by SM Reine
Her fingers trembled as she strapped on her gilded breastplate and hurried out of her chamber, sword drawn. Michael was away in Caesarea. So were Nathaniel, Laila, Raphael, and most of their garrison. Both Heavenfire Division and Talon Division had gone to kill Angor, leaving only Shield to guard the fort, a third of their usual force. Of course Beelzebub would attack now.
Bat El rushed down the tower, raced across the main hall, and burst out into the courtyard. Demon wings and smoke darkened the sky. Countless demons glared above her, eyes burning, leathery wings churning smoke. Their stench, like burning meat, filled her nostrils.
“Rally here!” Bat El cried to those angels she spotted. She saw maybe a hundred angels upon the walls, another hundred battling demons in the air. More angels were emerging from the fort, but they were confused, outnumbered. I’m the highest ranking angel here, Bat El realized with another chill. She had never felt more alone.
As demons were landing on the walls, angels rallied around Bat El. She spread her wings and took flight. “Follow me,” she shouted. “Knock them off the towers!”
Pillars of flame burned in the landscape around her, hiding the sky behind black smoke. Between swirls of ash, Bat El flew toward the fort’s tower, where her chamber was located. Demons covered the tower, entering the windows. Bat El and her angels slashed their swords, yet more demons descended around them. One demon clawed at her, scratching back the gold on her breastplate, revealing the steel underneath. In midair, Bat El swung her sword, slicing off the demon’s head with blazing godlight. The demon’s head tumbled to the distant courtyard.
Bat El glanced around. She felt herself pale, and her heart thudded. There were tens of thousands of these demons, and there—behind them, floating under the ashy swirls—Bat El saw a fallen angel. Beelzebub.
“Into the fort!” she shouted. The demons were inside already. She couldn’t let them take the fort. I’ve been on Earth for only a few months. I can’t let Michael down already.
She flew through the tower window, but few angels remained to follow. Most were battling demons in the sky, or lay dead upon the ground. We are overrun.
Inside her chamber, more demons lurked, eyes blazing. Bat El and those few angels with her slashed their swords, forcing their way down the tower staircase. Into the fort’s main hall they fought, only to find a thousand demons filling it. The demons had already torn down the tapestries and shredded the towering painting of Michael.
Beelzebub himself stood in the center of the hall, angel bodies at his feet. Until today, Bat El had never seen the fallen angel, the new ruler of Hell, but she recognized him at once. He looks so much like his brother Michael.
Of course, Michael had swan wings, and Beelzebub’s wings were like those of a bat. A halo lit Michael’s head, and Beelzebub sported fangs and claws instead. Michael was a being of light, Beelzebub a creature of darkness. Yet still... Bat El saw the same power in their eyes and stance, their ancient armor, their casual confidence mixed with the jaded weariness of their age and endless war.
“I think I’ll place my new statue here, right in the hall,” Beelzebub was saying when he noticed Bat El. His dark eyes locked with hers, and Bat El felt a tremble run through her. Laila used to be his lover, she thought, shivering.
Beelzebub smiled. “You must be Gabriel’s daughter,” he said, walking toward her. “You look a lot like him.”
Bat El stood before him, claw marks in her breastplate, demon blood coating her drawn blade. “And you must be Beelzebub,” she said and hated that her voice sounded so weak. Michael had left her in charge of this fort, to defend it in God’s name, and this was all she could say? If Michael were here, he would have killed Beelzebub on the spot; even Laila might have. Yet she, Bat El, could only stand helpless, sword drawn, no idea what to do next. Guilt filled her. I let Beelzebub take our base. I failed God.
Beelzebub seemed to read her thoughts. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and Bat El could not even shove him away; his eyes seemed too sympathetic.
“There is nothing you could have done, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Don’t feel like you failed my brother. It was his failure for leaving the fort with inadequate defenses. He was so excited to have Laila with him, that he erred. It’s not your fault.”
She was alone here, Bat El realized. Those few angels who had entered the fort with her lay dead, sliced open by demon claws. The sounds of battle were fading outside; the ancient Shield Division had cracked and lay shattered across the ruins and beach. Heaven ruled this fort for fifteen years, and it falls in fifteen minutes.
“Are you going to kill me now?” she asked, and instantly regretted it. It made her sound young and scared. When she landed on Earth a few months ago, Bat El had thought herself a great warrior of God. She now felt callow as a cherub. Beelzebub must think I’m a child.
Yet if Beelzebub did mock her inwardly, he showed no sign of it. He took a handkerchief from a pouch on his belt and wiped a smear of blood off Bat El’s lips; a demon must have bashed her, drawing blood she did not notice in the heat of the battle. Beelzebub’s fingers brushed against her cheek, and Bat El hated that she found his touch soft and warm. Those hands would once touch Laila.
“No, I won’t kill you, Bat El. You know I won’t.”
She forced herself to look away from him. Of course he’ll take me alive. I’m Gabriel’s daughter. What better bargaining piece?
She lowered her head. I won’t let him capture me. Michael would never let himself be taken alive. Bat El tightened her lips, then screamed and slashed her sword at Beelzebub.
6
Clouds of demons surrounded Laila and the angels among the ruins of Caesarea, a maelstrom of scales and claws. Flames left the demons’ mouths, and their fangs bit into angels. The angels shot back with spears and blasts of godlight, and the ruins trembled under the smoky skies.
As the battle raged, Laila stepped away, leaving the angels behind in the sea of demons. When demons flew her way, she knocked them aside with blasts of bullets or thrusts of her claws. She had her own business here, and it wasn’t killing shades. She, Laila, had come to fight her own battle, and that battle waited underground.
Volkfair killing demons around her, Laila soon found a hole in the ground. An iron trapdoor covered it. A bomb shelter, she knew; the humans had built many during their wars before Armageddon. Laila fired at the demons around her, knocking them aside, then pulled the lid off the bomb shelter.
The demons kept buzzing around her, clawing and snapping their teeth, annoying like mosquitoes. Laila felt her anger rise. I’m wasting ammo on them. With a snarl, she waved her hand, and a ring of fire burst around her, crackling. The demons sizzled and screeched, and the walls of flame rose around Laila, for a moment shielding her and Volkfair from the demons.
She knelt by Volkfair. “You’ll have to wait for me here,” she told the wolf. “You can’t climb down the ladder or tunnels, and I can’t carry you while holding my gun.”
For the first time since she’d known him, Volkfair growled at her. His eyes said, I’m not leaving you.
“You brought me this far, Volkfair,” she said, “and I don’t just mean from the fort to these ruins. You brought me far on a long journey that started years ago, but here’s one step I must take alone. Stay here aboveground, Volkfair. Stay here and protect Michael; he’s going to need it, and I’m going to need him.” She kissed the wolf. “Kill lots of demons for me.”
With that, she leapt into the hole, plunging into darkness, wings pressed close to her sides. She heard Volkfair howl mournfully above, and then blackness overcame her, muffling all sounds. Laila fingered her jerrycan of gasoline. I’m going to need this.
In the dusty bomb shelter, the fire of her eyes and halo illuminated canned goods, a few gas masks, a scorched crib, and several skeletons. A human family lived here, Laila thought. They must have fled here just as Armageddon began twenty-seven years ago. They hadn’t lasted long; most of the canned goods had never been ope
ned. This bomb shelter must have served the family well during the human wars, but when demons come to the world, underground is the last place you want to escape to.
Confirming her thoughts, Laila spotted a hole carved into the floor, roughly hewn by demon claws. She entered the hole, feet first, and began climbing down, digging her claws into the walls for support. The tunnel was narrow, and Laila folded her wings against her. The sultry air smelled like smoke and sulfur, and grumbles and creaks sounded deep below. These tunnels would run miles underground, Laila knew. She had seen too many demon hives in her life.
The tunnel curved after a hundred yards, and Laila found herself crawling on her belly, her Uzi held before her. Soot covered her. She could hear nothing of the battle aboveground and wondered how long it would last. The dwellers of these tunnels had emerged to fight, but when their battle ended, they would swarm through the hive, and there were more demons than Laila had bullets. I have to hurry.
All tunnels would lead to Angor, she knew, crawling through the darkness, ash murmuring beneath her knees and elbows. Thus were Hell’s hives built; the King Archdemon dwelled in the deepest, largest cavern, feeding on rock and lava, spewing lesser demons to become his troops.
Archdemons. Laila shuddered, still feeling the pain of Zarel’s claws on her shoulder. I hate archdemons. The last one she’d fought—Zarel—still unnerved her. Laila had glimpsed Angor once against the night sky, when she was a girl, seven or eight years old. She had been living in the forest and hunting boars. A shadow had covered the stars, and the owls and jackals fled. Laila had looked up and seen a serpentine creature, fiery, black and burning in the sky. Its screech tore the night, and Laila froze in terror, wishing she had never fled those humans who had tended to her; she had never felt such fear. Years later, still haunted with nightmares, Laila learned that had been the night Beelzebub summoned Angor to emerge from Hell and join the war against Michael.
Laila shoved the memory aside. I’m no longer a frightened girl living in the forest. That was twenty years ago, and I’m a grown woman now, a legend. She smirked. Some legend. If anyone ever glimpsed the pain, doubt, and fear in her heart, they would no longer tell stories of her might.
The tunnels were getting narrower, the creaking and cackling louder from below. The heat of underground fires brought sweat to Laila’s face, dampening strands of hair that clung to her brow. Just as she thought the tunnel would become too narrow to travel, it opened into a rough, round chamber. Laila stood up and stretched, rubbing her muscles. She surveyed the chamber in the light from her flaming eyes. She grimaced. A nursery.
The demon maggots lay piled against the walls, slimy with black ooze. Each maggot was the size of a rolled-up sleeping bag, soft and semi-transparent. They were sleeping, writhing softly. Disgusting, Laila thought. Hundreds filled the room, and in several weeks, they would sprout fangs and claws, then finally grow wings and join Beelzebub. The room stank of them, like rotting fruit.
Once she took over Hell, Laila would need troops, but not yet. Not yet. These maggots were Angor’s spawn, loyal to Beelzebub. They would have to go.
Laila uncorked her jerrycan and sprayed gasoline over the piles of demon maggots. They awoke, squirming and screeching, opening toothy maws. When the jerrycan was empty, Laila tossed it aside. It clanged.
Two adult demons burst into the chamber. The nurses. Laila had expected them, and she leapt up, swooped down, and tore out their throats. The demons crashed dead against the floor. Laila wiped her hands against her pants. She hated dirtying her hands with demon blood—the stuff stank—but firing her Uzi would not do in a room soaked with gasoline. She stepped out from the chamber into the next tunnel, turned around, and tossed back a stream of flame from her fingertips. The piles of maggots caught fire. They screamed as they burned, wriggling.
This new tunnel was tall enough that Laila could walk upright. As she stepped away from the burning nursery, a great howl came from miles below. The entire hive seemed to tremble. Laila smiled. Angor sensed his children dying. He would be expecting her now. Good. Let him await me, let him stew in his loss for a while. She wanted him to know she was coming. If her plan was to work, that could only help.
Down the tunnel Laila the half-demon walked, the maggots screaming and burning behind her, a small smile on her lips, her wings unfurled, her claws dripping demon blood.
In the next chamber she entered, a dozen demons tended to barrels of bloodwine. They saw her and hissed, eyes flaming. Laila’s Uzi rang out, lighting the chamber, sending demon bodies to crash against the walls. Soon blood covered the room, and Laila kept walking, her smile widening. The blood only made her hungry for more killing. The old bloodlust always made her smile, even as a child hunting in the forests.
In deeper chambers, fires burned, shrieking over pools of lava, feeding the columns of flame that burst aboveground to cover the sky with ash. More demons lived here, and Laila moved from chamber to chamber, firing. She soon emptied her tenth magazine. She had only three left, but she was close now, so close she could sense the beast below, smell it.
Down more tunnels she climbed, into the heat and blackness, the darkness a living thickness around her, caressing her skin. She was miles underground, not far from Hell itself. This place was almost like Hell. Laila bared her fangs and licked her lips.
She was crawling down a sooty tunnel when Angor’s growl sounded below, loud now, shaking the caverns. He can’t be more than two hundred yards away, Laila thought. She dropped through the tunnel into a towering, wide cavern, holes littering its floor. Demons covered the walls, hundreds of them, red eyes glinting. Their hisses rose, so loud it hurt Laila’s ears.
Her halo of fire burst into flame, crackling, and she spread her wings, baring her fangs, eyes aflame, claws glinting. The demons shrieked and cowered.
“Laila has come!” they cackled, a thousand voices. “The half-angel, yes comrades, Laila has finally come to us. We have been waiting for you, Laila.”
Laila spun her arms, igniting a ring of fire around her. She flapped her wings, rising from the flames, sending sparks flying. “I have not come for you, shades,” she shouted. “I come seeking your father. I come to see Angor.”
A growl came from a large hole fifty yards from Laila. The room shook, and flames flew from the hole, spewing ash. Angor is down there.
She flew toward the hole, and the demons shot toward her.
Laila emptied her eleventh magazine, killing several demons, then clawed at a hundred others who mobbed her. She had no time to reload; the demons clawed and bit. Shades—the lesser demons—could not cause much harm to one such as her, a child of Lucifer. Yet Laila knew that even she could die from a thousand cuts. She growled and clawed at them, yet for every shade she killed, three more appeared, blocking her way to Angor.
She tossed flames across the room. “Angor!” she called. “Are you such a coward that you will not see me?”
His growl shook the chamber, and more fire lit the hole.
“I come with an offer,” she cried over the din of demon hisses and crackling flames. “Call off your servants, or all will know that Angor the archdemon feared to speak with Laila the half-devil.”
The demons paused their onslaught, glancing at one another, panting. Laila breathed heavily. Several cuts covered her, beading with droplets of blood, and the cuts from Zarel’s claws had opened on her shoulders. Not a problem. Laila had fought with greater wounds before.
Finally Angor’s voice came from below. It sounded more like an echo than a voice, deep and rumbling, as if the caves themselves spoke. “Enter my chamber. We will talk.”
Laila tightened her lips, trying not to remember the one time she had seen Angor, the nightmares it had placed in her seven-year-old mind. The demons scuttled aside, hissing at her, eyes burning. The hole into Angor’s chamber lay dark before her, unguarded. Laila loaded another magazine into her Uzi, yanked the cocking handle, and leapt into the hole.
+ + +
Whe
n Bat El lashed her sword at him, Beelzebub reached out and blocked the blade with his arm. The blade clanged against the iron vambrace on his forearm, chipping off pieces of its golden filigree.
Bat El stood before him, eyes wide, mouth open, looking shocked that her attack had failed, or maybe shocked that she had attacked him at all. Beelzebub lashed out, grabbed her wrist, and squeezed. Bat El gasped in pain. Her hand opened and her sword clanged at her feet.
Still clutching her wrist, Beelzebub raised his other hand, ready to strike her. She only glared back at him, not cowering, and Beelzebub lowered his hand slowly. He sighed.
“Don’t do that again, Bat El,” he said. “This armor is over two thousand years old. The best blacksmith in Rome forged it. You know how hard it is to repair?”
Bat El tried yanking her arm loose, but Beelzebub held her fast. She struggled for a moment longer, then capitulated.
“I don’t want to chain you,” he said. “I don’t want to send you to some prison cell, to bars and torturers. So please, don’t fight me. I am not your enemy.”
“So who is my enemy?” she demanded, blue eyes flashing. Her cheeks were flushed, and strands of her long blond hair peeked from her helmet, sticking to her face with sweat. She’s not all that bad looking, Beelzebub thought.
“Why, God is, of course,” he answered.
She glared at him, cheeks flushing even pinker. “Do not speak of my lord that way.”
“You can’t even speak his name, can you? He demands total subservience from you, and blind faith. Lucifer and I realized early that in Heaven, we were living in a tyrannical dictatorship.” Beelzebub sighed. “I tried to get Michael to join our rebellion. If he had agreed, we might have won. We might have ended things five thousand years ago, and avoided this war now altogether.” He shook his head, clearing it from thoughts. “But that’s a conversation for another time. Michael will be back soon, and we have defenses to prepare. Let’s find a comfortable place for you.”