The Pleasures of Hell 03.054

~~David~~

"I killed Galon," Moriah said. "I thought he was a traitor. Yosepha confirmed as much. But... But I should not have done so. I have learned since that the unmarked, or at least the unmarked Galon and Yosepha were helping, is a good soul, Saar. And they are the target of invaders. We should protect them, not hunt them. The council is wrong."

More angels descended, and while they didn't land, they hovered only an inch or two above the ground. Each was a rapholem, covered head to toe in absurd amounts of armor, each wielding a spear in their right hand, and a shield in their left so big it was almost as tall as they were. All of them looked at Moriah at first, but as the silence hung heavy in the air, they looked at each other.

"The council is wrong?" Saar asked.

"Yes."

"The council has decreed the unmarked must die."

Moriah shook her head and held out her sword at her side. "The council does not explain why. They give us no reason. But I have seen nothing but compassion, empathy, and a desire to do good from the one unmarked I have helped."

"It is not our place to question the council."

Moriah took a step forward. "Invaders worm their way into our world, and what does the council say of it? Never in all of existence has such a thing occurred. What orders have the council given about the invaders since we last spoke?"

Again, the angels around Saar looked at each other, and a few whispered things. Definitely not the immovable, stoic warriors they were supposed to be.

"Invaders?" Saar asked.

"Invaders! Strange creatures have broken into Hell, or have you not seen them? They climb up from the canyons, invisible at first, but they gain form the longer they exist in our realm. Creatures with the faces of squid bodies. And they wish the unmarked dead."

A mikalim floated down and landed behind Saar.

"I have seen such a creature," he said. "Large. It wandered the mountains of Death's Grip, and disappeared into the tunnels. From so high, I thought it a hellbeast, a breed I did not recognize."

Another angel flew down. "I saw something similar, as well. Smaller. A group."

Chatter broke out, angels describing creatures, some angels insisting what they saw were merely hellbeasts. The chatter ended cold stop when Saar slammed the bottom of his spear against the rock ground. Without a word, every angel stood at attention, a few adjusting their position to form ranks.

"The council must be obeyed!" Saar yelled. "We are to kill the unmarked, and kill anyone who stops us. The council has been our guide for millions of years, and--"

Moriah stepped forward again, and the distance between her and Saar shrank to nothing.

"Never, in the history of Heaven and Earth, has an angel ever assaulted a soul worthy of Heaven!"

"Heaven denied them!"

"I do not know why Heaven denies them, but it is not their fault."

Saar flared his wings. "You dare suggest that the great cycle is flawed? The Great Tower is God's creation. We are its servants. It does not make mistakes."

"Tell that to Ramiel."

Saar's eyes shone gold for a split second, and Moriah slid back an inch.

"Moriah of Azoryev, third rank, I am giving you a direct order. I may not be your captain, but I am a captain of Azoryev, and you will obey. You will tell me where the unmarked is, and we will deal with them if you cannot."

Moriah held out her wing. "Angels of Azoryev! Some of you know me! I... committed a heinous sin. I struck out with anger, and killed a fellow angel. But I will not let my arrogance be our downfall! I will bear the punishment due for my sin, but you must understand. I made a grave error, and I must atone. The unmarked I guard is not deserving of Hell, and is connected to this strange invader. The invaders want him dead. The council wants him dead. Surely you must see something is wrong!"

David stared up. The canopy blocked most of what he could see, but the area around Moriah grew darker, and the edges of the shadows fluttered. Hundreds of angels packed together, more above out of sight. Their wings were blocking the burning sky's light.

Beyond the edge of the forest was the entrance to the Scar, a ravine between two giant mountains that dwarfed the mountains of Death's Grip, with even steeper ridges. They weren't walkable. It wasn't even climbable unless you had claws. From what he could see, there weren't any tunnels this high up. The only thing in the Scar worth checking out was past the mouth and deep in its recesses. Blocked by a thousand angels.

Moriah lifted her sword. "When this mystery is solved and the invader exterminated, I will accept whatever punishment Azoryev or the council has for me. But until then, my life belongs to the unmarked. He saved my life from the rider, and is doing all he can to save the Great Tower."

Wing flared, she lowered the sword and drew a line in the ground. The mirror blade had no trouble slicing through the black and red stone.

"So I say to you, angels of Azoryev, that I stand against the council! I do not know what ails them, but they hide their tongues and leave us in shadow. Enough! For centuries, they have barely spoken a word, and now they speak with orders to kill the unmarked? I cannot guarantee all unmarked are Heaven-worthy, but the one I defend is, and that is proof enough to me that the council is broken. And like Galon, like Yosepha, and like others who have not made themselves yet known, I will not obey false orders! I make my stand here!"

Saar stood only five feet from Moriah, spear held like a staff at his side. The angels behind and above him hovered at attention, spears at the front, swords above them, and, if David guessed right, bows above them. If they attacked her, it wouldn't be a battle, it'd be an execution.

Saar stepped back. His wings drooped. His spear fell forward, and he held it upside down, tip nearly touching the ground.

"The islands Ravid and Avinoam agree with you."

Moriah stood up straighter, somehow. "What?"

"They disagreed with our treatment of Yosepha, but it was your strike against Galon and his death that ignited the change. Azoryev is committed to the council and the death of the unmarked, but for the first time since the First War, an angel has openly struck and killed another. And here you stand, regretting your actions, while angels above us fight!?"

Civil war. The angel was talking about civil war.

"Has anyone else died?" Moriah asked.

"No. But now what am I to do, Moriah? A thousand angels at my command, ready to destroy the unmarked that I am sure hide behind you. A hundred captains from Azoryev scour the land, ready to fight, to obey the council. You hoist the responsibility to make this decision now, to decide for the rest of Heaven what will happen, onto my shoulders. You ask me to choose if I should start this war."

"Angels do not war among themselves."

"The council is silent!" Saar slammed his shield's bottom edge against stone. The echo pulsed through the forest, straight up into David's guts. "Even as we angels argue and fight, even as Ravid and Avinoam disagree with Azoryev and Yathael, the council says nothing. Am I left to make this decision for us all?"

Moriah shook her head and held her sword out at her side. "The invader comes for the Great Tower, Saar. They come for the unmarked, and for the Great Tower. Surely you must recognize that."

For all the insanity of the conversation, not once did Saar or Moriah consider, even for a moment, that the other was lying. No need for Mia to decipher any subtext, everything was bare and obvious with the way they spoke, the way they stood, and the way they stared at each other relentlessly.

"The council's will," Saar said, stepping back again, "is the will of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. God and the archangels trusted them to rule us, and I will not be the one who breaks that--"

"They do not rule us!" Moriah pointed her sword at the man, and flared her one wing. "And you are weak to think they do."

Saar lowered his gaze. No one said a thing. No one breathed. The flapping wings of angels and the quiet background hum of the burning sky were the only noises, until David heard his heartbeat pulse.

The angel flapped his wings, ascended several feet, and pointed his spear down at Moriah.

"So be it." He raised his shield and gestured forward. "Kill her."

David didn't wait to see what happened.

"David!" Caera said behind him. "David, don't--"

He exited the forest and stood beside Moriah. He was right. The angels high above wore the lightest armor and wielded bows and arrows. Below them were the mikalim in full plate armor, wielding swords and shields. Below them were the rapholem, wearing armor so thick they were walking walls, wielding shields that might as well have been walls, too. Gold and silver armor, with weapon blades so polished and sharp, they were literal mirrors, and each angel sported eyes of intense color.

A thousand angels, each flapped their wings and created an unending breeze. And every single one of them stared at David like he was some mythical entity.

David summoned batlam, summoned his armor and staff in a red glow, and in a seemless motion, slammed his staff's bottom on the ground. The angels flinched.

"The invader is real. Some strange alien thing. It's attacked me twice now. The rider has been trying to kill me, too." With his black metal armor and red jewels on full display, he squeezed the staff and slammed it again. Again, the angels flinched. They feared him. Because of Mia? "And all I've been doing is trying to save the world. I don't know why Heaven stopped me from entering. Maybe it has something to do with the aliens. Whatever the reason, I'm going to keep going." He pointed the staff up, aimed the jewel and its amber fire up at the angels, and glared daggers. "Why don't you do something about the unmarked in the Navameere Fields?"

Ranks broken, the angels shifted about, each ready to dive bomb, each slowly shifting and hovering. If they attacked him now, he'd have a hard time defending himself quick, and whatever he did, it wouldn't be enough to stop a thousand angels.

If they fought, he'd have to strike first.

"Unmarked," Saar said. "You--"

"I asked you a fucking question!" He struck his staff again, and the ground vibrated. He played the music, reached for the sky, and told it to move. It did. Bolts of red lightning streaked across the swirling black and ember clouds, and thunder followed, a heavy roar that shook the forest behind him, and echoed in the mountains before him. "If I had to guess, it's because whoever the unmarked is in the Navameere Fields, they're not heading toward False Gate, right?"

Saar flared his wings and lowered back down to the ground, but stopped a couple inches above it.

"I cannot answer your questions, unmarked."

"My name is David."

The angels above glanced between each other. Did they know his name? Or maybe they just hadn't expected him to have one?

"David," Saar said. "You have been denied by Heaven, and the council has decreed you must die."

"And yet, an unmarked who is known to all, is making massive waves a couple provinces clockwise from me. Why aren't you launching your angels at them? Why aren't you going to war to kill them?" He took a step forward. Sure enough, the angels backed up just as much. "You're only concerned with the unmarked trying to reach False Gate, aren't you?"

Saar didn't respond.

"I don't know your council. I don't know why they aren't talking to you anymore. What I do know, is something doesn't add up. You're down here looking for me and others, on their orders I'm guessing, but there's an unmarked you could be attacking more directly but aren't. So they don't actually want you to kill me, or at least, that's not their primary goal. They want you to stop me from reaching False Gate. Why?"

"I cannot answer your questions, David."

For all the frustration and anger bubbling up through David's veins, he was pretty damn happy the angels were willing to have a conversation. He'd half expected this to devolve into a fight immediately. If they'd been demons, it definitely would have.

"Some unmarked are awful," David said. "But I know of at least one unmarked who is one of the nicest people to ever live. She's the one who created the firestorm in Death's Grip." He shook his head and glared up at the army of holy warriors. "She had to kill angels to stay on her mission and probably save her friends, knowing she'd have to deal with the guilt for the rest of her life. That's how much she believed in this mission. That's how much I believe in this mission. So you will get out of my way, now!" Again, he slammed the staff against the rock below, and again the burning sky above cracked with red lightning.

The angels didn't flinch this time. They reformed ranks, a colossal upside-down pyramid of two thousand wings, all aimed down at him. He'd stirred the hornets' nest.

David shook his head again. "Please. Don't make me kill you."

The thunder and lightning didn't startle them anymore. Using the word 'please' did. Again, the angels looked between each other, some stirring, some slowly lowering their weapons. Either they had some special ability to tell when someone was using language deceptively, or David's usual inability to lie and deceive was working to his advantage.

Moriah looked up and sucked in a breath. David followed.

A comet? A silver color streaked across the sky, cut through the fire clouds, split them, and summoned a quiet rumbling roar of its own. It fell toward the pyramid of angels, and David winced as the silver light grew brighter. It didn't bother the angels, but they did move, their formation splitting apart so the descending sphere of light had clear space to approach.

The sphere slowed. Colors dissipated, and a silhouette emerged, someone with white wings.

An angel landed on the ground ten meters away from David, someone wearing silver armor, with bits of black silk hanging from between the joints. Thick armor, but not as thick as a Rapholem's. A mikalim, then, their face partly hidden in their helmet, and sword and shield already out and at their side.

David glanced up. A thousand angels above him, and their batlam runes dressed them the same, silver and gold armor, with bits of white silk hanging from between the joints. The gabriem armor was fairly light, with bits of their limbs exposed, and their helmets didn't cover their faces. The mikalim armor was heavier and covered every bit of skin, with t-slit openings in their helmets big enough to show their eyes, nose, and mouth. The rapholem armor was even more ridiculous, and the front opening of their helmets was small, hiding their features in shadow.

Whoever this angel was, they looked like a mikalim, same armor, same shield, same sword, but the color was all off. Pure dark silver armor? Black underclothes?

The closer the angel grew, the more the differences showed themselves. Symbols. The other angels' armor showed flowing lines that danced with each other like water and vines. This angel's armor had none of that. Instead, flowing lines danced along the edges of his gauntlets, pauldrons, and greaves, but each collected into a skull embossing at a center point. On his chest was the same, a skull embossing where the flowing lines of the breastplate met.

A reaper.

"Ezekiel," Moriah said. She stepped around David, lowered her wing, and blocked him off from the casually strolling angel of death. "What are you doing here?"

The man stopped. Ten meters away wasn't far enough.

"I saw the sky churning. I had to see this for myself." His voice was gentle, soothing even, and a little high pitched. A natural tenor. His facial expression was neutral, his posture relaxed, and he summoned a tiny smile barely visible through his helmet.

The angels above had stopped looking at David and Moriah, or at the forest they knew hid watching demons. They were all looking at Ezekiel.

"Ezekiel," Saar said with a deep nod. "This angel is... convinced that the council is mistaken, and that the unmarked are key to stopping an alien invader from destroying them, us, and perhaps the Great Tower."

Say one thing for an angel, they were good at summarizing. David winced, but kept his eyes on the reaper in front of him. He looked just like the other angels, a perfect face, tall, muscular and lean without being overbuilt. Bits of his long blonde hair peeked out from the base of his helmet. Pale skin. Deathly pale.

"Name?" Ezekiel asked.

"David."

Another small smile graced the angel's lips. "Have you slain Goliath?"

David blinked. "Wha--oh, the story." He sucked in a breath, unable to look away from the silver and black angel of death. A scary man, but not terrifying. It was strange, like a sort of mixture of calmness and dread. Like standing on the precipice of a cliff at night, in dead silence, while caressed by a cool breeze.

Ezekiel continued. "Other angels from Azoryev speak of the unmarked who stopped them, at the border of Death's Grip and the Black Valley. A girl, with long red hair and freckles. Your sister, I assume?"

David didn't answer.

The angel smiled and nodded. "Mia."

David twitched. "What do you know about her?"

Sighing, the angel shook his head, each motion smooth and perfect. It almost gave David an uncanny valley feel, like the man wasn't real.

"Azoryev and Yathael have begun fighting with Ravid and Avinoam because of your sister, David. Galon and Yosepha are but two of many angels who think something is wrong with the council."

Moriah snarled. "What would you know? You sit on your perch and watch the afterlife go by and do nothing, you and all your kin."

Ezekiel nodded and looked up at the swirling sky above. "Moriah."

She froze. "You know me?"

"Your name echoes through all of Heaven. Every island knows you, the angel who killed another angel. The first to draw blood." Slowly, taking all the time in the underworld, Ezekiel set his blue eyes on Moriah. Azurite eyes. David didn't know what azurite looked like, but seeing the angel's eyes told him. "How sinful."

Moriah flinched, and her protecting wing fell to David's feet.

"Are you here to punish me, reaper?"

"No. As I said, I'm here to see an unmarked for myself." He came closer. Moriah didn't react. Either she'd given up on the idea of surviving this, on the idea of protecting David, or she trusted the man to not strike first. "In hundreds of millions of years, only two incidents on this side of the gate of life have ever earned my attention. Ramiel, invading the surface world. And now the unmarked, agents of chaos, made worse a thousandfold by an angel controlled by her emotions." He smiled again, small things, like a fashion model giving a gentle look for the camera. "Strange they both occurred so close together."

"A hundred years apart," Moriah said, "is not so close for the rest of us."

"Seconds apart compared to the age of the Great Tower. They are connected. And I am here to see what that connection is." Ezekiel took a step closer. "Come here, David. I promise I will not hurt you yet."

Yet. No hesitation on that last word, either. David looked at Moriah, but the angel kept her eyes on the reaper and slowly moved her wing out of the way.

David sucked in a breath and approached the angel of death, while a thousand angels watched from on high, all waiting for the signal to unleash Armageddon. Each step was loud, his metal boots echoing against the rock and rising mountain walls of the Scar's entrance. The swirling sky of fire above, likely summoning other angels as they spoke, became white noise.

David stopped a foot away, his staff beside him, bottom against the rock. He stood tall, but it felt pointless in front of a seven-foot-tall angel who was, apparently, millions of years old. So absurdly perfect, the angel was both handsome and beautiful, a clean-shaven face that made him look in his mid twenties. And his blue eyes shined with hints of silver in the deep color.

Ezekiel nodded and smiled, quiet gestures, like a man too tired to show a tenth of Moriah's energy.

"Moriah says you killed Shaul and Tzipporah. Is this true?"

David forced down the urge to look back. "It is. Self defense, after I killed another unmarked."

This conversation was going on too long. Tension was rising even he could feel. He reached inside, found the notes for the fire sky, the rock ground, the trees, the mountains of the Scar ahead, and deep veins of lava below. His weapons. He set fingers on the strings.

Ezekiel looked past him to Moriah, but spoke to David. "Why did you kill the other unmarked?"

David almost told him about what happened if two unmarked got near each other. No, don't trust this man yet. He was probably trustworthy, but he wasn't an ally.

"Because he was abusing his power, like the unmarked in the Navameere Fields, I imagine. He'd brainwashed a bunch of Cainites, and had gone full villain mode. He wanted to hurt people." David winced, but didn't break eye contact, no matter how much he wanted to. "And because he was going to kill and eat me."

The angel nodded again, and again, it was slow, lethargic, like the angel was working early on a Thursday morning.

"The muses, guardians, and us reapers have always acted on our own, David. The surface is our concern, not Hell."

"And the council? You don't obey them? Because I saw one of those council angels, I think, when I first came to Heaven. Giant man, or woman, hard to tell. Had to be at least twelve feet tall and had six wings. Kinda imposing."

Ezekiel nodded. "Indeed, that was one of the council."

So the council angels weren't just angels, they were an entirely different species, and fucking terrifying. And each island had three. Twenty-seven of those titans in total. Yeesh.

The angel of death continued. "The council gives orders to the captains. The captains give orders to the faithful." He gestured up at the thousand angels above him, each looking at Ezekiel, waiting. "The reason they are shocked to see me, and why your traitor friend Moriah is shocked as well, is what I said. The surface and its souls are my concern, not the ongoings of the afterlife."

"Yeah, well, the invaders are eldritch monsters that look like they walked out of a Lovecraft novel. I doubt their only target is the afterlife."

Nodding, the angel lowered his sword, held it at his side with an almost flimsy grip, and did the same with his shield. The casualness was freaky.

"Convince me I should let you live."

"What?"

The angel shrugged with his wings. "Convince me I should let you live."

With an un-angel-like growl, Moriah came closer.

"After everything that's happened, after everything I've done, you have the nerve to grace us with your unwanted presence, act as if what you have to say matters, and dictate fate for us, reaper? Go back to your perch, sit, do nothing, as you have done for all time."

Ezekiel set his eyes on Moriah and twisted in a way David had seen before, the day he'd nearly lost a dear friend.

"I am no agent of the council," he said. "But the council is not some silly government organization. They are the foundation of our existence. And you have defied them. And for that, Moriah, you shall die."

David squeezed his staff. Not this time. He would not lose anyone. No one would die. No one.

The reaper launched forward, a seamless motion. He flapped his wings once, and like a bolt of lightning, came at Moriah, sword brought up in the same instant. Twice as fast as Shaul. More.

A slab of blackstone erupted from the ground in front of the angel. Not tall or wide, but thick, a shield David summoned with a harsh scale of notes only he could hear. The angel's sword glowed silver with streaks of black, collided with the rock, and the world stopped. For a split moment, the angel looked at the rock in front of him with curious surprise, before the world exploded and everyone disappeared under a thunderous snap of silver light.

Did he summon his grace energy in that single split moment when he saw the rock appear? The plan was his sword would get delayed by the rock, not that he'd blow it up.

Everyone got knocked back, Moriah, David, Ezekiel, the nearby angels above, everyone. Rock shot in all directions, ripped through trees, hit armor, and drowned the area in the clattering rain of rocks smacking metal. More than just scattering rock. Black lightning. It struck out with the exploding stone, reached out for the closest things it could find, and tore it apart. Trees shattered. The ground ripped open. Black lightning shot outward from the angel's sword and tore small trenches through the ground. The border of the Grave Valley and the Scar danced with a thunderstorm of shadow.

Ezekiel fell back, but wasn't knocked over. Moriah was. David was. More trees in the back toppled, ripped apart by the flying stones. Angels above scattered, some yelling in pain as rocks tore through their wings. More, as black energy shot up through their bodies, and turned yells into roars of agony. Some hit David, sent electricity through his limbs, but instead of burning death through his veins, he felt cold. Ice cold. Frostbite cold, a burning sensation all its own, and it coursed through his body, head to toe, teeth to toenail.

Ezekiel set his quiet eyes on David and Moriah, sword crackling black, and more black lightning danced on the mirror blade and its silver glow. And David was on his knees, struggling to breathe, struggling to get his muscles to listen.

He couldn't defend himself.

Ezekiel came toward him. The angels above backed off, their cries of pain died as they got control of themselves, and they gave the reaper his room. Would there be a monologue? Some boasting? Some explanation?

No. Ezekiel pointed his sword down at David and raised it. He looked... sad?

Fire erupted from the forest, poured over and past David and Moriah like someone swinging a flamethrower's spray left and right. It was hotter than hot, dancing amber lines in the fire, and the reaper threw himself back. Bits of blood trickled from his wings, probably from the aftermath of his own explosion, but he didn't seem to care, or even notice.

Laoko burst from the forest edge, hellfire spewing from her mouth, and she twisted her head left and right so the destruction-incarnate flame fell like a veil between David and the reaper. Ezekiel flew up, but Laoko didn't aim the fire at him. She aimed it everywhere. Fire fell like rain, a protective sheet that blocked the angel from approaching.

Caera dashed in, Jes and Daoka behind her. Jes and Dao grabbed Moriah and dragged her back to the forest, while Caera nudged her head under David's arm.

"Get up! We have to get back to the forest. Hide and--"

Trumpets drowned out her voice, and hundreds of yellow dots joined the burning sky above. The angels weren't going to give them a fair fight. They were going to carpet bomb the place.

And David knew they were going to do that. It's what he would have done, if he knew he had no other choice.

Ignoring the pain cutting through his limbs like electrified razor blades, David stood up. The angels didn't know. They couldn't hear the music, couldn't feel the bass notes rumbling through the world, couldn't sense the sharp violins and attacking flutes, couldn't perceive the melody he called through Hell. They had no idea how fast Hell could move.

First, the angels above. David raised his staff, the ruby tip glowed amber, and like an orchestra following his direction, Hell played his song. The fire sky descended on the swarm of white wings above, a hundred tornadoes that grabbed and pulled fire down with the hurried recklessness of dust devils. They reached down like tendrils, stabbed down in random paths, tore through the formation of holy warriors, and not only broke their ranks, but sent their holy arrows in random directions. The hail of useless, exploding arrows landing far away joined the white noise.

More. David pulled down more. Each note played was more than just music, but Hell herself, a bit of her he pulled. High notes that descended, a finger sliding down a fret board, chromatic scales that knew tension like no other scale did. Down, and down, the tornadoes cut through the air, and their tips whip shot around in random directions, crashed into hundreds of angel wings, and set white feathers alight.

It took five seconds. He'd been ready.

His mind blurred. Individuals vanished. Demons were helping him. Angels were fighting him. His mind dipped beneath the surface of the ocean of vibration, found the ancient being in its flow, and he held onto her fins. A scuba diver, holding onto the fin of a blue whale. And she went deeper, taking him with her.

I will help you, my child. Play your song. You must live.

Deep in the ocean, where all that existed was the music, the strings that played the notes, he could see two distinctions. The forest behind him, where the melancholy of death was laid in fog and tombstone, mausoleum and graveyard, dead trees, and horror. In front of him was the Scar, where the land was ripped asunder billions of years ago in the First War.

His allies were behind him. His enemies were in front of him. That was all he needed to know.

He summoned a wall. Deep from the ground, he pulled waves of blackstone, condensed it, molded it, shaped it into a hard, flat surface as he'd done with the wall that'd protected Moriah. But thicker. Much thicker. Ten meters thick, he pulled the wall up high, and Hell quaked. As fire tornadoes danced through the sky and stopped the angels from their aerial assault, the wall grew. Pebbles moved across the ground with the vibration, and the trees behind him dropped their thorns and branches as the landscape changed.

Angels could destroy blackstone, he knew that. If the angels above unleashed their beams of gold light, it'd crash against the blackstone and break it apart. So he made it thicker. And denser. He sent the rising wall back, curved it, and engulfed the forest behind him in shadow.

"David!?" Someone's voice. Not his voice. Caera's voice.

David said nothing. He pointed his staff left, pointed it right, and hit the strings of the Hell, of the world, and asked Hell to change to fit his new vision.

Hell danced for him, and changed.

The ground crumbled. The border between the two provinces sank, and the wall rose, reaching high and higher before curving back over the Amisius Forest. A kilometer wide, a kilometer back, a half sphere that encased his allies with blackstone so thick, so dense, it wasn't going anywhere. Ever.

Still facing the angels, he swung his staff back, and the rising wall grew a tunnel exit. Ten meters wide, five meters tall, a tunnel that reached through the protective dome to let the light in. The only way in. The only way out.

"Caera," he said. "Get inside."

"David? What're you--"

Moriah grabbed the tregeera by her tail and dragged her back. David glanced back only long enough to meet the angel's face.

She knew. She'd seen Mia fight. Now he was going to fight, and he couldn't do that if his allies were going to get caught in the middle.

The angels above adapted quickly. They knew he could control the fire sky. Maybe they hadn't expected him to summon it so quickly, but they knew, and they did what any bird did when the wind became a deathtrap. They landed.

David stood in front of the tunnel entrance to his dome fortress. Behind him were people he knew, but their names floated on the surface of the ocean. Their faces were blurs, any sharpness lost from looking between above and below the water of song. Their individuality was gone. The person above the surface, him, yelling down at him through the water, knew they were individuals. And he knew that he knew that, but down here in the ocean, it was different.

He was swimming, and so was Hell. He'd latched onto her, and she was taking him through the currents. She was shaping the currents with him.

There was something beyond the ocean. At the edge of his vision, and dancing in the corner of his eyes, was blackness. It twisted and swirled, clawed at the ocean, but couldn't join it. Cold, empty, it spread the water around it, left emptiness where it moved, but each time it made ground, it lost it, pushed back by the current. It stared at David. An infinite black void at the edge of existence, and when David tried to look at it, it again moved to the edge of his vision, to the distance beyond.

Whatever it was, it wasn't the angels. And the angels had to be dealt with now.

David pointed his staff at Ezekiel. The angel had stepped back and looked at the dome, the barest hint of surprise visible through his helmet. The dome had grown in a matter of seconds and had shaken all the Scar and the Grave Valley to do it, causing the angel to lose his footing, flap his wings, and jump back a few feet. It was the only reason the angel hadn't struck again already.

"Remember," David said, and he glared at the angel of death. "You struck first."

Ezekiel set his eyes on David, aimed his sword, and dove for him. The reaper was fast. He made Shaul, Tzipporah, and Moriah look slow. A blur of movement, with small crackles of black lightning in the subtle waves of silver energy. At least the rider was kind enough to be slow.

David summoned lightning of his own. The fire sky danced above, and even as the battalion of angels found their footing on the ground, David pulled down the tornadoes to collide with the rock of the Scar. But that was background noise, something he couldn't aim while his focus was locked on the reaper.

But he could aim the lightning. He reached deep, pulled energy up from inside, and plucked a harsh string. His inner fingers had long developed calluses, and he'd spent weeks tinkering with the strings, learning what moved what, learning what he could and couldn't touch, bend, move, or what existed in the strings but couldn't be moved directly by them.

He couldn't touch the air, but he could touch the fire clouds above. The burning sky was some sort of barrier, something that separated Heaven and Hell, a wall, fire on this side and likely gentle, fluffy cloud on the other. It could not be penetrated, except by Lucifer and their vortex. And it was brimming with energy, just like thunderclouds.

David pulled that energy down, and a bolt of red lightning crashed into the ground directly in front of him. He stood strong, let the heated air blast past him, and he glared at the reaper.

Ezekiel dodged. That was fast. Fortunately for David, the angel dodged in the only path he could, directly back, a hard flap of his wings stopping him from careening straight into David and his red lightning bolt.

Ezekiel landed and aimed his sword at David. "Unmarked. You--"

David slammed the bottom of his staff into the rock. It echoed, shook the dome of blackstone behind him through its tunnel, shook the two mountains of the Scar, and shook the sky. The angels behind the reaper were recovering as they dodged around the tornadoes, even as David summoned a hundred more. Directing the tornadoes was too difficult while his eyes were locked on the reaper. All he could do was tell the fire sky to unleash its wrath upon the entire area, and make sure none of the tornadoes collided with David. The dome would protect his allies.

A tornado, only a few meters wide, cut across the ground between the reaper and David. David didn't look away.

"You tried to kill..." The angel. What was her name? Moriah. "Moriah. We fight to save this world, and you try and kill us. There will be no mercy for you. None."

David pointed his staff and summoned lightning. The angels had to die. All had to be purged. All had to be cleansed.

Lightning bolts crashed onto the Vasil's Mouth of the Scar. Thousands of them. The fire sky swirled upon itself, created a maelstrom that reached across the border, and bathed the ground in random strikes of red death. Each bolt ripped the ground open, scattered rock, split it into enormous chunks, and launched them apart. Others tore lines through the ground in dancing zigzags. Others lashed down at the angels, and a few screams of pain echoed behind the thunder.

"David!" A voice. Laoko's voice. No more hellfire to protect him. No more protection from anyone.

He had to do the protecting now.

He gestured back at her with his free hand. "Stay in the dome."

"David, you--"

"Stay. Inside. The dome."

He pointed his staff forward. Saar and his battalion had known he was going to summon firestorms, obvious by how they'd dodged almost every tornado. They hadn't seen the lightning coming, and the holy warriors weaved left and right as best they could, dodging some, but not all. Like the tornadoes, David's aim was reckless, grew more reckless by the moment, and the only guidance he could give the firestorm was to not strike directly down at him.

Everywhere else was fair game. Lightning crashed on the dome, thunder vibrated through the blackstone and into the ground around David, and more than just angel screams filled the air. The demons behind him roared. They were safe, but they wanted battle. Even if it'd get them killed, demons were demons, and they wanted to fight.

"Laoko," he said. "Do not let anyone leave the dome."

The tetrad stood at the tunnel entrance, but he didn't look back long enough to see her expression, or Moriah's, standing directly behind her. A single second to look back was a second too long, with an angel of death in front of him.

Ezekiel came for him, body pointed forward, sword at the front, shield too. As if his whole body were a spear, he flew up a dozen meters and came down at him with absurd speed.

David reached deep, played heavy strings, and ripped the ground up under him. Another blackstone wall, straight in front of him, but the angel was too fast, adapted too quickly, and flew up and above the blackstone. But David knew he would.

With his left inner hand, David played the song of storms, summoned lightning and fire, and drowned the area in destruction, all of it except for the space directly around him. It became his harmony, the chords that filled the song. And like learning to play piano with two hands, part of his mind kept the chord progression going, while another part multitasked and found a melody for his right hand. Fast scales, ascending and descending, the same scales he'd used to skewer and kill Tzipporah and Shaul.

The wall in front of David collapsed, but from its crumbling stone, a giant spiraling spike shot up. Hidden by the debris, the reaper couldn't see the spike in time, and the sharp stone crashed into his breastplate. Sparks erupted, blackstone against angel metal, and the diving angel was knocked to the side.

The spike could only twist and spiral so much. When it reached its apex, a twisting and turning, jagged piece of compressed rock spike maybe thirty meters long, it broke. It fell, landed hard on the ground, and broke in half. Useless to David now, disconnected from the body of Hell. But below him was endless blackstone, other materials, and even hellfire if he needed, deep deep down in the bowels of Hell.

Hellfire might get him killed. Hellfire might get his allies killed. Don't use it for now.

Ezekiel backed off, and with a hard flap of his wings and a small burst of silver, dodged another lightning bolt. David summoned another spike and launched it straight up at the angel, no zigzagging, just a spear of pure speed. The reaper dodged again, weaved around the spike, weaved around another lightning strike, and dove for David.

David ceased with the melody of scales, and struck chords instead, left hand maintaining the storm and the chaos it wrought, but right hand adding its own crescendo of noise. And ten thousand spikes erupted up from the ground in all directions, each fifty meters high, each jagged and sharp. No thought for where, beyond avoiding himself and the dome behind him. The forest, the two mountains ahead of him, the opening of the ravine, the sky above, he skewered it all.

The angels had underestimated him. How could they not? Never, in the history of their existence, had there ever been something like the unmarked. Never, in the history of their existence, could someone commune with Hell.

Kill them.

Purge them.

Do not let them hurt you.

My child.

As chaos erupted around David, angel feathers torn apart and splashing the burning, shredded ground in blood, he sank deeper into the ocean. The entity in the ocean of vibration was real. He couldn't see it, couldn't even feel it or hear it, but just like the strings he sensed through all, he could sense the presence, and sense how he rode it... rode her, deeper into the vibration.

The deeper he sank into the waves, the more distant his other self was, quieter, blocked by the depths. Floating. He was floating. Aware of the battle, aware he stood within it, but he watched it from a distance. Enemies. Allies. Pain. Pain was bad. Death was bad. Stop death. Kill the bad.

The thousands of spikes sent a hundred angels to the ground. He pulled the fire tornados deeper, brought them from sky to rock, and the flame ripped paths across the stone. Angels helped each other, flew down and pulled each other from the path of flames, and away into the sky. Some died, screaming. Most put distance between themselves and David's storm.

Not the reaper. The angel of death weaved around the spikes, flew back into the sky, and raised his sword. Black energy crackled in the mirror blade, and specs of silver danced across his armor like a chemical fire. His wings flared silver, with streaks of black death between the flickering waves.

He drew his sword to the side. David had seen this before, too.

The reaper unleashed death. A horizontal wave of black and silver energy streaked through the air, crackled louder than the thunderstorm killing the angel's kin, and flew at David.

Moriah had unleashed this attack when she'd fought the rider. She'd hit him with it ten times. Colossal arcs of energy she'd launched from her sword that'd cut through demons like a wrecking ball through a wall. And David wasn't stupid. He was fighting a reaper.

The angels had underestimated him. He would not underestimate them.

He summoned rock and stone. He summoned mass from the deep and dark, from the fire and heat below. He compressed it, molded it, shaped it into his shield, and the underworld shook for kilometers in all directions as he pulled up his wall. In the ocean of song, the presence with him, surrounding him, pulling him along in the currents, matched his tune, his harmonies and melodies, and amplified them a thousandfold.

A titanic wall of stone erupted up from the ground between the reaper and David, wide, thick, multilayered, and the beam of death crashed into each layer. Snap. Snap. The beam pushed through them like a monk punching through stacked bricks. Snap. Snap. Each crack of stone joined the unending chorus of thunder around them. Ten gigantic layers of blackstone, and the beam of destruction ripped through eight.

Did the angel say anything? Under the thunder and roars, did he speak? Would David even hear it? So deep now, the vibrations and waves pressed on him, buried him. He wasn't a man standing on the ground in the middle of a storm anymore. He was looking down at a battlefield, or from below it.

In the ocean of song only he could sense, the blackness at the edge of David's vision moved directly into his path, into Hell's path. David and the entity with him froze. The blackness, the endless void, obsidian and onyx and eternity together, hovered before him.

It opened its eye. Deep in the ocean depths where only David and Hell existed, the void stared at him, and David stared back. Shining stars in its eye, distant galaxies, beyond ancient masses of brightness in the infinite depths of space. And it was looking directly at him.

It found him, and it shrieked.

The vibrations stopped. The ocean stopped. The song stopped. The entity pulling David along through the currents screamed in return, a scream of pain.

David shot up from the depths. His other half waiting on the surface caught him, consciousnesses combined, and the weight of battle fell on David like a bag of cement. Back in the real world. He fell to a knee, gripped his staff with both hands, and stared down at the ground, unable to lift his head. It was like someone had attached a balloon to him when he'd been under the water, and he'd shot up to the surface. Disoriented. Whiplash.

The song was gone. A vacuum. Silence from the ocean, leaving him back in his physical body, surrounded by rock and flesh and pain.

The fire tornadoes peeled away and faded into nothing. The lightning stopped. The maelstrom above slowed, and died. Real silence followed.

"David?" Laoko's voice. "What's wrong?"

He looked back. The dome of blackstone remained standing, and the tunnel entrance showed Laoko, Moriah, and everyone else. They stood behind the tetrad, staring at him.

"David!" Caera. She got past Laoko and joined his side. "What--"

"It found me," he said. "Run."

"It found you? What? I don't--"

A hellquake began, gentle at first, just a quiet hum. Somehow, David stayed on a knee, grip on his staff, and he lifted his head.

Destruction everywhere. Had he done this? Burn marks, torn ground, shredded rock, a colossal wall of stone, and thousands of gigantic spikes that shot into the sky. The environment had changed.

"You," the reaper said. Ezekiel walked closer, more black lightning crackling along his sword. It felt cold. "I knew what Mia had done, but I could not have imagined."

Caera stayed by David's side, growled at the angel, but she didn't pounce at him. She was too smart for that.

"Stay away from him!"

Ezekiel's eyes, forever calm, depressed blue azurite eyes, looked between David and his girlfriend.

"I am not here for you, demon. I came here to see if the unmarked are truly as dangerous as we have been told. If they truly needed to die." Ezekiel gestured around with his shield, and sighed. "I should have--"

David shook his head and stared up at the angel. "Run. Run!"

Ezekiel met his eyes and froze. Maybe David had summoned enough panic to his face, broke through the mental block he usually had to hide his emotions, and straight-up painted the horror he felt in his eyes.

It wasn't enough. The reaper blinked at him. And for the first time since meeting David, and probably the first time in millions of years, the angel was surprised.

"Run! I didn't stop the song! The--"

The hellquake grew heavier, and the ground ripped apart. David fell to his side, quaking ground ripped out from under him, and Caera got her claws around him immediately. She stood up, carried him, and ran back to the dome he'd created where everyone waited for him. The world shook harder, sent them both to the ground, and only the thickness of the dome walls kept it from cracking.

"David!" Moriah's voice. "What's--" The shaking ground didn't let her finish, but she didn't need to. She knew what was happening, and her jaw dropped, eyes locked on the ground past David.

The rock and stone opened, sent gravel and nearby trees scattering into the air, and Hell shook more than David could ever make her, as a ravine opened. The canyon split across the ground, perpendicular to the Scar's entrance. Just like at Death's Grip, the crack shot toward the inner and outer edges of Hell, zigzagged randomly in harsh paths, and sent veins of cracks outward in all directions as the ground ripped open.

"Fuck!" Jes's voice from inside the dome and tunnel. "David, there another unmarked around?"

"No. No there isn't. It... It found me!"

Pretenses of invisibility were now gone. The alien creature reached up from the canyon, giant onyx tentacles shimmering in Hell's light, and a few dozen of the titanic limbs grabbed onto the ground and pushed Hell apart. More shaking, hellquakes that knocked everyone without wings on their ass, and shrieks joined in. Nails on chalkboard mixed with chainsaws against metal, the freak sound ripped through David's chest and sucked the air out of his lungs.

Everyone else heard it, too. They might not have heard the other side of it, the deafening silence the sound brought, but they heard the physical side. And they saw the creatures swarm up from the canyon.

It was like the last time the presence found David. When it'd found David and Mia together, if that's what happened at all, it was pure chaos and power, something uncontrolled and absurd that tore through the whole province and ripped Hell in half. This was different. This was specific, directed, and controlled. And a thousand of the human-like creatures with glistening onyx skin and squid bodies for faces poured up from the canyon.

Ten thousand.

Hell vibrated with a new sensation. Feet, hitting rock and stone. The aliens weren't spread out, but pressed shoulder to shoulder, many behind each other, and they flowed up out of the canyon like ants, oddly organized in their wordless communication.

Some of them looked different. Many walked forward on all fours, spines ached and dark skin stretching, showing their vertebrae. Some stood up straight and walked like warriors.

They were changing again.

Ezekiel, gently flapping his wings, hovered near David and Caera, but he'd turned to face the oncoming tide.

The angels did nothing. Fifty or more angel corpses were scattered over Hell, bodies skewered on the thousands of spikes David had summoned, or partly incinerated by the fire and lightning chaos. But at least nine hundred were still alive. For all David's carnage and destruction, the angels had dodged most of his attacks. They'd been more prepared than he figured.

None of them were prepared for the tide.

The invaders didn't hesitate. There was no face off, no delay in the swarm, no exchange of words. The creatures flowed up, looked around, and ran for their target. David.

David stood up. His body didn't like that. Ache flowed through him, ache that didn't belong in his muscles or his bones. Inner fingers, bruised and crying, pulsed misery through him and demanded he sit down and pass out. He didn't let it. He held on to his staff, his armor, the batlam rune, and got back up.

"That's the invader," he said as loud as he could. Not loud at all. "Reaper, that's... those are the invaders."

Ezekiel glanced back at him. Again, a look of surprise on the melancholy angel's face. In any other circumstance, David might have felt good about putting a little shock into a bored asshole's face, someone who thought he knew all that life and the afterlife had to offer. At the moment, David was just happy the man was taking this seriously.

The reaper raised his sword. Black lightning crackled along the blade, and again, he swung the weapon in the direction of his opponent. Thunder erupted, and David almost fell under the wind pressure as the angel unleashed another horizontal arc of energy. With the battalion of angels flying above, the reaper was in the clear to unleash death, and it dove upon the forward charge of the invaders.

The black and silver energy crashed through the alien bodies, and ripped through them. Like Moriah's holy blasts, it didn't cut through them, but smashed through them, as if scalpel sharpness was reserved for their physical blades only. The energy crashed through the aliens and ripped through them, splattered their limbs, crushed their tentacles and broke through torso and spine. White blood gushed everywhere, soaked the ground, and the insides of the aliens fell to the stone along with their dying bodies before dissolving.

Silverfish. Their insides were like the color of squished silverfish.

Ezekiel's arc of death crashed into another wall. Invisible, but not. A see-through wall shimmered in the air, distorted it like curved glass, and the reaper's attack shattered over it, bits of black and silver falling like dust.

A hundred of the upright aliens had their hands out, and their black eyes above their squid tentacles shimmered like the shield they summoned. They lowered their hands, and the shield faded, and the invaders hovered up into the air.

They hovered higher, and higher. Hovering wasn't the word for it anymore. They were flying while staying upright, arms at their sides but elbows bent and palms up.

The angels flying above stared down at the horde. They didn't move. Even Ezekiel stood there, staring, unmoving. Right, they'd never seen anything else fly before. Demons could glide, but they were slaves to gravity, or the Great Tower's version of it, and other than archangels, that rule was never broken as far as David knew.

But the hovering aliens did more than just hover. They aimed out their arms, and something invisible on their skin glistened before shifting into layers of black and purple.

Robes? Freaky, long robes with pointed shoulders, and they had heavy lines of black and royal purple that matched the subtle shades hidden in the onyx of their skin.

It wasn't only the five or six hundred aliens hovering in the sky who grew clothes. The thousands on the ground changed, too. Shimmering lines, invisible turned visible, shifting dark colors that settled on the same shades as the robes above. Except metal. Shiny, smooth, black metal with purple lines along the edges. Pristine. Beautiful. Alien. Seaborne.

The aliens in front of the army stayed on all fours, and their armor covered only parts of them, their backs and heads, leaving their faces exposed. The aliens charging behind them stood up, held out a hand to the side, and again, shimmering nothing turned into something. A spear, with black handle and shining tip.

No, not spears. Tridents.

"Saar!" Ezekiel's voice. The reaper raised his sword and aimed it at the angels above.

Saar, flying overhead, raised his sword in turn. And several hundred gabriem above blew into horns that'd been dangling from their hips. Roaring battle music filled the air. If David didn't know any better, he'd think they were playing Ride of the Valkyries.

The angels unleashed a volley of gold death. The mikalim shot first, swords pointed straight. Instead of arcs, they shot beams, and instead of coming down in bursts, they came down as unending rays, lines of gold. All of them collided against a shield of glistening air, a dome far larger than the blackstone dome behind David. The hovering aliens each had their palms pointed up, long black claws out, and void eyes aimed up at the angels above. They were creating a see-through dome of their own, and the angels couldn't penetrate it.

The gabriem joined, and unleashed a hail of arrows, silver with tips hidden in golden glow. Each landed on the dome with small explosions that sounded like gunshots, joining the constant roar of the beams, but the dome remained.

The aliens on the ground didn't so much as glance up. Thousands of creatures, half of them on all fours, half of them upright and charging like foot soldiers, but each of them looked human. The muscles, the fingers, the shape of their skulls, it was all far too human. Mutated and warped, with squid tentacles for mouths and black holes for eyes, but disturbingly, disgustingly human.

Ezekiel again unleashed another arc of energy, and the flying aliens above were too busy protecting their army from the orbital bombardment to stop an attack from the ground. The ground troops were obliterated by the dozens before the wave of silver energy crackling with black lightning dissipated. Undeterred, the army marched for Ezekiel, David, and the dome, and stomped over the dissolving corpses of their comrades.

Moriah burst forward past David, sword out, gold and silver armor glowing around her. She got ten meters past him and unleashed a gold arc of energy. It crashed into an alien, crashed through it, and smashed into the one behind it, but stopped. The strange armor, with its curls and lines that almost looked like seashells, was strong enough to save the second creature. She unleashed another beam, and another, each just a little slower than the last. But she didn't stop, grunts turning into shrieks as she grew weaker and weaker. But she didn't stop, and each blast killed one or two aliens. Barely a dent in the horde.

A dozen holy warriors joined Moriah, tall and heavy with the thickest armor. Each slammed their shields against the ground and summoned an enormous, wide wall of gold. It was beautiful, and it hummed almost like a choir.

The creatures crashed against it. Hissing and shrieking, tentacles vibrating with the harsh sound, they clawed at the wall, and their black claws sent gold lines along the surface, like cracks in glass. The cracks sealed, only for the horde to create more. Hundreds, then thousands, as they climbed over each other. And between the eldritch monsters, the ones with tridents walked up to the walls, and stabbed it. Harsh clangs, each followed by the humming strike of a turning fork, times a million.

"David!" Demons came out of his blackstone dome. The girls. Laoko stood with him first, Caera, Jes, and Daoka directly behind her.

Caera got between him and the battle. Laoko scooped him up and put him back on his feet, but he teetered, and she kept a hand on his shoulder.

"David," Jes said. "Do something! There's too many, close up the canyon!"

"I can't. It's... It's shrieking in my head. It's muting the strings. I can't play them."

Daoka clicked up a storm and drew her axe. But she only got a single step out before another set of demon claws pulled her back. Acelina. The spire mother stayed behind David, her much larger axe in one hand, Daoka's shoulder in another, and she pulled the riiva back to the tunnel. And from around them came Timaeus, and a half dozen brutes.

The battle came to a pause for a moment. The alien horde crashed against the wall, and when they spread out enough to get around the gold wall, more rapholem swooped down to block them.

Saar was among them. He didn't join the others, but landed near David instead.

"The invaders are coming to kill you." He gestured with his spear toward the aliens. "You weren't lying."

David glared up at the man. "No fucking shit! Now what are you going to do!? Why the fuck would the council want me dead, if the invaders want me dead, too?"

A deep, rumbling roar tore through the rock and almost sent David to the ground, but Laoko kept him upright, while Caera put herself between him and the angel. It came from the canyon. The titanic tentacles sticking out from the ground secured themselves on the rock, suction cups underneath like an octopus's.

"You ask me to go against the council," Saar said.

Moriah jumped back and joined him, panting and sweating. "That's exactly what we ask! Now choose!"

The man lowered his spear. "Reality robs me of the choice, doesn't it?" He raised his spear, pointed it at his rapholem and the horde beyond their gold wall, and he spoke. Loud. His booming voice pushed through the chaos like a cannon blast. "The unmarked is not our target! The alien invader is!"

Thank god. Thank fucking god, finally.

"It's opening up Hell from below," David said. "It's breaking its way in. You have to kill the tentacles."

"It will be so." Saar took the sky and announced the orders. "Push past the barrier! Strike down the tentacles!"

And like Saar had flipped a switch, the angels and their tactics changed. Not a one so much as looked David's way. The hundred or so rapholem still in the sky swooped down, and landed not with the other rapholem and their gold shield blocking off the dome, but in front. And with them came the mikalim. It was a meat grinder. Some rapholem summoned their giant gold walls, blocking off more of the alien tide from each other, while others turned and stabbed with spears into the mess of churning, overlapping bodies. And the mikalim fell on them, hacking and slashing and moving, never holding still.

Rapholem could not be knocked over or pushed back. The mikalim could not be stopped.

In the sky above, some of the hovering aliens turned, cast their void eyes on the battlefield below, and pointed their palms at the fight. Shimmering nothing cut through the air, almost like a heat wave, and crashed into the angels. What degree of tactics they'd developed, no way to tell, but the hovering creatures did not care who they hit, friend or foe.

Whatever the spheres were made of, they crashed into their comrades and the angels, and shattered them. In the moment of impact, there was a gap in the sound, as if the air transferring the sound stopped existence. And then the sound erupted, snapping out like a whip crack, with the same harsh finality.

A mikalim with their back turned took one sphere to the spine, and they exploded. Feathers, armor, blood and guts, it all scattered across the battlefield. Their armor and weapons disappeared a moment later, but the blood and flesh remained. The organs, too.

An angel heart, in the middle of a small crater of gore. And not a single alien went for it. They trampled over the mess, and went for the nearest angel. And when a fellow alien was destroyed by one of their hovering comrades' blast, they didn't flinch, and kept pressing forward.

But it was an opening. With some of the aliens above distracted, cracks in the shimmering shield wall above them opened, and the mikalim still in the air dove through them. David could barely see the way the air shifted and bent light around it, but the angels had no trouble. A hundred mikalim dove through the gaps like falcons diving prey, and flew straight into the hovering aliens. No more holy beams of gold light. They flew straight at them, and crashed into them, sword first. Some angels shattered before reaching their mark, a spray of gold, white, and red, but more angels were fast enough to dodge, and they skewered their target.

The barrier went down, and thousands of gabriem arrows crashed into the tide. David had no aerial view, but the sound told him what was happening. It was like those World War movies where fighter pilots unleashed bullets on troop formations below, except these bullets each created a small gold explosion.

The aliens returned fire, launching the strange void orbs up at the gabriem. The ones with tridents pointed their weapons at the sky and sent a volley of the almost invisible orbs up at the holy warriors, too. Blood and feathers rained.

Ezekiel flew up, summoned his black energy, and unleashed it on the horde. A silver line, horizontal, an arc of death with black lightning crackling along its edges, and it crashed down on the horde at a flat angle that almost took off the heads of the rapholem it passed over. It cut through the aliens and slaughtered a hundred of them before enough of the aliens with tridents blocked it with summoned invisible shields.

Another roar cut through the canyon and boiled up into Hell. And something came out with it.

"Ezekiel!" David yelled. "The canyon! Focus on the canyon! Get the tentacles!"

He wanted the reaper to kill the tentacles, so maybe David could hear the strings again. But the moment the words were out of his mouth, something else joined the fight, something David had seen and not seen before.

The creature climbed out of the ravine, slow and lumbering, and it took little time for it to tower over the rest of the battlefield. Twenty meters tall? Thirty? It was naked, exposing its not-quite-human muscles, and its black eyes scanned the battle above its mouth tentacles. Like the other aliens, it had no tail, no wings, and its human-like feet and hands were armed with claws. But it was massive, and it roared through its hanging mouth tentacles down at the destruction in front of it.

The reaper turned, faced the new enemy, and dove toward it.

"The angels fight without hesitation," Timaeus said. "Damn impressive."

"Should we help them?" Caera asked.

Moriah shook her head. "The invaders are here for David. Protect David."

"Agreed," Laoko said, voice heavy. She was panting.

"No way," David said. "We can't just watch."

Moriah joined him and hit him in the face with her wing. The breeze felt wonderful on his sweating skin.

"The battle has changed, and you are exhausted. You say the aliens prevent you from using the music. The aliens are coming for you, and the angels who tried to kill you are now sacrificing themselves to save you! You have one option! Flee!"

Too much, too fast. Ten minutes ago he was fighting angels. Now the angels had switched sides. He could only take so much whiplash.

He stared at the angel in front of him, past her to the rapholem and their gold shield wall, and above. Angels were mowing down the invaders, but they were dying, too.

He'd never had people die for him before. The feeling was beyond sickening.

"I can't just leave! The invaders are here for me!"

"And yet you can do nothing to stop them! And if that horde breaks through the defense, you will die. You must--"

Ezekiel unleashed another arc of energy, this time at the giant. It struck the creature, tore flesh, and pushed it back. It didn't die. It didn't fall. It bleed white, glistening blood over its onyx skin, and it roared, a deathly shriek that tore through David's brain.

Saar joined David and the girls again, his fellow rapholem behind him, their gold wall echoing with the constant hum of impact against tuning forks. It almost made the battle sound like music.

"If it weren't for you, Moriah," Saar said.

Moriah faced the man, eyes set hard in her helmet.

Saar shook his head. "I... would still think the unmarked needed to die, if not for you. But if these invaders want him dead, and he is worthy of Heaven, as you say, then I am left with no choice." He held out his wing like it was some sort of shield, slammed his real shield into the ground, and aimed his spear up. A hundred gabriem moved with the silent gesture, took positions over David and his dome, and unleashed their arrows over the rapholem's gold wall.

Suddenly, it was medieval warfare, a wall they hid behind, and archers shooting over it into the enemy. Except the enemy was an endless horde.

"Saar," Moriah said. "We have to--"

Ezekiel shot again, and the energy crashed into the alien titan's chest and side. It roared, and its arm fell off. White blood spewed from the wound, gushing with like a river, instead of getting pumped out by any sort of heart organ. But it didn't stop. It pushed toward the gold wall, its army spreading around and avoiding its feet, and the hovering aliens above took up new positions. Instead of a giant barrier, they summoned dozens of little ones, a cascade of walls that blocked any more arrows from hitting the titan, while the horde below died in droves.

The aliens returned fire. A bombardment of hazy air that smacked into the gold walls of the angels, or the mikalim and rapholem in front of it. Angels died by the dozens.

"Go," Saar said. "You too, Moriah."

Moriah whipped her head back. "Go? You can't be--"

"I am trusting you, Moriah."

"We can fight!"

Saar marched up to her, grabbed her shoulder armor, and glared down into her eyes. She was tall, but he was taller, and rapholem armor made mikalim look tiny. He shook her once and brought her in close enough their breastplates collided.

"You are not the only angel who has seen something is wrong with the council. All we needed was proof. Now we have it. Now we have a reason to fight. Now we have a reason to die."

Everyone shut up. A reason to die?

Moriah shook her head harder. "No. You're not that old! You're--"

"I am. We are. Many of us are, and our numbers dwindle more each day." He shoved Moriah hard, and she flapped her wing to keep from falling. "And we do not have time to discuss it!" He spun and pointed his spear at David. "Can you seal the canyon?"

"I... I um--"

"Can. You. Seal. It?" The angel marched up to him, heavy boots clanking with each step. From enemies to comrades in minutes. What a world.

Errant thoughts going wild with exhaustion and the chaos before him, David grabbed some semblance of awareness and met the huge angel's eyes.

"Only if you kill the tentacles holding it open." Holy fucking shit, if a canyon meant aliens had a way in, was Death's Grip overrun with aliens now? Or maybe that was different because it was caused by two unmarked being near each other? Maybe--

"Anything else?"

"It's the shrieking. It's crushing the music. I know you can't hear it, but I can, a sound underneath what you can hear. It's... muting everything. And all those aliens make that sound! If you kill enough of them, especially the big one and the big tentacles, then... maybe?" It was the best analysis he could come up with in five seconds.

"Then get to safety. Abandon this battle. Create distance. When the opportunity arrives, take it." Saar glared hard, but lowered his spear. "If Moriah is right about you... Do not die. Do you understand me, soul?"

Soul. Not unmarked.

David nodded and leaned his weight on his staff. "I understand."

Saar nodded, met eyes with David, and held them for a second longer than necessary. What could David do? He met the gaze.

Ezekiel wasn't the only one who looked tired. Saar carried the same lethargy, same weight, but without the reaper's apathy. And he took that weight with him as he flew up into the sky and joined his fellow angels in the battle.

Moriah took off after him, but she couldn't fly. And she didn't get far, regardless. Laoko snapped out her hand, grabbed the angel by her one wing and yanked her back.

"You are not joining them," the tetrad said.

Moriah yanked on her wing, but the giant woman held strong.

"Release me! I must--"

"Moriah, you are the reason a discussion happened at all. You heard what Saar said. The angels know your name. They know what you did." The heavy tone when Laoko said 'what you did' struck David cold. "We need you if we're to survive our next encounter."

"I will not--"

Laoko threw Moriah back to the group. Jes, Daoka, and Acelina caught her. They still had all their strength, and with a little effort, got their hands around Moriah's wrists.

"Laoko! How dare you! I must fight! I must--"

David winced. Behind him, his girls worked together to subdue the angel. In front of him, several dozen rapholem created a wall with their gold shields, enormous barriers of energy that reached a dozen meters across; it took only fifty rapholem to guard an absurd distance. The spontaneous insanity was loud, with the aliens shrieking and stabbing or clawing at the mikalim and rapholem ahead of the gold wall. But Moriah's screams of rage punched through the noise of battle.

"Up the mountain!" A new voice, from the tunnel. Tacharius. "Go up the mountainside! You'll see better from up there, right?"

The incubus had a point. The battle was in front of them, but to their left and right were the two mountains of the Scar. Steep, but not too steep at the base. And if the angels could stop the alien shrieks, David could summon the music and close the canyon. If he stayed here, he'd be dead in seconds.

"Let's go," David said, and he pointed up at the left mountain. "The angels will fight. The rest of us will run."

Timaeus snorted and gestured to the angels and their gold wall.

"I fight."

Laoko snapped her head around. "We need a bailiff--"

"You don't need a bailiff. Tarkissa was never going to work with us, Laoko. Azailia was going to give him the unmarked, and Tarkissa was going to sacrifice him."

Everyone turned and faced the tetrad.

"Excuse me?" Jes asked. "You... What?"

Caera snarled, got between David and Timaeus on all fours, and her spikes stood up straight.

"Explain!"

Timaeus put up his hands, even as a half dozen brutes stood beside him. A couple vrats, too. He'd been making more than a few friends.

"Azailia is no fool. She had multiple plans to make sure you reached Tarkissa, and the plan was... to sacrifice the boy."

Laoko stomped up to the man, but didn't get far. She stumbled, almost fell, but Acelina stepped up and grabbed an arm. Breathing all that hellfire took it out of her.

"Sacrifice him to what?" Laoko asked.

"I don't know. Azailia said Tarkissa would know, and it would help fight the invader."

Azailia knew about the invader already?

After a few heavy breaths, Laoko stood up and glared daggers at the man.

"You were going to betray us? Did Silvain know?"

"No."

"So you were going to--"

Timaeus shook his head and put a hand on Laoko's shoulder. "There's no time. Just go."

Laoko took a slow step back, and her arms dangled. "You were..."

"I was waiting to see if Azailia was right." Chuckling, the gorujin shook his head and winked. "I played my cards close to the chest." He looked to David. Oh, checking to see if that was the right expression. David nodded.

Laoko shook her head. "Teleius is already dead, and--"

"So get out of here, Laoko. Keep the unmarked safe. Azailia will send Silvain back with help when I don't report back. So keep going. Don't stop." His grin widened. Wings flared, he faced the gold wall, drew his sword, and aimed it toward the oncoming horde. "And I want payback."

They didn't get to argue. Timaeus tore off toward the gold wall, and his brutes and vrats followed him. He tapped a rapholem on the shoulder, and sure enough, a small gap in the gold wall opened. The brutes followed him in, vrats directly behind them, and an aura of violence and blood thirst exploded out over the field of battle.

Information whiplash, again. David stood there, mouth hanging open. Everyone else was, too, until Tacharius came running out of the dome with a hundred betrayers and volas behind him.

"Come on! Let's go!"

He ran past David, the others in tow. But David didn't follow. He stood there and watched a bunch of demons throw themselves into a meat grinder, disappear behind a gold wall, and unleash violence with a carnal brutality the angels couldn't match. Timaeus jumped high and fell upon the battlefield, cackling and roaring, and tall as he was, David could see the man through the see-through gold wall as he pushed through the horde, cleaving his sword left and right.

He unleashed hellfire. With a triumphant roar, Timaeus spewed red flame full of swirling amber onto the aliens, and their shrieks announced their deaths, a chorus of them.

Laoko stared at the gold wall, now closed. "I... I didn't know he could--"

"Enough!" Acelina flared her wings, hit everyone with a gust of hair, and grabbed Laoko by an arm. "We have no choice! We must flee. Do not waste this sacrifice."

Sacrifice. Everyone was throwing around that word. But Timaeus and some demons had just literally thrown themselves to their death, for what? A little payback? A chance to have fun and join the violence? Demons did that, got themselves killed doing that, enjoyed violence with no concern for the self, something humans could never do. But that didn't change what was happening.

Timaeus had lost everyone and everything, and he was throwing away the only thing he had left, his life, for a little payback. Or was he really convinced David shouldn't die?

Hands pulled on David, little ones. They tugged on his legs, his hips, the armor, and his staff. The Las.

"Come! David!" Lasca said. "We run!"

Run. Angels and demons were staying behind, fighting, dying valiant deaths, so he could run.

He clenched his eyes shut, turned, and ran after Tacharius and the others. Not easy when his muscles ached, rippling pain coursing through his tendons and bones from Ezekiel's lightning, but he managed. He had to. People were dying, angels he'd just been fighting, and demons he'd never figured in a million years would do something like this.

Valiant deaths. Just words that couldn't ever capture the strange feeling of running away while others died for you.

David looked around. Jes and Daoka were still with Moriah, pulling her from the battle, but the angel wasn't resisting as much anymore. Tears were in her eyes, and anger boiled on her face. Acelina and Laoko followed, the tetrad looking back and pausing, only for Acelina to pull her along. Caera stayed with David, walking ahead, while the Las stayed on David's side and kept him upright.

The edge of the canyon wasn't too wide. For all the chaos erupting from the canyon, it was small compared to the one in Death's Grip. They could jump it, or at least, those with wings could. Tacharius and the group had already gone ahead, were a kilometer ahead down the canyon's side, and had jumped a skinnier section. But David and the girls didn't have time. They--

Before David could open his mouth, Jes grabbed his shoulders, and jumped off the cliff. No words. No breath for words. David collided with the other side of the ravine chest first, and Jes helped him up. Everyone else followed. Caera took a running jump. Acelina glided with Laoko, though Laoko landed like David, chest first into the cliff side, and she had to climb out. Moriah and Daoka got help from the Las, each getting a hand taken by one of the little ladies. Same result. Dao and Moriah collided with the wall, the Las got flung forward over the edge and rolled in the dirt, and their passengers had to climb out of the canyon.

The gold wall of the angel's shattered. Everyone turned and froze as the horde poured over the rapholem, all with their black eyes aimed at David. Every. Single. One of them. Thousands of eyes all honed on David like they were guided missiles. But the moment they made progress, the rapholem reformed. Some flew up from the middle of battle. Others collapsed back from the frontline and formed rank. In a seamless motion of pure efficiency, the rapholem created the gold wall again, and the mikalim with them cut down the aliens that crashed against it.

If David and the group hadn't moved, they'd have been swallowed.

David and the girls scaled the mountain wall, but the mountain turned cliff in minutes, and David fell to a knee, panting. Caera slowed down, nudged against him, and like a hundred times before, he climbed onto her back, but still in his armor. He needed the armor. He needed the staff.

With Caera taking him forward and up, deeper into the scar but higher up the left mountain, he looked back at the chaos.

Ezekiel. The reaper unleashed another arc of his strange, cold, silver energy and the black lighting that crackled along with it. Again, it smashed into the colossal alien that towered over everything, broke through its remaining arm, and crashed into its chest. The alien shrieked again, fell to its knees, and its body landed on the battle with a heavy thud. Titan dead, the reaper turned his attention to the tentacles reaching up from the canyon, and sliced.

"I never imagined," Moriah said, "that a reaper would come to Hell. They... They do not do that. They don't care about the council's orders. They--"

Ezekiel unleashed another blast, and a gargantuan tentacle holding the canyon open split apart. It spewed white blood, and the separated flesh melted away, dissolving in seconds. Ezekiel continued, engulfed his body in silver, and dove for another tentacle, and another, cutting them apart with his sword directly. Each tentacle down shook the underworld with a deathly roar, and a silent shriek that tore through David's mind alone.

The alien swarm poured over the angels, over the demons, and everything disappeared under their strange onyx skin and white blood. Some gabriem flew down and tried to help the fallen, and died for it. The horde grew smaller and smaller, but not fast enough. Ezekiel chopped down more tentacles holding the canyon open, but not fast enough. Angel wings were ripped apart. Flesh, white feathers, and blood soaked the ground. Where aliens died in droves, their bodies, their armor, their weapons, and their blood, dissolved in moments.

Ezekiel cut another tentacle down, and another. But it wasn't until he'd cut almost every tentacle that the music returned. The muting shriek of the presence in the ravine grew weak, and the army of eldritch monsters, what was left of them, were far enough their muting shrieks were dulled.

David aimed his staff at the canyon and plucked the strings as hard as he could. Pain raked through his body. The strings were too quiet. He plucked harder. Nothing. He plucked harder. Nothing.

"David?" Latia asked, voice a whimper. "David. The monsters! They're coming! David!"

He struck the strings until agony scorched his mind, and all he could see was blackness. The tiniest vibration got through.

The presence in the ocean heard him, and closed the canyon.