There But For The Grace (5 page)

“Interesting,” he murmured, “I would have a word with Haziel. When the door opens, step out. I shall be but a moment behind you.”

I shuddered and gave Azrael a half-smile, which he returned. “It is too late for me to unsay what I have just said, but know that you are safe from me a while yet, Adelaide.”

I made a slight face, “Addy, please. Only my mother and Tab call me ‘Adelaide.’”

Azrael cocked his head to the side and swept me with another look. “Tabbris?”

“Yeah, they… uh,” I cleared my throat, which was suddenly tight, “They kind of took him down there, and there’s two really good reasons why that’s a really bad place to be aside from ‘it’s Tab, and he doesn’t deserve to be in Hell.’”

The door opened, and I slipped out. Azrael, as good as his word, was right behind me. The gallery of onlookers was clearing out, and we went to stand with Haziel. We three were silent, so as not to give Haziel away, and we followed him when the coast was clear for us to do so – all the way out to his Mercedes. Haziel handed me my pack and I shouldered it, and looked expectantly for one of the two Angels to give me a clue as to what the new plan was.

“It has been a pleasure, Addy,” Haziel stated, and he took my hand to shake, I pulled him into a hug.

“Thank you for feeding me and putting me up for the night,” I said, “And for helping me get in touch with the right people.”

“I wish you luck, Child.”

“Thanks.”

We stepped apart, and Haziel looked to Azrael. They had a short exchange in a language that was like music to the ear and brought tears to my eyes.

“I shall, my friend,” Death promised the Angel of Monsters, and Haziel got into his Mercedes and backed out. I sniffed and looked up at Azrael.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now, you explain to me what has happened.”

“Fair enough.” I opened my mouth to tell him, but one long-fingered hand appeared out of his robes, held gracefully, palm towards me to stop me in my tracks.

“You must eat,” he intoned, and I nodded. I was starving, and we’d sort of missed lunch and after what Haziel had said to me about the importance of eating while Iaoel was on board, I was all for it.

Death held out his hand to me, and I took it, and as we touched, we disappeared into the many splendored lights and colors that told me I was about to be very, very sick and have no clue where the fuck I was going to end up.

Tabbris

I smelled brimstone and tasted blood. Mine, theirs—mostly theirs. Looking around, I estimated two dozen bodies this time. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize any of them. The first group’s reinforcements hadn’t arrived in time. I discarded the broken Hell-forged sword in my off-hand and picked up a replacement, testing its weight, discarding it, then finding another whose balance I liked better. It would work until I found something more suited for defense—for all sorts of reasons, the more military rank and file of the forces of Hell never had any problem getting more things to shed blood with, but their superiors rarely cared as much about their survivability.

Replacing the weapon was all the time I had. The baying of the hellhound packs was a constant now that they’d had time to organize the hunt. Sneaking past some of the sentries had worked for a while, but once they had the hounds out and leashed—as controlled as the packs ever got—the only option was often violence. I was better at violence anyway, but it left a trail. I also had new wounds that needed tending. None were severe, thankfully, but enough small injuries would add up, and it just made tracking me easier.

I still couldn’t fly, thanks to Lucifer’s binding, but gliding for some distance I could do. As often as I found open spaces, I relied on that to try to leave fewer bloody footprints and less of a scent trail. Imperfect, but it would have to do. The echoing of the noise through the caverns made it impossible to accurately determine how far behind me other groups of Fallen, Demons, and hounds were, so I had to perpetually assume they were on my heels.

“I’m not giving up, Tab.”

The prayer came through clear as day. There was more, but the rest was less clear. Hell had a way of taunting me, along with everyone else, dangling hope, and trying to pull it away. It was Addy’s voice, and the first prayer in what felt like weeks. In all likelihood, for her, it had been, what? Days, perhaps. Hours, maybe. It was hard to tell. Hell’s time was diluted, so those days would come across as weeks here. I’d long since lost all track of days and nights, so I just knew it had been a long, slow fight for progress, and every chance to rest I’d had, hidden away, I’d needed.

And now that they’d organized, I’d have less of those. The packs and hunters were out in force, from who-knew-how-many different factions, even if all nominally under Lucifer’s influence. Thankfully, they weren’t necessarily coordinating with each other. It was one of the few advantages I had: Lucifer, Samyaza, and nearly everyone else among Hell’s hierarchy would be out for their own agendas, and some of those might even be at cross-purposes. Being the one to bring me in would be valuable to multiple someones, so it was to plenty of hunters’ benefits to be that one, and, just as often, by the nature of the inhabitants of these places, to make sure that others weren’t that one.

The prayer echoed in my mind again. She was still out there, still thinking of me, and wasn’t giving up that a way out would be found. Even if it was only days for her, it was hope—which was exactly what I needed to sustain me.

I finally managed to reach another high, open chamber with multiple passages out of it, including some much higher up. I climbed, digging my fingers into the red and black rock, feeling the scrape of the obsidian black stone against my skin. Were I any of the countless mortals kept here, my hands would have been cut to ribbons for the effort. I pulled myself between two stalagmites, and rolled out of sight from the cavern below. Voices rose above the baying as a hunting group emerged into the cavern just seconds behind me. With the mix of sounds, I couldn’t decipher any of the words, but didn’t need to. I was starting down the passage when I heard the frantic clawing and higher pitched whines from at least a few hounds. I guessed they’d found where I’d started climbing, and were trying to tell their handlers where I was, since they lacked the easy ability to follow.

There was more shouting, and the sounds shifted away. That implied they were checking all of the ground-level passages before investigating the wall too closely. My best guess was that they thought I’d gone gliding again, or hoped I had, and were checking the easier routes before trying to do anything involving the jagged wall. They’d also doubtless seen the bodies and probably weren’t too eager to actually catch up with me if they had to leave the pack of hounds behind.

Whether I was right or wrong, I got as much distance as I could, scaling walls twice more. I had to keep moving towards the surface where I could anyway, and, this being Hell, there was a lot more ways down than up. Eventually, the baying grew distant enough, even in the echoing caverns, that I settled in to bind my injuries and take stock.

Once the physical wounds were bound in the last remnants of my shirt, I set to tending the less obvious. The worst part about Hell had nothing to do with Demons, or hunting packs, or fires. It was the absolute knowledge of being out of God’s sight and out of His Grace. I’d felt it before. Even in the midst of torture, the emptiness was the worst part of my previous stay, and I’d hoped to never experience it again. Most people aren’t even aware of that presence, but the damned souls certainly recognize its lack. I slipped into meditation, risking that I might miss some sound or sign that someone was getting close again. While there might be no way to silence the packs, not all of Hell’s hunters were so lacking in stealth, but I needed the centering if I was going to go on. It would be all too easy to fall into despair and end up unintentionally giving myself away, or missing some crucial detail.

I was alone in Hell, it was true. I believed Lucifer, to a degree, when he said that I’d been allowed to escape before, even if it was an allowance disguised as a rescue. There would be no Michael storming the gates and finding them passable this time around, not as long as I had the keys. Compared to them, I was meaningless, now that I’d delivered them here. The keys felt impossibly heavy, with a spiritual weight far in excess of their size. Lucifer didn’t want to storm the gates of Heaven with the keys, as was generally believed for so long. He wanted to dangle them before Michael and the host’s eyes in order to force them to fight on Lucifer’s turf, on Lucifer’s terms. He’d lost once, when facing Michael in a nominally fair fight, and he had no intention of the next one being fair at all. They were bait, but if I failed here, and let the keys fall into the wrong hands, there would be no choice. Just as bad as the weight of that responsibility was the weight of guilt. Lucifer had allowed my rescue, and in return, I’d led him right to the keys.

I forced those thoughts aside and focused, instead, on what I had accomplished. I’d kept Adelaide from this realm. I’d kept Iaoel, in her capacity as the Angel of Visions and everything else she’d once been to me, out of Lucifer’s hands. He knew what he was after, and he’d set me up, but he didn’t get to see how it ended before it all played out. In turn, Iaoel would remain stuck inside of Adelaide, subject to a mortal’s will. The realm might encourage despair, but it had no problem propping me up through thoughts of what I’d denied others, no matter how limited the revenge. A more pious member of the host might insist on finding higher purpose, strength of faith, or some untainted love to sustain them. Right now, I’d take what I could get. Besides, I wasn’t certain how many of those purer members of the host would have survived Lucifer’s torments, or extended time in Hell, without breaking.

Besides, however the thoughts would come, I didn’t mind thinking of Adelaide. She was still out there, and she had prayed to me. It was muted by this realm, even more by the pits, but I’d still heard her voice.

Haziel would protect her, if the Archangels wouldn’t. She’d also be safer now, with most of the Demons and fallen more interested in the keys. Lucifer was a different matter entirely. If any of the things he’d said about Iaoel were true, even partially, he’d still be trying to recover her. That also meant that anything I did that pushed him to expend resources on me would divide his efforts. Especially because, in the case of something like the keys, he had to keep some kind of eye constantly on the situation. Even if he wasn’t personally hunting for me now, he had to make sure that whoever did get them wouldn’t try to keep them for themselves, hide them away again for their own purposes, or gather an army and attempt to invade Heaven. It would be the same mistrust and greed that kept the manhunt for me from becoming an organized effort. No one trusted each other, and for the most part, the mistrust was well-founded.

I focused on the prayer again. I’d told her I loved her. I shouldn’t have, no question. Up until that point, I could have perhaps denied it, and given her back her life when this was over. I had a moment of selfishness and needed her to know. I’d known, or begun to know, since the first times she’d reined Iaoel in. My relationship with Iaoel in the first place had often centered around her fierce will. Like me, Iaoel had never done things by halves—including betraying me. When she did that, she led me into the clutches of Hell the first time, but it was something I understood. And it was true of Adelaide, too. She had that same spirit. I’d denied it again and again, for her own protection, and for a long time, I could do that. The moment everything changed was in Chernobyl, when, even in the face of overwhelming odds, the hounds, the Fallen, and everything, she forged forward. Yes, it was a sabotage, and Iaoel had played her, taking advantage of her nature, but I knew that if she felt the same about me, there’d be no turning back for her in the face of anything.

As much as it was a moment of weakness, and one Hell would try to turn back on me, make me regret, on some level, I didn’t regret it. She was still praying to me, still believed. And right now, I not only needed that, I needed to justify her faith in me, and make her right.

I finished organizing my thoughts, encouraged by going back through the things in my favor, however limited those were, and got back to my real missions: survive, and keep the keys out of anyone’s hands but mine. I scanned my resting place for any sign I’d been detected, and then pushed on. I found a few more climbs, working my way upward. While any attempt to storm the gates would be futile, an effort on Michael’s part might give me an opportunity to escape. The Archangels would be trying to devise a plan now, and I needed to be ready to aid it. That meant going up whenever I could. It was dangerously predictable, of course, and sometimes the climbs just led to dead end caves or downward slopes or pits, erasing any progress I had made, but ultimately, I was making progress. Far slower progress than I’d have liked, but progress, nonetheless.

Gnawing worries about that lack of progress led to a terrible mistake. I’d been trying to stick with climbs that would take only short periods. I chose a longer one this time, when I came to a high wall, stretching into the darkness above, with evidence of a few caves which might have more passages. More enticing, it also appeared to open up at the top, if it wasn’t a trick of the light and shadows. The sharp stone still didn’t break flesh, and I was able to plunge my fingers and feet into the stone enough to create holds, but it was slow going. I was about a third of the way up when I heard shouts from below. Arrows followed the shouts not long after. Most of the shots simply missed, some of them bouncing off of the rock, while a few of the other misses struck with enough force to drive the arrowhead into the stone a small bit. Other shots struck and bounced off of my wings. They’d served as shield often enough before and did nicely for the purpose here.

After some errant shots and close misses, one of the arrows plunged into my shoulder. The hell-forged iron burned as it dug into flesh. I was durable enough that the wound wasn’t severe, but the infernal metal and strength of the shot were still enough to lodge the arrow where it struck. I had to guess one of the Fallen was below among the archers, maybe more than one.