There But For The Grace (28 page)

“Understood. Out of Hell first, then your questions.”

I laughed a little. “I think I’ve earned more than a few,” I said, walking us over to the gate.

I leaned him against the low wall and wrapped up Hadad’s pendant with my bandana, so even if it did fall out of my shirt, it would be covered.

“Yes, that you have,” he murmured, watching me, and it was the last of any conversation. The climb up the slick shale slope was one that robbed us of the ability to speak in favor of just drawing breath. I was glad, by the end, that Tab had revived enough to make the climb. It wasn’t lost on me how much I resembled the poor souls toiling up the slope with their loads, Tab draped over me as he was.

We reached the Third, but barely, and it took
hours.
Tab was hardly with me when I reached it, and his weight was surprisingly not as bad as it should have been. If I had to, I thought I could
maybe
carry him the rest of the way to The Brazen Bull, but I didn’t want to test the theory, and for sure, if I had to walk us the rest of the way out the front gate? Well, there was no way I could pull that off. If I had to, though, then I would find a way. I damn sure didn’t come all this way to give up.

“Stay with me,” I pleaded softly and caught a slight smile on his face.

He answered just as softly, “Always.”

I didn’t know how to feel about this shift from mentor/trainee to… to whatever was going on. I didn’t even
know
for sure what was going on. I wouldn’t, not until Tab was for sure Tab again and not delirious with injury, loss of blood, or whatever else he could possibly have going on. I needed to get him beyond the front gates. I needed to get him to Raphael.

We stepped up onto the cobblestone street of the Third, and I blinked. One of the souls toiling along beside us, struggled up and over the lip, his bag intact. He cried out in triumph, and I didn’t pause, but rather redoubled my effort to get us moving. This wasn’t right. This was so far from what it was and probably how it should be that I felt almost a surge of
excitement.
That excitement ratcheted up a notch when we got past the back of the first rows of buildings and found the streets in sheer pandemonium.

It was a full scale fucking riot up here! Whatever we’d done by cracking open the gates of Dis must have carried like a ripple effect. We’d upset some kind of cosmic balance somewhere, and when I managed to turn us onto the street the Brazen Bull was on, my suspicions were all but confirmed by a grinning Alex and what looked like a very worried Cahethel, each standing with their horse’s reins in hand.

“Wow, I am
impressed
!” Alex called out to us, “When you fuck things up, you go all out, don’t you? This is the best show I’ve had down here in, well, since
ever!
”

“What happened to having an extraction point?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just say to come back here in the first place?”

“Oh, we had an extraction plan in place before you fucked everything down here six ways to Sunday.”

“So what, is this some kind of ‘plan B’ then?” I asked, helping Tab closer to Famine and his black horse.

“More like ‘plan C’ or maybe even ‘D’,” Cahethel said. He smiled sadly, and I saw it in his eyes. Before he could even ask, I handed him the canteen while Alex called out behind her. The Brazen Bull’s beefy barkeep with the pig’s snout and tusks came to help drape Tab in the saddle, tying him onto the horse with leather straps. By the time he’d been heaved up onto the beast, he was out cold.

Famine drank deeply of the canteen and handed it back, while Alex handed me the reins to her white horse. I didn’t know how to feel about riding
the horses
of the horsemen of the apocalypse, but if it got us out of here, I damn sure wouldn’t be turning it down.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“You ride, and you ride hard for the front gates. It’s the only way out now,” Cahethel said.

“And you?” I shot to Alex as I mounted up. I’d ridden a few times as a kid, so I knew how to do it for the most part. Some things stayed with you.

“I don’t know about him, but I’m staying to watch the show! Come to think of it, I’m going to need a few more songs.”

“Songs?”

“For my fiddle, no better time to play than while Hell is going to hell!”

“Good to know.”

She handed me the lead to Famine’s horse and indicated where I should affix it on her horse’s saddle.

“If I had known how much trouble you’d cause, I would have done this a little differently,” she mused.

“Wouldn’t have helped?”

“No, I would have gotten you down here much faster!”

“I had fun storming the castle, but I really need to go. I have to get Tab to Raphael,” I said. The horses started dancing. I didn’t imagine it was from nervousness, but more from the urge to run.

“You may want to get out those guns,” Famine said and winked out of existence.

“This should be fun,” Alex commented dryly, stepping back into the doorway of The Brazen Bull, but not to leave completely, more to just watch the show.

I let Pestilence’s horse have enough reins, and it reared slightly, not a lot, and was about to set off at a trot. Unfortunately, it was a short-lived idea. We only got about a quarter of the way up the block before we clashed with the oncoming souls that were storming the streets of the Third. I pulled out my firearms and trusted in the horse to do its thing and for it not to spook as I fired into the press of bodies coming closer, tasting regret along with the sulphur and spent gunpowder as they vanished into that mysterious vapor. I wondered what became of them after that but didn’t have a whole lot of time to dwell on it.

I checked Tab and that he was secure, and Pestilence called out, “The horses know the way, just let them have their reins!” I nodded to her, and she waved a hand in farewell. The horses shot forward, and we rounded the corner, and she was out of sight. The souls of the Third avoided us for the most part after that, diverting down a different street and out of our way to avoid the gunfire, clearing our path until we could jolt forward into a steady canter. Pretty soon I could holster my guns, and I did, so I could prepare for the Second.

I unwound my bandana from my pendant and affixed it around my nose and mouth before we hit the tempest of the Second. If the tempest had been unpleasant
walking
through it, it was even more unpleasant riding through it. The horses made a slow, steady plod through the wind and stinging rain, dancing sideways in discomfort when we were hailed upon.

The good news? The shrieking souls caught out in the storm didn’t seem to affect them much. The
bad news?
There were Demons and Fallen out here, and those same souls were having a fucking field day with taking them down a peg or two. All of the windows and doors to the hotels and boudoirs were flung wide and the souls were tearing through them with fervor. I didn’t want to look too hard at what was happening to those Demons and Fallen trapped by the lustful souls. Suffice to say, the things I’d seen coming
in
to the Second paled by comparison to the things I was seeing on my way out. Who knew that skullfucking was a very real and bloody affair?

I twisted in my saddle and drew one of my firearms. There were souls, scrabbling at Tab, trying to climb atop him in his prone state, some trying to drag him from the saddle. I started to pick them off carefully, and then had to turn to my own safety when fingers started scrabbling at my legs, feeling me up. It was a serious effort to pick them off and keep the horses at a pace that didn’t jostle Tab too much.

It was almost a relief when the hail, wind, and rain gave way to the sifting ash of the First. Souls from the Second tried to follow us even here, but found themselves quickly deterred by War’s guns. Once they’d been sufficiently turned away, there seemed to be little to no chaos in the First as compared to the Second and Third. Just more of the souls wandering aimless, trapped inside their own minds trying to sort themselves out. These souls did their wandering close to the gate leading to The Second, but the more we forged through the drifts of ash, the more they sort of fell in so they were marching inexorably on to Hell’s gate and the way out, which seemed to be slowly closing.

“Aw shit!” I gave the flanks of Pestilence’s horse a gentle kick with my heels and gave an insistent tug on Famine’s horse’s reins. They slipped into an easy canter from the slow plod we’d been forced to maintain through the maelstrom, and I worried for a minute about jostling Tab too much, but a quick check revealed he was still down for the count. I looked up and could see
why
the smaller gate was trying to close. It was the dirty bitch that Sobel and I had looked in on. The one with the snake’s tongue and the scales on her back.

She was tugging on the gate. The Archangels—including Azrael, were arguing with her on the other side. I pulled one of the forty-fives and screamed out to them, “Move!” because if one of my shots did manage to go wide, which they were capable of, I didn’t want to accidentally hit anyone with friendly fire. Azrael and Gabriel moved off, and Raphael and Uriel followed their lead, but Michael was being a fucking douchecanoe. He wouldn’t budge, and I swore, when I got us out of this, I was going to kick his ass for making this shit harder than it needed to be.

Lamia turned and opened her mouth way wider than a human mouth could go, fangs flicking down from the top. She was probably poison, knowing my luck, but Michael was going to force my hand into a close-quarter combat scenario with the bitch. She ran at us, and I reined in Pestilence’s horse hard, causing it to rear. I hugged it with my knees as hard as I could and hung on with one hand to the saddle, but Lamia sidestepped the flashing hooves, leaping up and tackling me.

Rather than stay on the horse, I let the momentum of her assault carry me over, landing hard on my back in the ash, grabbing for my knife. I had my other hand on her throat, keeping her snapping jaws away from me. Stiff-arming her, to keep her at bay, even while she tried to rake me with her nails. I think she may have been a little pissed that I’d killed her boss. I didn’t even want to imagine why.

I couldn’t get to my knife, and I had to admit I was grateful, even though she was straddling me, that her extra teeth couldn’t find any purchase on anything but my jeans. She finally seemed to get with it enough to actually throw a punch, and I gave up on weaponry for the moment to throw up a block with my arm that wasn’t busy keeping her from biting me.

Voices were shouting from the other side of the fence, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I half-wondered why the boys weren’t coming inside the gate to pull this Demon bitch the fuck off of me but realized quickly that they
couldn’t
come inside. That or Iaoel had finally stopped freaking out about Lamia’s proximity to me long enough to relay the information.

I bucked my hips in an effort to get the bitch off me, but it wasn’t working. I was still bigger, at least, and could use my reach to keep her from getting any solid hits or strangling me. Finally, I got enough leverage to get her off me and over onto
her
back. She wrapped her legs around me, but I had the superior position now. I fucking let fly and punched her right in the face, trusting that if Famine’s gloves protected me from the rocks, they might protect me from her fangs. It seemed like a safe bet when one of them snapped off, causing her to howl.

She shrieked with equal parts rage and pain and I honestly couldn’t say I blamed her for being pissed. I actually felt kind of bad. I didn’t know who Sobel had been to her, but apparently it was someone important. I was pretty sure if our roles were reversed and she’d taken out Tab or even Gabriel, I would be the same kind of pissed off, but she was quickly making this a fight for straight up survival and wouldn’t even listen to my attempts to get her to back the fuck down so I wouldn’t have to hurt her anymore—or outright kill her.

She flailed, punching back, but I had this wrestling shit down, thanks to Tab. I dug my elbows to either side of her inner thighs, digging for the pressure point, and that
one spot
… Jackpot! Lamia screamed, her legs popped open, and I didn’t waste any time getting my legs up and out so I was straddling
her.

“I’ll kill you!” she screamed, blood, poison and spittle flying from her lips, and I was glad for the bandana over my nose and mouth. I got out one of my guns.

“Don’t make me do this!” I cried, but she was flailing. There was now shouting, not from the gate, but from deeper in the first, and I cursed. I put the gun in her mouth, but she kept thrashing, and I was out of time. I pulled the trigger and took her out. I leaped to my feet feeling kind of anguished and pretty pissed off at Michael for forcing my hand. I replaced the gun in its holster and ran over to where the two horses waited while Iaoel gave me the lay of the land.

We had Fallen, Demons, and Grigori coming up on us, and we needed out of the fucking gate, right
now!
I grabbed the reins and didn’t even bother remounting, leading Pestilence’s mount and Famine’s by default to the main gate. I shoved the horse through giving it a slap on the rump and sent Tab’s horse through next. I took one look over my shoulder and screamed as a hand reached out of the misting ash and trying to close over my shoulder. I was grabbed, halfway out the gate by a hand on the side that I wanted to be on and I let it pull me through.

It was a tug of war for half a second, with Iaoel sending warning lights off in my brain until I fumbled out one of my guns on the Hell side of things and randomly started firing. There was cursing, the hand from the ash let go, and I tumbled out of the gate and onto Uriel and Gabriel, falling in a heap at Michael’s feet. Azrael, Raphael, and Tab were already gone.