by Ari Marmell
“That would be my theory, yes,” Death told him.
Dozens of myrmidons began spinning along the paths, newly opened through the field of shrapnel, and then through the door. The first few died instantly, but every time either of the brothers spent too long standing in the doorway, Hadrimon took potshots at them from beyond. Slowly but surely, the chamber began to fill with stone, brass, and blades.
“Scarcely matters how many we kill, brother,” War shouted over the chime and screech of rending metal, Chaoseater whirling in vicious arcs. “If they fill the room with metal, we won’t be able to move. Hadrimon can pick us off at leisure.”
Death, who had already come to much the same conclusion, was crouched behind a circular barrier made of Harvester, spinning double-bladed in one fist. His other hand he held toward the nearest wall, slowly curling his fingers into a twisted claw.
The long bones followed suit, flexing apart like curtains. Death ducked his head and darted through.
Even from here, toward the rear of the structure, he could see a winding line, a veritable river of constructs moving toward the door at the front. Far behind them, half hidden in the soot, stood a stout armored figure that could only have been Belisatra.
The Maker might have been deprived of Earth Reaver, but she’d clearly constructed something else to keep her occupied. Both hands were fixed on some sort of gargantuan cannon, consisting of no fewer than half a dozen barrels, any one of which was more than half the thickness of a Redemption cannon. A pair of mechanical legs supported the front end, providing an aiming bipod when she was still, walking along before her as she moved.
Not a Grand Abomination, no, not even close—but a brutal weapon of war for all that.
Of Hadrimon—and Black Mercy—Death saw no sign at all.
“War?” he called back.
“The damn angel’s in here!” came the shouted reply. “He’s out of reach, but if I can just get through the front ranks—”
“No!” If that idiot even looked like he might prove a threat, Hadrimon would kill him; and this time, Death doubted he’d have either the power or the opportunity to bring him back. “Follow the plan, damn you!”
War squeezed through the newly opened gap, a grumbling mass of crimson and steel. Behind, they could already hear the sounds of blades against bone. Hadrimon, no doubt, directing the constructs to dig through to the hidden portal. A few of the myrmidons also pushed through the hole in the wall, but War dispatched them swiftly enough.
So far, Belisatra and the bulk of the army still outside hadn’t noticed the two figures emerging around the back—thanks, in part, to Ruin and Despair, who were still keeping their attention along the flanks—but it could only be a matter of time.
“How long are you prepared to leave Hadrimon in your home?” War demanded.
“I’m … not sure,” Death admitted. “It should take awhile to penetrate the last layer of wards on the portal to the Vault, but I don’t know how long. If we have to go back in there, we’ll be easy targets, but—”
Something squawked in the sky above. Plunging from the clouds in a steep arc, Dust fluttered past the Horsemen just long enough to be certain they’d seen him, and then was off once more into the drifting ash.
“Oh, good,” Death said, relief obvious in his voice. “The demons are here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HADRIMON STRODE THROUGH THE HORSEMAN’S PATHETIC little domicile, surrounded on all sides by Belisatra’s metal soldiers. Already they’d smashed apart the far wall as he’d directed, revealing the portal he’d worked so hard to claim.
A shame, really, that Death hadn’t chosen to remain and defend the Vault to—well, to the death. Hadrimon, even through the haze of generalized wrath and loathing that now formed the entirety of his waking world, held a special fury for the last surviving Firstborn Nephilim. Death had robbed him of the Ravaiim blood. Although he and Belisatra had swiftly found a way around that loss, it had cost him one of the greatest of the Abominations; and would, as his campaign progressed, cost him more. For that, he would see Death perish—in agony, if at all possible.
But not yet. Hadrimon leaned in to examine the prize his minions had uncovered.
He knew he could open the portal. He had a strong mastery of such magics, and where his rituals proved lacking, the Grand Abominations themselves could guide him. The problem would be reaching the portal itself, for he knew that Death would never have left it accessible.
Indeed, what lay revealed amid the crumbling bone was some sort of shell. It glinted, reflecting peculiar colors at peculiar angles that seemed only tangentially related to the surrounding light. Combine sheets of flame with layers of shadow, compress them into solid crystal, and the result might be something resembling what the angel saw before him now.
“The direct approach,” he growled, either to himself or to the uncaring constructs around him, “would seem the best.” From only a few paces away, he aimed Black Mercy at the crystalline shell and fired.
This was not, perhaps, the use for which the horrid pistol had been intended. Nevertheless, a slender chip broke from the crystal; a spindly crack ran from the point of impact to the many-faceted edge.
Already, through that single tiny fault, he could feel the unearthly presence beyond—the vast emptiness and semi-reality of the Vault itself, and the roiling hatreds of the Grand Abominations. They’d teased and caressed his soul from the very beginning, but never, never had they felt so clear. He burned in a furnace of the spirit, and though he writhed internally, he knew it was only purging him of weakness and doubt.
It would take time to punch through that shell, even with Black Mercy, but time he now had. Even if Death and War had not fled far, with his constructs to all sides and Black Mercy to hand, Hadrimon knew he could easily repel them—probably even kill them—should they again interfere. He raised the triple-barreled weapon of meat and metal, fired again, and again, and again …
“Hadrimon!” It was Belisatra’s voice, transmitted through several of the nearby myrmidons at once. “You’d better get out here.”
“Not now, damn you! Whatever it is, deal with it!”
“You need to get out here now!”
Spitting vile curses in languages both living and dead, Hadrimon yanked Affliction from its scabbard and passed it to the closest construct. “Keep hacking at that!” he ordered as he turned away. No, Affliction wasn’t one of the Grand Abominations, but maybe it was strong enough to do some of the job while he was solving whatever problem his partner was too incompetent to handle.
Wings pressed tight to his body, struggling to keep from shooting everything in his way, the angel pushed through the throng of myrmidons to the front door, stepped out into the gray light of the ash-smeared sun …
And froze, gawping.
Constructs swept across the plains, blades slashing and stabbing. Belisatra stood atop a small dune, lobbing shell after shell from her fearsome cannon. But it was not the Horsemen with whom they battled!
A horde of demons, nearly equal in size to the one they’d faced on the Ravaiim homeworld, ravaged his forces from all sides, struggling to reach the edifice of bone. Knights of Perdition on their hellish steeds rode through and over the myrmidons; shadowcasters hurled fire that melted any construct it touched; flaming stone claws and Phantom Guards’ axes rent metal into scrap.
For the first time, Belisatra’s forces were growing thin. Constructs fell, and no more appeared to take their place. The Maker’s army had finally, finally reached its limit.
No matter. They’d done their job.
Hadrimon took aim from the shelter of the doorway and began to fire. Black Mercy bellowed, monsters fell. So long as the myrmidons held out long enough to keep the demons from swarming him, this was just another inconvenience, no threat at all.
The barrels drifted as he took in the field, seeking his targets—and there was the most perfect of all! A single demon standing near the rear, different from all the
others, shouting commands to its grotesque soldiers. Take out the leader, perhaps the rest would …
It was a thing of nightmare, a demon in the truest sense. More than twice his own size and blue as suffocation, it was all obscene muscle and ravaging talons, sweeping tail and wings so twisted and broken they hung upside down from its back. Scattered across those wings like mange were rough patches of feathers, made all the more horrid by their pristine, ivory gleam. Curved horns swept from the back of its head to frame a waxy face that might once have been beautiful.
The demon turned that pallid visage his way, perhaps sensing his scrutiny—and Hadrimon dropped to his knees, howling like a child.
He knew her. No matter how her time in Hell, her resentment, her hatred had twisted her into something foul and profane, he knew her. He always would.
“Raciel … Oh, Creator …”
Raciel shot skyward, then landed in an eruption of ash before the kneeling angel. Bestial claws and twisted wings lashed out, shredding the nearby myrmidons. Though the battle raged on around them, for a moment they occupied their own bubble of relative calm.
“You recognize me. I’m truly touched.” Her voice was, by far, the most awful thing about her—for it, alone of all her traits, remained as sweet, as pure, as when she’d been a lovestruck angel of Heaven.
“How could I not? However long we’re apart, whatever they’ve done to you, I—”
“They?” A gnarled, chitinous hand snapped shut around the angel’s neck; piercing talons of bone scissored open and shut before his face. “They, Hadrimon? They didn’t do this to me alone, my love.” The venom oozing from that last word could have stricken entire realms. “They aren’t why I’ve suffered so …”
Hadrimon’s entire body quaked. Tears coursed unashamedly down his cheeks, etching abstract designs through the ashen coat. “I did this for you, to save you, to punish all who—” He swallowed hard. “All others who did this to you.”
“Oh, my angel.” Raciel’s grip loosened, cupping his chin rather than his throat, gently guiding him to his feet. “You still can. We can punish them together, Hadrimon. Heaven and Hell will burn before us. All I require …”
The demon’s other hand unfolded, presenting an empty palm.
“… is the Vault. Surely you can do that, Hadrimon? You can do that for me?”
“I …” Creation wavered before his eyes, the urges of the Grand Abominations grappling with desires long buried within his psyche. “I …”
Slowly, the fingers clutching Black Mercy began to slacken, the hand to rise toward Raciel’s own.
CURSING UNDER HIS BREATH, struggling to maintain control over his boiling blood and surging anger, War redoubled his efforts. Chaoseater was a machine, a force of nature, never stopping, never slowing; Ruin, with whom he’d reunited, was a juggernaut of crushing hooves. Brass and flesh, bones and cogs, blood and oil all marked the path of devastation they’d carved through the ongoing melee. And still War had not yet reached the angel and the demon who loomed before his brother’s threshold.
For an instant it had almost seemed that Raciel would do part of the job for them. But no, she had stayed her hand; Hadrimon lived.
Not that the idea of one of the Lost with Black Mercy was any more appealing than its current wielder.
Cursing Heaven, cursing Hell, cursing Death’s plan, cursing Death himself for darting off on his own, the youngest Horsemen spurred his mount through demon and construct ranks, desperate to reach the true enemy before things fell apart any further …
“KEEP AWAY FROM HER!”
Belisatra’s shout may or may not have been audible over the general bedlam, but the twin cannon blasts that detonated at the demon’s feet, hurling the creature headlong across the battlefield and Hadrimon into the bone wall, conveyed the message clearly enough.
That besotted idiot was about to ruin everything!
She sprinted through falling debris, the mechanized legs that supported the sextuple barrels struggling to keep pace. Neither her speed, nor the occasional leap to carry her over craters in the ash, was remotely equal to those exhibited by either of the Horsemen—but given her heavy armor and stocky build, they remained impressive enough.
The Maker slammed to a halt beside the building just as a battered Hadrimon was hauling himself upright. “What the hell are you doing?” she screamed at him. “It’s a damn demon! No matter what she used to be, or what you think she used to be, you can’t believe a bloody word she—”
Hadrimon smacked the cannon from Belisatra’s hands with an abrupt thrust of a wing; the bulky weapon spun an almost graceful pirouette on one leg before toppling. The Maker’s jaw clacked shut almost hard enough to break the bone as Black Mercy’s barrels slammed into her chin. She could feel the slick surface of the unblinking eye between those barrels, moist against her skin.
“You’ve no idea! You cannot possibly comprehend what we had! What she was, what she’s been through!” The angel’s trigger finger literally quivered. “I can’t … They’re all in my head, I can’t …”
“Hadrimon, she—”
“Say one more word against her!” A horrid wheeze drifted from the barrels, as though Black Mercy itself were panting with desire. “One more!”
Belisatra swallowed past the pain. “Do not think, then. Do not doubt, or worry, or wonder. Seize the Vault, Hadrimon, as you always meant to. Master the Grand Abominations, and you can make it all stop while you figure everything out. You can be in control.”
“Yes …” Belisatra almost stumbled as the pressure of Black Mercy vanished from her jaw. “The Vault … Need to get into the Vault … Tell Raciel I’ll be …” Hadrimon turned and stumbled back through Death’s door. He mumbled and staggered, but the hand that held Black Mercy was now as straight and steady as the finest anvil.
He was losing it; she’d known it was happening, had even felt a bit of it herself when wielding Earth Reaver, but she’d had no idea how bad it was getting. It might be just about time to abandon the mad angel and claim the Abominations for her own.
After he brought down the barriers, of course.
Belisatra lifted the massive cannon from the ash and steadied it, fully prepared to obliterate anyone who so much as glanced her way.
Or so she thought, until she heard the fearsome grunting of an enraged warhorse, and saw the mounted, crimson-cloaked figure looming from the haze …
RACIEL HEAVED HERSELF FROM THE DIRT, shrieking her fury for the world to hear. Smoke poured from her chest, her left arm and wing; her left eye was gummed shut with humors that only vaguely resembled blood.
But already, the pain was starting to fade. It took more, far more, than the Maker’s little toy to kill a Lost Angel. The bitch had unleashed hell—literally—and would suffer for it. And then Hadrimon; oh, she had plans for Hadrimon, entertainments that would spawn legends even amid the torments of the Pit …
Beyond the great demon, one of her soldiers rose from behind a dune of ash, where it had waited out much of the battle. A shadowcaster—the same, in fact, that had alerted one of Raciel’s Knights of Perdition, and then Raciel herself, to the Abomination Vault’s location—wound through the murky air, closing in on its mistress.
If she noted its presence at all, she ignored it. Why should she not? It was, after all, one of hers.
Even as the corrupted angel tensed, prepared to take to the sky once more, the shadowcaster lifted an arm—and a blade of gleaming silver that seemed to have appeared from nowhere at all. The demon began to ripple and flow, an illusory guise shifting from one false form to another, as the burning sword fell …
HADRIMON STOOD TALL in the center of Death’s home, firing Black Mercy at the crystalline shell, again and again. The barrier had worn thin; the emanations from within flared, burning his eyes, his mind, his soul, until nothing else remained. If someone could torture the gibbering voices in a madman’s head, the resultant agony and fury and hate might have felt much the same.
So
intense was his focus, his determination, his lunacy, that it was several moments before a rational thought was able to worm its way through the carapace encasing his awareness.
Where are the myrmidons I left here?
Tearing himself from the agonizing, irresistible call of the Grand Abominations—so close, now, so close!—he glanced swiftly around the chamber.
Chunks of rock, slivers of brass, even the broken shards of Affliction. He’d stepped right over them in his delirium and never noticed. But then what—?
With a sudden scream, Hadrimon hurled himself up and into the low ceiling, wildly firing Black Mercy at nothing and everything, filling the chamber with projectiles. Harvester flashed through the space he’d just vacated, close enough to sever several feathers from the angel’s wing.
DEATH FELL BACK WITH A GRUNT, Mortis barely catching three separate teeth that would otherwise have shredded flesh and bone. An icy shock ran through his arm and across his chest, staggering him, as flashes of Black Mercy’s power penetrated the shield. Mortis quivered, and he felt the surge of power through the half-dead Abomination, but it appeared to have no effect. Either Black Mercy was somehow shielding Hadrimon from its retaliation, or the thing was finally reaching the end of its lingering power.
The Horseman found himself hunched amid the same pieces of wrecked constructs beneath which he’d been lying in wait. Should have struck sooner, you fool! But he’d wanted to be certain the angel was well and truly distracted by his task …
He straightened, scrambling for better footing. Harvester was now a pair of scythes, one in each hand, ready to strike or to hurl at need. Hadrimon hovered in the far corner, neck bent against the low ceiling, feet hanging almost to the floor. He had no room to maneuver, no sky in which to climb. Smiling grimly behind his mask, Death let the rightmost scythe fly.
With impossible speed, Black Mercy tracked the spinning blade, guided by its unblinking eye, and shot Harvester from the air.