Melancholy Wings: Decadence (10 page)

Lazarus heard every word that was exchanged between Malakai and Alastor. There was a lot to take in, and by the end of their conversation he was feeling immensely appalled. It turned out Hades was right to suspect Malakai. Malakai was scheming with the demons of Pandemonium all along and was responsible for sending a troop of infantry beasts to attack Erebus and Helheim.

 When he saw Malakai turning around and taking off into the air, he quickly rushed back, so that Malakai wouldn’t see him. Hurriedly he flew back up through the tunnel, and very soon reached the chamber with lots of guards. Once again, he jumped onto the ceiling and hid behind the stalactites to make sure that the winged creature flying in the top half of the room wouldn’t see him. He had to be quick this time, because Malakai was not far behind him. He could always hide, but he wasn’t so sure if he’d find a good place in time, and that Malakai wouldn’t sense that someone was nearby.

 Promptly but with great care, Lazarus made his way along the cave ceiling whilst constantly watching the airborne creature. He remembered that Aurora was on the other side, so he had to make sure he was out of her sight too. The winged creature, all of a sudden, changed its course, so Lazarus was forced to back away a bit and to hide again until the creature passed. He could now sense Malakai getting closer, almost at the entrance into the chamber.

 Time was short, and so Lazarus finally risked it. He made his way around the hanging stalactites and rushed to the opening he initially came from. On his way there, he accidentally hit one of the stalactites, causing it to crack and a piece of it to break off. Lazarus saw what happened the instant the piece began falling, and so whizzed in the direction of the tunnel with great speed before the stalactite piece landed, alerting some of the guards. He hid himself in a small gap just before the tunnel entrance and waited. Since the cave wall was irregular, there were plenty of gaps in it, and that particular one served to be a good hiding place. Lazarus quickly glanced out and saw two of the guards heading in his direction, coming to check out the noise.

 The two demonic guards came close into the area he was in and began looking around. They were speaking to each other in an unfamiliar language whilst doing so. One of them finally lit a torch and began getting closer. Lazarus knew it was no use to keep hoping for them not to see him, and so he protracted his pike and swiftly came out of his hiding spot in order to attack them. He took the first one down with a single stab, before they even spotted him. The second one put up a small fight, but Lazarus evaded all of his attacks and then produced a horizontal semi-circular swing with his weapon, striking the demon guard on the side of the head. The creature fell to the ground, which then gave Lazarus plenty of time to finish it off with a stab. Spending no time on revelling on his close encounter, Lazarus put out the torch they were carrying and dragged both of the carcasses out of view. He sensed Malakai was already inside the chamber, slowly making his way around the stalactites on the ceiling too. It was time to get out of that place.

 Lazarus quickly entered the tunnel he needed to take and scanned it, as he remembered Aurora hiding there before, but she was no longer there. It appeared that she left the area, most likely gave up on trying to sneak past the demonic guards. Feeling satisfied, he instantly rushed along the tunnel without looking back. When he saw the exit eventually, he felt relieved and prepared to spring his wings for the flight back to his home sector. However, the instant he came out of the cave, someone got on his way. The two collided with each other and got stunned for a second. Lazarus recovered quickly and saw it was Aurora. Aurora thought she was in trouble and instantly took out her retractable weapon, which happened to be a pike too.

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“Hey. It’s fine. I am not going to hurt you.” Lazarus reassured her.

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“Who are you?” Aurora asked out of fear.

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“I am from Erebus sector. Calm down. I saw you following Malakai, but don’t worry, because I was following him too.” Lazarus explained to her briefly.

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“I see.” Aurora understood everything and put her weapon away, “Please don’t tell anyone I was here.”

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“I won’t. Would you please keep it a secret as well?”

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“I will.” Aurora gave him her word.

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“Well we better get out of here then. Malakai is coming.”

At that instant the two of them flew off and headed back the way they came. They split upon reaching the river Lethe. Aurora headed for Infernal Pit, her home sector, whilst Lazarus headed for the Southern docks on Abode of the Corrupted, where he left his boat.

Malakai made it out of the cave too and finally could feel more relaxed. He was no admirer of sneaking around. The narrow cave tunnels made him feel constrained. The act of having to stay quiet and taking the time to simply make it across a single room was annoying. Malakai had little patience. He liked to act fast and to get on with the matter.

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“Damn demons. They like to see others suffer.” He spoke quietly to himself.

He was still constantly questioning whether he was making the right choice. He had a goal of his own, and there was a high chance that allying with the Pandemonium, the strongest of all the sectors of the Underworld, would help his dreams come true. However, there was also a risk of them turning on him or sending him on a suicide mission. They could not be trusted, and for that he had to approach their every word with caution. He began replaying the scenarios in his head concerning what Alastor asked him to do. Was it a good idea to turn the sectors still loyal to the Creator against Beelzebub?

 Whilst pondering on the issue, he flew across the outer wastelands of Pandemonium, filled with nothing but ash, skeletons of various creatures from ages ago, and also discarded fragments of broken boats and other vehicles used in the Underworld. He reached the river Lethe soon enough and continued flying above it towards his home sector.

 For a brief second Aurora sprung to his mind. Something about her behaviour seemed unusual the last time he saw her. He couldn’t quite understand why though, but he decided to watch her closely for a few interims. She was still relatively new in the Underworld and could do unacceptable things.

 Finally when he reached the familiar grounds, Malakai felt completely relieved and descended through the air towards land. He had several tasks to do now. He needed to find a way to make contact with the Erebus dark angels again, and he had to set the scene just right. However, before that he was curious to find out more about this agent the demons were using in the External World to harvest souls.

 In order to obtain information about this individual, Malakai decided to send a messenger to the Pandemonium. The infernal messengers varied one from another. Some were fast, others could remember a lot of information, thirds were good spies, and so on. The spy messengers were rare, unlike years ago. Now each sector had many layers of anti-spy defences, such as creatures that could sense them for example, and therefore they were no longer efficient, unless used properly. Malakai, however, decided to take a chance. He provided his messenger with certain instructions and gave it an order to memorize every bit of information concerning the harvester of souls in the External World. If it came to the worst and the messenger was found and destroyed, nobody would be able to track down who sent it. With that in mind, Malakai went ahead with his plan.

Chapter 11

Reiteration of the Plan

It was an early afternoon in the External World already, yet Azrael, Adelais, and Ethel had not still found Garridan. They were beginning to give up. Over the course of all these hours they managed to scan a very large area, but the search appeared to be futile. Adelais kept trying to convince his teammates that they would not find Garridan and that they should abandon what they were doing. He was starting to grow sick of mindlessly scanning the area. Ethel and Azrael agreed, but they did not want to deliver the bad news to Hades. They wanted to continue looking.

 Eventually they saw something moving towards them at a high speed through the air. It was Seere. As soon as he reached them, he came to a sudden halt and addressed all three of them.

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“Good angels, your master, Lord Hades, wants you to abort the search and is now expecting you in his palace.”

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“How is that possible?” Azrael found it difficult to believe that Hades would suddenly cancel a mission.

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“He says he needs you urgently.” Seere added.

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“Did he say why?”

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“He mentioned that the current objectives need to be reiterated. That is all I know.”

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“All right, thank you.”

As soon as Azrael said that last line, Seere departed from them to continue his duty. Azrael and Ethel were speechless. Adelais on the other hand was gazing at them and wondering why they weren’t doing anything.

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“So are we going or not?” he finally asked them.

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“Yes.” Azrael confirmed.

Leaving the External World was much easier for angels than entering it. All they needed to do was to concentrate hard, and the gateway engulfed them in by itself. Within mere seconds they found themselves being thrown out of the gateway, back at the Mount Sanctus in the Internal World. Without discussing the situation any further, all three of them flew into the air and back to their sector via the Utopian Path. It was going to take a while, so Ethel began talking to her teammates.

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“Maybe those are news from Lazarus.” She guessed.

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“It could as well be.” Adelais responded, “I sure hope it’s good news.”

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“I really want to believe that too, but would Lord Hades need us urgently if it was good news?” she rationalised.

Adelais realised that she was right. Emergency such as this could not mean good news. He was starting to get worried again and kept wondering about what exactly Lazarus could’ve discovered.

 The rest of the journey they flew quietly, contemplating on the matter. Once they reached the river Acheron, they crossed it towards their home sector of Erebus and finally headed for Hades’ palace. They were rather tired, as they had been flying for almost half a day in the External World, as well as making their way to the gateways and back. That was why they decided to land and walk the rest of the way when they got close enough to Hades’ palace. Being back in the Internal World allowed them to replenish energy automatically, but it still required some time.

 As they reached the palace, they went straight inside. Once again, they didn’t speak whilst heading along the corridor and just approached the judges. Those knew that Hades was expecting them, and so Minos snapped his fingers as he usually did, causing the doors to open. When Azrael and his team entered Hades’ room, Lazarus was inside already. Gideon and his team were there too. Hades looked stern, but a faint smile appeared on his face when Ethel, Azrael, and Adelais came in.

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“Excellent. You’re finally here.” He announced with delight, “We can now discuss the matter at hand.”

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“Is there something wrong?” Azrael questioned, “We had to abandon our mission.”

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“Yes. We can continue that at a later time. More important matters have surfaced.” He confirmed.

Every dark angel in the chamber stood still here and listened in attentively to what Hades had to say next. Hades assembled his thoughts quickly and then began:

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“As you all remember, I sent Lazarus to follow Malakai during our last meeting. It appears Lazarus had discovered exactly what we’ve been looking for. Malakai recently headed to Pandemonium to have a meeting with Alastor, who is Lucifer’s most gifted killer. Through that meeting it had been revealed that Malakai was the one to send the army of infantry monsters to attack us.”

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“So his master, Lord Beelzebub, knew nothing about that?” Azrael asked just to be sure.

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“Indeed, it seems he didn’t.” Hades assured them, “This makes me wonder about Malakai’s loyalty. According to what Lazarus said, Malakai and Alastor weren’t on such good terms with each other either.”