“BECAUSE YOU COMMANDED IT!”
“Yes,” said Nyx. “And now, I’m commanding you to gain some small vengeance for your children. Or are your spawn so weak and powerless that they cannot even do that?”
The massive lump of vile flesh quivered even more. At last it demanded, “WHEN?”
“Now,” said Nyx. “Your brethren may attack any Descended that walks the surface of Hell or flies in the air above it.” Nyx grinned. “Excluding myself and Persephone, here. And when I return to you and tell you to stop, you will call them off, or I will order the Descended to cease torturing souls and spend the next thousand years killing demons until none of you are left.”
“I WILL OBEY.’
“Then do it,” said Nyx.
A ripple went through the mass of flesh that was the Mother of All. Then the room itself began to ripple, as if the Mother of All’s vibrations were flowing from it through the air to the walls and beyond. It spread through the area, making room, as if the air itself was moving. Every one of the thousand demons there raised its head and cocked it to the side, listening. Then they swarmed out of the chamber—running, scurrying, and flapping away from their mother in their eagerness to get out.
Nyx watched with approval as the room emptied. When the last one was gone, she turned to Persephone. “Right, this way.”
Nyx took off and flew out toward one of the tunnels. Persephone followed, calling, “This isn’t the way we got in.”
“Nope,” said Nyx. “This is the way to the Lake of Fire. There are a hundred Angels chained to the bottom of it, and we’re going to set them free. Figure they’ll make a good strike force.”
“They could have been there for a thousand years,” said Persephone as they landed at the tunnel mouth. Nyx began running up the tunnel. Persephone dogged her heels. “They’re probably insane!”
“And they’re all pissed off at Lucifer for putting them there,” Nyx called over her shoulder. “Can you think of a better group to set on him while we gather forces?”
“True,” said Persephone. “How are we going to reach the Lake of Fire without someone spotting us?”
“Did you ever think about where the Hellfire comes from that feeds the Lake?”
“Can’t say that I have, no.”
“Well, you’re about to learn. And swim in it.”
“And here I thought I wasn’t going to have any fun,” muttered Persephone.
Nyx grinned and kept running. It took close to an hour of dodging through tunnels and avoiding the larger demons that lurked there before they came to a vast underground lake of Hellfire. Persephone’s eyes went wide. “Holy Shit!”
In the center of the Lake, a large column of Hellfire flowed upward into a hole in the ceiling.
“That’s not possible,” said Persephone.
“Not possible on Earth,” corrected Nyx. “Hell is a lot more interesting than some people think.”
“You could make this a tourist attraction.”
“If I didn’t need to keep it a secret for grand entrances,” said Nyx. “Ready to get burned?”
“Can’t be worse than the last time,” said Persephone. “Same old sins, crimes, yada, yada.” Nyx knew she was putting on a show. It was always a hideous shock to suffer what you had done to others. Humans, especially, felt such extravagant misery.
Together they launched into the air and flew toward the pillar of cold flame.
Tribunal entered Heaven through the Gate this time, instead of sneaking in through another dimension. There was no need. God could not see or hear anything that happened in Heaven anymore. The angels who were near the Gate smiled at him and went on their ways. Tribunal took his time walking, enjoying the view that he had not seen since he was brought through the Gates himself, a thousand years before.
Michael was still there, welcoming souls into Heaven. On a whim, Tribunal joined the line. When he reached Michael, he smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder. “An excellent job, you’re doing, Michael. Like a good guard dog.”
“You will not succeed at this,” said Michael. “God will stop you.”
“God has no hope of stopping me,” said Tribunal. “He’s blind. Observe.”
Tribunal turned and kicked one of the souls out of the line and out of Heaven. The soul screamed and would continue screaming all the way down to Earth. Tribunal stood with his hands up and his arms wide waiting. “I don’t feel any smiting. Do you?”
Michael frowned even more deeply. “That soul did nothing to deserve that.”
“I know,” said Tribunal. “I don’t care. And neither should you, really. You have a bigger problem.” He leaned in and whispered in Michael’s ear. “Very soon, all of you are going to cease to exist.”
Michael blanched at the thought, though he didn’t—couldn’t—move. Tribunal leaned back and smiled. “Very soon now, Michael. Very soon. Oh, and Arcana says hi.”
Tribunal pointed at his waist, and Michael saw Arcana’s head hanging there. He opened his mouth to shout, to call out a warning. Tribunal waved his hand, and Michael’s mouth vanished entirely.
“Much better,” said Tribunal. “I should really do that to all of you. Your voices sicken me. Did you know that? So calm, so smug, so self-satisfied. So genteel.” His smile went wider. “Maybe I’ll crucify you all like God had done to me. Maybe that will help you all understand a bit better before you vanish from existence.”
“We have all felt pain,” sent Michael. “We have fought wars in Heaven, and we know what it is to be in agony.”
“But you have no idea what it is to be created to be in agony,” snarled Tribunal. “By your loving Father. In order to save worms. No. You all can just die and vanish, like the rest of Creation.” And with that, Tribunal stalked off across the plains of Heaven. A moment later he vanished, and Michael could sense him appearing on God’s mountain, taking his seat on the right of the Throne of God. Michael closed his eyes and concentrated all his power. It was a struggle, but his mouth slowly, painfully, reappeared.
And then, because he was unable to do anything else, Michael turned back to the souls coming in and welcomed them one by one.
In the skies above Firozkoh, the 666th legion of Descended circled like a flock of giant vultures, waiting to feast on the dead. The day was bright and sunny, but the huge mass of black angel wings blocked the sun.
Far below, Ishtar could see the humans staring up into the sky in horror. Some had fallen to their knees and were weeping; others were fleeing into temples to desperately pray to a God who was not listening. It made Ishtar smile.
“Now!” she shouted.
A scream rang out from the throats of five thousand Descended as they dropped from the sky. It was a scream born of rage: at the humans who so deserved the Hell that the Descended had fallen into; at the dark, bloody, vicious world in which they had been forced to live for eons; and more than anything else, at God.
They fell on the city with swords and whips, talons and teeth, killing randomly and indiscriminately. Women, children, and men all fell before them. Some of the city’s guardsmen and soldiers rallied together to try to put up a fight. They were no match for the Descended.
None of them are matches for us, crowed Ishtar as she flew at street level, hacking apart every living thing in her way. This city will be ours in hours. And then all of humanity will be ground to dust beneath our feet!
And then the Earth itself attacked, and silver blood splashed down upon the streets like rain.
Giant tentacles of stone drove up out of the ground, wrapping around Descended and smashing them to the city streets. Spikes of granite and diamond smashed through Angelic armor as though it were paper, piercing hearts, and leaving piles of silver dust floating in their wake. Razor-edged stones flew like shrapnel in all directions—and from all directions—at once, slashing through flesh, ripping limbs and wings and heads from bodies.
In the first seconds, a hundred Descended turned to dust. By the end of the first minute,
it was a thousand.
“Who is doing this?” hundreds of panicked voices demanded in Ishtar’s head.
No Angel can do this, thought Ishtar as she rose straight up into the sky. No one has this sort of power in Heaven or Hell except Tribunal and God.
Her mind flashed back to Hell and the green that streaked Nyx’s skin and hair and blade.
But she was dead. I watched Lucifer saw her in half. And I saw Tribunal eat her heart. She died!
But nothing dies in Hell.
“Everyone into the sky. NOW!” Ishtar sent to the Descended. “I know who’s doing this.”
“Do you know how to stop them?” someone demanded.
“Her,” returned Ishtar as she flew straight up into the sky. “And before we can stop her, I have to find her.”
She watched as hundreds more of her legion were smashed to the Earth or ripped to pieces before they gained enough of the sky to avoid the tentacles of stone and shards of razor rock.
“Listen up!” Ishtar’s voice carried through the remaining Descended. “The thing that is doing this is an abomination called Epiphenia! She’s an Angel of Earth and apparently she doesn’t like us wrecking her toys.”
She surveyed the Angels around her. “Unfortunately, I don’t give a fuck. We have a job to do and if any of you want to live to see Paradise you need to do it.” She grinned. “Fortunately, there’s more than one way to kill humans.” She held out her sword, turned the point down, and changed it into a wide-winged, razor-edged, giant dart. She raised her arm and hurled it down so hard it became a blur. Far below a woman’s head exploded, and her body split apart as the dart smashed through her and cut her in half. A wave of Ishtar’s hand sent the dart winging up into the air again.
“Keep killing them,” said Ishtar. “Squad one with me. We’re going hunting!”
Lucifer was fucking again. It was his true passion, more than his desire for power or his enjoyment of the screams of his victims. Lucifer loved fucking. And he loved it most when his partner was someone who hated it but did it anyway.
No one hated it more than Leannis.
She despised Lucifer. She hated his face, hated his touch, hated the scent of him. Every time he touched her, a little of her died inside, and she cursed God who had made them immortal so she could not ever escape him.
Lucifer liked to watch her helpless disgust. He was in the middle of fucking her, her legs on his shoulders, his hand on her chin, forcing her to look up at him, when all the demons of Hell rose up and attacked.
The claws of the three succubae and two incubi that Lucifer kept in the room as his servants ripped into the flesh of his back. He shouted in surprise and tore them apart. Their broken, dismembered bodies smashed against the floors and their black blood spattered the walls. Lucifer roared in anger at their bloody remains, then stomped on them. When they’d stopped twitching entirely, he grabbed Leannis and threw her over onto her stomach, intending to take out his rage on her ass. That was when he heard the sounds of battle raging across the plains of Hell.
A thought brought his armor into being. He drew his sword and his long, razor-studded whip. He threw open the door of what had once been Nyx’s bedroom and stomped into the hallway, giant, cloven-hoofed boots encasing his feet as he went.
The first demons flew at him from the walls. The next leapt up at him from the floors. He dispatched them all with cuts from his sword and slashes of his talon-edged fingers. He stomped others under the heels of his boots. He was nearly at the end of the hallway when he heard Leannis screaming in pain and anger. The sound of it made him laugh.
By the time he reached the front entrance, his laughter was gone. Lucifer had killed nearly a hundred demons, yet still they came at him. From above and below, large and small, they attacked him. Their teeth and claws weren’t strong or sharp enough to pierce his armor, so they went for his face. When enough of them swarmed him at once, one or two got through, ripping into his flesh. He would shout then, and throw Hellfire from his fingers to incinerate them. His flesh healed fast enough that the bites were gone only moments after they’d been delivered. Even so, it infuriated him that they dared touch him.
He stepped out onto the plains of Hell and looked upon chaos. The Descended there had left the souls they were torturing and were flying high above the plains, swooping down on the demons that had risen from the ground. As Lucifer watched, a new pit opened in the surface of Hell and a thousand winged demons flew out, racing up into the sky to attack the Descended there. The Descended slashed through the demons as if they were made of paper, scattering demon blood and bodies all over the surface of Hell. Still more flew out, and the thousand winged demons became tens of thousands.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lucifer wondered.
The ground beneath Lucifer’s feet opened up and for a moment he was falling. Then something huge, with a mouth full of teeth as long as Lucifer was tall erupted out of the ground. Its mouth closed around Lucifer’s thighs and bit down hard. These teeth were strong enough to penetrate Lucifer’s armor and the flesh and bone beneath it. Lucifer screamed and slashed down with his blade. The creature let out its own horrible roar and clamped down, biting off both Lucifer’s legs as it sank deep into the Earth. Lucifer roared and threw fire down after it. Deep beneath the earth he heard the pain-filled bellow of the creature as his fire struck home. The sound was gratifying but did nothing to numb the pain at the severed stumps of his legs.
“Legions! Form up!” Lucifer shouted, sending his voice the length and breadth of Hell. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I will not stand for it! We are the rulers of Hell! And if the demon scum need to be taught that lesson again, then we will teach it to them!” He winged higher into the sky. The pain in the stumps of his legs changed as the bleeding stopped, and the healing began. It was a new form of agony, just as bad as the other, but in an entirely different way.
“Form up in your legions!” he shouted again. “Armor and weapons ready. First we sweep the skies and kill anything that flies up after us. Then we sweep the ground and what’s below it. Between now and when Tribunal calls us to the surface, we kill every fucking one we can find, even if we have to dig a pit through to the bottom of Hell! Fucking ATTACK!”
All the Descended in Hell roared out in rage, and the slaughter truly began.
The pillar of Hellfire threw Nyx and Persephone higher and higher until it spat them out at the bottom of the Lake of Fire. Nyx could hear Persephone fighting the pain and grabbed her hand. They didn’t need to stay down long, she knew. Just long enough to find the ones chained to the bottom of the Lake. And unlike last time, Nyx could use her mind to find them. She reached out and in moments knew where each one was. She sent instructions to Persephone, and the two broke apart.
Minutes later, Nyx and Persephone breached the surface of the Lake, flying high into the sky, with one hundred deranged, furious Descended, who had been chained at the bottom of the Lake of Fire for a thousand years, flying after them. Nyx pinpointed Lucifer with her mind and pointed with her sword. “That way!” she screamed. “Go after him! Kill him!”
The hundred Descended went. Nyx grinned as she watched them grow, then grinned again as she felt Lucifer sensing her presence. He was in great pain, which pleased her immensely. “Hello, Lucy,” she sent, using the nickname he hated most. “I’m back, and I’m coming for you!”
“You are aware that he has all the legions of Hell at his command?” said Persephone. “That would be what, five million Angels?”
“About that,” said Nyx. “Give or take the 1,358 that changed their mind before the battle began and went back to the side of God.”
“Well, as long as we don’t have them to worry about we’ll be fine,” said Persephone. She sighed. “I hope he does something different to me this time. That statue thing was boring.”
“You should try being crushed, stuffed in a box, and tossed to the bottom of the lake,” said Nyx.
“If you don’t have an id
ea soon,” said Persephone, “I’m pretty sure I’ll get my chance.”
“I already have an idea,” said Nyx. “I’ve had it since we left Earth.”
“Care to share?”
“Exactly,” said Nyx. She opened her mind again, and this time she opened it fully, so that any of the Descended could read it. “All of you!” Nyx sent. “Listen to me. Tribunal isn’t going to give you Paradise. He’s going to destroy Creation! And we’re the only ones who can stop him!”
Chapter 14
“How the fuck do I find this bitch?” snarled Ishtar, as she and her squad flew high above the Earth. Well below her she could see the remaining Angels of the 666th flying over the city, dropping their dart-shaped swords onto the humans gathered below. It didn’t matter if they were seeking shelter, or if they had retreated far below the Earth. The darts found them anyway. At least the bitch won’t stop us killing them all, Ishtar thought.
As if in response, the wind roared from all directions at once, throwing the Descended below her against one another. Dark wings flapped desperately as they sought to counter the winds, but there was no single wind to counter. If they braced one way, they were hit from another direction. No matter what, they could not hold their places. Any swords dropped on the city below were caught in the winds like ships caught in a maelstrom of waves and whirlpools.
“Fucking bitch!” screamed Ishtar. “Come face me, you whore!”
Far away, far below the Earth, Epiphenia sat in the magic circle in Nyx’s cave. It took a small amount of power for her to use the magic of the circle to block her from Descended senses. They were so much less powerful than God or Tribunal. And because Epiphenia was neither of Heaven or Hell, she could easily send her power out of the magic circle.
All of Creation was hers to command, and she was going to use it.
High above the 666th Legion, hail began to form in spikes.
“Nyx!” Lucifer’s voice was angrier than Nyx had ever heard it, and she had made Lucifer furious over the eons. “I’m coming for you, bitch! Legions! Form up!”