~~Day 137~~

~~Keziah~~

From high above, Keziah watched. She was alone. If her captain learned she had done this, a young angel like her, he would tear her to pieces. But she had to see.

There was one element to the council's last order that had struck her as strange. It had struck everyone as strange. They were to kill any unmarked trying to reach False Gate; legend had it there was a way to reach the Forgotten Place through False Gate, and the only conclusion anyone could come to was that the unmarked were trying to reach Lucifer's prison. Why not kill all the unmarked, though? Why only go for the ones attempting to make the journey?

At least one unmarked was not making that journey. A girl. She had grown in power under the watchful eye of the Navameere Fields' spire ruler Morgana, and now, instead of heading to False Gate, she unleashed her powers on the Red Pits. And her powers had grown to include transformation.

It was dangerous for any angel to brave the vortex, now that the Heavenly Islands were in civil war, with only the exarch angels there to stop it from erupting into overwhelming violence. But Keziah had wanted to see. She had demanded to see. And Netanel had let her pass.

Now, she hovered from on high, so the battle below was nothing more than a small pond of red and black bodies crashing into each other. Like surface ants, battling in an empty field of dirt. Only the girl unmarked's strange hellbeast was large enough to see from so high, at first. The spider died, and another spider-like monster rose from the battle. Not a spider, not truly, but a fleshy mass of pale skin with limbs protruding from it in almost random directions.

Keziah risked a closer look. That was no spider. That was the unmarked girl, transformed.

The monster woman lasted mere minutes before another monster rose to meet her. David? Brother of Mia. Heaven knew of them, knew their names, but Keziah had not known he would be in this battle.

For a fleeting moment, she saw freckles and red hair on the growing monster, but those features disappeared, melting into a flesh mass that morphed into a colossal centipede. A centipede covered in a thousand faces. Two thousand. Ten thousand. It grew wings and sharp arms on its back. It grew human-like arms on its front half. And the monster, well over a hundred yards long, squashed the other unmarked into mulch.

The unmarked were transforming into monsters.

The province itself ripped apart with a thousand tears, and over the course of the battle, the tears merged into a canyon. Keziah could do nothing but stare, hovering high over the ravine, as it ripped open and exposed not only the guts of Hell, but what lay beneath. Several miles down, past rock and stone, past lava and amber veins, past endless remnants and uncountable bones, was oblivion. Endless nothing. It glimmered slightly, hints of starlight in the swirling black, but it held none of the beauty of the starry sky of Heaven. No, whatever this void was, it was a cruel reflection of the night sky, as if a black hole was disguising itself in a twisted facsimile.

And from the depths came the alien. Tentacles rose, held the canyon open, and pushed it further apart, shaking the entire province. An army of humanoids, the ones spoken of by the army that Ezekiel, the reaper, had helped, poured up from the darkness below.

And the monster unmarked slaughtered them all in a barrage of hellfire. Like some walking battleship from the surface, the unmarked lay waste to the aliens, unleashing several thousand beams of pure hellfire upon them. Destruction on a scale by a single entity that Keziah could not fathom.

And for the first time in Keziah's life, she wondered if there were an entity that could defeat an exarch like Netanel. The Old Ones? They were dead and gone. The archangels? Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel lay dead on Angel's Spine, their bodies so huge they covered the entire province. And Lucifer, if they were even alive, was trapped in a prison devised by God. The council? They had not used their power since the First War, and more than a few angels suspected they were now impotent.

The guardians, reapers, and muses were beyond powerful, the only beings alive capable of affecting the surface world. And in the afterlife, they were juggernauts of might. But even now, Ezekial still recovered from his bout with David and the aliens that followed. The greater angels were limited by their own power, magnificent beings that needed time to recover.

But the unmarked could not only wield the ancient power and control Hell's body, but they could transform? Transform in ways only spoken of in the old texts, of the ways the archangels warped their bodies, and looked upon the Great Tower with a million eyes.

The sight froze her to her grace. What could angels do against such pure destruction? Were they tainted, twisted, corrupt archangels? The giant monster that had to be David slowly walked alongside the canyon and bombarded it with endless death. The demons from the Red Pits killed what few aliens escaped, but David slaughtered the alien in untold numbers.

And when the battle was done, he reverted to normal, nothing more than a young man. From so high, Keziah was a single white dot against the burning sky, and hopefully the two angels with David would not see her. She risked staying, and watched a small boy work his strange magic, and over hours, close the canyon.

He closed the canyon.

Keziah sucked in a breath and flew higher, risking the flames to mask her retreat. The boy had killed the other unmarked, ripped her apart and crushed her, then fought off the alien. Why? She was tempted to fly down and ask, but Netanel had made it clear. A special permission. She could take a peek, and that was it.

Maybe, before she returned, she would take another.

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

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

~~David~~

David and Daoka walked over to the others, a minute away from the new mausoleum. Tsila and Moriah were there, finding leather to wrap their wings and bodies in. Laoko sat with the Las, checking them for wounds while they did the same for her. Jes sat with Pegasus, checking his wings and stroking his neck.

Acelina stood up and took half a step toward David, but stopped. Like someone had tugged on her tail, she froze, slowly putting her hoof back down. Whatever she wanted to say, she kept it to herself, sitting back down. And without a single feature on her black canvas face, he couldn't tell what she was looking at as he sat with the group.

The ground had been cracked in various places by the hellquakes, and it was a bloody mess. At least blood faded in a few hours, usually. And the girls had found a dry spot among the armies, a large, slightly raised area of dirt where they could sit and wait.

They all looked at him.

David looked for the words. "I'm... here. I'm..." Was he here? He barely felt here at all.

"Tsila explained," Laoko said. "As much as she can help us understand. And we do understand, despite the angel's condescending tone."

Tsila smiled and shrugged. "Sorry."

"What do now?" Laria said, and the other three Las nodded.

"Nothing's changed," David said. "We recover, and we keep walking, same as we always have." The words came out deadpan. He felt numb.

He half expected the Las to whine or cry about it. They certainly looked sad. But they weren't children. Imps and grems were more like red goblins with wings. Simple, but adults. They handled Caera's death the same way everyone else was: decidedly better than David.

David continued. "But... I... I um... I'll need time to... And--"

Laoko nodded. "As I said, Tsila explained what this... situation, does to a human. And we have all seen humans in the scrying pools, David. It is not as if we do not understand. It is just... we have never seen it in person before."

'It'. She meant his mourning. He almost laughed.

Nodding, David walked up to Pegasus, and Pegasus immediately trotted over to meet him. He rubbed the horse's head and horns, unicorn horn included, and sighed with relief as Pegasus pushed into him. If David's transformation had scared the goort, made him afraid of David, Pegasus showed no signs of it.

Jes joined her lover, pressed her forehead to Dao's, and the two shared a kiss before joining David's sides.

"We could take a break? Rest?" Acelina asked. "Perhaps, after today, it could very well be an efficient idea." Everyone looked at her, an eyebrow raised, and the spire mother shrugged. "Tsila must be drained, healing Jeskura, Daoka, and Laoko as much as she has. And we are all drained and..." She aimed her eyeless gaze at David, and lowered it. Acelina never lowered her head. Ever.

"She makes a good point, David," Jes said. "I know you want to get on the march. End of the world and all that. But after today, let's just... not?"

David looked between the girls. At first, he got the impression they were trying to spare his feelings, thinking that he'd be happier resting for another day instead of getting on the move. And sure, Mia would tell him he needed to time emotionally process. But it was also true that it wasn't good to dwell and dig yourself a pit; might as well be an early grave, in Hell.

He felt numb. He felt so damn numb. Every word spoken felt empty, like trying to hold something with numb fingers and not feeling it.

A day or two of rest couldn't hurt.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. I'll grow us some forbidden fruit. I am starving."

With Pegasus at his side, David pointed his hands at the ground, and played a little song. Tired and sore, only his skill allowed him to conduct a song--that and how many remnants grew within the ground of the Red Pits. Easy access to the trace remains of resonance and essence in millions of damned, all nearby. And the forbidden tree grew cleanly, a short thing of withered branches that grew fruit that looked all too similar to hearts.

Everyone plucked a fruit, sat around the little tree like a campfire, and ate. A single fruit barely put a dent in David's stomach, so he grew more. He ate more, and grew more, and ate more, until all the girls were staring at him.

"Doing what I did drained me," he said. "A lot."

"Yes," Laoko said, "but the vessel can only hold so much resonance. If I ate a dozen hearts, I would vomit them back up."

"Don't know what to tell you. I noticed it months ago that I never get full. And right now, I'm just trying to take the edge off the hunger." Each bite should have been delicious, like savoury medium-rare steak with some exotic spice he couldn't put his finger on. But every sensation was dulled, and the deliciousness faded away, until he might as well have been eating raw liver.

"You transformed into a... strange creature," Moriah said. "A colossal creature. If you had kept growing, David, you would have perhaps reached the size of an Old One."

"Yeah?" He finished another fruit, the twentieth one, finally enough to ebb his hunger. "I... I didn't realize."

"And the form," Tsila said. "We have seen something similar to that before. Angels speak of it, have written of it, when visiting Angel's Spine. The bodies of Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel."

Hands on his knees, David nodded and stared down at the tree, the memories running through him.

"When I... play the music really loud, I can get lost in it. I get pulled out of myself, and the simpler me, the more primal, primitive me, he floats around with Hell in the ocean of song."

"And that happened this time?" Moriah asked.

"No. This time, it was the opposite. Everything was inward. No music. I had complete control over everything. Every mouth. Every eye. Every finger." He clenched his eyes and almost fell back as the memory poured over him. Too many senses, too much sensory feedback, a million times as much of anything and everything. Overwhelming. "I changed. I... changed myself."

Tsila nodded. "Like the archangels could."

Slowly, he found enough feeling to take heavy breaths, and his voice came out wavering again.

"I just... I just gave in. I was so angry, I just gave into the emotion, you know?"

The gabriem shook her head. "We do not know, not as you do."

"I mean, Mia would probably talk about the superego and the id, and then talk about how antiquated those ideas are, but still, she'd talk about higher-level reasoning battling baser instincts and desires. But I just... didn't do that. I just leaned into it. I was ready to..." For the duration of his rage, he'd been ready to burn down all of Hell, because it was the only thing he could feel. "I guess we know why I can change my body during sex."

"You are the son of Lucifer." Laoko said. David set his eyes on her, but Laoko waved a dismissing hand. "You can read the ancient language, play the music of existence, and change your own body, something not even the Old Ones can do, as far as we know. What else is there to think? And surely it is a good thing. If there is any power that can save us from this alien invader, it is the power of an archangel."

David shook his head. "Satan doesn't have the best reputation on the surface. And besides, son? Angels, demons, and hellbeasts don't procreate. Seems like the only things that procreate are from the physical world. So... how's that work?"

No one had an answer.

With a warm smile, Daoka plucked a fruit from the forbidden tree and handed it to Tsila. She chirped at her, and chirped again when Tsila took the offering.

"Yeah," Jes said. "You saved our asses, Tsila. Th... Thanks for that."

The two angels blinked at the gargoyle, surprised.

"You're welcome," Tsila said, and she returned the smile. "I..." Her voice wavered, and she looked down. "It wasn't enough, though."

Everyone looked down. And despite himself, David's autopilot felt the need to chime in.

"Dao's right," David said, but the words came out flat. "You did amazing, Tsila. Laoko, Jes, and Dao all got hurt badly. They might have died if you hadn't helped. Then I..." His autopilot glitched-out and froze. The fuck could he say? A small part of him wanted to scream at her for not being able to save Caera, that she wasn't strong enough, her healing ability not powerful enough to save the one who needed it most. A larger part of him was so damn thankful, because if Jes and Dao, or even Laoko had died, David knew he'd have crumbled like a fucking sandcastle.

Or have given in to the rage in his limbs that'd changed him, and never come back. But Dao had asked him. She'd asked him 'don't become mean'.

David sucked in a slow breath, and let it out slower. Tremors worked through him, and tears threatened to come back up, struggling against the icy numbness in his skin. He forced them down. He'd cried enough for today.

The group sat around the forbidden tree as the ember sky darkened. Twilight. No fear of hellbeasts out here in the middle of a resting army, and soon David would make them a cave to sleep in.

Khazeer returned, his bailiffs Zaavras and Sazillia with him. Behind him, Tatiana and Tacharius, even Zazee, and behind the three sex demons followed Tatiana's entourage, and the six betrayers the group had been taking along with them.

Naoko peeked her head out from behind Zazee and scanned David's group. Her eyes went wide.

"May we speak?" Khazeer asked.

David sighed and pushed himself back to his feet. "Yes."

Nodding, the tetrad came closer, favoring his ruined wing. It might heal someday. Tsila could probably heal it now. She made no move to get up, and David didn't ask her to.

The spire ruler nodded and held out a hand. Not looking to shake David's hand, but gesturing to him, as if David were the centerpiece of the conversation.

"You defeated the unmarked. You defeated her pet. Both sides suffered countless deaths, as is the way, but you have restored balance. I am in your debt."

Zaavras and Sazillia nodded, and Sazillia hissed and grabbed her neck. The spider had hit her head so hard, one of her four horns had snapped in half, and she was lucky it hadn't broken her neck.

"Caera killed the spider," David said.

"Yes, an impressive feat. Many saw." Nodding, Khazeer kept his gaze on David, as if the rest of his crew didn't matter. Or because he was afraid of David. "You transformed as the other unmarked did."

"Yeah."

"You adopted a form far, far greater than hers."

"Yeah."

Khazeer squinted. "And you were right about the alien presence. Strange creatures. My demons tell me they resemble sea creatures from the surface."

David squinted back. "Yeah."

"But you defeated them with that monstrous form of yours."

For a fleeting second, David tried to sound angry, but it died, smothered.

"I defeated one wave of them. And if the other unmarked had lived much longer, that canyon would have ripped Hell in half, and we'd have probably been fighting a thousand of those waves. What's your point?"

"I am just trying to understand the situation, unmarked. I am not so blind that I would focus on Morgana and the Navameere Fields while the fate of the Great Tower hangs in the balance."

David got ready to unload on the tetrad with the million responsibilities dragging him down. He was on a hair-trigger, though, and he knew it.

"Enough talking. We can continue tomorrow, Khazeer."

"David, this is--"

"I lost the woman I loved today, Khazeer. Fuck off before I skewer you and take your skull for a helmet." David glared, every word drained of any emotion. The spire ruler wanted to talk war the same day David lost his girlfriend. The fucker could drown in remnant blood for all David cared.

The demon watched him, looking for something, and David stared him down. Funny. Back on the surface, David had always struggled with eye contact; it was too overwhelming. But a few months in Hell and David glared daggers into the spire ruler until Khazeer caved and backed away.

"Tomorrow, then." Khazeer walked off, and ten brutes followed him. He'd lost two.

Zaavras followed him with only a momentary glance to David and a nod to match, and Tatiana and the entourage went with him. But Sazillia came over and squatted in front of David, one of her many hands rubbing her neck.

"He doesn't show it," she said, "but Khazeer understands, better than you think."

David scoffed. "Yeah?"

"Yes. He's paid dearly for his more... honest nature, David. Friends lost, to blade and to greed. The Spires War was a time of upheaval, and many demons forged friendships or betrayed each other. I hope you have seen enough of Khazeer to understand who he is, at least a little."

Sighing, David's shoulders slumped, and his eyes fell. Fuck. Khazeer was the direct, brutal sort, and while David figured he could trust the man, he also figured the tetrad was a warmongering tyrant. Maybe he was, but from what Sazillia said, or more like how she said it, Khazeer wasn't that kind of guy. A ruler with an iron fist, but not a tyrant. And by Hell's standards, that was practically saintly.

"I'll keep that in mind," David said.

Sazillia stood up, nodded, and made to walk away, but stopped. Squatting down again, she gestured past David to his crew.

"She was amazing," the tetrad said. "I've never seen a tregeera move so fast."

David closed his eyes. This was just Sazillia's way of being nice, and to a battle-hardened Viking warrior woman like her, complimenting a dead demon's prowess in combat was probably the highest honor she knew how to give. But it wasn't what David wanted to hear right now.

"Did you read what I wrote on the tombstone I forged for her?"

Sazillia shook her head. "Not yet."

"Do that. She was more than a warrior." And with a shaking breath, David sat back with his crew.

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

First shift. David stayed awake. He'd made the cave plenty large and deep underground so no one would bother them, and an angel bombardment wouldn't kill them.

No bombardment came. He wished one did. The silence was murder.

Pegasus lay beside him, and David idly ran a hand along the growing horse's back. Sleeping, the horse was on his side, literally lying on one of his wings. If he got as big as a goort, he'd have to sleep standing up when he got older, especially with those wings. And considering the other unmarked's pet, Pegasus would probably grow bigger.

Did Pegasus understand death? Did any hellbeast? What was death in the afterlife? For all he knew, there was an afterlife to the afterlife. But he doubted it. Whatever the Great Tower was, it likely took in the memories of people, and David had absorbed some of those memories, the nastier ones.

Maybe someday he'd find a way to dump those memories back into the Great Tower. Maybe.

Jes and Dao slept together, snuggling tight, as if one would disappear if the other let go. Moriah and Tsila slept side by side, half sitting against the cave walls. Laoko did the same, with four little ladies nestled among her legs and many arms.

That left David and Acelina. The spire mother sat on the other side of the cave, and, like before, she kept her eyeless gaze aimed at the ground. It was beyond strange.

"You look like you want to say something," David whispered.

Acelina sighed and crawled over to him, with none of the usual exaggerated sway either. Still, she sat in that feminine way she did, half on her side, legs to one side. Beside him, her sheer size dwarfed him as if he were a young child.

Something light and thin rested along his back. David turned his head and glared up at Acelina, but she wasn't looking at him, or smirking, or grinning with her hidden, massive mouth. Instead, she kept her mouth hidden in the black, featureless canvas of her face. And still, she looked down at the ground, as if her black hooves were important.

It was a strange sensation, the way her wing's long, thin rested on his shoulders. Stranger, how her wing's membrane was warm despite how thin it was.

Maybe she was waiting for him to ask what she was doing. Or maybe that'd pop the bubble, and she'd leave if he said anything.

And honestly, he didn't mind her presence. With Laoko, he wouldn't be able to tell if she was being sincere, or just manipulating him. With the Las, he could tell they were getting over Caera's death already; goblins were like that. Tsila was the therapist he didn't want right now. Moriah was a rock, and that'd be better than Tsila, but he didn't want to deal with that hardness right now either. Daoka would do everything she could to make him feel better, and he didn't want to be smothered by kindness. Jes would try to be his buddy, and he didn't want to be pestered.

But Acelina was different. He'd fully expected Acelina to give him space, or maybe even insult his softness. That she wasn't, was extremely odd.

"I... want to say something," she whispered.

He looked at the empty space in the center of the cave, lit by a small hole in the ceiling that reached the surface. Even at night, the burning sky still gave off some light.

"What?" he asked.

"I don't know."

He choked on a tiny laugh. "Yeah? I thoughts demons were self-actualized; that's how Mia would put it. Demons know what they are, what they want, what they like, and go after it."

"I suppose that's true." The huge demoness let out a long sigh, arm of her wing still resting on his shoulders. "I wanted to confess that I... I was surprised by you."

"Surprised?"

"Caera's death. You returned from the mausoleum you built, shedding tears. I... did not expect that."

Heat shot up his spine, and David looked straight down and clenched his fingers into tight fists.

"Why not? You saw how I felt after Daoka nearly died, when we first ran into angels. And when Latia got her arm chopped off." Fucking christ. "And you saw us together, Caera and I, all the time. We... We were..."

Damn it. The heat faded away, and he ground his teeth into powder and stared out at the center of the cave. A campfire would have been nice, something he could gaze into and let his memories drift away on the flames. Maybe he could grow a burning bush? Not tonight. It might wake someone up.

"I meant to say," Acelina said, "that I... did not truly appreciate the sincerity of your... you. A human, crying over the death of a demon? How many times do you think that has happened in the history of all existence, David?"

David. Not boy. Not young man. Not unmarked. David.

"I... I mean, some betrayers must get attached to their owners, right?"

"Yes. And maybe they even shed a tear if their master died. But betrayers are damned souls. They were sent to Hell because they are not worthy of Heaven. Do you truly think they would cry deep, powerful tears?"

"I don't know."

"I imagine it is quite rare, David. Tears are a weakness. You are vulnerable, guard down, and any demon would see that with either contempt, or as an opportunity to devour you. No, for a human to cry heavy tears for a demon is not something Hell sees often. And I, or the girls, ever."

"Happens all the time on the surface. In stories, I mean."

Acelina shook her head. "Stories. I speak of reality."

"I'm sure plenty of souls in Heaven would--"

"They are in Heaven, not here. No demon has seen..." Whatever message she was struggling to communicate, she kept at it, wing still on his back. "What is Mia like?"

"What?"

"Your sister? You have mentioned her many times, but... is she like you?"

David tilted his head, and Acelina did the same, just enough to aim a bit of her featureless face at him.

"I mean, yes and no? We like a lot of the same things. We feel the same way about a lot of stuff. If you mean about... Caera, then yeah, Mia would cry too, if in that situation. She'd cry for hours."

Acelina nodded and waited, looking for more.

"But we're different, too," David continued. "I'm basically fucking autistic." He raised a hand and cut her off. "Don't worry about the details. I just meant my brain won't stop analyzing everything. And I fucking mean everything, from the plans we're making to the texture of the fucking rocks under my sandals. I can't get out of my head. But Mia's not like that. She can get past the thinking part, and voice her thoughts and feelings so much more easily than me. More extroverted." Again, he cut Acelina off. "It means she's comfortable being social, and does her thinking and feeling on the outside, on her body, in her body language. Unlike me, who does everything in his skull."

Acelina tapped his opposite shoulder with her wing claw. "Except today."

"Yes, except today."

With anyone else, this conversation would have pissed David right off until he stonewalled whoever was prodding him. He couldn't take it, not today. But Acelina was different. It was like listening to a spoiled princess actually step back from her own presumptions and try to understand something, actually try to put herself in someone else's shoes.

"And she is as... kind, as you? As good-natured?"

"Yeah. More, maybe. I mean, I never thought of myself as being a good-natured person, Acelina. But after all this time in Hell, I... guess I had a pretty naïve view of the world."

"Indeed. You are frustratingly kind, David. And if your sister is the same..." Sighing, Acelina pulled her long, thin tail onto her lap and idly stroked it, aiming her eyeless gaze at the same imaginary campfire David was. "I spent little time with her in the Death's Grip spire. I hope to meet her again someday."

It took everything David had not to wince. It took more not to spill the beans right then and there. He should tell her. She had just told him he was good-natured, and here he was, holding a secret back from her. Awful. He was being fucking awful.

No, he was being smart. Zel was a bitch and a tyrant, according to the others. The fact that she had a relationship with Acelina made everything so much more complicated, but if David could convince her Mia was a good person, too, maybe she'd forgive her? A few months ago, he'd have given the idea a snowball's chance in Hell.

He'd tell her some day. But for now, better the spire mother think the rider killed her old lover.

"Mia," he said. "She... She killed Zel."

Or he could just throw all that perfectly good reasoning down the fucking drain.

Acelina didn't so much as flinch. David braced for the worst, got ready to summon a tune if he needed to defend himself; not that he'd be able to do that with her wing claw inches from his throat. Maybe he should yell? Wake the others? Tsila could heal him if all she did was cut his throat and not take his head off. Maybe--

"I know."

David froze, staring at the giant demon woman beside him. Like she hadn't said anything meaningful or important, Acelina kept her weight on one palm, still sitting on her side, while her other hand tugged at her necklaces. They jingled and clinked lightly against each other and her breastplate in the absolute dead silence of the little cave. David was holding his breath.

"You know?"

"Yes. When Mia escaped with Vinicius, I found her, standing over Zelandariel's corpse. She'd run my lover through, using one of Vinicius's spikes. Through the eye of my love, and into her brain."

David took slow, deep breaths. "I... I didn't--"

"The rider attacked, and when Mia and Vinicius escaped with you, Diogo and I were trapped in the dungeon with the rider. He let us live. To the rider, we didn't exist. The only reason Diogo lives is because I told him to back off and give the rider space; something he very much did not want to do, missing an arm to the madman's axe. And as the spire tilted, nearly falling into the canyon that ripped Death's Grip in half, the rider gave chase to you and your sister. Diogo and I were spared, simply by staying out of his way."

David opened his mouth, and shut it. Let her talk.

"I had planned," Acelina said, "to follow you, stay by your side, and when -- if -- you ever saw your sister again, I would kill her. Get my revenge." The wing on David's shoulder grew heavy, Acelina's shoulders slumping. "If not for that plan, I would probably still be at the Grave Valley spire with Azailia and her zotivas. I would indulge in gifts and pleasantries from a new province's demons, all looking to get on my good side. But I desired revenge, so I stayed with you."

"Do... you still want to kill Mia?"

Slowly, Acelina shook her head, but kept her eyeless gaze pointed down at him. Every spoken word showed a hint of her massive, wide mouth, usually invisible on her face. Shark teeth.

"No. I don't think I do."

A few dozen muscles unclenched in David's body. "Why?"

"Because I have spent three months watching a stupid little boy struggle and bleed and weep. At first, I thought it was simple self-preservation, an instinct anyone can understand, even a bloodthirsty, reckless demon. But after today, I..." Finally, she looked away, and her wing's claw rubbed on his shoulder. "I was mistaken. And if Mia is like you, then I am forced to accept something I did not wish to. That maybe it is a good thing Zelandariel is dead. She was smart, conniving, and sought to use Mia's power to control Hell. She may have eventually understood the need to save the Great Tower, but I know... knew her. She would have succumbed to her own desires for power, as Azailia has, as Tarkissa did, and ruined everything."

Good fucking god. First Caera, now this? Already running on the withered remains of his own mind, David barely processed the words coming out of the spire mother's mouth.

"And now?" he asked. "I mean, if your plan changed, you can stay at the Red Pits spire? Here?"

She looked at him, straight on, leaning over him. "Do you want me to?"

He gulped. "I thought--"

"I had considered staying with Septima at the Scar. No doubt she would have given me power, and I would have used it. I would have helped her sculpt the Scar into a strong province, not reliant purely on trade and sin to survive the bullying of the Red Pits and the Grave Valley. And I would have indulged in the best gifts the Scar is capable of. But... I followed you. I still wanted to kill your sister, but I do not think that is why I followed you that time."

He gulped harder. "Why did you then?"

"Answer me first. Do you want me to stay with you, David?"

A heavy weight pulled his head down.

"Did I ever give you the impression I didn't?"

That got a tiny chuckle out of her. "Jeskura insists that I am annoying. A spoiled princess."

"And Daoka thinks you're great."

Acelina lifted her head at that, looking at him again. "Does she?"

"Yeah. And so do I." Maybe today's horrible events had broken David's mind in half and spilled the contents like a walnut, but words just came out of him, instead of festering inside his skull like usual. "I see the way you take care of the Las. I saw how dedicated you were to taking care of Pegasus's egg. You took charge in a couple of situations where someone had to do the talking. And I saw you actually getting along with the crew a few times, too."

"I..." She looked away. He half expected her to retort: 'I most certainly did not.' But all the sarcasm and cynicism had fallen out of her, dragged down by the same weight dragging him down. "In strange ways, I have enjoyed this journey. In the spire, I was treated to delights every night. Diogo and Zelandariel were my lovers, but I tasted bliss from thousands. Sex. Gifts. Jewelry and silk." She chuckled and gestured down at herself, silks gone, now replaced with meera armor. "But the longer I spend out here, trekking across the land until my hooves threaten to crack, the less I miss it. And... I am enjoying my time with you."

Even numb as a frozen corpse, a smile crawled its way onto David's lips.

"I want you to stay," he said.

Her tail slowly wagged in her grip, and she let it go free.

"Good."

"But what will you do when you see Mia again? She's not dead yet, and I'm sure she's doing the same thing I'm doing, trying to reach the goal."

Acelina looked at him, tail going still. "You wonder if I still plan to kill her."

"I mean, you said you didn't. But..."

After a heavy sigh, Acelina slid a little closer to him, and her hip nudged into his.

"I say no, but I cannot know for sure. Maybe I will be overcome with rage and slit her throat the moment she's within arm's reach."

"Don't do that."

Acelina nodded. "But I can say I... do not think I will."

Somehow, David smiled again, mirrored her nod, and the two stared down at the ground like before.

Silence swallowed them, but it didn't feel as heavy as it had a few minutes ago. Secrets were always heavy, and this one being plucked from his shoulders let him take a breath he hadn't in months. Tomorrow, they'd tell everyone Acelina already knew Mia killed Zel, and didn't plan to get revenge. That'd be a tough conversation, but a million times better than a secret crushing him each step.

"Can you continue the journey, David?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"More demons will die, David. This journey will take more lives. Can you handle that?"

Could he handle that? Even with how strange this conversation had been, this was ten steps outside the norm for Acelina. This was straight into therapy talk.

"Did Tsila put you up to this?"

Acelina twitched and nodded. Caught. Any other day, he'd have laughed.

It wasn't an easy question to answer. The thought of waking up tomorrow, looking beside him, expecting to see a giant tiger snuggled up to him, only to find her gone? Like someone had struck his funny bone, the pain scorched through his nerves, and his mind did the only thing it could. It went numb. Caera was gone, and Acelina was right. Before this journey was over, more demons would be dead, and some of those deaths might be his girls.

It wasn't easy to answer because the answer hurt.

"It doesn't matter," David said. "Got no choice. We go on."

The demoness straightened and turned her head, surprised. "Oh?"

"I can sit here and stew in misery. God knows I want to. But"--he held up two fingers and counted one off-- "there isn't a single thing I can think of that'd dishonor Caera's memory more, than giving up. I have to keep going, because if I didn't, I'd have her ghost chewing at the back of my mind until forever. Second thing"--another finger--"is... I just go."

"What? Go?"

"I go. I mean, one foot in front of another. It doesn't matter how I feel. We're all dead if the alien isn't stopped, truly dead. So I just... gotta keep going."

Autopilot. Stop thinking, just go. Stop worrying, just go.

"David, after what we saw today--"

"Doesn't matter. Gotta keep going."

Acelina paused, thought, and nodded. "Very well."

With anyone else, he'd have clammed up, shut up, and just held it all in. Gone so numb he couldn't move his lips. With Daoka, it'd be too painful and raw. With Tsila, he'd have resented her for treating him like a patient. He'd have shut down, gone catatonic, and just done what he said. The next day, he'd wake up, lock everything up inside, and just put one foot in front of the other until mission successful.

So why did he feel comfortable talking with Acelina? Something about her pompous, royal attitude falling away -- at least for tonight -- made it easy to talk with her. No fear of her getting emotional and reaching out to him, like Dao would. No fear of her trying to fix him with therapy-speak, like Tsila would. He didn't even know how Moriah or Jes would behave; probably aggressively, telling him life sucked but he could take it. Laoko was a non-starter.

And tonight, Acelina was trying to understand him. Her, of all the demons.

So he sat there, the giant demoness beside him, her wing's arm still resting around his shoulders.

"Thank you," she said. "For telling me what your sister did."

David almost looked at her. She'd said thank you. Her, of all demons.

"You're welcome."

"Someday," she said, "when this journey is over, you will reward me."

"Right. Want to rule a spire?"

"Perhaps. Or simply be a lead zotiva for whichever spire you make home. I miss taking care of the eggs, and choosing which demons are free to leave the hatching pit. I miss..." She sighed wistfully, and her tail wagged behind her again. "Good night, David."

And with that, the spire mother crawled back to her side of the cave, and woke up Moriah and Tsila, the next two to take a shift. Tsila spared a glance for Acelina, and Acelina nodded, not-so-secretly relaying the results of her conversation.

David lay down and stared up at the cave ceiling. He felt better, but the moment the conversation was over, Caera's death clawed back into his mind, shadowy claws dragging his thoughts back toward her. Her smile. The way she jumped from side to side when playing with Pegasus. The way she'd laid on top of him and licked his neck, or pretended to bite it. The way she...

He dragged his fingers down his face and closed his eyes. Falling asleep in Hell was easy. When it was night, you just closed your eyes, and told yourself to sleep.

God bless Hell. No dreams.

Until the vision of his murderous act hit him.

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

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

~~Day 127~~

~~Mia~~

Mia walked along with the crew, weaving between giant, upturned stones, and strange stone buildings she couldn't quite identify, culturally, other than primitive. This section of False Gate was a literal city, an enormous village with tall houses of carved rock. In the center was a colossal cathedral, bigger than even the biggest surface cathedral, big enough to hold tens of thousands easily.

The city was odd, the random rocks making it look like someone had rained meteors from above but hadn't bothered with the craters. The cathedral in the center was unharmed, but she knew what they'd find if they went inside. Fuck that. They stayed away from the gigantic building, preferring out in the streets with all the empty homes, ruins, and colossal rocks. The rocks had runes carved onto them, but not special ancient-language magical runes. Just, runes, random symbols she didn't recognize. Very occult. And the deeper and further they moved through the villages, the more they gave off an occult vibe. Occasionally, they stumbled upon what could only be a sacrificial altar: a skull on a small stone structure, with an assortment of bones hanging from string and other things.

No way a demon made string, not in this place. Hell grew this. Every place, every part of False Gate, was unholy. It'd earned the true name Unholy Lands from day one, and every day after, it taunted Mia's angels with its mockery of human religions. It was almost like Hell had a grudge to pick. They found stone altars big enough for a human to lie on, and stone daggers beside them with gems in the grips: a weapon meant for evisceration. They found disturbing bronze statues surrounded by bones. They even found remnants getting blood eagled; thank you modern TV for enlightening her on what that was. Every day was a fresh surprise of sickening delights that could also be found on the surface, but more twisted and grim here in Hell, and more sickening. And worse for the angels.

She looked back at Azreal and Noah, and both boys spared her a glance and a nod before they looked around at the weird, unholy village again, scanning for trouble. Ever diligent, never with their guard down.

Those two. Fucking christ, it hurt just looking at them. They just marched along, doing what needed to be done, despite the dread eating at their graces, and despite how much they hated Vinicius. They hadn't gone out on their nightly hunt since they'd admitted it a week ago, and unless she was going crazy, they looked worse off for it.

That wouldn't do. She slowed down, Cerberus beside her, and matched step with the two seven-foot-tall men, bodies and wings wrapped in leather straps.

"Feeling alright?" she asked.

Azreal didn't respond, as expected.

"Yes," Noah said. "We can go months without satisfying the taint, years, if we have to."

She almost asked if they could detox, but that wasn't the right comparison. The two angels actively 'tainted' themselves with the strange, aggressive desires of demons, to avoid the weight of the dread on their graces. The human equivalent: living at the bottom of a bottle to run away from depression, because the depression was worse.

But the dread wasn't just depression. It was a blight that apparently struck any angel who lived long enough, and it was driving them to kill themselves in droves. A dark, dirty secret, and one that terrified Cain to the point where he was trying to let the aliens destroy everything. Immortal, the bastard was so scared of the dread, he wanted to annihilate everything to escape it!

The moment twilight came and the ember sky flickered with its lovely balance of oranges and reds, Mia took Azreal and Noah's hands. She didn't ask for permission, because they'd say 'we're good for now' if she asked for it. So she grabbed their hands and pulled them back from the crew. Romakus rolled his eyes but walked ahead, and the rest of the group followed, though Vinicius spared Mia a small grunt. Jealous? Annoyed? She couldn't tell.

Cerberus rubbed against her side as she pulled the two angels between a giant stone and a crumbled, ancient building of rock and wood. Cerb didn't care for the angels, glaring at them in that disturbing way dogs -- and wolves -- sometimes did. But Azreal and Noah didn't care for him either, and they ignored him as they joined Mia away from the rest of the crew.

"Don't give me that," she said. "You're both far older than you originally let on; tens of thousands of years, probably? More?"

The two angels looked down, like ashamed puppies. Stern, intense, stoic puppies.

"We have both been reborn many, many times," they said. "Our previous lives are distant echoes. And Heaven does not track the evolution of angels as we are reborn. It is not important information."

Good god, Heaven sounded like an awful place for anyone who wasn't human.

"So you don't remember," she said.

Azreal nodded. "We do not."

"So this dread thing, this awful condition that's driving thousands of angels to suicide, maybe millions, this thing you've been holding off by eating demon hearts for centuries, the driving force behind the rider's goal, is something you... have a 'handle' on?" The sarcasm came out so much harsher than she meant it to, but she needed to drive the point home.

Noah sighed. "We have lasted this long. We will continue."

She grabbed both angels by their togas, the white fabric peeking up over the leather armor, and she pulled them down to their knees. So much time around demons, she sometimes forgot what human men looked like. They looked nice, especially when they were picture-perfect angels with tall, muscular physiques, and fashion-model faces. Noah, with his silver eyes, pale skin like hers, long blonde hair, and face scruff, like some sort of beautiful warrior from the northern mountains in her favorite books. Azreal, with purple eyes, tan skin, clean-shaven, and messy black hair that touched the top of his ears, the perfect 'messy but artfully so' hairstyle. Both looked about thirty, Noah maybe a little older, and Azreal a little younger. Both looked as if they'd seen too much of war.

"We'll figure this out," she said. "I don't know how, but we'll figure something out, okay? Once we've saved the world from alien invaders like a shitty eighties movie, we'll solve that problem next." She held up a hand. "First, stop the aliens. Second, stop the war in Heaven, and see what's up with the council. Third, stop the dread. Fourth, fixing this horrible system Hell uses to torture remnants to death." She wouldn't leave Hannah behind.

They didn't look convinced. Both on a knee now, like they were kneeling to their princess, they traded a glance, half frowning.

"You can perhaps do the first," Noah said. "We reach Lucifer, if that is Lilith's goal, and find some way to use the archangel's power to stop the alien, if that is even what will happen."

"I see no other reason to go there," Azreal said, nodding.

Noah mirrored the nod. "If, and if that works, you have not the slightest clue how to approach the other three goals, young Mia."

"Yeah," she said, "but apparently me and David and the other unmarked are entirely new factors, right? I know how to make a portal to Heaven, and the surface! I can see the other runes in my head, too, but I just can't use them, or even understand what they do. Maybe someday I will, and I can figure out a way to fix this. There's hope, you two! There's hope I can fix this. And if I can't, David can. He'll sit down and obsess about it for months until something clicks and he figures it out. That's how he works. And he'll figure this out."

The two angels took slow, deep breaths, and nodded.

"The unmarked do bring change," Noah said. "Maybe things will change for the better."

"Damn right," Mia said, folding her arms across her chest. And in the best worst Romanian accent she could muster: "Now, look into my eyes." It took serious effort not to giggle. Too much effort, and she failed.

First, Noah. He was a bit easier than Azreal; not much, but a bit. She looked into his eyes, and like a moth to a flame, got lost in them. They weren't just silver, but also something he called howlite, and silver glimmered between veins of white and black. So beautiful, she just stared into them, and let the minutes go by.

Cerberus nudged against her, and she changed targets to Azreal. Noah made an effort to look less grumpy when meeting her gaze. Azreal did not. Surly as usual, the angel met her eyes, turning it into a competition instead of a heart-felt attempt to ease his suffering. But after a few minutes, staring turned into gazing, and his eyes softened. Deep, purple eyes, amethyst, with tiny hints of shimmering violet along the cracks, edges shining, and dark purple closer to the pupil.

If she took Noah's eyes -- the irises anyway -- and put them in a bowl, she'd have a lovely bowl of glorious, shining silver rocks, with lines of white and black cutting through them like marble. And Azreal, his would be a big crystal, something you could hold in your hands and stare into, before setting it back on the table on a black base. So utterly, gloriously beautiful.

Now if she could just get the asshole to lighten up a bit. Yes, he was tormented by the dread, but she was pretty sure he'd always been a stoic dick. And unlike Vin, he didn't have some deeply seeded need to hunt, devour, and destroy to excuse it.

Sighing, she grabbed them by their looted leather armor and pulled them in close. Forehead to forehead, all three of them together. They blinked, surprised, but she held them in place.

"You two idiots came down from Heaven with comrades. Aliens found you, and Asmodeus, and only you two survived. You've been busting your ass to protect me and get me across Hell, nearly dying in the process, knowing full well Heaven probably thinks you're traitors." No point dodging around it, not while Yosepha was literally carrying a little coin-purse necklace with thirty pieces of silver in it. "And you both just... do it. Like a couple of soldiers, you just do the work. You never complain about how hard it is, you just do it. And I... I want you to know I'm not oblivious to it."

For some reason, her voice trembled, and Cerberus's dopey head nudged against her hip a little harder. She set a hand on his head, but kept her forehead against the two angels'. This was important.

"It's not fair," she said. "You're both dragging around these burdens, and you just do it. And it's not fair. You just follow, do what needs to be done, and march."

"Mia," Azreal said. "We are angels. It is our duty to bear burdens and to protect souls. This is who we are. What we are."

"Yeah, well, it's not fair! So, I... I just wanted you to know that I see it, okay? The worst thing, the worst fucking thing in existence, is when someone works hard, and then everyone else just assumes that's the norm. They stop appreciating it. Worse, they dump more work on you because they know you work hard."

Noah shook his head. "Mia--"

"No, shut up. I'm talking." Again, her voice trembled. Where was this coming from? "You two came down here with that girl angel and tried to kill me when we first met. But then you come back, determined to learn more, determined to help, just because you met me?" Groaning, she pulled her head back and head-butted them, forehead to forehead. Not hard, not even enough to make them wince, but she sure did. "You literally left Heaven to find me, just because you met me. Once! So you can be silent soldiers, marching along, but I want you to know that I won't forget what you did, okay? I want you to know that I notice the... you."

It had to be the eye contact. Had to be. All that soul-gazing had her feeling vulnerable and stuff. It was too intimate, gazing into their eyes. It soothed an angel's grace, according to them and Yosepha, like an ointment for their hearts. But it sent tingles down her spine every time.

No tingles with Yosepha, though. A little embarrassment, sure, but no tingles. Why with the boys, then?

Both angels smiled, tiny little smiles, like they might hurt themselves if they did more.

"Thank you," Noah said.

"Thank you," Azreal said.

Mia smiled, big and bright for both of them, and nodded, rubbing her forehead against theirs.

"I'll fix this," she said. "I got strange powers, right? I'll fix this. I'll fix..." Fix you? Nope, don't say that. That was definitely crossing a line into weird territory, even if her little psychologist mind and big psychologist heart wanted to do exactly that.

The boys were broken. They were depressed, suicidally depressed, in a way she could not begin to wrap her mind around. And every time she looked at them, all she could think was: I can save them. David would have slapped some sense into her, but he wasn't around. So, senseless it was.

"Mia," Noah said. "Saving the Great Tower matters above all. Saving your life comes second."

She blinked and pulled away. "And you? Where do you fit on that priorities list?"

"We don't," Azreal said, voice so deadpan he might as well have stabbed her.

Fuck, she was afraid of that. She shook them as hard as her little body could, but considering how little she weighed and how much they weighed, all she managed was pushing herself back and forth.

"You fucking matter! Okay! You fucking matter. You've both been giving me 'will die for the cause' vibes since we first met, and that's not okay! You fucking matter. If you die, I'm going to cry, and you wouldn't want that, so don't do something to make me sad, okay?" Emotional blackmail: the lowest form of manipulation. But the fuck else could she do? She needed to do something to puncture through their blankets of depression so they didn't do something drastic and get themselves killed.

Kas's words came back to her and slapped her in the face. Vinicius had been hoping to die, back in the Black Valley, and Kas had convinced him to snap out of it for Mia. What the fuck was with all these men wanting to die!? Adron was half burned, lost Hannah, and was depressed, obviously. And Kas too, but at least he seemed to think there was a future somewhere.

Still, the only guy around who wasn't giving off depressed vibes was Romakus; he gave off unstable vibes instead. She kind of missed Faust and the other incubi. They were fun. And... she missed Galon. She barely knew him, but damn, the gabriem would be the ray of sunshine their group desperately needed.

"We will try," Noah said. "Not to die."

"Good." Nodding, she took their hands and pulled them back in line with the group. Yosepha smiled back at her. Julisa and Romakus looked a little confused. Adron, Vin, and Kas looked indifferent. Only Cerberus looked happy.

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

~~Day 128~~

Vinicius ripped the closest demon in half.

The closer they grew to the spire, the more demons they ran into. Romakus was right. The demons were unorganized, and drifting around randomly, with no leader to report to when they spotted Mia and the crew. Which meant, as long as the crew didn't run into any particularly large groups of demons, they were safe.

Not entirely safe. Demons were loud. The crew had taken shelter in a large building of stone, something nondescript--until they got inside and saw a bunch of sacrificial altars that must have come out of the Mesopotamian era. Mia didn't know shit about history and culture, outside of a little from her university classes, but she recognized the half-animal half-man statues, simple but powerful. Except here in Hell, those statues had blood dripping from their mouths, and piles of skulls on and around their bases.

And the building had been absolutely full of demons.

The demons looked at the group and said nothing. A full ten seconds went by with no one doing anything.

Vinicius rushed forward and slaughtered them. Before Mia could so much as squeak, the child of the Old Ones grabbed the closest demon, and ripped them in half. And then the next one, and the next. And the crazed demons still did not react.

Azreal and Kas stayed near Mia, but everyone else dove in, cutting down the surprised demons. Mia wasn't sure they were surprised, so much as incapacitated by their own insanity. Some of them teetered back and forth on their asses, clutching their knees. Some were pulling on their tails and chewing on them. Others were rubbing blades together, as if they could sharpen them without a whetstone. They all looked as if they were in their own universe.

Until something snapped. Every demon in the place stood up and threw themselves at the closest target: Vinicius. And Vinicius let out a rumbling roar as he relished in it. Mia stared on, unable to tear her eyes away as Vinicius purposefully put himself in the center of the room, and ripped through every demon that came his way. Some bat girls and gargoyles, even a tiger. A shark dino like Kas. A few vrats like Adron. A couple of brutes. One minotaur, a species Mia had yet to talk with ever. No tetrads, or imps or grems, either. Tetrads were rare, and no one seemed to care about the littlest demons.

It didn't take the group long, and after a point, they all stepped back and let Vinicius do his thing. It was like letting a crazed dog off the leash, to the point Cerberus just stared, all six eyes locked on the colossal demon letting out his rage.

Again, the titan roared, and Mia winced and covered her ears as the sound echoed off the stone walls, and the vibration buzzed through her teeth. She half expected Vin to summon hellfire, and in a confined space like this, he'd incinerate her, too. But he didn't. Too impersonal, maybe, because Vin was smiling as he grabbed a brute, lifted the huge creature, and tore him in half directly over his head, using all four arms to do it. Blood flowed down his naked body, and Vin's massive tail wagged delightedly, sending streaks of crimson onto the walls.

And then he was done. Slowly, the beast turned and faced the crew, a hint of a smile remaining, and eyes wide in their sockets. On a demony dragon face like his, the expression was a little freaky.

"Vin?" Mia asked.

With a deep breath, Vin tossed aside the brute's lower half, ripped the heart out of the top half through the waist, and ate it. He didn't need to. Mia kept everyone full. But Vin munched it down greedily and rumbled like a giant, purring cat.

Demon hearts tasted different, but they provided the same stuff a forbidden fruit did. It was the taste he was after.

Romakus put his sword away and gave his wings a shake. "Get your fill of violence, ragarin?"

Vin's cheerful expression faded, and he licked a fang as he glared at the tetrad. "No."

"Yeah, well, if you don't get control of yourself, you're going to get us all killed. These demons weren't interested in fighting us."

"The demons here do not cooperate."

"They don't need to cooperate to swarm!" Romakus slammed his tail against a pile of skulls, sending them scattering. "Closer we get to the spire, the denser the demons get. We'll hit critical mass at some point, and then one fight means a swarm. You want that, you thick-skulled moron?"

Vin licked his chops clean of blood, still glaring at Romakus.

"Vin," Mia said, and she stepped over corpses on the way to him. "You've been acting really aggressively lately."

Vin nodded, squatted by another corpse, ripped out the heart, and feasted. And even as he chewed on the flesh, he kept Mia in one eye, like she was looking at an alligator from the side. But he said nothing.

She continued. "I mean, this is getting serious. Are you alright?"

"I am alright." He couldn't have said it any more deadpan.

She scrunched up her nose and gestured around the room. "You don't seem like you're alright. I mean, you do, but you don't." Sighing, she came in closer, touched his shoulder, and whispered. "You're acting like when we first met. I remember when a portal dropped off some souls, and you just went ballistic on them, remember?" No point in bringing up how that might have given up their position to angels, or demons sent from the Death's Grip spire. "You're... struggling to control yourself."

The child of Belial licked a fang and looked around at the mess he'd made. A giant stone temple, dark, full of shadows, and now full of corpses. The crew could have backed out when they entered, before anyone had snapped. Maybe. But Vin had run in and killed dozens with his bare hands, yet again committing them to a fight they did not need.

"I will be fine."

She lowered her voice even more. "You say that, but the last thing I want to do is use the leash again, Vin. Is there something we can do to help?"

"I need no--"

She punched him in the shoulder. Which did nothing, of course, and she might as well have been punching rock. But it did cut the demon off.

"Seriously, Vin, what is going on? I get that demons have urges, but you're the only one who goes crazy like this." She gestured back at the others. "I've seen how crazy demons can get, plenty of times. I fell into a river of blood on my first day, and I saw the demons swarm, coming for me and the other souls. I saw it up close and personal when demons give in to their cravings." Not to mention the dozen other times they'd fought demons and things had gotten messy. "But you just go insane right off the bat. Seriously, what's going on?"

Vin stood up and looked at the others. Everyone watched and waited, probably guessing the contents of the conversation. Of course Vin said nothing, but after a minute, gestured to Romakus.

"What?" Romakus asked.

Vin snorted. "You knew Belor."

"Yeah."

"Explain to them what Belor was like."

Spotlight now on Romakus, the tetrad shrugged, gave his giant wings a flap, and paced in place, as if he were under a real spotlight and giving a monologue.

"Belor is the only child of the Old Ones I've ever known," Romakus said. "An abdarin, a child of Abaddon, but I guess the bloodlust runs in all the children."

"Bloodlust?" Mia asked.

"Demons crave violence. You know that much, Mia. But Belor was different. He had to fight, regularly, or he'd go stir crazy. He mentioned killing many of his kin in his younger days, too. I'd never seen another child of the Old Ones before, though most of us have seen or dealt with Vin in some capacity or another."

Julisa wagged some claws. Right, she'd run into Vin before, and Vin had spared her. People knew who Vinicius was, the wandering ragarin who'd gone on slaughtering sprees with the rider -- Cain -- and drowned in carnage. But before Vinicius had that reputation, there was Belor.

"Stir crazy isn't a strong enough word," Romakus continued. "He'd go out and find hellbeasts to fight, alone. He'd rush in head-first against Navameere Fields or Angel's Spine, during the Spires War. He fought angels three at a time because he liked it. Head-to-hoof in aera armor, he'd throw himself into the middle of the biggest battles, and love every minute. The other children were like that, too, far as I saw. The few times I saw them fight Belor, it was always the same. No hesitation, they sprinted at each other and killed each other."

Mia marched up to the tetrad and glared at him. "You didn't think to talk about this until now?"

"Vin's right there!" With a weird half-smile, Romakus gestured to the larger demon with a wing. "I don't feel like getting my head ripped off for talking about his personality issues."

On cue, Vin grumbled.

"Okay," Mia said. "We'll just... make do, right? So the children of the Old Ones have, uh, a violence addiction. Vin's been trying to keep it under control, and--"

"That was keeping it under control?" Adron asked with a tail flick.

Kasimiro clicked twice and shook his head. No need to say anything. He wasn't impressed with Vinicius's supposed self-control either.

The three angels looked up at Vin, and while Yosepha took a step back and motioned to the group, deferring to them, Azreal and Noah didn't.

"Vinicius is dangerous," Noah said. "We know that better than most. We have fought him before, and we know well his violent nature. But we did not realize he is... addicted to it."

Julisa marched up to the two angels and glared down at them, all four hands at the ready.

"You're one to talk. A couple of angels addicted to demon hearts? That taste you crave is aggression, angel. You like it. It holds the dread back so you can feel something again. Now imagine it's a part of you, right down to your grace. That's what it means to be a demon, and the urge is strong in the first demons, the children of the Old Ones."

Both angels stood their ground and met her eyes.

"You prove our point," Azreal said. "Vinicius is dangerous. To everyone. All the children were, especially to each other."

Cerberus walked up to Mia for pets, but even he kept one set of eyes aimed at Vin, watching him, wary. Her pupper had grown so damn big, she could probably ride him now, but even with his growing size he still felt uncomfortable near Vin.

It didn't matter. There was more to Vin than they knew, and she wasn't going to let them smother it.

"He'll get to indulge in plenty of violence eventually," Mia said. "Until then, I have the leash. So we keep going, okay?"

The group nodded, but everyone kept Vin in the corner of their eye. More than usual.

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

Mia built them a nice cave with plenty of space. After today's bullshit, people needed space.

She sat on Vin's leg, the titan lying on his side, and she smiled down at him as she hand-fed Cerberus pieces of forbidden fruit. She patted Vin's leg, rubbed it too, and got a small rumble of pleasure from him. Surely they could see Vin wasn't just a mindless monster, right?

"We reach the spire in a couple days, right?" she asked. "We're seeing more and more demons every day." False Gate's weird terrain of colossal stones, forests of black trees or crosses, huge cathedrals, wide villages, and other religious buildings, made it damn hard to know where the threats were. Too many hiding places that were easy to use, and easy to run out of if Romakus's swarm threat came true.

Mia continued. "Seen any angels, Yosepha?"

Yosepha nodded, sitting with her boyfriend. "I have. A full battalion, I believe. They are hiding high in the sky, near the flames. It makes them harder to spot, but us as well."

"Think you can use your batlam rune?"

"Maybe. I feel better knowing if it is necessary, it would not guarantee a battle, with the angels so far up."

Noah and Azreal nodded.

"Good." Mia reached down and got both her hands under Cerb's snouts to give each head a good neck rub. Leathery skin meant she could lean into scratching him really hard and get some rumbling purrs out of him. Hopefully, he'd learn that Vin wasn't bad, since she was sitting on Vin's leg while petting him. And the crew, too.

But she wasn't so stupid as to think Vin would change who he was deep down, just for her. It was a pleasant fantasy, but it wasn't happening, not in just a few months. The necklace and leash would remain.

"Vin," she said. "Did you and Belor ever fight?"

"Yes."

"Any memory of how that went?"

"Blurs. I did not kill him. He did not kill me."

No way that was the end of it, but she let Vin keep his past in the past.

Mia nodded. "I'm half convinced he's still alive somewhere. I mean, if those spire seals are still functioning, making demons go crazy, maybe Belor is still hooked up to the spire? I saw the tools Zel used on Vin, and other special ones. She had to focus her power to turn them on. I'm willing to bet those seals on demons would stop working if Belor died. And someone is putting the seal on new demons, so that's definitely a point in the Belor's-still-alive camp."

"Carius," Romakus said, bringing up the demon they ran into a week ago, "didn't know how new demons were getting seals."

"But they are getting them." She threw up her hands. "This whole province is a mystery! We have to find out what's going on. I mean, assuming it doesn't slow down the main goal. And"--she jabbed a finger into Vin's leg--"that means not killing every demon we come across."

"They are mad," the titan said.

"Not everyone of them has attacked us on sight! If we give them a chance to speak, maybe we can actually learn something?"

Not convinced, Vin shook his head. "We carve a path through them to the spire."

"We don't even know that's where the stones are! We have to find the tetrad Carius mentioned. Thracius. He moved the stones with big black chains."

Adron waved his tail. "False Gate is known for three things, right? Besides the spire. There's the supposed connection between False Gate and the Forgotten Place. And there's the vortex that connects False Gate to Heaven."

Right, the vortex. Every day they got closer to the giant tornado of strange colors. They wouldn't reach it, the spire between it and them, but the damn thing had to be a few kilometers wide at least, maybe ten or more. And it reached up all the way to the burning sky and through it, letting tiny hints of white light shine down where the tornado met the flames.

Supposedly only angels were durable enough to survive a trip along its winds, riding the line between the vortex's edge and the flames of the sky. A thin pocket of space someone with working wings could fly. And the closer Mia's crew got to the spire, the closer they got to the vortex, and potential angel activity.

"And the third?" Mia asked.

Kas clicked once. "The great forge."

Everyone looked at Romakus, and the tetrad eyed each of them, challenging them to say something. They didn't. What about Yosepha? What'd she have to say about the tetrad's past of killing angels, to use their bodies in making armor and weapons at the great forge? Apparently nothing. She sat beside her lover and frowned, but not at Romakus. At the rest of them.

"The spire will have chains," Adron said. "But the great forge probably had proper, large chains, I'm guessing? Romakus?"

"It did," Romakus said. "But if there's anyone who can answer our questions about what's going on, and where the stones are, they're probably in the spire."

Adron nodded. "Good point. The spire it is, then."

With a nod to mirror Adron's, Mia slid off Vin's leg, sat with Cerberus, and rubbed the huge dog's chest and stomach. It wasn't long before Cerb rolled onto his side, and she had to work to give him proper belly rubs. Practically a workout, burning arms included.

Kas watched Mia, and if she read him right, he smiled. Barely. "Ride him."

She sat up straight. "What?"

"Ride him."

Mia got up and looked down at her giant dog. Cerb got up with her, sat in front of her, and waited.

He was so damn big now. As big as a normal hellhound, even a bit bigger. As big as a Siberian tiger. Other than having three heads -- dopey, boss, and serious -- he looked like a cannam hellhound too, a black and red creature that was a cross between dog and cat, with a spiky tail, a black mane of spikes, and black horns on his dog-ish, cat-ish heads. And muscle! In just seven weeks, her pupper had grown from the size of a golden retriever, to a muscular beast.

Not big enough for a normal person to ride yet, but Mia was small.

Okay, how to do this?

"Cerb," she said. "Stay."

Boss-head, in the middle and a little higher than his companions on his torso, gave something like a nod. Dopey-head tilted his head, and his demony tongue hung out a bit. Serious-head did what serious-head always did: stare ahead and look at stuff like a pointing dog.

"Lie down."

Cerberus got on his belly, and his tail slowly wagged behind him. Happy; same body language as demons.

Mia stroked her non-existent beard and walked around Cerb in a circle a couple of times, testing his composure. No movement, other than his heads tracking her when she came into view. How did a being with three brains use his body so perfectly? Maybe he had three different kinds of brains, instead of three full brains sharing the body?

"Cerb, stay," she said again, and patted his back. He stayed still. Nodding, she pushed more of her weight onto his back with both palms. No response. He had big shoulders, and his mane of black spikes reached them, but not past his scapula. Which meant if she sat on him just below the shoulders, in the groove in the middle of his back, she could hold on to the spikes and not get stabbed.

She slid a leg over and stood over him, straddling but not sitting on him yet. No response.

"Okay, Cerb, I'm gonna sit on you. Don't buck me off."

All three heads looked back at her, boss-head and dopey-head tilting their gazes. He couldn't do much for facial expressions, even less than a dog; very cat-like. But his tail continued to wag in a dog-like way. He didn't seem uncomfortable.

Mia grabbed a couple of his big mane spikes, like grabbing a lion's mane, and sat down. He had big, thick spikes lining his spine, too, and on his joints, so she had to be careful. But as long as she sat in this specific spot in the middle of his spine, none of the spikes touched her.

Cerb just waited, watching her.

"Um... up?"

No response.

"Someone, a little help?"

Chuckling, Adron walked over, squatted in front of Cerb, and clicked once. Mia was so used to Kas doing all the clicking, it was easy to forget all demons talked Hellian. Angels, too.

"Up," Adron said, and clicked in his throat.

Cerb tilted his heads, waiting.

"Up," Mia said, reached over his mane, and patted boss-head.

Maybe Adron made the connection between the Estian word and the Hellian word for Cerb. With a small exhale, Cerb got to his feet -- a balance between paws and dinosaur claws -- and waited.

Mia almost squeaked. It wasn't like she wasn't used to riding on someone's back. Kas, and especially Vin, were very familiar with her little body holding their back spikes. Kas was bigger than Cerb, with fewer but bigger spikes; easier to hold on to. And Vin walked upright, so she basically stood on his back spikes and held onto a shoulder.

Cerb was different. She was riding an animal, and she wasn't familiar with the feel at all. She held a couple of his mane's spikes and checked her crotch for impending stabbing, but nope, she was in a safe spot. Fortunately for her, she had no balls to get crushed.

Still, a saddle would be nice. Would a saddle last long in Hell? She could feel hard muscle and a bit of spine pressing against her thighs and ass. If she put on her batlam rune, she'd hurt him.

"Okay Cerberus! Good job!" She rubbed his back under the spikes, and all three heads swayed with joy. Maybe not the best idea to praise him, because he jumped in place, and Mia squealed when her ass landed hard on his back. Cerb didn't mind, and he walked around in circles, testing out his new backpack. Yeap, definitely needed a saddle.

"Cerb, maybe--" Cerb jumped again. "Maybe you should--" Another jump. "Cerb, stay!" On the dot, Cerb came to a stop, but his tail continued to wag faster than usual. "Sit." Cerb sat, and with his butt to the ground, she stepped off and rubbed her thighs. Yeap, they were looking red. Partly because she was a pale ginger and her skin turned red from touching anything, but partly because they kept rubbing and hitting hard grooves. "This will take some practice. And a saddle. And maybe some kind of harness I can hold on to."

Romakus laughed. "Are you a horse girl, Mia?"

"What?"

"A horse girl, like in those TV shows and books."

She frowned at the grinning tetrad. Everyone in False Gate was crazy, and that probably included this asshole.

"I like horses," she said, "in theory. I've never interacted with a horse before. But I bet it'd be nice! A huge animal you get to bond over, and then do something you can't do with other pets: ride. And then the horse gets used to it and you both start having fun exploring and... Shut up!" She stomped a sandal. "Besides, dragons are cooler than horses."

Romakus and Julisa laughed at her. Yosepha and Adron laughed with her. Kas, Vin, Azreal, and Noah just watched.

God, she was glad to have Adron back. Sure, he wasn't the same demon she'd met all those months ago, but every so often she got a good laugh out of him.

She walked up to Adron, earned a raised eyebrow from him, and hugged him.

"Mia?" he asked.

"Nothing." She turned back to Cerb, grinning. "Okay, let's work on this for a bit. Cerb, stay."

Cerb did as ordered, and was happy to do it, if his tail was any indicator. She thought about growing some food and using food training like dog trainers did, but that probably wasn't a good idea with a hellbeast. And Cerb seemed more than willing to do what she asked, for only some pets and scratches, as long as they came from her. Case in point, Adron reached out for Cerb, and boss-head growled at him.

"Cerb!" she said. "Be nice."

Boss-head grumbled, but quieter. Serious-head glared at Adron with the quiet, unreadable gaze of a tiger watching potential prey. And dopey-head looked at Mia, waiting for more pets. Which she gave.

"I have to say," she continued, "that Cerb has been really well-behaved, hasn't he? He's still got some those hellhound instincts. Wants to fight. Wants to bite. Wants to hunt. But he's been super easy to train!" To prove it, she held out a hand, palm facing Cerb. "Follow." And Cerb stood up and followed, pressing his nose to her palm. "Come." He stopped pressing his nose into her, and instead fell in step beside her as she walked in circles. "Stop." They both stopped. "It's crazy! On the surface, professional dog trainers hand-feed their dogs, and at mealtime, use the food to incentivize training. And regular people at home use treats. But with Cerb, he just... wants to listen to me. I honestly feel like I'm missing out on something. Where's the potty training phase? Chewing on couch corners! Whining through the night. I mean, I've been half expecting him to bite someone, probably Adron."

Adron frowned. "Hey."

"But he hasn't! He's been perfect. I mean, mostly."

"He can hear your music," Noah said. "None of us can hear the music. And you say Hell birthed him for you, literally. We can only surmise that you are connected, literally."

Literally connected? She smiled, squatted in front of Cerb, and gave each head some proper pets. Serious-head took a little longer to break than the others, but soon he was rubbing his head into her hand, looking to feel her nails on his leathery skin, and her palms sliding back along his forehead ridges and mane of spikes.

Cerb took a couple of steps forward, and because she was squatting, his giant mass easily knocked her on her ass. Ass turned to back as Cerb got over her, and for the tiniest second, she felt like she was under a literal tiger. When did he get so big? He was only seven weeks old! Seven and a half!

But then he put all three heads on her, rubbing his cheeks against hers and even licking her a few times; not dog licks, but cat licks, and maybe a little lizard, too. There was no stopping it. She erupted into giggles and hugged him as best she could.

She hoped David was having some fun, too.