The Pleasures of Hell 03.051

~~David~~

David pulled his shaggy hair aside, exposing his forehead. "I'm unmarked. I don't know about any war, but--"

The three humans gasped and looked between each other.

"How?" Naoko asked. "How are you unmarked?"

"Dunno how. We're kinda on a journey to figure that out."

They looked between each other again, while the devorjin remained a few meters off, growling, arms across his chest.

"Journey?" The succubus asked.

"Long story," David said. "Can't really share the details."

She frowned, looked the group over, and got her eyes stuck on Moriah. "You have an angel with you? A wounded angel? And... Timaeus, the bailiff?"

The gorujin snorted. If he knew her, he didn't say anything, but it made sense for people to recognize a bailiff.

"If you're moving through the Scar," the incubus said, "maybe we can help?"

Jes snorted and flared her wings. "I still haven't heard a good reason we shouldn't just eat you."

Again, the brute snorted, but he didn't move, either, eyes flicking between David and the two tetrads.

The incubus raised his tail and adopted a sneaky grin. "You're passing through the Scar, right? I just assumed, with the other unmarked and the war between the Red Pits and the Navameere Fields."

Well, fuck.

"We're just passing through," David said. "I have no plans to be involved in a war."

The incubus nodded. "Just as well. If you're trying to get through the Scar, you'll need help. Angels are patrolling the border. First time I've ever seen that. That because of you?"

He winced. "It's complicated."

"I can navigate the Scar fine," Laoko said. "We do not need your aid."

But Tacharius shook his head. Pretty insistent and confident, for what was basically a prisoner and potential meal from the way Jes was looking at him.

"The Scar is in a weird... state," the incubus said. "Tarkissa wants to join the war and help the Red Pits. No one knows why. Some volas resist, but--"

"But," Laoko said, growling, "the Scar refuses to do anything directly. So you all play your games and look for ways to usurp the spire ruler."

Tacharius put up his hands. "I didn't say I was against Tarkissa."

Without skipping a beat, the incubus immediately went lawyer mode. David couldn't help but laugh.

Laoko came closer, and the three humans and two volas froze, the brute in the back clenching his fists but smart enough to stay where he was.

"We are not allies with Azailia or the Grave Valley."

Tacharius raised a brow. "You're not?" He peeked past her and looked at the rest of the group. "Timaeus is a bailiff, and--"

"It is a long story, and you do not need the details. Just tell us what routes through province are the least problematic, and we will go without you."

Predictably, the incubus just grinned some more. "No. You have to take us to the Scar if you want our knowledge."

Jes came closer, growling louder, but everyone blinked when Caera stood up. Eight feet tall. The tiger reached out, grabbed the man by the throat, and lifted him in the air.

"We don't know you," she said. "We--"

"Don't!" Natalie said, and she stepped up and got between Caera and the dangling incubus. "Leave him alone!" Everyone froze, again, and stared at the girl. "Tacharius is trying to keep us alive, that's all. We know we'll get picked off if we try and get back. Telmer will get us, or maybe Zavara. Something's made them bold, and maybe we shouldn't have come here to get silk, but it's not always easy to get silk in the Scar because the different groups fight over the farms, and--"

Naoko joined her and glared up at Caera. "Put him down."

David raised a brow and looked at the succubus Zazee, but she just shrugged, her eyes locked on the two human girls, too.

Caera let him go, stayed standing upright, and leaned down over David. "They seem sincere."

Oh, that was a test. He frowned up at her. She grinned down at him. They needed some sort of sign language to tell each other about plans they made up on the spot.

Moriah joined them, and while the two demons took a step back from her, the three humans stared in obvious awe. Even missing a wing, Moriah was a few inches shy of seven feet tall, and ridiculously beautiful. The damned had probably never seen an angel up close, or as anything other than a white dot in the burning sky.

"You," she said, and she pointed at Natalie. "Your number before you drank demon blood?"

"Me? I... I uh--"

"She could lie," Jes said. "Who turned her?"

The incubus held up a hand.

And thus began a weird game of good cop, bad cop, detective, separate interrogation rooms, and double confirming information.

Natalie had been 34. Naoko had been 9. Fuad had been 27.

"Low numbers," David said. "Why'd you all agree to turn? 666 is a lot of deaths."

Fuad gestured at a nearby remnant fighting its way from the roots of a tree. It might as well have been a zombie in a TV show with the way it bled, flesh sunken, eyes desperate. Lasca killed it.

"When facing that," he said, "ten deaths or ten hundred deaths sound the same. And we are stronger like this. We can survive."

Not logical at all, but who the fuck could be logical in this sort of situation?

"Low numbers doesn't mean much," Jes said. "So they're only colossal shits instead of murderers. Does that mean we can trust them?"

"More than before," Moriah said. "What do you think, unmarked?"

David took a breath, aimed a palm toward the brute, and played another tune. A quiet, simple little thing, and it pushed the sharp branches out of his path.

"Koralex, right?"

The brute got within punching distance and snorted. With all the demons David found himself around, the only ones stronger than brutes were tetrads, and maybe that shark dinosaur guy he met in the spire with Diogo. And with the way Caera was glaring at the brute, she didn't like the fact he could probably take her in a fight. He was bigger, thicker, all muscle, and skin so dark it'd probably take hellfire or an angel blade to pierce him.

"Yes," he said, voice deeper than Timaeus's.

"You go ahead with Laoko. I got my eye on you." David looked up, met the demon in his skull-fish face and tiny eyes, and held his gaze. No weakness.

The brute snorted, took lead, and marched with Laoko. A little ahead of Laoko, actually, and the thorns and branches snapped harmlessly off his skin. No wonder each province supposedly had plenty of devorjins. Spire mothers probably selectively bred them because of how good they were as foot soldiers.

"Where's Telmer now?" Laoko asked the devorjin.

He gestured to the right, but said nothing. The one brute David met, Diogo, hadn't seemed very talkative, either. Maybe it was just a devorjin thing.

David gently bent the branches on a path toward the left, and everyone followed it.

Running into demons in the Amisius Forest on the way to the Scar, demons who knew the best ways to get to the Scar, demons who knew information about some war? A little too convenient, maybe, or was there something happening, and they were just stumbling into it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Day 75~~

~~Mia~~

The group trudged along in the black swamp, somehow having avoided anymore contact for quite a while. They'd reach the Maze, soon, and the chances they'd have to fight would go from likely to guaranteed.

"So what's James like?" Mia asked.

Azreal glanced back, angry squinting. Well, lucky for him, she wasn't asking him.

Julisa shrugged. "He was a virgin and had wholly no idea what he was doing. I had to explain everything to him. But thankfully, his unusual body and aura kept everyone well aroused for hours."

Why was Mia not surprised? Not about his body or aura, but Julisa.

"Not what's he like in bed! I meant what kinda guy is he? Is he quiet? Is he nice? Is he grumpy and mean?"

"A stumbling fool with no drive. But yes, he was kind."

Kind was good, but it didn't sound like he had anything else in common with Mia or David. They'd both familiarized themselves with the ins and outs of sex the moment they'd hit puberty; that'd been an awkward conversation. Sex-obsessed, this James person was not, but he still had the aura and the changing body.

"Anything else?" Mia asked.

"Such as?"

Don't facepalm. It's too gross in this place.

"Where's he from?"

"I do not know."

"Was he in school when he died, too?"

"I do not know."

"Did he have a job?"

"I do not know."

"Did he have a girlfriend, or boyfriend?"

"I do not know. Unlikely, with how easy it was to seduce him. I showed him my breasts, and he melted." She sighed happily and stretched all four arms up, back arched. "Imagine my surprise, and his, when he filled me up to the brim with a growing cock." She sighed happily and ran her hands down her breastplate. "I admit, seeing the boy, clearly unused to such pleasures, cum his brains out, was delightful."

Yosepha half coughed. "You, enjoying gentle sex?"

"Who said it was gentle? Just because he was gentle does not mean I was."

Apparently, the big bitch was a switch. Props to someone for enjoying both styles.

"Okay, not sex! Anything but sex." Mia threw up her hands. "How about, his attitude? Like, more than just whether he's kind. Does he make jokes? Is he calm under pressure? Is he grumpy? Is he--"

"The boy," Azreal said, "is kind, but quiet. There is a reserve of strength to him, but he does not know how to let it out, not with everything he's suffered. I suspect he's faced a difficult life while alive as an orphan, as well."

"Oh. Oh! He was an orphan, too?"

"Yes."

Thank god at least the angels paid attention. It made sense, with how they worked and all. Demons wanted to possess humans, eat them and stuff, and angels wanted to protect them. Thank god, again, Noah was still with James.

"There's gotta be a connection," she said. "Noah said an angel name Ramiel came to the surface a hundred years ago. Maybe there?"

Azreal winced at the name. "Perhaps."

"His past does not matter," Julisa said.

Mia scrunched up her nose. "I beg to differ! It may not matter to demons or angels -- though I doubt that's true, either -- but it definitely matters to humans. It shapes everything about how we think, how we react, how we feel. And if we can't be sure what kind of person he was because unmarked are all unmarked, then we better figure it out."

"Agreed," Yosepha said. She looked back at her wings, flexed them, winced, flared them, winced more, and sighed. "I wish to speak to him more, but I would rather fly there myself than be carried."

Yosepha wasn't the only one growing. It hadn't changed weight, but the egg in Mia's sling was a bit bigger, and the creature inside pressed up against the leathery edges. How long ago did she get the egg? A month. How long did cannam eggs take to hatch? Over a month. But this egg was bigger than the others, and Hell had birthed it in response to her presence. Probably. Maybe it'd hatch sooner? Or later.

"Be carried," Kas said. "If it's worth it."

Mia nodded and patted Kas's back. "He's right. You should visit the other group, too, make sure we're all on the same wavelength."

Yosepha frowned down at the muck, scooped up some of the black guts, and rubbed them on her budding wings. More muck, and more, but she stopped and looked back and up at the giant tetrad with wings behind her.

"I would rather stay here," she said.

Mia forced down her smile. She didn't want to leave Romakus. It was so cute!

"Romakus," Julisa said, glaring, "is... a large target. I would say bring him with you, but he is likely to be spotted."

Romakus shrugged and swung his tail around. "I'm too handsome to hide."

Kas grunted and shook his head. "We need to speak with the other group more. Change members. I'll go."

Mia whined and thumped his shoulder. "I trusted you!"

He grunted. "Ride Vinicius," he said in a tone so flat, it was unusual, even for Kas.

She tilted her head. Ride Vinicius? Was he trying to get rid of her? No. Kas liked her, right?

"Each time we trade members," Julisa said, "we risk battles."

Kas sighed, but grunted and nodded. "Agreed. I would prefer to battle with Adron, but agreed."

"Agreed," Azreal said. "But we will avoid battle as much as possible, sarkarin."

Kas aimed his eyeless shark gaze at the angel and shook his head. "There will be a battle. You know there will be."

Wings drooping, the angel looked back at Mia. "Have you thought of a way to get us through the Maze without being caught?"

"No. I can't burrow us through Hell. If there was a tunnel beneath us already, then maybe, but I haven't felt anything like that. Lots of small pockets, little caves, but nothing like where we ran into Asmodeus." She shivered. The name tasted like tar. There was no way a creature like that wouldn't be a problem in the future, but the fuck could they do about it now?

"We have one option," Yosepha said. "We sneak through the shadows, kill whoever we find, and hide underground when we must use Mia's abilities. If we run into Vicente, Xela, or perhaps even Alessio, we will have no choice but to battle."

"Battle an army?" Mia clutched her head and stared down at her friend's back spikes. "I... don't want to do that again."

"We will have little choice," Azreal said. "Angel's Spine has tunnels hidden beneath its skin, and we will find them and use them until we reach False Gate. Once there, my kind will struggle to find us. But until then, we have no choice but to defend ourselves."

"Yes, defend!" Mia threw up her hands. "I will defend us, but we don't have to default to violence! If angels come at us, they have to be willing to talk, right? Yosepha, Galon, Noah, and you Azreal, you can't be the only angels willing to listen."

The group went silent waiting for the angels to say something, but they didn't. They stared at the muck, grimacing, and walked on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What," Mia said, pointing out at the smog, "is that?"

The group got down and stared, but whatever it was, it scurried off, and the group got up like it wasn't a big deal.

"Mud crawler," Romakus said. "Don't scare us like that, Mia."

Props to her for spotting it first, but no one else cared. She frowned at him and pointed harder.

"A mud crawler!? The fuck is that?"

He shrugged. "Like stone crawlers."

"Which are?"

Yosepha flapped a wing. "Humans call them centipedes."

Mia hugged herself and quivered, head to toe.

"Once," she said, "when I was a little girl, I feel asleep in my guardian's basement, watching a movie. Sometimes centipedes crawled along the carpet. One got up my leg, and I screamed and screamed."

Julisa snorted, complete with a grin. "How cute."

It hadn't been cute. Mia had been six, and that'd been a formative memory; according to her textbooks, anyway. A shitty, formative memory, that'd borderline given her a phobia of bugs. Thankfully, she didn't have any true, debilitating phobias, but that didn't mean a bug with a lot of legs didn't make her wriggle like a worm on a hook.

"How big do they get?"

"Mud crawlers get up to twenty feet," Romakus said. "Stone crawlers only half that."

Oh god. She squeezed Kas's spikes until the wriggling sensation in her limbs went away. Better to squeeze him than squeeze and break her egg.

Her egg moved.

She froze, stared down at the egg, and set a hand on it. It didn't move at first, and what little it did was from Kas's walking, but after a few more seconds, it shifted again.

"Um... do hellbeast eggs--" It stirred more, and through the semi-opaque leathery shell, the creature inside pressed against its cage. "I think the puppers is hatching!"

"Puppers?" Azreal asked. "Oh, the cannam. Are you killing--"

"We're not killing it! He's my pet!"

"It," the angel said, squinting his eyes.

"He," she said, glaring, "is my hellhound. Hell birthed the egg for me. Maybe. But, shit, this is awful timing." They were gonna reach the Maze in a day or two. A puppy was not a good thing to have when trying to be stealthy. "I thought we'd have a couple more weeks."

The egg shifted around some more, and Mia climbed off Kas. Splat, sandals in the muck, she set the egg down and looked around at the smog. More things stirred in the black, all low to the ground, little shadows that slithered and twisted. More centipedes. Romakus said twenty feet, so six or seven meters, which was just stupid huge, but they didn't look that big from a distance. Then again, he'd called the mud crawlers. Their bodies probably blended into the muck.

And she didn't want to deal with those while her puppy hatched.

"Let's stop," she said.

Julisa snorted. "We have at least two more hours of traveling before evening twilight."

"Yeah, but when twilight hits, we'll probably have to fight off a bunch of bugs, right?"

"Yes," Kas said, head raised and aimed at the smog. More bugs.

Julisa wasn't having it. "I told you the hellhound will be a problem. It is not a puppy, Mia. It will hatch as simply a small, young adult, same as demons. It will grow quickly. It will hunger for resonance, be it yours or ours. It will--"

"Hell birthed this for me. You saw it. It was weird, and I felt it, and it... it's special. The egg is special. I'm not going to abandon him." She stomped her foot. Mistake. Black guts splattered over her shins, and she sighed. "How long does an egg take to hatch?"

Kas came up beside her and gently set a colossal hand on the wriggling oval.

"Adron would know."

"Fuck."

Julisa sighed and rolled her eyes. "A few hours. A hellbeast that cannot start hunting within days is dead. They hatch quickly and hunt quickly."

Mia nodded, aimed her hands at the ground, and didn't wait for permission. The egg was important, and god fucking damn it, after killing and killing and killing so many things, she wanted to save something.

And she wanted a pet dog. Always did.

She sculpted the ground up first, a little tower up through the muck. The center and starting point of the sphere. It grew wide, pushed the muck away, and she pulsed it outward like a wave, all so she could push the muck away before starting the cave. As the slow pulse of rock moved outward, and once the demons and angels had stepped over it, the walls grew higher, while the ground now cleared of muck grew lower. Lower and lower, sinking deep into the ground, while the outer wall pushed up. It was the only way to stop the swamp from getting into her caves, and it'd taken some experimenting to get it right.

Everyone huddled in, Azreal with Yosepha and Romakus, Julisa with Vin, and Kas beside Mia. He kept his head pointed at the egg and claws at the ready. Yeah, she didn't blame him. She was terrified her hellhound might bite her hand off. But she couldn't stop smiling.

She was going to meet her puppy, and that was such a stronger feeling than her fear.

The ground sank, the walls grew, and slowly the walls curved up overhead, creating the ceiling. The song told the ground, the blackstone and brown dirt, to be malleable and flow, to remain a part of Hell's body, to shift and move without shattering. Clay. She molded it, sculpted it, and shifted it around them so they sank deeper.

Cave sculpted, she sat down and breathed deep.

"Still difficult?" Kas asked.

She smiled up at him and patted his giant arm. "Yeah. It's getting easier, but I don't think it'll ever get easy. Making a cave underground like this takes so many steps. It's just one of those things that seems simple but isn't." Music had a lot of that, simple songs that were hard to play or vice versa. Using the music to dig a tunnel under the Maze was not an option.

Everyone sat down, Julisa grumbling, Romakus rolling his eyes, Yosepha watching the egg, and Azreal glaring at the egg. Vin didn't watch the egg at all. Maybe he didn't care? Whatever was bothering him -- her -- he kept his eyes aimed up at the ceiling, body limp. He was barely paying attention.

But Kas stayed very close, so close he leaned directly over her and rested his weight on his fingers in his gorilla stance.

She patted his hand, too. "I know it'll be dangerous. But, um, don't squish him too quickly, alright? I want a chance to tame him."

Her first bodyguard snorted but nodded, and curled his crocodile tail behind her.

Mia peeked up at the others again. They didn't look happy. Even Yosepha didn't seem happy to be doing this. Mia could apologize later.

Everyone grew quiet and watched the miracle of life unfold. Mia had to bite down the laugh. Life, in the afterlife. It was such a fucked up ecosystem. Humans came to the afterlife with their resonance, and some leftover essence from the surface. Demons and hellbeasts wanted the resonance, though for some reason, hellbeasts didn't store it like demons did. So demons had no reason to eat them.

Lucifer created demons, not hellbeasts. Hellbeasts were always here, supposedly. A part of Hell. Demons were the odd one out. David was probably loving trying to solve that puzzle.

The egg moved, and went still.

"We sure it's hatching?" she asked.

Julisa shrugged. "No."

Mia facepalmed and looked at Kas and Vin, but they had nothing to say. The angels didn't know, either. Did she end the journey early for nothing? The other group was probably pushing further ahead, and tomorrow Mia's group would have to catch up, and Azreal would have to fly and look for them, and--

A piece of the leathery shell tore.

"Ooh! Ooh!"

"Mia," Yosepha calm. "Be calm."

"I'm calm I'm calm!"

Yosepha smiled, shook her head, and sat closer.

The one thing they don't show on nature documentaries is how long it takes for baby animals to push out of their eggs. Hours. Many hours. If they got twenty-four hours into this and the baby still wasn't through the shell, it'd be a major problem.

She didn't have to wait that long. The creature inside pushed through the leather barrier in two hours, and each moment, Mia teetered back and forth. Her limbs tingled with energy, and her ass grew sore from the constant rocking.

A set of claws pushed through the dark egg shell, wet, and slimy. It made sense, being an egg and all, and Mia pushed down her juvenile urge to get grossed out by bodily fluids. If her baby puppy was gonna hatch right in front of her, she had to have the stomach to deal with a little slime.

An arm pushed through, and Mia sucked in a breath. It looked like a hellhound's arm, but redder, the skin not hard yet. Black claws, with black spikes coming off the elbows and shoulders. Ooh, muscular, like the cannam she'd seen. Maybe even more muscular? Thicker?

Hellhound was a weird name for them. Cannam looked like some kind of cross between dog and cat, with the lithe bodies of cats, the muscularity and face of a dog, and the mane of a lion, a mane of dozens of black spikes.

More of the hellhound pushed through, slowly tearing through layers of the leather. Mia couldn't help herself, took a piece of leather shell already half torn off, pulled it aside, and tore off the rest. Or, well, she tried to tear off the rest. One hand on the egg, the other pulled at the leather strip, but it didn't come off.

"That's... a tough egg," she said. "Maybe I didn't need to be so gentle with it."

Kas snorted and leaned over the egg. "We would not know. Few demons rear hellbeast eggs."

"I suppose--oh! A face!" A snout pushed through a crack between two leather chunks. Strong puppy to get through that shell. "Hello! Hello little one, I..." She tilted her head. "What the..."

A dog's face pressed up and out of the egg, eyes closed, body covered in mostly clear slime. Half dog, half lion, kinda, a tough and thick dog snout but the skull shape of a cat, with some black spikes on the top of his head.

And another head.

And another head.

A third hour crawled by like an eternity. Everyone drew closer, staring, even Vin, and a few had their jaws dropped as finally, the hellhound lay on its side, and breathed. Free of its shell, it was the size of a golden retriever; apparently, it'd been rolled up head to ass inside the egg, super tightly. Its spine had spikes running from mane to the tip of its tail like any cannam. The multiple heads, on the other hand...

"Um..." She watched the little creature pant with exhaustion. "It... he... has three heads?"

"Evidently," Azreal said.

"Is that normal?"

Romakus shook his head. "I've never seen a three-headed hellhound. Kas?"

Kas snorted and shook his head, too.

Mia gulped. "I mean, on the surface, everyone knows about Cerberus, three-headed dog, guards the gates of Hell in Greek mythology. Maybe Roman, too."

"Yes," Yosepha said, "but there are many ideas from the surface that are not in Hell or Heaven. No one has ever seen a three-headed cannam before."

"We sure he's a hellhound?"

"Larger," Romakus said. "This one has been born a little larger. But otherwise it looks exactly like a cannam. Thicker, though."

Mia nodded, gulped down some weird mix of excitement and fear bubbling in her, and reached out for the exhausted dog.

"Hello," she whispered. Much as every bit of her was bubbling with the urge to hug the hellhound, squeeze him, pet him, and love him, she wasn't that stupid. Almost that stupid, but not quite. She touched the middle head and rubbed back along his forehead. Slimy. "I think he's sleeping."

"It," Azreal said.

"All dogs are boys, and cats are girls," she said. "So I'll be referring to him as he."

Yosepha laughed. "And for a name?"

She stared down at her new pet doggy. Her puppy. Her hellhound. He'd guard her, defend her, take care of her, and make sure no nasty demons got her. He needed a strong name. A fitting name.

"I... I mean... he has three heads, right? I don't really have a choice." She giggled and gently touched Cerberus's three noses. His heads had a black snoot, just like any dog, but it was tough, like demon black skin always was. He probably wouldn't be licking it. "Cerberus."

Cerberus opened his eyes, all six of them.

"Hi," she said, and slowly pulled her hand back. No sudden movements. "Hi there. Hi. I'm Mia."

On shaky legs, the three-headed hellhound got to his feet, lasted four seconds, and fell to his side. Mia squeaked, reached out, and pet his heads again. The hellhound was obviously confused, and she had no idea if that was something all new hellbeasts went through, or was he confused because he wasn't where he should have been, a fleshy pit surrounded by porous walls and other eggs?

The heads looked at her, blinked at her, closed their eyes, and the dog panted some more. Still exhausted.

She reached inside herself, found the strings, and played a gentle melody. The unheard sound guided--

Cerberus opened his six eyes again and stared up at her. The look shocked her still, and her inner fingers went still with her. The music stopped, and Cerberus closed his eyes.

"Did you guys notice that?" she asked.

"It looked at you," Kas said. "Was there something else?"

The others couldn't hear the music. To them, Cerberus randomly looking at her was exactly that, random. So Mia tried again, and played a gentle little tune to guide nearby rivers of essence and resonance toward her cave. The moment she played a note, Cerberus opened his six eyes again.

With a quiet, whining sound of a puppy, albeit a bit deeper, the cannam crawled closer to her, and sat. He failed to keep the position, and all three heads fell forward. Mia squeaked again and caught his heads on her legs, and stroked the two outer heads's foreheads and spikes. They were soft enough to bend gently, like iguana spines, and she combed them back.

Cerberus made more whining sounds, first the left head, then the right, then the middle. Half on his side, half on his stomach, he closed his eyes again and rubbed his cheeks into her knees.

She played the song again, and the hellhound's whining settled. She played gently, took her time, and slowly grew a forbidden tree beside Cerberus, a small one; it'd take too long to grow a big one with such quiet music. But it was enough, and over ten minutes, the tree grew fruit, and the golden retriever-sized three-headed hellhound resting its heads on her lap didn't move an inch.

"Hey, Cerberus," she said, plucking a fruit. "Hey. Hi. Are you hungry?"

He opened four eyes, looked up at her, closed them, and relaxed again. As expected, he didn't have a clue how to speak Estian.

"Kas, can you tell him I have food? I mean, uh, assuming newborn hellbeasts speak Hellian."

"They do, barely," Kas said, but he grunted, nodded, and clicked once in his throat.

Cerberus lifted his three heads, opened his mouth, and drooled. But he didn't look at Kas. He looked at Mia, and his spiked tail gently wagged side to side.

"Food," Mia said, and she held the fruit heart out in her palm. "Food."

"Mia," Kas said. "It might bite your hand off."

"I'm paying attention." And she was. Her heart was melting into tiny puddles of squees, but it was still a somewhat large, dangerous animal, with sharp teeth. Its head... heads, were a bit larger than they should have been relative to its body, like a puppy's would be, but not as much as a puppy's either. He was born a teenager.

Cerberus watched her hand, sniffed it when she lowered it, and sniffed the fruit heart. No bite, not of her, or the meal. Did he understand? Mia took a bite, and offered the heart again. The middle head nudged the fruit with his nose, and after almost knocking it off her palm, bit into it. Poor Cerberus was too exhausted to do the typical dog thing and get all excited about food, but he got some teeth around it, and instincts kicked in; if instincts was even the word. He dropped his heads off her lap, took the fruit with him, and slowly tore a piece off, pinning the fruit with his paws. The other heads did the same.

"He responded to the music," she said.

Yosepha came closer. "What?"

"He responded to the music. Watch." She gestured to the tree, played the music, and sent a little more energy into it. It grew, and right on cue, Cerberus raised his heads and looked up at her and the tree, at the same time; three heads meant he could do that.

"That is quite strange," Yosepha said. "Can all hellbeasts hear your abilities?"

"I dunno. I haven't heard any music come from anyone except myself and Asmodeus. Not even when the rider had that, um, sercano hellbeast working for him." She patted Kas's hand. "Can you ask him?"

"It wouldn't understand," he said, "especially at this age."

"But it already knew the word for food, in Hellian."

He shrugged. "Or it knew to listen to something in its language. It may take years for it to understand words in Hellian or Estian."

She rubbed her hands together. "Okay. Cerberus isn't with other hellbeasts, and I can't speak Hellian like you all can. So we're gonna teach him Estian, commands and stuff, just like a surface dog. And--"

Cerberus finished his heart, lifted his heads, panted with the effort, and set them on her lap again. Six eyes closed, the three heads settled on her knees and thighs, and again the absolutely adorable murder machine succumbed to its exhaustion.

"This is odd," Romakus said. "I've seen goorts hatch, with demons trying to tame them. They're usually up on their feet in minutes, and running looking for food in hours."

Mia clutched her heart and stared at her Cerberus. "Is he sick? Is there something wrong with him?"

Romakus shrugged and squatted down behind Yosepha. "I guess we'll find out. Who's taking first shift?"

Mia shot up her hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The hours went by slowly. And not slowly. Each moment, she was scared her puppy would wake up and attack her, but each moment also melted her into goo. All three heads rested on her lap, and she took turns stroking each, sliding her fingers along his foreheads and combing them through his spikes. They weren't as long as other cannam, but if she guessed right, they'd grow and become a big mane.

He breathed and slept. Sometimes he stirred, opened his eyes, and adjusted his position to better keep his heads on her lap. Once, he sniffed her hand with his right head, licked her palm -- bit of a jump scare, tongue on the palm -- and went back to sleep on her. Over time, his breathing settled, and the slime faded from his skin.

She smiled and watched. Everyone was asleep but Azreal and her; she wanted Kas awake for the next shift.

"It is strange," Azreal said. "Hellbeasts are older than demons, according to the great libraries. They were birthed with Hell. Perhaps their purpose is to help the damned through their first death."

"They don't eat remnants?"

"I am sure they do sometimes, if they are starving. What little resonance they can find from a remnant would hardly keep them alive, but something is better than nothing."

So, hellbeasts were probably a part of the ecosystem, meant to kick-start the process? To make sure humans died the first time and got reborn as remnants?

"And demons?"

A small flutter of his wings was his subtle shrug. "Lucifer created the spires, the Old Ones, and demons. Abominations. They were not part of God's plan."

She winced. That was a mean thing to say, but it wasn't like she had any rebuttal.

"For a hellbeast," he continued, "to react to you so, is what is strange. You say it... he... reacts to your music?"

"Yeah."

"And, unless my eyes lie, the creature has become attached to you very quickly."

"Don't babies imprint on the first things they see?" She already knew what he'd say.

"It is a beast of Hell, Mia. Not a surface creature."

"Well, he's not behaving like a hellbeast, is he? Maybe he's different. He's got three heads." And they had no idea why.

"Hellbeasts have changed with time," he said. "What is described in the ancient texts is... different, in ways hard to account for. But that is true of many facets of the Great Tower. It is true of demons and angels, of Heaven, and Hell herself. Perhaps this is simply a new species."

"Yeah, maybe. But Hell birthed him right in front of me. Laid the egg the moment I got close to the wall. And I... felt it. I felt it in the music, in the strings, when we went looking in the tunnels. Something called me, I came up to a specific spot, and this egg came out. It has to be special, right?"

Azreal watched her with eyes of purple stone. "Special is a misleading word to use."

She sighed and shook her head. "You know what I mean. Different. I'm different. Maybe he's different, too." With a deep breath, she stopped petting him. She wanted to keep petting, but sleep was important.

The texture of his skin was like a demon's when it got super red, as soft as human skin, if a touch leathery. He'd probably get darker over time, tougher, and instead of petting skin, she'd be petting something tough. Well, that was fine, because she loved petting Kas and he was all tough. Would his spikes get harder, too? Probably. But right now he was soft and weak and vulnerable and exhausted and she just wanted to hug him and hold him and squeeze him and take care of him forever and ever and ever.

"In Heaven," Azreal said, "many souls visit the stream of memories, so they can be reunited with their pets. Heaven manifests the pet for them. It does not have any resonance; pets do not pass through Heaven or Hell when returning to the Great Tower. But Heaven can bestow a sort of second life to the memories summoned in the stream, connected to the core of the Great Tower in a way no angel truly understands." A tiny smile worked its way onto his stone face. "Many souls are more attached to their pets than any soul. I have witnessed many who only found peace when they were reunited with their pets."

Mia smiled. "Yeah?"

"Yes. I have seen many a soul spend their days with their pet dog resting its head on their lap." He gestured to her with the tip of a wing. "I... do wish that could be you some day, Mia."

She froze and stared at the angel. His eyes were so damn hard and intense, just a relentless assault of truth. The man had no chill. Even speaking softly and sincerely, his facial expression might as well have been forged out of steel.

"Why?"

Wingtip out, he gestured to her again. "I did not expect for it to be so obvious when I met you. You are a soul worthy of Heaven. Every breath you make, you make concerned for others. You are empathetic. You struggle to control your own need to aid. You..." He sighed and shrugged his wings. "What more is there to say?"

She squirmed a bit. Those intense eyes felt a little different from yesterday.

"Thank you. And, um, maybe it could happen? Once we get this whole 'save the world' thing figured out and done, maybe we can see if Heaven will let me in?" She looked down at her Cerberus, at Kas sleeping behind her, and Vin on the other side of the little cave, sleeping with Julisa beside him. "But I'd want to visit these guys, too. And... And now, I..." Fuck. She stared down at her sleeping hellhound and gulped down the ice building in her throat. "I don't know if I could just... leave Cerberus now."

"You've known him all of three hours, Mia."

"I know, but still. I..." She sighed and shook her head. "I'm an idiot, aren't I? A sensitive idiot."

"Yes, you are." Again, Azreal made the tiniest little smile, almost like a bigger one would break his steel face. "And that is good."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Day 76~~

She woke up and did a head check. No morning whiplash in Hell. She knew exactly what happened when she went to sleep, who would watch Cerberus when she first went to sleep, who would be watching him when she woke up, and whether they'd been all killed in their sleep by Xela or Vicente or Alessio.

Cerberus lay with Mia. She'd given him her space in the center of the cave when she'd gone to sleep, and now she woke with his three heads on her lap again.

She blinked down at him and looked to Yosepha. "Did you--"

The angel shook her head and gestured to Kas.

"The beast joined you," Kas said. "He woke minutes after you went to sleep, and joined you."

He'd come and... slept with her? Mia sniffed down tears, but more came up anyway. Stop it. She wiped them with her wrist, choked down a few sobs, and rubbed her dog's heads.

Kas rumbled. "Mia?"

"Nothing. Nothing. I'm okay." Tears in her eyes refusing to go away, she rubbed Cerberus's head some more, and sure enough, he woke up and blinked up at her.

He clicked, and whined, a high-pitched pathetic little sound. Just like a puppy would.

"That's no hellhound," Romakus said. "No hellhound would be so... pathetic."

"He's my dog," Mia said. "Cerberus."

Cerberus clicked once in his throat again, almost like a human clucking their tongue with their mouth closed.

Mia reached for a fruit. Couldn't reach, dog on lap. Moving not allowed under punishment of the cat-lap law; not that Cerberus was a cat, but still. But Kas plucked one for her, handed it to her, and again she held up the fruit for Cerberus.

"Food," she said, and Kas mirrored her word with a click. No way a human ear could hear the differences in the click sound, but Cerberus did, and he climbed on Mia's legs and bit at the fruit.

She almost gave it to him. David stopped her. The few times they'd had a conversation about getting a dog, he'd made it damn clear she had to toughen up and learn to treat a dog like a dog, not like a baby. It'd be better for her, and for the dog.

She stood up, and Cerberus slid off her legs. Claws not down, thank god.

If hellbeasts were smart enough to communicate with each other in simple words, they were pretty damn smart by surface standards. Time to train.

"Sit," she said. Nothing. Cerberus stood on all fours in front of her, three heads pointed up, eyes locked on the fruit, tail wagging behind him. He put a paw on her leg and tried to stand and reach for the heart, but she pushed him back down with her free hand. "No." Okay, this was going to take some work. She got on her knees, and again he tried to take the fruit. Again, she pushed him away with her free hand. Teaching a puppy not even a day old how to sit and wait was ridiculous, but Hell was ridiculous, and she had to get this working, or Cerberus could get in a lot of trouble. Or get them all killed.

"Sit." She reached past him, pressed down on his butt until he sat, and almost squealed. He sat just like a dog.

"Sit." Kas said, and clicked at him, probably saying the Hellian version of sit. Click training. Mia giggled.

Cerberus tilted his head, stood up, and came for the heart again. Again, she pushed him back, but Cerberus half growled.

She stood her ground, frowned at the deadly murder machine, and pushed him back again. "No." Louder this time.

His growl broke, and he whined. Every part of her wanted to give him the forbidden fruit, and hug him until he popped like a balloon. She did not.

She held up the hand with the food, got his attention, reached past him with her empty hand, and pressed down on his butt. "Sit." He sat down. "Good boy!" Trapped between squealing and wanting to hug him, she somehow got control of herself and gave him the fruit.

He scarfed it down. Mia had played with dogs before, and seen them fed. There was a difference in how a house dog chewed kibble, and how a wolf tore at meat. This was tearing at meat. Cerberus ripped off a chunk, holding the fruit down with a paw, and the fruit meat got stuck in the sharp teeth of his right head. Middle head bit into it, and the two heads tugged at it and growled at each other. More tugging led to tearing, and they each swallowed down their chunk, probably convinced they'd won the tug of war.

"Um, are there are any hellbeasts like this?" she asked. "Any at all, with multiple heads?"

"Notta," Romakus said.

"Some records suggest," Yosepha said, "that some of the Old Ones had multiple heads, but I cannot imagine that it is connected."

Mia perked up. "Why not?"

"Because this cannam looks identical to a cannam, simply thicker and larger than most hatchlings, and with three heads. What did Asmodeus look like?"

"He, it or whatever, looked like... it was..."

"The pictures in the library," Azreal said to Yosepha, "do not do its body justice. It was a colossal centipede, and dragon, and cancerous tumor combined. An abomination whose body made no sense." Wing out, he gestured to Cerberus. "This seems far more like a cannam, except... enhanced."

Mia smiled down at her pet, and frowned. The heads were growling at each other, and the right one bit the middle one's snout. Not hard enough to tear, but hard enough to scratch, and the middle head yelped. Which made the right head yelp, and lick the scratched chin of his brother. Shared nervous system, maybe? That'd make her job infinitely easier. Training three heads to use one body sounded impossible.

"We must leave," Vin said. "Time runs short."

Mia whined and buried her dog in more head rubs. "Give me a few minutes, Vin."

"If your new pet cannot handle journeying with us, kill it and be done."

"No!" She got up and marched her way up to the bastard with a leash. "No one will hurt him. No one--"

Cerberus followed her. He teetered a bit, fresh legs and all that, but he found his footing and snarled up at the titan.

Vin slammed his hand down against the rock in front of Cerberus hard enough it thundered, and Mia jumped back. But Cerberus stood his ground and half barked, half growled at Vin. Wow, brave. Alas, Cerberus was only the size of a golden retriever, and his barks -- all three -- weren't exactly powerful. Maybe it was a side effect of three heads sharing one set of lungs. Assuming hellbeasts had lungs.

Apparently satisfied, Vin retracted his hand and snorted. "Good enough, if it can walk."

"He can walk! You can walk, right, Cerberus?" She walked to the other side of the cave and faced her pet. "Cerberus! Come!"

Cerberus did not come. He stared up at Vin with two heads and growled more. At least his right head turned and looked back at her, head tilted with a classic confused-dog expression.

She joined him and turned him to face her. "Cerberus," she said, and rubbed his head. "Cerberus! Cerberus. Cerberus." Gotta teach him his name.

He opened his mouths and panted. Either happy or tired.

"Cerberus, come." She moved again. He didn't follow. Yeap, that was a confused dog.

Kas clicked at him, though, and the dog tilted his heads to the other side and looked up at Mia again. Something clicked in his head, eyes widening, and he came to her. She squealed. Quietly.

"We're compressing months of training into minutes," Mia said, got on her knees, and hugged her new best friend around his big neck; had to be big with three heads. "We practically skipped the puppy phase." Which, sad as it was, was for the best. If Cerberus couldn't follow her and obey simple commands, this would never work. She'd have had to leave him, like Vin said.

Cerberus rumbled in his chest, a purring kinda sound, and his closer head licked her cheek.

"Cannam do not behave this way," Kas said.

Mia nodded, pulled back, and rubbed his faces and squished them together.

"He's acting like a dog. Maybe, uh, a bit of a demony wolf dog, but a dog. A smart dog. And..." She got up and moved to the other side of the cave again, and Cerberus followed. She clapped her hands and hugged him again. "And he likes me!"

"This is ridiculous," Julisa said. "I expected to deal with a cannam, a volatile, hungry beast that'd as soon bite the demon that raised it as obey a command. I do not know what this is."

Mia had an idea what it was, and more than just the obvious cannam-with-three-heads conclusion everyone else had come to. Help. This was help. Hell had given her help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She tried to walk in the swamp on her own for a while. If she rode Kas or Vin, would Cerberus like that? Would he understand or care?

She got twenty minutes into it, gave up, and climbed Kas's back again. Cerberus came up beside her, two heads looking at her, third watching the black smog ahead.

"It's okay, Cerberus," she said, and she swung out her feet in a futile attempt to dislodge the black muck between her toes. Why couldn't potram have given her rain boots?

Cerberus followed. Every ounce of her being wanted to walk with him, hold a physical leash and walk him, but she was slowing the group down walking in foot-deep remnant guts. Cerberus, on the other hand, kept his weight spread and didn't sink much at all. He also couldn't have weighed very much. Sixty pounds, maybe? The hellhounds she'd seen had to weigh four or five times as much as that, all muscular, like wolf lion hybrids, and according to her friends, Cerberus was born a bit larger than cannams usually were. He'd grow at least as big as that.

How big would he get?

"I will find Noah and the others," Azreal said. "They must know we are falling behind."

Much as it was the perfect opportunity for the angel to shoot Mia a glare, he did not. He coated his wings in a fresh layer of grossness and took off without waiting for permission. Did their group even have a leader to ask for permission from? That argument would be fucking horrible, once it inevitably happened, and knowing her, she'd try and play referee.

"I worry," Mia said. "He might get spotted."

"He was spotted many times before, as he said," Yosepha said. "He slayed those who noticed him. He is an angel, third rank, Mia. He will be fine."

"Are you third rank?"

"Second rank."

"Oh. But you're so strong."

Yosepha half smiled at her, nodding. "But I am no third rank. It is impossible to truly and accurately measure strength in combat, but third ranks are usually considered twice as strong as second ranks, and so on."

Mia almost whistled. "Those boys are strong."

Vin snorted, but said nothing. Nothing to say, the asshole. He'd beaten them in a fight, had before, had again, and was probably itching to do it yet again.

"Cerberus," Mia said. Cerberus looked at her with all three heads. And tripped. His snouts hit the muck, and Mia gasped. "Cerberus! I'm so sorry." A second later, she was in the muck with him and wiping the black stuff off his snouts.

Cerberus sat down, they both sank deeper in the black guts, and he sat patiently and waited. In typical dog fashion, he didn't give a shit about mud, or literal shit. If hellbeasts could poop, he'd have probably eaten some, judging from the way he sat there, unphased by the dripping goopy black stuff on his faces. He'd faceplanted so hard, he'd done a nose dive like a fox into snow, and had drenched all three heads in black.

Kas snorted, got her back on her feet, and knelt down beside her. "Don't waste time."

"Sorry! Sorry." She rubbed Cerberus's heads again, combed his spikes for too long, and climbed Kas's back.

"Hellbeasts live in this muck," Romakus said. "Cannams included."

"I know. I killed many." And each one felt fucking awful. "I can understand the centipede hellbeasts and whatnot, but it's weird seeing hellhounds in swamps."

The gorujin tetrad shrugged and marched on, taking lead. "It's not a surface swamp, unmarked. Stop thinking of it as such."

It was hard to shake the swamp feeling. All wet, covered in mud... of a sort, humid, and every breath smelled of blood. Fog, too, except a black smog instead of white fog. But he had a point. It didn't have any of the ecosystem attributes of a swamp, and it had lots of hidden caves underneath the mud, plus demons hiding in literal holes.

"Cerberus," she said, and her best friend in the whole wide underworld looked up at her. He didn't trip this time. Progress. "You stay close to me, okay? I'll use the music, and you can come to me and I'll keep you safe. And that guy"--she gestured to Romakus--"will die first, so don't worry about him. Let him die, and we'll take the opportunity and run."

Romakus chuckled. "Mia, I like you. You're the daughter I never had."

She bit down on the obvious response and rolled her eyes.

"Mia," Yosepha said. "Can you play music that does... not do anything?"

"Huh? Why?"

"If the hellhound responds to your music, perhaps you can speak to it that way?"

She frowned down at the muck and reached out with her sixth sense. Like echolocation, the strings told her what she could interact with, but that was mostly it. And the strings didn't exist in a vacuum. If she played a note, it was to affect something, either physical or an aura.

"No," she said. "Everything is attached to the strings. Everything... is the strings, kinda."

Wait. If everything was connected to strings, to vibrations, then everything was music? Didn't David say something about that some time ago, that everything was vibration? He also said it was a super simple way of looking at quantum mechanics, but good enough to get someone interested.

But this was the afterlife. Nothing here was physical, not really. They were all ghosts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~David~~

This was not the plan. This was very much not the plan.

"Okay, okay," he said, and he turned and faced the group. "This isn't working. Meeting time."

With a flick of his hands, he told the branches and trees to push out further, and they did, thorns snapping and trunks bending. Enough room for the newcomers to gather around. His crew got behind him, and all the newcomers got in front of him.

It wasn't easy, and the demons had to chop down a bunch of branches to fit. Timaeus, Laoko, Acelina, Caera, Jeskura, Daoka, the Las, and Moriah got behind him. A half dozen incubi, another half dozen succubi, a couple brutes, a gorgala with some seriously torn up wings, a couple satyrs, and a couple vrats, got in front of him. And each demon had one or two betrayers.

"Sorry about the meeting," he said. "I'm sure everything I'm about to say could have been in an e-mail." He waited. No one laughed. "We're still four days away from the Scar, and you are all making way too much noise."

A brute stepped forward. Not the one they first met. The second one, a brute with more than a few scars, a few attitude problems to go with them, and a body as tall as Acelina's. He was as big as Diogo, and had a giant axe on his back. A devorjin smart enough to bother with a weapon was a dangerous man.

"This is ridiculous," he said. "You're going to get us killed."

Caera hissed and moved forward, but David put a hand on her back.

"It is ridiculous," David said. "I was just on the way to the Scar when you lot decided to follow me." A lot of people had a fear of public speaking. It was the most common fear in the world, supposedly, and a lot of people were stricken with paralysis if they ever tried it.

Not David. Somewhere along the line, he'd realized a couple things. First, talking was a skill, and just because it didn't come naturally to him didn't mean he couldn't be good at it with focus. Especially public speaking, which was mostly a one-way street. Second, nearly everyone in the world was a fucking idiot, and it made no sense to be worried about the opinion of people more stupid than him.

"It is not without reason," the other brute said. Koralex, right. He stood beside the bigger brute, facing David, but casting his angry glare up at the bigger demon. "This boy is unmarked."

"So? All I know of the unmarked is what this pipsqueak has done to bushes and branches."

They faced each other, and Koralex snarled.

"The unmarked in the Navameere Fields has--"

"Has done nothing I can see. The whispers of fleeing demons and the useless words of imps and grems mean little. This boy"--the asshole gestured at David--"is leading us straight back to the angels."

"I am not," David said. He took a step forward. Ten meters between him and the angry brute was safe enough, hopefully. "I am going to cross the Scar. Tarkissa is going to stay out of my way. I know you all want to get past the angels, past Telmer and the other factions here violating the truce -- kinda your fault for stealing from them, but whatever -- and get back to the safety of the Scar. So this is just a temporary thing. Okay? Temp--"

The asshole stepped closer. "I think there are more of us than you. I think we should kill you and the angel. Angel hearts must give strength. And maybe yours will, too. Maybe--"

Yeah, he saw this coming. Demons responded best to one thing: power.

David raised his hand and summoned batlam. The demons jumped back, hisses and snarls mixing with the gasps of their betrayers, and they all stared with dropped jaws and wide eyes as the red light enveloped him. The rune fit over David's mind in seconds, and the red light vanished. Black metal replaced it, a full set of plate armor that covered David from neck to toe, adorned with red jewels, and bits of red silk hanging from the joints. Spiky armor that screamed 'evil sorcerer', times a thousand thanks to the wizard's staff, covered in spikes and topped with a glowing ruby, and his crown, a black and spiky thing lined with a few red jewels, too.

He aimed the staff at the colossal brute and came closer.

"I have killed hundreds of demons in a matter of days. I've fought angels. I've killed angels. I have fought the rider thrice and live to speak of it." Just words. Even with the armor display, he knew it wouldn't be enough.

Glaring, he waved his staff, and summoned stone. The ground of the Grave Valley was ripe with blackstone and the shattered remains of tombstones, leaving behind white stone pebbles mixed in the dirt, almost with the strength and texture of marble. He summoned both.

A tombstone erupted behind the annoying brute, taller than him, wider than him, but the moment the brute tried to jump away from it, David waved his staff straight at him. A slab of blackstone, stronger and heavier than white stone, erupted from the ground straight at him. A couple meters wide and tall, it was a beam, came out of the ground at an angle, and slammed into the brute's chest and pushed him back into the tombstone. And pinned him there.

The brute roared, hissed, snarled, clawed at the blackstone, but couldn't move an inch. His dinosaur feet dangled a few inches above the ground.

"I could have easily made that a sharp spike," David said, and he walked onto and up the summoned beam, up to the brute, and stood a foot out of range of his claws. Surprisingly, the asshole didn't try and grab his ankles. "Be under no illusion, devorjin. I am in charge, and as long as you decide to follow me, you will obey me, or I will break you." He flourished his free hand's fingers, and the beam pushed in another inch, crushing the brute's chest. Combined with the stupid, grandiose talking style, the threat sounded pretty damn epic.

"Let me be clear." David stood tall and looked down from his perch at the awestruck demons and betrayers below. "I don't know what the unmarked in the Navameere Fields is doing. I have no idea why they're fighting the Red Pits. It's not my problem." Well, it kinda was, but they didn't need to know that. "I'm just passing through. And because I'm a nice guy -- yes, a nice guy in Hell -- I don't want to hurt anyone. But I will. If the angels stop me, I'll do something about it."

The pinned devorjin found enough air to speak. "You can stop hundreds of angels?"

David aimed his staff at the brute, and came closer, into swiping distance. Closer, and closer, and he put the ruby of the staff inches from the asshole's face.

"At the edge of Death's Grip and the Black Valley, a firestorm burned weeks ago. It reached all the way to the sky. It probably still burns. Moriah says another unmarked created that firestorm, and killed hundreds of angels, and more demons." He nudged the ruby to the brute's forehead. "If I have to, I will turn this entire corner of the Grave Valley into an inferno. I don't want to, but I will if I have to. So until we get to the Scar, if you're gonna keep following me, you're going to do exactly what I say, when I say it. If I say jump, you say how high. If I say you're gonna play nice and treat each other with respect, that's what you're going to do. Or I will rip you apart from the inside out with a thousand splinters and feed your heart to the people you bothered. Okay?"

The brute said nothing. David waited. The silence of everyone waiting with bated breath was almost comical, and a perfect way to drill into the dumb fuck's head that he had no choice.

"Agreed."

"Wonderful." David walked back down the angled beam, and with a wave of his staff, played a quiet melody that pulled the blackstone and tombstone beneath the gravel. "And," he continued, "it's not as if I am the only threat here. I have two tetrads with me, both ancient and powerful. Caera and Jeskura both worked for Zelandariel as some of her best killers, and Moriah is one of the few angels to survive an encounter with the rider. And Daoka, Acelina, Laara, Lasca, Latia, and Laria"--he gestured to each La individually--"have fought many demons, and a couple angels, and lived. This crew could easily slaughter all of you. Do not test us."

He slammed his staff down, sank its base an inch into the ground, and let go of batlam. The rune dispersed. In a gentle flash of red light, the armor and staff disappeared, leaving him in his skimpy red one-shoulder toga and gladiator sandals. The demons stared at him, and more than a few licked their lips, especially the succubi.

Naoko came up to the head of the group and gave him a tiny bow. Estian couldn't compensate for body language, but he got it and gave her a reassuring smile; not that he was good at reassuring smiles, but he tried.

"Let's go," Laoko said, and she marched down the path again. David turned and followed, and everyone did the same. Caera followed on his right. Naoko followed on his left, and--

He almost jumped. "Naoko?" The little Japanese lady had snuck up close.

She smiled up at him; short as he was, he was taller than most girls, and Naoko was only as big as Mia.

"Hi," she said. "That was impressive, bossing Bargus around like that. And the armor. That was angel armor, right? I heard angels can do that, summon armor."

"They can," he said, glancing back at Moriah. "Though it's not black."

"I noticed that. Black, with a staff. And a crown!" She came a little closer. "You looked like a wizard."

He kept walking the same line, but the half naked, very cute, dainty little Asian woman was almost close enough to touch shoulders with him. And that was very strange.

"Thanks. I think. Wizard is a compliment, right?"

"It is. How did you do it? Like, any of it? Did you eat an angel heart? I heard Cainites think angel hearts give power."

He shrugged. "I didn't eat an angel's heart, no. I arrived in Hell unmarked, and I don't know where the powers come from. That's part of the reason I'm on this quest, to figure out what's up with me and the unmarked."

"Ah. And the quest--"

Caera growled. "We're not telling you where we're going."

David blinked down at Caera. Demons were aggressive, but Caera might as well have had her hackles up with the way she aimed her one eye at the betrayer.

"Sorry!" Naoko said with another small bow. "Sorry. I didn't mean... I don't want you to think I'm snooping for information. I'm just curious. Everyone's curious."

"I'm curious, too," David said. "Hopefully, we'll learn a thing or two on this journey."

She nodded. "And the unmarked in Navameere Fields?"

"No idea." He almost said something about passing through the fields, but stopped himself. Better to not mention Greg, either.

"Naoko," Caera said. "You said your number was 9?"

Poor girl. She squirmed and looked down. "Yes."

"What did you do?"

"What?"

Caera growled, quiet and deep, like a tiger assessing prey. "You're in Hell. What did you do?"

David winced. Rude question, for sure, but a reasonable one.

"I... made some mistakes in my life," she said. "I stole things."

Caera shook her head. "Stealing won't get you sent to Hell." Ruthless.

"I stole from people who didn't deserve it. I ruined some people's lives, destroyed some careers, because I hated them." Naoko clutched both her hands against her sternum. "I was an accountant, and I changed some numbers. Got them in trouble. They went to jail for a year."

David sucked in a breath. Yeah, sending people you disliked to jail was pretty awful. Low on the list of awful things a person could do, but still awful enough you'd have to have a shitty personality to do that.

"How long ago?" David asked.

"A few years. I died last year in a car accident."

Caera growled again, but quieter, and she stared ahead. Upset about Naoko, probably. He didn't need Mia to tell him that. Afraid Naoko might hurt him? She was getting awfully close.

"A year in Hell is a long time to survive," he said. "How'd that happen?"

"Got dumped off in the Dens, and--"

"Dens?"

"Where the vola farm fallo spiders. Sometimes portals open up near there, and usually the succubi and incubi let the spiders eat us; they have to feed them at some point, right? But I got away, and Tarsus saved me. He thought my flailing and screaming about spiders was cute."

David looked back. Tarsus? The three demons with Naoko, Fuad, and Natalie were Tacharius, Zazee, and Koralex.

"Tarsus died months ago, to Telmer." She sighed and shrugged. "He wasn't the best owner. Zazee took me under her wing, and uh... we started stealing thread from Telmer."

"Revenge?" David asked.

"I wish. It's just, a few of these asshole factions here in the Grave Valley don't like Tarkissa or Azailia, don't respect the truce, and make our lives hard. So we steal from them. It's not like they use the silk, anyway."

David looked at his arm. He healed faster than he did when he was alive, but there were still red lines, and Naoko gestured to the arm.

"It's tough to work with," she said. "Right?"

"I can't imagine working it at all."

"You need to be very careful and use something sharp to cut the thread where it's been glued to branches." She gestured back at the demons following. "Meera metal isn't exactly a scalpel, so we work to keep it sharp, too."

Meera metal was durable, but that was it. Supposedly it was made of demon bones and blackstone, melted down, and most of that had been done at False Gate millions of years ago. All the meera metal around now was just leftovers from an ancient war, getting hammered together and scraped against stuff to keep it just barely sharp enough to have an edge. Using it to cut something fine sounded impossible.

"You use a knife?" he asked.

"Depends. Sometimes. Those things are heavy. Before I was a betrayer, I could barely wield it."

"And now?"

She held out a hand in front of her and examined her palm. "I guess I'm twice as strong now? And how strong I was doesn't seem to be affected by my size anymore. I've gotten into tussles with guys a lot bigger than me, and we seemed about the same strength, more or less."

"Makes sense," he said. "We're all humans. Wouldn't really make sense if how strong we are in the afterlife was determined by something as arbitrary as biology."

"But demons, even the same species, are stronger than others based on size."

He shrugged. "They were born here. Part of the ecosystem."

She laughed. "I never thought of Hell as an ecosystem."

"Really? Resonance--"

Caera snorted, stepped behind and around David, and got between him and Naoko.

"She doesn't need to know that." With an evil glare, Caera set her eye on Naoko, and stared her down.

"Sorry! Sorry." Again, Naoko made a tiny bow, backed off, and found Zazee in the back.

"Caera," he said. "What's wrong?"

"You don't see it?"

"See what?"

She sighed and rolled her eye. "You are oblivious. She..." Growling all too much like a real tiger, she looked back at the fifty or so newcomers, demons and betrayers, following them. "She's trying to... learn about you."

"That's understandable, right? This is all pretty sudden."

She didn't look convinced. "And look at those girls. They all want to get their fingers on you because they know you're important."

"What? The succubi?" He glanced back again. Sure, the succubi were watching him, and more than a few times they licked their lips and grinned at him. But so did the incubi.

"No, the souls."

"What?"

Caera nudged her shoulder against his hip. "Are you not paying attention? That Naoko girl just wanted to get her claws in you, and I bet the other girls will do the same."

"You sure?"

Eye aimed back and glaring laser beams of death at the following crowd, she nudged against his hip a little harder.

"Just because they're being nice doesn't change that they're souls from the surface, with numbers."

"Her number was 9."

"So? She was still sent to Hell, David." Caera shook her head and whacked her tail on the ground. "Don't trust a soul, David."

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are. She batted her cute eyes at you, flicked her hair, got real close, and you ate it up. Don't trust her. Don't trust any of them."

He blinked down at her, a lot. This was Caera, the girl who'd told him she liked him, a lot, wanted him, but also wanted to share him with others, with Jes and Dao and them. But everything she said now sounded a lot like jealousy.

"Okay. I won't trust them."

She smiled at him, but the moment she looked back, the smile vanished, and hard scrutiny replaced it.

"This is becoming a problem," she said. "The rider might spot us. Angels might spot us."

"The rider has no mount. If we keep moving, we should be fine, right?"

"Hopefully."

He gestured back. "And we reach the Scar in four days. We drop them off then, right?"

"Ideally."

"And if we run into Telmer or someone else on the way, it'd be nice to have some troops to fight them, right?"

"Probably."

He laughed. Half nervous, half placating. He'd never seen Caera like this. He rubbed her head, combed her dreadlocks, and ran his hand back along her back spikes. Usually enough to calm her, but not today. She looked back, ignored his touch, and glared some more at the strangers.

"You shouldn't have picked them up," she said.

"But--"

"Not because they can't be of value. They could be. But they're not trustworthy. They could betray us."

He sighed and nodded, if only to make sure Caera knew he was absorbing the reality of her words. Getting betrayed sucked. When Silvain had grabbed him and choked him out, that'd really sucked. But it wasn't the demons Caera was worried about. It was the humans.

But the betrayers weren't in charge. The demons were.

"Does... this have something to do with Cainites?" he asked. "'Cause they're not Cainites. They're--"

She glared at him so hard he took a step back. Okay, not an answer, but he'd definitely pissed her off.

She marched ahead and walked with Laoko, leaving him alone. Well, fuck.

Daoka slowed a bit, traded places, walked with him, and gestured to Caera and her tail. A very heavy, still tail, not doing much wagging at all.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't think she's happy about the new company."

"Probably not," Jes said, coming up behind him. Opposite of Daoka, she hooked her closer wing over both his shoulders. "You two have been acting differently since yesterday. Did you have a chat?"

"We... did."

"And?"

"It's private."

Jes rolled her eyes. "You came back from it looking pretty happy."

"It was a good, private conversation."

"Uh huh. But happy no more?"

"Shut up."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next group of demons they came across wasn't a group from the Scar. From the Grave Valley, born and bred, from the way they moved through the trees. A dozen vrats, half a dozen brutes, a tiger, and a couple satyrs. No gargoyles hanging out this deep in the sharpest forest in existence.

The enemy sat in a clearing on broken trees, checked their armor, licked their teeth free of blood, and etched symbols into their armor, too. Skulls. Tombstones. Fashion, maybe?

David's crew approached the clearing, and the enemy faced him. The others, David's supposed 'followers', hung way in the back so they didn't make noise, while Caera led David and the others in close.

A gorujin tetrad sat in the center of the clearing. His wings were torn up, but no blood coated the wounds. Old wounds that hadn't healed? Whatever caused them, his wings were nothing but fingers now, no membrane, all scars, and a hundred skulls dangled from chains hooked into the wings' fingers. His axe stuck out of the ground, and a fresh coating of blood dripped from his maw and down his chest.

A dead fassila spider sat in the center of the clearing, and a half dozen human bodies. The gargantuan tarantula -- fuck that -- lay on its back, curled up, missing some limbs, and giant ass split open. And because it was Hell, the spider bled red. Not green or blue. The fleshy gunk past its exoskeleton, was red.

David took a breath and stepped into the edge of the clearing, Laoko and Caera beside him.

"Telmer," David said.

Telmer stood up, flared his useless wings, and the hundred dangling skulls rattled. Grinning like a typical dictator on a power trip, he picked up his axe and aimed it at David.

"Heard you coming."

"So I gathered, since you were ahead of me." Deep breath. No fear.

"It's not like Azailia to send out anyone this far. That was my first thought when I saw your group. Then I realized those idiots following you are from the Scar." He chuckled, and his little army stood up with him. "Imagine my surprise when I heard that Azailia wants you captured."

"Who told you that?" David asked.

"Word spreads. There's more than a few riiva around that earn their meals sharing information." He gestured to the one closest to him. "You're fighting Azailia?"

"No. Just passing through."

"Shame. If you were fighting Azailia, I might have let you go."

He narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. "And the demons following me?"

"The ones from the Scar? Oh they're all dead. This truce can die for all I care. Tarkissa can die for all I care."

Laoko growled and looked back. Timaeus stayed back with the followers, half to keep them in line, half because his wingspan was a problem. Considering how fucked Telmer's wings were, David didn't blame him. Jes and the Las stayed with him, too, while Daoka got in close behind Laoko.

Moriah stepped into view of the demons in the clearing, and they stood up straight and stared.

"My oh my," Telmer said, and he flicked his tail and dug his feet's claws into the gravel. "An angel. Growing back a wing? I guess Tissia wasn't lying."

"The unmarked wishes to pass without incident," Moriah said. "The only reason we bothered to approach is to confirm you will let us be."

Telmer laughed louder. From behind him, more demons poked out from the trees. More vrats, more brutes, and a few others, too.

"You approached because you knew if you didn't, I'd attack when you weren't ready. Smart. But predictable. Humans love to talk. You--"

David raised his hand, summoned his armor and staff, and swung his hand down. With staff now in his palm, the base struck the gravel beneath him, and the ground erupted. He wasn't going to play a game of tag with this fucker in the forest. He wasn't going to have a back and forth, prey and predator, a battle, a war, anything like that with this asshole. The demons and betrayers following David had explained, in great detail, the trouble this tetrad and his demons had given them.

David pointed his staff at the stunned tetrad, and summoned death. A spike shot out of the ground, a big one, forty-five degrees out from the gravel in front of the huge demon, straight into his chest. It was not a gentle or soft tune. It was loud, and sharp. The beam of blackstone crashed into the tetrad's stomach, skewered through flesh, pushed through his back, and kept going. The beam only grew larger as it shot forward, and before the tetrad could say anything, the thickness of the beam expanded and separated his chest from his legs.

Telmer's torso hit the ground. He picked himself up with his palms, looked back at the giant blackstone spike, his legs, and stared at David with psychotic rage. Blood poured from his mouth. He dragged himself a few meters, losing entrails on the way, and died.

Telmer's demons stared down at their dead master. If they'd been human, they'd have surrendered or run. Not demons. They shrieked and charged David, as if the death of their leader was just the blast of a war horn saying 'attack'.

He summoned a dozen more spikes, smaller than the one used on Telmer, but big enough they cut through the smaller demons just as well. Even the brutes and their dark skin were skewered; not split in half, but skewered and killed anyway. But aiming a dozen spikes at a dozen targets at the same time was impossible, and half of them missed.

Laoko charged in, Moriah directly behind her, and Caera, Jes, and Daoka followed them. The Las got in front of David, stayed with him, and Timaeus and Acelina came up behind him and waited for any demons who got close.

It was a slaughter. The demons couldn't get close, and when they did, David summoned a spike and killed one. Auras of violence flooded the clearing, stripping away whatever rational thought any of the demons had left. Not good for anyone, but Laoko stayed above the chaos and chopped down errant demons with four swords. The aura terrified David. If Caera or the others got caught up in it, they might do something reckless and get themselves killed. He kept his eyes peeled on them, and any time a demon came for their backs, he summoned another spike.

Moriah surprised David the most. The others charged into each battle, slicing, biting, clawing. Moriah walked into battle, summoned her armor in a smooth motion, and swung her sword with one hand while the other summoned a shield. The mirror blade cut through a demon's flesh like butter. The aura couldn't break her, and she let the madness crash against her like a tide against the rocks. Each demon that came for her, she cut down with brutal efficiency, zero flare, zero blood thirst.

This was not the Moriah that'd gone crazy and tried to kill him a lifetime ago.

Even more surprising, but it really shouldn't have been, was how she turned and checked on the others after each kill. David watched from his vantage point at the edge of the clearing, as did the Las and Acelina, all of them staying close to him, but there was something more reassuring about Moriah being near. She didn't fight with the same, crazy mayhem of the others. Even Laoko, elegant and careful with her attacks, was brutal and savage compared to the quiet control of the angel. Moriah glanced back at David several times, and glanced at the demons around her more, especially Dao and Jes.

She cut down demons that went for their backs, demons David couldn't catch in time. Silent, no battle cry or laser beams, she stepped in quick, blocked a sword or claw with her shield, and cut demons in half. One brute got around and came for Dao's back, but Moriah got between them and stabbed the brute in the stomach. His dark skin couldn't stop an angel blade, and she pulled it out from his side, spilling his guts. Dao spun and clicked between some gasps.

Moriah was protecting them.

Sixty seconds and the fight was done. No elegance. No poking and prodding. The two demon groups clashed together, and with Laoko and Moriah in the middle of the fight, they had no chance. Timaeus joined the fight toward the end, stepped around the colossal spikes, and cut down any demons that went for Laoko. A bit late, but whatever.

They stood over the battlefield of slaughtered demons and took count.

"Fifty something," Jes said. "Tacharius said they had more."

"Some ran," Laoko said. "The smart ones. But..."

"But?" David asked.

"But, yes, more are missing than there should have been. I knew Telmer. He had become reckless. Something drove him to do something so desperate."

Tacharius joined them, stepping over corpses with wide eyes, and did a double take at the giant dead tarantula. "Uh, if I had to guess, it was angels. They're..."

Timaeus turned and grabbed the incubus by the throat. "They're what?"

Between gasps and a flailing tail, the incubus got his hands around Timaeus's wrist and squeezed enough he could at least breathe again.

"Angels aren't just flying around the border! They're... killing anyone who tries to cross."