Scorn of Angels (40 page)

He might just manage it if I’m not careful,
thought Nyx as she sent his blast of power off into space.
God gave me greater power than him, but God didn’t make me
invulnerable.

“And if I can’t burn you, then I will burn all of humanity!”

The fire that roared out this time wasn’t aimed at her, and it wasn’t firing through the sky. It erupted on the ground beneath him, and it burned hotter than the sun itself. The ground bubbled, and the flames grew out from him in a circle of death.

Nyx put a wall around the flames. Then she realized it wouldn’t be enough. The fire was burning
into
the Earth as well as across it. She extended the wall into a globe that held in the fire, kept it from burning a hole into the Earth. Then, out of sheer maliciousness, she started shrinking the globe so that it grew tighter and tighter around Tribunal.

She barely managed to dodge Lucifer as he charged down at her. She raised her hand to make his wings disappear, but stopped when Michael raced after him. The two clashed, Lucifer’s sword and whip attempting to break past Michael’s guard, and not succeeding. Nyx grinned.
Let them sort it
out.

Instead, she flew over to where Tribunal stood in the quickly closing ring of flames, and watched. Tribunal was sending more and more power into the ring, driving back the flames. Nyx matched him power for power and a little bit more, letting him feel the flames growing closer and closer.

“I WILL DESTROY YOU!”
Tribunal screamed in her mind.

“Unlikely,”
said Nyx, and wrapped Tribunal in flames. He screamed, long and loud as the fire burned into his flesh. Nyx watched his skin bubble and burn, and begin to char away.

Then she changed the flames to Hellfire.

All the heat vanished from the globe of fire. It was replaced by the bone-chilling cold of the blue flames. And inside, as they consumed Tribunal’s flesh, he relived all of his deceptions, his actions, his tortures, and his murders, as if he were the one to whom the actions had been done.

Nyx was still standing, watching, when Michael landed beside her. “The field is ours,” he said. He looked at Tribunal. “That’s a bit much isn’t it?”

“Have you ever been in Hellfire, Michael?” Nyx asked.

“No.”

“I spent a thousand years in the Lake of Fire because I wanted free will. That bastard tried to destroy Creation. He can damn well sit there until I’m good and ready to let him out.”

Michael frowned at the screaming, burning figure inside the globe of Hellfire. “And when will that be?”

Nyx turned her back on Tribunal. “Not for a fair while, yet.” Nyx walked across the battlefield, dodging bits of bloody Angel flesh, wings and feathers. “There are some things I have to do first.” She looked back over her shoulder. “If God asks, I’m keeping my promise.”

“Don’t worry,” said Michael. “He knows.”

Persephone opened her eyes as the sun was rising. She blinked in surprise and looked around. She was standing on the beach on their island in the Pacific Ocean. She smiled at Nyx. “Well, so far being dead looks good.”

“You’re not dead,” said Nyx. “Not anymore.”

“That’s a relief.” She looked Nyx up and down. “You’ve changed.”

“So have you.”

Persephone looked down. Like Nyx, she was no longer pale as snow. There was color in her flesh. She spread her wings and was surprised to find them gray instead of black. “Well, this is interesting. Now what?”

“Well, that’s up to us.”

“But we’re not Descended anymore.”

“No.”

“So we don’t have to go back to Hell.”

“No.”

“Good. Can we visit Heaven?”

“I don’t know,” said Nyx. “But since we’ve both faced the wrath of God and been unmade…”

“Then we should be allowed back for visits.” Persephone smiled. “I missed the gardens.” She stretched out, rubbed her hand down her body. “Mmmm… death makes me horny.”

“Everything makes you horny,” said Nyx, grinning. “Hold out for a while. We have some other stops to make.”

Persephone sashayed toward Nyx, putting some extra swing into her hips. “Surely we can take a few minutes.” She wrapped her arms around Nyx and gave her a long, deep kiss. Their tongues wrestled for a bit, then separated. “What do you say?”

“Not with the children watching.”

Persephone spun around, saw Epiphenia, squealed in delight and ran to her, throwing her arms around the Earth Angel. “You’re back, too!”

Epiphenia hugged her and smiled. “Apparently I am,” she said. Unlike Nyx and Persephone, she had returned to her true self, with her bright red hair and her green dress. “Thanks to Mother.”

“Thanks to God, actually,” said Nyx. “I never thought I’d hear myself say that. He gave me the power to deal with Tribunal and to find you two.”

“Find us?” Persephone’s eyebrows rose. “We were unmade!”

“You were still there,” said Nyx. “You were just too scattered to come back.”

“Oh.” Persephone thought about it. “That means Ishtar is out there, too.”

“Yes.”

Persephone bit her lip. “Are we bringing her back?”

Nyx looked out at the ocean and sighed. “We are. But not here.”

Persephone smiled and spread her new wings wide. “Then let’s go!” She jumped into the air and soared in a wide circle. “Hey! Can I kick her ass again?”

Nyx grinned but didn’t answer. She had her own plans for Ishtar.

Ishtar opened her eyes in darkness to the sounds of screams. She was in black armor, with her sword and whip in hand. She looked down at herself. She was unchanged and everything looked to be as it had been before she had died.

I’m alive,
she thought.
I’m alive and in Hell. How
did…?

“Too bad it didn’t leave a scar,” said Persephone. “That would have taught you a lesson.”

Ishtar spun and saw Persephone, Nyx, and Epiphenia standing behind her. Nyx and Persephone had changed. The cold white of their skin had become as warm as if they were alive. Persephone smiled at Ishtar. “Hello, asshole.”

Ishtar’s hand went for her sword and froze in place as if the air around it had turned to amber.

“Be nice,” said Nyx. “Persephone, you too.”

“How am I alive?” demanded Ishtar.

“I put you back together again,” said Nyx.

“In Hell.”

“In my palace in Hell,” said Nyx. “Your palace now.”

Ishtar’s eyes went wide. “Bullshit.”

“Nope.”

“You’re Queen of Hell.”

“Not anymore,” said Nyx. “I don’t want this place anymore.”

“Just like that?” sneered Ishtar. “You’re done and I get to be Queen of Hell? Bullshit! Fucking Bullshit, Nyx! I betrayed you. I stabbed you in the back. And I get to be Queen of Hell?”

“Yes,” said Nyx. “You get to be Queen of Hell.”

“What do you get out of it?”

“Heaven, if I want it.”

Ishtar’s eyes flashed red. “How come you get Heaven?”

“Because I went there, and God unmade me. Persephone fought Tribunal, who is also God, and was unmade by him. So when God brought me back, and I brought Persephone back, we were no longer Descended, having faced God’s wrath.”

“You, on the other hand,” said Persephone, “just got destroyed by me. So it doesn’t count.”

Ishtar took a moment to process that. When she had, she spat onto the spiked earth of Hell. “Who the fuck wants Heaven, anyway?”

“Lucifer and his followers are waiting in the Lake of Fire,” said Nyx. “I had Michael chain them up and dump them in. You can get them out when you want. You’ll also have to deal with the Mother of Demons.”

“Lucifer?” Ishtar’s face brightened up. “Oh, I’ll have such fun with him.”

“You do that,” said Nyx. “Goodbye, Ishtar.”

“I’ll come to visit,” promised Persephone. “I won’t stay, but I’ll come visit once in a while.”

“Why the fuck would I let you visit?” demanded Ishtar. “You killed me.”

“You’re just sulky because I won,” said Persephone. “At least you don’t have to spend a week taking it like a boy this time.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” said Ishtar, but there was the ghost of a smile behind the words.

Nyx opened a gate to Earth right above them and spread her gray wings. With two quick strokes, she was in the air. Persephone and Epiphenia flew up right behind her.

“Hey!” yelled Ishtar. “What about Tribunal?”

“Don’t worry,” said Nyx. “He’s next.”

“Good,” said Ishtar. She watched them disappear through the gate to Earth. Then she smiled and walked out of the throne room into the plains of Hell. “Get me a harpoon,” she ordered the first Descended she saw. “It’s time to fish Lucifer out of the Lake.”

Seeing the look on Ishtar’s face, the Descended did exactly as she was told.

Michael raised a hand in greeting to Nyx and the others as they came up from Hell. “Welcome back.” He smiled at Nyx. “I have to say, I expected you to take longer.”

“I know,” said Nyx.

“Are you ready to deliver Tribunal back to God?”

“Part of him.”

“What?”

Nyx grinned at Michael’s confusion and let the ball of fire around Tribunal subside. Tribunal collapsed at the sudden cessation of pain. Nyx waited until his eyes had grown back and most of the flesh had returned to his bones before saying, “Hi, Tribunal. How are you feeling?”

He growled at her, and tried to gather power. Nyx smashed her own power down on him hard enough that he was knocked flat and driven six inches into the rock beneath where he lay. “Don’t even try it,” she said.

“Fuck you,” gasped Tribunal. “Just kill me and be done with it.”

“Kill you?” repeated Nyx. “Oh, I’m not going to kill you. I promised God that I wouldn’t.”

Tribunal pried his head out of the stone and glared up at her. “Then let me go.”

“Oh, I will. Both of you.”

“What?”

His expression of confusion was nearly identical to Michael’s. It made Nyx smile, and lasted just as long as it took her to grab the top of his head with two suddenly clawed hands. He yelped in pain as her fingers drove into his skull. Then he began screaming as she slowly, deliberately, tore him into two.

“Nyx!” Michael’s horror was clear in his voice. “What are you…?”

“Stay out of it!” snapped Nyx. She began pouring power into Tribunal even as she ripped him in two. His screams of agony became two screams of agony, and as Michael, Persephone, and Epiphenia watched, the two halves of his body became two identical-looking men.

Nyx released them both, and they collapsed to the ground. “Tribunal,” said Nyx, “meet Jesus.”

Both men blinked and stared in shock and surprise. The one that Nyx had called Jesus bowed his head and wept. Tribunal rose to his feet in anger. He tried to summon power and discovered that he had none at all. “What have you done to me?”

“God wanted you to come home,” said Nyx. “I wanted you to spend eternity in Hell. We came to an agreement. Caelum? Orion?”

Two Angels swooped down from the sky. “These two haven’t been home in a thousand years,” Nyx said. “So I’m sending them there. And they are taking Jesus.”

“I’m Jesus!” snapped Tribunal.

“No,” said Nyx, “you never were. But
he
—” she pointed to the man weeping on the ground “—is.
He
is all the goodness and light and decency God poured into you when you were born. And he will go to Heaven, where he, like any other God, will spend the rest of time listening to the calls of his followers. And who knows? He might even answer some.”