Scattering outward from the central design, carvings warned of some sort of disaster. Broken, bowed, and fighting stick figures, a sun hidden behind darkness, crops bent and flattened, destruction and crumbling buildings. I swallowed hard. This was a bad idea. This was a very bad idea.
"So what do we do?" Caleb asked.
I didn't answer him right away. Kibs had said it took an angel, a demon, and a human cooperating. He said it was in our blood. Something natural, something instinctive, something that we knew by nature? That seemed unlikely. We'd already know it if that was the case. If he didn't mean that, did he mean it literally?
It's in our blood. I slapped my hand against the Gates. "That's it."
"What's it?"
"It's in our blood!" I repeated the thought flickering through my head.
"In our blood?"
I formed claws on my left hand, slashed my right palm open, forced ichor to pool in my palm. When there was enough, I slapped my palm to the upper right point of the triangular carving. The stone was warm to my touch. My ichor smoked and hissed and the stone suddenly became hot. I jerked my hand away. "There's power in our blood. It just didn't make sense until I saw this. Caleb, upper left! Tink, lower point!"
"You really have lost it," Caleb said. He watched my ichor start to trickle down the carved line between my circle and the bottom of the triangle. "If your ichor and my purity mix-"
"It'll open," I said.
"It'll explode!"
"It'll open! Trust me!"
Caleb muttered something, maybe a prayer, then manifested his sword and squeezed the blade. Purity dripped from his hand and he slapped it to the upper left circle. The stone soaked his offering in, hissing and steaming just as mine did. The trickle started, rolling down to the lower point.
We both looked to Tink, who had already dropped to one knee, red blood cupped in her hand. "This is a stupid idea," she said without looking up. "And you're both idiots. It's been fun."
"If you say so," I said. Caleb just smiled.
She smacked a bloody handprint against the lowest circle. Just as with ours, the blood hissed and smoked. Nothing else happened. "That's it?" she asked.
I watched the trickle of my ichor, and the trickle of Caleb's purity. "Wait for it."
My ichor reached the lower point first, mixing with her blood, the scent of sulfur suddenly strong enough to make us all step back. Heat rose from the stone, a palpable wave, driving us back even further. Seconds later, Caleb's purity reached the lower point as well, mixing with the blood and ichor.
The scent of sulfur faded. The heat vanished. We stood still and watched as the lower point seemed to move, the mix of blood swirling around within it, draining down into the stone as if someone had just pulled the stopper out. In a sense, maybe we had. Deep inside that stone, something was happening. The first notice we got of that was when the bottom point of the triangle began to shine with white light. That light traveled upwards across the lines of the triangle until the entire carving was shining, then the circle surrounding it started to glow.
"Think that did it?" I asked.
"It's doing something," Caleb said. Tink didn't say anything, just watched.
I looked over my shoulders, back at Azriphel and his group. He had his claws to Hikari's throat, but his attention was elsewhere now. The mage watched us, his preparations on hold. The ranks of demons stared. All attention focused on the Gates.
The light suddenly intensified. I looked back at the Gates, just in time to see the glow spread. The carvings lit up one by one, starting with the ones closest to the center bottom of the Gates, rising upwards and outwards. It was as if a sun was rising within the stone. When the final carvings began to shine, another wave of heat washed out.
My heart suddenly pounded and I took a step back. Another enormous thump made me wince. It wasn't my heart, though. It was sound, a tone deep enough I could only feel it, not hear it. A third thump resonated and I dropped to my knees. Tink fell beside me, and even Caleb looked pained. Another rumble came, this one more audible than the last. This one didn't stop. The ground started to tremble, then shake.
Being at the epicenter of an earthquake is not exactly a picnic or a walk in the park. I grabbed for something to hold onto, but the ground here offered no purchase. I just flattened against the ground, spreading my arms and legs and hoping it would stop soon. The initial shaking slowed, but the rumble and vibration continued. I scrambled to my feet, but nearly fell on my face again.
The Gates weren't glowing white anymore. They were glowing red, deep red, then orange, then yellow, then red again. Caleb might have been right. Our blood may have been reacting within the stone. I stood up and covered my ears, a moment too late. Thunder cracked, centered on the Gates, snapping like a sonic whip. My ears rang and my vision blurred.
No, not thunder. There was a glowing line radiating out from the center of the Gates, one that hadn't been there before. Stone cracked against as I watched, another thin line appearing. The Gates were opening. Piece by piece, they were opening. Not quite how I was expecting, but it had worked.
Caleb waved his hand at me, trying to get my attention. He was saying something, but I couldn't hear a damn thing over the cracking of stone. He gestured at the Gates, clapped his hands together, spread them apart. Opening? I nodded. He shook his head violently, repeated his motion. Coming apart? I frowned, looking back at the Gates to see if I could figure out what he was getting at.
Another crack and glowing line, then another. The Gates were bulging now, the stone obviously distressed. I stepped sideways, changing the angle, and it was even more obvious. There was a bulge right where the central carving was, as if there was something inside trying to get out.
"This isn't good," I said out loud, unable to even hear myself. It was obvious now. The Gates weren't in place to keep us out of Purgatory. They were there to keep whatever was inside Purgatory from getting out.
Rapid-fire cracking, stone bursting, pressure increasing rapidly. My hearing was gone now. Maybe my eardrums had burst. I didn't know. Didn't care. One thing left to do. I turned toward Tink, who was staring at the Gates as if hypnotized. I grabbed her arm. Pushed my wings out, pulled her to me. Her mouth hung open, and then I pushed off the ground, backwards and away. Caleb mirrored my move, moving in the opposite direction. I pushed with my wings, as hard as I could, once, twice, three times, getting as much distance as I could as quickly as I could, getting us out of the direct line of the Gates. More cracks sounded, the shine grew blindingly bright. I twisted in midair, wrapping Tink in my arms, folding my wings around her, and we hit the ground and rolled. I twisted, craned my neck to see. To see the Gates. To see Azriphel. To see Hikari and Becky.
The Gates exploded.
Souls poured out from their restraint, burning in transparent shades too bright to track. Stone ruptured around them, spraying the area with shards. Demons fell in a rippling arc. I couldn't see Hikari or Becky, but I did see Azriphel. His arms were wide, embracing the torrent of souls that roared out from the broken Gates, ichor flowing from dozens of wounds. I could see his mouth moving, his wings spread proudly, his eyes burning red.
And the storm of souls struck him—
And everything vanished in a gray mist—
We were in Purgatory. This wasn't the layer closest to Purgatory, not anymore, if it ever was. Whether this was Purgatory before or not was an academic question. Everything was gone. All I could see was a swirling gray mist. The occasional semi-transparent track of a freed soul blew through, leaving a different shade of gray in its wake.
Tink groaned. I disentangled myself from her. "You ok?" I asked.
"What the hell just happened?"
"The Gates went boom."
"Well, no shit." She sat up and coughed. Her eyes were slightly unfocused. "I realized that. What I meant to ask was what happened after that."
I watched another soul drift past. "Whatever was inside came out. I don't know what exactly happened, bu
t it looks like this is Purgatory now. We went one way, Caleb went the other. No idea where anyone is now."
"What about Hikari and Becky?" she asked.
They had been near Azriphel, last I saw. "I don't know."
"Azriphel?"
"Don't know."
She sighed, stood up, swayed. "Don't know much of anything, do you?"
"I make it a policy to be ignorant about things I don't know about."
"That's sort of redundant. What's that?"
I looked. "A soul, I think."
"A soul. So we're dead?"
I was still sitting on the ground, so I reached over and pinched her calf. She jumped, swore, and pulled her knife. "If we were dead, you wouldn't have felt that."
"Thanks for pointing that out." She put the knife away, sat back down. "So what do we do? How do we get out of here?"
"Not a clue." I leaned back on my hands, pulled my wings back in, took a deep breath of whatever passed for air here. "No one's been in Purgatory for five hundred years or so, you know. Not many of us survived all this time. Not even Azriphel. The art of leaving this place in one piece isn't exactly common knowledge."
"So there's a whole bunch of demons stuck down here without a way out?"
"Plus a handful of humans and one angel."
"Great. And we don't have a chance of finding any of them, do we?"
The gray mists didn't allow for a lot of visibility. "Random chance, maybe."
She moved over until we were back to back. "No bright ideas to get us the hell out of here? No plans hidden up your sleeve?"
"Not one. This was my last idea, and I didn't expect Purgatory to be exothermic."
"It was a pretty good idea, to be honest. Even if we're stuck here."
"Thanks."
"Think Azriphel died?"
I shrugged. "Maybe."
"No." The voice was nearby. Mists parted. A demon strode through them, swaggering, as if he owned this realm. Ichor oozed from his wounds, one eye was dark, but the other was red and bright and fixed on us. I jumped to my feet, putting myself between him and Tink. "I don't die so easily, halfbreed."
"The explosion was not something I was expecting, your Grace," I said.
Azriphel's wings unfurled. Only the skeletal framework remained, the flesh stripped off by the explosion. "I granted you mercy, halfbreed. I granted your last request. I don't recall giving you permission to cause a violent explosion and slaughter my House."
"I don't recall anyone forcing you to stand in front of an explosion when you saw others diving for cover. What are you, some sort of idiot?"
He charged. I shifted as quickly as I could, pushing backwards against Tink to try to avoid his claws. His swipe left bleeding lines across my chest. His second swipe, I caught and pushed away. He whirled, using his feet in a vicious kick that could have taken my head off. The hind claw where his heel should have been almost took my nose off. I crouched, then launched myself into him. His bones were like granite, his skin just a little softer than that. Even so, my momentum carried him over.
"Foolish halfbreed," he snarled up at me. His arms wrapped around me, a mockery of an embrace, then started to squeeze.
"Run, Tink!" I felt pressure around my ribcage. I was lucky. His wounds kept him from snapping me like a twig. A severely wounded Duke might take a little longer.
I saw the glitter of her knife just as she slammed it down. Azriphel twisted his head and the blade skittered across his temple and horn, instead of into his remaining eye. "I've got him right where I want him," she said.
Azriphel could fight her off, but that would involve letting go of me. If he did that, he'd be in trouble. I curved my hands and pricked his sides with my claws, reminding him of that fact. He growled, tensed, then snapped his wings forward and up. One of the bones caught Tink as she stabbed again, whipping into her forearm. I heard a crack and she yelped. The knife hit the ground.
I moved with him, pulling my weight backwards as his wings hit full extension. Our combined movement pulled him upwards. Once I had some leverage, I crouched and twisted, trying to throw him loose. One of his arms lost his grip, but the other dug into my side. "Get off me, you bastard," I snarled in his face.
He snapped, spit, and bled, but his leverage was weakening. I held his loosened arm away and sunk my claws into his side again. He did the same. Blood and ichor rolled down my side. If it came to a bleeding contest, he'd probably win that, too. No prize for second place.
His snarl suddenly jumped up an octave and he howled. His claws in my side suddenly pulled free and I pushed him away. Tink's teeth were bared, her right arm limp at her side, but the knife in her left, blade pushing into his shoulder. Before he could strike her with his wings again, she ducked away and rushed toward me. He moved for her, but I stepped between them. "Give it up, Azzy," I said, hoping I didn't sound as tired as I felt. "You're too hurt to take us both on. We should be concentrating on how to get out of here, not fighting each other. It's all over."
"It's not over, halfbreed," he hissed. "Not until you're dead and gone."
I had been afraid of that. I had opened the Gates, right in front of him, and right in front of a host of witnesses. A halfblood, an angel, and a tiny little human girl had beaten all his schemes and plans. Lucifers were known for their pride and arrogance. It was part of their heritage, and I had stomped all over his. The only way he could salvage anything was to kill whoever had humiliated him.
Tink touched her knife to her limp arm, cut, bled. With her left hand, she gathered her blood, started to draw a shaky rune in the air. "Don't get too cocky, Azzy," she said. She sounded as tired as I felt. Her arm was broken, she had lost plenty of blood, and she probably had a mild concussion. She was probably on the verge of falling over. One good spell was all she could have left.
I wiped my hand against my bleeding side and held it up, cupping a spark of hellfire. One good spell was all we would need. "You know what we can do together, Azzy," I said. "This is your final warning."
"You, halfbreed, warning me?"
"Consider it an act of mercy."
He stepped forward.
I held the spark in front of her force rune, forced it to grow. "Stop, Azriphel. I'm warning you. Stop this."
Another step.
She was wavering. I could feel it through our bond. I put my other hand on her shoulder, lightly, willing her to stay strong for this last moment. "Your Grace, this is the third and last time I warn you. Stop."
"Be damned for eternity, traitor, halfbreed, fool," he snarled. "Be cursed to die alone, unloved, reviled by your family. Be forever bound to this plane, be damned to spend eternity as a soul cast adrift, be damned with you, half demon, pure fool!" He took another step.
I squeezed Tink's shoulder. "You first."
She slammed her fist into the rune, sending a burst of force energy outwards in an unsteady spray. It soaked in my hellfire, drawing it along. It wasn't her best worked spell, nor was it amplified by my ichor. It was enough. The blast struck him in the chest, dead center. I heard a crunch as ribs broke. He threw his head back. Howled, an agonizing sound, then the blast lifted him off his feet and sent him flying into the empty mists behind him. It took seconds for the mists to hide any trace of his passage. A soul drifted through the place he had just been, a faint shimmer flickering along its length.
Tink sunk to the ground, breathing heavily. I dropped down beside her. "That's it, isn't it?" she asked me, her voice hoarse. "He's gone. I killed him, didn't I?"
I didn't know the truth, but I knew what she wanted to hear. "He's gone."
"It's over," she breathed. "I avenged my parents, didn't I?"
"He might not be dead," I said. "Don't count him as dead until you see the body."
"The hell with that. I'm going to believe he's dead. If I'm going to die here, I'm going to die believing that he's going to waiting for me in hell first."
I shifted my arm around her shoulders, being careful of her broken arm. "Good way to
think of it."
"It's so quiet here," she said. "Almost beautiful, in a way. I can sometimes see things in the mist. Faces. Places. Colors."
"Colors?"
She pointed with her uninjured arm. "Colors."
I looked. Another soul was drifting, shimmering faintly. Shimmering yellow. Even as we watched, it curled around and vanished. Moments later, another soul drifted through, this one shimmering green. This one flew in our direction, its sinuous length curling toward us. It nearly touched us, then corkscrewed around my head. I could almost feel it whispering something to me, something that I couldn't quite understand.
"What are they doing?" Tink asked.
More souls were appearing around us, shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow, shades between shades, shades that could never exist on Earth, curling into transparent patterns of breathtaking beauty. I didn't know what they were doing. Were they responding to us? Did they sense death here?
Another soul swirled in front of my eyes, around my head, whispering something in my ears. This one was stronger and louder, but I still couldn't make it out. "They're trying to tell us something, but I don't know what," I said.
"Help is on the way." Her voice was almost inaudible. "Stay here. They're telling us to hold on."
"What?" I felt her sag back against my arm. "Tink?"
"You're warm." She slumped sideways. "Going to pass out now."
"Hold on," I said, as the souls danced around us. "Don't go to sleep now. This is the best part, isn't it?"
She was already out. I sighed and held onto her. The souls shimmered and danced.
It may have been minutes, or it may have been hours, but eventually something else flew through the mist. A small form, bat wings propelling him frantically toward us. "Zay!"
I looked up and smiled. "Took you long enough, Kibs."
"Well, shit. You want me to come back later when you appreciate me more?"
"No, that's fine. I'd really like to get out of here now."
"I assumed so." Kibs landed in front of me, looking at Tink. She dozed in my arms, her head pillowed against my shoulder. "She ok?"
"Lost a lot of blood, broken arm," I said, brushing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. "Maybe a concussion, maybe more. What's been happening?"
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