The Pleasures of Hell 03.052

~~Day 76~~

~~Mia~~

"Sit!"

Cerberus did not sit.

"Sit!"

Cerberus did not sit.

"Baby, if you don't get this, we're going to have trouble." Rolling her eyes, she squatted down beside her best friend in the whole wide underworld and pushed down on his butt. "Sit."

He sat. Okay, he was definitely super smart for a two-day-old puppy, but not so smart she'd have an easy time with this.

"Good boy!" She hugged him snug, and the hellhound panted softly in typical excited dog fashion. Three heads meant three times the effort to praise him, but she took time with each head. Lots of pets. Lots of scritches. "I think his left head is more... dopey. And his right head is more serious." She pushed on his neck and turned him to face Yosepha. "What do you think?"

Yosepha smiled. She sat beside Romakus in Mia's cave, and soon they'd have to get up and get back on the move. But until then, training Cerberus was the plan.

"Perhaps," she said. "How can you tell?"

"Like this." She touched the left head's nose. Immediate playful behavior, pretend biting, and he nudged his body into Mia's and almost pushed her over. "And this." She touched the right head's nose. He lifted his head up and aimed it forward at attention like a point dog.

"And the middle head?"

She booped his middle head. Middle head harrumphed and pressed his forehead into her palm.

"I dunno. Um, big guard dog head? Like, one of those lazy big dogs. He's the big dog."

"Interesting."

"And you're sure you know nothing about three-headed hellbeasts?"

"Nothing."

Mia whined and rubbed her forehead with Cerberus's middle head.

Yosepha shook her head and flapped her small wings. "There has never been mention of a three-headed hellbeast in the great libraries. You're on your own."

She whined again. Apparently, Cerberus thought she was in pain, because he pushed all three heads into her, rubbed them against her, and she fell on her ass. Giggling, she sat back up and rubbed his neck and chest, and combed his dozens of spikes.

"I'll figure it out. I suppose I'm mostly just curious about why he has three heads. I mean, there's no getting around it. This is a three-headed hellhound, and that's a pretty famous idea on the surface. If it's never existed in Hell before, then somehow, the surface changed things down here."

Julisa snorted and thumped her tail on the ground. "As much as it pains me to agree, I do. It is not the first time I've heard that there is a link between life and the afterlife."

Kas nodded. "But this is... extreme."

"Of course," Romakus said. "Where the unmarked go, extreme things happen. Agreed, Noah?"

Noah sighed and nodded. He'd switched places with Azreal, and Mia was happy he had. Mostly. Much as she'd started to like Azreal and got to know him, Noah was just so much easier to get along with. Not that he was easy to get along with, but rock was softer than steel.

"How or why," the angel said, "I doubt even the council knows. But it does appear to be a thing. When Azreal mentioned the three-headed cannam, I wasn't entirely sure what to think."

"Is he even a cannam?" she asked. Back on her feet, she walked to the other side of the cave. "Cerberus. Come!" Cerberus came. Progress! "Okay, now... sit!" He did not sit. "Cerberus, sit!" He did not sit. She pressed down on his butt, and he sat. "Sit!" He stayed sitting. "Okay, getting somewhere. I think."

Cerberus clicked up at her, a tongue cluck kinda sound deep in his middle throat. The other two heads clucked, too. She looked to Kas.

"He says nothing," Kas said. "Just a noise. A content noise."

"Oh. For some reason when I learned Hellian sounds like clicks, I just assumed all clicks were words. I guess it has not-word sounds, too. It's not like babies make real words when they make random sounds. Or that dogs make real words when they bark and stuff." She clapped her hands. "This is so fun! Learning all the things!"

Cerberus wagged his tail, stood up, and pushed against her. Only the size of a golden retriever, he wasn't strong enough to knock her over a second time, but he almost did, and she giggled and rubbed his heads.

"Okay. I'm gonna have to keep teaching him, 'cause he's gonna jump on me at some point and squash me when he's bigger."

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Cerberus took off. Like a bullet in the black, he bolted for something in the smog.

"Cerberus!" she whispered as loud as she could. "Cerberus! Come!"

Cerberus did not come. Cerberus roared at something at the edge of the smog, and dug in the muck. Without a word, Noah took off after him, flying faster than the cannam could run, a blur of smudging black against black. A fresh coating of swamp guts covered his wings and skin. Otherwise, he'd be a streaking comet of light.

The rest of them ran after the pair, Mia on Kas's back, the others trudging up mud with each sprinting step. Way too much noise. Way too much movement. If they got spotted now, it'd be a big problem with all the demons actively looking for them.

Noah met them halfway, Cerberus dangling from his arms, and a dead gremlin hanging from two of the dog's mouths.

"No one spotted us," Noah said. "But your pet must have noticed movement. A gremlin digging himself a new hiding hole."

Mia sucked in a breath. "You're sure no one spotted us?"

"I am sure."

Kas came closer and saddled up beside the dangling cannam. Dopey head looked immensely satisfied with himself, gremlin's wings in his mouth. Middle head looked confused about being carried, gremlin's neck in his mouth, but eyes aimed down. It was the first time he'd been picked up. Serious head, mouth empty, looked between Mia and up at Noah, and whined.

"Bad Cerberus! Ba--Kas, does he understand bad?"

Kas clicked once, loud, and Cerberus shuddered.

"That's right! Bad! Bad! Don't run off." And she didn't whisper it. She yelled it.

Silence followed, Cerberus whining quietly while everyone else listened and scanned the smog. No movement.

Sighing, Noah put the dog down, and Cerberus waddled up to Kas and knelt in front of him. Submissive behavior, very dog-like.

"It will get us killed," Julisa said.

"No, he won't," Mia said. "We just... I just need to try harder, train him better."

Predictably, Julisa wasn't convinced. She came closer, mud sloshing under her claws, and she glared down at Mia and Cerberus.

"We will arrive at the Maze tomorrow. We will use stealth to sneak past thousands of demons. Xela, Vicente, and Alessio are likely to be there. Angels scour the skies, hunting you and James. Can you use your abilities to defeat such forces, knee deep in remnant guts, surrounded?"

Mia tried to glare at Julisa, but each word struck her down, and her eyes fell.

"I... No, I probably couldn't."

"Indeed. And yet, here we are, dragging this creature through the swamp that will spell our doom. If you do not silence him, I will."

Fighting words. Mia found a kernel of anger again and glared up at the bitch. Cerberus did too, legs spread, ready to pounce, growling.

Julisa gestured. "I have barely done a thing and already he risks our lives. Control him. Now."

Mia tightened her hands into fists. If there was anything worse than arguing with a bitch like Julisa, it was doing it when the bitch was right.

"You're right." And saying it tasted like acid. "You're right. I'll... I'll make sure that doesn't happen."

Julisa tilted her head, eyebrow raised. Surprised?

"Oh? You have the strength of character to be firm, and break this beast?"

"I'm not going to break him! He's not a wild horse. And I am not the rider."

More silence. Eventually, Julisa snorted and rejoined Vin in the back of the group. Mia watched her, set her eyes on Vin, and waited for a response from the big bad of the crew. Vin said nothing, but he did have his eyes on Cerberus, and he watched the dog with a steel gaze.

He'd kill Cerberus if he had to. If Mia caught him in time, she could use the leash the stop him, but Vin could be smart when he wanted to be. He'd wait until Mia was asleep or something, kill Cerberus, and deal with the fallout. And Mia wasn't sure she could entirely blame him.

The thought made her sick.

"Cerberus!" she whispered, and slid off Kas's back. "Sit."

Cerberus stayed in pouncing position, eyes on Julisa. Mia grabbed his two outer jaws, lifted them, aimed his gazes at her, and she glared. Eye contact. On the surface, it was the classic way mammals had power battles without getting violent.

She stared her dog in the eyes, all six of them, and glared hard.

"I. Said. Sit."

Cerberus whined, and sat.

Her muscles let go of the tension she didn't know she'd been clenching, and she pet her best boy on his foreheads.

"Good boy. You stay close to me from now on, okay? No running off."

He didn't understand, but he wagged his tail and nudged his foreheads into her arms, anyway.

She wanted to vomit. Not because of Cerberus, but because she could imagine what it'd have been like if he'd have been born like a normal dog. No puppy only a couple days old could obey commands, or not whine constantly. No hellbeast would get along this well with potential food, either. Cerberus really was a gift.

And if he hadn't been, they'd have had to kill him, or leave him behind.

She forced down the vomit she didn't have, swallowed, and looked Cerberus in the eyes again.

"Come." She let him go, climbed back on Kas, looked back at her hellhound, and pointed at the muck beside Kas. "Come!"

Cerberus came up beside Kas and looked up at her with his red and black eyes. No way to tell if he'd listen, but he looked more serious, at least. All three heads, even dopey head, kept glancing up at her before looking in the direction they walked. Was he checking on her to see what she'd do? She'd heard dogs did that, looked up at their owners to see their reaction when they trusted the owner.

Hopefully, that meant he'd listen to her from now on.

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~~David~~

"News is pretty slow," Tacharius said. The incubus walked with David near the front of the group, Naoko and Natalie directly behind him. "It is Hell. It takes months for information to do a full circle. But I can tell you what I know."

"Please do," David said.

The incubus raised a brow. "Um, right. No one really knows why anymore, but the Navameere Fields and the Red Pits have always been at war. Sometimes they take a break, and then they go at it again. They're both obsessed with power, and if they stopped fighting, they could probably take over Hell. But whatever the reason they fight, they refuse to stop. Khazeer runs the Red Pits, and Morgana runs the Navameere Fields. They both organize their demons into military. Always have."

"They took a page from the surface?"

"Dunno. Maybe the other way around? Those two provinces have been fighting for longer than humans have known how to build walls."

"Yeesh."

Tacharius laughed. "You're nothing like I thought you'd be, you know."

And here came this conversation. It was bound to happen sooner or later, especially with other unmarked going around making names for themselves, bad names.

"What'd you expect?"

"Well, I hear the girl unmarked working with Morgana is a cruel, horrible bitch."

"She do anything specific?"

"Used her powers to decimate an army in the Red Pits. Now Morgana and her are encroaching and taking territory."

David rubbed his face. This made no sense. Didn't the woman in the armor talk to this unmarked and tell her what had to be done? Did this unmarked girl just not care? And if she was out there, fighting wars, why didn't the angels swoop down and kill her?

"And Tarkissa is worried about that?"

"Yes," the incubus said. "We have a truce with the Red Pits. We trade silk with them, and--"

"Is it just silk? I have a hard time believing it's just silk. If the Scar is really a province of only succubi and incubi, how do you keep Azailia or Khazeer from taking over?"

Tacharius squirmed and looked back at the growing number of demons following.

"We trade more than just silk. We trade..." He shrugged, pulled his tail in front of him, and idly tugged on the spade tip. "A human experience."

"What?"

"Azailia and Khazeer visit frequently, and we give them the best human experience possible. Their strongest demons visit, and we treat them the same. Whenever any demon from those provinces visit, and we know they came with Azailia or Khazeer's blessing, they get special treatment."

David tilted his head. "Human treatment. That means sex?"

"Sex is part of it. We do a lot of other stuff, too."

David ran his fingers through his hair. Demons valued humans that much? Wanted to consume them, and experience them, that much?

"I guess... I'll see that when I get there?"

"Oh yes." The incubus nodded, playful grin on full display. "The Floor will treat you right."

"The Floor?"

"Where we really indulge in the most human experiences. Lots of sex, lots of dancing, and eating, and..." He leaned in close and smiled down at him. "We volas watch the scrying pools all the time, and try and distill the human experience down to its most addictive aspects."

David leaned away slightly. "You can get drugs down here?"

"Unfortunately no. A shame."

"Then, the most addictive aspects are... what?"

Tacharius shrugged and waved his tail in front of him. "What would any human want if they were given all the money in the surface world?"

"All the money? I mean, I guess a nice house, and good food, and--"

The incubus leaned in closer again. "Think about human history. What things did kings -- and queens -- want, when they had the power to make their whims come true?"

David stared up at the handsome man looking at him like David was some kind of dish.

"I mean... more? More of anything, and everything? Excess?"

"Yes!" Tacharius clapped once. "Excess. The perfect word. You are smart, unmarked. Yes, excess is what humans crave. Unlimited food. Sex overflowing. Slaves to do whatever you want. Music! Oh, the music. Embrace gluttony! Surely the most human of desires, gluttony, and then greed, lust, and sloth." Laughing, he slapped his forehead and laughed some more. "But look at who I'm talking to. Surely an unmarked lived a life full of power and indulgence on the surface."

"Um, no. I lived a quiet life without a single thing worth noticing." And that'd been the way he liked it.

Tacharius stopped laughing, eyebrow raised, and got in front of David and walked backward.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. Like you said, kings and queens, right? Majority of humans don't get to indulge in... anything."

"I know, but I expected the unmarked to be special."

David gestured back the way they came. "What, because of my abilities? I don't know why I have them either. That--" He shook his head. "Enough about me. Tell me more about the Scar. Where do we end up first?"

"First, we travel through Vasil's mouth. A day's journey before we reach the main body of the Scar. The spire sits on the inner edge of the Scar, closer to the river Styx. Below the spire and inside the Scar itself, you'll find the Dens near the surface, and the Floor much deeper. You can exit the Scar and enter the Red Pits through Guissia's mouth."

No point in asking who Guissia and Vasil were, knowing demons.

"And the Floor and Dens. They make up most of the Scar?"

"Not really. The Scar is a network of tunnels, not unlike Death's Grip. But there are many pockets of areas that serve as dens for fallo spiders, or a floor for indulgence."

"And factions?"

He shook his head. "No true factions. We are not the Grave Valley, or Death's Grip, I suppose. There's plenty of infighting, and groups, but that happens everywhere in Hell, right?" He fell back in beside David, frowned, and looked down at his toe claws. "Tarkissa's been pushing to join the war against the Navameere Fields. We're not sure why."

David opened his mouth, and closed it. Much as he knew he should say less, the incubus had a way of talking that just made him want to talk with him. Maybe it was his human demeanor? He was the first vola David had interacted with.

"And Azailia?" David asked. "Know anything about her view on the war?"

"Supposedly, the Grave Valley would help fight off Morgana and the Fields if Morgana ever somehow pushed through the Red Pits and reached the Scar, but who knows." Another shrug, a little more playful than the topic suggested. "You can't trust a demon."

Damn it. The smooth way he talked got past David's defenses and made him laugh.

"And, um, Tarkissa, is he up to anything?"

Tacharius tilted his head. "I'm not sure I follow."

"There anything... strange, happening in the Scar? Anything that seems different from the typical stuff? Like, is there... fuck, I don't know. I just know something strange is happening, and it might be happening in the Scar." Fucking christ, he sucked at talking around a point. He just wanted to outright ask 'hey Azailia was going to break my limbs and send me to Tarkissa as a helpless prisoner. Know why?' But if he did that, he'd be saying too much.

He couldn't navigate a regular conversation, let alone this minefield.

"I... don't think so?" Tacharius eyed him. Of course, the incubus had a head on his shoulders, and every word David said, the man was analyzing. Maybe David should have asked his brute buddy Koralex, instead.

"Just, keep an eye open," David said. "And I mean that. I saved your ass and I'm taking you all the way back to the Scar. You owe me."

Tacharius held up his hands. "Got it, got it."

That out of the way, David sighed and wiped his forehead. "You, Zazee, and Koralex. You three take care of these three?" He gestured back to Natalie and Naoko. They smiled at him and made little finger waves, a lot nicer than he'd expect of any soul, let alone souls in Hell. Maybe Caera was right, and they were just pretending.

"Zazee takes care of Fuad and Naoko. I take care of Natalie. Koralex is our muscle."

Fuad. David scanned behind him again, did his best to avoid eye contact with the two girls obviously looking straight at him, and spotted Fuad. Chatting with some other demons, probably some he knew from the Scar.

"Your muscle?"

"Yes. We pay Koralex in... excess." The volarin winked and wagged his devil tail in front of him.

"David," Laoko said over her shoulder, "this information is useless if we cannot enter the province."

"Right." David rubbed his hands together, took a deep breath, and mentally prepared for yet another barrier between him and saving the god damn world. "Angels. We thought they were just looking for the unmarked. Now you're saying they're actively killing anyone who tries to cross the border?"

Tacharius winced and squeezed his tail. "Yes."

Moriah came up beside the incubus, eyes solid as stone. "Do you know which Heavenly Island they came from?"

"Not a clue. I didn't even know there was more than one."

"Nine," she said. "Do you know the names of these angels? Know what any look like?"

"Not even a little bit. I stayed low and so did everyone else the first time we saw them swoop down and slaughter a hundred of us. Just another group, mostly volas, looking to make a little extra silk or find a free meal. Not a big deal, right? We come and go from the Grave Valley all the time. But with Telmer and the others being a pain lately -- thank you again for killing his ass and letting us eat him, by the way -- we had to be more careful about how quickly we entered the Amisius Forest. I didn't even see the angels until they'd already come down and blasted another group with beams of light."

Whatever he said, Moriah didn't like it, and she hit the demon with her wing, which startled the demon more than anything. You couldn't do much damage with white feathers.

"Smart of you," she said, "to avoid mentioning the angels were killing everyone, until after we killed Telmer. If we'd known, we might have organized a truce with Telmer somehow, instead of risking our lives."

Tacharius smiled at the angel. He had a couple inches on her, nearly seven feet tall. But even David could see he was being cautious.

"Telmer would have stabbed you in the back the moment he had the chance."

Moriah didn't flinch. "You think so? Because I think a quick showing of David's abilities would have shut him up and put him in line. You wanted him gone, so you could pursue whatever thievery you wanted to. Once the angel problem is gone, that is."

Tacharius put up his hands in surrender. "Can't blame a demon for making a smart deal, right?"

Moriah rolled her eyes. "How many angels did you see?"

"Not sure. Lots were still flying high. Maybe a thousand? If this were any other province, a thousand wouldn't be enough to guard the border, but with the Scar, the mouths are only a mile or two wide."

"Indeed." Sighing, Moriah looked ahead, frowned, and hit the incubus in the back again. "Are there any other secrets you hold from us, volarin?"

"Nope! Well, not true. Hundreds. But none that should affect you."

Moriah glared.

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

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

~~Day 77~~

~~Mia~~

It didn't get much more macabre than the Maze. Walls of bone, some a network of combined bones of odd, alien shapes, some walls a single bone bigger than any of Asmodeus's limbs. Some walls churned, twisting on themselves, bones aligned like chainsaws, kinda like the Mound and the other, smaller mounds. And true to the mounds, remnants grew on the bone walls, by the hundreds of thousands.

The Black Valley was usually kinda quiet. There were remnants everywhere, but most were dead. Sometimes some remnants grew from a rock, or a giant bone, but the swamp wasn't noisy except near a mound.

The Maze was noisy. The screaming remnants were unending, and the sound warped in Mia's ears, blending together into a white noise machine intent on killing her instead of helping her sleep.

The bone walls reached high, with trenches cutting between them in the muck, and the walls went up and until they pierced the black clouds. Could the angels see the Maze from the sky?

The group crouched low, Mia, Kas, Vin, and Cerberus in the far back. Noah, Julisa, Romakus, and Yosepha were in front, drenched in black muck. Everyone wore an extra coating of remnant guts, even Cerberus; teaching him to leave the entrails alone had been a task and a half. Mia crawled with him on her hands and knees, happy her light weight spread over four hands meant she didn't sink, mostly.

"It looks like they got across," Romakus said, looking back. "There's no sign of them, or pursuit."

Mia sighed with relief. If James, Azreal, Adron, and the others got across without getting spotted, that was great. Amazing. And it meant there was a chance Mia could get across, too.

She could understand why, now that she could see -- and hear -- the Maze. Along the walls, demons patrolled, vrats and brutes, gargoyles and bat girls, and a couple tigers. A borjin stood nearby, the demon equivalent of a minotaur with a tail and spikes, and he piled some rocks and bones on top of each other. Fixing a wall? Or making a little hidey-hole for someone to sleep in?

"Azreal didn't report back," Noah said. And that could only mean one thing. He stuck with the group when they pushed through, instead of coming back to tell Mia's crew which path.

They had a goal: get through the Maze and get into the tunnels in Angel's Spine. It had many, according to Romakus, and they'd be able to navigate through them instead of actually walking on the province's surface. From the vision, Mia didn't want to walk on the corpses of archangels, so that was perfectly fine with her. Better for hiding from the angels looking for her, too.

Problem: they had a dog.

"Cerberus," she said. Cerberus looked at her. "Stay close to me, okay?" She crawled closer and hugged him to her side. "Nice and close, okay? Come."

Kas leaned over her and clicked once. Cerberus clicked back.

"What'd you say?"

"I said 'together'," Kas said, shrugging.

Right, together. That'd work. Hellbeasts only knew the simplest words and concepts, and 'together' was a pretty simple and powerful one. Other things, like 'quiet', 'don't run off if you see something', and particularly 'if the enemy spots us we'll need to run so make sure you stay with me so we don't get split up' were probably too complicated.

"What'd he say back?"

Kas shrugged. "Yes. As close to 'yes' as a young cannam could understand."

"Nothing for stealth?"

He shook his head and clicked at Cerberus. How any hellbeast innately knew any words in a language they'd never heard before was a mystery. Maybe Hell taught them some basic words while they were in the wall before getting birthed? Or, maybe it was like spiders who knew how to make webs?

Cerberus tilted his heads in a classic confused dog expression.

"Stealth," Mia said, and she crawled forward with her best sneaky cat impression. "Stealth."

Kas clicked again. Cerberus tilted his heads to the other side. This wasn't working.

"He's a member of the pack," Romakus said. "Either he does what the pack does, or he dies. He'll figured it out."

"But--"

Romakus glared back at her. The usual mischievousness in his gaze was gone, and only a gorujin tetrad glared at her, skull-ish, hyper masculine face, and crocodile teeth on display.

"If he's about to get us all killed," Romakus said, and pointed his tail at Cerberus, "we leave him behind. Understand?"

She glared back as hard as she could, but no one said a thing, including her. He was right.

She hugged Cerberus close, super close, and hugged him so tight he gasped.

"Come," she said, in the most serious voice she could muster. "Come."

Cerberus stared up at her with six eyes, all three heads completely serious. Confused, but serious. It was the best she could hope for.

"Follow me," Noah said, and he crawled forward. Literally crawled. Seeing an angel crawl in an endless swamp of black gore was depressing, like seeing the wreckage after a hurricane passed through a small town. This might have been normal stuff to demons, but angels lived glorious, beautiful, clean lives in Heaven. And he was doing this for her, or at least for her goal.

The closer they got to the Maze, the louder it got. The remnants screamed their death music, tore into each other, pulled and yanked at their bone prisons, and some tore themselves apart. Their bodies fell from the walls, and their insides spilled into the swamp. The demons patrolling didn't care. They walked the line where the white bone walls met the swamp, some with weapons drawn, all with eyes aimed out toward Mia's direction. Some had bat girls on their shoulders. Some larger brutes had gargoyles on their shoulders, too. Everyone watched, waiting.

Only the smog and their muck disguises kept Mia and the crew safe, but it wouldn't last much longer.

Noah stopped and gestured to a pair of brutes at the edge of the Maze, in their direct path. Mia reached out, played a deep, angry little tune, and opened the ground underneath them. A hole opened, and both juggernauts disappeared into it. The swamp and muck collapsed on them, burying them, but there was nothing stopping them from climbing out.

Mia squeezed her open hand into a fist and brought the music to a climax. The surrounding ground closed, and the two juggernauts squirted a tiny geyser of red liquid up through the muck. It was the closest she could do to a stealth kill with no evidence.

Cerberus bolted toward the kill.

"Cerberus!" she half screamed, half whispered between her teeth. "Come!"

Cerberus froze. Slowly, with drooping heads, the hellhound turned and wandered back toward her.

It was human to want to seal in a punishment. It was the 'normal' thing, the 'correct' thing to make sure the punishment drilled its way through a thick-headed child's skull. That meant yelling, maybe a slap on the wrist or ass, and grounding. But David had taught Mia all the ways that just didn't work with dogs. You had to be quick with the punishment, a stern word was usually enough, and then reward and praise the dog the moment they did the appropriate behavior. Hellbeast, dog, hopefully there was enough crossover for this to work.

She swallowed down her anger. She couldn't keep it, anyway. His demon eyes looked so sad, heads hanging, and she rubbed and patted him once he got close.

"Good boy," she said. "Good boy."

"He went for the music," Yosepha said. "Or was triggered by it?"

"Yeah. But he'll stay with me now." She patted his side, turned him so he faced the right direction, and again, everyone crawled. "Cerberus. Come."

The group crawled forward, and things got worse.

More demons came into view. The smog was unkind, drifted and flowed with small breezes, and exposed more demons on the edge of what they could see. And if Mia and the crew could see them, they could see Mia and the crew.

Another brute came into view. Mia pulled the same trick. Three vratorins came closer, and Mia again did the same trick, but she had to make the hole big enough to capture three. It was noisy.

Cerberus growled, his spikes stood up straighter, and he clicked deep in his throat. A click wasn't as tenth as loud as a bark, and wouldn't summon a horde of demons and angels onto their asses. Small miracles.

They got closer. Noise wouldn't be an issue once they were inside the Maze, not with the remnants screaming. They could talk and bark and roar then. But until they got between its walls, it was a slow crawl.

They got between the walls.

"Easier than expected," Romakus said, and he gestured back to the endless swamp they'd just come from. Other than a few pools of fresh red blood mixing into the black muck, there was no evidence of their approach.

"Too easy," Noah said, looking up and around. They had to stay close and speak loud for their voices to pierce the unending screams. "Be alert."

Cerberus whined more, and Mia knelt down and covered his ears. Not enough hands for all his ears, and she sighed and rubbed her forehead against his middle head. She didn't blame him in the slightest. The walls towered, twisted shapes of bone that curled over or bent back with no rhyme or reason. Vine plants grew with more uniformity than these bone walls. But the fucked-up walls that pierced the black smog above weren't the problem.

It was the remnants. Usually it was so easy to ignore remnants, not think of them as a problem, until they surrounded you by the thousands, each reaching out with desperate hands and screaming mouths. Naked, bleeding, gaunt and emaciated, they clawed at each other, grabbed onto slabs of bone from their warping walls, and did their best to free themselves. They couldn't, each locked into the wall, some up to their waists, some up to their necks. And they were endless. Looking down the path showed only more remnants covered the walls like swarms of flies. If they could fly, they would have swarmed and killed Mia and everyone in seconds.

Between the walls, the sound changed. It wasn't like outside, a choir scream that blended together. Surrounded by the damned with her left and right blocked, the sound echoed and joined itself, warping, like screaming between two brick walls.

She whined, too, covered her ears, and leaned against Kas's side.

"Let's go. This is killing me."

He knelt down for her, she got on, and the crew began their journey once again.

The Maze fucking sucked. Even when Zel had taken her into the dark depths of her spire and they'd had to walk through a tunnel covered head to toe in remnants, it wasn't this bad. Who was that artist, who drew the giant, creepy landscapes that looked like something straight out of Lovecraft mythos? He'd have loved this place. Each step sank her heart into her guts, and she leaned down closer to closer to Kas's head the further they got, the weight of the shrieking remnants pushing her down.

There was room to move. The walls were ten meters apart, but that might as well have been inches. Mia pulled away from the wall and averted her eyes, but wherever she looked, remnants waited. The muck was shallower, maybe a few inches deep, and some remnants stuck up from the mud and clawed at Kas's legs. He stood more upright with a leaning forward posture, like how Vin walked, and he growled down and killed each remnant he came across.

Cerberus looked up at the sarkarin, ran ahead a bit, and before Mia could yell at him, bit into a remnant and tore it apart.

"Cerberus!"

No good. Cerberus bit down on his prey with all three heads, one to a throat, the others to shoulders, and ravaged the remnant like an excited dog with a toy. The remnant ripped apart, blood squirting and limbs breaking off. Skin shredded like cling wrap, muscle came off bone, and the poor woman died gargling.

"Cerberus! Don't--"

"Let him," Julisa said.

"What? You can't be--"

"Let. Him. Kill." Well, at least she was calling Cerberus a 'him' now. "He may act like one of your pathetic surface dogs, unmarked, but he is still a hellbeast. How do you think hellbeasts learn to hunt and kill? How do you think they learn what parts of the body are best to focus?" She walked closer and gestured down at Mia's hellhound as they walked past. "And he has a desire to hunt deep in his bones. If you do not let him satisfy his urges, he will do what many hellbeasts have done to demons who have tried to tame them."

Kill their master.

Mia frowned up at the tetrad, but a glance back down at Cerberus proved the tetrad right, again. Cerberus growled at another nearby remnant in their path, ran ahead, and got himself another kill. If he'd been bigger, each head would have been able to kill without issue, but he was just a baby, and with the jaws of a golden retriever, getting a kill wasn't easy. Remnants were soft, though, and baby Cerberus pinned a man down and tore him apart.

Teeth through bone. Claws through skin. Mia looked away and forced down the urge to vomit. Never in her life had she wanted to vomit. Even when she'd been super sick a couple times in her life and beyond nauseous, she preferred to deal with that than vomit. Something about the sensation of her muscles flexing in ways they weren't supposed to, and forcing undigested food and stomach acid up a pipe that was only supposed to have things go down it, made her whole body tremble.

She wanted to vomit now, and she couldn't.

"What did you expect?" Julisa asked, half grinning down at her. "For him to eat only your fruits? To sit pretty and beg for a treat?"

"You must have watched the scrying pool to know humans do that with their dogs."

"I have on occasion." With another evil little grin, the fujara tetrad poked Mia with her tail. "I would be a fool to ignore that you were correct, though. The beast is unique, birthed specifically for you, a three-headed hellhound of surface fame. You've even named it... him so. I would be loath to let you ruin the creature's life before it has begun."

"I'm not ruining it!"

"Yes you are. You are treating it like a surface dog, training it. But it is a hellbeast. It thrives on violence. It must kill and kill frequently to be satisfied."

Mia raised a hand, but let it slowly fall. Julisa was right, again. Much as Mia wanted to treat Cerberus like her new dog, he wasn't. In fact, in some ways he was closer to a cat. Maybe she could get a stick with a string and--no no, he wasn't a house cat. He was a beast, a hellbeast, and that meant killing was part of his nature. That was Hell's ecosystem. Hellbeasts killed souls. And remnants, apparently.

"You're right," Mia said.

Julisa tilted her head. "What?"

"I said you're right. I... I really hate killing remnants, but I understand. And it's important Cerberus learn how to kill."

Julisa tilted her head to the other side. The tall creature had no hair, but her four giant horns filled the role, and she folded her four arms across her chest. If Mia didn't know any better, she'd think the woman was being incredulous.

"Are you mocking me, unmarked?" Oh, she was being incredulous.

"What? No." Mia shrugged and gestured at Cerberus ahead of them, killing a third remnant on their path. "You're right. I need to train him, but also let him do what he does. And I don't know how to balance that."

"I am surprised."

"Why?"

"Because you are admitting ignorance."

Mia rolled her eyes. "It's not easy to do that, especially to a bitch like you. So if you could stop being such a bitch about it! I'd appreciate it, thanks."

Julisa grinned, licked her fangs, and came closer. She leaned forward, walked with a bit of that dinosaur T-Rex posture Vin always used, and Kas was currently using. Wide grin on full display, she leaned in toward Mia and whispered into her ear.

"You are more delectable than the souls of Hell."

Mia snapped her head and glared at her. "What?"

"There is something about a soul so obviously Heaven bound, being submissive to a demon, that is... oddly stimulating."

"Submissive!? I just... just admitted I was wrong about something."

"And what is that if not submissiveness?"

"Oh, shut up."

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

No wonder it was called the Maze. Adron's description didn't do it justice, not in height, scale, or complexity. They came to a fork in the road, and it split off in seven new directions. Not two or three. Seven. It was a star in the road, not a fork, eight paths, some skinnier than others, some with fatter walls, some curving and turning immediately, some going on straight.

"Which way?" Mia asked.

Everyone looked at Noah. But the angel turned, looked at the crew with a raised brow, and shrugged.

"I do not know."

"You don't know?" Julisa asked. "We followed you in here because you angels know which direction to go."

"If that were true," Yosepha said, "we wouldn't have needed to follow the main Trench at all."

Noah gestured to the paths. "I know which direction leads to Angel's Spine." He pointed straight ahead, away from the path they stood on. "But only as the bird flies. And it is doubtful the maze will let us walk that path."

Slowly, everyone looked to Mia.

"What?" she asked.

Vin snorted, loud enough to cut through the death choir. "Make a path."

"Make a path? I can't just... make a path."

"Sure you can," Romakus said. "Just knock down every wall in our path until we get to the other side."

"I can't do that! I can't--Cerberus! Come!" The tenth remnant was one remnant too much, and she snapped at her puppy a little too loudly. The remnants were too damn loud, and she borderline screamed to get through them. Cerberus stopped chewing on his kill and approached, middle head carrying an arm, two side heads tilted in confusion. "If I go knocking down walls, it will attract attention. We're trying to be stealthy, right?"

"You need not knock down a wall," Noah said. "Is that even possible?"

Kas joined the angel, and Mia looked around at the many paths around her. Sixth sense out like feelers in water, she listened to the vibrations and got a mental image of the giant bone walls. They were gargantuan, and they went on for miles and miles, but anything beyond her immediate area was just a blur.

"I probably could," she said. "I mean, it'd be hard, it'd be loud, it'd be draining and leave me exhausted. And, um, when I play the music really loudly, I... change."

"Change?"

"Yeah, I change. I kinda... get pulled into the song. It's hard to explain. It's like... I don't know. It's weird. Almost feels like someone else is driving." No, that wasn't quite right. It was her driving, but something so much... simpler. And she didn't like the idea of simpler her being in charge of world-destroying powers. You didn't trust yourself behind the wheel if you were drunk, right?

"Mia," Yosepha said, "it's up to you. We can wander the Maze, and I'm sure we'll eventually find the exit, but each day we're stuck in here is a chance we'll be spotted. What do you want to do?"

"I..." She frowned, stared down at Kas's back, and looked down at Cerberus. When people called their pets their 'babies', it annoyed her. Raising a human child was not the same thing as raising a pet, not even close. But that didn't mean she didn't feel strangely maternal about Cerberus, and she was self aware enough to know that.

She'd do anything to protect the puppy.

"Go straight," she said to Noah. "I'll figure it out."

Noah didn't so much as glance at her. The moment the words were out of her mouth, he turned and marched on.

The crew followed, Mia smiling at Noah's back. As much as Noah and Azreal were intense, sometimes to the point of frustration, it was so damn nice to work with people who knew how important it was to just go instead of stand around and argue. Noah probably didn't even agree with her plan, but he pushed on anyway.

Mia would never do that. David could never do that. He'd explode if someone tried to force him to do something that didn't make sense, or didn't have a good plan, or contingency plans.

She took a deep breath, gave Kas a gentle pat on his huge neck, and the beast walked forward. Maybe he'd gotten use to standing, and instead of his usual gorilla walk, he stayed upright, gigantic arms underneath his chest. Julisa and Vin walked with a forward posture, too, especially Vin, but Kas took the cake, huge upper body so damn wide and forward, countered by his giant tail, that she was almost sitting flat on his back.

Would he get upset if she teased him and called him a mount? Probably.

They didn't get far. The wall ahead, a carpet of death and screams, turned to the side, and the Maze guided them deep in some random direction.

"Stop," Mia said. "Don't take the path." The crew stopped and waited. "We'll be running around this maze for weeks if we do. We can't even do the wall trick."

"Wall trick?" Kas asked.

"Yeah. You put your hand against the wall and just keep walking. Eventually you'll get out. But that only works if there's one entrance and exit. We might just wind up back at a different entrance." She gestured to the wall. "Kas, take me close."

He did and stopped shy of the remnants and their outstretched arms.

"Can you... clear them for me, please?"

Without a grunt or rumble, Kas reached out and dragged his claws down the wall. Remnants broke apart under his hands, and Mia looked away too late. His casual movement caught her by surprise, didn't give her enough time to cover her eyes, and yet again, Hell reminded her it was not a nice place.

"Thank you. Closer, please."

He came closer, shoulder near the wall, and Mia touched the gore-soaked bone. This close, it was easy to visualize what she was dealing with with her sixth sense. A thick fucking wall, at last ten meters, and it towered high over them. Knocking it over wouldn't be easy. Easier than fighting Asmodeus, but harder than when she'd stopped Xela with the mini canyon she'd made. The walls were tough.

She took a deep breath and found the strings. To break stuff, she needed a tune that punched, something upfront, aggressive. And for something like this, she had to create the musical equivalent of an earthquake, deep and heavy vibrations that'd make a theater shake. The problem with something like that was containing and directing the sound. The music affected everything, but the more impactful what she was trying to do was, the more she had to work to keep it contained. She'd bring the walls down on them if she wasn't careful.

She played a string, hard and loud, and the presence deep in the ocean of vibration played it back. She played another, and again, the presence played it, too. Song pulsed through the world, into the wall, and the bone broke apart.

Solid bone, and bone was weird. It didn't break like rock, or bend like wood. It was flesh, sort of, and sandpaper. She played a heavier note, and the bone wall broke apart like layers of glass, shards that splintered off and sank into the muck. She played again, and again broke off enough piece of the wall, four meters high, four meters wide.

She sucked in a breath and tried again. The wall resisted her, like a scar or callus, but she played louder, and a different tune. Breaking her way through carefully wasn't working.

So don't rip and tear. Grow. It was bone.

Her eyes snapped open, and vibration waves buried her, pulled her mind under the surface of the ocean. The next string pulsed through the bone, and it grew, a hole spreading through the bone and pushing outward. The entire bone wall moved, accommodating new growth, shifting and twisting to fit the new hole, a tunnel straight through its base.

Gasping, she let the song go, and her consciousness burst up from the ocean of vibration.

"Hard?" Romakus asked. "I've seen you create firestorms."

"I'm not trying to destroy the wall, just create a hole. And bone is... different." She gestured again. "Go on, dick. You first."

Romakus chuckled, winked at her, and went first. The hole was big enough for him, but he had to keep his wings in and duck his head. He could fit, barely, and Vin struggled. But he managed.

"I'm not seeing any other holes," Julisa said. "Did James not come to this conclusion?"

"I'm sure he did," Mia said. "Any other approach would either destroy the wall, or probably sound like an explosion."

Cerberus rubbed his spikes against the bone, rumbled something underneath the remnant choir, and chased after Mia with a bounce in his step and a wag to his tail. Was it the music he liked?

"Maybe James did," Romakus said, "and they're all dead. Just because we didn't see a commotion doesn't mean there wasn't one earlier."

"Maybe," Noah said.

Mia waved her arms. "No no, no maybes. They got across. If they'd been caught, I'm sure James would have played some super loud music, and I'd have heard it. He's only a few hours ahead of us, right?"

The angel nodded and checked his left and right before emerging from the tunnel. If the angel couldn't spot anyone, it had to be safe. Hopefully. Maybe.

They all started down a new hallway of death and the damned, but only got another thirty minutes before the path turned again. Same issue. A giant wall in their way. Mia did the same, played a deep, heavy tune, focused hard, and demanded the wall grow. It did, and another tunnel awaited them.

By the eighth tunnel, she was exhausted.

"I don't understand your ability," Julisa said. "How can you do something as grand as a firestorm, and yet this is too difficult for you?"

Mia glared up at the bitch and gestured at the wall overhead. "It'd have taken less energy to knock the damn wall over. It's because the whole wall is pressing down on what I'm trying to do when I grow the tunnels."

"Will you have the strength to keep doing this across the entirety of the Maze?"

"I... don't know. How much longer?"

Yosepha shook her head. "We cannot tell. The best Noah and I can do is maintain direction, but... distance is more difficult. With each wall past, I feel more lost."

A maze full of holes was still a maze, confusing.

"Seal a tunnel," Romakus said. "We're in deep enough we can slow down. Start sealing the walls behind us."

Shit. That was a good idea, but energy drained out of Mia's body. She could have grown a bone tree more easily than this weird job of growing and distorting bone inside an established wall of it. But she managed, and closed the tunnel behind them.

"Every wall from here on out?" Mia asked.

Romakus tilted his head and looked at her. Was that concern in his eyes? Nah, couldn't have been, not from him.

"If you can handle it," he said.

Mia sucked in a breath and wiped the sweat from her brow. "I can handle it. I got plenty of energy. I think. It's just... It's hard to describe, and--"

He held up a wing. "Don't need to describe it, kid. I trust your judgement."

She blinked up at him, and he winked. Maybe he was concerned? Yosepha had to be rubbing off on him.

"I can handle it."

"Good." He gestured ahead, and they got walking.

Once all of them were on the next path, Cerberus turned around and half barked, half roared at the hole Mia had just closed. No, not at the hole. Above the hole. All three heads were aimed up, and he pressed his paws against the wall and snarled upward.

"Cerberus!" Mia said. "Don't! Shh!"

Cerberus looked back at her, clicked and made a new whiny sound she hadn't heard before, some sort of high-pitched growl, and he again stood up against the wall and snarled up at the smog.

"Cerberus! Come! We don't--"

"There you are," a voice said from above.

The group spun and looked up. A shadow cut through the black smog, and a pair of wings descended on them, enormous, and from below they almost looked like bat wings.

Whoever wore them brought them in snug once they got close to the ground, and they landed with a splash, their giant body sending remnant guts in all directions.

He wasn't alone. The moment his giant body hit the ground, a dozen gargoyles fell after him, wings wide, slowing their descent. Bat girls joined them. Dozens of women, all wearing meera metal, and all wielding meera metal.

Julisa spun, drew her swords, and pointed two at the ambush. "How?"

No one answered. They knew how. The demons hadn't just been scanning the Maze's entrance for signs of the unmarked. They'd been patrolling inside the Maze, too. And with all the screaming remnants, turning walls, and unending smell of blood, Mia and the crew had no way of telling if someone had been following them or found their path.

The man had probably found Mia's tunnels, and when she'd started closing them, he'd fucking climbed.

Vicente was a scary man. A korgejin tetrad -- no tail, black hooves -- that stood over ten feet tall. Tribal scars decorated his whole body, hundreds of lines that cut straight shapes, perpendicular intersections that highlighted key points on his body like his sternum, and the focal point of his muscles. Half his face was covered in drawn scars, from forehead to chin, and the same side of his tail was, too.

He didn't wear as much meera metal as other demons. Most demons in the swamp didn't, as if the extra weight might drown them. Skulls hung from his belt, all tetrad skulls, gigantic and filled with sharp teeth.

Vicente laughed, drew his sword, and dragged the blade across his chest. Too blunt to cut him, but it scraped deep lines against the dark flesh, anyway.

"A pretty bird told me some unmarked would be coming through the Maze." His voice was raspy. A few lines cut across his throat, but they didn't have the same straightness as the other lines. Had someone slit his throat? He came closer, each step of his hooves sinking deep in the muck. "Xela's been wanting a word. She told me a little redheaded soul did something strange, and literally opened a canyon in front of her. Saved this Lilith fucker and his friend." He gestured to Vin and Kas.

Vin faced the oncoming hoard, and rumbled, deep and loud enough it punched through the remnant choir.

How quickly things could go wrong. Thirty seconds ago, they'd been working their way through the Maze. Now dozens of demons surrounded them. At least it was only dozens.

More roars filled the empty space between the walls, and new shadows cut through the smog above. A couple dozen bodies slid down the wall, claws sunk into the bone. Brutes, and vrats. Brutes were big and heavy enough their bodyweight pulled their claws down through the bone and remnants, creating an avalanche of gore beneath them. Vrats were lighter, and they hopped between outcroppings of bone. Some stopped to kill remnants around and below them with tail and claw, others let the damned grope and pull at their bodies as they climbed down, laughing.

Groaning, Romakus leaned in over Mia. "You should have closed tunnels earlier. You left a trail."

"Shut the fuck up."

He chuckled, drew his sword, and stepped forward with Vin. "Vicente. You found us."

"Romakus." Vicente stomped a hoof. "Of course it'd have to be you."

"You know him!?" Mia yelled. Probably a bad idea, and she covered her mouth.

"Romakus knows everyone," Vicente said. "Or did you think this traitor has lived as long as he has as only a member of your ridiculous group?" Growling, the korgejin flared his wings and dragged his sword across his chest again. Still not sharp enough to cut, but he angled it so it dragged on his half breastplate and sent sparks flying.

Romakus didn't match the gesture, but he did step forward. "You're the one cutting deals with angels."

"You're the one traveling with them."

Okay, so these two new each other more than Romakus had ever let on. Even Julisa looked confused.

Cerberus half barked, half growled at Vicente and the surrounding demons, but he backed up, thank god, and stayed beside Kas and Mia.

"That," Vicente said, and he gestured to Cerberus with his sword. "What is that? A three-headed hellhound?"

"Mine," Mia said. "You will not touch him."

Vicente tilted his bald head and set his eyes on Noah.

"You're helping them take an unmarked across Hell? Why?"

Noah came forward and summoned his armor. His long blonde hair lifted, raised by a pulse of air, and his once white toga shined white again, taint of the Black Valley wiped clean, before it disappeared under his armor. The demons hissed and stepped back, some covering their eyes as Noah bathed the area in bright gold light.

If the light pierced the smog enough for the angels above to see, they were screwed.

"We journey to save all of us," he said, stood in front of Romakus, in front of Vinicius, and waited. Mia couldn't see his face, but she knew he'd be glaring with his hard, silver eyes. "This is your one chance to flee with your lives."

Vicente laughed. "I have faced angels before. You do not scare me."

Mia waved her arms. "Wait! Please! Just, let us go. We don't want to fight, and we're trying to help. You have to let us go."

It was pointless. She didn't need Noah or Yosepha to tell her that. Auras were already bubbling up, invisible things that boiled the air, sent heat through the eyes and ears, and told her insides to bathe in violence. Could she bury them with her own aura? No, it didn't work that way. And even if it did, she couldn't create an aura she couldn't embody. She wasn't a demon who could wield sin auras like weapons, and right now all she felt was panic.

"Wait! James!" Mia got off Kas's back and waved her arms higher. "James! What happened to James?"

"The other unmarked?" Vicente asked. His eyes narrowed, and he came closer. "What did you do with him?"

Mia took a step back, glaring. So Vicente didn't catch James, then. James had gotten through, or was only a few hours ahead of Mia's crew.

Yosepha summoned her armor. Her wings were still small, but not super small, and that didn't matter. She was still an angel, and she summoned her sword, her shield, and joined Noah's side.

"What did our brethren offer you for our capture?" she asked.

The demon laughed and stomped a hoof again. The muck and entrails borderline exploded outward from the impact.

"Offer? They offered us nothing! Kill the unmarked. Kill any demons helping them. Kill any angels helping them. Feast to our desires." He dragged his sword across his breastplate again, sending more sparks into the black muck.

Each moment he spoke was a moment Xela or Alessio might show up. Each moment meant an angel battalion might show up. Each moment meant another demon showed up, and another, some gliding down to join, others climbing down, raking their claws down the walls of remnants and announcing their descent with falling gore. A hundred demons? Two hundred?

Noah aimed his sword and slowly panned it across the demons in front of him.

"Enough. If we have to kill you all, we will."

Vicente came closer again. "You and what army? For all your might, you are few, and we are many. Two angels, two tetrads, a sarkarin, and a pathetic child of the Old Ones who spent centuries locked in a prison. We are legion. We will devour you."

As the apparently verbose demon with a god complex ranted, Vin's spikes glowed. Gently at first, but soon amber lines danced up his spine, tiny brief flickers like an old filament bulb struggling to stay lit, but getting brighter. And brighter.

Vinicius grabbed Noah's wing, and threw him back.

"Vinicius! What are--"

Vinicius stepped in front of them all, and unleashed his own hell. Mia could have stopped him. She saw him getting ready, saw the glow. Julisa and Kas had even stepped back, and Kas already had his arm out in front of Mia, blocking her from the chaos about to happen. She didn't stop him. Whether it was better to fight Vicente and his demons, or run, or negotiate, she had no idea. What the fuck were they supposed to do? What the fuck was she supposed to do?

Why couldn't things just go smooth? It'd been going so well. So perfectly. And now...

Vin opened his mouth, and hellfire burst forward. It came out almost like a flamethrower's liquid, but more spread, heavy and fast. He'd aimed at Vicente, but the tetrad jumped back with a hard flap of his wings. Everyone else in the front line of the ambushing group wasn't as fast.

Demons screamed. The unending death choir of remnants faded into nothing underneath the roars of pain from the hundred demons in front of Mia bursting into flame. Hellfire wasn't regular fire. Strands of amber burned inside, something Mia couldn't understand, but she knew from the runes in her mind, was something more than heat and burning. It was destruction compressed, and it destroyed in its own unique way, like burning acid.

The fire latched onto their skin, their armor, their weapons, and burned through it all. The demons scattered, roaring until the fire reached their throats and bored through the flesh. The gargoyles and bat girls' wings turned to ash and flew up with the rising heat. The vrats and their weapons sank to the muck, twisting and rolling, but the entrails of the remnants couldn't stop the fire. The brutes lasted longer, their dark skin protecting them for a few seconds, but the flames pushed through, and the titans scattered, too. Nine-foot-tall juggernauts of pure muscle, running around like scared children, and they crashed into each other and tripped, slammed into the walls of remnants, and clawed at anything they thought might help them. Nothing did.

Vinicius didn't stop. The fire spewed from his mouth, and he turned his head left and right, guiding the monstrous flame onto everyone in front of them. With a mind of its own, the flames danced, shot across the muck, burned the black blood, and spread outward. The wall Vicente and his demons had climbed down from caught the flames, too, and Vin made sure it did. He aimed higher and shot the arcing spread of hellfire onto the wall, and thousands of remnants screamed as loud as the demons.

Chaos. Vin at last stopped his unending breath, stepped back, and fell to a knee. His spikes stopped glowing, and the twelve-foot four-armed giant fell onto all four palms.

"Vin!" Mia ran up to him and grabbed his closest arm. "Vin, are you okay? We--"

A brute ran for them, flame coating his arm. Yosepha dove over Noah, and stabbed the demon through his chest. Another demon, somehow not on fire, pushed past his dying comrades and dove for Vin, but Yosepha yanked her sword sideways out through the brute's chest and straight into the diving vrat.

Julisa stood and stared up at the burning wall in awe. The violence happening five meters in front of her didn't even warrant a glance, and she watched the flames spread.

"The wall," she said. "It's... burning."

Mia turned and punched the tetrad in the leg. "Of course it's burning! It's... It's..." Oh.

Remnants turned to ash and burning chunks of flesh fell from the wall, and exposed the bone underneath. And the bone burned.

Cerberus whined and backed up further until his back pressed to Mia's shin. She wanted to console him, but she couldn't help but stare up at the rising flames. They danced along the bone, splintered out on random paths like veins, slaughtering remnants along the way.

But it was the panicked demons that were the problem. They ran off down the paths, disappeared beyond the smog, but some ran straight into the wall Mia and her crew had been about to go through. They clawed at the wall as if the remnants could save them, but even the innards of a dozen falling remnants couldn't put out a fresh layer of hellfire. They died covered in burning guts, and their corpses pressed to the bone wall. And the hellfire spread.

"We must go," Kas said. "Now! Mia!"

"What? What can I do? What--"

Kas grabbed her shoulder and faced her toward the wall she was supposed to grow a hole through.

"Break it."

"What? But if--"

"Break it."

She stared at her bodyguard for an eternity. Cerberus barked and roared at the approaching flames, but his noises turned to whines as more fire ripped across the wall. Whines turned to whimpers, and he pressed against Mia's leg, all three heads pointed up at the walls and the growing fire.

It wasn't normal fire. Hellfire wasn't alive, but it acted more like it than even normal fire. The amber streaks within reached out for the flesh of Hell, consumed demons, remnants, and the bone walls. When the remnants or demons died, the hellfire on their bodies faded, became a normal fire, and faded, too, but it was the hellfire that burned on the bone that refused to die. A chain reaction?

"The hellfire," Mia said. "It's... It's too much! It's spreading!"

Vinicius got to his feet, and a deep, heavy chuckle rumbled through him. Mia saw it more than heard it, and she glared. He knew this might happen! He knew! The bastard knew!

She took a step toward him, summoned her armor, her staff, her rage, and--

Kas grabbed Mia's now armored shoulder and turned her around. "Break it!"

Mia snapped her glare on Kas, but Cerberus's whines cut through the endless screams of remnants and the roars of hellfire unleashed. Break the wall. Angels would hear this, but they had no choice now.

She aimed her staff at the wall and played a different song. Pure crashing noise, the climax of a symphony, complete with cannon fire. The bone shattered like someone had run a semi truck through it. Splinters shot up through the walls like shattering glass. Shards of bone erupted, flew off the wall, and launched white bone and red flesh into the other walls. Remnants fell as much as they burned, many already on fire, and they rained from above like drops of napalm.

Her mind dipped under the water, vibration separated her thoughts, and she felt it all, saw it all, knew it all. But her other self reached down through the surface and pulled her back up. Not right now. She needed to stay above the water, or she'd lose herself. If she lost herself like in the Death's Grip fight, she might make things worse. Like Vin just did.

"Go," she said.

Kas ran through the jagged tunnel hole first. Julisa followed, then Romakus. Of course, the two angels stayed to defend, but it was Vin staying behind that sent fire through Mia's veins. She could deal with him later.

She ran through the hole, Cerberus on her heels. Unlike her other tunnels, this one was a mess, full of harsh spikes of bone sticking from the walls, and the tunnel floor filled up with black sludge moving to fill in any crevice it could find. The cracks reached out from the hole, twisted and curved up into the wall, and they creaked. Loudly. The sharp snaps of bending and cracking bone fought against the unending roars, and won.

"Yosepha! Noah! Vin! Get in here!" she screamed.

The angels turned and dashed after her. Vin didn't. He backed up, covered the hole with his body, but he stayed and faced the burning demons. And he laughed.

Mia stood at the exit and glared at his back. "Vinicius!"

No response. He grabbed a nearby vrat, burning, and ripped the dying demon in half with his four hands. More laughter. He ripped the demon's heart out, careful of his own flames, and enjoyed a free meal. And his aura of pure blood thirst radiated through the flames and bone wall tunnel straight into Mia's stomach.

She grabbed her necklace and used it.

An amber line shot out from the leash, connected to the metal chain wrapped around the giant's neck, and sent pure pain through it, pain not even the child of Belial could ignore. He roared, and not the happy kind, as if someone had just smashed his knees in with a hammer.

She broke the connection, and Vin spun and faced her, eyes wide, murder in his gaze.

"I said get over here!"

He breathed hard, glaring. If it hadn't been for the leash, he'd have probably lit up his spikes and sent a wave of hellfire through the tunnel straight at her. He didn't. Still glaring, he ran after her.

They'd come out onto a perpendicular path, and a wall stood between them and the direction Noah had been guiding them.

"Again!" Kas said, and he gestured at the wall in front of them.

"Yes," Romakus said. "We have to stay ahead of the flames."

Mia sucked in a breath, marched up to the wall, and blasted it again. Again, she smashed a huge hole through the wall, and it sounded a thousand times louder than a gunshot. It kinda looked like a gunshot hole, too, one through glass, including the splinters that reached far and wide up the surface.

Cerberus cowered at the sound, all three heads whining, and his body flattened to the shallow muck below.

"It's okay, Cerberus," she said. "It's okay. It's me doing that. It's just--"

Something broke with the sound of a firecracker. The group froze and stared up, but it wasn't the wall Mia had put a hole through making the noise. It was the wall they'd come from. It burned, and the splinters Mia had created had softened the colossal wall, bottom to top. Pieces from the bottom broke off, fat chunks half on fire, and each piece from underneath that cracked off meant the piece above broke off moments later.

It was like a demolition, like someone had set explosives on the support pillars of a building so it'd collapse straight down. Except Vin had set the pillars on fire, and the fire was spreading.

They ran through Mia's new tunnel, and again Mia struggled to keep herself above the vibrations. And because bad luck came in waves, the hole brought them straight into another wall. She punched a hole through that one, too. A flood of muck and a punch of air hit them in the back, and Mia spun around. Kas picked her up, but she got to see the previous wall crash against this one. And fire came with it.

Another wall. She punched another hole, and again, details blurred. Individual walls, the cascade of destruction behind them, the individual people around her, the specifics vanished when she fell into the ocean of song. The ocean was so much simpler. It wanted to do simple things, and it let her do them. She could destroy the area. She could summon the song and destroy the entire area.

Or maybe she could have, before. Each breath dragged, burned, and each note she played sucked the wind out of her.

Sweat dripped down her eyes, soaked her eyelashes, and she wiped them away, almost poking her eye out with her armored gloves. Looking down, she spotted Cerberus, and her hellhound stared up at her as they moved to the next wall. He'd never seen her in her armor before.

"It's okay, Cerberus," she said. "It's just me. We'll get out of here." Riding Kas's back, she aimed her staff at the next wall, and summoned the song again. This was just like exercising. The battle in Death's Grip had been explosive, but done in minutes. This was longer, arduous, and each time she summoned the song, it sucked the life out of her like a hard set of squats. She panted hard, fought off the white spots dancing in the corners of her vision, the nausea pulsing out from her stomach, and the tingling through her limbs telling her to lie down and pass out.

She punched another hole, and a piece of her sank into the ocean of song. She punched another hole, and sank deeper. She punched another hole.

Movement. Her. Something was underneath her. Someone. She was fighting. The enemy was demons, and maybe angels. They had to keep moving. People beside her moved with her. She was protecting them. Move. Fight. Defend.

The Maze burned. Hell didn't mind. Destruction was her nature.

The next hole opened to a path, one that led straight ahead with no blocking wall in sight. She sucked in a breath, didn't play another song, and she floated back to the surface of her thoughts. Details flooded back, who she was with, her pet, her goal, her surroundings.

A glance back showed the hole, and movement beyond. Remnants burned, and more bone fell, like a cave-in. The fire was only getting worse.

"Vinicius," Noah said, jogging beside the titan. "You worthless worm! You knew that would happen!" So Noah noticed it, too.

Vinicius chuckled between his own tired gasps, but said nothing.

Mia glared back at the fucker, but she just didn't have the eyes to glare daggers, not like she wanted. If Vin had been alive for as long as she thought, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years, it wouldn't surprise her at all if he knew exactly how things would react to hellfire.

"Monster," Yosepha said.

Mia's shoulders slumped, and she looked down at Kas. If her bodyguard was upset, he didn't show it; not that he ever showed emotion, but he didn't bother to look back at Vin or anything. He just kept jogging.

"We are safe," Julisa said, sheathing her swords. "Safer. Just... stay ahead of the flames, and we will be fine."

Mia glared up at the tetrad. "I am... barely holding my armor. I don't know if I can punch another hole."

"A firestorm--"

"I know! I--" Mia's staff disappeared. She glared down at her hand, took a breath, and a dozen more. It was pure luck they had a long path straight ahead instead of another wall to go through. Enough time to find her breath and re-summon her staff. "I know. A firestorm was bigger. You don't understand how the song works, so just fucking drop it!"

Julisa glared back down at her, but shut up. Thank fuck.

"This will be hard," Kas said.

Mia patted his back. "I'll keep making holes if I--"

"We have to outrun the flames. We have to run."

Running. Oh fuck. Mia looked at the angels, but they both looked distraught. They could run all day, or fly, but the demons couldn't do either. In better circumstances, she'd have made a joke about demons being very dangerous over short distances, but the raging fire and unending screams killed it.

Mia held his spikes and ignored the scraping of her thighs against her armor. Kas didn't have a saddle.

"Walk," Romakus said, each breath heavy and messy, and he slowed to a fast walk. "Walk. We've outrun the flames."

"For now," Noah said, glancing back at Vin.

Vin said nothing, but a little smile was stuck to his short dragon snout and refused to leave.

Where were James and the others? Did they decide to navigate the Maze, or did James know how to use the music well enough to build holes? Or did he just punch holes and risk a wall falling in on them, or getting caught because of the noise?

Mia looked back. The smog swirled in the sky, mixed with flame, and the barrier between visual and audio blurred, a flowing maelstrom of shrieking crimson shadow and destruction. She'd seen footage of people driving at night, away from forest fires or giant brush fires that'd reached their town. It was one of the few times a place on Earth could look like genuine Hell.

Now she realized nothing on the surface could match this. The giant walls behind her were a visual barrier that guided her vision down the dark path to the growing flames in the back. She was surrounded by remnants, treading on a swamp of human guts tainted black, and behind her, the endless screams of those remnants rose an octave as they died by flame. And instead of smelling like cooking meat, it smelled like someone had thrown rotten meat onto a fire, and jars of various chemicals you'd find in an old woodshed.

It was inhuman.

"How far will the fire spread?" she asked.

"I do not know," Noah said, and he looked back at the asshole. They all did.

Vin shrugged. "It will spread as far as it wants to spread."

It wasn't alive. It was just fire. The fact it was special fire, some sort of strange reaction between essence and resonance that chained uncontrollably and made normal fire look tame, didn't mean it was alive!

She gulped and looked up at the flame cloud. It might as well have been grinning down at them as it grew, and grew.

They kept walking, a brisk pace. Mia kept the armor on. Controlling the music was difficult, but the armor and staff let her focus, let her conduct, combine arrays of notes and pull at the strings in specific ways she couldn't without them. The bigger something was, the harder it was to focus.

They came to another wall, and she raised her staff.

"Don't," Romakus said. "Just, do it the way you did before."

"But--"

"Every time you punched a hole, kid, it sounded like a gunshot."

She didn't bother asking how he knew what a gunshot sounded like.

"Okay. Okay." Deep breaths. Growing a hole through the wall was harder, but she was getting better. She aimed her staff, and played the music, something that danced the bone out of the way and made the wall grow with it. Cerberus pushed up against the growing wall, bit and clawed at remnants, and led the group. If he thought he was helping, Mia didn't have the heart to tell him he wasn't.

This time, she sealed the hole behind them. By the third hole, she was done. The armor vanished. She tried to summon it again, but fitting batlam over her mind was too hard, and she half collapsed forward. Reflex made her grab Kas's spikes, and she panted herself lightheaded. At least without the armor, she could rub the sweat out of her eyes again.

"What now?" Julisa asked. "The fire still burns. We must keep moving."

Above, fire still swirled, pushing the black smog up all too much like a volcanic eruption.

"I'll... make... another hole," she said.

Noah shook his head and patted her back with a wing. The breeze felt wonderful.

"Rest. Yosepha and I know the general direction of Angel's Spine, and we will continue to know no matter the turns we take."

"Hopefully," Julisa said.

Yosepha shot a glare up at the tetrad. "Noah is correct. Rest, Mia. We will need a place to hide tonight. We will wander the Maze until twilight, and resume pushing through your tunnels tomorrow."

Vin took a step forward. First time he'd done that in a while. For days now, he'd stayed in the back, said nothing, and just watched, but now he wanted to say something. Now he wanted to make sure their jobs got harder.

"We don't stop," he said.

Kas clicked once and growled, but stopped himself before he said anything.

"Why would we not stop?" Romakus asked.

"The fire," Kas said. "It will spread and destroy this area. If we hide underground, when we rise tomorrow, Alessio and her demons will be swarming the area, digging through the ashes, looking for us."

Julisa shook her head. "If we keep moving, we'll be walking through twilight. You know what kind of creatures hunt in the Maze in twilight?" Sighing, she slapped the muck with her tail. "And even if we don't die to hellbeasts, you want to travel at night?"

Traveling at night was dangerous. Not as dangerous as twilight hours, but still dangerous. It was a little darker, sure, but the big reason was no sleep hit you hard in Hell, harder than the surface. And no one had any caffeine.

But Kas shook his head. "Vinicius is correct. Vicente got away. He will tell the others where we were, and are. We must keep moving."

"Well, fuck me," Romakus said, hooking his sword to his back. "I guess we hoof it."

Cerberus stood up against Kas's side, leaned his front paws on Kas's shoulder, and whined up at Mia. Dopey head looked sad. Big-dog head looked sad. Serious head looked left and right, scanning.

"It's okay, Cerb. We'll be fine. It's okay. Come." She gestured ahead.

Cerberus whined, got down, and walked.

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

"Kas," she said. "I want to talk to Vin."

Kas nodded, let her down, and she gave Cerberus a quick couple pats on each head. Vin didn't so much as look at her as he walked past, but he grunted when she jumped up onto his back. Tiny and light meant climbing was easy, and climbing his back spikes was easier than climbing a tree. Normally. Right now she was exhausted, but this conversation had to be had.

She pressed her body to his back, and adjusted so she didn't squash her egg. She didn't have her egg! For a split moment, she snapped her eyes around looking for her egg, spotted Cerberus, and stopped herself from laughing.

She pressed her body to Vin's back, her chin peeking up over his shoulder, and she leaned in close to his horns and ear.

"Vinicius," she said.

He rumbled, looked back long enough for a quick eye-to-eye, and looked away. She didn't say his full name often.

"Vin, you torched all those demons."

He rumbled.

"I mean, I get that," she said. "It was smart thinking. We were surrounded, and if you didn't do something quick, they'd have swarmed us."

He rumbled again, with a higher pitch.

"You're probably hungry."

He nodded. Barely.

"I'm hungry too. Really. But we can't stop. No time to grow a tree for now until we put some serious distance between us and the fire. Your fire." She leaned in closer. "Did you really have to torch everything? You went crazy. You put hellfire on everything and everyone." She gestured back. It was a pointless gesture. She knew he wouldn't bother looking where she pointed, but she did anyway. "The smog is billowing up, mixing with fire. It's probably blending with the fire sky. Angels are circling it, I bet, looking for a way in. I bet they've surrounded the fire. There's probably some up ahead, looking for a way to approach from the ground."

"And?"

She thumped his shoulder. "And that means your recklessness might get us all killed, Vin. Me and you."

He shrugged, muscles moving her entire body like she didn't exist.

"So be it."

"Vin. What is your problem? I don't understand you. Do... Do you hate me so much you'd rather die and take us with you?"

He half paused on a single step, and kept walking. "No."

"Then what the fuck? I still don't understand what happened between you and Kas, when you were fighting off Xela." She thumped his shoulder again. Might as well have been punching a wall. "Come on, talk to me."

"No."

She sighed and set her forehead on his shoulder. Why did this fucking bastard have to be so difficult to deal with? Why couldn't he just be the perfect fantasy, a big, deadly, dangerous man, all stoic and reserved, but would open up with a little prying from her, and she could peel the onion to reveal the beautiful man underneath who cared about her. A man who could conveniently fuck her right up to the gills. But nope, he just couldn't help but be a giant asshole.

She sighed.

"Is it the leash?" She grabbed her necklace's amber jewel with a free hand. "I know I used it, but--"

"It is not."

"Then... what is it?"

Vinicius said nothing.