“No, sir! Please, sir! I’ll do whatever you like, sir! Just please spare a little money for us?”
Tribunal stared at the child a moment, and then waved a hand at the boy’s father. The man screamed and convulsed, his body flailing as the organs inside him ruptured and turned to liquid. The boy ran over to him, screaming his father’s name and calling for help. Tribunal watched in amusement as the man’s flailing limbs caught his son on the face and knocked the boy over. A moment later the man died. Tribunal smiled as the man’s soul sunk down toward Hell.
“Problem solved,” said Tribunal. He looked down at Arcana’s head and turned the eyes to face him. Arcana was glaring. “They’ll all be dead in a matter of days, anyway,” said Tribunal. “His was probably a better end than the boy will have at the hands of the Descended.”
He left the boy crying at the feet of his dead father and transported himself to the remains of the Coliseum. He sat down on the top of the wall, chuckling as Arcana’s head, tied to his belt by its long hair, bounced against the stone. He set it facing the city. Then Tribunal closed his eyes and began searching for Nyx.
“He’s here,” said Epiphenia, bringing both Nyx and Persephone out of their trances. “Tribunal is on Earth.”
“He is?”
“In Rome,” said Epiphenia. She squinted slightly as if looking at something far away. “Searching for you.”
“And?” asked Nyx. “Can he see us?”
Epiphenia continued squinting at the vision only she could see. “I don’t think so.”
“Can we try to reach Heaven?” asked Persephone. “Now while he’s busy?”
Nyx shook her head. “He’ll catch us as soon as we leave here and kill us both.”
“Wait,” said Epiphenia. “There’s someone with him…”
Where is that bitch? Tribunal wondered. He concentrated harder. He could sense where she had been. He could feel the places where her Angelic blood had fallen, though they were several hundred miles away. He could see the dust of her victims. He could sense the ichor and dust, all that was left of the nine Descended, buried beneath the streets of Rome.
But nowhere could he find Nyx or Persephone.
Frustrated, Tribunal rose into the air. Maybe the bitch is dead.
He scanned the world with every sense, reached out with his mind to the farthest corners of the world and still found nothing.
And while he did that, Epiphenia reached out. “Arcana?”
Arcana’s head would have twisted around on her neck in surprise, had it not been hanging from Tribunal’s belt. As it was, her eyes bulged and darted around. “Epiphenia!” she sent. “Get out of here!”
“I am safe,” Epiphenia sent back. “We are safe.”
“Open your mind,” said Arcana. “There’s no time for talking. He may notice any second now.”
She felt Epiphenia open her mind, and Arcana poured into her everything that had happened after her attempt to reach Heaven. She could feel Epiphenia’s sorrow at what had happened to her. “Don’t be sorry for me,” Arcana snapped. “Avenge me. STOP HIM!”
“And what are we talking about, my little Angel?” asked Tribunal. “And who are we talking to?”
Epiphenia’s presence vanished, and Arcana was engulfed in pain. She could feel tortures and abuses all over her body—even though she didn’t have one anymore. She could hear Tribunal chuckling in pleasure as her mouth opened in a long, silent scream. Desperately, she closed off the one small part of her mind that held the conversation. Tribunal ruthlessly rooted through the rest of her memories, tearing them out and throwing them away, threatening to leave her with nothing but a blank, empty space where eons of years in Heaven had once been. The pain she was feeling grew more and more intense. Tribunal hammered against the barriers in her mind, adding a new, deeper level of agony she had never felt before.
Still she kept the walls of her mind firmly shut around the memory of the conversation. She would not last long, she knew, but maybe she could last long enough.
Deep in the Earth, in the dome of power that kept them hidden, Epiphenia opened her mind to Persephone and Nyx, sharing all that had been. Both Descended soon wore expressions as grim as her own.
“Well,” said Persephone. “Now we know he’s not going to destroy Creation until most of the humans are killed, in case God notices what’s happening.”
“And we know Lucifer won’t commit the full force of Hell until he’s sure God won’t punish them all,” said Nyx. She bit her lip, and her eyes unfocused, and she thought about it. There just might be a way…
“And that Ishtar is leading the first wave of Descended,” said Persephone. “I want to kill her. Can I?”
“As soon as Tribunal is sure God is distracted, he will come to Earth and wipe out all of Creation.”
“Does he really have that kind of power?” asked Persephone.
Epiphenia nodded. “He does.”
“Fuck.”
“Yes.”
“I think,” said Nyx, then she stopped. “No. We can’t. None of us can get into Heaven.”
“Why not?” asked Epiphenia. “Why can’t you go into Heaven?”
“It’s forbidden,” said Nyx. “When God cast us out and sent us to Hell, he declared that all Descended Angels were forbidden Heaven for all eternity. That for any of us to set foot on Heaven’s soil was to blaspheme against all that was good and holy, to go against God’s law. The offender would face God’s wrath and be unmade.”
Epiphenia tilted her head. “Is Heaven’s Gate closed to you, then? Or are you just forbidden?”
“I…” Nyx stopped and thought about it. “He said nothing about the Gate being closed.”
“He said that if we were to touch a foot onto Heaven’s soil, we’d be unmade,” said Persephone. “That’s close enough.”
“But that means that we could set foot on Heaven’s soil,” said Nyx.
“If we want to be instantly unmade,” said Persephone.
“You’re going to be unmade anyway if Tribunal gets his way,” said Epiphenia.
“I don’t want to be unmade,” said Persephone. “It would hurt.”
“He didn’t say we would be instantly unmade,” said Nyx. “He said we would face the wrath of God and be unmade.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Nyx. “In order to face the wrath of God, God has to come to you. He has to pay attention. There may be a chance to speak. ”
Persephone whistled. “That is a dangerous game you want to play.”
“It is,” agreed Nyx.
“You’re willing to face being unmade?” Nyx knew what Persephone meant. She was facing that anyway, but facing it by choice, not fighting…was different. Nyx had seen thousands of humans sacrifice themselves for their families or their causes over the years and had never had a clue what would impel someone to do that. She had assumed that since they were mortal anyway, it just didn’t matter as much to them…. She saw it otherwise now. She felt an immense sadness, remembering her eons of life, of pleasure and awareness and power. To give it all up… no, she didn’t want to. Not at all.
“Yes,” she said. “I am willing. The question is how do we get it to work?” Epiphenia beamed at her and Nyx had the uncomfortable sense that her daughter was proud.
“Tribunal can’t be in Heaven,” said Persephone. “Or he’ll stop you.”
“And he can’t have enough spare power to block the Gates,” said Epiphenia. “Or you won’t get through.”
“Which means we need to have him either on Earth or in Hell,” said Nyx.
“Earth,” said Epiphenia. “On Earth I can fight against him.”
“You said you can’t beat him,” said Nyx.
“I can’t,” said Epiphenia. “But I can buy time. He isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.”
“What if the Descended don’t arrive?” asked Nyx. “What if the Descended remain in Hell?”
“They won’t,” said Persephone. “The 666
th is already on its way.”
“I can stop the 666th,” said Epiphenia.
Persephone’s eyebrows went up. “You can stop five thousand Descended Angels armed to the teeth and out for blood?”
“Yes.”
Both Nyx and Persephone stared at Epiphenia. She looked back impassively. Quietly, Nyx said, “Are you really that powerful, Daughter?”
“Yes.”
“But you can’t stop Tribunal,” said Persephone.
“No.”
Persephone whistled and sat back.
“If you can stop the 666th,” said Nyx, “we can stop the others.”
“How?” demanded Persephone.
Nyx grinned. “We keep them busy.”
Persephone looked wary. “Again I ask, how?”
“With a war,” said Nyx. “It’s been far too long since there was a war in Hell, don’t you think?”
Persephone grinned back. “Oh, yes. Yes, it has.” She looked at Epiphenia. “Try to keep Ishtar alive until we get back.”
“Don’t smile yet,” said Nyx. We’re going to go back in the way we came out.”
Persephone’s smile dropped. “I hate you. Passionately.”
Nyx’s grin grew wider. “I know.”
“When do we leave?”
“As soon as we can do it without Tribunal seeing us.”
In Hell, Ishtar stood in front of five thousand Descended, staring up at the sky above the Lake of Fire. Lucifer hovered there, looking down at them all. His sneer was identical to the one he wore the last time Ishtar was there, a thousand years before. Then, Lucifer had made the Descended fight for the right to be with Nyx on Earth, and had planned for Descended loyal to himself to reach it. Instead, it had been Persephone and Ishtar.
My, how things change, thought Ishtar.
“Legion!” Lucifer’s voice rolled out over Hell. “Stand ready!”
The legion roared in response.
“Today we take back what is ours!” shouted Lucifer. “Today the Earth once more becomes our plaything! And when we are done with it, we shall have a new Paradise to call our own!” The legion roared louder, and Lucifer smiled down on them. “You are our Vanguard; our beachhead onto the Earth. And behind you shall come all those in Hell loyal to me! Together, we shall wipe out humanity and free ourselves from Hell!” Lucifer’s whip lashed skyward, and the crack of it echoed through Hell. A huge gaping hole was torn in the sky. “Go forth, and destroy the humans!”
“Charge!” screamed Ishtar as she flew up. “To Earth, to glory, and to Paradise!”
Five thousand Descended roared and leapt skyward, following her into the hole in the sky.
Tribunal glared down at Arcana’s head. The eyes were squeezed tight shut, and the mouth twisted in agony. Still he had not broken through her barriers. He considered applying more power, then shrugged it off.
So what if Nyx is still out there? She is nothing more than an Angel now, and a Descended one at that. She has no special powers, and she is banned from Heaven. There is nothing she can do. Tribunal briefly considered stopping the tortures he was inflicting on Arcana, but didn’t. Let her learn what it is to disobey me.
He looked over Rome once more, then, with a thought, vanished from the Earth.
“He’s gone,” said Epiphenia.
“Good,” said Nyx. With a thought, she broke the barrier that surrounded them and rose to her feet. She pulled her whip from her belt and cracked it against the floor. A tear in the fabric of the universe opened up, revealing a long dark spiral that would take them back down to Hell. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 13
Ishtar clawed her way up the sides of the pit, her finger and toenails digging into the rock walls like steel spikes through wood. Below her she could hear the grunts of effort of the five thousand Angels who followed, and squabbles from those in the back. She grinned to herself. As they’d flown up, she’d told them that the last Angel through would get to spend a hundred years in the Lake of Fire. It had done wonders for keeping them moving.
Ishtar had picked the place for them to come out onto the earth. It was a teeming city in the mountains of Afghanistan. It had Christians, Muslims and Jews—all the people who claimed to follow God—living together in one place. Outside of Jerusalem, before the Christians arrived, it was one of the best places to test whether God was listening to the prayers of his people. Tribunal said God wasn’t.
But Tribunal isn’t the one who is going to risk his ass, Ishtar thought.
The thin light from the crack in the world above was growing steadily brighter. Now, when she looked up, Ishtar could see clouds, and the occasional bird that veered momentarily above the hole, only to pull away again as soon as it sensed what was below it.
It won’t be long now, thought Ishtar. First the humans. Then Nyx. Then I’ll see what I can do about Lucifer.
Above, on a slope looking over the crack that had appeared in the earth, Abdullah was running. He was in charge of his father’s flock, and things were going very badly since the crack in the meadow had opened. Two sheep had fallen, and the others had stampeded away. It had not been as it usually was with earthquakes. There had been no warning, no restlessness among the animals or silence among the birds and insects. Everything had been normal.
Then the crack had opened in the Earth and swallowed two of his sheep.
It would mean a beating, Abdullah thought woefully. A beating and his father would yell about how useless he was in front of the entire family. Then his father would complain about it in the market as well, Abdullah was sure. It wasn’t fair.
And even if he could claim it wasn’t his fault, he’d get a much worse beating if he allowed any more sheep to fall in, which was why he was running now.
Most of the sheep, stupid though they were, had sense enough to get away from the edge of the pit. Abdullah had spent most of the morning rounding them up from all sides and leading them to a small bowl between two peaks. It wasn’t the best grazing, but it would keep them safe.
There was one, though, that had eluded all efforts from Abdullah to claim it. A stupid young male who knew where the best grazing was, and it didn’t care in the slightest that a chasm had opened up in the middle of it. And so now Abdullah was racing down the mountainside, trying to catch the stupid beast before it wandered too close to the pit and fell in.
He had just about reached the pit when he heard a girl crying for help.
Allah, help me! Abdullah thought. He hadn’t seen anyone in the meadow. He ran to the chasm, stopping ten feet from the edge and dropping to his knees. He crawled to the sound of the voice until he reached the edge. There, just below him, was a girl, maybe a year younger than his own fourteen. Her headscarf and veil had been ripped away, and she was staring up at him with wide green eyes rimmed with dirt and tears. She was clinging to the grass on the edge of the pit.
“Please,” she begged. “Please, help me.”
Abdullah knelt down and grabbed one of the girl’s hands. “Use your legs,” he said. “Push yourself up! I’ll pull!”
He pulled as hard as he could, scrabbling in the dirt and grass as she rose higher and higher out of the pit. Then she stumbled forward, caught his shirt and fell over on top of him. The two sprawled back on the ground. Abdullah gasped for breath. The girl clung to him, her smaller body pushed hard against his. He was suddenly aware that her breasts were small and round and that the join of her thighs was right on top of his crotch. He felt himself stiffen at once. He swallowed and tried to sit up.
“No, don’t,” the girl said. “Not yet. Please. Please.” She put her mouth on his and kissed him. Abdullah’s eyes went wide with surprise. She smiled and started grinding her hips against him.
“Please, stop.” The pleasure was greater than anything he’d ever experienced, and Abdullah knew it was completely sinful. “What… what are you…?”
“I’m making your last moments happy,” said Ishtar, sitting up. “Because I’m nice like that. But since you don
’t want me to…”
Abdullah’s shock turned to horror. The little girl was gone, replaced by a huge, naked woman with black-feathered wings and red eyes. Abdullah screamed and thrashed wildly, trying to get away. Beyond her, from the pit, he saw hundreds more of the creatures crawling onto the surface, then spreading their wings and leaping into the air, like so many grotesque red and black beetles taking flight.
Then Ishtar leaned over him, mouth wide and filled with jagged, razor-edged teeth. She clamped them down over his neck, and Abdullah’s world went black.
Ishtar rose to her feet and spat out the boy’s flesh as blood fountained out of the remains of his neck. “Gather together!” she shouted as she spread her wings and leapt into the air. “When everyone is out, we go! We all hit the city at once. Let’s see how fast we can turn it into ruins!”
Nyx’s wings snapped wide, arresting her fall. She heard Persephone’s wings do the same a moment later. Together they hovered in the black, reeking air above the Mother of All’s pit. Every demon in the massive room turned eyes toward them at once.
“Hear me, Mother of All!” commanded Nyx. “I require your services.”
“YOU WERE NOT TO COME BACK HERE,” said the massive creature below. “WE SAID NOT TO COME BACK!”
“What you said has no bearing,” replied Nyx. “I am Queen of Hell and you will obey me or be destroyed!”
The bloated, oozing lump of flesh quivered. Demons ripped and tore their way out of its body or were pushed out in a spurt of stinking pus. Nyx waited. At last the demon said. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
“The Descended need to be taught a lesson,” said Nyx. “You will unleash your brethren on them across Hell.”
“THEY WILL BE DESTROYED!”
“Then you will make more of them,” said Nyx. “Your kind have been playthings for the Descended for eons. They have used you for sport, for sex, and for food. Millions of your children have died at their hands, and millions more will continue to die.”