~~Day 133~~

~~Mia~~

They ducked back around the curve of the path. To their left, a nigh-bottomless canyon. To their right, the cave wall. Beneath their feet, a path only a few meters wide.

The rock wall on their right merged into the side and shadow of a colossal stairway. Very wide, and far as Mia's sixth sense could tell, it went all the way up to the surface, and all the way down, down and down, beyond the reach of her senses. Problem: the stairway was covered in betrayers coming and going. Thousands of them. More. And most of them were going up, probably to deal with the insanity Mia and her crew had caused by releasing Belor.

They hid in the stairway's shadow, the colossal structure sitting five or six meters above the winding walls of rock of the descending canyon wall.

"Plan," Mia whispered. "We need a plan. We winged it yesterday. Not doing that again."

"Agreed," Noah said. "That yesterday's plan worked at all is... insane."

Romakus shrugged. "When in Rome."

Belor tilted his head, leaning against the wall for support. "Yes?"

Romakus looked up at his boss. "When in Rome..."

"Yes?"

The old tyrant's old subordinate rolled his eyes before devolving into a quiet chuckle. "Nevermind. See anything other than betrayers up ahead?"

Vinicius shook his head.

Adron wasn't satisfied. The vrat crept forward, suddenly going absolutely silent, right down to the talon. Adron wore a few pieces of meera metal, enough to cover his organs and parts of his limbs, but no demon wore boots of any kind. It made it easy for the sneaky vrat to prowl forward, crouching down and moving on all fours like Kas might.

Everyone stared as Adron merged with the shadows. It was practically magic, the way his dark red body pressed against the stone wall, every muscle blending into the crevices. His feet's claws didn't make a sound, each navigating the rocky path with all the noise of a hunting owl.

Adron turned, winked -- or blinked -- and stuck his head out. No one moved a muscle as Adron did something he was apparently very gifted at: reconnaissance. The demon was an expert at stealth? Was he even breathing?

The group gave him a few minutes, and the sneaky vrat returned, nodding, eyebrows furrowed.

"It's down," he said. Everyone stared, waiting. "The runes are down. Most of the betrayers are humming that song, but a few are talking. Hard to make out what they said. I had to read some lips."

"You can read lips?" Mia whispered.

Adron grinned, gave his tail a little flick, and squatted in front of the crew. "A little. And I spotted large scratch marks on the stairs. Seemed recent. If Carius was right, and Thracius dragged those stones with big black chains, they probably dragged them down here."

Belor nodded. "Devious little vratorin, aren't you?"

"I am."

Kas gestured to the curved wall keeping them out of sight of Molech's army. "Then we head down."

"Down how?" Yosepha asked. "Here?" She gestured to the canyon, and the canyon wall beneath them. It had its own steps, but each was a good ten-meter drop.

Noah nodded. "Better than risking our lives fighting the betrayers."

"I could handle them," Mia said. "But it's a gamble. And... I don't want to kill them."

"Agreed," Azreal said.

Julisa, Romakus, and Vin grunted. They wanted violence. But Belor eyed Mia with a look she recognized from the mirror. He was analyzing her.

"And when we have to run to escape?" Romakus added. "I'm all for sneaking around, but climbing back up the canyon wall sounds problematic. And I don't want to run around in that darkness"--he gestured down at the depths--"like a headless chicken."

Mia raised a hand. "I can make stairs and stuff, if I have to. It's just... we have to be close to Molech. He might be able to hear my music, even a quiet tune."

Vinicius stepped around Adron to the head of the group and waited. "We must fight."

"That's a lot of betrayers, Vin," Mia said. "Someone could die."

"People die."

"Not here they don't! They don't just die. They're killed. I don't want anyone in our group getting killed, okay?"

Vin turned and faced her, glaring down at her and flexing his claws in the air at his sides. "We are trying to save the Great Tower. You worry about every demon, angel, and soul, when all will die if we fail."

"I get that, but--"

"Vinicius," Noah said, grinding his teeth, "makes a valid point, Mia. We have to get those runes, unlock them in your mind, and escape. We must do it quickly, and every life is expendable. You are very close to the goal. Can you afford to hesitate now?"

She glared at the angel, spun, and glared at Azreal too, knowing full well the asshole would be giving her the same look Noah had. He was.

"Your lives are not expendable!" Yelling and whispering at the same time was not easy, and she glared at each angel until her eyes hurt. "And it doesn't matter. That's thousands of betrayers, close to us, on uneven terrain. We'd get swarmed, and I'd have to lean into loud music just to keep myself alive. Even if I didn't summon the alien, Molech would definitely hear it. So we're going with stealth, and that's that!"

In case anyone had the nerve to argue, she gave each of them another glare. This wasn't a negotiation. She wasn't going to lose people because they were either suicidal, or suicidally addicted to violence.

"I'm with Mia," Belor said, raising a hand. "I'd like to survive this. I have plans to pursue, after all."

She rolled her eyes, but gestured back to Belor as she faced everyone else. "This isn't a suicide mission. This is a reconnaissance mission. So, we're going down, and we're avoiding the stairway of doom. Okay?"

Vinicius grumbled, a little too loudly, and she glared daggers at him. Slowly, the titan took a deep breath, calmed down, and nodded.

Belor looked at Vin, tilting his head slowly, but whatever was going on in his mind, he didn't wear it on his face.

"Then let's get going," Julisa said. She started down the canyon wall and dragged her many claws down the rock face the whole way. Mostly quiet, but not perfect.

Vin did the same, making more noise, but considering his side, it was still quiet. Kas was quieter. Romakus used his wings. Adron somehow made less sound than Romakus as he half climbed, half pounced his way down the canyon. Yosepha followed, and Cerberus, excited to do some jumping, went before Mia did. Thankfully Cerb got the point of the game and didn't so much as growl.

Which left Mia, with Azreal and Noah, and Belor.

"Guys," she said. "Belor might need help. Can you..."

Noah and Azreal glared at her. Outright glared at her. Usually they just looked at her intensely, as if they could burn their surly dispositions into her soul. But now they both wore their anger on their faces.

"You want us to carry Belor," Noah said.

"Yeah. I mean... Belor?"

Belor chuckled as he looked down at the two men. "I have been to the depths before. I still have advice to give. Unless you think you can risk navigating the canyon without me, angels."

Both angel men clenched their jaws, flew up, grabbed Belor by the hands, and guided him down to the next ridge below while Yosepha flew up to get Mia. Cerb almost jumped up the wall to follow her until Mia waved a hand down.

They repeated the process. Again. And again. Mia was almost tempted to make a slide, carve it into the canyon wall, and just slide down. Alas, time for stealth mode, both for sound and for her music.

"Stop," Belor said. "I didn't go deeper than this. We should take this path."

They'd gone down maybe a kilometer, and it'd taken a while. The distant humming had vanished, and when Adron peeked around the rock wall again, he shook his head.

"Stairway's gone. The path we took down wasn't straight."

Mia gestured around. "It's a canyon. Nothing's straight."

Belor nodded along the path, the lip of stone sticking out from the canyon edge. "Just go. Trust me. You'll see."

Mia squinted back at the old tyrant, sighed, and went, the group following the pathway sticking out from the canyon wall, deep in Mother Hell. It wasn't long before the plan was clear: the path cut near the stairway, but it followed the stairway along its side, in a ravine buried in shadow.

"You used this path before?" Mia asked.

Belor nodded. "Long, long ago, when I first explored this place. Before I was ever spire ruler. Before I was..." Like someone had dinged a tuning fork in his mind, Belor looked up, eyes drifting half closed as he dug through old memories. "Before I was who I am."

"And you remember it?" Vinicius asked, clearly not convinced.

"Did you think I spent my whole life as spire ruler, Vinny? I was young, once. No, I can't remember, not directly, but I remember remembering. Memory, of a memory, of a memory."

For just a teeny-tiny second, Mia almost wanted to shed a tear. How could Belor sneak in poetry so easily?

"Better question," Romakus said. "Do we leave Belor here, kill him, now that we know the path, or take his ass with us?"

Belor held up a hand. "Option three, if you don't mind."

Mia smiled back at him. "We're not killing Belor if we can help it, okay? Because Belor"--she pointed back at the titan--"understands that saving the Great Tower is more important than his goals of conquest, right?"

"Oh, most certainly." He touched his chest and half-bowed.

"And you understand if you try to betray me or give me to Molech, I'll not only drown this whole canyon in lava, but you'll have doomed everyone to die anyway, right? Either way, you're dead."

Belor tilted his head. "You can do that?"

Sighing, Mia summoned up a bad memory, marched up to Belor, and glared up at him, a five-foot girl with a hellhound at her side in a staring match with a twelve-foot titan.

"The first time I really used my powers for a fight, really really used them, I summoned a firestorm tornado that's probably still burning in Death's Grip. I summoned red lightning that tore the ground apart. I bathed the area in hellfire. Hundreds of angels and thousands of demons died. Demons I summoned with a spire aura I created. And I've only gotten better, Belor. The only reason we're sneaking along is because I don't want to kill, and if I play music like that, the alien will find us. But that doesn't mean I won't use it if you put me in a lose-lose scenario. Got it?"

Belor put up both hands, finding the strength to keep from toppling over.

"I am many things, oh rescuer mine, but I am no fool. If Romakus says an alien threat is coming to kill us all, and I'm looking an unmarked soul in the eyes for the first time in my long life, I have little choice but to believe." He grinned, nodding. "You're in charge, Mia."

She matched his nod, turned, suppressed the desire to smile, and joined the others at the head of the group.

"Think we can sneak past?"

Adron nodded. "The angels will need to stay in the back and keep low. Keep to the wall. Stay in the shadow. Belor--"

"I can handle it," Belor said. He put his weight on his palm again, leaning against the canyon wall, and tugged his huge wings snug to his back.

Yosepha looked up at Belor as she joined him. "Lean on me, old monster. I'll hide in your shadow and keep you from falling."

Belor's grin was subtle but relentless, and he aimed it down at the angel now at his side. "How kind."

"That's my girl, boss," Romakus said, glaring back at him. "No touching."

Belor put up his hands again. "No touching."

Mia chuckled. Damn it, don't laugh at his jokes.

The group crept out around the curve of the canyon and into sight of the stairway. Belor was right. The pathway was narrow, uneven, and sized for a couple of hobbits sneaking their way into Mordor, not for a group of large angels and huge demons. But the scale of the canyon was insane, the stairway colossal, and the group disappeared into the shadow of the elevated stairway as the rocky path pressed up against its side even more than before.

Thousands of betrayers walked by, some wearing meera metal armor and weapons custom-fitted for their size. Plenty were emaciated, naked, and humming, while the ones in armor chatted.

"Seal is broken," one said.

"The punished are killing each other," another said.

"--coming here," another said.

Which meant the betrayers knew someone had freed Belor and were probably coming to get the stones. Which meant, much as Mia hated it, they'd probably have to fight.

But everyone knew how this would go. They'd sneak their way into some underground cave or building, find the stones, and have to fight an army of betrayers, and maybe Molech himself. Mia would use the music, but sparingly, and they'd escape. If things got nasty, she'd play a really loud song, the aliens would show up, and Molech would be forced to fight them; based on the last encounter, the aliens wanted to fight anyone who wielded the music. Because they were silence incarnate.

Mia shivered and rubbed her arms, earning a couple nudges of Cerb's head against her legs.

"Shhh," she whispered, finger to her lips.

Kas clicked once, and Adron mirrored the shh. Enough information for Cerb to understand, especially serious-head, who looked up at the giant wall beside them, and the stairs and fire braziers that sat upon it. Not a growl.

The cave wasn't natural, not completely. How much had been grown by Hell or carved by Molech's music, Mia had no way to tell. The Old Ones could play and make some big stuff happen, but not as big as Hell herself. Tear open a giant canyon across multiple kilometers? Mia could do that, with Hell's help, but she had no idea if the Old Ones could. But would they even need to, to escape this underground prison? There was something holding the Old Ones down, had been since they'd lost the First War, and it wasn't the terrain.

But there was no denying someone had taken this giant cave and carved it, smoothed out the walls, built colossal pillars that reached the ceiling high above, and deep down into the shadow beyond her sight. And the deeper they followed the stairway, the more pillars they found, each as wide and tall as a skyscraper.

It wasn't just the cave wielding the insane scale. Where the fuck did Molech get this many betrayers? Maybe he had a little more foresight than his kin, but the army Mia and the crew snuck past seemed unending. Thankfully, most of them were emaciated, not wearing armor, with bones showing through their thin skin and rags. If they even had rags. But there were enough armed betrayers in good health that getting swarmed was too real a possibility. Better to hide.

Deeper, and deeper. The hanging skull braziers lit the way, massive chains that hooked on and dangled from the pillars. The skulls smiled, mouths open wide to reveal the flames within.

And then they found flat ground, and the skull piles. Déjà vu. Mia shivered again, rubbing her arms as the stairs finally reached ground, and led into a cave full of giant skull piles. Each pile was surrounded by kneeling betrayers, doing their best to keep the skulls on top of each other, failing, and trying again. How they'd managed to get some piles as tall as they'd had was a mystery.

The betrayers on the stairway thinned out. They'd broken off onto paths in the cave and canyon walls, and Mia and the crew had had to sneak through openings in the patrols. This wasn't like Asmodeus's cave, where the betrayers had ignored them. This was a sneaking mission, and the betrayers were trying to find and capture them.

Scuff marks on the ground marked the way, and the crew followed from a distance. Watching someone as big as Vin or as exhausted as Belor sneak around was oddly hilarious, but the shadows were monstrous and dark, easily swallowing them. Even the angels and their white wings disappeared cleanly.

This was a fucking horror movie. The group was dead silent, even Cerb, with the only noise the constant humming of the prostrated betrayers. They looked little better than remnants, always close to death, and when they weren't trying to put skulls up a hill they couldn't climb, they put their foreheads to the dirt in front of the pile, and hummed.

There was a path between the skulls, well-trodden, with black spikes sticking up from the ground, with skull braziers lighting the way. A designated path. The crew stayed away, but Mia spotted scuff marks along the rock path, huge, like someone had dragged boulders across them. Whoever had taken stones--

Up ahead, two massive skull piles sat at the edge of the floor. If it was anything like Asmodeus's chamber, that was a drop-off to yet another canyon; her sixth-sense confirmed, a canyon in a canyon. Between the two skull piles, a demon stood, with a hundred demons with him. A tetrad, surrounded by many demons, including a bunch of tigers, brutes, and even a couple shark dinosaurs like Kas, sarkarins. All heavy hitters.

"Thracius," Romakus whispered.

Mia squinted. Thracius stood in front of something. Looked kind of like a scrying pool, a big metal bowl on a pile of metal skulls. But he was speaking into it.

And beside him and his entourage were three boulders. Enormous boulders, a few meters tall each, with massive chains wrapped around them. They weren't round, though, with flat bottoms, and a flat face that reached up into a smooth point, almost like a fat, rounded pyramid. And on one face, was a giant red mark, sharp, jagged, with harsh corners. A rune.

The swirling shapes lit up in Mia's mind. 'Bridge', but more than just a bridge. Defense? Retreat? All combined into one symbol. And the second stone said 'reach', but more than reach. Across. Attack. She couldn't see the third.

"Good enough?" Adron whispered.

She shook her head. "No. I have to touch."

"Difficult," Kas said. "Attack?"

Romakus stepped in for Mia and shook his head. "You really want to fight Thracius, and all those demons?"

"The seal's broken," Mia said. "And he was marked, right? Maybe he's--"

A loud, rumbling noise poured over the cave, sending vibrations up through Mia's sandals into her teeth, and bringing down the skull piles by the dozens. White bone rolled across the cave floor like marbles. Wordlessly, the betrayers went back to work, piling skulls. Blood shot up from Thracius's scrying pool, as if someone had set thick, crimson water to an extreme boil. Not a scrying pool, then.

"The seal matters not!" the bowl's red blood said. The sound came out of the bowl? But it also came along the walls, a roaring bass that made even Belor sound like a schoolgirl. "All will bow to me. You will bow to me!"

Thracius shook his head, and his voice punched above the endless humming of the betrayers. "We... we are..."

Again, the blood boiled, splashing over the rims, and the voice of a hellquake rumbled the cavern.

"Bring the unmarked to me, Thracius, and you will have the spire, as Belor once did."

"Belor is still alive, Great Molech."

"Perform the ritual to become spire ruler, Thracius. I will instruct you. Belor's connection to the spire will wilt and die, and he will be powerless."

Thracius snarled, twitched, and looked back at his little army with a flare of his wings. They were twitching, too, and rubbing at their shoulders or chests where they'd been marked by the spire seal. More than a few of them had fresh cuts on their bodies, and their limbs hung weakly. Had they slept since the seal lost its power yesterday? Or maybe tried to kill each other?

"The war is over," Thracius said. "And punishment has been served. We must focus on this new threat, this alien threat. They are--"

"Bring the unmarked to me!" The sound filled the air as much as it rumbled the walls, and Mia heard it through the vibration in the rock like she'd pressed her ear straight into a subwoofer. "I will deal with the alien! You, Thracius, will take the spire, and the plan will resume."

"I don't--"

"Now!"

Just like Asmodeus and Beelzebub, Molech was a verbose monster with delusions of godhood. It was almost comforting how predictably evil and simple-minded they were.

But Thracius... This was not what Mia had expected to find. From what Carius and Romakus had said, Thracius was going to be a problem, but from the conversation, it almost sounded like Thracius wanted to resist.

"As you wish," Thracius said, turning.

"And Thracius," the boiling blood said. "Kill Belor."

Mia looked back at the old tyrant, but Belor smiled and winked at her. Excited for a fight, just like Vin.

Slowly, Thracius and the others turned and walked away from the stones and the bowl. They teetered, and some snapped and growled at each other, but Thracius turned and backhanded the loudest of the bunch, shutting them up. A hundred demons would be a tough fight under normal circumstances, but the group was a mess, struggling to stay standing. And Vin and Belor looked at them like hungry wolves looking at lambs.

But no violence was better than violence, and Mia held up a hand until Thracius's group was gone back up the stairs. Once out of sight, Mia, Adron, and Cerb snuck forward past a couple more pillars, staying in the deep shadow away from the center path.

"Cerb," she whispered. "Stay." Cerb grumbled, but lowered to the ground, braced like a cat ready to pounce. "Adron, be ready to grab me if I get spotted."

"Will do."

She took a deep breath and stepped out toward the giant boulders. The only people around were betrayers absorbed in their jobs, piling up the skulls. The two piles near the edge had mostly collapsed, sending skulls everywhere, and each betrayer Mia walked past didn't so much as look at her as they got back to work. If boredom could ever reach a level of torment worthy of Hell, this was it.

She sneaked toward the metal bowl a couple of meters wide and a meter deep, sitting on a pile of metal skulls that wouldn't be going anywhere, merged and grown together. And beside it, the massive boulders.

Please work. Please work.

She touched the first. The runes in her mind lit up, and a pulse of electricity shot through the web until it reached the one she was looking at. The rune turned into a song. A lyric. Sheet music. There were no words to describe it, just that the rune was something that existed on top of the sound of existence. She might as well have been trying to think of a color she'd never seen before.

The first boulder: bridge. To connect. The second boulder: reach. To extend. The third: defy. Resist? Withstand?

Figure it out later. Get out now. She stepped away from the boulders and... and peeked into the bowl full of blood. For a whole tenth of a second. Curiosity killed the cat. She walked away. Thracius talked to Molech with that thing. Don't tempt fate.

She sucked in an unsteady breath and walked past the betrayers. Same as before, too busy to notice her. Touching the boulders had done nothing, played no music, made no noise. It'd activated things in her mind so she could understand them, play their tune, and that was it. Stealth mission successful? Maybe?

Back with Adron and Cerb, the three of them ducked through the heavy shadows of the bone piles and stone pillars, and joined the rest of the group.

"Mia?" Yosepha asked.

Mia smiled. "Let's get out of here."

Everyone traded a few surprised glances, smiled, and turned around.

"Belor," Adron asked. "Got a way out of here?"

"Back the way we came," Belor said. "Which probably isn't a good idea. Molech didn't know what happened yesterday. He knows now. That path will be crawling with betrayers, and any demons Molech has deemed worthy enough to know of his existence." The old tyrant chuckled and gestured to the skull piles. "Which is apparently a lot of demons, since my imprisonment."

"You said you could get us in," Romakus said. "And you implied you could get us out. Don't hold out on us, boss."

Belor gestured back to the stairs. "There are many tunnels and paths that follow the stairs. I know them. I can get us up to the great forge and cathedral. After that, I do not know."

Julisa rumbled. "We will have to fight our way through this province, no matter what, since the seal is now broken. You saw those demons in the spire."

"Maybe," Mia said. "Maybe not. Maybe the demons are calming down, whatever's left of them. You saw Thracius and his group."

Romakus shrugged and gestured to Belor. "Point us in the right direction. We'll figure it out when we have to."

Belor nodded. "Other side. We need to cross."

Mia winced. "Shit."

The crew, hiding in the shadows of the giant pillars, was on one side of the giant room, with the stone path and its braziers cutting through the center before connecting to the massive stairway they'd left behind. And Belor was saying they needed to get to the other side. No way to do that except walk out in the open where every betrayer would see them.

Maybe they'd ignore her crew, like they had Thracius's crew?

Mia sucked in a breath. "We have to cross, then."

"It will lead to battle," Kas said.

"Yeah, probably, but we don't have a choice. So, just... follow me. Noah, Yosepha, Azreal, can you fly up? Stay in potram, don't summon your gear unless you need to, and blend into the shadows up higher."

The angels grimaced but didn't argue. Wings spread, they took to the air, staying behind the pillars and soaring high. There were plenty of harsh shadows to exploit, and they used them.

"Now," Mia said. "We just uh... walk without rhythm?" Shrugging, she gulped down the rock in her throat, and--

"Mia," Adron said, grinning. "If you don't want to be noticed, ditch the clothes."

She glared at Adron, but her eyes fell away as she slipped her clothes off and undid her gladiator sandals. Adron was right. Most of the betrayers were naked, and none were wearing clean, beautiful red silk. Sighing, she stood naked in front of the group, spared an especially angry glare for the intrigued Belor, and stepped out onto the main path.

On her left, the pathway between the skulls and pillars that led to the blood bowl, the giant stones, and the canyon in a canyon where Molech likely waited. On her right, the same path merged with the giant stairway, but too far for any roaming betrayers to notice her as anything other than a small dot.

And, as if they belonged, the demons in her crew stepped out onto the path, too. Adron walked beside her as if he owned her, and everyone followed. Followed turned into leading the moment they realized no one was screaming bloody murder and charging at them with a giant axe. Mia looked across the long path to the distant stairs half a dozen times, but down here at the bottom of this part of the canyon, there were no betrayers coming and going. And Thracius and his group were gone by now.

Mia glanced down at the worshiping betrayers. The crew walked past them, far too close for comfort, but they had to blend in, look like they belonged. Mia's naked leg brushed against a betrayer's arms as the old woman grabbed several nearby skulls and pushed them back toward the pile. Whoever she was, she didn't look up, didn't grab Mia, did absolutely nothing but seize nearby skulls and go back to work. And when she couldn't reach high enough to pile more, she pushed more in from the bottom, and climbed, wobbling with the weight of her own anorexic body. Mia looked away.

Without a fuss, Mia and the crew got to the other side, and disappeared into the shadow behind the pillars. Even Cerberus didn't get anyone's attention. The betrayers might as well have been lobotomized for how little they cared about Mia and the group.

"That went well," Mia said.

Belor grinned. "It did." And his dragon eyes roamed her naked body again.

She glared at him and summoned her potram rune. What little red light it took to reform the skimpy clothes and her sandals blended in with the dancing flames of the braziers. No one noticed. Unfortunately, her potram rune made her look like an erotic dancer, and Belor made no attempt to hide how his eyes slid up and down her now half-naked body. She'd probably have been better off staying full naked.

"Now we climb," Belor said, gesturing up at the rock ledges. "Stay in the shadow of the stairs. But there are no tunnels that lead to the surface, as far as I found in my searches. We will reach the great forge at the top of the great stairway, and above that, the cathedral."

Mia raised a finger. "I thought the cathedral was destroyed by the angels in the Spires War? Or, I mean, whatever building it was back then." Why was Belor even using the word cathedral? What word was it, two thousand years ago? The Estian language was weird.

"I assume it regrew," he said. "Angels?"

Azreal descended from the darkness above and hovered a few inches above the ground.

"It did."

"It'll be a fight," Belor said, and he flexed his wings. Holes still in the membranes, Belor hissed and gave them another shake, pushing through the pain like a typical, stubborn demon. "I will--"

"You," Adron, "spent two thousand years being tortured. It's been one day. You're not fighting anything."

Belor rumbled and took a step toward Adron. On cue, he almost fell, and only Julisa darting to him and getting under his arm kept his knees from hitting the ground.

"We follow the stairs up? Hide in its shadow again, just on the other side?" Azreal asked. "And if any demons are willing to fight, we fight? Is that is?"

"Yes," Belor said. "That's it."

"We can do that without you." Eyes locked in a hard squint, Azreal reached out a wing and gently nudged Mia away from the old tyrant. "You aided us, monster. You may live. But we don't need you anymore."

Belor grunted but said nothing, dragon eyes locked on the angel.

Mia pushed through the feathers and glared up at Azreal. "We're just leaving him down here?"

"Might be a good idea," Adron said, raising his tail. "We really want another Vinicius with us? And Belor isn't leashed." He looked to Kas for support, but Kas said nothing, too, slowly turning his eyeless shark head toward the crew, to Belor, and then to Mia.

Julisa snarled as she glared at Azreal and the others. "You are fools. Mia is correct."

Mia froze. "I am?"

"Yes. Belor is a valuable ally, and we have few. Who better to resist the angels who try to stop us than one of the few children who fought them as long as he has? Only Belor and Vinicius remain, and only they have faced angels and won. And Belor is still spire ruler."

"For now," Azreal said. "Thracius is on the way to the spire now. He will become the new spire ruler."

Good point, but Julisa shook her head.

"Regardless, Belor is a powerful warrior. We--"

Azreal snapped his wing out. "Vinicius is leashed. That is the only reason he is here. It is the only reason he has not succumbed to his desires."

Mia winced and looked Vin's way. Throughout the conversation, Vin stood there, saying nothing as usual, as he watched and listened with that patience she knew belonged more on a hunting crocodile than a calm person. They all had good points.

"Vin's not a mindless animal," Mia said. "And neither is Belor. We take him with us. It's a risk, but a good one, because Belor wants to live to see another day, don't you?" Summoning a little courage, she marched up to the old tyrant, ignored hungry eyes, and jammed a finger into his leg. "You want to take back your province some day, and you can't do that if the Great Tower is destroyed."

Belor grinned and tapped his sternum with a claw. Where did she recognize that body language? Sometimes the child of the Old One's mannerisms made her think she was talking to some playboy lawyer, used to wearing a suit and chatting up girls in an expensive bar or nightclub while fiddling with his tie.

"Exactly right," he said. "You say some mysterious alien is coming to kill us all? Then they're my priority target. Maybe if Molech and I were still on good terms, I'd think the Old One could do something by absorbing Lucifer's power--if that's even possible. But we're not on good terms, and if angels are trying to stop you unmarked from reaching Lucifer, well, there's got to be a reason, right?"

Mia squinted up at the man. "You just want to spite the angels, don't you?"

"I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of the reason."

Mia rolled her eyes, gave Cerberus a few head rubs, and gestured to the rock wall. "Let's get climbing."

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

Things were going way too well. In Death's Grip, she'd had to fight an angel army. In the Black Valley, she'd had to deal with Asmodeus, and then deal with the burning Maze while getting hunted by the spire ruler Alessio. In Heaven's Tears, she'd dealt with Beelzebub, aliens, and the rider. So far in False Gate, the most dangerous of all the provinces, things had gone pretty... smoothly.

And that smoothness continued. In the shadow of the great stairway, on the opposite side from the way the crew had come in, they climbed up and up. Yosepha and Noah joined them on the ground again, and everyone kept their sides to the stairway wall. Betrayers above walked past, talked about finding Belor, about tracking down whoever had broken into the spire, and about hunting down the invaders. Apparently, no one had expected anyone to just walk into the spire and upset the status quo.

Apparently it still hadn't dawned on them that the mysterious infiltrators might do the same to Molech's underground cavern, either.

That was the problem with having insane people run a province for two thousand years. And if Molech was willing to dedicate thousands of years purely into torturing demons, especially Belor, then he was probably kind of insane, too. Insane, over-the-top villains were sometimes super dangerous, and sometimes, hilariously inept.

The closer they got to the top of the stairs, the more betrayers there were. They were coming and going from the cavern above, and the higher Mia and the crew got, the louder things got.

There was screaming and roaring. There was the telltale ding of metal hitting metal. And there was death. Blood flowed down the stairs, and in some places, flowed high enough to spill over the sides and trickle down onto the hidden rock past Mia's sandals.

Her sixth reached out and found the final cavern at the end of the stairs, a colossal room just below the surface, with three archway doors all leading into it. The grand stairway, and all paths along the canyon walls, led to this room.

They had no choice. They had to fight.

The room was both large, and ornamental. The stairway merged into the black room, and again, skull braziers dangled from black chains, lighting the way. It was hot, with lava leaking down the walls onto carved paths in the blackstone floor. Chains big enough to hold a cruise liner reached across the ceiling, connected to pillars as if they might escape. It was as if they'd entered some unholy foundry.

And an anvil big enough for a child of the Old Ones sat against the back wall, the wall Mia and the crew walked past to get into the room. Along the floor, the lava leaking down from the walls merged into a single flow, and the thick liquid flowed up to the anvil to disappear into a crevice beneath it. A strange contraption, and it felt strange. Her sixth sense didn't know what to make of it, except that essence and resonance both flowed along the amber fluid, guided there. It didn't feel entirely natural, as if it hadn't grown out of Hell herself. Almost like a spire.

But she couldn't focus on it. All she could do was stare at the mayhem before her. Bodies, everywhere, almost all of them betrayers, piled on top of each other. But not because someone had piled them. There simply wasn't enough room for new betrayers to walk around the dead, and they had to climb over corpses, only to die themselves to demon tooth and claw.

Thracius and his demons were there, working with the betrayers and fighting other demons.

"This is pointless!" a tiger said. She climbed onto a pile of the dead and cut down a vrat, practically foaming at the mouth as he charged her. Everyone had their backs to Mia's group, betrayers rushing past her to join the fight. Chaos. Betrayers and demons fighting other demons, with no uniforms to keep things organized.

Which meant Mia's group had the drop on them.

Before Mia could say a thing, Vinicius charged.

She wanted to scream at him, demand he stop. Let the demons and betrayers fight it out. Let the forge fill up with the dead until the crew could sneak on past; the unholy foundry was big enough that they could go around and simply avoid the combat, hiding behind the dead. But of course, that wouldn't be good enough for Vin.

Whether he thought it was a tactical decision, pushing through this death trap before more betrayers found them, or he was simply giving in to his desires, she couldn't tell. But the child of the Old Ones rushed forward, and everyone followed.

Thracius spun, and his eyes widened. But Vin went for a closer target, catching a betrayer armed with a sword and armor, and ripped them in half. Then, the next, and the next.

"Who are you!?" Thracius yelled, only for his eyes to fall to Romakus. "Romakus!? You--"

Noah summoned batlam, drowned the room in gold light, and unleashed a golden arc of energy from his sword. And Thracius, finally free of the seal's torture after two thousand years, stared on as his head fell from his shoulders.

This wasn't what Mia wanted. But it was what she got.

"Angels!" a betrayer screamed. "The intruders are here! Here!" He ran back out through the main archway, back into the canyon and the grand stairway. "The intruders--"

Azreal was on the man instantly, wings out, golden aura drowning the darkness as he summoned his spear, and thrust it into the man's neck.

Too late. Far beneath them, back down the grand stairway, a chorus of yells and screams erupted. And then the rumbling of feet as at least ten thousand betrayers flooded up the stairs toward the crew and the forge. The canyon itself vibrated with the thunder of movement.

"Well," Belor said. "Damn."

Mia glared back at the man, grumbled, and summoned her own batlam rune. Her staff, her black crown, her armor, it all fit like a second skin, and she waved her weapon toward the stairs behind her, summoning cracks in the rock and displacing it into sharp shards. Enough barrier to make the betrayers hesitate for two seconds.

"Get in!" she yelled. "Get in!"

The rest of the crew rushed into the forge room, and Mia faced the oncoming betrayers on the great stairway. Staff out, she summoned a silent song, and brought the great forge's ceiling down upon the three entrance ways. Collapsing rock and rising stone blocked the path; controlled cave-ins. Roars from past the boulders got through, muffled and quiet, and a thousand thuds followed. The betrayers on the other side were trying to break through, but they couldn't for now.

She turned to the battle. For all Vin's strength, he was swarmed. If he tried to summon hellfire, he'd be stabbed or ripped open in the few seconds it took him to spark the flame. Or maybe he didn't want to do something as hands-off as hellfire right then. He threw himself into the mayhem and tore everyone apart, almost laughing with each fresh corpse.

The rest of the crew joined in.

"Cerberus," Mia said. "Get 'em."

Like a dog let off the leash, Cerberus threw himself into the fight with the same energy as Vinicius. There were plenty of betrayers to kill, and she trusted him to handle them without getting hurt. From how easily the big dog ran them down and tore them apart, using all three heads to rip a single person into chunks in seconds, maybe he could handle bigger game soon.

Yosepha and Romakus stayed with each other, wing to wing, and cut down the oncoming tide that pushed in from the cathedral above, through the colossal archway and stairs beyond. Azreal stayed with Mia, but everyone else got into the fight. Julisa cackled with glee, while Adron moved through the crowd with far more agility than a nigh eight-foot-tall demon should be able to. Even Kas got into it, shoulder-checking a group of demons at once, before turning to others and skewering them on his forward-pointing horns.

Mia held her staff at her side and watched for opportunities. There were none. In the future, she'd have to explain tactics to the demons, because while Yosepha and Noah tried to fall back to each other and create defensive positions, the demons had no such compunction. They rushed into the waves of bodies and cut them down without a care for covering their rear. The epitome of 'a good offense is the best defense'. Unfortunately, it meant they were in the way of any music Mia might play. All she could do was watch.

The battle was a meat grinder.

The chaos died down faster than expected. It wasn't long before no one was left alive save for Mia's crew, and they stood on the piles of bodies as they slowly turned and examined the large room of stone walls and lava streams. The smell of betrayer sweat and corpses burning in the lava was nauseating.

The archway ahead was filled with demons, dozens of them clogging the grand stairway that led into the cathedral above, through what looked like a very elegant tunnel. No longer just stone, but carved stone, like some beautiful interior for a French cathedral from half a millennium ago, mixed with an unholy foundry of pouring lava and smoldering embers.

Mia waved a hand and brought it down. A cave-in, controlled, and Vinicius jumped back from the archway as stones fell upon stones, crushing the demons trying to get in.

Other than the quiet thud of the betrayers trapped behind Mia, and the distant, roaring demons beyond the forge's entrance she'd crushed closed, the vast room had gone completely silent.

"Mia?" Yosepha asked, panting. "You blocked all the entrances."

"Just giving us a quick break," she said, and she gestured to the group, each of them panting. "Only used quiet songs. I don't think Molech heard."

Romakus chuckled. "Bad place for a break. You've locked us in here." Sword hooked on his back again, he slowly spun around, feet's claws tearing through bodies as he spread his wings. "It has been a long time since I've seen this place, though."

Kas grunted as he walked back toward Mia, pushing corpses aside. "A strange room."

"Yes," Romakus said, and he pointed down at the dozen lava streams flowing down the walls through perfectly circular holes, into the perfectly carved, straight lines along the floor, into the center line, all toward the anvil. "It is a very strange room."

Belor stood beside Mia and pointed to a large metal bowl in the center of the room. Surrounded by bodies, corpse limbs dangled over its edges, some piercing the crimson liquid within.

"That," Belor said, gesturing to the bowl, "is new."

Everyone stared at the bowl, Romakus included. Eyes locked in a hard squint, Belor walked forward, body trembling as he struggled to stay on his hooves.

Before he reached it, the blood boiled, and a heavy rumble filled the room. More than the room. It vibrated the walls, and far as Mia's sixth sense could see, the walls of the canyon behind her.

"Unmarked," the bowl said.

Maybe Molech had heard her song.

Belor stopped and looked her way. She shook her head. This had been going so well! Betrayers, they could handle, as long as they didn't count in the thousands. Demons psychotic with aggression like rabid animals? Sure, they could handle that, too, and just did.

They couldn't handle an Old One.

Belor stood over the bowl and glared down into its rippling waves. "No unmarked, Molech. Just me."

Again the blood boiled, and the immense room trembled with the might of the ancient creature's rumbling roar. It was distant, coming from the canyon far behind them. Molech couldn't reach them. Probably.

"Bring the unmarked to me, Belor," the bowl said.

"No."

"You know not what you do, child of Abaddon. The alien comes. I will save the Great Tower with Mother's song, but I need the unmarked to use it."

Belor tilted his head and looked Mia's way. The conversation was a bad idea, but maybe Belor could learn something that'd help them? They were in the dark, and information was priceless. And the crew could use a minute to breathe after the slaughter.

Cold shivers ran up Mia's spine as she waited, grip tight on her staff, as the blood splashed up from the bowl and spilled onto the floor.

"You betrayed me," Belor said, eyes hardening, aimed down at the blood bowl.

"You failed me. There is no greater betrayal."

An object moved behind Mia, and she almost squeaked. Back at her side, Adron handed her a book, and she gawked at the size of it. It was made for a child of the Old One's hands, not hers, but she managed. A little song summoned a tiny rock platform for her, and she laid the book out and opened it.

Runes. She knew what they were before she touched them, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Runes on how to create meera metal, and aera metal. Runes on how to turn a soul's resonance into hellfire. Runes on how to craft armor and weapons. Runes on how to turn an army of mindless demons, into an armed force that could face angels, or worse.

She touched the runes. The others didn't see anything, but for her, red lightning danced in her mind, awakening new paths. The runes weren't just the blueprint to a specific song, but creations of existence, special, something someone had crafted. That someone was probably Lucifer.

These runes were unholy.

Silently, she closed the book, fingers shaking, and met Adron's eyes.

"You okay?" he whispered.

"Y-Yeah." She gulped down the boulder in her throat and looked back at Belor. The titan stood over the blood bowl, trembling for different reasons, hands shaking at his sides, teeth clenched and fangs bared.

And like a second skin, Belor spoke, that grandiose, poetic edge coming through again.

"The province is free. The seal fades. Demons are killing each other, broken, but that will pass. Given time, it will be mine again. You are trapped, Molech, and will stay trapped. You are broken, and will remain broken. I will have my revenge. And you will have nothing."

"My betrayers will win," the bowl said. "They will find you. They will bring the unmarked to me. I will be free. I will--"

Belor roared down at the bowl, and Mia stepped back. That was Vinicius's roar. Eyes wide and wings flared, Belor grabbed the bowl, and pushed it over. Not as easy as it sounded, the bowl attached to the metal skulls beneath it. Belor had to bend metal and break stone, but his rage drove him through his pain and weakness until the metal half bent, half flipped, ripping up the stone underneath and sending a crack through the metal base of skulls.

The old tyrant settled his wings, panting, and stared at his hands. Shaking. Everyone stared, watching the child of Abaddon slowly turn and look at the anvil, and Mia with the book in front of her.

"He is nothing but an echo of the past," he said. "Just an old monster clawing for power it once had."

Mia gulped hard. "I've seen Old Ones fight, Belor. Beelzebub fought an army of aliens like they were nothing."

"Then it is--" He shook his head and rubbed his hands down his naked body, like a man smoothing out his suit, or his robes. Poetic voice gone, he coughed as if he were embarrassed by it, and gestured down at the destroyed bowl. "Then it's a good thing he's not Beelzebub. He can't reach us."

Everyone looked back to the collapsed archways behind them, the three doorways that led back to the great stairway down, and the canyon beyond. A heavy, thunderous roar pulsed through the walls, and Cerberus half-whined, half-growled as the blood, leaking from piles of eviscerated bodies, vibrated like beads of water on a speaker.

"We ready to move on?" Mia asked. "I uh... wanna get out of here, now. You're sure Molech can't reach us?"

"I've never seen Molech use any fancy powers like causing cave-ins," Belor said. "Maybe he's more injured than the other Old Ones? I don't know."

Kas shook his head. "His army of betrayers is something to behold. Not even Beelzebub had such numbers."

"They're betrayers," Vinicius said. "We kill them. We feast."

Belor laughed. "Well said."

And for just a moment, the two old demons smiled at each other. It was gone the next.

Nodding, Mia stepped past the anvil--and stopped. She glanced back at it, wincing. A huge slab of metal in the classic shape, with lava disappearing into its base. The anvil hummed a silent sound, and she knew, just knew, if she played a song on the anvil, it'd resonate, and make horrible things possible.

How many demons had had their bones ground to powder in this room? How many angels? She looked at the walls, and again, cold daggers crept up her spine. The giant black chains were just the tip of the iceberg. The walls were covered in shackles of varying sizes, dangling from chains to match. And each set of shackles hung over one of the lava streams.

Mia set her eyes on Belor, back to the shackles, and then back to him. The old tyrant looked at her, waiting for her judgement with steady eyes. She had nothing to say. Yosepha? The angel looked around, too, eyes sliding from the anvil to the shackles where Romakus had, no doubt, bound and killed other angels.

And Romakus. His eyes flicked from Mia to Yosepha before falling, and he lowered his head as he stepped back. The room was filled with the dead, but they might as well have been decorations compared to the weight of the past. It didn't bother Belor. It did bother Romakus.

Mia sucked in a breath, left the book behind, and walked over the corpses toward the archway she'd collapsed that'd lead up to the cathedral.

"Can you sense bodies?" Belor asked. "Entities, I mean. Can you tell us who's beyond that?" He gestured to the destroyed archway.

"No. I can sense the terrain, but that's it." And even then, it wasn't like she was looking at detailed maps.

"A shame. Well, let's get out of here. We'll have to fight our way out." Grinning, he looked around at the group. "This is quite the little team you've assembled, Mia."

She eyed the old tyrant as she walked past him, looking up at him and holding his gaze. "Yes, they are. I've been very lucky. Now get ready."

Everyone got into position, ready to fight the oncoming horde. Mia waved her staff, summoned a song, and opened the ground underneath the fallen archway, spreading rock to the sides and scooping it out of the way with the floor. Pathway cleared, the demons from above poured into the room.

And were destroyed by Vinicius's hellfire. He had the time to prepare, and the position to indulge. The moment the path was open, Vin poured hellfire from his mouth and drowned them all in the dancing, amber and red flames.

Belor stood beside Mia, smiling lightly as he watched. "Vinicius has been around since I can remember."

"Yeah?" Mia asked.

"Oh yes. We children are strong, but not so strong we can survive the hungry teeth of every demon out there looking to eat us. During the Spire's War, few of us were left, only the strongest. And even then, we sought each other and fought. I... can't remember their names. Not all of them." The old tyrant grunted and dragged fingers down his short dragon snout and thick neck. "Vin has probably killed more demons than any demon alive. He's older than I -- or he -- can remember. And when he wandered Hell with the rider, killing whoever challenged him, that was when his name was already fading. Before then, we children challenged each other, and created battles of magnificent spectacle. Demons gathered and watched as their greaters fought and killed each other, determining who controlled the spires." Again, the old tyrant chuckled, and gestured to Vin as he stepped up the stairway, still unloading hellfire on the unsuspecting demons above. "You've got a demon of demons on a leash."

Mia gulped. "And you?"

"Similar. But I wanted to grow above it all. Vin"--he gestured to his old nemesis--"just wanted to indulge in the carnage."

"You didn't?"

Belor grinned down at her, leaned in close to her, and winked. Just like Vin, his demon-y dragon-y face was a blend of utterly terrifying and frustratingly handsome. Unlike Vin, Belor was an obvious flirt.

"I can't do both?"

She snorted, pushed him away with her staff, only pushed herself, and followed Vin.

The stairway, covered in ash and embers, led up to exactly what Mia expected: a giant cathedral. She hadn't quite expected the size, though, and she stared up at the balconies and the colossal ceiling above. There was a painting on the ceiling. There was a fucking painting on the ceiling, like Hell had made a jab at the Sistine Chapel.

"That's new," Belor said yet again, gazing up with almost child-like wonder.

Hell grew monuments to key events in its history, Mia knew. Way back when, they'd found statues of the children fighting each other, beautiful and powerful, deep in the bowels of rock and stone. But a painting? The subject matter was predictable: demons fighting angels. Beautiful, almost erotic depictions of demons ripping off angel wings or splitting angels in half with claws or weapons. And awesome -- in the religious sense -- pictures of powerful angels unleashing golden waves of energy that decimated demons.

For all the power of a child of the Old Ones, they were rare, and it would only take maybe four or five angels to defeat one in a proper battle. Other than them, only a tetrad could hope to defeat an angel, but not out in the open, either. Angels were simply too strong, and the painting showed it, depicting the holy warriors as unstoppable cannons of golden death, or unbreakable, valiant knights.

Cerberus's growls pulled Mia's eyes down to the death around her. Vin wasn't breathing hellfire anymore; he couldn't keep it up for anymore than ten seconds, and it left him exhausted. That left the nave of the huge cathedral a battleground, and the crew dashed forward, around Vin, and secured the area in moments.

It wasn't hard. The demons were half-starved and fighting each other as much as Mia's crew. The remnants, strapped to pews or trapped in dangling cages above, were torn apart by hungry demon teeth. Corpses were everywhere, betrayers in good and bad condition, and demons who'd ripped each other to shreds. It was just like in the forge, bodies on bodies, enough to soak the floor in blood.

They weren't escaping Fort Knox. They were walking out of the remains of a state after a horrible civil war.

"Guys!" Mia yelled. "Don't kill them if you don't need to."

And for once, no one argued. Noah and Yosepha put their weapons away and used their fists. Romakus backhanded more than a few demons, and Kas and Adron broke a few bones when they had to. Julisa groaned and hissed, but acquiesced. Four arms made it easy for her to defeat anyone who got close to her. No one else died.

Which left Mia walking in the back with Cerb, Belor, and Azreal. Belor was looking angrier by the second.

"My province," Belor said, growling. "My demons. All in ruins."

"It might not be so bad outside," Mia said. "Azreal, Noah, Yosepha? I think we're in the clear. Might wanna disguise yourselves again."

Sighing, Yosepha dismissed her armor and joined her. "I'm waiting... what's the expression? Waiting for something to drop. This has been too easy."

Mia winced. "The shoe. And, uh, yeah let's not jinx it. Come on."

They took the leather strapped to Cerb's back, wrapped the angels up in it, and stepped outside, leaving behind the strange, beautiful, glorious, disgusting sight. Out into the open, they stood and stared at the buildings, distant and near, and the roads between them covered in corpses.

A demon wandered by, clutching his head. Blood dripped from a hunk of meat in his mouth. A gargoyle followed him, but didn't attack. She clutched his tail and held on, like a child holding her parent's hand. Some other demons, perched on rooftops above, stared down at the crew, bodies shaking, eyes wide. They didn't move.

This was closer to the province Mia had expected from Romakus's description. Demons, crazy, volatile, desperate, and hungry. But as the crew moved out and made their way toward the River Styx, guided by the angels' -- mostly -- perfect sense of direction, they found fewer and fewer demons looking to attack everything on sight. The further the crew got from the great forge cathedral, the more nearby demons looked like soldiers recovering from a nasty firefight, complete with twitching, random noises, and faces held in hands.

Shell shock.

"Belor?" a borjin asked. The minotaur-shaped demon sat against the outside wall of a ruin, knees pulled up to his chest like a lost child. The seal was on his shoulder, but it looked faded, like an old tattoo, while several fake versions had been carved into the giant demon's chest. A nine-foot-tall juggernaut of muscle, just like a brute, except minotaurs had two giant horns on their heads pointing forward in a big curve, along with various body spikes, a long tail, and hooves. Their short snout and underbite almost made them cute, in a disturbing kind of way.

"Yes," Belor said. "I am free."

"Free? The seal, it's... gone..."

Belor squatted in front of the demon and looked him up and down. "You kept your head when everyone else snapped?"

The minotaur nodded. "When the seal disappeared, it was like... like I'd been falling, for years, and suddenly hit the ground. I didn't know what was going on, and I..." He gestured around him. "I waited, until my senses returned to me."

"Good."

"What... What do I do now?" The minotaur's eyes settled on Belor's small amber horn, waiting.

"Eat from the dead. Go to the spire. Find others who've kept their heads, and settle the spire. It's time to rebuild. Prepare for my return." And just like that, Belor nodded, the order given, and resumed the march after the crew.

It happened a few times, demons surrounded by corpses pulled out of their stupor when they spotted Belor. The sight of the spire ruler walking past had them staring, gawking, some with dropped jaws. And every time, Belor spoke like a king. He gave them orders with a strange eloquence, with no room for disobedience, but without the heavy harshness Mia expected. It wasn't long before Belor, feeling better, walked up front with Vinicius, as if it were the natural thing for him to be at the head of the group.

Zelandariel had acted as if she deserved to rule the world, and tetrads were old, powerful breeds of demon. The children of the Old Ones were older, more powerful, and likely had that same instinct, just louder. And Mia had to remind herself of that. Belor made no effort to hide his past or his goals, and that made it easy to think he was an honest man. Honest did not preclude tyrannical. If Zel had been a power-hungry bitch, Belor had to be worse. Right?

"Mia," Noah hissed, "get down!"

Mia threw herself to the ground and rolled around a pile of rubble, into the shadow of a half-collapsed ceiling.

Angels, hundreds of them, were descending.

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

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

~~Day 140~~

~~Keziah~~

"Greetings," she said, and she bowed, full-on.

On the flat grounds of the Red Pits, Keziah stood before them, spear at her side, and she waited. There was enough distance between her and the demons, the two angels, and the unmarked boy that she felt she could escape if they attacked. Everyone was staring at her. Khazeer, the spire ruler, his entourage, his army, and of course, the young boy and his harem.

"Uh, Moriah? Tsila?" the boy asked. David. This had to be David.

Moriah marched forward, body and wings wrapped in hellbeast leather.

"Who are you?"

"I am Keziah, first rank rapholem of Yathael. And you are Moriah, third rank gabriem of Azoryev. You triggered the war."

Moriah hissed and held her gaze. How could an angel, dressed in the unseemly skin of hellbeasts, look so terrifying? Perhaps it was her ruby eyes. Perhaps it was how she clenched her jaw so tight, Keziah could see the muscles tighten through the woman's long dark hair.

"A young rapholem came here to kill me?" Moriah asked. "Or to kill David?"

"Nothing of the sort. I am here to..." Keziah looked to her left. A thousand demons stared at her, half waiting for an order to kill her, the other half waiting for a chance to eat her. To her right, the same. "I am... not supposed to be here. But Netanel has let me pass."

"Netanel? The guardian angel?" the gabriem asked. Tsila, also of Azoryev. She stepped forward, tilting her head. "You know a guardian angel?"

"Know is a strong word. He... seems to know me." Keziah shook her head. "I wanted to speak with you, David. I am not here to challenge Moriah for her actions, or Tsila for her defection."

Tsila's gabriem smile shattered. "Defection? I did not defect, rapholem. My captain died protecting David against the alien. Many angels of Azoryev died in that battle! I have devoted my life to ensuring Heaven does not--"

Keziah held up a hand. This was going very wrong, very quickly.

"I apologize. I did not mean... May I speak with the unmarked?"

"No," Moriah said. "You may not."

A single word, and it struck Keziah in the gut as much as her grace.

Keziah re-summoned her composure, steady and stern. "I risked much coming here. Yathael may not welcome me back. They may strike me down, under suspicion that I have defected. They may--"

"Moriah," the boy said. "Let her pass. We need information more than anything. But dismiss your batlam rune first, Keziah."

Scowl etched across her face in stone, Moriah stepped aside, as did Tsila. Keziah nodded to each as she walked past, dismissing her batlam rune as ordered. Without armor or weapon, and within mere feet of those who might strike her down, she felt intensely vulnerable. This was dangerous. A false step, an errant word, and they could kill her.

But she had to know.

David stood at the ready, wearing the strange potram rune Keziah had heard of. He was a handsome young man, with shaggy red hair, freckles on pale skin, and green eyes that pierced her grace far worse than Moriah's words had. And despite his small stature, he was obviously fit, and his strange red clothes and subtle black jewelry highlighted that.

How were the unmarked able to use angel runes? And why were the clothes they summoned red? She almost dared to ask.

"David," she said. "I... witnessed your battle, three days ago."

"You were spying?"

"Yes, but only I."

The boy tilted his head, eyeing her. There was a darkness in them, but not of ill will. No, the boy looked tired and broken.

"A single angel?" he asked. "Does that mean the angels have stopped patrolling the skies? If we knew the angels weren't looking for me anymore, we could--"

"The angels gather around the Forgotten Place, circling the island and the storm. They gather over the skies of False Gate, and hunt for the remaining unmarked. I am afraid your trek along the ground is the only reasonable way to reach your goal."

The boy ground his teeth and looked to his harem. It had changed, based on the reports Keziah had heard. Two tetrads, a zotiva, a gorgala, a riiva, two impas and two gremlas. And Moriah and Tsila. The fujara tetrad was new. The tregeera was missing. And the boy looked miserable.

She did not need a gabriem to explain what had happened.

"You came down here to tell me that?" David asked.

"I came because I... wish to understand."

"Curiosity, meet cat." Eyes locked on her, he paced side to side, while a small host of demon women stood directly behind and beside him, ready to pounce her. "You can't be the only angel curious about what's going on down here."

"Heaven is in civil war. Many of the exarchs try to contain it, but many are content to sit back and watch as well. And several still serve the council, and will try to stop you, if they can get past the others. There are no more scouting parties, only battalions, and for any to leave through the vortex is a trial. There have been battles. Angels have died. Only my connection with Netanel allowed me to visit."

"Netanel," David said. "A guardian angel?"

"Yes."

The young man sighed and shook his head. "I'm not sure what you're hoping to hear from me, Keziah. I'm sure the angels have pieced together what we're trying to do."

"Yes. We know some of the unmarked are trying to reach Lucifer."

"And you know we're, or at least me and some others, are trying to save the Great Tower? Trying to stop the alien from killing us all?"

Keziah sighed with relief and let her wings relax against her back. "Some of us hoped. But we could not know for sure. Yosepha's crucifixion told us much, but--"

"A mistake," Moriah said. "A... grave mistake."

Guilt dripped from the mikalim like blood from a wound. It was not what Keziah had expected. Stories of the third-rank mikalim and her fiery attitude had spread, and some angels even thought the woman's personality was the spark that had started the civil war. Perhaps it had, but whoever this woman before her was, she might as well have had a bag of silver coins around her neck.

"Ezekiel," David said. "He's a reaper, right? An exarch? He knows what's up. He hasn't told everyone what happened?"

Keziah nodded. "Ezekiel has told us, but now he rests. We do not know when he will move again."

"He unleashed his full might," Tsila said. "It will be months, if not years, before Ezekiel can fight once more. But I thought he would still speak."

"He did at first," Keziah said. "But his words were... not well received. Many of the exarchs agreed with him, and many did not. The islands Yathael and Azoryev still wish to obey the council and stop the unmarked. But Ravid and Avinoam wish to help the unmarked. While the islands Ayaloram, Azaparad, Tversia, Sinev, and Samael sit, and wait." Wing out, she gestured to Tsila and Moriah. "You two are of Azoryev. Your Heavenly Island is not happy that you two have betrayed it. You... may not wish to return until this situation is over."

She may as well have stabbed both with her spear, for the way they both teetered and stepped back, eyes falling.

"Angel," Khazeer said. He needed no introduction, a hoofed tetrad with a scar across his face, and a small amber horn glowing on his forehead. "Why have you come? Why not someone else?"

Keziah eyed the demon. Never had she stood in the presence of demons, let alone thousands of them, and let alone a spire ruler and tetrad. Keziah was tall, even for a female angel, but her seven-foot height meant nothing when a tetrad ten feet tall with wings that made her look like a child stood before her. She would not shiver, not tremble, not look away. Ground held and body strong, she met the colossal demon's eyes.

"As I said, Netanel. The guardian has extended protection to me."

"Why?"

A question that haunted her thoughts every moment.

She shook her head. "That is his business, and mine."

The korgejin tetrad grunted and stepped closer, hooves crushing pebbles. He loomed over her, leaned in until his demon face was inches from hers, and his hot breath poured over her dark skin.

But it was not the tetrad who spoke again. A volara -- a succubus -- stepped around him, head tilted as she looked Keziah up and down. A tall, thin thing, almost as tall as Keziah herself.

"We're not buying it," the volara said. "You came down here, alone, during a civil war, to... talk?"

Keziah looked at the half-naked succubus, at the armored tetrad, and past them to David and the others. What could she say?

"I... I had to know for myself," Keziah said. "Netanel's protection is unusual, to say the least, but I will not waste it. I am taking a risk, coming to speak to you alone, without power or fellow wings to protect me. I am but a first-rank rapholem. But I had to know. I had to... understand."

Moriah did not look convinced. "You are from Yathael. You said it yourself. Yathael and Azoryev are against the unmarked."

"Yes, but you are from Azoryev, and you are helping the unmarked. I hope I can learn the truth, and through my connection with Netanel, perhaps I can end the civil war above."

David, small even by human standards, pushed the volara and tetrad aside. And they moved for him, as if the small man's palms were walls of strength. With a small nod, he aimed a finger at the ground, and grew a stone from it, a platform for him to sit on, complete with a raised leg and knee to his chest. Such casual power.

"How much do you know?" he asked.

"I... witnessed the battle between you and the other unmarked. I know you are capable of grand destruction, David, on a scale that rivals the exarchs. Be that whether you use your ability to manipulate Hell, or your own form, you are deadly on a scale no demon has ever achieved, except for the Old Ones. And that form, the way you changed shape, there can be no doubt. Such ability is written of in the old books, testimonies of the power of the archangels."

The boy winced, eyes falling. Did he not wish for that power?

"Go on."

She continued. "Many angels believe the council has become inept, unable to function. We do not know why. Some believe that perhaps... the dread has begun to affect them."

"The dread," Moriah said, "affects many angels, but they still function."

Keziah shook her head. "Have you ever spoken with the exarchs, Moriah?"

"I have not."

"I have. Two. Netanel, and the muse Kelila. And they speak of the dread with a weight that defies words. My captain did the same. The dread is an inescapable blight on our kind, and the council angels have been with us since the beginning. And I hear... whispers. Since your departure, Tsila, there have been growing concerns that the dread has indeed affected the council, and perhaps that is the reason for their silence."

But Tsila did not look convinced. She joined David's side, shaking her head. "Council angels differ from us. They are... monoliths."

Keziah could do naught but shrug. "I am but a young--" She paused. Tell them of her visions? No, this visit was not about her. And what could they possibly know that would help her understand herself? "A young rapholem, Tsila. I will trust your judgment. But regardless, I came here to understand David, his motivations, and to tell you that Heaven wars with itself in the skies of False Gate. You will find no angel here in the Red Pits or the Navameere Fields, but once you reach the land of tainted ruins, angels scour the skies. They fight each other, warring for control of the vortex, despite the attempts of the exarchs to stop them."

Every word hurt the boy, and every wince from his young face made her grace ache. She was no gabriem, but it was clear the boy was an empathetic soul. He did not deserve to be in Hell.

That was why she was here. Like a spark in the dark, the true reason she was here was now obvious. She wanted to see what the unmarked were like, if they were deserving of this cruel punishment. Because if they were not, then there was a flaw in the great cycle. And if the great cycle could be flawed, so could the angel council.

The riiva, a satyr-like demon, eyeless and beautiful, joined the boy on his short platform of rock, sat with him, and he put a hand around her waist and hip as if she were more than a close companion. And the demon relished the attention, obvious, even with her eyeless gaze of black bone aimed at Keziah. Did demons enjoy calm, quiet moments of interaction? Keziah had always assumed they indulged in violent... everything, from how they hunted, to how they feasted, to how they indulged their sexuality. But the curvy riiva snuggled into David's side, seeking his touch, and most likely, taking a better position to guard him against Keziah.

Keziah could likely kill the riiva with nothing more than a hard glare, if she wanted. The demon had to know that. And yet there she sat, staring at her.

"May I ask a question, David?" Keziah asked.

"What? Yeah, sure." He raised a brow, tilting his head.

"I wanted to know about the other unmarked. Never, in all the history of existence, have souls gone to Hell that were unworthy of its punishment. Are all the unmarked like you?"

Again the boy looked down. "I've met two other unmarked. And I killed both of them. They weren't good people."

Keziah could not help but match the boy's wince. "You are an honest soul, David."

"Yeah. It's a curse."

Slowly, the rest of the boy's harem joined him, standing around the rock platform, while the four little ones sat on it with him. Two took his lap and the riiva's, both glaring at Keziah with a mix of awe and preparedness.

"I am glad to have met you, David," Keziah said. "Many angels are like myself, unsure, confused, and knowing that Moriah herself travels with you has left us perplexed."

"I must atone," Moriah said. "I was the pebble that started this avalanche. Angel blood is on my hands. If I must give my life to save us from the alien invader, then I will do so."

David glared at Moriah, and she met the boy's glare with steel. But slowly, the young man turned his gaze to Keziah again, as if challenging her to look away. She did not.

She froze as her grace pulled toward him like the tides of Earth pulled to the moon. His green eyes stared into hers, broke through her, and left her insides naked and prostrate before him. A simple, young, honest man, gazing into her.

She had seen that look before, in soldiers who had suffered. They often took the longest to heal from their scars, or to let go of their pasts. Hopefully, Tsila was helping this poor boy.

This poor boy who had turned into a colossal centipede and lay destruction to an entire battlefield. A boy who had become a monster covered in faces that had each unleashed beams of hellfire. A boy who...

"I... I should go," Keziah said. "I must report this to the others. I am forced to doubt the council. I am forced to--"

"Stay a moment," the female tetrad said. A bolstara, with hooves, no tail, four arms, and a figure so absurdly curvy, she rivaled the zotiva. The demon came up to Keziah and stood beside Khazeer. "I think--"

"Leave her alone, Laoko," David said.

The demon eyed the young man. "She could--"

"Leave her. Alone."

With a heavy sigh, the enormous woman backed away. The somber look David gave the tetrad named Laoko did not sit well in Keziah's gut. Was there fear in the tetrad's eyes?

"Thank you," Keziah said. "Before I go, I... I wanted to ask of your sister, Mia."

Again, the young man winced. "If anyone touches her..."

"I wanted to ask so that I may share with those who will listen. Your sister. Is she... like you?"

David tilted his head. "Like me?"

"Yes, like you. Is she... worthy of Heaven?"

The silence stretched on for eternity as David stared into her grace, and splintered her into little pieces with each passing aeon.

"My sister is one of the most empathetic people you will ever meet, angel. She feels for people in a way I can't even begin to understand. And if she's learned to use her powers the same way I have, then God help the idiot who gives her a reason."