Plague of Angels

  Both slowed their flight just enough to let the two Angels beneath them catch up. The Angels, two of Nyx’s loyal soldiers, charged upward and tried to pass them, eyes on the prize of the rift open above them.

  Ishtar and Persephone lashed out with their whips at the same time, wrapping them around the two Angels’ necks. With simultaneous hard pulls of arms, backs and wings, they threw the Angels forward and into Lucifer.

  Lucifer, caught off guard, found himself tangled in the embrace of the two, and for a moment there was nothing but kicking, biting, and slashing of talons as all three struggled to get free. It was a short moment, but it was enough. Ishtar and Persephone went wide around Lucifer and dashed upward for the rift.

  “Nearly there!” screamed Persephone. She could see the rift clearly, and Earth, the world beyond it. It would be a minute’s flight, no more, to reach it. Beside her, Ishtar grinned and flexed her wings harder, trying to get as much speed as she could.

  Two whips lashed out from behind, wrapping each Angel’s ankle and yanking them backwards.

  Even as they fell, both had their blades out, hacking away the whips and clashing with the blades of their opponents. Facing Persephone was Morrigan, a thin, steel-strong Angel with a scarred face and a hideous war-cry. Mantus attacked Ishtar, his red armor scored in a dozen places and his silver blood flowing as he hacked at her. Ishtar and Persephone forced themselves to fly higher even as they fought.

  Morrigan ripped into Persephone’s guard, knocking her sword out of the way and scoring her across her belly. Persephone jabbed her blade at Morrigan’s eyes and then hacked down, trying to take off her opponent’s hands.

  Mantus was huge and relied on his size and strength to overpower his opponents. His sword smashed against Ishtar again and again, sending her off course and nearly breaking her own blade as she parried. She stopped him a dozen times, her wrists aching from the power of his strikes, but was unable to mount a defense. When the next strike came, she yielded instead, allowing his force to flow through hers, redirecting his attack and ending up behind him. She hacked hard, cutting off one wing on the upstroke and another as the blade came back down. Silver ichor sprayed everywhere and she spread her wings to fly away.

  Mantus grabbed her ankle, and dug his clawed fingers into her leg. Faster than she had expected, he spun his body and climbed up behind her. Ishtar flipped and struggled and spun to get him off, but it was no use. The wingless Angel climbed her body with hooked talons like steel.

  Persephone was locked blade to blade with Morrigan, each struggling for the upper hand. They clashed together and came apart once, then twice, then a third time, with a dozen cuts to each one’s flesh but no devastating blow on either side.

  Mantus clawed his way to the top of Ishtar’s back and wrapped his arm around her throat. It took all of Ishtar’s strength to continue beating her wings as she clawed at his arm. His other hand was down below, and she felt his talons rip open the armor covering her ass, as his legs wrapped around her thighs. Mantus’s face pressed against the nape of her neck. He drove his pelvis against her backside. Ishtar realized he had willed away the armor around his groin. He was erect and thrusting hard against her, seeking penetration. Ishtar pushed every ounce of her remaining strength into her wings, knowing that falling would end it all for her. From above, she saw Morrigan’s body and head fall separately down toward the pit far below.

  “You took my wings, bitch,” Mantus said. Mantus sucked Ishtar’s earlobe into his mouth and bit it off.. “I’m going to ride you to the Lake, and I will fuck you all the way down.”

  Ishtar rammed her head backwards. He was so close it did little damage. She did it again and again, keeping him distracted as she reached behind her. He realized what she was doing too late. Her hand closed on his cock. With a rip of her claws and a hard pull she tore it from his body.

  Mantus screamed and reared back, and this time, when Ishtar rammed her head backwards, she heard a solid crunch – Mantus’s nose exploded. His grip around her waist loosened, and Ishtar twisted, ripping her sword across Mantus’s belly.

  “You fucking hag!” he howled as he dropped away.

  Ishtar’s head was clearing, and she struggled upward after Persephone. Beneath them she heard the “boom” of Lucifer’s wings and knew he was coming after them himself. Persephone looked down and shouted, “Hang on to me!” as she gestured at her own leg, just in Ishtar’s reach.

  Ishtar, too prideful, flapped harder and forced herself toward the rift. Persephone looked down again, then suddenly pulled out her whip and snapped it directly at Ishtar.

  Ishtar threw her head to the side, feeling betrayal as she had not experienced since their Descent. The three whip heads sizzled as they went by her head and face, along the length of her legs and past her to snap in the face of Derkos, an Angel of Lucifer, whose blade was about to impale Ishtar.

  Derkos roared and flapped wildly at the three whip heads cutting thick lines into his face. His whip slashed out wildly, blasting Ishtar in the eye even as he went tumbling back towards Lucifer, who was just below them. Ishtar wailed as her eye left its socket. Lucifer, unable to dodge the falling Derkos, screamed in rage and hacked Derkos in half, sending silver ichor in all directions

  With just one eye, Ishtar felt weaker than ever before. Her wings fluttered as best they could. She stuttered awkwardly upward, flying half blind. Lucifer was bound to catch her soon, and there was no way she could keep up. Ishtar screamed out in frustration. Above her, barely visible through the curtain of blood that engulfed her face, she could see Persephone almost at the entrance to the rift. Persephone was looking towards her goal, and flexing her wings with savage strength.

  Ishtar looked down and saw Lucifer’s skin grow dark, and the light around him fade. His skin even smoked like the wick of a dying candle as he twisted, bloated, and transformed.

  In an instant, he was no longer a beautiful Angel wearing a crown, but a dragon three times the size. The only evidence of his godly stature was the crown of jewels on his massive reptilian head, perched just above the pointed, golden horn that jutted from his forehead. The dragon had the yellow hair of Lucifer, but it ran in a mane down its curved, black-scaled back. It grinned, showing teeth more wicked than that of any Angel, and deep in its mouth Ishtar could see Hellfire being readied for a blast.

  There’s no way I’ll make it, Ishtar thought. But I can make sure Persephone does.

  She grimaced – the burn of her sorrow exceeding her physical anguish. She did not cry out for help. Better to let her comrade revel in victory than to risk them both failing. She twisted in the air and saw Lucifer so close below them, and eight hundred more Angels, hungry for blood and victory, racing up behind him. She pointed her sword at him and stopped flexing her wings. For a moment she hung, motionless in the air. Then she drew in her wings to fall on him like a falcon attacking an eagle.

  With luck I’ll gut him before he burns me alive, she thought.

  From above, three heads of a whip whirled and wrapped around her already-wounded ankle. Ishtar screamed as Persephone hauled her, pulling her up and into the rift. She heard Persephone scream, “You’re not giving up on me now, bitch!”

  The dragon released a blast of flame, singeing them both.

  Ishtar flicked her whip once more, and as much by luck as design, the tails cracked in Lucifer’s face. The sound split the air, vibrating back to her. The last thing she saw, before disappearing into a vortex of magic, was Lucifer falling into the depths below, holding his wounded eye as he screamed raw, bone-chilling screams.

  Chapter 5

  Nyx stood in the desert, waiting.

  She scanned the skies, looking for Arcana. If Caelum and Orion had spoken the truth, and she had no reason to doubt them, Arcana had been waiting for Nyx to leave, so she could come through the gate and to Earth. With Caelum and Orion gone, she should be able to come through anyway. And then she and Nyx would try to kill each other.

  They had been friends
once. Before the rebellion, before the slaughter, before Nyx’s agreement with God and before the Descent and the Lake of Fire. They had sung together, fought together, and,on occasion, made love. It had not just been fucking, back then. It had been a joining of minds and souls and bodies, an ultimate sharing of self that revealed the innocence and honesty of the soul with whom one shared.

  Those times were long, long gone. Civilizations had risen and fallen and risen again since those times. Still Nyx missed Arcana, missed her brightness and intelligence and simplicity, missed the love they had shared with each other and with other Angels, free of jealousy, hatred, and malice.

  In the last battle for Heaven, Arcana had taken the far flank of the battle, to avoid having to fight her friend.

  And now I have to kill her, Nyx thought. Unfair. Why did God have to send her?

  Nyx had no doubt she would defeat Arcana. The power that let her defeat Caelum and Orion would surely be strong enough to help her defeat Arcana. But she is so, so much better than they, and I don’t want to kill her.

  So where is she?

  Another hour passed. Nyx felt reality shift, and could sense two Angelic presences coming to the earth.

  Just like her to bring reinforcements, thought Nyx, smiling. Arcana was always smart. Let’s just hope it’s not Michael.

  She launched into the air, tired of waiting, and flew toward the presences she sensed. In minutes she had flown from Judea to Libya, and to the deserts beyond. She zeroed in on the Angelic presence like a hawk, flying after its prey. She would find them and destroy them.

  They’re not in the air, Nyx realized. They’re on the ground.

  It was not until she spotted the black, gaping pit in the middle of the sand that Nyx realized the truth. It had always been easy to fall from Heaven, whether intentionally or otherwise. Angels used to be able to come to Earth with a single step and a long, slow glide of their wings. The earth would spread out beneath them like a blue and white panorama that they could take in at their leisure while they descended. When they wished to ascend again, it was a long, hard climb against gravity and sin. The Angels would have to strip the corruption of the world away and focus all their strength towards Heaven. The trip to Earth, though, was nothing.

  Hell was the opposite. Easy to get to, hard to escape. From Hell, you had to claw your way out.

  Nyx landed beside the pit and waited. Whoever was coming, she could not assist. Those in Hell had to get out on their own.

  One silver-white hand, cut and abraded, appeared out of the darkness, clawing at the side of the pit. Two of the nails had been torn off, but still the fingers sunk into the stone at the side of the pit, and a moment later another hand rose up beside it, passed it, and sunk into the stone. Nyx heard gasps of pain from two voices, though she could not see the second Angel at all.

  The clawed, ruined hands pulled against the stone, heaving the body they belonged to up out of the pit. A head of white-streaked black hair came into view first. Nyx watched the slow, painful progress from the other side of the pit. The Angel had a long, lean back, wrapped in the black-scaled armor of Hell. One of her wings was missing half its feathers, and her back had a half-dozen deep claw marks in it.

  A third hand appeared directly beside the Angel, just above her hips, and to Nyx’s surprise, the fourth one appeared a moment later, pushing hard against the ass of the Angel above her, propelling her up and out of the pit. A moment later, another head of long, white-streaked black hair appeared into view from the darkness below.

  Despite herself, Nyx laughed with delight as Ishtar slowly worked her way out of the pit, propelled forward by the hand that Persephone had firmly planted on the ripped armor of her ass. Ishtar heard her and turned to look. Nyx’s laughter died at the sight of her ruined eye and torn-open face. Below her, Persephone was also bleeding, perhaps even worse than Ishtar. The two were lashed together by their whips, making it impossible for one to fall without taking the other.

  Nyx ran around the outside of the pit, not daring to fly over it for fear her presence would trigger its collapse. She stood above her Angels as they clawed their way up. “Hurry,” she breathed. “Hurry, my loves.”

  “Trying,” came Persephone’s grunted reply. “Ishtar’s ass has grown fat and is hard to keep moving.”

  “It has not,” protested Ishtar as her first hand reached the edge of the pit and clawed at the sand there. She couldn’t get a purchase, and had to rest her hand flat, using her legs and other arm to propel herself up until she could lay her torso on the ground. At last, she freed herself from the pit and crawled forward, pulling Persephone up with her.

  When Persephone cleared the pit, the ground around them rumbled, and the sand all around began pouring into the pit, threatening to send them both back where they came from. Nyx grabbed them both by their arms and hauled herself into the air. The sand thundered down, filling the hole as if it had never been there in the first place. Nyx flew them away, to a small hill of rocks and weeds, and laid them in the shade there.

  Their armor and weapons faded, becoming part of their bodies once more. Slowly, their flesh began to heal. Persephone’s hacked-open breast and the cut on her belly slowly knit themselves back together. The gouges in Ishtar’s back and the missing flesh and muscle from her leg grew back in. The feathers and flesh of her wings slowly replaced themselves.

  It was an agonizing process, and it took hours, but neither Angel complained or made a sound. Nyx watched in fascination as their injuries healed, especially Ishtar’s eye, which grew in last, forming itself anew from her flesh and blood.

  When both Angels were whole, Nyx, her own armor gone, embraced them. Angelic flesh touched Angelic flesh, and the passion that flared up between the three of them made Nyx’s knees tremble. As good as her joinings with Tribunal had been, he had been clothed in mortal flesh, unable to take on his true form. The touch of Angelic flesh: so rich, so full of the deep magic of Creation.

  For some time the three kissed and touched and caressed, exulting in each other’s company. At last, and with a heartfelt sigh, Nyx pushed the other two away. There would be time for pleasure later. Now though, questions needed to be answered.

  “Sweet Ishtar,” Nyx sighed. “Beautiful Persephone. It’s so good to see you both again, my sisters.”

  “You too, Nyx,” said Persephone, kissing her hand and letting her lips linger there.

  “Now tell me,” said Nyx. “What happened?”

  “Lucifer made us battle to get out of Hell,” said Ishtar. “The entire 666th.”

  “And how did you two manage to win?” asked Nyx. “I doubt Lucifer sent my two dearest allies on purpose.”

  Ishtar and Persephone together told her all that had happened, sparing no details of Lucifer’s speech or the bloody ordeal that followed. By the end of it, Nyx was pacing.

  “So, he has risen against me,” Nyx muttered to herself. “He’ll spend the next thousand years subjugating my Angels and bending them to his will while I’m trapped here on Earth.”

  “While we are trapped here,” reminded Persephone. “We came to be with you, to help you become a new God on earth.”

  “Oh, we are going to do so much more than that,” said Nyx. “But still, how could Lucifer have known when the gate from Hell would be open to Angels again?” Her mind flashed back to the small red bird on Tribunal’s shoulder, and the conversation she had not been able to hear. She grinned. “Tribunal did it! Tribunal convinced him to open the door, knowing he would send his Angels through to spite God.”

  “Who?” asked Ishtar.

  “Tribunal,” repeated Nyx. “God’s mortal son, crucified in Jerusalem three days ago.”

  “That wasn’t His name.”

  “It was His true name,” said Nyx. “It was the name which He gave me to summon Him back from Heaven and it was the name with which He sealed the bargain with me.” She frowned at them. “And Lucifer mentioned nothing of him?”

  “Not a word,” said Ishtar. “He
only said God had changed the rules.”

  “He didn’t mention my agreement with the son of God?”

  “You have an agreement with the son of God?” repeated Ishtar, horrified. “To do what?”

  “To take this world from God,” said Nyx, smiling. “To turn God’s followers and the followers of the Christ into followers of Nyx or to kill them. And when the time comes and our followers outnumber His, we will have them rise up and destroy the followers of God. When that happens, God will turn his back on the world and Tribunal shall take dominion, and all those in Hell shall partake of a new Paradise.” She frowned again. “And Lucifer said nothing of this?”

  “Well,” said Persephone, “if I wanted to seize power, I wouldn’t tell my followers that someone else could give them Paradise either.”

  But why would he think he could have power? Nyx wondered. He knows that Tribunal and I will work together to bring this about, and that I will rule in Paradise and Hell, does he not? The thought troubled her greatly. Why would Tribunal not tell him? Why would he let him think otherwise…?

  Just thinking His name made Nyx remember her passion for Tribunal, and the way He poured His power into her. She remembered His passion, His delight in her beauty and knowledge—how He strengthened her, how she consoled and supported Him. He would not, could not, have betrayed her, not she who knew all forms of betrayal and could spot them all at a glance. No. Tribunal must have used Lucifer’s ambition as part of His plan. Nothing else makes sense.

  “So,” said Ishtar, rising and stretching, her body once more perfect and unscarred, “What now?”

  Nyx smiled. We have time here. We have a thousand years. She surveyed Ishtar, taking in her perfect ass, tits, legs and belly, and the arrogance that always had to be controlled and directed. “Now?” said Nyx, rising to her own feet. “Now you and I will have a little chat about giving up.”