“Nyx has taken Hell!” the bird shrieked. “She has used the demons to destroy my armies. We are abandoning Hell to destroy humanity, as was your wish, but she pursues, and she will try to stop us!”
“Miserable failure!” hissed Tribunal. He would have stamped his feet, were there anything to stamp them on. “You dare bring me such news?”
“Come to Earth,” said the bird. “Help us defeat Nyx. If God notices, you can tell him it was a Descended uprising that you and I were trying to quell to protect humanity. And if God doesn’t notice, then we will destroy humanity, and you will have your wish come true!”
Tribunal frowned. Lucifer had failed him; of that there was no doubt. And no matter how much Lucifer tried to spin it otherwise, Tribunal was going to punish the Descended fiercely before he unmade him and the rest of Creation.
He turned his attention away from the shrike in Sheol, and back to his model of Creation. With a single thought, the last of the gaps in his illusion of the word were filled. God is now blind and deaf and dumb, Tribunal thought. Now it is my time.
Now, Creation will be unmade, and all shall be remade in my image.
He rose from his place and with another thought, transported himself back to Heaven. He pulled his entire self there and rose from his place beside God’s throne. This would be the last time he would walk through Heaven. And this would be the last day that any souls came to Heaven. Soon, nothing would be left of it, or of Creation, or of Hell. Soon, the only thing that remained would be Tribunal.
And then all would begin again the way it should be, with all praising and worshipping Tribunal. In his Creation, there would be no rebels.
Tribunal took his time, enjoying the last view of the Heaven he hated so much, and enjoying even more the thought of how desperate Lucifer was, down on Earth.
Chapter 15
Archangel Michael, leader of the Heavenly Host, General of God’s Army, and greatest warrior in Creation, watched as Tribunal walked slowly across Heaven. Michael wished desperately that he could draw his sword, or even call out to the others, but he could not. Tribunal had forbidden it. He felt tears coming to his eyes as he saw the smile on the little godling’s face. Aspect of God or not, as powerful as God himself or not, Tribunal was no longer the Son of God in Michael’s eyes. He was only a godling. An upstart and a misery to all who knew him.
The vain, miserable little man still had Arcana’s head on his belt.
No one noticed.
“Michael? Michael, can you hear me?”
It was Epiphenia, sending to him from Earth. He could not answer back. Tribunal had forbidden it.
“Michael, the hosts of Hell are rising to the surface. Nyx is fighting Lucifer for control of all of Hell and Earth, and is trying to save humanity. Is there nothing you can do?”
Michael, warrior of God, said nothing. He watched as Tribunal approached the Gates of Heaven. Nyx was the one trying to save humanity—Nyx!—and this one was trying to destroy it. God would be very interested, but God didn’t know and there was nothing Michael could do about that.
Tribunal smiled at Michael. “I just wanted you to be the first to know,” he said. “This will be the last day that Heaven exists. Enjoy it.”
Tribunal stepped through the Gates and off the edge of Heaven, falling to the chaos on the Earth below.
It was night when Lucifer’s gate opened in the middle of the deserted streets of Firozkoh, sending buildings tumbling down into the great open pit. No one was there to witness it or to see the red glow from the pit reflecting off the clouds above. The few surviving residents had fled from the half-destroyed city, leaving their belongings behind them. No one was there to see Lucifer crawl out of the pit and stand on the surface of the world for the first time in a thousand years, or to see him take a deep breath of air free of the stench of hellfire and human suffering.
No one was there to see the hundred thousand Descended who crawled out after him, boiling out of the pit like giant deformed ants from a hill that had been kicked, to stand on the surface of the Earth. They drew swords and whips as soon as they reached the surface and gazed hungrily at the world around them, eager to destroy all humanity and claim the planet for their own.
Then the Earth erupted around them with stone tentacles and blades of granite that sheared through Angelic steel. From above lightning and hail pounded down on them.
“Get in the air!” screamed Lucifer. “Get in the air and spread out! Kill every human on the planet!”
The Descended tried to rise from the ground, but the wind, raging before, became stronger than any seen in the world since the firestorms of Creation, pushing them flat to the ground.
On a plateau on a nearby mountain, another rift opened in the ground, and Nyx’s army poured out. As soon as they were free of the pit they took to the sky. Half a million of her Descended had followed her from Hell. The others had stayed behind to bring Lucifer’s remaining followers in line and to see to it that the demons returned to their places. The sheer numbers of the demons had frightened some of the Descended, and they were determined to assert their dominance over Hell once more.
Nyx didn’t care. Her army outnumbered Lucifer’s five to one, and she had Epiphenia fighting on her side. If they could reach Lucifer, she could crush him once and for all. I might even kill the bastard. And this time he won’t get to come back from it.
She realized that the certainty of her own death or unmaking was bothering her less and less. It was just what had to be done.
Nyx ordered her army into the air and had it encircle Firozkoh, just out of the reach of the brutal storm that was crushing Lucifer’s army. “No one escapes!” Nyx shouted. “No one gets past our line and out to attack the humans!” She grinned as she looked through the storm. Lucifer’s Descended and Lucifer himself were crawling on their hands and knees, trying to fight off the stone tentacles that relentlessly smashed into them or squeezed the life out of them. “Epiphenia, can you hear me?” Nyx sent.
“Mother!” Nyx could hear the joy in Epiphenia’s voice. “I hear you!”
“Let the storm drop,” said Nyx. “We’re in position.”
The winds and rain and hail all stopped at once. The tentacles retreated into the Earth. Lucifer’s troops, stunned as much by the sudden silence as they had been by the storm, blinked stupidly.
“Charge!” Nyx screamed.
Five hundred thousand Angels plunged down on the remains of Lucifer’s army, and Firozkoh became a killing field.
A hundred miles above the Earth, falling faster than sound, Tribunal saw the two armies clashing. He saw Lucifer desperately trying to rally his troops, and the armies of Nyx smashing down every Descended Angel that served Lucifer. And in the middle of it, screaming with rage, Nyx drove full-force toward Lucifer, her blade clearing a path through the battling Descended to get to the King of Hell.
She might just win, thought Tribunal. Not that it matters.
Persephone wasn’t in the battle. She was going the other way, zeroing in on the one Descended presence she had been hoping to find. Her flight took her from the mountains of Afghanistan to the streets of Kabul, where Ishtar was sitting in a steam room in a bathhouse in the middle of the city. From the air, Persephone could smell the blood of all the men and boys Ishtar had killed in the building.
Persephone landed, not bothering to hide herself from the locals. They had all seen enough to traumatize them forever. She wondered idly what gods they believed in now. She folded her wings in and stepped inside, her sword and whip in hand.
Ishtar was naked, stretched out on a stone bench, luxuriating in the steam. Blood made the floor slippery, and the naked, broken bodies of men and boys lay around her. She didn’t bother opening her eyes when she said, “Hello, Persephone.”
“Bitch,” said Persephone. “You want to die lying down or standing up?”
“I’m not here to die,” said Ishtar. “I’m here to talk.”
“I’m not.” Persephone’s blade cle
aved down in an arc of black light. Ishtar just managed to roll off the bench and to her feet before the bench exploded into shards of rock.
“I’m very disappointed,” Ishtar said, her armor sliding over her body and her own sword and whip leaping to her hands. “I thought you’d want to be friends with the new Queen of Hell.”
Nyx cut through the last of the Descended between her and Lucifer. The Prince of Darkness was fending off three of Nyx’s troops, hacking and slashing at them with lightning speed. As Nyx watched, one was cut out of the sky and sent tumbling to the Earth. Another had a wing torn from her body by the force of Lucifer’s whip and was sent spinning.
“Enough!” Nyx screamed, and her voice carried over the sound of battle and to the ears of every Descended Angel in both armies. “Lucifer! YOU ARE MINE!”
The other Descended fighting Lucifer backpedaled hurriedly away. Lucifer turned. The force of his blade meeting Nyx’s was enough to make both blades shiver. He snarled at her, and Nyx snarled back.
“You stupid fuck,” growled Nyx as her sword slid around his and the point jabbed at Lucifer’s face. “He’s going to destroy everything!”
“He’s going to give us Paradise,” snapped Lucifer, muscling his blade around to block Nyx’s and then hacking back at her hands.
“Don’t be so fucking stupid!” Nyx said, her voice loud enough to carry over the entirety of the battle. “Tribunal never did anything for anyone! And he sure as fuck isn’t going to do anything for us!”
“You lie!” screamed Lucifer. “You just want to be his pet!” He launched a complex attack, smashing through Nyx’s defenses, only to find that Nyx had used his momentum to put him in range to have his head removed. He spun in the air and let himself drop thirty feet to escape her blade. “Well, you fucked up, and now he’s going to destroy you, bitch!”
Lucifer launched himself up, whipping and slashing as he went.
The bathhouse shuddered as Ishtar flung Persephone into one of the pillars. Rock and brick shattered and spewed out into the steam room, chipping the walls and making the bodies of the dead shudder with the force of impact. Persephone pushed herself off the column, her whip snapping into Ishtar’s face as her sword lashed out to her belly. Ishtar dodged both and returned the attack. Blades, whips, and teeth flashed at one another as the two struggled for supremacy in the bathhouse.
Ishtar caught hold of Persephone’s armor and slammed her against the wall. She drove her knee into Persephone’s ribs again and again like a jackhammer. “I was always better than you up close,” Ishtar said, grinning.
“Cocksucking doesn’t count,” growled Persephone, smashing her elbow into Ishtar’s face and transforming her sword into an oversized karambit whose hooked blade she ripped across Ishtar’s breasts, scoring the armor and reaching the flesh underneath. Ishtar hissed in surprise and shifted her hips, throwing Persephone into the outside wall with enough force to send her through it. Persephone hit the next building, bounced, and rolled. She came up spitting blood and teeth, and smiling. “You’re going to die, Ishtar. I’m going to breathe your dust.”
Suddenly an explosion rocked the Earth and sent them both to their knees.
Tribunal landed in a fireball that sent the Descended flying in all directions. The force of the blast threw those on the ground through the air and smashed them into the buildings that were crumbling around them. Those in the air flew hundreds of yards through the sky, some losing control and hitting the sides of mountains, others managing to ride the winds up and over the peaks that surrounded the remains of the city.
And when the flame and dust cleared, Tribunal, a short, whipcord thin man with a sparse beard and cruel eyes, wearing a robe of red so dark it was almost black, stood in the middle of a crater, surrounded by all the surviving Angels of Hell.
Ishtar and Persephone struggled to their feet. Tribunal’s presence was so overwhelming they could barely feel the divine force flowing from each other. They looked together to the mountains, where a huge fireball was rising in the sky.
“So,” said Ishtar. “He’s here.”
“We’re fucked,” said Persephone.
“You’re fucked,” said Ishtar. “I switched sides, remember?”
Persephone shook her head. “I used to think I was the idiot in the group.”
Ishtar turned to look Persephone in the eye. “Join us, you silly bitch. You can have Paradise.”
“You’re just rock stupid, aren’t you?” said Persephone. “One, Tribunal will kill us all and unmake Creation. Two, Lucifer is the biggest rape-loving dickhead to ever walk Creation. And three, if we survive the next hour, I’m going to kill you myself, you betraying bitch.”
Persephone took off toward the mountains, the wind from her wings blowing dust into Ishtar’s eyes.
“Fine,” said Ishtar, taking to the air after her. “Be that way.”
Nyx was the first to move, her reaction born out of anger and eons of training. Faster than any other Descended could hope to match, she flew toward Tribunal, her blade in front of her, her mouth wide in a scream of hatred.
Her sword, sharpened divine steel, shattered against Tribunal’s chest. The force of her charge rebounded into her, sending her flying backward and down. He sneered down at her. “You feeble creature,” he said. “Did you really think that anything you could do would be a match for me?”
Nyx pulled herself to her feet. “Had to try, asshole.”
“I’m sure you did,” said Tribunal. “Lucifer?”
Nyx spun and used her whip to catch Lucifer’s sword and redirect it away from her head. In the same move, she darted in and caught his wrist and delivered a devastating kick to his knee. It buckled backward, and she wrenched the sword from his hand. She slashed open his stomach, spun, and attacked Tribunal once more.
This time she didn’t even get to make contact.
The urge to drop the sword and throw herself at Tribunal’s feet came with such overwhelming force that Nyx was already scrabbling in the dirt before she realized he was taking control of her mind. She crawled to his feet, overcome with remorse and fear and deep, deep sadness for her actions. “Please, Master! Forgive me!” Tears poured down her face as she realized how completely wrong she had been to oppose this man—this God—who had been her lover, her partner, and her divine inspiration to build one of the greatest religions the world had ever known. It had been his wisdom that had brought her as far as she had come, and his guidance that would have brought her to Paradise, if only she hadn’t betrayed him. If only I had sacrificed Epiphenia! If only I’d had the courage to do what he’d asked, he would have forgiven me for all my weakness.
In a far off galaxy, a star winked out.
“Now that is the way she is supposed to be,” said Lucifer, grinning down at Nyx. He pulled back a boot to kick her and found himself frozen in place.
“Don’t,” said Tribunal, and the contempt and disgust in his voice made Lucifer feel as if his very presence was a disgrace to all Creation. “She is a disgusting, depraved, worthless piece of shit. And you, Lucifer, aren’t even worthy to look upon her.”
Lucifer began weeping as he realized the truth of what Tribunal was saying. Nyx had betrayed Tribunal, true, but he had failed Tribunal repeatedly. He fell to his knees. All he’d had to do was destroy humanity—puny, weak humans—and he couldn’t even do that. “Please, my Lord,” he begged. “Please, let me make it up to you. Please! I’ll take my Descended now and destroy humanity for you! We’ll kill every last one of them! I swear we will!”
“How?” said Tribunal. “Your forces are outnumbered five to one. You’ve been defeated in Hell. You’ve been trapped on Earth. How can you possibly think to do anything for me?”
Lucifer bowed his head.
“You’re not even worthy to lick my feet, Lucifer.” Tribunal turned his gaze back on Nyx. “Whereas you should most certainly be licking my feet, Nyx. It’s the least you can do after your betrayal. And do stay on your belly. It suits you.”
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“What the FUCK is everyone standing around for?” Persephone’s sending rang loud in the head of every angel. “He’s going to destroy Creation! Fucking ATTACK!”
She came down at Tribunal like a bolt of black lightning, moving at full speed, her sword held in front of her like a spear.
Tribunal waved a hand and Persephone crashed into an impenetrable wall of air. Her neck, spine and arms snapped under the impact, and her skull crushed in on itself like a melon thrown from a roof. She slid down and landed on the ground in a heap.
Stretched out on her belly, pulling herself along by her fingertips, Nyx brought her face level with Tribunal’s feet, now filthy with the mud, blood, and ichor that covered the ground. She delicately extended her tongue and, using the gentlest of touches so as not to disturb him, began cleaning the dirt from his toes.
“KILL HIM!” Persephone sent. “KILL HIM NOW!”
Tribunal waved his hand in the air and a half-million Angels froze on the spot. “Pathetic,” he said. “You really think you can kill me? I AM THAT I AM!” The words were God’s and though the blast that came with them was not as powerful as God’s voice, it was enough to make the Earth shiver, and to strike fear into the hearts of the Descended. “You can no more destroy me than you can yourselves. I am all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-seeing. I am that which will destroy Creation and recreate it in my own image!”
Another star winked out in the sky, then a third.
Tribunal looked down at Nyx again. “You took over your precious Hell again, didn’t you? Made it your own?” He shook his head. “You try to stand above your place. But I will fix that.”
Nyx could see Hell inside her mind. Nyx’s troops mercilessly and methodically attacked Lucifer’s surviving supporters, while the demons were harrying them from above and below. Through Tribunal’s eyes, Nyx could see all of Hell, and every battle happening at once.