Deep in the catacombs below Rome, the nine remaining Descended crouched together in a large, low-ceilinged cavern. There was no way out save for the door they had been driven through when they were herded into the room. Their swords and whips were at the ready, and their eyes were on the entrance.
On the other side, just out of sight of the tunnel, Persephone and Nyx leaned against the wall. Persephone was grinning. “And you said this wasn’t going to be any fun.”
“No,” corrected Nyx. “I said this was going to be a waste of time.”
Persephone looked down the hallway. “Straight in at them?”
“Unless you have a better idea.”
There was a sudden rumble and the grating of stone on stone, and the room before them vanished under the weight of the stone above it. A puff of displaced air and dust flew down the hallway at the two of them. The Descended inside didn’t even have time to scream or call out for help before they were flattened into paste by the weight that landed on them.
“Well,” said Persephone, “we could always do that.”
Mother, sent Epiphenia, Arcana has been taken by Tribunal.
Nyx stood, stunned at the news. She stared at the rock wall before her where the room full of Angels had once been.
“Fuck,” said Persephone. “Now what?”
Nyx kept staring.
“Nyx? What do we do now?”
Mother?
“What we do now,” said Nyx, “is get the fuck out of here. And then we make a plan because there is no way I am letting that bastard Tribunal win this.”
The pain that had wracked Arcana’s body and mind suddenly vanished. Her eyes slowly cleared until she saw that she was still hanging in the void, still unable to move. She was still in pain. Every inch of skin, every muscle, every bone and every orifice felt as though it had been violated and abused beyond belief. She looked down, certain she would find skin missing from her body, and broken bones protruding from torn muscles.
Her skin was whole, save that her wings were still gone.
“Back, are you?” asked Tribunal. “Good.” He rose from where he had been sitting and with a gesture, released her bonds. Arcana fell into a heap on the ground. Her limbs had no strength in them. “The coverage of Earth is complete. God sees nothing. Come here.”
Arcana started crawling forward. She tried to fight it, tried to will herself to stay still, but she could not. Tribunal’s power was too great. She crawled until she was sitting at his feet.
“I’m going to journey to Hell now,” said Tribunal, “to tell Lucifer to unleash his armies on the Earth. And if God does not react to that, then I shall know the Earth is truly hidden. And then, my dear, I will go to Earth myself, and I will bring an end to all Creation.” The hunger in his voice made Arcana nauseous. His smile was half-crazed, and his eyes flashed with a deep insanity that frightened Arcana to her core. He smiled at her. “Have you ever been to Hell?”
“No, Tribunal.” The words slipped out of Arcana’s mouth before she could stop them. He had made her speak, she was sure.
“Then you should visit with me,” said Tribunal.
“God does not allow the Heavenly Host to visit Hell,” said Arcana, and once more she felt as if her thoughts were being forced into words and torn from her. “He will know.”
“He will know nothing,” said Tribunal. “Because he cannot see what is happening. He can only see the illusions I have spun for him.” He frowned. “That said, bringing all of you along would be cumbersome.”
Tribunal reached out with one hand and tore Arcana’s head from her shoulders. She didn’t have time to make a sound. Tribunal held her head up and looked into her still-comprehending eyes. “Much better.”
With a smile on his face, he opened a hole in the base of his world between worlds and let himself fall the long drop to Hell.
Chapter 12
Nyx took them to her place deep in the Earth. She had built it centuries before as a place to go for solitude, and as a way to contact Tribunal. It had been here that she had cast the spell that took her to Tribunal in Sheol. And the sight of it again, even after all the years of suffering and misery in between, brought back the wild feelings of pas- sion and joy that she had experienced in his presence back then. It also brought back the memory of power—his power, poured into her in an exchange of spiritual energy more intimate than any sex could ever be.
Nyx clamped down hard on the feelings. Tribunal had programmed her to have them, and there was no way she would give in to them again.
I wish I had a tenth of that power now, thought Nyx as she brought the other two into the magic circle she had created—was it a hundred years ago? Two hundred? I can’t remember now.
Persephone looked down at symbols carved between the lines of white marble that Nyx had inlaid in the floor and named the languages. “Elamite, Hurrian, Akkadian. Impressive. When did you do this?”
“I don’t remember anymore,” said Nyx. She stepped into the circle and sat down. For all three of them to sit inside the circle, their legs had to be interlinked, their feet wrapped around each other’s backs, their arms around each other. Nyx found herself taking comfort from the intimacy. Persephone, her friend and lover throughout the eons, and Epiphenia, her daughter, were the only two on this world who cared the slightest if she lived or died.
Pity we don’t have Arcana with us, she thought. Or Ishtar.
Her heart sank a bit at the thought of Ishtar, but the grief was quickly replaced with rage. For Ishtar to betray them like that…
Is completely like Ishtar, Nyx thought. Stupid bitch.
“Well, we’re here,” said Persephone. “Now what?”
“Now,” said Nyx, pulling out of her reverie. “We make sure no one can hear us.”
She reached down to either side and poured her power into the circle. The symbols lit up and glowed red. Slowly a dome of power covered the three of them, blocking their presence from all things, even God. Persephone watched a moment and then added her power to the circle. Epiphenia did the same a moment later. The dome of power completed itself, and the three Angels were hidden from all beings in the Universe, including God and Tribunal.
“It’s done,” said Nyx.
“Good,” said Persephone. “Now what?”
“Now we need to stop Tribunal.” Nyx paused, hoping an idea would come to mind. God’s Son and God’s Self. How does he hide so well? But then, she had always suspected God had stretched himself a bit thin with the creation of the universe. He had worked to the very edge of divine power, and wasn’t that dangerous? But even asking such questions—as God’s creation—felt foolish. How could she know his limits? But Tribunal did. Or thought he did. Possibly, he was wrong. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“I felt Tribunal’s power when I was waiting for Arcana to reach Heaven,” said Epiphenia. “None of us can match it. All of us together can’t match it.”
“Can he die?” asked Persephone. “Like from a sneak attack from behind maybe?”
“I don’t know,” said Epiphenia. “You might destroy his physical form, but he’s an incarnation of God, so I imagine it would be very hard to actually kill him.”
“Plus, he’s not here,” said Nyx. “We’d have to get close to him to kill him and as long as he’s in Heaven we can’t do that.”
The three sat, despondent. At last Epiphenia said, “There is no way to stop him, is there?”
“There has to be,” said Nyx. “We can’t let him destroy the Earth.” She realized at that moment that even if she had a paradise of her own—safe and beautiful, full of sexy angels— she would not want to lose Earth. She held her friend and daughter close. “So what will his next steps be?”
In the orgy chamber in Nyx’s throne room, Ishtar sighed and lay back as the last ripples of pleasure passed through her. The three Angels who had been servicing her—all lieutenants in the 666th Legion—rose from the bed and stood at attention, awaiting new orders. She smiled at them. “You a
ll get to keep your jobs for the time being,” she said. An aftershock ran through her body, sending delicious waves of pleasure through her. “And we will definitely have to do that again.”
Ishtar looked over to Lucifer. He had five male souls—rapists, murderers and thieves when they were alive—bent over a rail, their hands tied to their feet, their genitals immersed in bowls of Hellfire. Lucifer alternated randomly between whipping them and violating them while demons danced around them, pinching and biting. The souls screamed in agony.
Ishtar shook her head; Lucifer was still all about the sex. There were far worse things he could do to them, but his pleasure was always his first concern.
It was also a domination tactic, of course, like one dog humping another.
Ishtar had asked around and discovered that there was no officer in the 666th who hadn’t been in the exact same position since Lucifer’s rise to power. Humiliation was part of being in Lucifer’s service. He demanded total subservience and knew that the more brutal he was to his commanders, the more brutally they would drive their soldiers. And so he brutalized them all every chance he had.
It’s still really boring, thought Ishtar. She looked over her lieutenants. One of the males was especially outsized for his shape, and Ishtar appreciated such things. She was about to call him over again when a blinding light filled the room. The power and the majesty of it drove all the Angels in the room to their knees and made the souls cry out in pain as it burned through them.
When it faded, Tribunal was standing in the throne room. Ishtar blinked to clear the last of the spots from her eyes and saw Arcana’s head, still alive, hanging on Tribunal’s belt. The sight of it made Ishtar smile. Arcana’s eyes moved as she took in the room. A look of distaste came over her face at the sight of the burning, abused souls bent over the rail.
“Lucifer,” said Tribunal. “I thought I put you in the Lake.”
“You did,” said Lucifer. “I got out.”
Lucifer started to rise and felt the incredible weight of Tribunal’s will push him back down. Lucifer gritted his teeth and strained against it. Inch by inch, he rose taller and taller. Tribunal’s power was still bearing down on him, but it seemed less than it had been before.
Of course, he’s not focusing all his power on me this time, thought Lucifer.
It took a long time for Lucifer to rise all the way to his feet, and it hurt. He did it anyway. Lucifer had no intention of facing Tribunal on his knees. Tribunal was more powerful, but Lucifer was still a partner in this deal and was determined to be treated like one.
When he reached his full height and was staring at the smiling, contempt-filled face of Tribunal, he said, “What do you want here?”
Tribunal smiled. “Have I interrupted your amusements, Lucifer?”
“Yes,” said Lucifer, still straining under the weight of Tribunal’s power. “What do you want?”
“It is time,” said Tribunal. “Time for you to unleash the armies of Hell onto Earth.”
Lucifer smiled. “Good. I’ll send up the 666th at once.”
Tribunal’s eyebrow went up a fraction of an inch. “You’ll send them all up at once.”
“No,” said Lucifer. “I won’t.”
“You’ll do what I tell you,” said Tribunal, stepping closer. “Or I’ll blast you out of existence.”
“No, you won’t,” said Lucifer. “You can’t, now.” He gestured at the other Angels in the room. “They’ve already seen Nyx destroyed. And they all know the deal we have cut. If they see that you are betraying that deal, how much cooperation do you think you’ll get? How many Angels will you have rising to the surface instead of running off to the edges of Hell?”
Tribunal stepped closer to Lucifer. Despite Lucifer’s massive size, it was Tribunal who looked the most threatening. He didn’t raise his voice when he said, “I can compel them.”
“All of them?” countered Lucifer. “Can you control them all and still maintain the net you spun around God, Heaven, Earth, and Hell? Because I doubt it.”
Tribunal glared at Lucifer. Ishtar could see the sweat breaking out on the big Angel’s forehead. At last, Tribunal said, “Then what do you propose?”
“I send the 666th,” said Lucifer. “They establish a beachhead and start the killing. If they go unchallenged, then we send up the rest and lay waste to the entire world.”
“Not lay waste to it,” said Tribunal. “Kill the humans, scatter their animals, destroy their cities. Leave the rest of the world alone.”
“In case God sees through your illusion?”
“Yes,” said Tribunal. “And make sure your legion is more successful at killing humans than your squads were at killing Nyx.”
“They will kill her,” said Lucifer with confidence he didn’t feel.
“They are dead,” said Tribunal. “The last of them died under Rome when Nyx dropped half the city on their heads.”
That’s Nyx, all right, thought Ishtar. Pity she chose the wrong side. Stupid bitch.
“Unfortunate,” said Lucifer. His expression didn’t change at all, but Ishtar could feel the anger radiating from him. “They must have overestimated their abilities.”
“You overestimated their abilities,” said Tribunal.
“You’re the one who said I could only send fifty after them.”
“Because I thought it would be enough,” snapped Tribunal. “I thought that you Descended would be competent enough to dispatch one of your own without sending an entire legion. But apparently, I was wrong!”
“Well, this time, I’m dispatching a legion,” said Lucifer. “And this time the bitch will not be escaping at all.”
“This time,” said Tribunal, his voice cool and calm and very dangerous, “I will go to Earth and I will dispatch the bitch. You will prepare your legion. I want it on the surface by the time I return to Heaven.”
The light flared bright again, and Tribunal was gone. Lucifer stared at the spot where Tribunal had stood a moment longer. Then he turned and methodically smashed the bodies of each of the souls on the bar, ripping them in two with his hands, dashing their heads against the floor, and stomping on their flesh until there was nothing left but piles of blood and meat. When he was done, he grabbed Ishtar and fucked her on top of the remains.
Ishtar waited until he was finished, then said, “Shall I call out the legion?”
“Yes,” said Lucifer. “And anyone who is slow can spend the next thousand years in the Lake.”
Ishtar straightened up and walked out of the room, wincing with each step. “As you wish, my Dread Lord.” She snapped her fingers, and her lieutenants followed in her footsteps. And when I am done with Nyx and the humans, I will be coming after you.
“If we aren’t powerful enough to stop Tribunal,” said Nyx, “who is?”
“God,” said Persephone.
“Maybe,” said Epiphenia. “But from what I’ve seen, God doesn’t know what’s going on. Tribunal has hidden Creation from him.”
“Then someone has to tell him,” said Nyx.
“Arcana tried,” said Persephone. “Look how well that worked out.”
“Michael tried,” said Epiphenia. “With a half-million Angels. Tribunal stopped them all.”
“Shit,” said Nyx. “Shit, fuck, piss, and bugger them all.” Her eyes glowed fiery red in the darkness as she contemplated what she would do to Tribunal if she ever had him under her control. She thought hard about it. “What would happen if Tribunal left Heaven? Would we be able to reach God then?”
“Maybe,” said Epiphenia. “It depends whether we can break through the barrier.”
“Which we can’t do unless he’s distracted,” said Nyx, as much to herself as to the others. “So what would distract him?”
“Having all his plans go to pieces?” suggested Persephone.
“Which would be easier to do if we knew his plans.”
“But we don’t,” said Persephone. “So what do we do?”
Nyx frowned and thou
ght, and eventually sighed. “We wait.” She looked around the room. The dome of power did not block her view of the room, though she could see it shimmering. Tentatively, Nyx tried to send out her mind to feel the world, but it bounced off the dome. She frowned. “Epiphenia, can you feel the world?”
“Of course,” said Epiphenia. “I can feel all of the world, all the time.”
“Really?” Persephone said. She reached out with her mind and was blocked. “I can’t.”
“You’re made of the stuff of Heaven,” said Epiphenia. “I’m made of the stuff of the world, and I can feel it even here.”
“Then we wait here,” said Nyx. “You listen to Creation and watch for signs of Tribunal and we…” She looked at Persephone, who shrugged. “We will wait. We know how to do that.”
Tribunal appeared in Rome, just for the fun of it. He had not walked in the Eternal City in his human life. It was filled with squalor and pain and the hatred humans had for one another. Even in the churches dedicated to Jesus, he could sense humans praying for the death of their enemies or the ruination of their neighbors or worse. He let his senses wander through the city. There were places where women and their daughters stood side-by-side, selling their bodies for what coin they could earn. There were others where boys did the same, and greedy, rich men and women took a portion of the money and left their charges desperate and on the edge of starvation.
He walked down the street, fascinated and repulsed. Humanity, for all it had learned new ways to build and to write and to kill, had not changed since he had last been there.
“Spare some change, sir? Please?” asked a young boy, whose face was scarred by disease and covered in dirt. “Please, sir, my father is too sick even to beg.” He pointed to a man wrapped in a filthy cloak, shivering in a doorway. “Please, sir, he needs medicine.”
Tribunal reached out his senses. The man had gonorrhea, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. He would be dead in a matter of weeks. “Medicine won’t help,” said Tribunal. “He’s dying.”