Scorn of Angels (10 page)

Transforming into two of them, in mid-air, without letting go of each other’s hands—and while maintaining flight toward the window—was nearly impossible.

But only
nearly
.

Their bodies thinned and elongated. Their bones twisted and wrenched and bent into new shapes. Their fingers became taloned claws, their legs shortened, and they grew tails that lashed behind them to help with momentum and direction. Lastly, their wings furled, shrank, and became stretches of skin between their front and back legs.

And we’re even still on course,
thought Nyx.
Now that’s luck.
She looked closer at the window.

There’s no way we’re fitting through there like
this.

She brought her tail in and wrapped it around Persephone’s neck, then disentangled her claws from Persephone’s. Nyx put on a burst of power so she’d go through the window first. She heard Persephone squawk as Nyx’s tail choked her. Then they were both through the window and into the room.

“Oh, shit,”
said Persephone in Nyx’s head.

Sitting in the chair, just inside the window, was Namtar: a squat, well-muscled Angel, with dark brown face and features, and tusks that protruded up from his lower jaw to glistening points. He was wearing the heavy maroon armor that the male Descended wore for battle.

Nyx and Persephone landed directly on top of him.

“What the fuck!” Namtar screamed as the two of them swarmed up his body, attacking his face. He jumped back and tried to bat them away. Had they truly been demons instead of Angels, he would have easily sent them flying across the room. Instead, Nyx sunk her teeth into his face. Her claws dug into his armor, giving her secure purchase while she ate his cheeks and nose. Just below her, Persephone drove her teeth into Namtar’s throat, cutting off his speech before he could say anything more.

Namtar stumbled to his feet and thrashed around, one hand tearing at their lizard bodies, the other going for his sword. Persephone wrapped her tail around his wrist to stop him, and dug her teeth deeper into his neck, past flesh and windpipe and into veins that exploded out in a rain of silver ichor. Had she been a true demon, she would not have been able to cut through the iron muscles of the Angel’s neck, but because she was an Angel, she slowly chewed her way through while he struggled and fought.

“Enough of this,” said Nyx, her voice rasping out through the demon-body’s lips and vocal chords. She shifted one claw to rest on Persephone’s back, then shifted back to her own form. Namtar’s eyes went wide at the sight of Nyx, her pale flesh veined with green, her long silver hair streaked with the same shining color. Namtar’s mouth worked in surprise and horror in the second he had before Nyx said, “Let him go, Persephone.”

Persephone’s jaws dropped off his neck, and Nyx’s sword cleaved through it, sending his head to bounce off a wall. The Angel’s body collapsed. Persephone changed back to her real form, her hand still firmly in Nyx’s. She picked up the head, ignoring its wordless mouthing and shoved it into the narrow window, jamming it there. Then she raised her own sword, willing it into the shape of a club that she brought down on Namtar’s skull twenty times until the Angel’s brain exploded and splattered through the room.

“There,” Persephone said. “That will keep him busy healing for a while.”

“Long enough, I hope,” said Nyx. She closed her eyes and searched for Ishtar. She sighed. “Of course she’s in the dungeons.”

“How long to get there?” asked Persephone.

“Not too long if we move at speed,” said Nyx. “Hard to get out of, though.”

“Of course,” said Persephone. “If it was easy, it wouldn’t be ours to do, would it?”

Nyx managed a smile and opened the door.

Lucifer had decorated his castle to be a tribute both to his power and to his sexual proclivities. Every wall had souls chained to it, most facing inward so they couldn’t see what torments awaited them. All the souls were being attended to by demons. Some had small ones that bit or clawed or ripped them open and crawled inside. Others were at the mercy of incubi and succubi—demons of sexual prowess—who violated the souls mercilessly while they ripped the skin from the soul’s flesh with their talons, and lapped at the exposed tissue with their rough tongues. Many other souls were impaled on various-sized implements.

“Do you think he’s secretly insecure?” asked Persephone after surveying one soul. “Or just suffering from a lack of imagination?”

“Lucifer never was one of the smart ones,” said Nyx. “Quiet now.”

They reached the bottom of the staircase and ran hand in hand through hallways deliberately made too small for flying. They passed half a hundred Angels unseen, even when they had to squeeze between the Angels and the edges of the doorways they were guarding.

And everywhere they went, every demon stopped what it was doing and sniffed the air, nostrils flaring. They could not see Nyx and Persephone as they went past. But they could smell their Angelic signatures. And so every demon they passed left what it was doing and followed.

Through the castle Nyx and Persephone went, down staircases decorated with skins flayed from souls, demons, and occasionally Angels. They went through hallways where each step was on the silently screaming face of a tortured soul’s severed head, and others where souls had been encased in Hellstone, save for their faces, which were under continuously flowing Hellfire.

And the farther they went, the more demons followed.

The dungeon stairs and walls were lit with torches of Hellfire, burning in the mouths of souls whose bodies had been impaled on spikes that forced their heads up so the Hellfire could not drain. The dungeon itself was a huge open pit, with a thousand souls being tortured by demons. Racks, flaying knives, teeth, claws, needles, pincers, and hundreds of other instruments were in constant use by nimble, many-fingered demons that chortled gleefully as they made the souls scream and beg.

Nyx and Persephone both spotted Ishtar at the same time.

Ishtar was bent over a bar with Hellstone spikes poking out of it and ripping through her body. Her arms and legs and wings were chained wide open, and tiny demons skittered up and down her flesh, gnawing on it in delight. A thick spike had been driven through the length of Ishtar’s body, going in her sex and out her mouth. The bottom end was T-shaped to prevent Ishtar backing off of it. The part that came out her mouth had been shaped into a vessel. It was sized to cover Ishtar’s head and was filled with Hellfire. Ishtar’s hair and flesh had been burned away, leaving only the white bone of her skull. An incubus, balancing on the T-shaped end of the spike, violated Ishtar’s ass with as much vigor as it could muster. A line of others stood behind it, entertaining one another as they waited their turns.

One of them sniffed the air, then another, and another. Soon every demon in the room had stopped what they were doing and were searching the room for them.

“Demons have to have noses like dogs,” said Persephone. “Who the fuck’s idea was that?”

Nyx looked at the horde of demons beneath them, then peered above them. Thousands more demons were pouring down the stairs, all sniffing the air. “Well, this sucks.”

“Yep,” agreed Persephone. “Now what?”

“They can’t see us or notice us,” said Nyx. “They know we’re here, but they can’t find us at all.”

“Will they see if we gut those incubi on Ishtar?”

More demons came down the stairs, sniffing the air with their ugly snouts, searching for them.

“No choice,” said Nyx. “Demons don’t come after Angels. Not unless…”

“Someone’s telling them to,” finished Persephone. “You want to do the gutting or the breaking?”

“Breaking,” said Nyx. “I’m more powerful. I can get her loose faster. Ready?”

Persephone drew her blade, the Hellfire glowing blue on its black edges. “Whenever you are.”

“Then do it.”

Persephone’s sword lashed out, cutting the incubus off at the ankles. It toppled backward. Persephone’s blade lashed out again. The incubus’s head split open, brains oozing.

“All without letting go of your hand,” bragged Persephone as the demons around them roared with rage. She stepped as far away from Nyx as she could and began laying waste to the creatures around them. Demons howled and screamed and lashed out with claws and teeth in all directions, tearing into each other as they tried to find their attackers.

Nyx drew her own blade and smashed the vessel holding Ishtar’s head. A second cut sheared through the bar of Hellstone pinning Ishtar to the ground. Nyx sheathed her sword and grabbed the crossbeam sticking out of Ishtar’s body. With a single hard pull, she ripped the bar free and hurled it into the mass of demons. As it flew, Nyx saw it had been barbed wickedly along the length of it. Nyx winced at the thought of the damage that it must have done.

No time to worry about that
now.

Nyx drew her own sword again and cut through the Hellstone chains that held Ishtar’s wings, arms, and legs. Ishtar collapsed onto the blood-and gut-covered ground. Nyx turned her attention to the crowd of demons, hacking through their numbers while Ishtar healed below them. The demons still couldn’t see them, but they began converging where their brethren were getting cut to pieces, flailing out blindly in the hopes of finding enemy flesh.

“More coming,” grunted Persephone.

Nyx looked up. Demons were flowing down the stairs, their numbers so large that they were now pushing each other down and climbing over the bodies to reach the fight. Then Nyx heard the scream of a succubus launching itself from the stairs to fall where they were standing.

“Shit!” Nyx’s blade slashed up and cut the succubus in two before it could touch either of them.

“Ishtar! Are you with us yet?”

Under her feet, Ishtar groaned and pulled herself to her hands and knees, the flesh of her body contorting as bones reattached, and veins and arteries built their walls. She coughed, and silver blood shot from her mouth. Her jaw snapped in place with a click. “Nyx?”

“Who else?” said Persephone, as she cut through another pair of demons with a single swipe. “Now get on your feet. There’s killing to do!”

“How did you…?” Ishtar struggled upright, wincing as her body healed itself. “Does this mean Lucifer’s army is gone?”

“What?” Nyx hacked through six more demons with a single slice. “Gone where?”

“Earth,” said Ishtar, pushing herself upright. She shook her head as her eyes grew back into their sockets. “Tribunal said that, before his plans could come to fruition, Lucifer should lead his armies to Earth and kill everyone there. Said that God wouldn’t notice.”

“Fucking traitorous bastard. I should have made Judas king. When did you hear this?”

“After you were stuffed in the box,” said Ishtar. “I was pinned to the wall, remember?”

“Barely,” admitted Nyx. “Can you fly?”

“Not yet,” said Ishtar, spreading her wings. The feathers on them were growing back slowly. “Still ripped open inside.”

“We don’t have time,” said Nyx. She sheathed her sword and grabbed Ishtar’s hand, spreading the don’t-notice-me field and making Ishtar’s soul invisible at the same time. “Persephone! Up!”

Persephone spread her wings, and the two of them leapt into the air. Nyx dragged Ishtar as if she weighed nothing.

“Clear a path to the door!” shouted Nyx and the demons around them shouted in frustration and anger. The ones on the floor began charging up the stairs, the larger ones knocking over the smaller as they attempted to follow the scent of the Angels. The whole staircase was a swarm of flesh, not much different than a maggoty corpse on a battlefield. Persephone swung in front of the other two, her sword becoming a blur as they flew at the door. Demons were gutted and thrown out of the way in a splatter of blood and bits. Ishtar drew her own sword and began hacking at the ones behind them, keeping them back long enough for the three to make it out the door.

The horde of demons was even thicker in the hallway. Ishtar regained her feet and joined Persephone in front of Nyx. Their blades began flashing faster than any demon could move, even had they been able to see their attackers. Using the strength of their blades and their Angelic power, they mowed through them like charging bulls through a field of dandelions.

“Head for the door!” shouted Nyx. “It’ll take too long to get anywhere else!”

The blades moved even faster, cutting the air with an evil song. The Angels picked up their pace, leaving a trail of blood, slime, and broken demon bodies behind them.

“Nyx!” shouted Persephone over her shoulder. “Where are the Angels? They should be on top of us by now!”

Nyx had been thinking the very same thing. “Don’t know,” she shouted back. “Don’t care just yet. If we can make the door, we can make it out!”

“The foyer’s just up ahead!” shouted Ishtar. “We’re nearly…”

The foyer was filled with Angels. Fifty of them stood or hovered there, swords at ready, their sculpted bodies taut with muscle. Asmodeus, tall, red-skinned and black-haired, razor teeth showing in a grin, was standing in the front of the pack of them, Hellfire flickering on his massive, bare shoulders.

“Well, fuck,” spat Persephone. “Why couldn’t they be all taking a nice nap in the Lake of Fire?”

“We can’t see you,” said Asmodeus. “We can’t hear you. But we know you are there.”

“Good for you,” muttered Nyx. “The demons are coming up behind.”

“Now would be a good time for ideas,” said Ishtar as she swung around and took rear guard, preparing to slaughter as many of the oncoming demon horde as possible.

“More importantly,” said Asmodeus, “Lucifer knows you are here. And he is prepared for you.”

“Last time Lucifer was prepared for us, he dropped half an island on our heads,” said Ishtar.

“I remember,” said Nyx.

“Well, then, think of something!”

“Persephone,” said Nyx. “If they could see us, how many?”

Persephone looked over the Angels before her. “They’re not the 666th. How long?”

“Long enough for us to push through the door.”