by Cate Corvin
I’d seen this sort of oily black armor before, and very recently; I wouldn’t have recognized it otherwise. But my Chainlings had hung the bodies of warriors belonging to this sect from hooks in the ceiling of my arena.
The Sin Eaters, Mammon’s loyal knights.
They smelled like spoiled meat, the reek much stronger now that they were uncovered. Bits of scalp with the hair still attached hung from their armor, and one of them wore a necklace of fingerbones.
It was impossible to see what they looked like behind the blank helmets they wore. One of them gripped a heavy sword, the edges notched and still stained with old blood, but two held warhammers with ends like iron thistles, deliberately spiked with hooks that would rip flesh from bone.
“Lady Wrath,” the middleman said. His voice had an almost metallic grate to it.
I’d known as soon as they emerged that there was no talking my way out of this. It was fight or die. “That’s me.”
“You are responsible for the plotting and death of Prince Mammon.” He took a step forward, swinging his warhammer as lightly as a feather. “The only repayment is your death.”
The faintest shine of yellow came from behind the eye sockets of his helmet. I swallowed the dryness in my throat that had nothing to do with the heat of the wastelands, willing my hands not to sweat.
My shoulder still ached, and I wasn’t completely confident in my recently healed wing, but it would have to do. I needed height and leverage over them if I didn’t want to end up a vulture-picked corpse out here.
“You’ll have to work for it.” I shifted my weight to my toes. If I unfurled my wings now, would the bandages come loose, or was my wing too tightly bound?
The one slapping the blade of his sword against his palm sounded like he was smiling when he spoke. “We intend to.”
He would be the fastest of them all, with much less weight to encumber him. Without skipping a beat, I drew my arm back and flung the throwing knife.
It buried itself deep in one of the sockets of his helmet with a wet squelch. Blood burst over the rim of the opening, running downwards in greasy streaks.
He paused mid-step and reached up. I watched with a sick sort of fascination as he pulled the blade out of his skull with a grunt and looked at the blood smeared on it before letting it drop to the ground.
Fuck.
I pulled the ebonite dagger from my thigh sheath, and it was the sight of the matte black blade that finally slowed them a little, but not for long.
As I’d guessed, this was a suicide mission. Even if they had to fight to the last man, they’d go up against anything if it meant avenging their beloved dead Prince.
It was a strange that they held such loyalty for the man who’d ruled Treachery.
They spread out in a fan, intending to circle me. I took short, sharp breaths, unable to watch them all at once, unable to fly without knowing how long I could remain in the air.
A breath of wind whistled in my ear, along with the soft rush of a warhammer through air. I ducked low and the barbed end sailed just over my head, ripping out a few strands of my hair as it passed.
I thrust backwards blindly, using the momentum to avoid the hammer blow coming from the front, and felt the ebonite dagger punch through metal and meet the soft give of flesh.
The Sin Eater behind me gasped. I ripped the blade away and spun around him, kicking up a torrent of sand with my heels.
One gloved hand was pressed over his belly, but the blood was an endless torrent, soaking into the sand at his feet.
“Work for it,” I whispered, and slashed upwards, finding the thin line where his helmet and cuirass were separated and digging in deep with my blade.
I felt the satisfying scrape of my dagger on the bone of his spinal cord, and the Sin Eater dropped like a sack of bricks, spilling his lifeblood out into the wastes.
“Are you sure you want to keep going?” I spread my arms wide, flicking blood off my knives. “This doesn’t end well for you.”
There was one perk to being a small human-born angel in this world. Nobody here took me seriously.
That was their downfall.
The Sin Eater with the sword laughed. “We want to keep going. We won’t stop until we’ve skewered you.”
He kept the insults going in a stream after that, naming all the ways in which they were planning to gut, skin, and mutilate my body. I nodded like I was listening, but my eyes kept moving, taking in all the weak points: their armor was flimsy and thin. The leader with the warhammer tended to favor his left side and had a slight limp, and the bloodthirsty fucker with a sword was now blind on his right.
I jerked to the side when the asshole lunged towards me, barely missing my side with his wild swing. A warhammer came crashing down, and I danced to the left, moving downhill with the flow of the sand.
Never bring a dagger to a swordfight. I would’ve happily given my left arm for a whole and intact Sword of Light at this moment. The first Sin Eater had been stupid enough to give me an opening, but I was going to have a Hell of a time getting within their long reach.
I reached up and yanked my hairpin out, skipping backwards to avoid another swing of the warhammer.
“You can’t dance all day, bitch.” The swordsman descended, raising his blade and bringing it down in a mighty stroke.
The tip grazed my arm, ripping through my sleeve and opening a line of red on my flesh. I drew in a hissing breath, losing all grace for a moment in my scramble to get out of reach, and the pain was a white-hot brand against my skin.
But I still had my arm, and that was the main point. I jabbed and sliced at his exposed side, jamming my hairpin in his shoulder, but the Sin Eater whirled around and kicked sand in my face, temporarily blinding me.
I snapped my wings open as hard as I could, hearing splints snap and bandages rip, and burst upwards.
A distant ache traveled through the bones of my wing, but the asshole missed with his next swing. I heard him curse as I wiped sand from my face, letting tears well up to wash it out of my eyes.
I didn’t have much time before the ache became real pain, but now we were fighting on my terms.
I ignored his threats to rape me with the sword as I took stock. I had the ebonite blade, but I needed more length.
There was a dagger that bordered on being considered a short sword in my left thigh sheath. I pulled it out and traded it to my right hand, considering how best to drop on him.
The Sin Eaters circled beneath me, their taunts running dry. I was sure they weren’t lacking for insults, but rather they knew I would tire soon. My splints and bandages lay across the sand, clear evidence that I wouldn’t be remaining up here for long.
A distant shadow caught my eye. I just needed a little more time.
But first off, I wanted to take out the Sin Eater who thought threatening to rape me was a good idea. Very bad idea, bitch.
Pumping my wings as hard as I dared, I began to circle overhead like a vulture awaiting a meal, forcing them to move around to keep their eyes on me. It was easy enough to coast on the breeze every half-circle, resting the unused muscles in my shoulder, and when the swordsman took a step back, steadying himself… I knew it was my time.
I shot forward, pushing myself harder and harder, and pulled sideways, banking unexpectedly.
He was still turning to catch up when I plunged, landing with my heels on his shoulders and driving the long dagger straight down through the top of his skull with a sharp crack.
We went down hard under the force of impact. I flapped to catch myself and keep from flying face-first into the sand, but his corpse toppled facedown. I left my dagger where it was, buried in his head.
The leader let out a low growl, slowly swinging the hammer like a pendulum and letting it build up speed.
I straightened up and faced him, smiling.
“What do you have to smile about, cunt? Let’s wipe it right off your ugly face.” A howling sound filled the air as he began whipping the
warhammer harder, preparing to smash it into my skull.
A golden mountain crested the dune behind him, spilling downwards with liquid grace. The Sin Eater snarled something else at me, but his words were lost when Belial’s jaws descended and clamped around him.
The warhammer flew from his hand and buried itself in the sand. My mate’s aqua eyes were sparking pure fury as he growled, the rumble rolling across the wastelands like thunder.
Only the Sin Eater’s jerking legs were visible, sticking out from between enormous ivory fangs. Belial bit down.
There was a neat crunch of breaking bones. The legs fell to the ground, followed by a spill of guts and blood.
Belial spat out the Sin Eater’s upper body. The demon knight was still moving, covered in blood and saliva, but trying to crawl away with frantic movements.
My Prince looked at him contemplatively, then put a massive paw on him and pushed down.
When he lifted it, the Sin Eater was no longer moving. He didn’t look much like a demon anymore either, more like a wet red pancake of armor and flesh.
“HE CALLED YOU A CUNT.”
I sheathed my ebonite dagger and picked my way around the bodies to hug Belial’s cheek, rubbing my face against his soft fur. “I’m sure I’ll be called worse things, and I’m sure you’ll flatten them for it.”
“IF THEY EVEN LOOK AT YOU WRONG, I WILL EAT THEM.”
“That’s disgusting.” I kissed the broad plane on top of his nose. “I have to kiss that mouth.”
A tall shape stepped around Belial and I jerked back, but forced myself to calm down and stay put. My mate wouldn’t have allowed any unseen stragglers to survive.
Instead, I was greeted with a surprising sight: Adranos, the new Prince of Treachery. His black horns gleamed like the obsidian of Dis under the crimson sun, matching the same velvet black of his hair and leathery wings.
“Lady Wrath,” he said, inclining his head. I made myself give him a shallow bow; he was, after all, a Prince now.
A Prince in the exact same boat as Tascius, now that I thought of it. Two Nephilim with very different bloodlines, finding themselves forced into new roles because of that blood.
I hadn’t given Adranos so much as a thought since the fateful day Satan had escaped.
He nudged one of the Sin Eaters with the toe of his boot. “I’ve been tracking my father’s loyalists. These ones got away from me.”
“They’re a slippery sort,” I agreed. And now they were extremely dead. That’s what they got for threatening me with rape.
Adranos glanced at me with his warm almond eyes, and then away. He didn’t seem to like direct eye contact for long. “Have you found any sign of your friend?” he asked. “I mean, your succubus friend. The girl like the moon.”
I stared at him for a moment, my heart contracting. The girl like the moon. Even Vyra, with her dislike of men, might’ve melted a little bit over that.
And it was kind of him to think of her. He didn’t know her name or who she was, but he’d cared enough to ask.
“I think we have. We’ve got a good idea of where to look now.”
Adranos nodded again, his lips set in a flat line. “That’s good. I hope you find her.” He paused, looking over the other corpses. “I talked to Leviathan. The assassin was another one of mine. I apologize for that.”
I rested on Belial’s snout, keeping one hand curled into the thick mane near his cheek. “There’s nothing to apologize for. You’re made a Prince under… um… extraordinary circumstances.”
It felt odd to be so close to apologizing to him, for giving my condolences that he’d needed to slaughter his own father.
But I had the distinct impression that like killing Gabriel, killing Mammon hadn’t exactly been a source of disappointment. Adranos’s entire life had been predicated on being the son of Treachery; he’d as much as said at the meeting of the Princes that he expected no one to trust him because of it.
In my humble opinion, he was worth every bit of it. He hadn’t failed us when we’d needed him, and he couldn’t control every demon in the Circle. He’d have to weed them out just like we were going to weed the deposed king.
“You want help bringing them back?” I asked, wanting to make some sort of peace offering, but of course the only offering I could think of would be gory work. “You could make a nice warning sign out of the leftover pieces.”
Something that might’ve been a smile touched his face, there and gone in an instant. “No. Let the wastelands have them.”
I went and gathered Capheira from the top of a dune, where she’d taken shelter from the fight, and led her back to Belial. Tiredness was finally starting to eat at me after a whole day under the endless sun.
I didn’t turn to look back at the bodies. The desert could have them.
And no one would ever think of them again.
17
Lucifer
I woke up elbow-deep in a corpse.
It wasn’t like surfacing from a deep sleep. One moment I was gone, and the next moment I blinked, and my consciousness surfaced with a gasp.
My hands were warm, painted up to my biceps with slowly congealing blood. The scent of copper and ashes filled the air, so thick and choking that not even the slight breeze could wash it away.
I looked up from my grisly task, still gasping for breath like I’d been drowning, the absence of pain a total shock to my nerve endings.
There were mountains around me, jagged and pointing to the sky in spikes. I knew this land: Irkalla. Everything was so dark a black it almost looked like the obsidian of Dis, but it lacked the warmth of the stone of my home, and piles of gray ash had swept up against the crags.
I was on one of those crags. The body in front of me was still warm. A demon, his eyes already glazing over, a ring of small horns circling his brow.
A deep puncture wound had been gouged deep into his chest. The charred marks and burns surrounding it told me exactly what had killed him.
I had. Those were the marks of my light. I took a deep breath, almost wiped my face with my hand, and remembered at the last moment that I still had blood all over me. Instead I blinked the ash away.
I didn’t remember doing this. I didn’t remember much of anything from the last… how long had it been? Days? Weeks? I remembered plunging into the Pit, breaking the barriers between Satan and the fury of Dis, and then… agony.
Blinding agony, and nothing else.
For several long minutes I just stared at the corpse, willing the memories to resurface. They were faint and foggy, but I knew why I was here, mutilating this demon…
Because he was a puppet. A flesh-and-blood glove for Satan to wear. My father’s might was massive, but he was ungainly in his draconic form. He was easy to find, harder to hide while he licked his wounds.
He’d wanted a new body to wear.
Because there was someone else with us.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut for a moment, my hands shaking as another memory surfaced.
I’d attacked Melisande. I still felt the vibration of my spear crushing through the delicate bones in her wing. My stomach heaved and I swallowed hard, replaying the image of her tumbling into the abyss, her face frozen in shock and pain.
One of them would’ve caught her. They had to have caught her. There was no possible way she was dead, because I could’ve sworn I’d felt her since.
I’d seen her in front of my eyes. Of course I’d reached out, intending to remove her from the world permanently as instructed, but she’d been standing here, in Irkalla, her eyes huge and the violet of her hair like a beacon in the darkness.
It wasn’t possible, but… I’d still seen her. I’d swear on it.
She was alive.
I clung to the thought like a talisman. If Melisande was still alive, then I had something to live for. Because the idea of taking the knife in my hand and driving it into my own neck, depriving my father of his toy, was all too appealing.
I sat back on my
heels and wiped as much blood off my arms as possible, revealing the spiraling marks on my arms.
They were darkening, the scarlet fading into black. It was too much to hope for that Satan had just suddenly dropped dead, but for a little bit, I had my own mind back.
Which meant I had work to do.
He wanted this body as a puppet to live and play in. I’d give him a new puppet, but it would be an unsatisfying shell to live inside.
I gripped the knife and climbed over the demon’s body, maneuvering his stiffening limbs.
Then I started slicing.
When I was done, I leaned back on my heels and looked at my handiwork. I’d cut away everything he might use to harm Vyra: the claws ripped from the fingertips, the forked tongue, but the largest wound was where I’d cut away his cock.
I dropped the knife, cupped my hands, and summoned my burning light into existence before pressing it to the corpse’s wounds, cauterizing them.
By the time I was done, the body looked nothing like the demon it had been before. It was a disgusting charred mess.
And to think this monstrosity would be even worse once Satan’s darkness infected it.
I sheathed the knife, picked up the corpse, and flung it over my shoulder. I had a few memories of traversing this way while in the grip of the soul-bond, laying traps for demons all over the mountain range, so I knew exactly which way my father and Vyra waited.
I flew up over the mountains, cutting through the ash that caked my wings and turned them dusty and gray, and it was easy enough to find the crevasse where my father had taken refuge from the sun.
After all, it was hard to miss a dragon the size of a mountain. And there was the ledge with the cavern, where we’d been living like outcasts…
I dropped to the ledge and lowered the body to the ground. There was so little time before Satan woke, and while I was free, I had too many things to do and not enough time to achieve them all.
I strode into the cavern, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.
It was shallow, barely a shelter against the endlessly falling ash, and a small figure huddled in the farthest corner.