Scorn of Angels (13 page)

Lucifer turned his mind outward, sensing every Angel in Hell. He found Nyx, Persephone, and Ishtar together, winging desperately toward the pit. Lucifer grinned and sent a mental command to all the other Angels. Then he looked at the souls in front of him. “I am angry. And I have something that will delay me from giving you the agony you so richly deserve. So when I return, I will make you suffer as none have suffered before, so that your screams will be louder than any others in Hell, and that all those staked out on the plains will listen and be thankful they are not you.”

Lucifer grabbed the leg of the screaming man on his arm and pulled it hard. Lucifer’s fist shoved through the rest of the man’s body and came out his mouth. Lucifer twisted his wrist, opened his hand and drove his fingers deep into the man’s eyes. The man’s screams became even louder for a brief moment. Then Lucifer ripped his arm out the way it had come in, dragging the man’s skull behind and turning him inside out.

His arm was wet and scarlet. He felt very slightly better.

“Demons,” said Lucifer. “Keep these scum entertained until my return.”

Lucifer spread his large black wings and took to the sky as a horde of demons overran the souls at his door.

Nyx, Persephone, and Ishtar winged over Hell, moving near the speed of sound. Nyx could feel the Angels in Hell sensing her presence, could feel them gathering in the skies around them. The Pit was in sight just ahead, and a contingent of fifty or so Angels hovered above it, blocking their way.

“That’s not the 666th,” said Persephone. “Bet we can break through them before reinforcements arrive.”

Nyx looked over her shoulder and saw hundreds of thousands of Angels, their armor on and their whips and swords in their hands, converging fast.
We’d better
, Nyx thought.

“Don’t be stupid!” snapped Ishtar. “Nyx, this is your chance. You can talk to them all and get them on your side. You can rule in Hell again!”

“You think it’s going to be that easy?” Nyx demanded. “The first war lasted an eon, Ishtar. You think this one will go any faster?”

“Then let it last an eon!”

“We don’t have time!” snapped Nyx. “Tribunal will destroy the Earth.”

“Then let him! Let him kill them all! Hell is where we belong, not Earth!”

“And you think he’ll forgive us?” demanded Nyx. “You’ve seen his power. You think he’s going to let us alone once he’s done with the humans?”

“I think we’ll have a better chance of facing him if we’ve got an army at our back!”

“Weapons out,” said Nyx. “Get ready to dive.”

Ishtar growled in frustration but did as she was told.

“Dive!”

Their velocity was enough to smash through the first three ranks of Angels. Then it was all blades, whips, feet, and teeth. Nyx beheaded her first two opponents with ease and gutted two others, her blade ripping through their armor. It wasn’t as easy as it had been when she had been infused with Tribunal’s strength, but the strength Epiphenia was giving her was still far more than the Angels had. A dozen Angels tried to surround her, making a cage of blades and whips and Angelic flesh to keep her from escaping. She kept driving forward, heedless of the cuts and lashes that ripped into her flesh from those behind.

Persephone and Ishtar didn’t have Nyx’s strength to rely on. Instead, they fought back-to-back, spinning as they flew. They weaved through the air in an intricate dance that was simultaneously defensive and offensive, avoiding their attackers even as they cut and lashed them again and again. Wings and limbs severed and fell away from their blades. Angels screamed in pain and roared in frustration and agony. A dozen blades cut into them, making silver blood flow and sending feathers flying. None scored deep enough to slow them down, though.

Nyx broke through first, Persephone and Ishtar a moment later. Like stooping hawks they raced down into the complete darkness of the pit, the only light now the glow of Hellfire on the blades of their swords.

“They’re not following!” shouted Persephone.

Why not
? Nyx wondered. There was more than enough to keep them busy while the rest of the Angels came after them, and the gate to Earth was deep, deep in the pit. Lucifer should have the Angels charging after her.

The answer came in a glinted reflection from the fire on her blade on Hellstone.

“Stop!” screamed Nyx. Her wings snapped wide open, the air beneath booming as she braked.

Persephone and Ishtar opened their wings in the same moment, arresting their descent until all three hovered in place, staring at what was below them.

He must have started this as soon as he put me in the Lake of Fire,
thought Nyx.
He may not have my brains, but he’s not entirely
stupid.

Below them, stretching across the pit, was an intricate lattice of razor-edged Hellstone blades. Layer upon layer went down for miles, crisscrossing so thickly that nothing could get through.

“Well,” said Persephone. “Fuck.”

Nyx looked up. The pursuing Angels were gone. Lucifer stood on the edge of the pit, and hovering above him were the Angels of the 666th legion—all five thousand of them.

“Caught you, you bitch,” said Lucifer.

“You haven’t caught us yet, you fucker,” shouted Persephone. “Come here and say that to our faces!”

“Oh, I will,” said Lucifer.

“And then what?” shouted Nyx. “Do you think Tribunal’s going to keep his promise to you any more than he kept his promise to me?”

“He broke his promise because you broke yours,” Lucifer said. “You were the one that failed to kill your precious Earth Angel.”

Not the only one who failed
, Nyx thought.
But the longer Lucifer and Tribunal don’t know that, the
better
.

“He’ll destroy you,” said Nyx, as she looked around the pit. “As sure as he tried to destroy me. He’ll come after you as soon as he doesn’t need you anymore.”

“I’m going to destroy
you
, Nyx,” gloated Lucifer. “I’m going to chain you to my castle wall and fuck you and feast on your flesh for a thousand years.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” said Persephone. “Can’t you do anything that doesn’t involve sex?”

“Be quiet, insect,” said Lucifer.

“Bite me, asshole.”

There,
Nyx sent into Persephone and Ishtar’s minds.
See the
tunnel?

I see it,
Persephone sent back.
Where does it
go?

No place we want to be,
said Nyx.
But better than
here.

“Get them,” said Lucifer. “Now.”

The 666th stooped as one and dove into the hole.

Nyx and Persephone turned to race toward the tunnel.

Ishtar’s blade buried itself into Nyx’s back, and her whip lashed out, wrapping around Persephone’s neck.

“I gave you a chance!” screamed Ishtar as Nyx arched and convulsed. Ishtar sawed the blade upward, hacking through her rib cage. “You could have ruled Hell again! We could have been safe! But you wouldn’t listen, you stupid bitch!”

Persephone moved first, her blade coming up to slice through Ishtar’s whip. Ishtar yanked on the whip, taking Persephone’s balance and spoiling her aim.

“Don’t you fight me, bitch,” screamed Ishtar. “We can save ourselves! We can gain Paradise and Hell!” She reversed direction with her blade, driving it down into Nyx’s pelvis. “You’ve fucked up everything, Nyx. All you had to do was kill that fucking Earth Angel! And instead you’ve got her inside…”

Nyx’s whip lashed out in a blind strike that took off the side of Ishtar’s face. Ishtar screamed and jerked back. Nyx threw herself forward and off of Ishtar’s blade, ignoring the agony as it sawed through bone and flesh. She spun, her own blade gleaming green and black, the Hellfire on its edges dancing. She gasped as her body started healing itself. Glaring at Ishtar, she demanded, “Why?”

“Because I want Paradise,” said Ishtar, raising her blade and advancing. “I want Paradise and Hell and you gave it all up for your stupid little Angel!”

Persephone, with Ishtar’s whip still wrapped around her neck, leapt forward and cut down with her blade. Ishtar dodged, but not fast enough. Persephone’s sword sheared off one of her wings and Ishtar spun away, out of control. The whip around Persephone’s neck dragged her for a moment. Persephone hacked the whip apart and launched herself downward with a flap of her wings, driving both feet into Ishtar’s body. The force of the hit sent Ishtar spinning down onto the razor-sharp blades below them. Ishtar screamed as her flesh was sliced open and her bones severed.

Persephone grabbed Nyx’s arm and flew straight for the tunnel. Nyx, still bleeding and in agony, forced herself to move as the entire 666th legion dove down and followed.

Chapter 6

T
he tunnel was
dark and close, too narrow for more than one Angel at a time to run through, and far too narrow for any to fly. Persephone grabbed Nyx and shoved her ahead. Nyx went without protesting. Persephone was the stronger of them at this instant, and having her fighting rearguard was as good a guarantee that they would not be overrun as any.

Surviving what was ahead of them, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.

Nyx stumbled as fast as she could through the darkness. The tunnel’s floor was all jagged edges and spikes that would have cut bare flesh to ribbons. Every now and then it would give way, opening into pits that threatened to engulf her legs and, once, her entire body, had she not gone over them. The walls had thin, jagged-edged rocks sticking out like spikes on a cactus, making any attempt to lean or catch one’s balance on them nearly impossible.

The worst of Nyx’s pain began to fade as her body healed, and she was able to pay attention to more than just where she was stepping. She could hear the shouts of the Angels in pursuit and their running footsteps in the tunnel. She could also hear Persephone swearing in every language ever spoken, punctuated on regular occasions with, “Stupid, stupid bitch!”

That was pretty much the same way Nyx was feeling about Ishtar at that moment.

The chain of cursing stopped, and Persephone said, “They’re nearly caught up. How are you doing?”

“Healing,” grunted Nyx.

“Have you been down here before?”

“Eons ago,” said Nyx. She gasped as a rib, dislodged by Ishtar’s blade, snapped back into place. “There are things in here you don’t see on the surface, so be careful. And don’t fall into any of the pits.”

“Why not?”

Before Nyx could answer the first Angel from the 666th ran up behind them.

Persephone changed her blade to resemble a Roman gladius—short, wide, with sharp edges and a wickedly pointed tip. The first Angel hadn’t thought of doing the same, and his attempts to use his whip and blade were immediately hampered by the narrowness of the corridor. Persephone grinned, parried his blade, and with a pair of quick cuts, gutted him and split his skull in two. The Angel right behind him shoved his body down and charged forward, his own blade changing to resemble Persephone’s as he came. The two of them clashed briefly before Persephone cut off his hand and ran her sword through his head. He dropped like a rock, and the next Angel came after.

Nyx’s pain receded even more, and she began to move faster. The tunnels wound farther and farther downward, sometimes widening enough that they could run unhindered, other times narrowing so they had to turn sideways and shuffle their way forward.

Persephone kept up with Nyx every step of the way, though she was running backward and fighting. Two more Angels fell to her blade, and a third one stepped on a thin piece of the floor and went right through up to his knee. He had his leg pulled halfway out when something yanked him back in. There was a cracking of bone, then the Angel began screaming.

“What the fuck?” said Persephone, momentarily stunned into stopping.

“Tunnel crawlers,” said Nyx, grabbing Persephone and pulling her along. “They’ll strip the flesh off your bones so fast you won’t even have a chance to see them before they’re finished.”

“Fuck,” said Persephone. “Are they going to come up into this tunnel?”

“No,” said Nyx. “The thing that carved these tunnels eats those like candy. And anything else it finds.”

“Including us?”

“Yes.”

“Go faster.”

“Doing my best,” grunted Nyx.

The tunnel divided once, then again, then a third time, before Nyx had regained her full strength. Persephone cut down a dozen more pursuers, leaving a trail of silver ichor, limbs, guts, heads, and broken bodies to be trampled by the five thousand Angels following.

At the fourth divide, Nyx looked over her shoulder. “Get ready to fly.”

“Fly? Down here?”

“Faster than you’ve ever flown before.”

Persephone clashed blades with another Angel, and for a moment there was only the sound of struggle. Then the Angel shrieked as Persephone’s blade flipped neatly around his, cut open his arm, then ripped across his belly. “Flying fast underground doesn’t sound good,” said Persephone.

“It isn’t,” said Nyx, “but it’s our only way out of here. Now!”

The tunnel floor gave way and the walls spread wide out of sight. Nyx launched herself into the darkness. Directly into Persephone’s mind, she sent,
“Sheath your
sword.”

“What?” said Persephone out loud, disbelief on her face.

“Do it! And shut
up!”

Persephone did it and shut up. They raced forward into the enormous cavern. It was so large and so dark that even their Angel eyesight could only barely make out the dimensions.

“Oh fuck,”
Persephone’s voice came into Nyx’s head.
“It’s all
moving!”

An enormous hand reached down, grabbed Ishtar’s hair, and ripped her face off the blades. Then the clawed hand shoved itself through the skin and bone of her skull and used its grip to rip the rest of her body off. Ishtar screamed.

She was flown up out of the pit and dropped unceremoniously onto the jagged rock of the ground. She closed her eyes, willing everything else to go away while her body healed itself.

A cloven-shaped boot drove into her midsection. “Where is she going, bitch?”

Ishtar gasped, and her eyes popped open. Lucifer stood over her, fury on his face. “We blocked the gate to Earth so where the fuck is she going?”

Ishtar pushed at the ground until she was sitting up. “Fucked if I know.”

Lucifer’s boot connected again, sending Ishtar flying a hundred yards before she bounced and skidded to the jagged, rocky ground. “There’s nothing under there but demons and rock!” Lucifer shouted. “So where is she going?”

“I. Don’t. Fucking. Know. I didn’t know there was an exit here until Nyx told me. And she sure as fuck didn’t tell me anything else.”

Lucifer closed the distance between then so fast that Ishtar didn’t have time to react before his cloven boot rammed once more into her body. Again she went flying.

“If you’re lying to me, I’ll put you in the box I put Nyx in and dump you at the bottom of the lake.”

Ishtar lay on the ground a moment, then ignored all the pain in her body and, with a slow flapping of her wings, brought herself up to her feet. “I did what I said I would do. I turned my back on Nyx. I shoved a sword in her guts and ripped her open so that your fucking
Legions
could take her and imprison her. The fact that they’re slow and stupid is not my fault, so stop blaming me!”

Lucifer looked up at the cloud of Angels above him. “Five hundredth! Take this
thing
back to Nyx’s palace. Put her in the blade room. If she gets flushed out the tunnel, put her back.” His eyes went back to Ishtar. “And when I am done here, I will come for you, and we will have a discussion about your attitude.”

“Looking forward to it,” said Ishtar as the Angels above used their whips to wrap her arms, legs and wings, leaving her immobile. One of the Angels above shouted a command and the entire group launched itself upward, dragging Ishtar along with it.

“Bitch,” was Lucifer’s last word to Ishtar before the Angels flew her away. Lucifer watched them go, then glared up at the others. “All of you! Spread out and find demon holes. She has to come up from one of them!”

Five hundred thousand wings flapped above him, and the Angels disbursed through Hell.

Lucifer glared down the pit. “Where are you, Nyx?”

“Fly in the middle of the room,”
Nyx said in Persephone’s mind. The walls, floors, and ceiling around them were a roiling mass of shapes. The lighting was too dim to make out the shape of any one of the forms, but all were in constant movement.
“And get ready to go really, really
fast.”

“Why not go fast now?”
asked Persephone, her nervousness clear in her voice
“What the fuck are those
things?”

“Demons,”
said Nyx in Persephone’s mind.
“Lots and lots of
demons.”

“I’ve never seen demons like that
before.”

“They don’t like the
surface.”

“How did you find this
place?”

“During the wars with Lucifer, I was looking for something I could use as an
edge.”

“I’m guessing this wasn’t
it.”

“Lost two Angels and I haven’t seen them since. I’m thinking they’ve been absorbed into the digestion cycle in this
place.”

Persephone shuddered.
“That’s fucking
horrible.”

“I tried burning it out with Hellfire, but they all just vanished and came back when I
left.”

“Here comes the
666th.”

The legion of Angels poured like angry hornets out of the hole in the wall. They spread wide as they went, the Hellfire on the edges of their swords and whips glowing in the darkness. The full five thousand of them would easily fit into the cavern, and that was exactly what Nyx was hoping.

The creatures on the ceiling attacked first.

They weren’t like the gliding lizards that Nyx and Persephone had imitated. These things had leather bat wings on short, fat, spiked bodies like sea urchins. The difference was that sea urchins didn’t have mouths that opened up half the size of their bodies, with row on row of jagged, deadly teeth that bit deep through Angelic armor and flesh.

The Angels of the 666th began screaming. Blades and whips flashed out, cutting through the darkness as Angels dodged one way and another, trying to avoid the creatures that descended in the hundreds of thousands to feast on the Angels’ flesh.

The creatures on the walls attacked next.

Unlike their ceiling brethren, these had no wings. Instead, they had many long, thin, whip-like tentacles tipped with a dozen foot-long spikes on each. They hooked onto the Angels and ceiling creatures alike, dragging them to the walls where huge, toothless maws dripping with acid awaited their arrival. The Angels fought harder, blades and whips flashing with Hellfire as they hacked and tore through their attackers. Creatures shrieked and hissed. Several winged creatures spun down to the ground on only one wing.

“Looks pretty even,”
said Persephone in Nyx’s head.

“It isn’t,”
said Nyx, looking back over her shoulder.
“It gets
worse.”

The first bloodied, battered creature touched the floor of the cave.

“Holy fuck!”
said Persephone.

The floor was not covered with a multitude of creatures. The floor
was
a creature. It had a hundred thousand small, jagged-toothed mouths that covered the quivering mountain of near-gelatinous black flesh that was its body. It didn’t fly or grab or chase. Instead, it roiled. Its body moved in ever-increasing waves until it reached halfway up the height of the cavern. Each mouth began spurting gouts of acid as the thing moved, dousing the walls and ceiling and all the Angels and creatures fighting in between.