~~Day 132~~

~~Mia~~

No one had to say it, explain it, or even gesture to him. There was another child of the Old Ones chained up in a spire's basement; Zel hadn't chained Vin up in the literal basement, but close enough. And unlike Vin, who'd been getting a lot of one-on-one time with the spire ruler, the child locked up this time was the spire ruler.

What the fuck was going on? Belor -- she was pretty sure it was Belor -- looked like absolute shit, exhausted, and his small amber horn pulsed like a flickering flame. It wasn't supposed to pulse at all, unless the spire ruler was using it to do something, like make a spire door open, push out a spire aura, or activate a spire tool, like the one the spire mothers had been using. But the child of the Old Ones bound to the wall screamed as one of the muscular betrayers stabbed him with the spire tool, burned his skin, and made the horn pulse.

The burn mark faded away. A spire ruler getting burned by their own tool? How did that work? Why'd it heal? What the fuck was going on?

"What is this!?" a betrayer asked. The man, wearing a combination of leather and meera metal, brandished a sword and glared at Mia and the group. "What madness led you into the heart of Molech's punishment? How did you get past the chastened?"

Molech? The Old One?

Romakus glanced back at Mia. She shrugged, just as confused.

"We walked in through the front door?" Romakus said. "What the fuck is..." Wordless, the tetrad gestured around at the giant room of charred black bones, the bone pillars, the podium too big for anyone but a child of the Old Ones, and the child himself, chained to the wall and being tortured by a dozen betrayers, while a hundred more stood around, wielding their own weapons. Meera metal, cut down to size to fit their human bodies.

Wait. The meera metal was fitted to their body shapes, too. Most demons were bigger than humans, but this meera metal was made for them. Not full suits of armor, way too heavy, but they had more than a few pieces. Betrayers were a lot stronger than regular humans to wear a small amount of that armor without falling over. And these betrayers were well-fed.

These betrayers hadn't broken into the spire. They'd been here for a while, and they'd had armor and weapons custom-forged for them. And considering the amount of betrayers behind them, outside the unholy castle of bone, they were comfortable. This was their home. They'd set up shop in the basement and were doing some weird combination of worshiping and torturing.

It wasn't just simple torture, either. There was a chain attached to Belor's neck, and it reached up and attached to the ceiling of bone. The entire chain glowed amber, and it pulsed in time with Belor's special horn. A symbol hung from the chain, across Belor's chest. The seal! The seal she'd seen burned onto the arm or head or chest of almost every demon she'd seen in False Gate.

Music. Mia could hear it now, pulsing out from the child of the Old Ones, the small amber horn on his forehead, and the glowing chain around his neck. It was strange, different, loud, but in the way a vacuum cleaner was loud, a background noise she hadn't noticed despite the volume. But it was there now, so obvious in her mind. Stop it? Squash it? She didn't know if she could. And what would happen if she did?

The betrayers, stabbing and burning Belor, stopped, all turning and facing Vinicius and the crew. It was enough for Belor to finally stop screaming, and set his demony dragon eyes on Mia.

No, not her. He looked at Vin, and Romakus.

"Romakus," Belor said, voice a gravely bass, kinda like Vin's, except if he'd been smoking cigars his whole life, on top of being an alligator. "You always were too smart to die." And, uh, a slight New York accent? "And Vinicius. Come for another fight? Sorry, Vinny. I'm a bit... preoccupied."

Mia blinked. Vinny? What in the ever-living fuck? He had the voice, but this was not the ruthless, ultra-violent monster she'd expected to find. She stared up at Vin's back, and then back at Azreal and Noah. All three were glaring at the chained-up spire ruler, ignoring the hundred-plus betrayers who were all itching to chop down the people who'd just walked into their lion's den.

"Shit, Belor," Romakus said. "You've been alive this whole time? Fucking christ, I didn't--"

"You will not interrupt Molech's decree!" the betrayer said. "Belor must suffer! Molech's word is will! Molech's will is law! Molech's will is--"

Vinicius charged forward and tore the betrayer apart.

"Vin!" Mia screamed.

Too late.

Chaos exploded, and no one held back. Julisa followed Vin without hesitation, practically courageous, swords out and cutting like a blender. Yosepha and Romakus followed them, and the angel exploded out of her leather garb. Gold drowned the room, and betrayers covered their eyes for just long enough for Yosepha to bring her sword to their necks, and sever heads from shoulders.

Adron, Kas, and Azreal stayed with Mia, surrounding her, Azreal drawing his own batlam rune and destroying his leather clothes. Noah did the same and went on the offensive, except instead of charging forward with the others, he turned around and unleashed Armageddon on the betrayers Mia had forgotten about. She spun, jaw dropping as a tide of flesh poured toward the castle's bone doors, thousands of betrayers roaring as they tried to rush the door.

Cerberus snarled and half barked, half roared at the nearby betrayers, but he stayed at Mia's side, twisting and turning and aiming his three heads in random directions. And for a moment, Mia thought about telling him to attack. They were at the bottom of the spire, deep in the ground, and after this battle, they'd probably have to cut their way through every demon in the whole fucking province.

But for now, they weren't in danger. Mia and the crew weren't trapped with the betrayers. The betrayers were trapped with them. Vin tore through them like butter, grabbing two at a time and ripping them in half, before doing the same to the next two foolish enough to take a swing at him. Romakus and Julisa even had smiles on their faces as they mowed through the betrayers, while Yosepha and Noah wore no expression at all, from what little Mia could see of their eyes through their helmets.

They'd have to get armored in leather again when this was all over. No way the crazy demons above would look at angels and think it was okay to have them in the spire. But there were no demons on the bottom floor of the spire, none except Belor, and the child of the Old Ones watched on with a strange, tired smile, as the betrayers who'd been torturing him were slaughtered.

Mia reached out with the music, and got nowhere. The spire wasn't Hell, and if Mia wanted to do something that'd affect the spire, she'd have to punch through it. Rip the ground in half. Summon a hellquake. Something big, and dangerous, and might resonate too loudly and draw the alien close. Instead, she summoned batlam, covered herself in black metal armor, and held her staff in front of her with both hands. She was useless here, for now.

And she didn't need to be useful. The betrayers threw themselves at Mia's crew and died for it. Severed limbs crashed into pillars, blood splatters soaked the ceiling, and black metal and red organs decorated the bony floor in a growing pile. Belor chuckled, and Mia glared at the titan as Vin and the others ripped through his torturers.

"Here!" Noah said.

Without even looking, Azreal flew back, turned around, and landed beside his old comrade. Together, the two angels smashed back the rushing tide of betrayers at the door, and Azreal summoned a gold wall. Through the semi-opaque barrier, a thousand betrayers screamed with merciless rage.

"Molech's judgement must be served!" they screamed, pounding their fists against the barrier.

Noah got to work, flying over Azreal's shield, cutting through enough bodies to create room, and pushed the two giant bone doors of the castle closed. Azreal dismissed the gold wall, and the two angels planted their shoulders against the door. Unless the betrayers could climb the walls and reach the windows, no one was getting into the bone castle except through those doors.

"Whatever you plan to do," Noah said to the crew, "do it quickly."

"Damn it, Vinicius!" Mia yelled and marched up to the ragarin. "You fucking... We could have... I mean... I don't know! Can you wait for at least one fucking second before committing us to a slaughter! Now we have to fight our way out! We don't know if we'll have to kill every demon!"

Belor chuckled. Way too much chuckling from a half-dead spire ruler with a chain around his throat.

"You are... unmarked," Belor said.

Mia sighed, stepped over several bodies, a few still twitching, and stood in front of the chained child of the Old Ones. Memories hit her. This was way too similar to the first time she'd met Vin.

"And you're Belor," she said, glaring up at the man. "The most dangerous child of the Old Ones from the Spires War? Tried to fight every spire, and Heaven, and reach the Forgotten Place?"

Belor tilted his head, eyeing her, but instead of Vin's deadly glare and dragon sneer, he smiled. Not that he could smile very much, with the same sort of short dragon snout Vin had, but it was there.

"That I am," he said. "That I did."

"And now you're tied up and being tortured by betrayers. Betrayers that belong to Molech, apparently? The Old One?"

A chorus of yelling turned her around. Azreal and Noah slid back slightly from the door before pushing themselves back against it. There were so many betrayers outside, it was like soldiers holding back a battering ram.

The old monster looked at Romakus. "This little girl is in charge? I knew you were a spineless coward, Romakus, but I never thought you'd heel to a soul."

Instead of taking drastic offensive and roaring with all the fury Mia expected, Romakus rolled his eyes and put his sword away as he stepped on and crushed the final betrayer.

"It's a long story, boss," Romakus said. "Just, trust the girl. Mia here is the only chance we have of stopping the alien from killing the whole fucking god damn universe. So just do what she says."

"Alien? Explain." Slowly, the old monster tilted his head to the other side. He didn't know.

"You first," Mia said. "You're being tortured? Why? What's going on? Why is everyone you marked with your seal insane? Talk! And quickly!"

Again, Belor tried to chuckle, but it came out a coughing mess, and his chains rattled.

"It was Molech's seal, something he'd crafted on his own. He taught it to me, a way to guarantee every demon would obey me with mindless devotion until death." Belor looked to his wings and the myriad of holes in their membranes. "I failed. Heaven intervened sooner than expected. I lost, and Molech does not like to lose."

Mia pulled her head back. "Molech doesn't like to lose? What?"

"I've been tied up here, and Molech has been torturing me with my own spire's tools, for... who knows how long, because he wants to."

Good god. Mia dragged her fingers down her face, forgot her fingers were currently wearing metal gauntlets, and groaned.

"Molech has been torturing you for two thousand years... because he's pissed!?"

Again, Belor chuckled, and again it pulled exhausted coughs out of him. This was worse than what Zel had done to Vin. A lot worse.

"Two thousand years..." Belor sighed. "Perhaps we can talk later? I--"

"Explain now. None of this 'later' bullshit. Now."

Belor rolled his eyes. Why'd she think Belor would be so much like Vin? He was a lot more like Romakus, eye-rolls included.

"You know of Molech, the Old One?" he asked.

She nodded. "I've dealt with two already."

That got a wide-eyed look from the old titan, and another chuckle.

"Color me surprised. Well, Molech is not happy with me. So he tortures me. He's not happy with the province, so he tortures it, through me. And he'll continue torturing us until he's satisfied. Another thousand years? A hundred thousand? He's billions of years old. I have no idea how long it'll take for a monster like that to be sated."

Mia paced in front of the chained child, chin in her fingers, and did her best not to trip on any bodies. "Why's everyone going crazy?"

"I didn't know my province was going crazy, only tortured. But if I had to guess, it's because of this." He nodded to his chest, where the amber chain dangled with a symbol, like a large, nasty necklace. "His servants bound me, attached this to me, and they... force me to use my link to the spire. They feed my... discomfort, into the chain. Maybe it's resonating with those carrying the seal. Maybe that's how Molech is enacting his torture." He tried to shrug with his wings, and predictably let out a heavy wince and a snarl. Pain was an old friend for this titan, and he laughed. "Vinicius, I know you want the honors. Going to kill me? It'd be pretty easy, right about now."

Vinicius snarled, nodded, and flexed his claws.

Mia threw up her hands and got between them. "Whoa! No, no! We need Belor."

"Need?" Vinicius stared down at her, eyes widening. "We do not--"

"Belor," she said. "Someone's taken the rune stones from the beach. You know about them?"

"Giant, red runes, carved into stones as large as me. Ancient language. No idea what they're for. Molech said we wouldn't need them, once he was free."

"They're for creating a path to the Forgotten Place."

Belor's eyes widened. "I did not know that. Molech has been keeping secrets from me."

"Know where someone would take them?" she asked.

From wide-eyed to squinting with the knowing of a man who suddenly had leverage. "I do."

She squinted up at the tyrant. "We don't have time to negotiate, Belor. We let you go, and you tell us where Molech would have taken the stones. Molech wants me, and I'm trying to get to the Forgotten Place. Hopefully, I'll find the key there to stopping the aliens from destroying the Great Tower." Amazing how quickly she could summarize when she had a thousand betrayers trying to reach her.

Slowly, Belor looked at Vinicius and Romakus, extra time spent on the fellow child, with a few snarls to go with. Exhausted and half dead, the spire ruler still squirmed with something Mia recognized from all her time with Vin: hunger. Not hunger for food, though there was probably plenty of that. No, Belor looked at Vin with the same look Vin was looking at him. He wanted to fight.

"Oh," Belor said, eyes flicking from Vin's neck to Mia's. "A spire leash. Vinny Vin Vin. How did someone as strong as you get leashed?"

Vinicius marched forward and swung a claw.

"Vin!" Mia yelled.

Vin stopped an inch from Belor's gut, and slowly stepped back, every inch of him trembling.

Which Belor took as a win, judging from the small but devious smile.

"Free me," he said, "and I will show you where the stones were taken."

"Do you even know?" Yosepha asked.

"That I do," Belor said, and nodded to Romakus. "Molech's closest servants would have taken them to the Great Forge, but deep into its bowels where only the Old One's betrayers are found. You won't be able to stroll in through the front door, like you did with the spire, apparently." Sighing, the titan looked up at the bone ceiling and shook his head. "What has become of Hell in my absence?" For a moment, he sounded almost poetic, like a grieving man in a theater play. "All gone to Hell, apparently." And then he sounded like Romakus again.

"It is not as if we have much choice," Julisa said. "What do you want to do? Torture Belor? He's been tortured for two thousand years. And we have no time!" She gestured past the group to Azreal and Noah, holding back the tide. "Free him."

Mia squinted at the tetrad. Sure enough, Julisa leaned in a little closer than necessary to Belor, and her tail wagged ever so slightly. This bitch, getting wet for anyone with power.

"That would be nice," Belor said, and he grinned down at Julisa as much as his short dragon snout allowed.

"I trust Belor to honor his word," Romakus said. "I mean, beyond that? Not so much. He's pretty crafty with words."

"Yosepha," Mia said. "Uh... what do you think?"

The angel glared up at Belor, and looked back at Mia, some mixture of apprehension, frustration, and sheer confusion on her face.

"I don't know if we should free--"

"We are not!" Noah yelled. "That monster--"

"Is our only option," Adron said. "What we're trying to do is bigger than False Gate and Belor, right? I know we didn't expect to find fucking biggest threat from the Spires War here, and I'm sure half the people here want to kill Belor for one reason or another. But we have bigger fish to fry!" He quickly looked Mia's way for confirmation, and she nodded. "What's he going to do once he's out, anyway? Unite False Gate again and fight all of Hell, and Heaven, and the alien, in the next five minutes? We free him, use him, and move on."

Cerberus growled up at the titan, earning a few head tilts from the exhausted demon.

Which Kas took as a cue to march up to Belor, and undo his bindings. Metal hooks that could not be unhooked from the bound person, but another pair of strong hands made short work of them. Up and over, hook after hook. Problem: the moment Belor's arms were free, they sagged hard, and the titan's weight fell forward and onto the chain around his neck. The special, glowing chain.

But Kas held Belor up to keep him from choking, and Romakus and Julisa got the chain off his neck. The moment it was off, it stopped glowing. And the loud hum in the background only Mia could hear faded away into nothing.

Vinicius watched without blinking, clawing the air, eyes locked on Belor and nothing else.

For a second, Mia thought maybe it was just Vin being a colossal jackass, and only he had this weird, overwhelming desire to destroy. But even as Kas, Julisa, and Romakus helped stand the goliath demon up to his hooves, Belor looked Vin's way and let out his own, deep, guttural growls.

"No time for that, boss," Romakus said. "We're heading to the Great Forge? You can barely walk."

"I can... walk."

They let him go, and Belor fell to his knees. They reached for him, but he shoved them away, and scooped up betrayer corpses from the floor. Cerberus watched him, even dopey-head locked-on and in full defense mode, while the child of the Old Ones devoured flesh, taking in hearts as well as chunks of bone and meat he didn't need. He was starving. And probably wanted a bit of revenge on the ones who'd been torturing him.

"You won't heal in time," Romakus said. "And I don't know how we're getting out of the spire."

"We're not," Belor said, glaring at his wings as he tried and failed to stretch them. "Third floor up. Tunnel."

"Tunnel?" Romakus threw some confused looks around. "There's no tunnel leading out of the spire, boss."

"Yes. There is."

"Even if there is," Kas said, "we will have to fight our way through Molech's betrayers. And I am sure more are coming."

"Maybe," Belor said, finally standing again with Romakus's and Julisa's unwanted help. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Mia asked. "I don't--"

The roars outside turned into screams and banshee shrieks. And even with a giant wall and door of bones blocking their view, there was no mistaking the sound of demon violence.

Azreal and Noah backed away from the door. It didn't swing open. Demons had come down to the spire's basement, and were gorging themselves on death.

"What's going on?" Adron asked.

Belor grunted. "I am... no longer... pulsing the spire aura." True to word, his little amber horn wasn't glowing anymore. "The spire seal is ancient, long past how long it should have lasted on its own. All my demons are... free." He gestured back to the chain no longer tied to his neck.

"Free?" Mia threw up her hands. "What's free going to mean to demons who've been going crazy for centuries!?"

Belor chuckled, and for some fucking reason, the half-dead child of the Old Ones sounded utterly delighted.

"I have no idea."

They stopped and waited, but the violence outside did not end. Gargling, tearing, pained yells and desperate wails. Soon, human screams stopped, but demon screams continued. And continued. And continued.

The demons were fighting each other?

"We go," Vinicius said, and marched up to the door.

"Wait," Noah said. "We do not know what is happening. These demons are finally free of some binding law that has kept them from killing each other. They are--"

"Slaughtering each other," Azreal said. The little man glared up at the big demon, got in his face, and stood tall. "We wait until the noises quieten."

Vinicius snapped his tail once and took slow, deep breaths, each pouring rage into the room straight from his nostrils, his violence aura creeping along like an alligator hiding in the water. His fingers clawed at the air again, all four hands tearing into something that wasn't there.

"Vinny Vin," Belor said. "Never could see past your snout."

"Hypocrite." Vin turned, grabbed Belor by the throat, and lifted him. Everyone froze as the titan lifted a titan, and all Belor could do was hold Vin by the wrists to keep some weight off his neck. "You drowned Hell in more violence than any child has for millennia! And you--"

"Vin!" Mia yelled. "Don't hurt him! We need him."

"This monster," Vin said, "indulged his need in the worst way. I roamed all of Hell to keep my thirst under control! But you tore it apart!"

Squirming in Vin's hands, Belor tilted his head enough to give Vin a deadly grin, and he chuckled through the tight grip.

"You would have done the same if you could. You want the spires as much as I do."

No one moved, everyone waiting for Vin's response. Either he'd kill Belor and damn the universe, or give a nasty retort, or say nothing. He chose nothing. With a snarl, he let Belor go, and the half-dead spire ruler fell to his hooves and knees.

Instead, Vin took his anger out on Azreal and Noah. Before Mia could stop him, Vin knocked the two angels aside with heavy hands, and threw open the door.

It was just as Azreal and Noah said. Whatever torture the betrayers had been doing, whatever weird 'pulsing' that chain had been doing into the spire and into the seals, making the demons feel punished and unable to act, it was gone. And now the demons were mad with a need to kill.

It was like a room full of Vin's, whenever Vin went ballistic and slaughtered everything in his path. The demons had come down from the floors above, probably to get revenge on the betrayers they hadn't been allowed to touch. Or maybe the chaos had guided them down with gravity. The giant, unholy room, a colossal space of bone floor and walls, with giant hanging skull braziers and the perfect dark, moody atmosphere to scream 'Lucifer walked here', was filled with bodies. Death had come through, and it had spared no one.

Countless betrayer corpses lined the floor, covering every single inch of what were probably blood-soaked bones. Not a single spot of the floor was visible, only betrayer flesh, bodies piled on bodies. And upon them were demons. Screaming, cackling, shrieking, roaring demons.

Vinicius held his arms wide, sent glowing pulses of amber into the spikes on his back, took a deep breath as if he were coming home, and unleashed hellfire.

"Vin!" Mia screamed. She clutched her necklace, but stopped herself. They needed to get through this mob before it got worse, but this could backfire and get them all killed. What if this summoned every demon in the province? What if they'd go from having to fight a thousand demons, to ten thousand? What if--

Hellfire drowned the room, and Vin put everything he had into it. She could almost hear him roar through the unholy flames and over the dying screams of the demons. Hellfire ripped through them, melted meera metal, scorched flesh, incinerated bone and claw and horn, and the strange, flickering fire with its amber core danced as it did so. Vin turned his head left and right, a flamethrower finally getting to indulge in its one purpose.

He stopped. Everyone stared, unable to look away from the burning demons collapsing, turning into soot and embers before their eyes. When the screaming stopped, there was only the sound of fire, the sizzle and crack of burning bodies, and the hypnotic dance of Hell's strange form of destruction. Beautiful, and disgusting.

The flames flickered, turning from hellfire into regular fire, and from fire into embers and smoldering hunks of meat.

Vinicius, panting, turned back long enough to give Belor a death glare.

"We go," he said, and he marched onto the burning bodies. They crunched or squished under his feet, depending on how well they'd been cooked.

Mia wanted to puke.

"Come on," Kas said, and he lowered himself beside Mia.

Sighing, Mia climbed onto her old bodyguard's back, and the crew followed Vin. At least Vin pushed the bigger burning piles aside, so the flames wouldn't burn Mia. Regular fire wouldn't burn a demon easily, and the crew followed.

Mia glared at Vin's back, but he didn't look back a second time. It felt like when they'd first met, like she had a mad dog on a leash, and she didn't know how to handle him. What could she do? Once they were out of here, had the runes activated in her mind, and were on their way to the River Styx, she could talk to him. But Vin was strong, stronger than an angel, and their best bet for punching through inevitable opposition.

As long as he didn't make things worse, it was better to let him kill whatever was in front of him.

"This is madness," Azreal said, flapping his wings. Distant flames appreciated the airflow, but the air gust hit the closest fires hard enough to put them out. "We cannot fight our way through an entire province like this, with this monster burning everything in sight."

"We can," Vinicius said, deadpan.

Belor shook his head, trailing in the back with Julisa and Romakus. "Like I said, just a few floors up. First tunnel on the right from the stairs. A sealed door. The betrayers use it, forced me to open and close it. Leads right to their master."

"Their master," Adron said, walking with Kas and Mia. "You mean Molech, the Old One? The ancient monster you made a deal with?"

Belor chuckled. If Adron was hoping to piss the old titan off, or make him feel guilt or shame, it wasn't working.

"Molech is a broken creature at the bottom of Hell," Belor said. "I found him. I made a deal with him. And all it cost me was my soul." A divine joke no one found funny, but he laughed anyway. "No one knew. And if the angels hadn't interfered, I would have had all nine spires under my control, and Molech would plan an attack on Heaven herself."

Noah looked back. "You were trying to reach the Forgotten Place."

"I was. The ninth spire. Felezar held it last, and that fool made no attempt to reach Lucifer."

Yosepha matched Noah's glare. "Why would you want to reach Lucifer?"

Belor looked at the angel like she'd lost her mind. "For power. An archangel, bound? There is power to be had there. Molech knows it. Molech wanted it."

"Belor," Romakus said. "All this time, you were working with an Old One? Why'd you never tell me?"

"Because you were always too smart for your own good, like I said. You'd have realized it was too risky a gamble and disappeared. And I needed that brain of yours, old friend."

Romakus winced and nodded up. "I'm not that smart. We killed the zotivas just an hour ago."

Belor matched the wince, complete with the exaggerated sound. These two could be brothers.

"The Unholy Lands will need to be rebuilt," Belor said. "And assuming you lot don't let Vinicius kill me when this is over, I'll make sure to do just that."

Julisa outright purred, and Mia threw a glare back at the woman, but all that got was a wink and a flick of her tongue from the bitch.

Yosepha didn't look so happy. "You're being quite honest about your intentions, Belor."

"You have my balls in a sling," Belor said. "Best I get on your good sides now, right? Honesty is the best way to make friends."

Damn it. It'd be so much easier to just use this demon and then kill him if here weren't like... this. He wasn't the monolith of destruction Mia had figured he'd been. He had a personality. He was memorable! Shit. Hard to kill someone like that.

Worry about it later. For now, get Belor to the tunnel he'd talked about, and follow it to the runes. Touch the big rocks, learn the runes, get out.

"How did you survive?" Noah asked. "You were skewered on angel blades."

Belor shrugged. "You didn't stab hard enough."

Azreal turned and pointed his spear at the man, and Belor laughed, attempting to put up his hands in surrender. Attempt failed, Belor groaned and let his arms go limp around Romakus and Julisa's shoulders.

"We did," Azreal said.

"It was chaos, angel. Everything burned. I remember staring up at the ceiling as cinders fell around us. I remember the pain of my insides spilling onto the floor. I remember angels fleeing the destruction as it fell on me." From talking like Romakus one minute, to talking with the theatrical flair of a leader in a Broadway play the next. And he chuckled, weak and full of gravel. "I remember betrayers digging through the debris, finding me, and force-feeding me. I remember a hundred of them, dragging me back to the spire, announcing Molech's unhappiness with my failure. They took all the aera armor and imbued weapons I had created, and dragged them down into the dark below the Great Forge. I remember waking up to chains, and betrayers glaring at me, before they stabbed me with my own tools, tools that shouldn't have worked. But Molech had altered the devices; it is his spire, after all.

"And now here I am, apparently two thousand years later, being dragged along by an old underling and his beautiful friend." He smiled down at Julisa, and the tetrad purred up at him. "How about you, Vinny? Catch me up."

Vin snarled back at Belor and marched ahead. Cerberus did the same, looking back and growling at Belor like any protective dog meeting a new person for the first time.

"A three-headed cannam?" Belor asked. "A new breed of hellbeast?"

"Not really," Mia said. "Hell birthed him just for me."

Belor raised an eyebrow--barely, the demon-y dragon-y face not really allowing for much expression in the eyebrows.

"Question," Adron asked. "Rom's friend Carius said the stones were dragged toward the middle of False Gate. We sure Molech brought the stones where you think he did?"

"I'm sure," Belor said. "You don't understand what these monsters are like. They don't think in terms of nuance. Everything is grand, sweeping acts. If Molech truly wants this unmarked, then he brings the bait to him, to bring the unmarked to him."

"Then I'll knock him down a peg when I get there," Mia said, and gave her palm a punch.

Belor blinked. Vinicius snorted.

The group stepped out into the main area, the giant black pit at the bottom of the spire. Above, there was only one sound: violence. Demons were tearing each other to shreds, and body parts fell down the center hole of the spire, each landing with a nasty splat against other dead betrayers and demons. Bodies were piling up, literally, and Vin had to push them away to clear the path to the stairway. Unfortunately, the stairway was clogged with bodies, too.

"Noah? Yosepha?" Mia asked. "Can you take Belor up to the next floor?"

The two angels glared at her, doubly glared at Belor, grabbed the massive creature's arms, and flew him up through the spire's center hole. It looked hilarious, two mostly human-sized entities, lifting a twelve-foot-tall juggernaut up. Like a tugboat hauling a cargo ship. Everyone followed.

Each floor was a mess of the dying. Demons had killed each other, were still killing each other, but they could only fight for so long before they ran out of energy, and targets. A vrat lunged for Vinicius, and Vinicius smashed him aside with his tail. A diloja bat girl jumped for him, and Vin grabbed her--

"Vin!" Mia screamed from Kas's back. "Vin! Just... don't kill her."

Vin glared back at Mia, and she returned it. Growling, he tossed the bat girl aside hard enough to break bone, and she half squeaked, half screamed with a mix of rage and hunger Mia could not fathom. The little woman dragged herself across the bodies, trying to get to Mia's crew, eyes wide, fangs out. Crazy, but a different kind, now, like all of them had been teetering on an edge, and freeing Belor had pushed them off.

The group moved on, and Belor spared a glance for Mia with a devious little grin on his short snout. She'd said something or had done something to get his attention. He'd get a spike up through the ass when they got outside if he gave her a reason.

Sure enough, there was an open doorway, a giant black skull with mouth open and fangs sunk into the floor and ceiling, revealing the path into the dark. And like the tunnel to the hatchery, the walls within were all flesh and bone, like a snake's insides.

"I'll be damned," Romakus said. "I'd never thought much of this door. Looks like all the others."

They marched on. Mia half expected them to find another hatching pit, but nope, the snake tunnel curved and wound deep into the guts of Hell, taking them far and away from the spire and the unending violence above. Further, and further. A kilometer. Two. Ten. She couldn't hear the screams anymore. How bad was it up above? Did every demon snap like a twig? She hoped not. She really did.

"My whole province is tearing itself apart, I imagine," Belor said. "It'll take time to build another army."

"Belor," Mia said, looking back at him from Kas's back. "If -- IF -- we let you live, it's not so you can just go back to being a global menace. We're all trying to save the Great Tower."

"The angels will--"

"The angels," Noah said, giving Belor the same glare Mia had, "are blocked by the council's silence, old monster."

Belor tilted his head. "Silence?"

Noah sneered. First time he'd ever done that. He turned and walked on, both he and Vinicius taking point, with Azreal and Yosepha directly behind them.

"What he means," Mia said, "is that Heaven's been in a weird spot. They aren't trying to help me save the Great Tower. They're trying to stop me, actually, and we don't know why. And far as we can tell, they're not doing anything to stop the alien invaders, either. So me, the Damall--"

"Damall?" Belor asked.

"Romakus was in the Damall," she continued. "A group of demons trying to stop another Spire's War from happening. Romakus was running a group in Death's Grip, where I met him."

Belor stared at Romakus, and Romakus gave his old boss a sly grin.

Mia waved a hand. "Lilith told me to get to the Forgotten Place. If there's anything I can do to stop the alien, it's there."

"Lilith? She's alive?"

Wow. She'd thought she'd summarized everything, but now that she was trying to get into the details, she didn't even know where to begin. And judging from the length of the tunnel, she had time. So she explained about Cain and Lilith, the rider trying to kill them, while his wife tried to help them. She explained some basic stuff about the unmarked, and how they were probably somehow linked to all the alien shenanigans. She did not explain details about the powers unmarked had, except that she could manipulate Hell and turn Belor into a meat skewer if he so much as looked at her or her friends wrong.

"Apparently," Belor said, "I missed everything."

"We all thought you were dead," Romakus said.

Mia shook her head. "Not me."

Belor laughed. "Had faith in me?"

"Nope, but I thought it was the only explanation for how the whole province went crazy." Gesturing up at the rock ceiling, she tapped her temple with her other hand. "But I know how runes work, sort of. I knew that some sort of unobtainable, unsatisfiable eternal order, locked into a spire seal, couldn't explain all this. I just knew it. But Molech poisoning the seal? Like, each demon is a tuning fork, resonating with the frequency? All so he could torture every demon who'd failed? That makes more sense."

Belor looked at her, not exactly squinting, but looking at her with an intensity he hadn't before. An ancient spire ruler who'd been at the top of the world, and then spent the past two thousand years being tortured by his old boss. A deadly titan, with Vin's same addiction to violence, who'd cut down angels, ruled a province, and went to war with Hell and Heaven alike. A massive figure from history. And he was looking at her with a strange intrigue she couldn't put a finger on. Not exactly how Zel had looked at her, but not that far off, either.

"Mia," Kas said from beneath her. "Belor is not our ally. Do not explain everything to him. Information is power."

"We're short on allies!" She gave Kas a good thump on the back. "We need some."

"No," Vinicius said, looking back. "Not him."

Mia glared. "Maybe him. A spire ruler, and a child of the Old Ones? He could be an ally, so let's just keep going, get those runes, get out of here, and then we can figure things out."

Vinicius shook his head but said nothing, letting his hard glare do the talking. Every bit of his body language screamed one thing: he wanted to kill Belor.

She wouldn't let him.

Considering how violently the day had started, the long walk in the tunnel was simultaneously relaxing and frustrating. Time to relax. Time for anxiety to build. But it was also time to catch their breath, and Vin looked better by the minute; breathing a mountain of hellfire had tired him pretty badly.

Unfortunately, that meant he glanced back every so often, eye always aimed straight at Belor. And Belor met his glare each time with a grin. Not the mindless brute Mia had figured he'd be, but a conniving man with an edge that made him a hundred times more dangerous. Which had Julisa practically dripping, with the way she snuggled up against his side with his arm still over her shoulders.

There was going to be a fight, unless Mia did something about it. The fuck could she do? She could use the leash to stop Vin, but Azreal and Noah were looking at Belor with almost the same level of hate Vin was.

She almost asked Belor about his use of the great forge, but that'd be a dangerous road to go down. Far as she knew, Belor had not only armed his armies with mountains of meera metal, he'd armed his best with aera metal, and had made many hellfire-imbued weapons. Mia could see the runes to use the forge, and couldn't use them yet, but could still understand how they'd work, at least a little. It was not a fast process. Belor must have had a fucking production line set up. Except he hadn't done it alone. He'd had Romakus's help. And Molech's.

"Belor," Mia said. "Tell me about Molech."

Belor snorted. "I met Molech when I took the spire, long, long ago. I explored the great forge, searched for more secrets in its endless depths, and found the old monster in a canyon, in a canyon, in a canyon. Injured, but awake, with his own armies of worshiping betrayers. He showed me how to create more powerful spire auras--"

"Don't think about using that against us, by the way," Mia said. "I've made the group immune to all spire auras."

Again, Belor looked at her with a bit of that strange intrigue. And then, not so strangely, he looked her up and down, eyes dragging along her body. And he grinned. Probably thinking she had a nice petite figure and a large ass, with where his eyes paused.

She raised a hand, summoned a spike of blackstone from the tunnel ceiling, snapped it off, and pointed it straight at the titan being half dragged by the two tetrads. That got a few blinks out of him, but his wide eyes quickly devolved into more intrigued, hungry gazing, and he looked her up and down again. Damn it.

"Make no mistake, Belor," she said. "I'm in charge here. Your life is in my hands, and I have plenty of reasons to kill you. Don't give me another."

"Hey, I didn't do anything," he said, but that playful smile of his didn't go anywhere. "You can just... control Hell? Can all unmarked do that?"

"Yes, we can." No need to tell him what'd happen if she pushed it too far. "Go on, about Molech and the great forge. What're we going to find ahead?"

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

Belor didn't lie. The tunnel opened up into a colossal cavern; Mia sensed it before she saw it, but couldn't help but drop her jaw as the team stepped into it. It was beyond colossal. You could have fit a literal city down here, skyscrapers included. A giant canyon with hundreds of thin rock ledges along the walls. Paths.

But it was a path used by betrayers. Belor guided the crew down several crevices in the canyon wall, onto a new, much more dangerous, narrow, winding path, with boulders and outcroppings overhead. The crew had to walk single file to fit on the path, rock wall on their right, canyon on their left, and if anyone fell over, it'd be a long, long way down. But at least they were out of sight of what looked like an army of men and women, with burning bushes for torches.

"Cerberus," Mia said. "Stay right behind me! Don't--yeah, just stay right there."

She'd gotten off Kas's back, and was doing her best to keep her puppers on the inside of the step. It was a few meters wide, easily wide enough for her and Adron, but the angels had wings, and the other demons were big. And damn it, Cerb just kept getting bigger and bigger each day, and that pile of leather she'd strapped to his back looked suspiciously like a comfortable seat.

But one wrong move and she'd be careening off the edge. The angels might be able to catch her, if they could fly down faster than gravity. Actually...

"Yosepha," she asked, the angel directly ahead of her. "If I fell, could you catch me? I mean, you're not doing that on the surface without some sort of propulsion system. You can't just fly faster than falling."

Yosepha looked back at her, and for the first time in a while, the dark-skinned beauty smiled.

"Yes," she said. "If you fell, we could catch you. The gold glow you see when we use our abilities? All angels can use that, our grace, to empower our flight. It is the only way to fly the edge of the vortex to traverse between Heaven and Hell."

"Oh. Well, that's good. Make sure to catch anyone who falls."

"No one will fall," Noah said. He walked in the front with the others, wings out, all three angels no longer wrapped in leather; half the reason Mia had tied a bunch to Cerb's back, for future use.

Mia laughed. "Noah, you know what a jinx is?"

"Superstition."

"Well, yeah, but a superstition can still be deadly if it affects you subconsciously. Richard Wiseman did some experiments about it! Yeah, turns out people who think they're unlucky, have a nasty habit of not noticing good things, like not seeing a message for free money if they report they saw the message, in some of Wiseman's experiments. While people who didn't think they're unlucky spotted the message more often, and got the free money. Not exactly the most scientific experiment, but still, makes you wonder how much your subconscious dictates your behaviour, you know? If superstition makes you think the devil's on your ass if you don't throw salt over your shoulder, you might make yourself have a bad time without realizing it. And..."

Everyone was staring at her.

She sighed, threw up her hands, and looked back at Romakus. "You know what I'm talking about?"

Romakus nodded. "Yes, but luck is very real. It's bad luck to take ladies on ship voyages. So naturally, you have to throw any stowaways overboard."

"Okay, that's... not exactly what I meant."

Belor, still getting dragged along by the two tetrads, matched Romakus's chuckle all too well.

"Romakus," he said. "Still watching the scrying pools?"

Rom nodded. "Bad habit. I'm just a kid who likes TV like it's the nineties."

Belor tilted his head, confused.

"Don't worry about it," Mia said. "We can--"

Belor fell. Not off the side of the step, thank god, but the titan fell to his knees and nearly took Julisa and Romakus with them. And Julisa did fall off the edge.

Mia opened her mouth to bark an order, but Azreal, walking in the back with them, was already flying down. Wings glowing bright, he was like a beacon in the cave's darkness, lighting up the dark stone for kilometers. He caught the huge woman by two of her four hands, and with heavy flaps of his wings, lifted her up and set her back on the step with them. Near-death scenario, solved in five seconds by angel reflexes.

Everyone pressed tight to the rock wall and listened. Betrayers, far overhead, shouted random things as they ran along their paths. But they hadn't been able to localize where the light had come from. The crew was safe. Ish.

Julisa purred down at Azreal and swished her tail from side to side. "Why, rapholem, you care for me?"

Azreal glared up at her and gestured to Belor. "You let him fall."

"The old ruler is injured. Beyond injured! He needs rest."

Romakus rolled his eyes. "Keep your legs closed, Julisa."

"They are closed, you demented fool. But your 'boss'"--she quoted the word boss, with all four hands--"can barely stand on his hooves."

"Point taken," Romakus said, stroking his chin.

Kas grunted. "Azrael has summoned attention." The eyeless demon nodded out toward the many steps and tunnels in the giant cave. "It may be prudent to hide until tomorrow."

"Agreed," Yosepha said. "And if Belor is falling over--"

Romakus raised a claw. "Assuming he didn't do that on purpose."

Belor, still on his knees, chuckled up at his old bailiff and shook his head. "If I was trying to kill one of you, it'd be you first, Romakus. Traitor." Harsh words, but Belor kept a small smile and gentle chuckle with every one, wiping away the seriousness and turning his deep, gravely voice into an almost singing bass.

Romakus matched the smile with his own. "I didn't betray you. I just bailed when I saw the way the winds were blowing."

"True," Belor said, "but ever since that angel had spoken to you, you'd changed."

Mia tilted her head. "Yosepha hadn't--" Oh, right. Not Yosepha, but whatever angel Romakus had killed, who'd said something meaningful to him. Something that'd changed him. What could an angel say to Romakus to change him so deeply, so permanently?

Romakus's smile faded. "That's not it."

Belor rolled his eyes. "Sure it isn't. Now help me up." With a heavy groan, Belor leaned his weight on Romakus's shoulder, stood an extra meter, and fell to his knees a moment later. "Damn."

"Okay," Mia said, holding up a hand. "Let's park for the night. Been a long day, we're all tired, I'm fucking terrified, and Belor's a liability. Maybe--"

"Terrified?" Belor asked.

She shot the tyrant a hard glare. "I'm human! Sort of. We get scared. We have the good sense to get scared, unlike you, who doesn't seem to realize the precariousness of your position!" Doing her best, but quiet demon growl, she faced the wall, held out her hands, and peeled away layers of rock, exposing an amber vein hidden with.

Belor stared, eyes wide, and Mia snuck him a quick grin.

She carved a cave in the wall, moving rock overhead and to the sides, giving everyone the space to step into the dark room before she wrapped the rock back into place. Only a tiny hole poked through the wall out into the canyon for air, while the room itself was dark, a single amber vein their only source of light.

"Impressive," Belor said. "If I had you in my army, could you have stopped the angels?"

Mia winced and looked away. "I mean... maybe."

"Our little unmarked girl," Julisa said, helping Belor sit against the wall, "has killed dozens, perhaps hundreds of angels already."

Belor did a double-take. "Really?"

"That," Mia said, "was the worst thing I have ever done, and I regret it every day. But I had to! They'd crucified Yosepha, killed Galon, and I..." Sighing, she stood in front of Cerberus and petted his heads, using him as her stress ball. "You're new to this group, Belor, so I'll summarize. I'm not a mean person. I'm a very sensitive, empathic person, who wanted to grow up to be a psychologist and help people with their problems, their mental health. I want to help the Great Tower, because I want to help, and that's it, no ulterior motive. I do not want to talk about indulging in violence, or murder, or rape, or all that bad stuff that makes me nauseous. Okay?" Pets were amazing for stress relief, and Cerberus seemed to understand that, pushing his heads into her palms. He didn't have quite the same mannerisms of a therapy dog, but he responded anyway, nudging his horns against her fingers the more stressed her rant made her.

Belor looked at her, face shifting from confused, to intrigued, to expressionless.

"Very well," he said.

She blinked, turned, and stared at the titan. Romakus and Julisa were sitting beside him, and the two ten-foot-tall tetrads looked tiny compared to the old tyrant. Getting either of them to agree to anything Mia asked as quickly as Belor had, would have been a trial and a half. But not Belor?

"Uh... thank you," she said.

Belor squinted a single eye at her, waited a minute, and nodded toward Vinicius. "Then why are you traveling with Vin? Even by children's standards, he is violent."

Vin, sitting on the opposite side of the cave, snorted. But if he wanted to say anything, he kept it to himself, both eyes aimed at Belor with quiet, hungry patience.

"Vin's not all bad," Mia said.

Belor didn't look convinced. "You have him leashed."

"He was being tortured by Zel--the Death's Grip spire ruler, at the time. Zel was trying to recruit me, sorta, and was testing my abilities against Vin. Vin had apparently gotten himself captured trying to take on the entire Death's Grip army by himself, a couple centuries ago."

Belor laughed, but it disappeared under a groan of pain. "That sounds like Vinny."

"And no offense to Vinicius," Mia continued, "but he's a bit of a loose cannon. We know it, he knows it, and the leash helps keep him on track. He knows saving the Great Tower is all that matters, and he's willingly working with us."

The two titans looked at each other, both using that predator look of pure focus combined with pure hunger, the kind that took lives. At least they weren't hiding it, but it was going to be a problem, sooner or later.

With her own sigh, Yosepha sat beside Romakus and patted her lover's leg. Belor picked up on it instantly and aimed a raised eyebrow down at his old bailiff.

"You have changed," Belor said.

Romakus got ready to make some sort of inevitably sarcastic comment, but Yosepha stuck her head past him and looked up at Belor.

"We all have," the angel said. "You've spent two thousand years tortured by betrayers that worship an Old One. Your ego put you in that situation, Belor. Have you not changed?"

Mia waited with bated breath. Were demons truly timeless? Would a couple millennia of pain change him?

Belor held out a hand and looked at it, dragon eyes scanning his claws and massive palm. "I have dreamed of nothing but revenge and conquest all that time, angel." He turned his hand over. "But it hasn't even been a day since you freed me. If I live long enough, maybe I'll have an answer."

Mia sighed. Two thousand fucking years, and it was obvious Belor was still thinking about conquest. Vinicius chuckled, and sure enough, Belor chuckled, too.

Mia wanted to slap them both.

So she sat with Kas and Adron, and Azreal and Noah, the four of them near each other. Cerberus joined her, and with a little guidance from her, he lay on his stomach, side to the wall, and she sat beside him between his front and back legs. Her own personal couch to lean back against.

"How well did you know Molech?" Adron asked. "I mean, did you talk with him, it, on a regular basis?"

"Not regularly," Belor said. "Why?"

"Because it seems like the Old Ones were caught off guard by this alien business. You'd think entities that powerful would have seen it coming?"

Belor shook his head. "Molech had one goal that I know of: to win the war Lucifer started. But he wanted to do it himself. He felt that if he could devour Lucifer, he could take control of all, with the other archangels dead. He made no mention of unmarked souls, or an alien attacking the Great Tower."

Adron nodded. "The Old Ones must be limited, then. We know the Old Ones are wounded and trapped, bound, and limited by something. I wonder if it was always that way? Maybe that's why they always seem to have an army of betrayers."

Belor looked at the floor and growled, clawing at the air all too much like Vin did. "Molech will pay for what he did to me. For what he's done to my kingdom."

"About that," Mia said. "Molech is attached to the spire here, right? The Unholy Lands -- False Gate -- is Molech's? I know the spires and the Old Ones are connected. You know anything about that?"

Slowly, drifting through hazy memories, Belor nodded. "The years have turned everything into a blur, unmarked. But I remember Molech well. He spoke of how this land had been his since the beginning, and how he is attached to the spire in ways I will never understand. And when he showed me runes that let me create the special seal, I had no choice but to believe him."

"He say anything else?" Mia asked. "I've talked with two Old Ones already, and they're verbose, cocky bastards. Remember if he said anything useful?"

It was a long shot. The man had literally been tortured for two thousand years, a number Mia couldn't even wrap her mind around. He'd been tied up in the basement and skewered and prodded and burned, since the time of Cleopatra. How was his mind even working at all?

"Molech said many things," Belor said. "He mentioned once, in passing, that Malphas was missing. I have no idea what that meant."

Malphas, missing? From the runes in Mia's head, she knew Malphas was attached to the Forgotten Place, the Frozen Heart. An Old One going missing was a scary thought, because no matter what it meant, it couldn't be good. Did it, he, go rogue somehow? Get killed by something strong enough to kill an Old One?

Belor continued. "Mostly the old bastard insulted us demons, us 'children of the spire'. We're nothing but hellbeast hybrids, according to the Old One, bound to serve the great cycle the same way hellbeasts are. Soldiers who couldn't escape our taint." Glaring, Belor's anger returned, and he stared daggers into the floor as he flexed his fingers again. "No better than hellbeasts, he said. Only useful for helping the Great Tower grow, the same way surface cows spread shit for fertilizer."

Every demon in the cave snarled and radiated violence auras, like Mia had stepped into a sauna. They squashed their auras, but Mia was left staring, panting quietly, as her demon friends recovered. That was a harsh insult.

"I'm sorry," Mia said. "I mean, kinda. You did try and go to war with Heaven."

Belor chuckled again. He liked to do that, and it didn't have Romakus's psychotic edge, or Vin's murderous grit. How could a man who'd been tortured for so long, along with losing his war, be this... chill?

"I could say it was for revenge," Belor said. "For Heaven abandoning us. We were created as tools for someone else's war, and when Lucifer was imprisoned, what happened to us? Left to just... roam around, killing each other? I could say they left us to drown in our own curse, this need and desire to feast and kill, something we never asked for. I could say Heaven deserves to be humbled, for looking down on us, for invading our land whenever they feel like it. I could say..." Rolling his eyes, Belor washed away the past with a wave of his hand. "No. I went to war because I wanted to. Because every demon wants to. Because no matter how much some of us try to resist it, every demon has a deep desire to conquer, and destroy. Hell belongs to us. It belongs to me."

Well, damn. At least he was honest.

"I do not want to conquer," Kas said.

Belor snorted. "Yes, you do, sarkarin."

"I do not."

A squinting war, which Kas won easily since he had no eyes.

"I agree with Belor," Julisa said. "And while Kas and his little friend Adron resist their desires, the desires are still there, unmarked. Still there."

Slowly, Belor turned and looked at Romakus. "And then there's my old friend. The Damall, you say? Trying to stop another me"--he gestured to himself--"from fighting Heaven?"

Romakus shook his head. "More like, trying to stop Hell from destroying itself. Or did you not notice you had all of Hell ripping itself apart, boss?"

"Unite Hell first," Belor said, "with the help of Molech and the power of Lucifer. Then attack Heaven. That was the plan. Heaven intervened earlier than expected."

Noah flapped a wing. "You were not subtle, Belor. We realized you wanted to cross the River Styx. We did not know why."

Belor glared at the angel, and for the first time yet, a bit of Vinicius was in his eyes.

"You came to my home," Belor said. "You came to my world, where I'd fought fang and claw all my life, for thousands upon thousands of years, killing my kin, killing hellbeasts, killing--"

"You remember?" Noah asked, like a jab with a fencing sword.

"Blurs, every memory. But they're there. Don't dodge the subject, angel. You came to my world and destroyed it, without even knowing I was working with Molech? Without even knowing what I'd planned to do once I reached Lucifer?"

Noah and Azreal both exchanged glances. Not exactly guilt or shame, but frustration, and not with Belor.

"The council's last order," Azreal said through gritted teeth. "Second last order."

Noah closed his eyes, leaned back against the wall, and like Azreal, turned to stone, both angels closing in on themselves.

Yosepha gave a little wing flap and filled in the gaps. "The council has been silent since your defeat, Belor. They have said nothing except for one thing, about four months ago: kill the unmarked trying to reach False Gate."

Belor sat up straighter, regretted it, clutched his bloody ribs, and tilted his head again. He had a habit of doing that, but instead of looking like a curious dog, he looked more like an analyzing lizard. Or dragon.

"That is a mystery," he said. "I thought it was odd that angels would attack me so aggressively."

Yosepha outright snarled. "You were capturing and killing our kind before then, so I am told."

Belor snorted, very dragon-like. "That demon under your arm helped me--"

Yosepha flared her wings and glared. "Romakus is not the same demon! When a gabriem touches your soul -- or your sin -- with a crystallized, perfect word, you do not walk away from that experience unchanged, old monster. Or did you not think that, perhaps, Romakus has spent these past two thousand years fighting to keep the demons in check for more than one reason? You will be silent and leave Romakus be. He is not the bailiff who served you any longer. He is not the hound who hunted angels and captured them for your ambitions! He is changed. And you will accept that change. Understood?"

Everyone froze and suffocated under the silence. Cerberus made a tiny, growly whine, and pushed into Mia's hand. Even Vinicius looked at Yosepha with curiosity, and he'd mostly ignored the angel since day one.

Mia stared outright, first at Yosepha, and then at Romakus. For the first time since Mia had known him, Romakus looked shy. He squirmed a bit, looking down, and a ten-foot-tall goliath of muscle and wings and skull trophies, squirming, was a weird sight indeed. Mia knew Romakus and Yosepha had a history, that there was a relationship there they never really talked about; impressive, considering how much Romakus liked to talk. There was definitely more to them they either of them let on.

"Everything's changed," Belor said, looking away. "Everything's changed while I was away. All I know is a blurry past, and years of..." He gestured at his damaged wings. "And now here I am, being carted around by demons, angels, an unmarked soul -- something I didn't know existed yesterday -- and am on a quest to steal from under an Old One's nose. And three enemies who've all tried to kill me in the past, share these very breaths." And a gesture for Azreal, Noah, and Vinicius, too. "Forgive an old tyrant for leaning back on something he once knew, Romakus."

It was almost an apology. Half apology, half excuse. But it was a good excuse, and those were the worst kind. And it was close enough to saying 'sorry' that everyone paused. Romakus gave his old boss a nod, while Yosepha did nothing of the sort, squinting at him, looking for some hidden motivation.

So was Mia. Belor was very talkative, saying everything and explaining more. She'd expected another volatile, quiet asshole like Vin, or a stoic, closed-off soldier like Azreal or Noah. Or even a shut-in regretting-the-past mercenary type like Kas. Nope, Belor was good with his words, happy to use them, and more than happy embracing his darker side that Kas shunned like a disease. Or at least, that's what he seemed like. He could have been lying and acting. But then Romakus would have probably said something, and he hadn't so far.

Plus one for not killing Belor when this was all done.

"Hungry, Belor?" Mia asked.

Belor gave her a half-smile. "I ate several betrayer hearts, but unfortunately, Vinicius destroyed the lion's share with hellfire, and we didn't stop once we got moving."

Nodding, Mia held out a hand, and reached out. In the past, this would have been impossible, but each week, her senses reached a bit further, and her song got a bit better. There were remnants out there, millions of them, dying and leaking traces of resonance and essence into Hell's body. And she could touch those trickling brooks with her song. With quiet melodies, like a flute played in a forest of willows, she guided the streams toward a single point: her.

If Molech heard the quiet song, he made no effort to interrupt her. Wherever the monster was, he was silent, and Mia was free to grow a forbidden tree in the center of the small cave.

Belor stared. "You can grow forbidden trees?"

"She can do a lot," Adron said, grinning as he nudged Mia with his elbow. And of course, he wiggled his eyebrows. "A lot lot."

Belor tilted his head again. "A lot lot?"

Like a fly to honey, Romakus jumped on the opportunity for a lighter topic.

"Mia has a larger sex drive than any vola. Her body can take quite a bit, too. She's fucked Adron, and Kas, and Vin, at the same time."

God fucking damn it. Mia glared daggers at the tetrad, but Romakus just returned it with a devious Joker smile.

Belor, however, looked at Mia with all his intrigue renewed, times a hundred.

"How?" he asked.

Sighing, Mia elbowed Adron in the side, ignored the burning blush in her face, and focused on petting Cerberus's heads. "Not sure. I know I'm part human, but apparently I'm part... other stuff. We don't know what's going on yet. Maybe Lucifer will know."

Slowly, Belor's intrigue morphed into obvious arousal, and he licked a fang as he looked at Mia with growing hunger.

"Really now?"

Before Kas and Adron could say anything, Vinicius reached out, picked Mia up despite Cerb's snarls, and set her on his leg. No words. The titan just stared at Belor and set all four hands on Mia's little body, covering almost every inch of her with his huge fingers and palms. Okay, yeah, there was something decidedly naughty and stimulating about Vin's obvious possessiveness on display. How much of that was hate for Belor or desire for her, she couldn't tell, but for just a second, it didn't really matter. It felt nice to think some sexy thoughts, a break from worrying every moment of the day.

"Let's... just go to sleep," Mia said. "We'll reach the spot tomorrow, Belor?"

Belor nodded. "If I'm right, we'll be under the forge tomorrow, in a sanctum, probably full of betrayers."

"And Thracius," Romakus said.

"Thracius lives?" Eyes aimed at the ceiling, Belor laughed, bassy, gravely voice almost vibrating the cave walls. "He was bound by the seal. But without me, the power of that seal is fading. I wonder what he'll do."

"Tomorrow," Mia said. "For now, eat a few fruits, and sleep."

"Sleep," Belor said, nodding. "Sleep..." He blinked at her, blinked at the ground, and his grin changed into a strange, sad smile, subtle on his short dragon snout. "Actual sleep..."

Mia almost burst into tears. No! Do not feel bad for Belor. The man was a tyrant and made no apologies for it. Just because he was honest about it didn't change that he'd inflicted more violence and death than Vin ever did, and would again if given the chance. That this would be the first time he was allowed a proper night's rest in two thousand years was not something to feel sad about!

It was no use. She felt bad for him. Damn it.

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

Everyone was asleep, full bellies and absurd developments behind them. Mia sat on Vin's leg, with only her, him, and Azreal awake. Both had their eyes on Belor, waiting for the sleeping-like-the-dead demon to suddenly spring up and slaughter them all.

Wouldn't happen. If Mia's first month with Vin was any sign, it'd be weeks, if not months, before Belor was back in fighting shape. Maybe being a spire ruler would help him recover faster? Or maybe slower, since Molech had somehow used Belor's own spire against him to torture him. Too many unknowns, and some she was sure they'd never get an answer to.

But it did seem like Molech could not directly control his spire or Belor. And that was great news.

Vin grumbled, earning Azreal's attention.

"We should kill him," Vin whispered, nodding to Belor. "He's told us enough."

Mia shook her head. "Because he's dangerous, or because you want to fight him?"

Vin aimed an eye down at her. "The children kill the children. It has always been that way. What memories I have of my youth tell me that. Forged in blood and death, we slaughtered each other. We had to. We have to."

She stared up at the four-armed tighten, mouth hanging open. Vin, talking poetically about his past? Belor must have awoken something in him.

"So it's not about him being dangerous, then," she said. "You just want to kill him because... you want to kill him."

Azreal nodded, chiming in. "Heaven knows of it. The children killed each other, and have since the First War. But we did not know it was... instinctual."

Mia sighed and pressed a hand on Vin's leg. "Like betta fish in a tank."

The four-armed titan eyed her. "Betta fish?"

"Siamese fighting fish," she said. "Unusually aggressive fish, especially with each other. You have to give them a huge tank -- a living space -- or they'll kill each other."

Vin rumbled. "Space is... difficult."

"In all of Hell?" she asked.

"Yes, in all of Hell. The children kill each other across the land. It is what we do. Did."

"Come on, Vin. Can you just... Please, can you not fight him? Can you control yourself? Yes, I know, it's not that simple. I get that. I thought at first you were just an aggressive demon, but it's clear you're more than that, in both bad and good ways. This violence thing goes deeper than just a desire to be violent; I understand. But we're talking about saving the Great Tower, and Belor can be useful." She turned around on Vin's leg, faced him, and pressed both hands against his huge chest. "Please?"

Vin stared down at her, and she stared up at him, refusing to back down. Slowly but surely, she knew her expression was melting, from determined, to soft and begging. And slowly but surely, Vin's eyes softened. They couldn't soften much, the demon-y dragon-y face and whatnot, but they softened anyway.

"I will try," he said.

Mia smiled, and warmth tingled in her chest as she leaned in and hugged the massive demon.

"Sometimes," Azreal said, and stopped. Vin and Mia stared at him, Mia especially, willing the man to continue talking. He did. "Sometimes... I wonder, about the things Belor said."

Mia blinked. "He said them a few hours ago, and you're pondering them?"

"I have wondered about them long before. Lucifer created demons to be soldiers in his war. They have desires instilled into them by Lucifer. Do any demons blame them, him, for that? Belor sounded... almost accusatory, despite his apparent joy in who and what he is. I wonder... how much of that is in the hearts we taste." Like he could hold the taint in his hand, Azreal held out a palm, examining it, and slowly tightened his fingers on something that wasn't there. "Some angels use the taint to run from the dread. It is a powerful feeling. How many demons live and breathe with that feeling guiding their every action?"

And here Mia thought she was the psychologist. Azreal slowly turned his gaze to her, held it for a while, purple eyes somber and steady, before he looked back to his palm and drifted away into whatever thoughts a rapholem had.

Mia peeked back up at Vin, and the titan looked at the ground, too, doing the same thing. Whatever pleasant atmosphere she'd created a moment ago was gone, smothered under existential weight. Damn.

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

~~Day 133~~

With Belor feeling better, they resumed the march. Better, but not good, and he lagged in the back of the group with Julisa and Romakus. At least they didn't have to hold him up anymore. Instead, the titan leaned against the rock wall, hand out, and dragged his palm along it as he walked.

Mia hung from Vin's spine spikes and glanced back at Belor every few minutes, and he met her gaze each time. He'd be fun to talk to, but there'd definitely be a bit of Hannibal Lecter in a conversation like that, and she wouldn't exactly feel safe having that conversation without a nice glass wall between them. Or a spire leash.

The man was huge. Big as Vin, but instead of four arms, he had two, and two wings. Fucking ridiculously massive wings. He had spikes on his body, too, like Vin, big black spikes coming out of his joints; not on the shoulders, though, to spare his wings. No hair on his head, just four giant horns, and a couple that jutted out around his mouth, almost like Kas. Each step he took made a quiet thud, hooves on stone, and he walked a little more upright than all the other demons in the group, since he had no tail.

Naked. A king without his crown. All he had was that tiny amber horn on his forehead, and he wouldn't be using it anytime soon.

That didn't seem to bother Julisa though. She stayed close to his side, sneaking glances up at the tyrant more often than even Vin. Honestly, Mia couldn't blame her. How often did she meet a demon who was taller than her? Vinicius, long ago. Vinicius now. And now Belor. That was it, far as she'd said. And considering the kind of slut Julisa was -- easy to assess since she wore her desires on her sleeve -- Julisa was in desperate want of a demon bigger and stronger than her to toss her around and fuck her hard. A spire ruler child of the Old Ones? Perfect fit.

But Belor wasn't looking at Julisa. He was looking at Mia.

Mia frowned back at him, but that only seemed to make the tyrant smile. This was going to be a problem. But they wouldn't need Belor by the time the day was over, if things went according to plan.

Fat chance of that.

"Where are we?" Mia asked. She held out a hand, an unnecessary gesture, but it helped her visualize and guide her sixth sense. Far as she could tell, they were still in a giant canyon, the same giant canyon, far bigger than her sixth sense could reach.

"Molech's prison," Belor said, shrugging. "We'll find paths ahead that take us up or down. Up will take us to a grand cathedral, the entrance to the great forge, and where he's perhaps taken the stones. Or perhaps he's taken them down into the depths to be with him. I cannot be sure."

"Molech's prison," Mia repeated. "I wonder about that. Asmodeus got out of his prison, but he was still bound. Like from what he said, he sounded like he wasn't free, you know? See any chains on Molech's body or something?"

"No. But it does sound similar. Molech is trapped, but he can move around. Yet another mystery." With the inflection he'd used, she wouldn't have been surprised to hear a follow-up comment about the Scooby-Doo gang solving said mystery. Romakus would have said it, but Belor didn't even know what television was, let alone have a library of references to make.

Belor looked down at Cerberus, chuckling. "A three-headed hellhound. I'd heard of the idea from the scrying pools. The Greeks and their ideas of the afterlife were always a joy to listen to."

"That was forever ago," Mia said. "That all changed when Rome moved in."

Belor nodded. "I can imagine. What else has befallen the surface world while I was away?"

While he was away. A gentle way to word it, for sure. Fighting bad memories? It didn't seem like it. Like Vin, being captured and tortured for so long wasn't really what bothered him, not the memories of it. More like, the insult bothered him, and the fact it'd left him weakened for weeks. Belor was probably harboring all sorts of hate for Molech, and devising plans for revenge. Plans that might come at Mia's expense, if he was smart -- and stupid -- enough.

"Too many things changed," Mia said. "The past two thousand years, the rate of change increased exponentially. The world changed almost overnight. Now, humans have gone above the clouds and to the distant stars--barely. We've learned technology so strong we could have wars that'd destroy the entire world a thousand times over in a day. We simultaneously have enough technology to solve the world's food crisis and money crisis, but the richer just get richer and the poor just get poorer."

"The more things change," Romakus said, "the more they stay the same."

Mia nodded. "I mean, on one hand, the number of humans who die from war, disease, and things like that has dropped drastically. Lifespans are up like crazy! So I can't say it's all bad. Just... yeah. David could talk about economics better."

Belor tilted his head. "David?"

Shit. Mia looked to Yosepha, but the angel shrugged. How trustworthy Belor was was still a giant question mark.

"My brother," Mia said.

"Brother. Another unmarked?" Belor asked.

"Yes. There's a bunch of us, all trying to reach False Gate. And..." She looked back, chewing the question. Ask him? It's not like Belor was a threat at the moment, and if she was right, he couldn't use a spire aura to summon an army for weeks, maybe months. And Romakus seemed to trust him, sort of. "What do you know about the rider?"

"The rider? You explained he was, is, Cain. I have trouble believing that."

"It's true," Romakus said.

Beor took a slow breath and nodded. "A plague that drifts around Hell, killing at random." Belor snorted and nodded to the titan under Mia. "And your dear friend Vinicius has been known to join him on mindless slaughter sprees."

Vin rumbled but didn't look back.

Mia went on explanation-rant number two. "The rider is Cain, and far as we can tell, immortal. Lilith is around, too, immortal and wearing the same armor, but she's fighting her husband. Cain wants me dead. Cain wants the Great Tower dead, and everyone in it. Lilith is trying to stop him, and help get us unmarked to Lucifer. But Cain can find her whenever he wants; they're connected, somehow. They can pop up anywhere, literally, and they can kinda-sorta sense what the other is doing, I guess? So Lilith can't just escort one of us straight to Lucifer. And I wanted to know if you knew anything about him, or her. Since you're so old."

Belor outright laughed, and winced as his big, bassy voice echoed in the massive, empty canyon.

"Cain," he said. "I... believe I was alive during Cain's War. I remember little but a man. An angry man, with a league of souls under his arm. "

"That was a hundred thousand years ago," Noah said.

"Yes, it was."

The angel shook his head. "There are many angels in Heaven older than that. Most, perhaps, but not one can remember details that old."

Belor nodded. "I believe it, angel. But I can see, or feel, a haze of a memory buried in my mind. A man, just a soul, powerful with angel blood in his mouth, and fury in his eyes I could never hope to match. A soul with an aura, unlocked by eating angel hearts, I imagine. And a woman stood beside him, with an aura full of hate. And those two went to war against us. Souls, feasting on demons for power, and fighting me and my kind. Imagine it!" He didn't sound angry, but excited. "Souls, fighting children of the Old Ones with nothing but stolen weapons. It's a shame it's all a blur." He knocked his temple twice with his knuckles. "It must have been a glorious sight."

"Warmonger," Mia said. The insult was out before she could bite it down.

But Belor smiled. "A bit, yes. The Spires War came much later, and lasted many thousands of years before the angels put an end to it. War was my life, Mia. And if we're going to war against an alien threat, I guess it will be again."

Mia? The big bad demons rarely called her by her name. Always 'unmarked' or 'girl' or 'soul'. Almost never Mia.

"I--"

The conversation came to a quick end as their path along the canyon wall rounded a curve and exposed the cavern beyond. No longer dark with endless shadow and few amber veins, there was a stairway that might as well have been carved by a clan of dwarves over a thousand years. Massive, wide enough for a thousand sets of shoulders side by side, and along the stairway's sides stood short stone columns with black skull braziers that lit the cave with a thousand fires.

And thousands of betrayers walked up and down the stairs, coming and going, and humming a prayer.