There But For The Grace (27 page)

Focusing as best I could, as he turned the blade in my stomach, I opened my mouth to respond. I choked out a couple half-words. He leaned in, grinning more savagely. When he did, I smashed my head forward, crushing his nose with my forehead. He staggered back a step, giving me just enough room to drive my sword upward. I plunged it point first into his stomach, and pushed it up under his ribcage and into his heart.

When he staggered back, I tried to follow, and stumbled instead, no longer having the strength to stay on my feet. He caught his balance enough to stop, though he teetered unsteadily. The grin had turned to rage, and he lifted his sword high overhead. Much as he left himself wide open, I couldn’t take advantage. He tensed a couple times, trying to swing, then the blade dropped from his hands, and he fell backwards against the wall. When he spoke his last, there was no sound, aside from him chocking on a new gout of blood, but his lips were easy enough to read: “Damn you to Hell.”

I dragged myself forward, pulling myself back to my feet by using the winch and chain mechanism to pull myself up. In the process, I turned it further, causing the doors to grind open wider. There were more shouts from outside, and then I heard a more distinct shout from nearby on the walls outside, screaming about reinforcing the gatehouse.

I was out of time. Much as I’d have loved to have opened the gates further and thrown things more into chaos, just staggering forward was hard enough. Propping myself up on the winch, I managed to get to the window that looked out onto the swampy fields beyond the walls. Outside, there was a riot: hundreds, perhaps thousands of the angry damned trying to storm the walls, and now, trying especially hard to push past the door or force them open wider. In their madness, they were crushing one another in the effort, but didn’t stop. Despite the numbers still fighting, at least three times as many had already fallen, laying on the marshy ground or in the shallow, brackish water. The normally grey-green ground was stained crimson. The damned would rise again tomorrow, in a constant fight amongst themselves. I wasn’t so lucky.

The shouts from the wall grew louder, and a glance aside confirmed that there were Fallen rushing towards the gatehouse to close the gates again. I took the only exit available to me. I dragged myself forward, out the window and onto a narrow section of black stone wall. The chaotic situation below me started to blur, and, already struggling with balance, I almost fell backwards. Instead, I sheathed my sword, spread my wings, and, with my vision blurring, tipped forward off the impossibly high walls of Dis. I was snapped back to alertness by the rush of hot air past my face—looking down, that was a very, very long way yet to fall.

With the ground rushing at me, and all of my instinctual reactions failing, things came into a sort of clarity. What was the movement and color of thousands of tiny dots below took shape. Among them was a familiar one: Adelaide stood in the midst of a group of others who wore the tattered remnants of uniforms and armor.

In the space of a blink, I also thought I saw another form—Lucifer, surveying the field. Both seemed equally unreal, perhaps my wounds causing me to hallucinate, but when I craned my neck as I spiraled down, Lucifer was gone, but Adelaide was still there. Those nearest her surged forward.

It was hard to be sure what was going on as I met the ground, and my world went dark.

Adelaide

“No, no, no, no,
no!”
I screamed, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. He just
fell,
and before I could even wonder if he had anything left or if he were completely unconscious, he seemed to pull himself up by the last vestiges of bootstrap he had left. His wings snapped out and he glided as best he could but…

It was the gangbanger from South Compton that shoved me into Parker’s arms. He winked at me and tapped MacDougal on the arm, “We got this, Mama,” he called back to me, “We’ll be up and back at it tomorrow, right man?”

The Scot looked at him and nodded. “Aye!” And they both plunged forward, then back, then forward again, trying to gauge Tab’s landing. When Tab crashed to earth, they let him crash into
them,
catching him to cushioned his blow, knowing they were going to die, so that Tab could live, for me. I didn’t know what to do with that. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I couldn’t think of it too much. I had to get to him. I had to get to him and make sure that their scheme had worked.

“Parker! Parker, come on!” I shouted with tears making their way free and down my face I plunged into the crowd after them where Tab had come down. Parker had my six, like any red-blooded American soldier would, and I was doubly grateful. I slammed onto my knees and skidded in the muck of the swamp awash with the blood of the damned and reached for Tab.

I touched him, and he was warm and alive, his chest rising and falling beneath my hands, I pulled him up into my lap, put my ear to his chest, and felt my shoulders collapse in relief. His heart beat strong and steady beneath my cheek, a good sign. I put my hands to either side of his face and patted his cheek, screaming in his face over the din of battle behind us.

“Come on, Tab! Wake up!” I wasn’t getting anywhere, though.

Parker to the rescue again. He hauled Tab up into a classic fireman’s carry, which was made more awkward by Tab’s wings dragging, and demanded, “Which way!”

“The dock! The dock! This way!” I cried and pushed into the crowd, surging against the tide of bodies, struggling to get back to the encampments and the black sand dunes.

Parker stayed with me, and I shoved him forward with one hand, drawing one of my guns with my free one. Iaoel had warned me it was coming. The snap and flutter of feathers overhead broke through the noise around me, confirming that I had incoming from above. I threw myself around and onto my back, fired at the incoming Fallen, and was lucky to hit center mass at the very least. He jerked twice, eyes flaring wide, before he came down on top of me, motionless. Dead.

I shoved, and it took some rocking to roll him off. Parker looked at me and yelled, “Come on!” I bounded to my feet, sliding in the muck and pushed on, following him. Tab hung limp over the soldier’s back, sword trailing from his hip and slapping Parker on the leg with every awkward lunging gait he made. Tab’s hand groped feebly for the sword. The other hand, I just now realized, was missing at the wrist. I felt sick, forcing the bile down, and told myself it didn’t matter; he was
alive.
Getting him out alive is
what mattered.

“Thanks, bitch,” I uttered to Iaoel breathlessly for warning me about the incoming Fallen. I pushed on behind Parker as a great cheer rose behind us. I didn’t want to turn, but I didn’t have to. With Iaoel, it really was like having eyes in the back of my head sometimes, and this was no exception. The gates of Dis had fallen, and the damned of the Fifth circle of Hell were pouring through, blue torches held high.

I caught up to Parker and placed my hand on Tab’s back as we floundered in the soft black sand, mostly to reassure myself that he was alive and that I really had him. Iaoel was quick to remind me that we weren’t out of the woods yet, and I basically told her in no uncertain terms I was well aware of that. Yeah, okay, I told her to fuck right off and reminded her that we wouldn’t even
be
here if she hadn’t been such a treacherous cunt in the first place. I didn’t really want to hear any more of her fucking naysaying at this point, and my coming on strong shut her up for a minute. She went sulking off into whatever corner of my mind she went to hide in when I wasn’t on top of paying attention to her, because let’s face it: I didn’t have time to pay attention to her. I had to keep an eye on Tab, Parker, and any possible pursuit,
and
I had to figure out the whole summoning of the ferryman all at the same time.

We reached the dock and started out onto it. By now, Parker was getting pretty fatigued and
had
to set Tab down. He put him down, and I looked up at the bell I was supposed to ring.

“Tab, come on. I need your sword,” I tugged on the handle above the cross guard, and his hand flew out, gripping the hilt before I could pull it. I tugged more insistently, and he tightened his grip over mine, groaning. Even wounded, he was stronger than I was, and I couldn’t get the sword free, not without his cooperation.

“Tab, come on! I need it to ring the fucking bell!” I knew my voice was high and frantic, but it had the right to be. Iaoel sensed pursuit, and any second, they would be coming up over the damned sand dunes.

“Adelaide?” Tab asked softly.

“Who else would it be?” I demanded, and he tightened his grip.

“Iaoel..?”

“Fuck that bitch right now, Tab! Give me the fucking sword!” It was like I’d said the phrase that pays or something, because he relinquished his grip on the sword immediately. I grabbed it, drawing it from the sheath at his hip, and arched up. I crashed the blade flat against the bell, and a deep toll rolled out over the Styx from it. I pressed the sword back into his hand, and he wrapped his fingers around it, dropping his head back onto the creosote-soaked decking of the dock. I took the half-second to guide it back into its sheath so he didn’t lose any more blood to an accidental cut. He seriously didn’t look like he had any to spare.

Iaoel was growing both more panicked and insistent that the big bad was coming for us, so I double-timed rummaging in my messenger bag and came up with the two coins it would take me to get Tab and I across. I looked up, the realization on my face, even as Parker was already talking. “It’s okay. I get it: two coins, the boatman… Don’t worry about me, Addy. I lived my life, fucked up my chance. You go, get your friend out of here, and live the rest of yours. I’d be lying if I said I hoped I never saw you again, but I hope I never see you again. Not down here.”

“I get it,” I said and hugged him tight.

“Go! I got your six!” Parker shoved me towards Tab and got up, I looked on in horror as he rushed the beach and took on a couple of Demons that were coming up over the last dunes. I hauled Tab’s arm over my shoulders and used my legs to bodily get him up. He helped, but it was pretty feeble as far as attempts go. I dropped the coins into the boatman’s hand and us into the bottom of the boat, crying out as we fell into a heap.

“The fare has been paid,” he intoned and rattled the rings atop his iron pole before shoving us away from the dock. As soon as the rings had rattled, the Demons who had torn Parker apart had looked at the river and snarled, as if we had simply disappeared. I breathed out a short sigh of relief and got to work on Tab, propping him up against me and getting out God’s canteen.

“Have you any of the poetry you promised?” the boatman asked, and I swallowed hard.

“Uh, yeah.” I started with Maya Angelou, going through everything I could remember, which seemed to please him. The constant lilt of my voice seemed to soothe Tab, who was little better than delirious at this point. I tipped water from God’s canteen past his dry, cracked lips, and he revived enough to tip the canteen himself with his good hand and nub to drink deeply.

“That’s it,” I uttered between poems, and kept on with it after a pointed look from the boatman. It didn’t take long for Iaoel to clue me in, albeit in as snarky a way as she possibly could. The boatman was taking his time about getting us where we were going. The longer I kept up with the poetry, the longer it took for us to get upriver, and the more time I had to doctor up Tab as best I could, which was not the most awesome fun job ever. I barely had enough time to check the map Pestilence had given me, only to discover the extraction point beacon pulsating over the Brazen Bull.
Fuck.

I tucked the map away and checked on Tab. I think even Iaoel was feeling guilty about the state of him. I mean, shit, they had been lovers at one point, and I sure as shit wouldn’t wish this on any of my ex-boyfriends. I ran through everything I could possibly think of and even resorted to song lyrics in the end. I mean, that was poetry if you took away the music, right?

I finished a poem, and I was plum out of anything to say without repeating myself. The boatman looked thoughtful over my last choice and finally asked, “And who, pray tell, penned this?”

“A guy named Justin Bieber. Sorry, he’s still alive. I was just running out of options, and seriously, as much as I’d like to continue, I’m out. I’ve got nothing.”

“I see. This Justin Bieber belongs down here after something so awful,” he remarked dryly, and I laughed.

“You ain’t lying.”

We bumped gently into the stone dock with the wickedly curved teeth, and Tab was alert enough to help assist me with disembarking the vessel.

“Thanks,” I called down softly to the boatman, and he inclined his head.

“May we never meet again, Girl.”

“Seems like a legit way to say good-bye down here. May we never meet again,” I called back, and shot him a salute with the arm I wasn’t using around and beneath Tab’s wings to support him. I gripped him by his uninjured wrist and settled his arm more securely over my shoulders, leading him to the low garden wall separating the Fourth from the Fifth. Tab leaned heavily on me, his sword tip meeting the shale of the rocky shore leading to the Fourth, the tip making an eerie scraping sound in the silence as we moved.

“What are you doing down here, Adelaide? You should have never come…”

“Saving your ass like you’ve saved mine countless times before. Now I need to get us up that hill and into the Third. You’re going to have to help me out. Can you?”

“Yes.” He looked into my eyes from inches away, searching, but for what I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t help it. I looked away first and felt a hot blush overtake me.

“Adelaide…”

“Let’s get out of Hell first, Tab. One… thing at a time. I’m still really confused.” I was going to say one
problem
at a time, but Tab would never be that, not to me.