by Larissa Ione
Hawkyn swallowed, knowing the correct answer but not wanting to say it. Hell, he didn’t even want to think it. But if he wanted his father to give Cipher even half a chance, he had to.
“If Cipher has turned evil,” he said, “I’ll put him down myself.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Alarms blared as Cipher and Lyre crept through the ice hallways and narrow, winding stairwells of Bael’s castle. Armored Ramreel guards charged toward duty stations, exits, and Bael’s residence, their crude axes and spiked maces clutched tight in their meaty fists. They weren’t specifically searching for Cipher yet, but it wouldn’t be long before Bael filtered through the chaos and realized that only Cipher could have been responsible for the failure of not only the security system, but the downing of the soul barrier as well.
“This way.” Lyre tugged him down a corridor lit by flickering torch sconces that cast snarling, demonic faces in shadow. “There’s a side door. We can take the staircase into the outer dungeons.”
“Dungeons?” He glanced over his shoulder at a Ramreel that had followed them into the passage. Maybe it was coincidence. “Isn’t that what we’re trying to avoid?”
“There’s a tunnel from there that leads into the Bowel Mountains. Once we’re out, if the barrier is still down, I can flash us out of Bael’s territory. If the barrier is up again, we’ll still be ahead of his troops, and I know where we can access a Harrowgate that’ll get us into the human realm.”
A horde of several species of demons rounded the corner ahead, the leader’s dozens of eyes lighting up when he saw them.
No coincidence there.
“Shit!” She pulled him down another hallway. “Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?”
“Run fast.”
He hated that plan. They took off at a dead run, the demons closing the distance behind them way too quickly.
“Hurry!” he shouted, putting on a burst of speed as the sound of snapping teeth rang out so close to his head he felt hot breath on the back of his neck.
“Out the front,” she yelled. “We can lose them in the chaos.”
Ahead, the giant double doors were open. Beyond the doorway in the courtyard, confused demons milled about beneath decorative corpses swinging overheard.
Cipher risked a glance behind him and instantly regretted his mistake. The number of pursuing guards had doubled.
He summoned the precious remains of his power, holding it at his fingertips and ready to strike. He was weaker without the wings, but even now he could feel the increase in control. A tradeoff, but really, in a fight it might be better to have uncontrolled strength than controlled crumbs of power.
This was not going to be a piece of cake.
But if they made it out of this alive, he was going to ask Suzanne to make one to celebrate.
They burst outside, jumping into the midst of hundreds of beings who clearly had no idea what was happening but wanted to be in the middle of the action.
Demons were stupid.
“There!” Lyre pointed toward the bridge that spanned the lava moat. “Once we’re across, I can flash us out of here.”
Okay. This might work. Hope trickled through him.
And then he looked up and jerked to a stop. “Oh, shit,” he breathed. Oh, fuck.
“What is it?”
“The spells. They’re not down. Azagoth can’t get help in here and we can’t get out—”
A massive explosion rocked the ground ahead. The bridge collapsed as giant boulders of rock and ice spewed into the air and cratered all around them, crushing demons, carts, and the stands where they sold their wares.
With shrieks of terror and pain all around, Cipher knocked Lyre to the ground, covering her with his body as debris rained down. Basketball-sized chunks pummeled his back and legs, but he’d survive. Unlike that poor bastard with his hooves sticking out under a Volkswagen-sized block of ice, his blood spreading in a pool beneath him.
“I will slaughter you where you stand!”
Bael’s voice, sounding way too close, froze the blood in Cipher’s veins. He leaped to his feet, heart pounding and pushing that frozen blood like slush that left him feeling like shit was in slow motion.
A crack of thunder shattered his eardrums a split-second before a lightning strike sizzled through him, paralyzing him where he stood. Agony became everything, his feelings, his thoughts, his vision. Because apparently, you could see pain. It was red and shiny and twisted as fuck.
Distantly, he heard Lyre’s shouts for mercy. Not mercy for her. Mercy for him.
“Stop,” she yelled. “I’ll do anything!”
“Yes,” Bael hissed. “You will.”
No! Cipher inhaled, coughing on blood as he staggered forward blindly, his only goal to reach Bael and choke the life out of him with his bare hands.
He heard a grunt, a thud, and suddenly the electrocution stopped. His ears rang and white spots floated in his vision, but the pain died to a dull roar, and as his eyes focused, he saw why.
Lyre had tackled Bael.
But she’d paid for it, was now trying to pick herself up off the ground, blood pouring from her nose and ears. Bael laughed as he punched down, hitting her in the back of the neck and dropping her as if she’d been hit with a bolt.
His fist tangled in her hair, and he brutally wrenched her head up, putting his mouth to her ear. Cipher couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he heard Lyre’s cry of terror.
“Bastard!” Cipher roared in fury and released the first weapon that came to mind, a barrage of voracious summoned demon locusts that swarmed Bael in a whirlwind of teeth.
Bael howled in pain as he was cut to ribbons, giving Lyre a chance to push to her feet.
“Come on!” Cipher held out his hand to her. “Hurry!”
She started toward him, but suddenly, the locusts fell dead. Son of a bitch! The locust swarm had drained his power by half, and Bael had circumvented it as if the locusts had been no more than a nuisance.
Bael, his ire taking on a life of its own, transformed, his body tripling in size, his skin hardening into black armor, his face taking on nightmarish, oversized features and teeth the size of Cipher’s fingers.
They couldn’t score a freaking break.
With the very last of his power, he blasted Bael with his ice melt weapon, encasing the bastard from head to toe. “Lyre, run!”
“No!” She sprinted toward him, and he wanted to scream at the futility of it. She couldn’t help him. She’d just die with him.
“Go!”
A detonation of ice sent piercing shards into the demons who had gathered to watch, and by some miracle both he and Lyre had escaped unscathed. Some of the demons dropped dead while others hit the ground and thrashed in pain. Still others ran.
Bael, completely ice-free, roared in fury and blasted Cipher and Lyre with some sort of weapon that sliced a million tiny cuts into the skin and peeled it away.
Agony became the very air Cipher breathed, and through his own shouts of misery, Lyre’s screams punched through, flaying his insides as well.
“You’re going to die,” Bael shouted above the thunder that rolled in from the blood-red storm clouds above. “You’re going to die, and then I’m going to feed your souls to my Orphmage while I dine on your flesh.” The fallen angel sauntered toward him. “But not before you get to watch what Moloc and I do to your precious Lyre.”
No. Please no...
Darkness started to fall. Maybe not in the realm, but in Cipher’s head. He couldn’t lift his arms, his legs, his head. Hell, he could barely open his eyes.
He saw Lyre writhing on the ground, and his heart, already riddled with wounds, bled. Tortured by the sight, he put all of his strength into reaching for her. If he could just touch her...
A demon shrieked and ran between them, nearly stepping on his arm. Then another. All around, terrified wails rose up. Suddenly, Bael spun around, his attention and restraining powers no longer focused on Cipher
and Lyre.
What the hell?
Groaning, Cipher glanced at the sky. The spells...the spells had broken!
Something, or some things, were attacking the demons, and for the first time, Bael looked afraid.
“Lyre,” he croaked as he pushed himself to his hands and knees on shaky limbs.
She looked over at him. Looked at Bael.
And then she looked back at him again, determination mirrored in her glittering eyes. What was she going to do?
“Lyre?”
She vaporized into a puff of smoke, and before he could even blink, she shot into Bael’s nostrils. His eyes popped wide and he grabbed his throat, choking and gagging.
And Lyre, that wily little angel, had left the aural on the ground.
Cipher staggered to his feet. His legs were rubber and his steps leaden, but he managed to palm the aural and somehow make it to where Bael was struggling to exorcise Lyre.
Clutching his throat, Bael wheeled around to face Cipher, the hatred in his expression making his face bulge grotesquely. He lifted a clawed hand, shocks of electricity sparking between his fingers, and Cipher knew that this next blow would kill him.
There was no time left.
He lunged, slamming the aural into Bael’s chest.
And nothing happened. The weapon slid uselessly off his armor.
Fuck!
Still coughing, Bael grinned, raised his hand once more.
Then, from out of nowhere, a transparent gray, shapeless form wrapped around Bael, its eyes empty, its mouth screaming silently.
Bael’s scream was not silent.
One of Azagoth’s souls. Way to go, Hawkyn!
Lyre’s vapor form ejected from between Bael’s lips as the fallen angel returned to his original, angel-sized body. He writhed in misery as the soul spun around him, doing whatever it was souls did.
But no, that soul wasn’t going to claim this kill.
This kill belonged to Cipher.
With a battle cry soaked in vengeance, Cipher buried the aural in Bael’s heart. This time the weapon slammed home.
Bael gasped as his body shuddered and convulsed, smoke rising from the cracks forming in his skin. The sizzle of burning flesh accompanied his death cries, and the evil inside Cipher was transfixed by it all.
Finally, as Lyre wrapped herself around Cipher and held him tight, the fucker collapsed.
Bael was dead. The monster who had terrorized this region of Sheoul for eons was gone.
Somehow, they’d survived this, but Cipher still had one more monster to face, and his name was Azagoth.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Azagoth hated waiting.
People were always amazed by his patience, but they only saw what he wanted them to see. His exterior was very much different than his interior.
Inside was a high-strung, restless beast that didn’t like to wait for things like vengeance. Or pleasure.
At least now that Lilliana was home, it didn’t have to wait for the latter. Her presence had soothed the monster until now, as he waited for news coming out of Sheoul. He’d sent hundreds of souls to destroy Bael, and with any luck, Moloc would be with his brother as well.
But so far his griminions hadn’t brought him their souls. They’d delivered dozens of other souls they’d reaped from Bael’s realm, but not the ones Azagoth wanted.
This was taking too long.
A massive power surge forced the hair on Azagoth’s neck to stand up, and before he could even blink, another, equally powerful wave of energy slammed into him.
Fuck.
Reaver and Revenant had just popped in for a visit, and Azagoth had no doubt that this wasn’t going to be a friendly one.
Which meant that he was going to meet them in the place of his choosing, the place that gave him a strategic advantage.
He threw open his office door just as Zhubaal skidded to a stop in front of it. “My lord—”
“I know. Send them to the Inner Sanctum.”
Z jerked. “M-my lord?”
“Do it. And send someone to keep Lilliana occupied. I don’t want her near Reaver or Revenant.” He doubted either male would harm Lilliana, but he wouldn’t put it past them to use her in some way if they had to.
“Yes, sir.”
Quickly, he went through the passage to the Inner Sanctum, and within moments of stepping across the threshold, Hades materialized.
“Hey, boss man,” Hades said, his blue Mohawk cut close to his head today. “Who are you here to torture?”
“I’m not torturing anyone. We’re expecting guests, and we only have about sixty seconds to prepare.”
“Guests?”
“Reaver and Revenant.”
Hades’s eyes shot wide open. “But won’t their presence weaken the veil between Sheoul and Sheoul-gra?”
“I’m counting on it,” Azagoth said. “They know they can’t destroy me here without blowing out the barriers and releasing millions of demon souls.”
There was no way either angel would risk that. The resulting chaos would spread quickly, affecting not just the demon realm, but the human one as well. They wouldn’t stay long, either, knowing that their mere presence would burn holes through the veil like acid.
Hades nodded. “Understood. I’ll put my repair crew on standby.”
“No.” Azagoth glanced over at the portal the angels would be coming through at any moment. “I don’t want you to fix any damage their presence causes.”
“The fuck you say?” If Hades had ever been more stunned by anything, Azagoth wasn’t aware of it. He cleared his throat and added a hasty, “My lord?”
Not in the mood to either explain his command or be questioned about it, he snapped, “Go. They’ll be here in a moment.”
Hades popped his wings and lifted off just as Reaver and Revenant stepped out of the portal.
Reaver stalked toward him like a bull, his expression shadowed with fury, his pristine white and gold wings flared high above gleaming crimson and gold armor. Revenant flanked him, his black and silver wings folded tamely against the backplate of his light-absorbing ebony armor, but there was nothing tame about his bared fangs. Both angels were prepped for battle, and Azagoth flooded his body with power in response.
“I warned you not to release souls.” Reaver’s voice, singing with strength, vibrated the very air. “I warned you not to kill Bael.”
Guilty as charged on point A. But point B was a bust. Not for lack of trying though. His disappointment in not being brought Bael’s soul was almost crushing.
“Chill the fuck out, boys,” Azagoth said. “If Bael was dead, his soul would have come to me, and I’d be dissecting it right now.”
Sure, it was possible that another incredibly powerful demon or fallen angel had destroyed or devoured his soul, but the odds of that were so low as to be preposterous.
Reaver looked out over the stark terrain of what was basically the antechamber to the rest of the Inner Sanctum, and Azagoth wondered if he noticed the demons in the distance, slowly moving toward them, drawn by the power emanating from the two angels.
“You’re wrong.” Reaver turned back to Azagoth. “Griminions couldn’t have harvested his soul. He and his brother Moloc were...aberrations.”
Azagoth scoffed. “What do you mean, aberrations?”
“They’re twins,” Reaver said. “But they are one.”
Revenant’s head cranked around to stare at his brother. “Say what?”
“They share a soul,” Reaver explained. “To kill one of them means reuniting their two halves and making the remaining ‘brother’ whole. And much, much stronger.”
Well, wasn’t that interesting. Azagoth had succeeded in killing Bael’s physical body. Unfortunately, the fucker was still alive inside another body, and even stronger than before.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“You couldn’t have shared that information sooner?” he gritted out.
Revenant jabbed Reaver in the shoulder. “No s
hit.”
Reaver glared at them both. “I didn’t know either, assholes. I just found out a few hours ago when I looked them up in the Akashic Library.”
Man, Azagoth missed the Heavenly library that contained details about every human, every event, every thing in the history of the universe.
“So?” Revenant crossed his arms over his chest, his spiked gauntlets clanking against his armor. “What’s their story?”
Azagoth was curious as well. Not because he gave a shit, but because information was a weapon.
“Apparently,” Reaver began, “their split-soul is why they were banished from Heaven as the youngest angels in history. According to the texts, they were devoid of empathy, and they delighted in hurting others. Humans, animals, other angels. They were going to be executed, but Moloc escaped. Bael couldn’t be executed for fear of reuniting the souls, so the archangels cut off his wings and kicked him out. Moloc performed a ceremony and his own wingectomy, and he fell too. Both joined up with Satan, and here we are.”
Minor setback. Azagoth just had to kill Moloc now. MolocBael? BaelMoloc? Whatever. Minor. Fucking. Setback.
So why didn’t it feel so minor? Alarm bells were ringing hard on this.
“Listen to me, Azagoth,” Reaver said. “I know you killed Bael. You fucked up. Don’t do it again. Don’t kill Moloc.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll cease to exist.”
Klaxons joined the alarm bells, and an entire symphony of warnings vibrated his body now. “You’re threatening me?”
“No, Azagoth, I’m telling you.” Reaver’s voice went low, ominous, his wings quivering with the force of it. “If you kill him, all that you know, all that you are...will be destroyed.”
Sudden fury seared Azagoth’s veins, hot and potent. “Do you not understand what Bael and Moloc want? They want Satan freed and Revenant deposed, and they’re killing my family to make it happen!” He rounded on Revenant. “Why can’t you do anything about this? You’re the fucking King of Hell. Surely you’re not going sit back and lose your throne to an insurrection.”
“Oh, I have plans for Moloc,” Revenant drawled. “I’m more concerned about you.”
“Isn’t that sweet.”
