," Dobasi said. "Something has drawn its attention. It sends betrayers up to fight me in numbers greater than ever before."

"It has betrayers in fighting condition?"

"Yes. Humans rain from on high, fall into the crevices of the archangels' flesh, and many find their way down into its lair. Hordes of them, surviving on demon hearts, what essence they can find from hellbeast hearts, and archangel flesh."

Mia stepped back. "They eat archangel flesh?"

"Yes. They, and the hellbeasts. Both swarm the deepest tunnels of my land, bodies warping and growing into strange things. For many years now, they have grown more aggressive. Ninety-six days ago, Beelzebub itself fought to escape its unknowable prison."

Ninety-six days. She didn't look to her crew, but they knew. She'd died ninety-six days ago.

"It senses an opportunity," Anianus said. "An opportunity for what?"

"That is obvious," Cillia said. "The archangels have explained, as much as they can explain, that the Old One is trapped. It seeks escape, just as the unmarked said of Asmodeus. And it will try to use an unmarked to do so."

"Wait," Mia said. "When did you learn about the Old One in your basement? Alessio didn't know about Asmodeus."

Dobasi shook his head. "Many centuries ago, but the creature lay dormant."

"I'm still confused," she said. "You wanted me so badly, you sent your bailiffs out to get me, and you used your spire aura to try and capture me, too. Only reason that didn't work is because I know what I'm doing." No need to tell him the details of what happened with Raphael and her new ability to block spire auras. "What exactly is it you want me to do? If you've been talking with the archangels, or the echoes of what they were, you know I'm on a quest to save the whole damn Great Tower. What am I supposed to do for you?"

Dobasi and Cillia traded a couple of glances, the subtle gesture showing a lot more vulnerability than those two were probably comfortable showing.

"We know Beelzebub rises," Dobasi said. "And the archangels have shown me it will both try to take the spire, and try to consume an unmarked."

"Yeah, but it's injured. It's not going anywhere."

Dobasi shook his head. "Beelzebub, like its followers, has consumed bits of archangel flesh since the First War. We do not know if it has mutated as other things do, but it has grown strong. If what you say is true of Asmodeus, it may no longer be true of Beelzebub. The archangels show me the creature will soon break free, and it will be a problem for you. It will hunt you, pursue you, and consume you. I... believe, ninety-six days ago, it realized it had run out of time."

Mia sighed and walked in circles around the blood pool, staring down at it but keeping more than a few feet between it and her. No need to fall in and join the others in depth testing.

"So Angel's Spine has three dead archangels on it," she said. "It's been like that since near the beginning. Over billions of years, the hellbeasts here have warped and become big, strong, and problematic. You, Dobasi, have been using the spire's strange connection to Hell"--she gestured around at the bone castle--"to communicate with the dead archangels. They've been dead and strewn across Heaven's Tears for so long, I guess it makes sense there's some sort of weird blurring of where they end and Hell begins. The archangels told you that I'm passing through, and that I'm trying to save the Great Tower. I bet they even showed you that the rider and the woman in aera armor are here too?"

It took a second, but Dobasi nodded.

Mia continued. "The archangels also showed you that, since ninety-six days ago, Beelzebub has been making an active effort to escape its prison? I have no idea if it's as injured as Asmodeus is, or if the prison is even physical or maybe something from the music, the powers the archangels have. That I have. But now Beelzebub is on the rise, and you want me to stop it because not only will it get in my way, it'll take your precious spire away from you?"

Dobasi and Cillia both growled, but Anianus got between Mia and them, wing out.

"Yes," Anianus said. "We need you to come to our rescue, unmarked."

Dobasi gestured at the blood pool. "What little I can glean from the archangels tells me you must use the music, whatever that is, to send Beelzebub back down into its pit."

Sighing, Mia looked back at the others and waited.

Yosepha shook her head. "We do not have time for this. It is important we stop Beelzebub from rising, but reaching the Forgotten Place takes priority."

Romakus nodded. "Agreed. We're on a tight schedule."

Azreal and Noah stood side by side and stared down into the blood pool, faces hidden by the angle and their helmets.

"I have felt the sting of an Old One," Noah said. "An absurdly powerful monster. It might make sense to deal with it now."

Azreal nodded. "If we had some clue of when the invader will arrive, and when we must reach the Forgotten Place to stop them, it would be easier to decide."

"We have no way of knowing that," Cillia said. "The archangels know of the invader, but what they can see is limited."

With another sigh, louder than necessary, Mia crouched down beside Cerberus and brushed back his mane of spikes.

"And then there's James," she said. "I need to find him. We need to make sure he's alright, get some angels with him, and make sure he can reach False Gate too."

Too many unknowns. What the fuck was she supposed to do? The blood pool showed more of Beelzebub, a camera view doing a high drone flyby, but all Mia could see of the monster was shadows, shifting textures of red demon skin in the black, and the giant skull piles around it. There was definitely something in there, and judging from the blood leaking down the cavern walls, the creature had access to archangel blood.

Demons were timeless. They didn't age. They didn't care about time at all. And if Beelzebub was forced to build itself up a single grain of sand at a time over billions of years, it could, and it would. With the help of betrayers, some probably hopped-up on demon hearts at that, the Old One might break out given enough time. No way it'd be fully healed, though. No way its jailbreak, regeneration, and Mia's arrival would all occur at the same time.

"This spire cannot be lost," Dobasi said. "I am the only spire ruler in Hell that can speak with the archangels. I am the only one with knowledge of the ancient runes. I am the only one that can learn more about the invader and how to stop it."

There was that. Dobasi was talking out of his ass, but if he could learn something from the archangels about how to stop the invader, then the spire was invaluable.

"I'm... still not sure," Mia said.

Dobasi and Cillia both growled, and so did their brutes. Not used to hearing 'no', apparently. Mia was risking a fight.

Vin sensed it. He came in closer again, stood over her until she was almost between his legs, and the titan glared down at the two tetrads. Damn, it felt nice to have the titan on her side.

Anianus to the rescue. Both he and Romakus came up and held out a hand and wing between Mia and the spire ruler.

"I brought you down here," Dobasi said, "into this sacred place, to see what few ever see, so you will know to make the right decision."

Mia stood her ground, peeking past Romakus's wing. With Vin so close, she leaned against the inside of his thigh, literally, like it was a wall.

"I can see that," she said. "You've got something going on here no other spire does, except maybe in the Frozen Heart, but we don't know yet. In the meantime, this spire is important. You want my help. And I want your help." She gestured at the blood pool. "What can you tell me about the invader? I know they're from beyond the Great Tower. I know they silence the music." She knew more than that, but no need to say more for now.

Dobasi aimed a palm over the pool. "Angels of old. Show me the invader."

The blood pool turned black. Completely black. Every drop of crimson turned to shimmering onyx, stars shining within, distant and cold against the backdrop of endless oblivion. And like last time, something colder than ice ran through Mia's veins.

"Hum," Dobasi said.

"What?"

"Hum." With a flick of his wing, he gestured to the brutes, and they hummed. Not a song or anything, just a constant hum.

But something cut through the hum. Mia patted her ear twice, like one of her earbuds had just gone dead, or was cutting out randomly. In and out, off and on, the hum from the brutes came and went, and it didn't sound smooth like a wave or anything. It sounded strange.

Mia hummed, and something cut through the hum, silence striking her in a pattern.

"What the fuck," she said, and tried again. And again, something blocked the sound from registering in her head in a weird, quirky flow that... sounded like talking. Or the inverse of talking.

"The archangel blood," Dobasi said, "is attempting to make how the invader works something we demons can understand." Snarling as if it were as natural as breathing, he gestured to Mia. "I suppose it would make more sense to you."

"Yeah." She sucked in a slow breath and stared down at the endless black. "When the invaders attacked me in the Black Valley, they did something that... affected my powers, the same powers the archangels have. The same powers the Old Ones have. It blocked us. Silenced us." The scream had been deafening, both in reality, and in the silent music only she could hear.

Frowning down at the pool, she hummed again. Sure enough, the strange silence cut through her humming, but no matter how hard she listened, she couldn't piece together words. But there were words, forged of literal silence.

The invader was intelligent.

"If the invader comes," Dobasi said, "are you saying it will prevent you from using your powers?"

Tell him? It was admitting a weakness, a bad idea to do with a demon, but Dobasi seemed at least a little reasonable and committed to his station and the Great Tower. A little more foresight than other spire rulers.

"Yes," she said. "It will."

Dobasi nodded. If the man could grin, he didn't show it.

"Then we need each other."

She sighed. "Yeah. Maybe we do."

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

They climbed all the way back up to the throne room. Mia stuck with Azreal and Noah this time, thankful for wings that made changing floors hurt her feet and ass less than riding a demon's back. And once everyone else was back up on the top floor, they had yet another meeting in the throne room, just to top it all off.

Dobasi sat on his throne, Cillia beside him, their demons circling the back half of the throne and facing Mia and her gang. Another standoff, thudding chests and whatnot.

Cillia stomped a hoof. "Are you still unsure?" She folded her four arms across her armored chest, glaring.

"Just... let me sleep on it, okay?" Mia folded her two arms across her unarmed chest and returned the glare. "Stopping the invaders and saving the Great Tower are at the top of my priority list. I need to get to James, make sure he's safe, and the two of us have to drag our asses to False Gate, and figure out how to get to the Forgotten Place. I can't stay here to fight your battle... except, maybe I should, especially if you can find out more about the invader."

She looked back at the others, but they all shrugged, looking at her. They were out of their depth. So was she. The fuck was she supposed to do? Even if David were here, he wouldn't know what to do, balancing options that none of them could guess at.

But she needed allies. Dobasi was willing to be that. And the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like she should help him.

If James or Adron died, she'd never forgive herself.

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

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

~~Day 93~~

~~David~~

"You're injured," David said, and aimed his staff down at Septima's front leg.

She snarled. "I am fine."

Caera circled her fellow tregeera once, shaking her head. "You were reckless."

"What would you know?" Septima asked. "You stayed near your unmarked the entire battle. Coward."

Caera got head-to-head with Septima and they faced off, growling at each other.

"I told her to," David said, "remember? This is all kind of pointless if I die. And yes, I know that sounds selfish, and I hate it. But that's the reality. We're doing this because I'm trying to save the Great Tower, and supposedly only an unmarked can do that."

Septima growled up at him, but he had his girls with him, and she backed off.

"What now?" she asked.

David looked up at the tower. Black spikes. Bone spikes. Black walls of metal. Windows with no glass, only spikes. Inside awaited bone and flesh, and remnants growing on their surfaces, or growing within cages dangling from chains. The spire wasn't Hell, but also was, something Lucifer grew out of her. A tainted part of Hell, immune to his music. Or at least, resistant to it.

He slammed the base of his staff into the bloody ground, and the fifty thousand and some demons standing around him went silent.

"Laoko, Moriah, and Tsila. We go in. You three take the lead. Caera and Jes at my flanks. Daoka and Acelina, behind me with the Las. Septima, you--"

"I'm coming. I must speak with Tarkissa before he dies."

David sighed. "Yeah, I figured." He gestured to the woman's remaining brutes and her mostly intact army. Her troops had far more armor and weapons than the rest of David's army. "Septima, stay with me, but your army and honor guard should go in first."

"Why not send the vermin first?" she asked.

He glared. "They don't have your gear, and for all their strength, they don't make a good frontline." He gestured around the battlefield and the thousands of dead demons. As easily as the imps and grems had won the fight, the battlefield was also littered with their corpses.

No one bothered moving the bodies since they'd melt away eventually, but that meant the open area in front of the spire was disgusting. A battle ended by gunfire would have been cleaner. Limbs were everywhere, heads cut or torn off, and more than a few demons were skinning heads and taking skulls. Wings, claws and teeth, eyeballs, intestines, it all decorated the ground, and David and the crew had to walk through it to get to the spire's front entrance, a large, open archway.

"Very well." With another annoyed growl, Septima got ahead of him, and her troops followed, heavy steps squashing demon guts. It didn't bother them at all. They got ahead of their leader, and Septima limped behind them, David behind her with his girls around him.

"Domnius," David said, looking behind him. "Once we're inside, take the imps and grems, and scour the spire. Start from the bottom. If anyone resists, kill them. If they don't, let them live."

Domnius saluted. "Will take spire, commander!"

David pointed his staff at the little man. "I'm serious about not killing people you don't need to kill."

Domnius saluted with both hands. "Yes sir!"

Laoko chuckled, but wiped her grin away with a thumb.

David followed Septima into the spire, and he stared up at the rib bones that circled tunnels, and the black walls of metal dangling with chains and skulls. Like the two previous spires, there was a huge hole in the center that went all the way from top to bottom, with an inner balcony on each floor. Rooms lined the side with doors closed, shaped like closed mouths of sharp teeth. The bigger rooms would be below, connecting into flesh tunnels. But the throne room was above.

"We know if Tarkissa is in his throne room or deep in the tower?" David asked.

"Throne room," Septima said.

"Up it is then." He stepped over to Caera, and she lowered for him.

David's use inside the tower was minimal, but he could still do something. If he had to, he'd summon a bolt of lightning in through the window, or summon a firestorm and shake the spire up. Or he could just stand there and look intimidating.

They jumped up floors, following Septima's army. Tarkissa was no fool. It was easy to defend a fortified position; that's why you laid siege to castles instead of attacking them. But Tarkissa knew that, and he knew David had no time. So of course the fucker turtled up.

He had demons lying in wait on the upper floors, and they struck out at Septima's demons on the way up, sending them back down with holes in their heads, dents in their helmets, or slit throats. The bone stairway in the wall wasn't any better. Some of Septima's vrats charged it, only to be blocked by brutes, and their corpses fell back down, spilling blood and viscera onto the metal floor.

"Laoko," David said. "Can you punch a hole?"

Laoko pushed past Septima's forces, jumped up, and unleashed hellfire. Fiery death poured out of her mouth as she climbed up the next balcony edge, and the demons waiting for her shrieked as their skin incinerated and armor melted.

A break in the enemy formation was all Septima's forces needed. They jumped up like a reverse waterfall, giant bodies effortlessly scaling to the next floor and cutting down the burning demons. The ones not on fire were quickly surrounded and chopped into bits.

They hit another roadblock, another floor with demons protecting it, and this time it was Moriah and Tsila to the rescue. Both flew up and unleashed chaos, shooting exploding arrows into awaiting maws, or unleashing golden arcs of energy a meter wide that crashed into chests and sent demons flying. Again, Septima's forces followed and turned the small hole into a broken barrier, Tarkissa's demons falling back only to get chopped down.

David looked below. The lower floors teemed with imps and grems, wings catching air as the little demons flooded the floors and rooms. Mostly out of sight with the inner balcony blocking his vision, but he could hear them, shrieking as they filled the spire. David couldn't keep his aura going, not in this madness, clinging to Caera's back while she jumped up, floor to floor, and he could only hope Domnius and the others listened to his order.

Near the top of the spire, they stopped, a large skull door announcing the throne floor, and Septima's forces spread out and engaged the last remaining demons in their path.

Tarkissa's last. His elite. Brutes and vrats covered head to toe in meera metal, wielding swords and axes. Gargoyles waited above, dangling from the balcony on the next floor. Satyrs with extra horns on their helmets. A tiger and one of those shark dinosaurs stood by the skull doorway. Far more demons than any of them had expected. But no Tarkissa.

Septima's forces did their best, weapons up, and David summoned his aura as quick as possible, demanding his allies control themselves. Defend. Block. Wait for a moment to strike. But Tarkissa's forces gave no leeway, no room, and brought down their weapons hard, sending sparks showering as metal crashed into metal.

Laoko, Caera, and Jes helped as best they could, but a trio of brutes, each almost as big as Laoko, confronted them. The biggest brute ran at Laoko and tackled her, sending her to the floor, and the other two put themselves between her and Caera and Jes.

Acelina jumped around Jes and brought her axe in from the side. The brute jumped back. The opening Caera needed, and she pounced the demon, knocked him to the ground, and got her fangs into his throat. But the third brute came for her back.

He missed, arm knocked aside when Daoka crashed into the demon's hip. But he didn't fall over, turned, and brought his sword down for Daoka instead of Caera. Only for Jes to jump his back, shrieking like a banshee and tearing at what flesh she could find on the brute's partly exposed shoulders. It wasn't enough. He reached around, grabbed her leg, and threw her to the ground with a crack.

The Las swarmed him. They poured up his legs, biting, clawing, and stabbing. They got their teeth around his fingers, weapons under leather straps, popped off chunks of armor, and screamed rage as they fought to pierce his dark skin.

It still wasn't enough.

But it bought them time. The swarm came.

Imps and grems poured up from the stairway and leapt out of the hole like a million bats, shrieking and screaming, but laughing and giggling, too. They jumped over Septima's forces, ran along the walls, hung from cages, climbed chains, and dove upon Tarkissa's best, covering them. Completely. No inch of Tarkissa's forces was visible, all disappearing under the weight of hundreds of little demons, their screams of glee echoing against the metal walls.

David stepped back, staff in hand, panting. Move, you idiot. You don't need music to be useful. Move.

He ran forward, slid on his knees, and grabbed Jes's shoulders. "You okay?"

"Fine." Snarling, she got to her feet, and fell over immediately. "Fuck! Not fine, not fine."

Daoka clicked loudly, grabbed her girlfriend, and got Jes's arm over her shoulder.

"Broken leg," Jes said. She poked her oddly bent leg with her tail. "Just, get me out of the way and set it."

Relief reset David's brain, and he ran over to Caera. She was on her feet, panting, body dripping with a brute's blood. David patted her back and ran over to the Las. All four popped up from the mess and quickly hopped over, separating themselves from the swarm come to save their asses again.

Domnius joined them, drenched in a fresh coating of red.

"I didn't think we'd need you," David said.

Domnius saluted. His default, apparently.

"Heard battle. Saw hellfire from below. Know Tarkissa! Knew he keep best of best up here. Defends himself."

"Indeed," Laoko said. With a heavy groan, the big woman limped her way to David and stood with him, Acelina at her side with a fresh coating of blood on her axe. Laoko teetered, but Acelina caught her. That ankle did not look good. "Tarkissa hides in his throne room?"

"Yes," Septima said, and she prowled over to the closed door, a giant set of sharp teeth clasped shut.

David walked up to the door, staff in hand just in case he needed to block something, but the door remained closed.

He looked back to the group. Each floor of the spire was a big donut, hole in the middle, walls on the outside with rooms attached. The floor was covered in the corpses of Tarkissa's elites, what remained of Septima's forces, and hundreds of imps and grems ripping into their meals. The little demons grabbed weapons for themselves, but quickly found they weren't strong enough to wield meera weapons taller than them. A few smart ones -- if smart was the word -- worked together to drag an axe through the dead and blood, as if they could wield a giant axe together in combat.

"How do we open the door?" David asked.

Septima shrugged and gestured to her brutes and vrats. The biggest still standing stepped up to the huge skull door, got their hands between the closed teeth, and pried the teeth apart. Of course. Brute strength -- ha -- was always the answer.

The skull entrance trembled. It wasn't bone, but metal shaped like bone. That didn't matter when you had a dozen demons, most of them brutes weighing a literal thousand kilos of almost pure muscle, working together to lift. The sound was excruciating, bending metal that resisted each centimeter, but the juggernauts of muscle made slow, consistent progress, until eventually a hole big enough for even Laoko to step through awaited them. Unnerving, stepping through bent metal teeth.

Laoko went in, swords drawn, limping with each step. David groaned and gestured to her, and Caera and Jes ran in after her. The angels followed, and David followed them.

It was like Azailia's throne room, a giant throne in the back made of bone grown from the tower itself. Spikes covered the walls. Bone furniture sat about, with skulls sitting on them of various shapes and sizes. Blood streams ran along the sides of the room floor, and fell from tiny holes in the ceiling, bloodfalls instead of curtains.

And on the throne sat a tetrad, a gorujin. Ten feet tall, enormous wings, clawed feet, a tail that snuck out around his leg and dangled off the throne, and a classic demon face, a hard jaw with huge eye ridges bordering on skull-ish. Long black dreadlocks fell from his shoulders. He glared, red eyes and black sclera pointed straight at David. A small, amber horn, slightly glowing, stuck out from his forehead beneath four huge black horns.

Unlike his army, Tarkissa wore silks, long and red, draped over his shoulders and connecting around his waist, the same way the incubi and succubi often wore theirs.

"You blocked my spire's aura," the spire ruler said.

Septima and her brutes spread out, filling the room, while Moriah and Tsila took front and center, David behind them. Laoko tried to stay standing, but her ankle refused to cooperate, and she grabbed Daoka and leaned on her head. That couldn't have been fun, for either of them. David bit down the urge to tell her to get somewhere safe and join Acelina outside.

"I did for a while," David said from between Moriah and Tsila. "Azazel has been blocking it for me the past few days."

The demon sighed, shook his head, and relaxed back on his throne. "How did you summon such a force so quickly? Imps and grems are mindless vermin."

David shrugged. "A lot of demons here don't like you."

"That is true in all provinces."

"Yeah, well, the imps and grems here are also pretty sick and tired of being treated like dirt. That changes today."

Domnius climbed into the room, and a hundred imps and grems followed him. They filled the throne room, quietly clicking and chirping at each other as they took up stations nearby. Drenched in blood, they smiled at Tarkissa, brandished their weapons or claws, and flared their wings.

David held up a hand, and the crowd of piranhas went silent.

"It wasn't my original plan to take this spire, Tarkissa," he said. "I was just going to walk on through. But then I learned about your plans for me, yours and Azailia's. Azazel confirmed."

Tarkissa sat up straight. "You spoke with Azazel?"

David came closer, and Moriah and Tsila stuck with him.

"I did."

Tarkissa snorted. "The old snake spoke of his... its desire to serve Lucifer, and yet you work with it?"

"It also said you were going to sacrifice me to Astaroth and Belial for power."

Tarkissa got to his feet and grabbed the sword resting against the throne's side. He wore no armor. Because of course he hadn't expected to do any fighting himself.

"The invader is coming," Tarkissa said. "It has to be stopped. And we will stop it. I will stop it. And I will be the ruler of Hell."

David raised a brow and looked around at the group, his girls, Septima and her warriors, and the imps and grems filling the room.

"Where are they?" David asked.

The tetrad sneered. "What?"

"Where are they? Astaroth and Belial? I know they're down in the pit, with Azazel. But I'm asking why aren't they here, now? Helping you? You think if they ate me, my power would somehow heal them, bring them out of their captivity, and allow them, and you, to fight the alien invaders that have come to destroy the entire Great Tower!?" He slammed his staff against the floor, and the echo shut everyone up. Dead silence.

Tarkissa grit his teeth. "What do you think you are, unmarked? A child of Hell? Of the Great Tower? Whatever you think you are, you are powerless against the tide that is coming. All you do is summon the invader closer, but the Old Ones can fight it off. They can fight! You are worthless against the alien. You are nothing."

David shook his head. "You're a short-sighted fool. I'm playing to save the Great Tower. You're just trying to get power for yourself."

Tarkissa grinned. "Why can't I do both?"

Typical villain bullshit. The fucker couldn't even be bothered to drop the evil smile.

"So it is true," Septima said, prowling a little closer to her old boss.

"What is true? That I made a bid for power, to save the Great Tower, so that I can rule it?" He smiled down at his bailiff, some silent conversation happening between them. "And you could still serve at my--"

Septima walked away and stood at David's side. David let go of the breath he didn't know he'd been holding and gestured to the tetrad.

"How do we get that amber spike out of his forehead?" he asked.

Septima shook his head. "We can't."

"What?"

"He's the spire ruler. He remains the spire ruler until he dies. Only then can someone go through the ceremony and become the new spire ruler." She shrugged and snarled in pain. "Supposedly."

Fuck. Killing people in the middle of a battle was one thing. Killing someone surrounded and beaten was a different beast.

"Laoko," David said. "Know about this ceremony?"

"Somewhat," she said.

Nodding, David stepped back, turned around, and walked away. For a stupid moment, he hesitated. It had to be done, and he'd expected this all along. But killing someone in a fight was not the same as executing them.

"Kill him," he said. "And be careful. No one else dies tonight."

Tarkissa laughed. Septima's forces rushed past David, along with a hundred imps and grems. The room drowned in demon screams, and the wet splat of flesh hitting the floor.

David didn't look.

He stepped outside, but as he climbed through the hole of broken metal teeth, the teeth pulled down into the floor, bending and twisting as they realigned themselves. Not only the throne room door, but every door big and small opened, teeth pulling apart and exposing the rooms within. A safety measure when the spire ruler was dead, maybe.

Sighing, David leaned his weight on his staff and looked around at the spire floor full of corpses and demons. Volas were coming up, switching places with imps and grems, apparently aware the tower was now secure. They stared at the throne room doorway, now that it was open, and peeked in to see what David knew was just a gorier version of what'd happened outside it. A hundred demons, ripping a big demon into separate pieces.

Not a climactic finish. Not satisfying at all. Just, killing the king. Stabbing him on his throne. David shouldn't have felt sad for that, but, fuck, he did.

His girls came out eventually, a few of them wearing some new splatters of blood.

"It is done," Laoko said. Acelina took her hand, and the tetrad leaned on her. "The spire no longer has a ruler." She nodded toward the little demons. Judging from the blood on the mouths of the imps and grems, they'd eaten him alive.

At least they'd killed him relatively quickly. This was Hell, after all. He was surprised they didn't tie Tarkissa upside down, and slowly saw him in half from the crotch down. Apparently, being upside down like that kept the victim conscious longer, blood flowing to the head so they didn't pass out.

The internet was a horrible place. Almost as bad as Hell.

David reached for his red hair, and his gauntlet found his crown instead. Probably for the best. Blood had gotten on his glove.

He looked at his gauntlet and squeezed the rock that wasn't there.

"David?" Domnius asked, standing in front of him. "What now, sir?"

"Now, the boring part. The bad part."

"Bad part?"

"We stop fighting, secure the spire, and kill any survivors we think might be a problem."

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

It was like a scene out of some awful TV show that used gratuitous violence, unnecessarily long, drawn-out death scenes, and bad sex, to show how awful reality was. Cynicism cinema. They went down floor through floor, checking each room now that all the doors were open. Anyone Septima, Tacharius, and Zabulon agreed was not to be trusted, they killed in cold blood.

At least demons didn't beg for their lives. They went down fighting, practically happy for a chance at some real violence. But none of them were a problem, stragglers blindly committed to Tarkissa, and since almost every demon committed to the old spire ruler had been in the battles, there'd only been a few.

David made sure not to watch when they found and killed a couple volas. He already had enough mental scars for a lifetime.

They came back up to the middle floor with the giant entranceway to outside, where most of the army still waited. David walked outside, and the army awaited him.

"Tarkissa is dead!" he yelled.

The crowd erupted, screaming cheers echoing off the mountain walls. Thousands of volas, imps, and grems, all standing on the corpses of Tarkissa's failed army.

They didn't know David still had to talk with Azazel, Astaroth, and Belial. They didn't know things might go from good to bad in an instant.

David summoned his rock platform up a few feet, stood above the crowd, and slammed his staff into the rock. The crowd went silent once more.

"Rest for now. I will send word tomorrow about the changes the Scar will face." He slammed the staff again, lowered the rock platform, and stepped back into the spire. The army dispersed. A successful mission, and all he wanted to do was puke. But in Hell, he couldn't even do that.

His girls stared at him, some with tilted heads, some with raised eyebrows.

"You're not smiling," Jes said, standing in the huge entranceway with Daoka's help.

"The fuck would I be smiling for?"

She shrugged. "Because we won? We won faster than we thought we would?"

David looked back at the corpses before squinting at Jes, but she just stared at him, confused. He looked at the others again, but they all looked just as baffled.

Trying to understand the demon mind was difficult. Trying to understand his own damn mind was difficult. Why the fuck was he feeling... deflated?

"Domnius," David said, and the little demon saluted. "Gather your best and tell them they should stay in the spire."

"In the spire, unmarked? Tarkissa doesn't like imps and grems in the spire."

David blinked, but the little demon put on a giant grin, the kind that went from one side of the face all the way to the other, showing huge, shark teeth. And then he chuckled, in that giggly, evil little demon way.

David couldn't help but chuckle, too. A little.

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

They went back to the throne room. Tarkissa was gone -- most of him, anyway. His sword was gone. His limbs were gone, too. Septima probably gave the armor and weapons to her brutes, and David was too tired to give a shit.

Sighing, he walked through the room, looked around and the disturbing decor, the bones and spikes, the black metal and red liquid that flowed down its walls, and the throne. And like he'd done it a million times before, he dismissed his armor and staff, and in his red, skimpy toga, he climbed onto the throne, sat, and tinkered with one of the black rings on his fingers, jewelry from his potram rune. His legs dangled.

His girls stood in front of him, waiting for him to say something. Septima and her honor guard did, too.

"Septima," he said. "You can... do whatever you want, I guess. For now. We can talk tomorrow and take a trip to the basement and see the book."

"Book?" she asked.

"I assume picking a new spire ruler has something to do with the ritual room I saw in the Grave Valley spire. Probably the same here. A colossal room full of... power, and runes."

Septima shook her head. "I've never seen it. Only Tarkissa has. But, the spire ruler is dead, so I suppose all doors are open."

"Jes," David said. "Can you--"

"On it," Jes said. Standing not far off, the gargoyle waited for Tsila to finish healing her leg with glowing hands. Able to walk again, Jes hooked a wing around Daoka's shoulders, and leaned on her. "Let's get down there and make sure people know not to enter this mysterious room or whatever."

"Wait. You okay, Jes? Tsila--"

She shrugged and flicked her tail. "Good enough. Don't worry about me."

"I... do worry."

Daoka smiled back at him over Jes's arm and chirped at him. Jes didn't explain, winked at him, and the two demonesses left.

David sighed and leaned back. But the throne was too big, meant for someone twice his height or more, and he lay on his back instead, hitting his head against the hard bone. Groaning, he pushed himself back to sitting, and found the girls grinning at him.

"Let's relax for now," he said. "Tomorrow will be a... I suppose I don't know if it'll be busy, but I'm sure it'll be a fucking problem."

Septima nodded and left, taking her honor guard with her. Domnius chatted with the Las, but gave David a salute and followed Septima out. Leaving David alone with his girls.

The Las ran over and giggled up a storm as they climbed up the huge bone throne, scaled its spikes, and perched on its back like mini gargoyles.

"Las won!" they said. "Impas and impins! Gremlas and gremlins!"

"You did," David said, smiling up at them.

Groaning, Laoko limped her way over to a bone table, sat with Acelina's help, and the spire mother joined her. The furniture fit the two of them, but no one else.

"I will need a few days to heal," Laoko said. "The ankle... no longer works." She gestured down at her hoof. Didn't work was an understatement. Broken, visibly.

David almost got up and demanded she ask Tsila for help. No point. Besides, Laoko knew best how she'd heal and probably how well any demon healed. Judging from the blood on her mouth she wiped away with a practiced fingertip, smearing the blood along her lips like impromptu lipstick, she'd also eaten.

"You want me to wait a few days?" David asked. "Before checking out the basement?"

"No. I agree, examine it tomorrow. But I will not be able to continue this journey for a few days yet."

"Well, we're not leaving without you."

Laoko raised her head. "What?"

"We're not leaving without you. You've been invaluable on this journey, and I'll take any help I can get. Besides, we like you." He gestured to Laoko and looked around at the other girls. "Right?"

Caera prowled up to the throne and sat down on it beside David. It was big enough, but that wasn't what surprised David. Seeing the big cat sitting in a very humanoid position was just weird.

"She's a bitch," Caera said. "I think she's trying to take over the group."

Laoko snorted. A far cry from her usual quiet, manipulative self.

"Someone needs to run the group."

Acelina leaned back in her chair near Laoko, wearing her wings like a cape, and gestured to David.

"As much as it infuriates me," she said, "the boy is in charge."

David sat up a little straighter. "Really?"

"Yes, really, you imbecile. We are here because of you. And unfortunately for everyone in Hell, its survival depends on you. In some sort of divine joke, it is you who has the power, little soul, not us. So we follow you."

He couldn't keep from smiling. "I wasn't really looking to be in charge of anything. But, I mean, I can do it."

"Confident," Caera said, matching his grin.

His grin faded. "Not really."

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

They found a room absolutely stacked with blankets, and trophies on the walls. One of Tarkissa's rooms. It was kinda creepy, using the room of a man they'd just murdered, but no one else so much as hesitated, and threw themselves onto the huge mountain of the softest, smoothest silk.

He felt naked. As much as the spire was a part of Hell and he could feel it, it also wasn't. It felt different, weird, and kinda wrong, just like Azaila's spire. He could sense it, but couldn't alter it. The spire wasn't a true part of Hell, and within it, he just didn't feel comfortable.

There was a giant window, lined with spiky black bars, and it looked out over the Scar from high above. He stuck his head out, made doubly sure he didn't accidentally slit his throat, and stared down past the terrace steps below. The battle was over. It didn't feel like it at all.

Demons flowed out from the spire entrance below, cheering, and waving newfound skulls. Trophies of a successful revolt. They tore through the corpses for armor and weapons, and the volas worked with the imps and grems to get everyone a meal and some new equipment.

Did the little demons even realize the sex demons were now afraid of them? And if the little demons ever did realize that or capitalize on it, what would happen?

Hell politics. Honestly, at the bottom of his priorities list for now.

With no one else around, Laoko looked more comfortable letting her guard down. With Acelina's help, the enormous demon lay on her back on the silk pile, broken ankle stuck out on the hard metal floor instead, and she let out a long groan.

Jes and Dao came back, satisfied they'd spread the message to leave the basement floor alone, and the gargoyle stood over Laoko and smiled down at her.

"The big bad bitch not feeling so powerful now?"

Laoko hissed. Very un-Laoko-like. "Shut up, gorgala."

Laughing, Jes squatted down beside Laoko and tapped on her breastplate with a claw.

"And you thought we'd have to kill everyone who might be a problem. David recruited Septima! And she helped us."

Laoko closed her eyes, as if she were trying to will Jes out of existence. "If Azazel hadn't confirmed our goals to Septima, we would have had to kill her."

"Yeah, maybe. Or maybe something else would have happened to change her mind, too." Shrugging, Jes walked away, sat in the center of the silk pile, and held out her hands. The Las took advantage immediately, giggling and pouncing her. "We win, David. I mean, step one on this fucked-up journey, but a big step."

He smiled back at her, and held it until he looked back out the window again. Smile gone. The angels joined him, looking out the window, and they both got a peek of what was probably his somber, depressed face, but they didn't say anything.

Caera joined Jes on the blankets, Daoka too, and the three friends relaxed, spreading out on the silk with Laoko and relaxing their tired bodies.

"Acelina," David said. "I know I'm being a pretty terrible parent, dumping the egg responsibilities on you."

"You are," she said, sitting on the blankets on her side, "but you are waging war. It is understandable."

Speak of the devil, Zazee walked in, egg in her arms. Tacharius and Zabulon were with her, and Naoko, Fuad, and Natalie, too.

David squinted at Acelina. She'd left the egg with the succubus and two incubi? And three betrayers? Much as Naoko had seemed like a decent person, she hadn't always been. She'd been sent to Hell, after all.

But as if to prove her fealty, Zazee gave Naoko the egg, and Naoko brought the egg to David.

"Heavy," she said, smiling up at him. "I've never seen a goort egg so big."

David scooped it up and held the huge thing against his chest. "You're right, and I'm terrified of what might come out of it, after hearing what happens to most demons and hellbeast eggs."

The volas walked in, making quick eye contact with David to confirm it was alright. He nodded.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Zazee said.

"Onto bigger matters!" Tacharius said, flicking his tail, and a big smile on his face. A devious smile. "Tarkissa is dead! We can change the Scar now."

David shook his head. "We need a spire ruler before we make changes."

Zabulon raised a finger. "Is that not you?"

"No. Tomorrow, I have two goals. Make sure the Old Ones don't somehow rise and kill us all. And learn about the ritual to become a spire ruler. The problem with that, is my goal is False Gate. It can't be me. I don't even know if I can become spire ruler at all." He flicked his forehead. "Something tells me an amber horn coming out of my forehead might not work for this body. I'm not a demon."

"You sure?" Jes asked, grinning back at him. Done with a battle just an hour ago, she wrestled with the Las like they all hadn't risked their lives. He wished he could bounce back that fast.

"Pretty sure," he said. "I'm a child of Hell, whatever that means, but not a demon. I don't react the same way to eating hearts. I don't have the same kind of aura. I don't--yeah. I'm different. How different, still don't know, but probably not demon."

"Wait," Tacharius said. "You took this spire, knowing full well you can't be its ruler?"

"I was pretty sure, yeah, for those two reasons. Can't stick around, and I'm not a demon. But it had to be done. And I'll make sure whoever is in charge does what I agreed to. Don't worry."

The volas looked at each other, unconvinced. David shook his head, walked over to his girls, sat with them, and set his egg on the silks in front of him. Everyone waited for him to say something. He was kind of getting sick of being the one to fill in that silence. It was exhausting.

"We can talk about it tomorrow," he said. "Go find a room and sleep."

"In the spire?" Fuad asked, head tilted.

David nodded. "In the spire. That a problem?"

"Not at all. But few betrayers are... I suppose with Tarkissa dead, the rules have changed."

"Just make sure you sleep with someone you can trust to watch your back. The doors are all open."

Fuad nodded. Natalie nodded. The volas nodded, walked out, and the betrayers followed. But before she left, Naoko gave David a little wave, a grin, and disappeared through the door.

Caera grumbled.

"Come now, tregeera," Acelina said. "She is merely a human girl, doing what all human girls do. Seeking power to exploit, and someone to blame if things go poorly. That is David. He wields power, and if things go poorly, it is he who bears the blame."

David winced.

Tsila sighed and raised a wing. "A cynical view."

"But accurate," Laoko said, chuckling. Chuckle turned to hiss, and she sat up and glared down at her leg. "I expect to be well compensated for my efforts, David, if you insist on bringing me with you."

Daoka giggled and clicked at the much larger demon.

Laoko scoffed at Daoka as she lay back down. An Acelina-like scoff. "If you left without me, I would either demand to be made spire ruler myself, or return to my wandering and grow a brood of my own again."

David shifted across the blankets and sat beside Laoko's head. Her long dreadlocks were spread in a wide mess on the blankets, and he nudged them aside.

"Do you want to?"

She blinked up at him. "Do I wish to what?"

"Rule the Scar."

Blink turned to stare. "Are... Are you asking me?"

"You're old. Ancient, manipulative." Careful, David. "And smart, and powerful. Patient. Usually. You'd make a good spire ruler. And spire rulers are usually tetrads, right? Strongest demons around. On top of all that, you've got experience ruling."

"Ruling a small brood of a hundred demons is hardly the same as being bound to a spire with an amber horn in my forehead, and the power to bring a province to its knees with spire auras."

"You're right. Doesn't change the fact you'd be good at it."

She frowned at him. Frown? He'd expected a smile.

"Moments before, you said you were not leaving without me. Are you so eager to be rid of me now?"

"What? No. No, I don't want to get rid of you."

"We do not agree on many things, unmarked. Despite Septima's defection, I still think your naivety will get us killed."

He nodded. "You're right. It probably would. And I can definitely use your expertise on this trip. Caera hasn't been further than the Scar. Everyone else hasn't ever left Death's Grip. You're a great fighter. You're smart. You're willing to challenge my ideas. We don't have to get along to be a great team."

Daoka nodded, chirped a few times, and gestured at Laoko.

Caera laughed, prowled over, and lay against David's side. "And you have an amazing body. Only thing the riiva cares about."

Daoka giggled.

Moriah groaned. "I know we have not had sexual relations much these past few weeks, but we are on a journey to save the Great Tower, Daoka." Doubling down on the groan, she walked over, dismissed her armor, and hit David with her wing. Beautiful, soft, white feathers did not make for a good whacking instrument. "Three months ago, from his own confession, David was a closeted pervert who spent all his time masturbating to pornography. If you insist on spoiling him with every breast you can find, riiva, you will be his ruin."

Well, fuck. He blushed hard, but the girls just laughed, and Caera leaned up and licked his throat.

"Yeah," Caera said, "and he probably spied on girls when he was walking around as a ghost."

He frowned. "Hey. Only... for the first few days."

Rolling her eyes, Laoko reached out with her two closer hands and tapped her claws on David's knees.

"You give me a choice?"

"Yeah, I am."

Nodding, Laoko closed her eyes, slipped her claws around David's toga's front, and drew him in closer.

"You infuriate me, little boy," she whispered, but loud enough everyone heard her. "But I like you. And I will aid you."

He gulped down at the enormous woman. Surrounded by demons, sometimes it was easy to forget just how big Laoko was, ten feet tall and proportional, so her head was almost twice as tall as his own. Plus, the four giant black horns coming off it.

Caera leaned in. "He likes you too."

David gulped again. His girlfriend was practically his wingman. There were no words to describe how strange that was.

Acelina reached out, pushed David onto his back, and sat on him. Literally. She sat on his pelvis, legs out to the side, one crossed over the other like she was an office dominatrix sitting in her chair. Nodding, she leaned back and put some of her weight on her palms on the blankets, and thank god she did, because the girl weighed probably six or seven times what David did, and that was without the armor she was currently wearing.

"He is infuriating," Acelina said. "But for all his infuriating naivety and incessant need to be... nice... he has accomplished much. Here we sit, ruling the Scar, a province of Hell. The weakest province, but still, a powerful move I never expected. Thousands upon thousands of imps and grems, and even volas, are willing to listen to David's words, all because he was... nice." She scoffed. It was a more queenly scoff than Laoko's. "I fear we have no choice but to believe the boy's methods have merit."

It was difficult to speak with a giant woman crushing him into dust.

"Caera. Little help?"

Caera prowled in closer and set her head on his chest. "He could make some real changes. More importantly, he might actually get across the Red Pits and Navameere Fields."

"Perhaps," Laoko said. She sat up and smiled down at David, a little thing, but a nice change of pace compared to the past week. "Khazeer will welcome our help, but he is no fool. He will grab hold of any advantage he can, and not let go. Morgana of the Navameere Fields will do the same. And unlike the other provinces, they rule their territory with meera claws. True military."

The Las got to their feet and hooves and saluted. "Military!" they said.

Daoka gestured them down, and they giggled and knelt around David. Instead of helping him like they should have, they poked and prodded him, curled Acelina's long tail around their wrists, and caressed her wings' long membrane.

He groaned, loudly. Everyone giggled at him. He tilted his head back and looked to Moriah and Tsila for help, but the two angels smiled down at him, even Moriah. Whatever sort of melancholy was eating at David, it wasn't affecting anyone else. And it affected him a little less, seeing everyone smile.

Daoka leaned over him and kissed his forehead. If she'd had eyes, she'd probably have winked at him. After a few chirps, Daoka gestured to Tsila and Laoko. Might as well ask now, now that everyone was in a better mood.

"Tsila," David asked. "Can you heal Laoko?"

Laoko shook her head. "I do not need--"

"If you ask it of me," Tsila said. "But I do not know if she will let me."

"Laoko, can you--"

Laoko snorted. "I will heal on my own."

David sat up, or at least tried, but Acelina stayed where she was. He was pinned.

"Fool," the spire mother said, but not to him. "For all your age and wisdom, and for how you like to present yourself as smarter than us, you cannot take aid when you need it? Let the angel heal you."

David blinked up at Acelina. Everyone did. But it was the kick Laoko needed, and the tetrad sighed and gestured for Tsila to come closer.

Tsila knelt down between Laoko's huge thighs, set both hands on the broken ankle, and got to work. A gentle, gold glow engulfed her hands, and Laoko sucked in a pained breath between her teeth. Everyone watched, and everyone relaxed as the subtle bend in the flesh disappeared, and the huge tetrad's pained expression went with it.

It took a bit. Ten minutes. Laoko was a big girl. But Tsila eventually stood up, wiped some sweat from her light brown skin, and smiled down at her work.

"There," she said, and gave her wings a flutter. "Feel better, bolstara?"

Laoko, expression neutral, got to her hooves and leaned her weight on the bad leg. And after a few quiet seconds, she looked down at the angel.

"I do."

Tsila smiled, big and bright. "You're welcome."

Laoko glared, but whatever she wanted to say, she kept to herself.

"Thanks," David said, saying it for her.

It was what Tsila wanted to hear, and she nodded deeply to David with near relief on her face. Almost like a schoolkid who just desperately wanted to hear 'good job' for doing a good job.

"Now," Tsila said, "I could definitely use a meal. I'll be right back." The angel left, ready to mingle with the volas, imps, and grems.

Laoko watched her go. David paused and waited for her to say something, but the bolstara tetrad let her go, and sat back on the blankets beside Acelina and the egg. She didn't look at them, keeping her eyes on the blankets instead. Whatever was going through her mind, she probably kept locked up in a steel box David wouldn't be able to crack.

"Acelina," David said. "Much as I love having you on me, I'd also love to get some sleep."

With a sinister chuckle, the evil woman climbed off him, and everyone got ready to relax -- genuinely relax -- for the first time in a while.

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

Everyone went to sleep. David and Caera took the last shift.

The girls kept their armor on. He couldn't blame them. He couldn't close the door, and with the spire teeming with demons they couldn't quite trust yet, they didn't want to let their guard down.

David pulled some blankets off to the side, sat on them, back to the wall, and Caera prowled over and set her head on his lap. He combed her hair, ran his fingers between the black tendrils, and earned some happy rumbles from the big tiger lady.

"We lived," he said, and nodded to the group.

Tsila was back, fed, though she didn't say how. She sat with Moriah off to the side, sleeping. Everyone else was asleep on the blankets, practically piled on each other. Jes and Daoka were curled up together, while the Las took full advantage of Laoko's and Acelina's enormous thighs, sitting up against them to sleep.

"You thought we'd die?" Caera asked. "The battle went well. You summoned a gigantic force in a matter of days. No one could have seen that coming."

"It went quickly. It didn't go well. A lot of volas died. Even more imps and grems."

"I get that," Caera said. "But things still went pretty well, much as you feel otherwise. Septima's on our side. Most of our army did survive, much as it doesn't look like it. I bet the rest of the Scar is hearing about all of this now, and is happy Tarkissa's gone. You'll have all the volas on your side by word of mouth. And the fact the imps and grems aren't going to get pushed around anymore? They'll flock to you."

David winced. "Maybe that's what's bothering me. What happens in a few days when we leave? We get to the Red Pits and... do what? Do this all again?"

"Khazeer will work with us."

"So we get his help, and then what? Join his army fighting Morgana and the other unmarked?" He shook his head and gestured to the other girls again. "This fight was easy, and we still lost many. I'm picturing a giant battlefield with way more demons, slaughtering each other. Demons will die by the hundreds of thousands. Maybe fucking millions. Betrayers, too."

"That's normal," she said, nudging her horns into him. "That's Hell."

"You're okay with that?"

She shook her head and nodded toward the horde mark burned on her left shoulder.

"No. I'm not. But we deal. You, though. You don't look like you're dealing with this well."

He winced. "I guess it's because I... I don't know. Maybe I've hit my limit."

"Limit?" She sat up and pushed her nose into his neck.

"I guess. I feel it in my gut, you know? Watching--Hearing everyone jump Tarkissa and rip him apart? I don't know. It kinda sucked the wind out of my sails. I just feel heavy now, and nauseous."

With a snort, Caera pressed her forehead into his chest. But since her horns pointed forward, that meant stabbing him. Ow.

"You sound like one of those nice guys from a scrying pool."

He shrugged. "I think I am one of those nice guys from a scrying pool?"

"Pfft." She licked his cheek. "You just might be."

Acelina sat up fast. Caera and David froze as the spire mother turned in place looking for something, and she sighed in relief when her hand found David's egg. She was supposed to be sleeping. Nightmare? No one in the afterlife had dreams.

Without a word, Acelina gently set the Las aside, stood up, grabbed the egg, and sat on David's other side from Caera, egg on her lap.

"Up early," he said.

Acelina nodded, eyeless face aimed down at the egg.

"Sure you don't wanna stay here?" he asked in a whisper.

Acelina looked down at him. "You want me to stay?"

"No."

Nodding, she looked down at the egg again and caressed it with her claws.

"This is the third spire I have ever seen. A part of me would like to see the other zotiva and see what they have to say about Tarkissa's death. But... I do not want to be tempted by the luxury of the nest. The luxury of this place. The Scar would drown someone as magnificent as I in gifts, wouldn't they? Silks, jewelry, endless meals and endless bliss, if I stayed here."

David blinked at her. No Mia required, he recognized the tone of voice. Acelina was trying to convince herself of something.

"But I am committed," she continued, "to my goal."

Goal? He raised a brow, scanning her face, but there was nothing to find. A black canvas, smooth, like she was wearing a tight black mask over facial features that didn't exist.

"I'm glad to have you," he said.

"You want someone to guard your egg."

"Yeah, that's true, but that isn't the only reason."

Caera nodded, head back on David's lap, but single eye aimed up at Acelina. "You're a bitch, but you get along with the Las. And you get along with Laoko, too. She listens to you."

Acelina aimed her eyeless gaze at the tetrad, the only demon in the room bigger than her.

"Does she?"

Caera turned onto her side, legs out in front of her like a dog, head still on David's lap.

"Yeah, she does. She respects you. I wonder if Zel told her something about you."

Sighing, Acelina looked back down at the egg and drew random shapes on it.

"Zelandariel..."

David waited for her to continue. She didn't. It took every bit of effort David had not to spill the beans about Mia killing Zel. They were finally getting along. Finally! Other than Laoko, the bickering in the group had dropped dramatically, and hopefully after today, Laoko would be easier to get along with.

Acelina looked at David. Looked at the egg. Looked at David again.

"Little soul," she said. "You... will need me at your side on this journey. Most demons we deal with will be like Tarkissa: shortsighted, obsessed with power, and convinced of their own supremacy. I will aid you."

David smiled, but something itched at his brain. Was that what she wanted to say? His Mia voice perked up, the itch in his brain, telling him Acelina wanted to say something else.

"Thank you," he said. "Really, I mean it."

"Indeed. You are deeply indebted to me, little soul." She leaned down over him and came close. Very close. David froze as she pressed her forehead down on his. "I take care of your egg. I ensure we are given respect on sight. I am the reason we will succeed on this journey." Nodding, her forehead rubbed against his. "You will reward me with a thousand gifts when we are done."

"Gifts?" He gulped and peeked down at Caera, but his girlfriend just grinned up at him. "What kind of gifts?"

"I do not know. Perhaps control of a spire? Or perhaps a thousand angels at my beck and call?"

"Uh, I don't know about a spire. Or, um, angels."

"I'm sure you will think of something." She looked back at the egg and gently hugged it to her stomach. "I predict the egg will hatch in about twenty days, David. What will you do with this creature when it comes forth?"

"Twenty days. So not long after we reach the Red Pits, right? I uh, I don't know. I'm hoping it'll be a nice goort. It has to be, right? If Hell birthed it for me specifically."

"Perhaps. Or it will awaken and devour you."

Caera shook her head. "I'm sure it will be a nice goort."

David smiled, leaned back, and looked over the girls in the room.

They'd won. And all his girls were still alive, and, thanks to Tsila, unharmed.

Mia was closer to False Gate than he was. Hopefully, she was having as good of luck as he was.