~~Day 137~~

~~Unknown~~

A battle. Demons everywhere, slaughtering each other.

The woman stared at the body of a dead fassila spider, a titanic version of the already giant hellbeast. Dead, head ripped open.

She stared through a dozen eyes as her body grew, transforming into a weird, fleshy mass of limbs, not unlike the dead spider itself. A dozen gazes mixing, overlapping, like a kaleidoscope.

Through a dozen images, a small boy, a ginger wearing black armor and wielding a black staff, looked down at the dead tregeera at his feet, eyes wide with shock, disbelief, and rage. His armor shattered. His staff shattered. And he transformed. He stepped over the dead demon girl, and grew. And grew.

Me. David. That's me.

It was abhorrent. A centipede thing, its long body covered in ten thousand screaming faces, each glaring straight at her. Limbs grew from it, more and more, arms and legs and wings and mandibles and things that made no sense. It curved as it came to her, body bending in the strange ways a centipede did, as it grew human-like arms from one of its ends, and brought them down on her body.

All her size and strength meant nothing compared to the ginger boy who'd grown into this creature. Pain ravaged her, blinding her to anything but agony, and the monster rained hammer blows down on her, until a million things inside her shattered.

Everything went red, blood coating her gaze. Then black, death pulling her down and down. She kept her gaze on the monster until the darkness took her, a couple dozen eyes staring up at thousands of eyes, each staring death into her, each screaming, each drowning the battlefield in a chorus of pain and misery. They weren't just screaming. The faces were crying.

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

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

~~Day 138~~

~~David~~

He sat up with a jolt and swung his hand beside him. No one there.

No one there.

He took a slow, trembling breath, and rubbed his face with his hands. Knowing it was coming was different than experiencing it, how quickly he'd grown used to something being there, and then just... not. And there were a hundred things he hadn't even thought about, specific little things that didn't cross his mind until now. The heat of her body, a little warmer than his. The way her spikes sometimes rubbed against him and scratched him. The way she breathed slowly, heart and breath slower than his.

Thankfully, the horror of the vision replaced the sadness crawling up his spine.

As the girls woke up in the cave, David sat against the wall with Pegasus and clenched his eyes shut. The vision. God, he'd been terrifying. The unmarked girl's last sight was of a monster out of a fucking nightmare, some giant fleshy thing covered in faces. He'd looked... biblical. He hadn't realized each and every face on his body, pressed together enough to give anyone with trypophobia a heart attack, had all been glaring and screaming, mouths wide enough to expose teeth. Horrific.

He clutched his knees to his chest and trembled.

Dao was at his side immediately, rubbing his shoulder and clicking at him.

"The vision," David said. "It's just the vision. I knew I'd get it. But... yeah."

Jes joined them, sat with Pegasus, and helped the growing horse up to his hooves.

"Bad?" she asked.

He nodded. "I didn't realize I'd... looked like that." Not entirely true, but better they think that was what was bothering him, and not seeing Caera again in the vision, seeing her body through the dozen eyes of a madwoman.

You got revenge, David. That had to count for something, right?

He wasn't sure it did.

The Las came up to him, sat in front of him, and waited, big eyes locked on him and each face trapped in a half frown.

"Girls?" he asked.

Lasca, ever the leader, held up a hand. "Worried about David."

"I'm fine, Lasca. It was just a vision of the last unmarked to die. I knew--"

"Not vision. About Caera. We miss her."

He flinched. So much for imps and grems getting over things like death faster than the others.

"Yeah," he said. "Me too."

Without request, Laoko and Acelina walked over and plucked the Las away, both giving David a solemn nod. Maybe Tsila explained it, or maybe they just knew on their own. Now was not the time to bring up Caera.

Time to get to work.

He got up and spent a couple of minutes with Pegasus, rubbing his horns, petting his wings, and pressing cheek to cheek as he hugged him. His insides were still raw, but not so raw that he couldn't at least make sure Pegasus felt good, and loved.

He waved a hand, summoned a silent song, and peeled back the cave ceiling, revealing the group to the army above. Sure enough, the army was still there, and Khazeer wasn't far off. As David and the crew climbed out of cave-now-pit, the spire ruler approached, his bailiffs with him, Zaavras and Sazillia. Tatiana, Tacharius, and the other sex demons weren't too far off either, looking decidedly less scared now that Morgana's army had backed off.

Khazeer opened his mouth, but David held up a hand and summoned a rock platform. He raised himself a couple of meters off the ground, and all nearby demons took a step back in surprise at how easily he did so. And from his vantage point, he saw no sign of Morgana's army. They had indeed fled.

Body heavy and aching, he sat on the edge of the platform, putting himself at eye level with the tetrad Khazeer.

"Khazeer?" David asked.

"Unmarked." The spire ruler nodded. His wing was still a mess, but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore. "When do you plan to continue your journey?"

"Tomorrow."

The tetrad nodded. "I cannot follow past the border. I must stay in my province. You understand."

"I do."

"But I understand the fate of the Great Tower rests on your shoulders. What aid can I provide?"

David tilted his head. Khazeer had proven to be more reasonable than previous spire rulers. The first, actually. But offering resources? That was a step beyond what he'd expected. Maybe Sazillia had a point about her boss.

"I'm trying to sneak my way through the Navameere Fields," he said. "But now that everyone knows about me, they'll be looking for me, and Morgana doesn't sound as reasonable as you."

"She is not," Khazeer said, nodding.

"And worse are the angels. So I need to avoid them even more."

"Understood."

"So I need a way I can push through the province while avoiding contact as much as possible, and drawing as few eyes as possible. What can you tell me about the province?" David gestured to the incubus Tacharius. "Tacharius's already told me the province has literal fields--"

"Avoid the fields, unmarked," Khazeer said. "They will shred human flesh, and are filled with hellbeasts."

Flashback to that scene in The Lost World with raptors in the long grass.

"Alright. Any gear to spare?"

The spire ruler nodded and gestured to his brute honor guard. "You will need it more than they."

David sat up straight and stared as the brutes took off their armor and set it on the ground in front of him. They weren't wearing meera metal. They were wearing aera metal, forged from the bodies of angels, a bronze and red metal with highlights and edges of gold. Indestructible, far as anyone knew. The brutes weren't wearing as much as Khazeer, or especially the rider, but the slabs of metal were thick and beautiful, held snug to their bodies with heavy-duty leather straps.

The big aera swords were gorgeous.

"You're giving me this?" David asked the spire ruler.

"Some of it. Take what your group can comfortably wear, and what demons you think will be of use to you." And despite it all, the huge demon grinned. "Except for Tatiana."

The succubus rolled her eyes, but offered David a tiny finger-wave, too. A potential friend?

"Wonderful," Laoko said. Without hesitation, she stripped out of her meera metal in front of everyone. For just the tiniest, fleeting second, David looked at her absurd curves, and forgot about everything else.

The moment passed as quickly as it'd came. Still, it was nice.

Jes joined her, grumbling as she picked up some pieces. "All of this is too big for anyone but a tetrad or a devorjin brute, and maybe a zotiva. Acelina?"

On cue, Acelina joined Laoko, and stripped. Again, utterly absurd curves, even more ridiculous than Laoko's, and she scooped up some of the aera pieces. The crotch guard, a breastplate, and something for the quads and forearms. Jes and Dao helped the two huge ladies get dressed in the upgrade, and Tsila and Moriah watched, frowning. No need to ask why.

Laoko held a sword in each hand. They were big swords, but she made it work, and she took a few experimental swings with four blades; girl tetrads always looked like farm equipment reaping the harvest when swinging all four arms at once.

Acelina only had two arms, and looked much more comfortable using both to wield one sword.

"Tight," the spire mother said, groaning as she gestured to the breastplate hugging her chest.

Sazillia chuckled, standing at Khazeer's side.

Laoko gestured to Sazillia. "And we will take her."

David froze. Khazeer froze.

"You want one of my bailiffs?" Khazeer asked.

Laoko smiled and hooked all four swords onto hooks on the back of the breastplate; a tetrad had worn it before.

"Sazillia found us near the Scar, punishment for failing you before, yes? She has since regained her honor. And the Scar needs no border patrol. Send scouts to speak with Septima, and she will understand that you and David are now allies. That leaves Zaavras to patrol your border with the Navameere Fields, and you know Morgana will not be quick to attack again after yesterday."

David glared at Laoko, but she grinned back at him, turning her head fast enough to sneak in a wink and make her long dreadlock ponytail bounce against her lower back.

"I concur," Acelina said. "Sazillia, have you pushed into the Fields before? When fighting Morgana's forces?"

Sazillia blinked at them a few times and gave her tail a flick. "I have."

The spire mother nodded. "Then you will be our guide."

David looked to Tsila and Moriah for help, and while they both spared him a glance, it wasn't to share in his dismay. Laoko and Acelina had taken over the conversation, and the angels agreed with what they were saying. David agreed with them, too, but it didn't feel good having the crew make decisions for him.

Except, it kinda did, at least for the moment. Let someone else drive for now. He relaxed, let his muscles unclench, and let Laoko and Acelina handle negotiations. Trust. He could trust them, even Laoko, sort of. But it wasn't in his nature to let someone else handle things, always doing the planning or the work in group projects, always--

They wanted to help him. Let them help.

He closed his eyes and gestured down to Pegasus. "Up."

Pegasus gave his wings a flap and jumped high, using them to launch himself a couple of meters onto the rock platform. He stood at David's side, nudging into him, and the two of them watched Laoko and Acelina barter.

Eventually, Khazeer relented. Sazillia would join them, a boisterous fujara tetrad. Unlike Laoko, Sazillia had clawed feet and a tail, but otherwise had the same absurd ten-foot height and four arms. Short tendril hair, an absolutely nasty scar across her throat like someone had slit it in the past, and now one of her four big horns was missing its top half. If anyone had seen a few battles, it was Sazillia.

Plus, she came with her own aera armor and swords, re-armed with her old gear when she'd brought David to Khazeer. It made perfect sense to bring her.

"Why not Zaavras?" David asked, gesturing to the second bailiff. A korgejin tetrad, wings, hooves, no tail, wearing his own aera gear and sporting more than a few scars and trophies.

"He could," Sazillia said, stepping up to David's platform and smiling at him. "But he's always been more defensive. You need offense, right? Someone who'll run in and get things done quickly? I'm your girl."

David squinted past her at Laoko and Acelina. Any other day, he'd find their attempts to get yet another girl into the 'harem' funny. Not today.

But Laoko was impervious to his glare, and smiled at him as she adjusted the leather straps of her new, fancy armor.

"Tomorrow, then," Moriah said. Both she and Tsila had their wings and togas wrapped in brown leather again, and they didn't look happy about it. "Today, we talk about the Fields with Sazillia. And we rest."

Khazeer nodded. "Then it is done. My army will join you up to the border, and Zaavras and I will do battle with Morgana's forces there. We will spearhead the charge into Navameere Fields and tear a hole through their army. And then Sazillia and the unmarked will sneak through in the chaos and infiltrate the province." The tetrad flapped his wings and regretted it instantly, groaning and looking at its ruined membrane. "Agreed, unmarked?"

Sighing, David gestured to Tsila. "Help him out, please."

Tsila nodded, stepped up to Khazeer, and motioned for him to kneel. Khazeer tilted his head, looked at David again, and David gestured at Tsila again. Once on his knee, Tsila ran her hands over his wings, keeping the gold glow low--slow healing. But it was enough for Khazeer's eyes to open wide and stare at his wing repairing in real time.

"Morgana," Laoko said. "She will assume David is with your retaliatory attack, Khazeer, and she will defend against your attack with forces effort."

It took a bit, but Khazeer looked away from his healing wing.

"Then she will be disappointed, and I will be sure not to push too aggressively. I will not cross the border, but Zaavras will, to draw her attention. It will be a great battle, but I will not sacrifice my province on the possibility that David will succeed."

Aragorn, Khazeer was not. Still, something was better than nothing.

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

David and the girls got back in the pit, the cave without a ceiling anymore, and they all sat, letting the hours slip on by. At first, David couldn't feel anything, numbness coming and going as if he had been out in the cold too long; Canadian winters did that to any man. But like it were a weird joke, once he grew a burning bush in the center of the pit to be their bonfire, the numbness ebbed, as if the fire helped.

That's how it went, according to Mia. Sometimes you went numb. Sometimes the emotions ran you over, and you spent weeks, or even months, sliding between the two states. And when emotions ran high, people retreated into a bottle. David had always told himself he'd never drink, and only a weak worm would pick up a self-destructive habit like that. Now, it was easy to understand why anyone would. Anything to escape the pain when the emotions came back.

David had only known Caera for a few months. What did a man feel when a wife of twenty years died in a car accident? Or when his child died? Drinking yourself to death made all too much sense, now.

He held out his hands and pretended to heat his fingers on the flames of the burning bush. The girls had probably seen scenes like that in the scrying pool, people warming themselves around a campfire, and the Las immediately joined him. Of course, they got too close and whined when they burned themselves, which Tsila took care of immediately with a smile.

Dao sat with David, shoulder to shoulder. Jes sat on his other side, not quite touching his shoulder, but close enough her wing rested against his back. They were Caera's friends, too, and had known her for years. They could mourn with him.

And they were mourning. The angels were wrong about demons, or at least, not completely right. It might not have been as theatrical or melodramatic as a human mourning, but they were.

A human poked their head up over the edge of the pit. Naoko, the petite Japanese lady. Naoko, who'd screwed over her friends for money and got herself a small stint in hell. 9, replaced with 666, because she was so afraid to die a second time and become a remnant, she willingly ingested the blood of a demon who willingly gave it to her.

Fear made people dumb. David couldn't blame her.

"Can I join you?" she asked.

Everyone looked up at her, confused, but Acelina flared her wings, almost like an angry bird.

"Where's your succubus master?" the spire mother asked.

Naoko flinched. "Zazee's with Tatiana. They're trying to figure out what to do now."

"Do?" Laoko asked. "You stay with Khazeer, do you not? He will not die any day soon, and you will join him back in the spire. And someday you will journey back to the Scar. Septima will take care of you."

Relieved, Naoko sat on the pit's edge, wearing nothing but some flimsy, dirty silk drapes.

"I mean, I do like the idea of not risking my life anymore," she said. "But it's all pointless if we don't help David, right? I... I figured when we started this journey, way back in the Grave Valley, we'd be going all the way. I mean, once we understood the stakes."

Right. They'd met Tacharius, Zazee, and the betrayers Naoko, Fuad, and Natalie at the edge of the Grave Valley and the Scar, stealing spiderwebs to be woven into proper silk garments. And ever since then, Naoko had snuck David a few million glances. Even now she looked at him, sad. Or pretending to be sad. Whether she cared about Caera or not, he had no idea.

She wanted to stay with David because she was terrified. And maybe she thought he'd be able to do something about her number, since he was special. Maybe she even liked him.

And David wanted nothing to do with her.

He tried it on for size, in his mind. Caera had even suggested it, that while he couldn't trust her, they could have some sexual fun with her. Him, with Naoko, the two of them walking side by side, chatting, talking about life on the surface. Having sex. Holding hands.

No thanks.

He looked at his burning bush and kept his gaze locked on the flickering flames, and the spindly twig branches that refused to ashen. "Laoko's right. You and the others are going back."

"Oh." The small woman looked down and squirmed in place, chewing the inside of her cheek. "You sure? I mean, I could--"

"Khazeer and Septima owe me," David said. "You'll be safer with them. Stay with Tatiana, Zazee, and Tacharius. Go back to the Scar, tell Septima I told her to take care of you bunch, and she will." Every word made the little woman shrink in place, and before David knew it, he threw her a bone. "I don't think you deserve six hundred and sixty-sixth deaths, Naoko. When the alien is stopped, I'm going to take a stab at fixing this system. Okay?"

Naoko brightened like a flower in the sun. "Thank you! I... thank you." She got up, smiled, made a little bow, and ran off.

"Why did you say that?" Moriah asked. "You cannot seriously think you can change the Great Tower, David."

He shrugged. "No idea, but I'm going to try."

"It is a system devised by God themself." She sat across from him and glared over the burning bush. "The Great Tower--"

"Is being ripped open by a giant squid monster from another dimension beneath us. And where's God? Where the fuck is--" He cut himself off before he went on some rant about God letting Caera die. No, not even grief would make him think something so ridiculous. "God's not around, Moriah. Hasn't been for a couple billion years or something, right? The archangels are dead, save for the bad one, the one we're probably trying to reach. Heaven's having a fucking civil war, and your council is silent. Things have fallen apart. Time to install an update."

She stared at him, but he didn't bother explaining.

"You know history, David?" Tsila asked. "Human history. Many leaders have said similar."

Hand up, David shook his head. "I'm not a tyrant in disguise, Tsila. I'm not trying to take over the world, and using 'I can fix it' as my political slogan. But I can't look around at this system around us and think it's perfect. Can you?"

Both angels frowned, eyes falling back to the bush.

The group sat in silence, letting their aching muscles recover, the hints of injuries left over after Tsila's healing still taking a day to fade. David hated this kind of group silence. He either wanted to curl up into a ball, alone, and pretend the world didn't exist, or get on the move and start doing something so he didn't have to think anymore. But even then, trekking for twelve hours a day left too much time to think.

He needed something to occupy his damn mind before his thoughts paced a ditch in his brain matter. Fingers out, he reached for the music, found gentle strings, and played small tunes. More dice. The Las had already lost the ones he'd made, and making more was good practice. He pulled a cube up from the ground, still connected to it by a corner, and wove little grooves into the sides. One. Two. Three.

Pegasus sat by the fire, and all four Las played with him, sitting between his front and back legs, playing with his tail and hooves. And like a cat, his tail flicked side to side as he watched David work, head swaying gently to music only David and the unicorn goort could hear.

"David," Laoko said. "You once said you knew how to use forges? That you know how to create meera metal, and imbue it with hellfire?"

David slowly turned and looked at the tetrad, squinting. "Yes. Why?"

"If Khazeer fails, and we are forced to retreat, it would make sense that we try again after strengthening his armies. And us." She pulled one of her new, large, fancy swords from her back, and gestured to the bronze blade. "Imagine his army, or at least many of his best warriors, or even just us, wielding hellfire weapons and charging through Morgana's forces. They would cleave a path straight to the spire. Victory would be assured. And then, not only would you have the power of the Scar and the allegiance of the Red Pits on your side, you would have Navameere Fields as well."

That was certainly an idea. Instead of trying to sneak past everything like Frodo and Sam, he could just embrace being a completely evil sack of shit, and march across the world, conquering everything Sauron-style.

"Too slow," he said. "And besides, Hellfire weapons are keyed. Far as I know how to make them, any hellfire weapon will only be usable by the person I make it for. And you know how I make hellfire weapons?"

"You sacrifice the hearts of the damned." Laoko didn't so much as flinch saying it.

"Yeah. So excuse me if I don't feel like lining up a thousand poor fucks, and looking each in the eye before I cut them open."

"Poor fucks?" Laoko asked, putting her sword away. "They are damned souls, David. Even the kindest of them are scum by your own definitions, cruel individuals who profit off the suffering of others."

He glanced up to where Naoko had been a moment before. "Yeah, they are damned. That doesn't mean I can stomach slaughtering them."

It took human hearts to imbue hellfire into a weapon. It took demon bones to make meera metal. It took angel bones to make aera metal. Forging in Hell might as well have had a giant sign over it saying: 'This way to become corrupt by power'.

"We'll make do," he said. "We have so far--"

He clenched his eyes shut, squeezed his hands into fists, and ground his teeth into powder. That was why Laoko was asking. Not just because she wanted to arm an ally with deadly weapons, and herself, too. But because if they'd had them, maybe Caera wouldn't have died.

Fuck.

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

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

~~Day 130~~

~~Mia~~

She sat in her cave, back to the wall, Cerb between her legs and resting all three heads on her torso. Not so easy with how big he was getting, but Cerb kept all three heads snuggled together so they'd fit. Unfortunately, she had to sit on her ass, on rock, with her legs spread to fit him. Ow.

Adron sat on her left, Kas on her right, and both stared off at nothing as the rest of the crew slept.

"Here, boy," Adron said, and he reached for dopey-head. Oh, he'd sat on this side as a strategic maneuver to try and befriend the head most likely to accept him. But dopey-head growled at him anyway--softly, but still. "Mia, can you tell your pet I'm a friend?"

"I'm trying." She giggled and rubbed all three heads. "But he's just not interested."

Adron clicked at Cerb, Kas too, but dopey-head spared a small growl for Adron, and serious-head spared one for Kas. Boss-head was content to keep his head on Mia's belly and drown in pets and scratches.

"Stubborn creature," Kas said.

That got another laugh out of Mia. "That's rich, coming from you."

The shark dinosaur rumbled, a deeper, chunkier sound than Cerb's, and he leaned down over serious-head, having an eyeless staring match.

"I am not stubborn."

Mia rolled her eyes and elbowed the man in the side. Not a flinch.

"Mia," Adron said. "You sure about Vin?"

She blinked up at the vrat and looked at Vin. He lay on the other side of the cave, sleeping, Julisa against his side but not quite cuddled into him.

"What do you mean?"

Adron frowned. "I mean, it's obvious you're trying to help him. We all knew children of the Old Ones were violent, and we all knew about Vinicius and the rider, slaughter buddies. But now you've got a monster on a leash, and you're trying to tame his aggression."

Kas nodded, abandoning his staring match and aiming his eyeless shark head at the giant demon instead.

"But there is more to Vinicius than the monster that rises to the surface," Kas said. "Many demons succumb to their desires."

"Yeah," Adron said. "Hard to blame them, though. Hell gives us damned souls. It's all we know." His grin morphed into a smile, and he winked down at Mia. "Knew."

She beamed at him.

"He wars with himself," Kas continued. "And we now know the struggle is greater than other demons."

Demons had an interesting relationship with aggressive behavior, Mia knew. Julisa had made it clear: demons loved giving in to their desires to be brutal, violent, and do more than simply hunt and eat. Murder, slaughter, rape, they were all things demons had an innate -- or seemingly innate -- desire to indulge. Kas hated it and hated them for it. Maybe that was why he had a weird connection with Vin? If Vin was trying to resist those desires, especially when he'd spent centuries, maybe millennia, feeding them, that was a tough battle.

"I've seen Vin be reasonable," Mia said. "I've seen him be gentle. I've seen him be... kind. A bit. Yes, he's always got that edge, and I can tell I'm basically working with nitroglycerin when I'm prodding him. He could go off at any minute. But like Kas said, there's more to him than just... that guy, wandering Hell with the rider, killing for killing's sake." And she prayed it wasn't just because she had a leash on him.

"Nitroglycerin?" Adron asked.

"Explosive stuff. Liquid, I think? You just--nevermind. I just meant Vin's volatile. But you weren't there when I found him! Locked up, being tortured, and..." And Mia had given him a blowjob, when Vin couldn't say no. It was a weird memory, the titan being helpless, and the way he'd looked at her when she'd tasted him. Fuck Zel. Fuck her so damn much. If Mia could stab the woman again, she would. "Tortured for a century, at least! He spent weeks recovering, and I don't know if he'll ever truly mentally recover, you know? I know you all say demons and angels are timeless, that the flow of time doesn't affect you like it does humans, but I think the dread disproves that at least a little, right?" Mia gestured to Vin again. "I'm not an idiot. But I'm not heartless, either. There's more to Vin than people realize, and I'm going to give him a chance."

Adron grinned. "And you have a crush on him."

"I do not! I just... I mean..." She squirmed. "It's just sex."

"Is it?" Kas asked. "You seem drawn to closed-off men."

It took effort not to burst into laughter and wake everyone, and she elbowed the shark dinosaur half-squatting, half-sitting beside her.

"You're one to talk."

"Kas," Adron said, "is a bastion of openness."

"Kas is stoic and quiet," Mia said, scrunching up her nose. "You two never talk about your past much. I know more about Vin's past than yours."

Adron shrugged, pulled his tail onto his lap, and idly played with the tip like it had a mind of its own.

"Not much to say. I survived in the hatching pit by being smarter than other demons; being bigger than other vrats didn't hurt, either. Zel noticed I was good with words, so she had me do tasks for her, keeping an eye on the tribes circulating through Death's Grip. And after a few decades, that elevated to me keeping an eye on the bailiffs. They never knew I reported directly to her."

"What else?"

Adron's smile faded as he looked down and touched his ever-closed, burned eye. "Typical demon stuff. Made enemies. Killed enemies. I made friends with Kas when we realized we were both a little... less likely to kill each other than other demons." He shared a quick nod with Kas.

The sensitive topic was coming at them, but Mia didn't back down.

"Any betrayers?" she asked. "Before Hannah?"

For a moment, she wondered if she'd crossed a line. Adron's shoulders slumped, and his tail went still in his hand. But he recovered quickly, taking a deep breath and shaking his head.

"I did, but they were mistakes. Hannah is the only betrayer I ever truly liked."

"Oh." She matched his deep breath, patted his leg. Yeah, that was too much. "Kas?"

Kas rumbled, staring ahead at nothing. Adron piped up for him.

"Kas has always kept to himself. He's super old, and has always minded his own business. No betrayers."

Mia nodded and looked at the big dinosaur beside her. The scar was still there, a giant gash on his chest, courtesy of the rider from their encounter in the Death's Grip spire.

"Ever fall in love?" she asked them.

Kas said nothing, but did at least bother to shake his head slightly.

"Hard to say," Adron said. "We're demons, Mia. Like the angels said, angels and demons aren't humans. We... feel things, a little differently."

She wasn't convinced. Just because demons and angels had more straightforward minds with fewer layers of subconscious nuance -- if that's what was even happening -- that didn't mean they weren't capable of emotions just as strong as a human's. It just meant there were fewer barriers for them to feel them. And sure, navigating the complexities of the human condition was a part of what made friendship and romance so powerful, but--

Adron snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Mia?"

"Sorry. Thinking." Sighing, she ran her hands along Cerb's mane, combing the dozens of black spikes back with her hands. They bent slightly, but were almost as strong as solid horns, and every motion she made had to be careful. But after being around spiky demons for so long, she'd gotten used to it.

She knew what she was doing, thinking about psychology stuff and going on internal rants in her mind, David-style. She was avoiding thinking about Hannah, even though she'd brought her up. Pussy. Face your shit head-on.

"And sorry... again, about Hannah."

"Mia," Adron said. "It's not--"

"I'm not going to let her suffer. I promise. And I don't just mean killing her when I see her remnant. I mean, I'm going to do something about this broken system, Adron."

Kas clicked once, tilting his head. "The system God created?"

She threw up her hands, and Cerb lifted his three heads, looking for the treat that wasn't there.

"I know I'm just a human," she said. "Or, I have the mind of one, anyway." The budding academic in her wanted to talk about the zombie philosophy, and the 'other minds' problem. Where was David when she needed someone who'd listen to her rants about psychology and philosophy, and understand them? "But there's gotta be a better way! Hannah saved me. Her last act, was saving me. And now she..." Mia set her hands on Cerb's heads, energy draining out of her with every word. "I'll do something."

Damn. Silence fell on them, and both boys slid a little closer, nudging their bodies into her sides.

Kas leaned in and rubbed one of his side horns into her temple. "I have loved before."

Mia snapped her head around and almost took out her eye. "You have?"

Adron gave him the same look. He hadn't known, and Kas had literally just lied about it moments before. So much for being honest.

"Yes," Kas said. "A diloja."

Mia smiled. "A diloja. Tiny. You like petite girls? Perv." Naturally, Kas tilted his head to the other side, aiming the side of his skull at her like Vin would, except he didn't have any eyes to glare. But Adron laughed, and Mia laughed, too. "You said you never connected with anyone that way?"

"It was... I do not know how long ago. A blur. But I remember her. Her small body in my arms." Another sigh, heavy, and Kas let his giant arms sag and his tail go still. "I cannot remember how she died. If she died."

Fuck. No wonder he'd dodged the topic.

"Oh. Shit. You loved her, but can't remember what happened to her?" With anyone else, she might have thought that meant they didn't really love her, but Kas was a stone. If he said it, he meant it. "I've only known the one diloja. Yulia, with the other half of the Damall. She was fun, very sweet." And she'd kissed Galon goodbye in his last moments.

Fuck. Mia closed her eyes and tried to stop thinking about it, but of course that just made her think about it more. How did David do it? When Tom had freaked out at him during the funeral for his sister, David had been hit with an emotional blow no kid should ever have to deal with. And instead of crumbling into a wailing mess like Mia would have, her brother had just put one foot in front of the other, and kept going. Yes, he was suppressing and repressing, but still, the steel mind needed to not let that break you when you're only a child? Just thinking about something sad made Mia want to cry.

"She was fun," Kas said. "I do remember that. She was..." Maybe he was looking for another word for fun. Bright. Silly. Jovial? Kas rumbled, deep in his chest, and said nothing as his eyeless gaze drifted up to the ceiling of their cave-in-the-ground.

"She was like Mia?" Adron asked.

Mia tensed, but Kas nodded, and his thick tail slipped behind her, nudging against her lower back.

"She was. Maybe that is why I found Mia... intriguing." He shrugged like it were no big deal, but Mia blushed harder.

Quick, recover!

"Well, I am sweet, and fun, and pretty, and petite." Nodding, she played finger-drums on Cerb's heads, which the hellhound took in stride. "This is why I wanna give Vin a chance. Demons can surprise you."

"Sometimes," Kas said. "Sometimes they do not."

But she would not be deterred.

"Kas," she said. "You've been around for centuries, and I know you've seen nasty shit, both in Hell and on the surface. But you've seen people be kind in the scrying pools, right? And me! I'm kind. And if humanity can be full of shitty people and nice people, maybe demons can, too. Maybe not like humans, but still, there's something there."

"And the angels?" Adron asked, gesturing to Azreal and Noah. "What do you think of them?"

"Oh jeez, those two? They're worse than you, Kas! It's like they read the manual on being quiet, stoic jackasses and internalized it as their bible."

"They are soldiers," Kas said.

"I know, but... they're..." She sighed, leaned into Adron, and rested her temple against his arm. Funny how Adron, smallest of the demons in the group, was nearly eight feet tall, while the two gigantic angels were only seven feet tall. Still giant compared to her, but the comparison made her laugh. "They're angels first, soldiers second. Angels are supposed to take care of the souls in Heaven; their words."

"They are by helping you," Adron said.

"I know, but I wanna talk to them and learn about them. I practically had to open Azreal up with a can opener to learn he used to date someone named Odette. A girl who was decidedly nothing like me."

The big vrat chuckled. "Looking to seduce him, too?"

"Too? I didn't seduce anyone."

Adron shook his head, guided his tail across his lap, and poked her with it. "Remember that night before we reached the Death's Grip spire? You had Diogo, me, and everyone in that group dripping and hard."

"That... That's different! That was my aura, that I have full control of now, thank you very much." She elbowed him in the ribs, but predictably, no reaction. "Would you have fucked me if--"

"Yes," he said.

"Yes," Kas said.

She blushed hard, and she didn't need a mirror to know it, her pulse in her cheeks and her arms turning red, too. Sometimes it really sucked being a ginger.

"And we are sorry," Adron said, "about how our first time went, with Zel."

"I know," she said, waving a hand. "That was a bad circumstance, and I blame Zel for it. You two were, all things considered, very nice about it." Quite the internal struggle that was, wrestling with how much she'd enjoyed her first time with Kas and Adron, and how much she hated Zel for forcing the situation.

Again, Adron gestured to the angels. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm sure you can seduce them, too."

"That's not my goal! You--"

"Want to know something about Noah?"

She gasped -- theatrically -- and leaned in toward him. "Did he say something about himself? When you two were with James?"

"No. He said even less. But I've seen the way the two angels look at you. Azreal does a better job hiding it, but Noah watches you all the time."

"Well, I mean, of course he's watching me. He's playing guard duty for James and me, right?"

Adron shook his head. "I mean, he watches you walk. He wants that ass."

She rolled her eyes, snuck a peek at the sleeping angel, and blushed harder. God damn it. She clamped her inner fingers on her aura before it got away from her, and glared up at Adron as hard as she could, but all that did was make him chuckle.

"He does not," she said.

"Of course he does. You seen how that ass looks in that toga, Mia? You're walking around half naked with a few strips of red silk hanging off you."

"That..." Her potram rune apparently decided she should spend all her relax-time being a sex object. The skimpy clothes, the black jewelry, the tiny black waist chain, it all screamed 'prized sex trophy' kinda girl. Which was fun, for a day, but it meant every time the group ran into demons, they all looked at her with that predatory mix of wanting to fuck her, and eat her.

The fact that that kinda made it hot in a weird way was not something she'd ever admit out loud.

"The angels look at me like that?" she asked.

Kas nodded. "They do. But I do not think they are interested in our orgies."

Hearing Kas say orgy got a chuckle out of her, and she elbowed him in the ribs, too.

"Yosepha doesn't seem to mind," she said.

"I blame Romakus for that," Adron said. The joy in the demon's face faded, and he looked at the sleeping tetrad with narrowing eyes. "I wonder about him."

"You still don't trust Romakus?" she asked.

"Not after what we learned. Bailiff for Belor? I can forgive that. Capturing angels and sacrificing them to the great forge to create aera armor? That's some dark shit, Mia. And I bet the man's eaten his fair share of angel hearts, too."

She hadn't even thought of that. Romakus capturing angels and breaking down their bodies and bones to forge the metal was a scary, disgusting thought, but the tetrad indulging in the power of angel hearts? Like some sort of devious minion, skimming on the side and stealing from his master?

Azreal and Noah had good reason to hate Vinicius, and they had good reason to hate Romakus, too. How did they feel about Yosepha, then, and her relationship with Romakus? Or Mia, for being so nice to Vin?

She sighed and looked at the two angel men, both sitting back against the cave wall, sleeping while sitting. With Adron and Kas, she could talk to them, tread on sensitive territory, and make progress. She could learn about them, and each thing she learned was like finding a new piece for her thousand-piece puzzle. Slowly but surely, she got a clearer image of what they were like, what they wanted, and what would make them happy.

Azreal and Noah were not interested in giving her those pieces. Neither was Yosepha, now that she thought about it. Maybe she could--

Maybe she shouldn't. Maybe she should stop prying into people's lives, and let them be. Every part of her wanted to learn, though! She wanted to pull out a notepad, put on some glasses she didn't need, wear a nice suit, and take notes while Azreal or Noah talked about their pasts in her fancy, inviting office.

Azreal was a grumpy, quiet jackass, all too similar to what Kas had been like when she'd met him. And Noah matched Azreal's quiet intensity, but didn't bring the jackass part with it. Which made it sound like he'd be easier to deal with, but honestly, after dealing with Kas and Vin so much, Mia found Noah's more upfront battle-hardened warrior aura -- not literal aura, but his vibe -- even more difficult to handle sometimes.

"I really should just leave them alone," she said. "But I don't want to."

Adron laughed. "You really shouldn't be in Hell."

"Well, yeah, but, why say that now?"

"I've dealt with thousands of damned souls, and there's one thing in common you find in them, and probably where demons pick it up. They only ever frame things in how it can help them. They only ever do something, if it helps themselves."

Mia tilted her head and stared up at the demon. "You... interview a lot of souls?"

Adron rolled his eye, poked her with his tail, and tapped his temple. "I'm smart, Mia. It's how I've lived so many years. Most vrats don't see past four or five, if they get out of the hatching pit. I've learned to listen and pay attention to what people do. Damned souls do not care about others. While you"--he poked her again--"can't stop thinking about others."

"It's not like that. I think? I... I like helping people." She almost added: 'who doesn't?' Funny thing to say in Hell. "I like doing it. It makes me feel good. So it's not like it's entirely selfless. But that's how empathy works. It connects us. I help them, because it helps me. And I help me to help them, because I know they empathize with me. It's a circle, you know?"

"Not something we run into a lot," Adron said. "Hannah had a bit of that in her. I guess that's how we connected. I helped her out, and she helped me out."

Adron was talking about Hannah on his own? Mia almost vibrated in place, and she had to put both hands on Cerb's heads to keep her fingers from rubbing together in anticipation.

"Wanna tell me about her?"

Slowly, Adron leaned back, closed his eye, and relaxed.

"Hannah was a rambunctious thing, and deadly. She'd killed demons before, and I took her as my betrayer when I realized she wouldn't just fall over and die if a demon challenged her. I asked her to try and kill me whenever she wanted, to keep me on my toes. She even got a couple cuts in, when she got in a sneak attack."

Mia blinked. Sure, betrayers were stronger than regular souls, but she hadn't thought of Hannah as a deadly woman, trying to fight a literal nigh eight-foot-tall demon like Adron, who'd been around for decades.

"I liked her a lot," he continued. "She was a great pet. But... I suppose you don't trust a pet, do you? Trust them as in, would put your life in their hands? You know, outside of asking her to kill me."

Humans did, with dogs, a special pet bond that transcended other pet bonds. Mia smiled down at Cerb and rubbed under his three jaws.

"Go on," she said.

"And after having her around for years, I stopped thinking of her as a pet. It was more than that. It was..."

Mia absorbed every word.

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

~~Day 132~~

There it was. The spire.

The crew had made good time, considering how dangerous False Gate was. The Unholy Lands was mean, but not as mean as she'd expected, for one specific reason: the demons mostly ignored them. Cainites took a couple of stabs at them, and each time the crew slaughtered them quickly, but it was the demons that Mia had been worried about. And mostly, the demons weren't an issue, now that Vin had stopped pulling the trigger so quickly.

The closer they got to the spire, the more demons they ran into, and the sneakier the group had to be. But the past couple of days had been violence-free.

The spire was so different to Death's Grip or Angel's Spine; she didn't get to see the Black Valley spire. But here in False Gate, the Unholy Lands, there were other buildings, and they surrounded the spire like some sort of city. And unlike the other fake villages the group had run into, this mini-city was all churches and cathedrals. Big, scary buildings, as if someone had gone through France, taken their cathedrals, made them all spikier and darker, and plopped them right down onto the ground around the spire.

If they went inside, Mia knew what they'd find. Remnants in cages, dangling from chains over flames. Remnants tied to torture racks and getting slowly ripped apart by shackles that moved a little every day. Remnants tied to pews covered in spikes, while their priests and pastors waited to die on crosses on the church stage. And maybe there'd be some imps or grems inside, scavenging the remnants for trace amounts of resonance. Mia did not want to see.

They went inside a building anyway, and Mia groaned and covered her eyes. Yet another enormous structure with stone walls and hanging black-skull braziers lighting the blood-soaked floor. Remnants screamed within, six or seven inside hanging-bird cages barely big enough to hold two, so their heads and limbs stuck out from between the spiked bars. Blood dripped. Mia didn't look. She was sick of looking.

"Almost there," Romakus said. "Oh, it's been a long time since I was in this building."

Mia stomped a sandal. "Cathedrals didn't exist two thousand years ago!"

"They didn't. These buildings have changed over the years, but much remains the same. Too much, in fact." The big tetrad grinned over his shoulder at her. "I wonder how much the surface owes its art to things Hell thought of first?"

It was hard to wrap her mind around, that Romakus and the others were literally old enough to see Hell change shape and adapt to the surface. Or, if Romakus was right, it was the other way around, and people on the surface were taking ideas from Hell.

Maybe that's what dreams were about? And why people in the afterlife didn't have them? The ramifications of that were insane, the afterlife influencing the thoughts of the living, affecting the direction of entire cultures.

A question better suited for David. Mia turned to Cerb and adjusted the leather pack she'd tied to him. Not a pack, but layers of leather held in place by a strap of the same stuff, all taken from the Cainites who'd insisted on throwing their lives away trying to kill the three angels with her. Just the sight of Yosepha, Azreal, or Noah had them practically foaming at the mouth. They wanted to be like Cain.

"How long does this stuff last?" Mia asked, gesturing to Cerb and the layers of leather attached to his back.

"Years," Romakus said. "Not sure why. Demons, angels, humans, and especially remnants fade in days when they're dead. Hellbeast stuff lasts a lot longer."

"That's good, then. Anyone we know who can turn this into a saddle?"

"Oh sure. The rider, probably. Or maybe someone in the Scar? Feel like a side trip?"

Mia rolled her eyes, but when she opened her mouth, Vin growled. Everyone else stood deeper in the building, but Vin stood near the door, tail deadly still behind him, all four sets of hands clawing at the air from rigid arms.

"Vin?" she asked.

The titan didn't look back, keeping his dragon gaze out on the dark road that led up toward the spire.

"I hunger," he said, voice a rumbling bass in his throat and chest.

Not hungry for resonance, but for battle and carnage.

"This can't just be a coincidence," she said, coming up to Vin. No one else dared approach, not without the leash to protect them. "We get closer to the spire, and you get more..." She gestured to him and his fingers, like some twisted version of an agitated heroin addict. "Were you like this when you came to Death's Grip and tried to take the spire from Zel, centuries ago?"

"Perhaps," he said. "Children of the Old Ones are meant to rule. The spires are ours. We are the rightful heirs. No tetrad deserves the throne."

The group looked at Romakus and Julisa, but the two tetrads shrugged. It'd supposedly always been children of the Old Ones who'd controlled spires, and tetrads had only really stepped in during the Spires War to fill in power vacuums. Maybe it was more than just egoism that'd driven the children into the leading roles? Maybe Vin was right?

"We can talk about ruling a spire later," Mia said. "Let's save the world first, okay?"

Instead of the cold splash of water she'd been hoping her words would have been, Vin continued to stare out into the city and down the road toward the colossal spire, all black, spiky surfaces, with bits of white bone for fangs.

"Vin?" she asked. Vin rumbled again, flexing his claws. "Vin!"

He pulled his head back and snapped his glare down at her. For a fleeting second, she reached for the necklace with her mind. Just panic grabbing her. Vin would never hurt her, not after all they'd been through. And he couldn't, not while she had the leash. But she wouldn't need the leash, because Vin would never hurt her! Yes, he was obviously struggling with some aggressive need that other demons didn't have, or at least not to nearly the same degree. And yes, he'd tried to hurt her once before, but that was months ago. Things were different now.

Yosepha stepped up and poked her head out the door, too. "Demons have left us alone. They have spotted us, and they've left us alone."

"The seal has driven them mad," Romakus said. "That doesn't mean they're all psychotic with violent urges."

True, but they had run into a few demon groups who were exactly that, and had tried to kill them. That was part of the problem, that they could never tell what was a safe area and what wasn't.

"I suggest," Yosepha said, "that we stick with Romakus's original plan. Perhaps we simply walk up to the spire, and look like we belong? These demons are tortured, in their minds. They cannot think straight. Calling them mad, crazy, or insane is inaccurate. If we do not give them reason to think attacking us will help them pursue some unpursuable goal, then they will simply leave us alone, will they not? If we do not seem like invaders, they will not defend their land against us."

Romakus winced. "I mean, that was the plan. We march in like we belong. I just... didn't think we'd literally walk in, in the middle of the day, surrounded by demons." The tetrad shook a wing at Vinicius, letting the hanging skulls from its fingers rattle more than usual. "And now we have a ticking time bomb with us."

Whether Vinicius knew what a bomb was or not, he snorted down at the tetrad. "We go."

And like he was suddenly in charge, the ragarin stepped out onto the road, and marched up the path like he owned the place. Julisa followed, grinning back at the rest of the group. Romakus groaned and followed her, and Yosepha groaned and followed him.

"If Vin gives in to his desires," Kas said, "I will help him."

"Better to simply kill him," Noah said, shaking his head.

"You can try," Kas said, shrugging as the shark-dinosaur made for the door. "But he's survived you and many angels before."

"And hey," Adron said, "better the enemy you know." Nodding, the two followed the group, leaving Mia with Cerberus and the two angels, both wrapped in so much leather, they looked like large Cainites with huge backpacks.

"Vin's... fine," Mia said. "I mean, he'll pull through. Maybe it's just this place, you know? Bad memories he can't really remember, maybe? He'll be fine. We'll get through this, and I bet when we're clear and away from this place, he'll go back to normal."

Noah shook his head. "Normal for Vin, for many centuries, was roaming the entire circle of Hell, Mia, slaughtering demons with Cain at his side. He is powerful, perhaps more powerful than other children of the Old Ones were, and he used that power to drown in violence for years beyond your ken. And probably for millennia before ever meeting the rider. He's been suppressing his desires around you."

Each word made her flinch, and she shrank into a tiny dot beneath the penetrating gaze of the two angels.

"He's... I know, okay?" she said. "I know he's a monster, but he's also more than that, too."

"How can you know that?" Azreal said. "Is this something you see, or something you wish to see?"

"Both! Okay? It's both. Yes, I would love to help Vin learn to control himself, but I've also seen him do that of his own volition. So we're not going to treat him like a mindless monster on a leash." She grabbed her necklace, the leash, and shook her head. "I'll prove it someday."

Noah set a hand on her shoulder, giving her that classic disapproving dad look. But he wasn't her dad. She'd never had one. And the glare she gave the angel made him step back.

"I am trying," he said, "to spare you heartache, Mia. He's a demon, and one of the original breeds. I know not what ways the Great Tower has evolved these two billion years, but we are talking about a breed of demon from the First War. And the war between Hell and Heaven back then was a bloodbath beyond all comprehension."

Azreal nodded. "He could very well be from the First War, and doesn't remember."

Mia shook her head. "As long as he makes the effort to control himself, I'm going to keep giving him a chance. And you two are going to honor that? Okay?" Half request, half order. She waited, tapping her foot as she looked at the two angels, daring them to argue more. This was important, and she wasn't going to let them have their way because of their history with Vin.

After a minute, Noah sighed and nodded. "We are yours." He bowed without a trace of sarcasm, and Azreal did the same.

She smiled and gave each of them a quick kiss on the cheek, earning some surprised blinks, and she jogged after the others, Cerberus at her heels.

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

"This is like one of those movies or TV shows," Mia whispered. "You know? The ones where you have to be absolutely cool and casual, so the deadly monsters ignore your presence?"

That was exactly what they were doing, and everyone in the group looked ready to snap if someone so much as dropped a pin. They stayed close together, walking between colossal cathedrals that reached high, decorated with crosses along their roofs. Other buildings, not cathedrals but equally large, had crescent moons and stars. She spotted a six-pointed star on another building, and a lotus flower -- probably a lotus -- on another after that, and a bunch of other symbols she didn't recognize. Hell had no favorites. It mocked all religions equally. She even spotted what had to be an ankh from Egypt, and the building itself looked decidedly Egyptian, a palace of tan stone with paintings directly on the walls, and dangling, colorful curtains, with a host of remnant screams hidden within.

And in each building, were demons. Mia and the crew didn't go in, but they peeked, and in each was a thousand, maybe ten thousand demons crammed together, shoulder to shoulder, doing absolutely nothing. They twitched, fidgeted, tilted their heads, stared up at the ceiling, or drooled. Some sat and carved random symbols into their bodies. Others hissed and growled at things that weren't there. Mia was sure one small noise and every demon would snap their gazes to her and charge. But even as Mia's crew walked past, the demons looked at them, and didn't react.

Because Mia and the crew didn't look like they were invading. Or at least, that's what Yosepha figured. The seal driving the demons crazy had them trapped by an urge they could not pursue, and as long as Mia's group didn't make themselves look like enemies, they'd have no reason to unleash that desire on them. Don't look like an enemy, don't be an enemy.

Problem. Someone had instructed demons to take the rune stones away from the beach, and Mia needed those runes. James, too. Someone -- recently -- had taken and hidden the stones, specifically to prevent an unmarked from getting across the River Styx and getting to the Forgotten Place. And Mia would have bet good money it was Belor. Maybe losing the Spires War to angel interference had driven him insane, and that insanity was bleeding out from the spire into the seals? Maybe the seals were like tin cans tied by string, channeling vibration and sound? Or, in this case, a resonating aura?

She stopped in front of the spire and stared up at the madness. Demons were everywhere. Gargoyles and bat-girls hung from a thousand ledges and spikes. Brutes sat with minotaurs around the spire's wide, circular base, still as statues. Vrats wandered around the spire in a circle, like slow-moving ants stuck in an ant mill, a death spiral. They didn't look like they were starving, though. Whatever the seal did, it didn't stop them from eating when they needed to.

A few satyrs hopped on by. They looked perfectly sane, but like Kas, they didn't have any eyes to give Mia the crazy eye to begin with. A tiger followed them, and she did have crazy eyes, keeping both aimed at Mia and the group as she passed. But she didn't attack.

"The closer we get," Yosepha said. "The more scars I see. These demons are old. Do you recognize them, Romakus?"

"I recognize hundreds of them."

Adron stepped up. "Not worried they'll react?"

Shrugging, the tetrad gestured at some brutes they walked past, the trio sitting on the ground and carving marks into each other's backs.

"I don't think there's much left of their minds, vrat. So let's just keep our voices down and act like we belong, okay?" And with a flourish of his wings and tail, Romakus tilted his torso to the side, walked with a crooked walk, and bent his elbows in weird ways. Yeah, that was a zombie walk, or a demon's attempt at one.

Yosepha stayed up front with Vin, Romakus, Julisa, while Adron, Kas, Azreal, and Noah stayed close to Mia. Cerberus made a couple of quiet, grumbly sounds, almost a whining noise as he looked around at the many, many demons walking by. The demons didn't so much as look at him, as if he weren't there, as if there was no possible way a hellbeast could have any connection to the itch in their brains that'd been eating at them for centuries, maybe two millennia.

No one stopped them from entering the spire. Demons brushed shoulder to shoulder with Mia's crew, even gently knocking against Azreal and Noah's wings as they went by. From this close, there was no mistaking what the angels were, no matter how much leather armor they'd wrapped themselves and their wings in. But the demons just didn't care.

More demons hung from things inside the spire, dangling from cages filled with remnants. Plenty sat in the center, where the inner balcony circled the wide floor. Same as all spires, the spire had sixty, seventy, maybe eighty levels up, another eighty down into the ground, and the center hole reached all the way up from top to bottom, each level with an inner balcony circling the hole. Demons jumped up and down, using the hole to quickly get from floor to floor. But they didn't go anywhere. They had nowhere to go.

A demon fell from above, a gargoyle. She had wings. She didn't use them. The woman fell like a rock, down and down, sinking into the hole in the center of the spire that reached deep into the ground.

A loud thud followed, barely reaching over the endless noise of demon roars, grunts, and remnant shrieks. No demons reacted. They resumed their coming and going, ignoring each other, bumping shoulders, laughing at no one, snarling at nothing, and sat around on the floor so they could carve symbols into their flesh.

"This is awful," Mia said. "What do we do?"

"Nothing," Romakus said. "False Gate needs a ruler. Until Morgana from Navameere Fields, or Dobasi from Angel's Spine, decide to take this place over--"

Julisa sneered. "Or another powerful demon does."

"Or that. Until then, False Gate remains a giant mess. The demons can snap at a moment's notice and slaughter everyone and everything. I was here. I've seen it. One of the reasons I didn't come back."

Vinicius, at the head of the group, shoved demons aside, and the demons collided with all the careless indifference of pedestrian traffic in a packed city.

"Up or down?" he asked.

Romakus looked back at Mia.

"What?" she asked. "You're the expert, Romakus. Where we going?"

But the tetrad shrugged his wings. "You know how spires work, Mia. There's a throne room up high, but all the important shit happens in the basement. We're looking for someone who might know where the stones are, but far as I know, everyone in this province is either insane, or like my old buddy Carius, just surviving on the outer edge."

Mia looked up at Azreal and Noah. "Heaven's seen no signs of a ruler on the upper floors?"

Noah shook his head. "False Gate is deadly. Whenever an angel scouting party investigates, demons have swarmed like surface locusts. So they avoid this place. We consider it a no-man's-land."

A shiver ran up Mia's spine. "So, uh, let's keep the angel thing on the down-lo. And... let's go down."

Everyone winced. Down meant going underground, where there'd be no easy way out. If a demon called the alarm, the group would have to fight their way back up, and cut through bodies like a swordsman cutting through rain. Mia didn't want that. Maybe Vin did, but no one else did.

They took the stairs. There were simply too many demons hanging out on the inner balcony. Sure enough, the stairway of bone on the inner side of the spire, with an archway barely high enough to fit Vin, exposed the next floor, and more demons. Like idle zombies, they stood shoulder to shoulder, twitching, twisting, occasionally spinning around quick and making Mia's heart jump into her throat. But then the glaring demon walked up to the pit, and climbed the literal shoulders of other demons to jump up onto the hanging legs of demons above. No one cared.

Claws on flesh. Wings to shoulders. Tails rubbing hooves. The demons were pressed together like sardines, and Vin's efforts to push a path through them grew rougher and rougher by necessity.

"Vin," Yosepha said. "If you--"

Vin snapped his glare back at the angel, ignored her, and continued to push a path through the bodies. A few demons fell over. On their stomachs or backs, they lay there, uncaring. Other demons walked on top of them. No one reacted.

The deeper the crew got, the more fleshy red masses grew on the walls. The spire wasn't like a natural building, or even a typical Hell-grown building, and Mia's sixth sense found the whole place vague and hard to visualize. Hell grew a lot of strange things, ranging from eternally burning bushes, to endless swamps of remnants being churned together by bone pillars, grinding by some unknown motion machine. But the fleshy red stuff seemed very spire-specific, and Mia's special sense could only barely see it.

The next balcony floor had no demons on it, completely empty, with a large archway Mia recognized. Why no demons? All the other floors were jam-packed.

"The spire mothers?" Mia asked.

Romakus winced. "We... should probably find out. They might know, if they're..." His voice trailed away.

Yosepha tilted her head as she looked up at her boyfriend. "Romakus?"

"Let's just get this over with." And without another word, the tetrad walked down the empty hallway.

Mia shared some confused glances with the others, and the crew followed. And just like the previous spires, the long hallway of metal, bone, and flesh looked like the inside of a snake. The deeper they went, the less metal, and the more flesh and bone, until they were literally walking along naked muscle. A bit wet, a bit warm, and moving a bit, too.

The last spire Mia had visited had a huge room full of furniture, with shelves covered in black jewelry. Where the zotivas hung out, relaxed, and probably got treated to a mountain of pampering from demons trying to get on their good side. Spire mothers were the princesses of the tower, with a lot of power.

And the closer the crew got to the expected room, the more they heard screaming. To top it all off, Romakus slowed until he was at the back of the group. Yosepha glared back at him, but Romakus looked to the side, avoiding her gaze, and he gestured a hand forward, ushering her on.

Inside, two zotivas stood, and in classic spire mother fashion, were hilariously busty, with tiny waists over wide hips. An hourglass figure so exaggerated, it was ten percent weird, ninety percent ludicrously hot. They all had long, black, tendril hair down to their curvy asses, and like most demons, were completely naked. Zotivas usually wore jewelry and silks, but these girls wore none, naked skin covered in hundreds of claw marks instead.

The cabinets didn't have any jewelry on them either. Wall spikes? No jewelry. Instead, the spire mothers' room was filled with demon skulls. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They were piled on each other in the round flesh corners and covered every piece of black furniture. Each hook had a skull on it. Each dangling chain had a skull on the end. And every single one of them had a symbol carved into their white bone.

Mia stared. The seal was branded onto the spire mothers' arms, and the symbol carved multiple times onto their skin looked similar, like a child trying to copy something with a crayon. Except with scar tissue. Was that what all those demons were carving into their skin over and over, copies of the seal?

A vratorin was chained to the wall, and the two ladies were cackling with glee as they dragged a small black dagger down the man's body. They were carving the symbol, but too deep, deep enough to make the vrat's insides become his outsides.

Mia's group stood there at the room entrance, staring at the two nine-foot-tall curvy demonesses cutting into a bound and helpless demon. They waited. Surely the spire mothers saw them? One looked back at them, laughed louder, and went back to slowly killing the demon.

Hiding one minute, stepping forward the next, Romakus walked up to the two ladies and set a hand on a wing. Whoever he touched, she turned around instantly and brandished her dagger -- a sword in Mia's hands -- at Romakus. Spire mothers had huge black horns, four of them, like tetrads. Unlike tetrads, they had no faces, and where a face should have been, there was only a smooth, featureless black canvas.

Unless they opened their mouths, and whoever this demoness was, she opened her mouth wide, exposing how huge it truly was, and the many shark teeth within.

"Saalia?" Romakus asked.

The lady laughed and waved the dagger around randomly, as if painting the air.

"Romakus! You're alive!? Oh happy day." Giggling, she turned around, sank the dagger into the vrat's skull, ending the screaming, and turned back to Romakus. And like an aunt who hadn't seen their nephew in ages, she held out her arms.

Romakus peeked back at the crew, gulped, and hugged Saalia. Everyone braced for the psycho to scream, or tear the tetrad's wings off; she was a foot shorter than him, but demons were strong, spire mothers included. No scream or blood followed, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief as Saalia let Romakus go and patted his shoulders.

The other zotiva turned around.

"Who are you?" Romakus asked her.

The woman bowed. "Tereza. And you're Romakus! Oh, Saalia and Ruveria have told me all about the angel hunter. But you left! You ran away. Tut tut." She yanked the knife out of the dead vrat and pointed the bloody thing at Romakus, before waving it around like her fellow zotiva did moments before. Like she couldn't focus on it for more than a second. "Now it's just us. Us us us."

Romakus's wings slumped. "And Zavaria?"

"Dead!" Saalia yelled. Mia almost jumped. "It was madness, Romakus. You left. The others died to angels. Thracius killed many when Belor was defeated. It's the seal, you see?" She spun around, twice, and gestured to the burn mark on her shoulder. "Can't escape it. It's always there, like a dagger"--she yanked the dagger out of Tereza's hand--"in the mind. But what can we do? Can't chase it down. Can't kill it. It's always there, telling us to do something, but we can't do that something! Always there."

"Ruveria!" Tereza yelled. "This one's dead. Bring another!"

Sure enough, a third spire mother stepped through an archway of flesh, no doubt coming from the hatchery. And with her, she dragged a young brute, a devorjin. He roared and struggled, but could do nothing to stop three nine-foot-tall demonesses from hooking him up to chains.

And the torture resumed.

"Will this one survive?" Tereza asked.

Ruveria didn't so much as glance at Romakus as she gestured to the young brute. "A strong egg! He survived the hatching pit, after all."

The hatching pit. Whatever eggs the spire mothers deemed healthy were put in the hatching pit, where a born-teenager demon had to run around through tunnels, fighting other demons to survive. And when they were old enough, the spire mothers pulled them out of the pit.

"Strong?" Saalia asked, giggles coming and going like the wind. "We'll see. The last devorjin didn't survive." She plucked the knife back from Tereza, and stabbed the poor demon in the gut. And then again, in the neck, and the brute went silent. "Woops."

Romakus stepped in closer and turned Saalia to face him again. "Saalia, talk to me. What's happened? It's been two thousand years. How are new demons getting branded?"

"Oh, that's easy," Tereza said. As Ruveria went back to the hatching room, Tereza sauntered up to a cabinet and grabbed a large brandishing iron. The tip glowed amber.

Mia froze. She'd seen tools like that before. Zel had had them, in her dungeon where she'd tortured Vinicius.

Tereza cackled. "We just mark him, and he'll carry the mark with him until he dies, the same as us! And that way, nothing will ever change, just as desired. Just as we earned."

"But not yet," Saalia said, taking the brandishing iron from her fellow zotiva. "Only the strong get marked."

That didn't make sense, and Romakus knew it. He shook his head and plucked the metal rod from Saalia's hands.

"This is a spire tool, Saalia. Someone is powering this."

Saalia yanked it right back with a shriek, and Romakus stepped away with his hands up. But whatever extreme emotion ran through the spire mother disappeared just as quickly as it'd arrived, and she sighed wistfully and stepped up to Romakus. Distance closed, she waved the rod at her side as she pressed her absurd breasts into his chest.

"We do what we're told. Yes, what we're told. We're promised. Someday, the seal will break! But not yet." And like she hadn't just squashed two giant pillows of softness against Romakus's chest, she turned back and dragged her claws down the brute's chest, drawing blood and roars.

Yosepha grunted. In another circumstance, Romakus might have made a joke about being in the doghouse. Not here, not now.

"Saalia talks about you sometimes," Tereza said, cuddling up to the side of the poor, tortured brute. "Romakus, angel hunter. Wonderful in bed! Her, and Ruveria, and Zavaria at the same time?" With a husky groan, Tereza slid a hand down her naked body and casually touched herself with exploring fingers, reaching between her legs. "There are no tetrads left! None. And we zotiva resist the seal, resists its claws tearing into us. We keep our minds. We keep our desires."

Keep their minds? Mia doubted that.

Yosepha grunted again, a quiet thing aimed squarely at her lover's back, but the annoyance lasted half a second before she set her wary eyes back on the three psychos.

"Ladies," Romakus said. "Fill me in. Tell me what's going on. I've stayed away because the whole province has lost its mind, but you three are clearly still in perfect mental health. I need your help." Easy to lie to crazy people, and he gestured to the archway and Ruveria, still in the hatchery.

"We can't tell you," Saalia said, not bothering to look back as she continued to torture the new mark. "We just keep working. Work work! Someday, things will change. Someday, we'll be free. But not until he's satisfied."

Mia opened her mouth and shut it quick. Drawing attention was a bad idea, especially if these zotivas had enough wits to recognize she had no mark on her forehead. They hadn't so far.

"He?" Romakus asked.

"Can't tell you," Tereza said. "Can't say. But the screams. Oh the screams! Every day, every night, they come up. Up and up, can't you hear them?"

All they heard in the spire was screams. Screaming remnants, roaring and yelling demons, and everything in between. But if screams were going up, then they were coming from down.

Mia elbowed Julisa's leg and nodded back to the exit.

"Romakus," Julisa said. "Let's go. We have to... do what the seal tells us to do."

Saalia nodded, again not bothering to look back. "Listen to the seal. It's not the same anymore, I don't think. Two thousand years ago, you said? Oh, it's changed! It's changed so much!"

"Changed," Tereza continued. "Changed. If only you knew, Romakus. If only you knew. Punished! We're being punished for failure."

"Yes," Saalia said, slowly turning and looking back at the tetrad. "Everyone who's strong enough gets marked. That's how it works! All of False Gate gets punished! But not you. The other bailiffs died in the war, but not you, Romakus. You were always too smart for your own good." With a wide, devil smile, she approached Romakus again, waving the dagger around as much as she wagged her tail. "But we were told. Yes, told. The betrayers told us. His betrayers! They told us! Until punishment is fulfilled, all will be marked."

Romakus stepped back. "His betrayers? What--"

Ruveria rushed out of the hatching pit and went straight for Romakus, shrieking like a banshee, claws out and wings spread. Too loud!

"Romakus!" Mia yelled. "We--"

Romakus turned, drew his sword, and cut his old lover straight down across the neck and into her torso. The huge, black blade wasn't sharp, and it mangled flesh as much as cut it on the way through.

The two remaining spire mothers let out the same shriek, but they were short-lived. Vinicius needed no encouragement, diving forward and grabbing both ladies by the throat instantly. If they'd surrendered then, maybe Vin would have let them live. But the two women tried to claw, stab, and tear at the colossal titan looming over them.

He squeezed hard, snapped their necks like twigs, and let them drop to the floor. Breaking a neck wasn't a fast way to kill someone in real life, but it was different if you broke them so badly you almost popped their head off. Mia looked away as Vin let their bodies go, and the two ladies twitched on the flesh floor twice before going still.

Everyone fell silent and faced the tunnel they'd come in from. A long tunnel. If their banshee wails had reached the rest of the spire, they'd have been quiet and lost under the endless noises beyond. The group was safe. For now.

Cerberus snarled at the closest corpse, but stayed at Mia's side.

"Oh fuck," Mia said, and she peeked out from behind Julisa at the three corpses. "I... I didn't--"

Romakus growled and snapped his tail. "Too late now."

"Romakus," Julisa said. "False Gate's zotivas..."

"No one kills spire mothers," Kas said, walking up and examining the corpses. "No one. For a reason."

A big reason. Adron stepped through the archway into the next room, and Mia followed. Hatching rooms were all the same, giant walls covered in flesh orifices that pushed out slimy eggs the size of footballs and beach balls. It was a zotiva's job to figure out which eggs were healthy, exterminate the bad ones, then make sure the good ones got put into the hatching pit to go through yet another filter. And without those filters, the province would be overrun with starving demons in... what? Weeks? Months?

"Does the spire know to birth more spire mothers?" Mia asked.

"Yes," Vinicius said, earning a glance from everyone. He didn't elaborate.

Julisa shook her head. "But without a spire ruler to ensure they are not killed in the chaos... Any new zotiva will not likely survive."

Romakus stood over the corpses of the three women, and his gaze lingered on Saalia and Ruveria. He'd cut Ruveria down. Hadn't even hesitated. But now, the tetrad stared at them, half frowning as he slowly hooked his huge sword onto his back again. Tail still as a rock, he sank his feet's claws into the fleshy floor, turned, and walked to the exit.

"So False Gate will get even worse now," Romakus said. "Wonderful. It doesn't matter. Not our problem. We have a world to save. Come on."

On a dime, Yosepha followed the demon and got beside him. They exchanged words, whispers, something that made Romakus's wings slump even more. But after a minute, Yosepha looked back and motioned for the others to follow.

No need to ask. Only one place to go. Down, and down, deep into the scariest place the spire had.

The deeper they went, the worse it got. Fewer demons, but more remnants. Fewer amber veins and fewer fire braziers, but more darkness. Deeper and deeper into the bowels of Hell where the spire punctured like a knife. And on the bottom floor of the spire, the wide, circular room was almost completely black, surrounded by remnants growing from the walls.

And it was filled with betrayers.

Mia and the crew looked at each other, no one daring to say a word as they stared at the hundreds of naked betrayers crammed together. All were on their knees, bowing, facing the cursed doors that led to Lucifer's podium. And conveniently, there was a path between them just wide enough for the crew to walk if they went single file.

Romakus looked back, shrugged, and started down the path. Yosepha followed. Vinicius too, and Julisa with him. What were betrayers doing here? Each had 666 etched onto their foreheads, a mark no knife or spire brand could mimic. And each was absolutely absorbed in their prayer, heads pointed down the hallway.

Towards the source of the screams. Heavy, loud, demon screams.

Like walking on eggshells, everyone crept forward, silent as can be, even Cerberus. They didn't have to work hard. As long as they moved casually and didn't touch anyone, any noise they made was buried under betrayers' humming, and the screams of whoever was being tortured. It was beyond dumb that the crew kept pushing forward, but at this point, they were all in. No one was leaving until they had some clue what was happening.

They didn't have to walk far to find out.

At the end of the long hall of flesh, stone, and thousands of remnants, the doors were already open. Within, the great castle of bone awaited, a billion bones charred black by something that made them impervious to the flow of time. The ground was covered in praying betrayers, and the roars of agony only grew louder.

The door to the bone wall, the castle's front, was already open, too, and Mia's group followed the open path into it, into the room where Zel had shown Mia Lucifer's book. There had to be something. There had to be--

Vinicius growled, and the hundred betrayers in the colossal room of bone pillars turned and faced him. Unlike the other betrayers, these men and women were big, strong, still naked, but brandishing small meera weapons, and spire rods like the one the spire mothers had, tips glowing amber.

In the back of the huge room of bone, stood a demon, his arms and legs held to the wall by black chains. He was titanic, Vin's height, a twelve-foot-tall colossus of muscle, with two massive wings full of holes, and heavy weight resting on two massive black hooves. No tail. Only two arms. It was like someone had taken a korgejin tetrad and made him even more monstrous, frame wide, a goliath of mass and destruction, with a short dragon snout like Vin's.

The betrayers were torturing him, cutting into him, and every so often, they placed the glowing rods onto his skin, burning him with tips shining the same color as the extra, amber horn pulsing in the center of the demon's forehead.

Mia gulped. "I knew it."