by Matt Turner
“Thanks.” She coughed.
“Don’t mention it,” Seth said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“Heaven-man!” a voice called out from the cloud of dust and smoke that had enveloped the street. “Peace! I want to talk!”
Vera gritted her teeth. Giles. She could recognize the voice of that miserable Prophet anywhere. This is taking too long. She turned her attention back to the direction of John and Legion. It seemed that the spider had somehow wormed its way free of the branches that John had impaled it with; the battle was not going well. We need to get over there NOW. An idea slowly came to her as the airship above fired down another barrage.
“I wish only to stop Legion and prevent Cain’s escape,” Seth shouted back. “I have no quarrel with you, sinner.”
“Of course,” Giles replied smoothly. “Peace and stability is all I’ve ever wanted, Ambassador of Paradise.”
“You know you can’t trust him, right?” Vera whispered.
“Of course I know that,” Seth muttered. “You’ve taught me that lesson well, Vera.”
His words oddly stung, but now was not the time to dwell on past mistakes. There was not enough time to properly explain her plan, so she simply took his hand and reached for his mind. She felt him stiffen at her touch, but as her words reached him, he nodded his acceptance.
“Promise me one thing, Vera.” Seth turned so that his piercing eyes were fixed directly with hers. In spite of herself, she couldn’t help but feel a little flutter of nervousness at his gaze. “Don’t let them deploy the Hellfire. There are millions trapped within Legion. Their fate is Hell enough already.”
“I don’t repeat my mistakes,” Vera growled. When Seth raised an eyebrow, she flushed. “No more than a few times.”
“One more thing,” he added. “I can’t fly.”
“What? Aren’t you supposed to have wings in Heaven like all those angels and fat cherubs?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Seth said drily, “but we’re not exactly in Heaven.”
A gust of wind slammed into them as Leviathan flapped his mighty wings once. The cloud of dust immediately dissipated, revealing the dragon-like demon and the two Prophets upon its back. Vera did not recognize the pretty one wrapped in layers of silken scarves, but Giles’s disgusting locust-ridden form was easily recognizable.
Leviathan opened his massive jaws. “You look just like your brother, Heaven-man,” the demon said in a low, rumbling voice. “Which of Eve’s spawn are you? Abel?”
“Silence, devil,” Giles snapped. He slid down one of Leviathan’s wings so that he could begin to approach Vera and Seth. “I have a message for your God,” he said as he drew closer. “You gaze upon the new King of Hell. Cooperate with me, Heaven-man, and perhaps one day we can unite our two realms once again. For the first time since Eden, all humanity will be united. One afterlife, one God, one peace.”
As the Prophet drew nearer to Seth, the locusts in his hair began to squirm about. A handful began to frantically scurry up and down his throat, zooming about like mad dogs. Vera could practically smell the excitement and tension brewing in the disgusting insects. This is the part where he betrays us, she whispered into Seth’s mind.
I know, he replied. He placed a hand on her shoulder; she was amazed at the incredible strength of his grip.
“I already have the reply,” Seth said. “And I think that you and every other damned who has ever existed already knows it.” He slipped his other hand down to Vera’s waist. What is he doing? “The Gates of Hell are locked on the inside.”
Giles’s false smile immediately withered away. “Die then,” he snarled, and he opened his robes to reveal the mass of scurrying, hissing insects that covered every inch of his skin. The swarm rushed forward as Leviathan opened his mouth, ready to unleash another blast of fire—but Vera could not see it anymore, for Seth’s grip on her tightened as he lifted her bodily into the air—
And then, with the power of a cannon, he threw her.
33
Lao didn’t have the foggiest fucking idea where a tree the size of a skyscraper had sprouted from, but Legion had not taken kindly to it. “NO FLESSSH!” their central mouth bellowed in indignation as they wrapped half of their limbs around the tree’s base and violently bit into its trunk. “FILTH!”
“Look out!” Lao screamed as above them, the upper canopy of the tree reached down—and with branches that looked strangely like arms, it stabbed deep into Legion’s soft, squishy body. One of the branches, as wide around as a wagon, stabbed into Legion’s flesh a bare five meters from where the Prophet held Lao. He yelled in terror as the jagged branch, covered with thousands of barbs and thorns, stabbed into Legion’s torso. As Legion squealed and thrashed about, the branch carved a bloody swathe through its torso, one that was heading straight for Lao—
The flesh beneath Lao trembled and twisted as Legion manipulated their form. Lao heard a distant crash as they allowed several of their impaled limbs to simply fall away—and then Legion’s central spider-torso burst outward in a twisting spiral, with Lao at the very tip. Leaves and branches tore at him as the tendril wrapped up and around the tree’s trunk over and over. Vines and thorns exploded from the tree trunk, stabbing and carving at the snakelike column of flesh twisting up it, but Legion had adapted. Lao felt the flesh beneath him stiffen and harden—he looked down to see that the previously soft skin was tightening with a layer of a hard white substance.
Bones, Lao realized as a thorny branch clawed at Legion’s body and accomplished nothing but leaving a few scratch marks on the scale-like skin. Somehow the monster had taken the skeletal material of the countless civilians they had consumed to forge a tough layer of armor to protect itself. Dear God, are they fucking invincible?
A series of deep cracks echoed from within the depths of the tree as Legion fed more and more of their body into the armored tendril that snaked up the plant, enclosing it in coil after coil of powerful muscle. “No-flesssh,” Legion snarled. “We HATE no-flesssh!”
Almost over now, Lao thought. With the Prophets gone, and the tree almost cut down, it looked as if there were no possibility of outside help—he would have to do this on his own or face the Master’s wrath. The very thought of that was all the motivation he needed, and so he began to shift about, hoping that he could somehow free his arms of the flesh-vise that Legion had them locked in.
“Why do you sssquirm, little fly?” The mouth close to him chuckled. “You are already in our web.”
One arm, Lao prayed. One arm and five seconds—that was all he needed, all that stood between him and the right hand of the Master! But it was no use. Legion’s grip was far too strong. He gazed out over the broken, shattered city in despair, and as the flesh-snake coiled up higher and higher, he suddenly glimpsed something—a burst of flame in an otherwise empty street. Leviathan, he realized. What in the hell was Salome doing, dicking around when Legion was on the verge of consuming the entire Kingdom?
Think, damnit, he told himself. Salome had to be battling the Horsemen, but there was no way he could turn that to his advantage—Legion seemed to be focused on sheer numbers than going after any of the Marks just yet. There had to be something he could say, some way he could distract the abomination!
An artillery shell hurtled down from the sky and glanced off Legion’s armor. Before it could detonate, Legion extended one of the legs that still remained from its previous body, wrapped a tendril of flesh about the shell, and hurled it up into the upper branches of the tree. Splinters of fiery wood rained down, much to Legion’s delight.
What do they want? Lao had manipulated others his entire existence; surely he could figure this out! What do they—
A branch came down, trying to pry Legion’s body away from the trunk, but Legion only wrapped their coils of flesh even tighter. A very human-like groan of pain came from the tree as a tremble passed through its entire body. “SSSCREAM FOR USSS!” Legion’s voices mocked. “NO ESSSCAPE!”
“What?” the mouth whispered. “Ssshow usss!”
Just as he had hoped, the flesh around his arm retracted, allowing him to point a shaking finger at the distant battle in the streets below. “See that? The Prophets are trying to capture him now!”
“No,” Legion muttered. “No, no! The heaven-man isss OURSSS!” With the speed of a jet, the front of the snake-tendril hurled itself out into the air.
Lao let out a scream of sheer terror as they plummeted a hundred meters to the ground—the crash of Legion’s body against the concrete would have turned his body to pulp, but Legion shifted its grip on him so that he was riding on the top of the snake-head. Every bone in his body trembled with the impact, but Legion did not slow down for an instant.
“HEAVEN-MAN!” they squealed as their body shot forward through the rubble. “TOGETHER WE SSSHALL HAVE PARADISSSE!”
34
The swarm of locusts hurtled at Seth, frantically hissing and buzzing in a cacophony of sound. But he was even faster than they; his flaming sword became an orange blur that tore the insects apart like a meat grinder. In an instant, a pile of their dead bodies lay at his feet, but he was already rolling to the side, for the locusts had merely been a distraction. He was immediately proved right by the column of fire that Leviathan fired directly at his previous position. Flames scorched the side of his sleeve, but it didn’t matter, for Seth had already bounced back to his feet and charged forward.
Abaddon’s swarm shifted to envelop him from four directions—both flanks, forward, and above—but Heaven’s warriors confronted their problems head-on. Seth plunged into the depths of the swarm, his blade singing with heavenly glory as he slashed, stabbed, and hacked his way through the mountain of insects. Not one will touch me, he vowed, and his sword made it so.
“Salome!” Giles shouted. Seth could hear a trace of fear in the voice of the self-proclaimed “Prophet” as his swarm was cut to shreds. “The fire!”
“Right,” she yelled back.
A burst of flame shot through the swarm, incinerating countless locusts as it wrapped around Seth’s body. He grimaced in pain as everything around him became ash. And still, Leviathan’s fire came, roasting him for an entire minute. He fell to his knees and let out a scream as the heat consumed him.
“Welcome to Hell, Heaven-man,” Salome called out mockingly as the jet of flame emerging from Leviathan’s jaws finally died away.
Seth let out a gasp of pain. Even with the powers granted to him by Paradise, everything hurt. Most of his robes had been burnt away, and his skin was covered in patches of weeping blisters and half-burnt flesh.
“They’ve gotten soft in Heaven since the First Rebellion,” the dragon-demon mocked.
“He’s only human, Leviathan.” Salome placed a beautifully manicured hand on the top of her demon’s head and gave him an affectionate scratch. “Let’s give him another taste of Hell.”
“I don’t know which of you is the worst.” Seth coughed. He plunged the shaft of his blade into the ash-ridden dirt about him and used it to weakly pull himself up. “You—” He wrenched the sword out of the ground and pointed it at Salome. “You murdered one of the holiest of the Father’s prophets. And you”—he turned his attention to Giles, who stood there, eyeing him clinically—“even for fallen mankind, you set a new low for evil.”
“You’re giving us a lecture on morals in the middle of a fight?” Salome laughed. “Seriously?”
“Maybe they haven’t changed that much after all,” Leviathan reluctantly admitted.
“Whatever. Leviathan, roast him again.”
As a general rule, Seth disliked violence. But in this particular instance, he was more than willing to make an exception. Giles was closer, albeit protected by a swarm of locusts, so Seth sprang forward. This time he made no effort to avoid the insects; he let their bodies crash and shatter against his powerful leap as he tore through the insectoid wall that clawed and bit at him, the blade of Heaven pointed directly ahead, ready to be buried up to the hilt in the Prophet’s chest—
He and Salome noticed the approaching beast at the exact same moment.
“UP, NOW!” Salome screeched, her eyes as big as dinner plates. With a mighty flap of his wings, Leviathan shot up into the air, a bare second before the mile-long snake would have collided with it. Just in front of Seth, Giles imitated the gesture as Abaddon’s locusts coated his body and transported him away.
For his part, Seth turned midway through his leap, wrenched his sword back, and somehow managed to land on his feet to face the oncoming tendril of flesh that was the size of a locomotive. He had a brief glimpse of its gaping maw—big enough to swallow an entire house—and then his instincts told him to dodge NOW. He rolled out of the way and slashed his burning blade forward.
The edge of his blade sank into the very corner of Legion’s monstrous mouth—and then the blade went farther and farther, carving a deep furrow into the abomination’s body as their own momentum carried them past Seth. By the time the snake crashed to a stop among the rubble, his heavenly blade had given it nearly a hundred extra yards of smile.
Poor damned souls, Seth thought as he looked at the eyes that gazed hungrily at him from every inch of Legion’s scaled skin. His sword made a wet sucking sound when he wrenched it out of the snake’s pulpy innards. “I will free you if I can,” he promised the watching eyes.
A pair of lips emerged from a patch of leaking intestines that had spilled out onto the dusty ground. “Heaven-man,” they whispered. “We are here to free you!”
They began to chuckle, then giggle, then laugh manically. Seth took a step back as the laughter spread up and down Legion’s body, from the tip of their head to the tail-like structure that still grappled with John’s tree over a kilometer away. The monster’s skin morphed and twisted, allowing countless faces to emerge from its depths. Man and woman, old and young, every shade of color…they all stretched their mouths so wide open that their skin began to tear as they laughed harder and harder, until it seemed that all Hell echoed with their insane amusement.
“We will free all of you,” they said together when the laughter died down. “From Judecca to Paradissse. From Hell to Heaven. From Earth to the Void.”
A hundred tendrils of flesh emerged from the line that he had carved into Legion’s torso, stitching it back together. The ground trembled and shook as the snake reared its head high into the air so that it could gaze down upon him.
“All flesssh,” they promised. “Every sssingle ssscrap. Every. Lassst. One.”
Can’t let them get the advantage of height, Seth decided. He glanced upward at the airship, which still seemed to be focused on leveling the city. Hope I didn’t miss. But if anyone could do it, it was Vera. He had never met a woman quite like her before; she was a special kind of—
Legion’s snake-head snapped open and shot forward to engulf him. It sprouted a dozen tongues that whipped and clawed at the air, trying to prevent his escape, but a single slash of his blade was enough to get through them, and he easily leapt onto Legion’s torso. The head whipped around, following his movement. He feinted forward, and Legion lunged, burying an army’s worth of human molars into their own flesh.
All around him, arms began to emerge from Legion’s tough skin. Too many to run through, he judged, and so he leapt downward, carving out a great coil of meat and muscle with his blade as he did so. Legion tore their central mouth free of their own body and let out a shriek of anger that shattered the few remaining windows in the vicinity.
Seth laughed. “You’ll need more than that to beat a heaven-man, monster. I don’t think there’s enough of you to handle me.”
Need to keep it distracted, he thought. In truth, there was no way he could possibly beat such an agile, resi
lient opponent; Legion had consumed so many already that for every limb he cut off, they could easily grow a hundred more. Come on, Vera…
To Seth’s surprise, the arms that Legion had grown on their body stiffened and turned a dull-white as the fingers lanced out into jagged spikes. Replacing them with bones, he realized. With such a jagged forest covering their skin, his sword was now practically useless; he no longer could even reach the soft flesh underneath.
The snake-head’s maw curved upward at the corners in a horrific imitation of a smile. “We ssshall chew you firssst,” Legion promised. Row after row of teeth, each the size of a man’s forearm, sprouted from their bleeding gums. “You will hurt.”
“I’m certainly in the right place for it.” Seth sighed. He raised his blade, ready to slash it at the most dangerous opponent that he had ever faced. Vera, hurry up…
35
Fuck you, Seth, fuck you, fuck youfuckyoufuckyoufuckyou. Vera opened her mouth to howl out the curses but all that emerged was a hoarse scream as she hurtled like a rocket into the skies. Somehow she had enough awareness left to keep her arms and legs pinned together to maintain her trajectory, but everything else was a blind blur of adrenaline and sheer terror. A single sentence traced across her scattered brain: FLY, not THROW, you fucking prick—and then the shadow of the Kingdom’s airship emerged from the pillars of smoke ahead of her. She had a brief glimpse of a hundred gun ports, a vast expanse of steel-gray fabric, and a single word etched upon the massive vehicle’s flank: Titan.
