There But For The Grace (17 page)

Moving across the bridge, staying low, I quickly discovered why more help wasn’t arriving from the third section. Screams, both general and a mixture of confessions and accusations, filled the air. Here, much of the stone had been worked and shaped, then had holes carved through it large enough to fit a human head into. Many of them held the heads of those guilty of simony—the selling of spiritual blessings and favors under false pretenses. As they were trapped in the mockery of baptismal fonts, their feet were held over open flames, while demonic torturers worked them over with scourges and hot irons, urging them to confess all of their sins, or name other names of the guilty among their associates. Likely, the Demons had long since wrested every possible confession out of these people, and now were just enjoying forcing the damned to make as much of a mockery of the duties of their former offices as they had by committing the sins that led them here.

It was only a matter of time before an alarm was raised here as well, so I had to proceed with a mixture of stealth and speed. Thankfully, the shouts of the damned made moving quietly almost unnecessary. I just had to stay out of sight. Unfortunately, here, I had to stay out of sight of both the demonic torturers and the damned, as the trapped souls by now were more than used to screaming out their confessions, and would doubtless give me away without a second thought if there was even the slightest thought it might satisfy their torturers.

It took far longer than I’d have liked to navigate my course, and I finished the journey in a fight with five Demons wielding scourges and hot irons with expert precision. Thankfully, while the weapons were highly effective implements of torture against the damned, they caused me minimal harm. I did have to run down the last before he escaped to pass on warning, but at least the shouted called of the damned imprisoned near the fight didn’t get any attention over the shouts and screams of others still being tortured.

With only two layers of the Eighth Circle to go, and forces gathering behind me—as likely as not, including Gadreel and his cohorts—I opted for the quickest way I could go while maintaining some degree of stealth. I’d have enough of a climb ahead of me, so, to try to pass through the second section as fast as possible, I clung to the underside of the bridge again. This worked remarkably well for moving through the area, as the second layer was all raised buildings and bridge networks, built overlooking a vast lake of mud and excrement. Instead of drawing the sinners out to torment them, though, the Demons here wielded long poles, and every time one of the liars below broke the surface, they shoved them back down. Those who saw me from below might have, if given any chance, given me away, but given the sins that had brought them here, the Demons weren’t interested in anything they said.

Moving hand over hand over the vast lake proved difficult at times. The exertion alone was bad enough, after the difficulties so far. The wood and metal was also often slick, making maintaining handholds tricky. While I could freely let myself be seen by the trapped liars below, I couldn’t fall into the lake, or I’d certainly draw notice. Finally, the lake also hosted massive swarms of flies of many sorts. While physically harmless to me, they made maintaining any kind of focus more difficult, and frequently assaulted any sign of an open wound, as well as crawling over my eyes and into my ears, until I managed to find a place to wedge myself into the bridge struts enough to stop and cover my ears, shuffling more of the cloth around as best I could. I was just nearing the end of the bridgeways when I heard the sound of running footsteps. Those pursuing, or running the alarm, were catching up.

***

At long last, I reached the final expanse of ground, the highest level of the Eighth Circle of Hell, and the most dangerous to me by far. This was the level of punishment for the panderers and seducers. Here, though the damned souls were stripped bare and exposed, everything else was decked out for a military parade. The stone was decorated with colorful banners, while a mixture of Demons and a few Fallen used whips, brands, and threats to force the damned to march endlessly. The ground along the parade route was sometimes bare, and other times laid out with hot coals or small, sharp rocks.

Just from my hidden vantage point, I could already see more Demons than I’d encountered traveling through the other nine layers of the circle combined, to say nothing of the Fallen. The former could overwhelm me with numbers, but individually, posed little challenge. The latter, however, could be deadly alone, and there were a few, even just in the cursory glance.

What ultimately gave me a chance to pass was the precise, military nature of the punishment. The Demons here were part of the show, putting the lies and deceptions of the sinners on display, not acting as stationary guards. Though there were multiple parade groups moving through, each with its own host of Demons and Fallen, they were still moving at predictable paces, with space between them. If there were supposed to be any regular guards, I couldn’t see them. It was entirely possible that boredom had hit enough centuries ago that they’d just taken to being audience for the parades, moving to vantage points with the best views, or had joined in the escorts.

All of that would change if the message got to them. While I timed the parades, forced to wait to do so, I also waited in ambush. When two Demons came racing across the bridge, I was waiting. One got a sword in the back, while I dragged the other back out of sight and broke its neck. I dumped the bodies over the ledge behind me and then, a minute after the last parade of sinners had passed, I made my break for it.

As soon as I started, I just covered as much ground as I could, getting into cover to obstruct any view of me and rushing as fast as I could manage from there. At times, that wasn’t terribly fast, but I was getting closer and closer to the vast cliff face ahead.

Trumpets sounded behind me, calling the Demons of the layer to attention, and putting them on high alert. Messengers would be coming with more specific information, no doubt, but for now, just having the Demons aware there was some trouble was bad enough.

I reached the wall ahead of trouble this time and started the climb. After pushing myself through the Eighth Circle, any benefit I’d gained from my rest on entering the circle was gone. Gadreel and other Fallen would likely be pursuing before long, and with the ability to fly, if they caught up with me, I’d be at a significant disadvantage. If Gadreel in particular caught up, he wasn’t going to trust in a cave-in this time, either.

Initially, I had hoped that I’d be able to manage to sneak past the guardians of the wall. Now, they seemed like my best chance. The expansive cliff faces were home to wyverns, dragon-like creatures with bright scale patterns and venomous bites. Though there were a number of them, each guarded its territory jealously. Though monstrous, they weren’t unintelligent beasts. No more intelligent than the lower orders of demons, perhaps, Demons, perhaps, but not significantly less, either.

Instead of keeping my wings drawn in close and climbing quietly, I spread them and focused on speed of ascent, trying to catch the attention of one of the monsters before anyone with ranged weapons caught up. Just in case, I kept climbing as I did so, trying to put more distance between myself and the vast numbers of Demons tied to the area.

I almost failed to notice I was under attack. The scaled flier came from behind me, gliding silently until the moment came to strike. I barely rolled out of the way, dangling from the cliff-face by my grip on my sword, stuck into the rocks, as claws raked the stone where I’d just been.

I rolled back the other way to avoid a bite before the wyvern flapped, drawing back from the wall and readying itself for another lunge. As it did so, I dug my feet in again, then pushed off, leaping out into the open air. The wyvern almost dodged, which would have sent me crashing to the ground from much too far up. Instead, I caught on, then struggled to hold on while the wyvern tried to shake me. It started with just spinning and whirling in the air, and then tried to dash me off by flying upward, dragging me along the wall off and on. When that didn’t work, it tried to grab me in return, grappling with me in mid-air.

The grappling fight ended when I finally managed to interpose my sword as it swiped at me, taking off one of its front paws. The blade came up to its neck. “Up, keep going up.”
Or you lose more than a hand
was clearly implied. “And keep quiet.”

The wyvern bore me upward, racing along the cliffside. Just in case it had any more tricks, I kept a tight hold, finally leaping free as it broke over the top of the mountainous expanse, taking me from the rocky ravines and climbs of the Eighth, and to the edge of a barren desert.

Two down. I’d reached the Seventh Circle of Hell. Looking out into the desert, I couldn’t help but follow that thought with thinking that I still had a very long way to go.

Adelaide

The sound my boot made when it came to rest on the ash-riddled ground was similar to the sound it would make when coming to rest on snow, only the crunch was more brittle, more fragile. The silence, however, was nearly exactly the same. Crossing from the sundrenched grass into the barren ashen landscape was like stepping into a vacuum. All sense of warmth or joy was sapped away.

I asked Azrael, “What is this place?”

“You are entering the outskirts of the First Circle of Hell,” he explained, and I looked up at him.

“You mean, Dante had it right?”

“In many respects, though the First Circle is somewhat different. Tell me, what do you notice about the landscape hereabout?”

“We’re on a slope. We’re traveling down, which only makes sense. I mean, Hell is supposed to be a pit, right?”

“Yes, but can you tell me why? Think on it.”

I did and was startled when I realized. I brought my head up sharply from where I’d been watching my step across the parched, uneven ground and looked at Azrael. “It’s an impact crater. Something fell from a great height and Hell is an impact crater.”

“Not something, my dear girl. Some
one.
”

I stopped in my tracks and stared at Azrael, “You mean to tell me that this,” I gestured out in front of us, sweeping my arm out to take in the massive expanse of –
Jesus!
You couldn’t even see the other side from here! It was just so huge. “That this was caused by…” I stopped myself just in time and bit my lips together. “The original Voldemort’s body crashing into the ground?”

“Just as there are nine layers of Hell, so too are there seven Heavens. The Seventh, the pinnacle, is so very high above us. He had a very,
very
long ways to fall, and he was indeed, much bigger in size than you or I when he did it.”

“Holy fuck balls,” I muttered to myself, and Azrael laughed.

We chatted about it more, about the different levels of Hell as it descended further down, about what I could expect from each of them with the fair warning that no matter how much we talked about it, there would be no
real
preparation for what lay beyond the gates. I drank from God’s canteen and worried for the first time if it would run out on me while down here as Hell was apparently completely absent from His grace.

“So God has completely turned a blind eye to it, huh?”

“Yes.”

I blew out an explosive breath and tasted the bitter tang of tears on the ash that sifted by. “Boy, our very own Voldemort fucked up royal, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Yes, he did.”

“Damn.”

“Precisely.”

We forged onward, and I noticed that even though the gates of Hell were massive, and that I was pretty much nothing but a tiny flea by comparison, there was another set of gates, much more in line with the size of an average human at the very bottom of them.

“So are the keys meant for the big gate or the little gate?” I asked, confused.

“Ah, the larger one. The forces of neither Heaven nor Hell would fit through these man sized gates down here. The keys were, of course, made much more manageable for carry but will scale to the size of the being in possession of them.”

“Practical. Makes sense.”

“You are more inquisitive now than you have been,” Azrael observed.

“Yeah, the more nervous and out of my depth I get, the more questions I ask. If I know what’s going on… I don’t know… I guess I feel more in control, it makes whatever is going down easier to swallow.”

“You’ve thought about this.”

“Yeah, you try hanging with Tab for longer than five minutes and ask more than one or two questions. He gets real irritated real fast. I stopped asking questions around him when they didn’t get me anywhere, but at this point, I’m fuckin’ scared. Anything I can learn is probably a good thing, if only to keep my mind occupied with the problems I
can
solve.”

“Fascinating.”

“What?”

“You have a deep insight about yourself. Typically mortals may be introspective, but they also don’t accept things about themselves easily. You are different.”

“Oh, just because I know things about myself or am aware of them, doesn’t mean I accept them. I guess I never really thought about it too much. It’s just how I am.” I lifted one shoulder in a shrug and we traipsed on, quiet for a time.

The further we moved down into the bowl of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s impact crater, the more I started to choke up. The ash was fine and hung almost suspended in the air, creating an almost foggy visual effect. Azrael kept my hand in his as we walked, and the nearer we drew to the gates, the more oppressive the atmosphere became. I unconsciously rested my right hand on the butt of one of the guns Miri had given me.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley
with
Death…” I muttered, and Azrael chuckled.

“I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, or what this must be like for you.”