Scorn of Angels (27 page)

“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 666th 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

I
s
htar 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.”

“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.”