by Nazri Noor
“You can’t do that!” Maharani shouted.
Belphegor grinned madly at her. “Oh, truly, Scion? Can’t I? Those are fine words for someone who plays with time as recklessly as a child with a spinning top. I’d have thought that this would be more familiar to you, Maharani Naidu. Won’t you join me and freeze time in turn? Such a pair we would make.”
“Never,” Rani snarled, her fists balled, her eyes wet.
“Suit yourself.” Belphegor sighed. “It isn’t my place to question why you squander so much of your power to preserve your own husband in temporal stasis. How cruel. They’ll never find a cure, you know.”
The air seemed to grow colder as Rani glowered at the prince. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her voice shaking. “Go back to hell, you foul abomination. Never speak to me of my husband. How could you even – no. Enough.” She turned to Royce, wiping her shawl furiously across her cheeks. “We have to call in a strike and end this right here.”
Royce stepped closer to her, their faces almost pushed up against each other as he spoke, slowly and deeply, as if relaying the gravity of what she was suggesting. “We’ve gone over this. The consequences would be catastrophic. We’d wipe out the building, Lorica HQ, and tons of civilians. It’s impossible. Can’t be done.”
“Will someone fucking help me out here already?” Artemis’s shouts came out muffled, her lips sputtering as they found a breach in the tangle of vines crisscrossed over her mouth. “Do something before they rip me apart. I swear, if I die here tonight, Belphegor, my family will – ”
Artemis’s words – in fact, practically every noise on the rooftop was smothered by a familiar rushing noise, one I recognized as the violent, high speed crash and tumble of magical flames. Artemis’s eyes went huge, her lips mouthing what I had no doubt were extremely creative and extremely volatile curses as the flames ate away at the vines tied around her extremities, at the petals and flowers surrounding her. Within seconds, the fires had burned the plants clear away, leaving her miraculously unharmed.
She stared down at her arms in befuddlement, blinking. I searched the garden for the source of the fires, my heart practically falling out of my ass when I found the man responsible.
“Ignis.”
Another roaring torrent of flames emanated from the palm of Quilliam J. Abernathy’s hand, rushing over the flowers and tendrils carpeting the garden, consuming them utterly. Box yelped like a frightened puppy as he clattered towards me, hiding behind my legs. I patted him in reassurance, then collected him into my hands, whispering soothing nothings as his instincts kicked in and he shrank to the size of a die. I tucked him into one of my jacket pockets, zipping it up to keep him safe. Box had seen enough action for one night.
I couldn’t say the same for myself and the others. My mouth was still hanging open at the sight of Quill coming to the rescue, stunned by the simple fact that his fires, for once, were directed at a common enemy, and not at my face.
The gush of flames ended. From somewhere in the trees, Belphegor’s two remaining hags shrieked in fury at the demise of their handiwork. Quill had the right idea. Just like a mythical hydra, the flowers and tendrils couldn’t reproduce on scorched earth.
There was a flurry of noise and voices as Artemis thanked Quill for his help, as Royce commended him on his talent. In the midst of it all, Quilliam trained his eyes on me.
“It was nothing.” He winked at me. I glowered. He raised his fingers to his lips, blowing across them like he would on the barrel of a gun. “Just gotta kill them with fire.”
26
I grimaced. I couldn’t say it was good to see Quilliam in such circumstances, despite him helping us out. Artemis wasn’t holding back on the gratitude, shaking his hand fervently. I groaned. Just another thing for Quill to let get to his head.
“Fire magic works, well and good,” Maharani said, “but we can’t go around the entire city burning everything. There are too many risks.”
“Then we nip it in the bud, like I said.” Royce held two fingers up to his temple, like he was activating an invisible device. “Yeah, send some Wings and Hands out to find the perimeter for these things. Use fire. As much as you can spare. Beat it back while we manage things up here. Raze everything, but control the burn. Be careful.”
Artemis nocked another arrow, watching the trees and the bushes for another sign of the hags. “Why don’t you bring up more of your Scions? You need the big guns.”
Maharani shook her head. “Everyone’s already engaged, at least the ones we could contact. These flowers are everywhere. Mr. Albrecht. Behind you.”
I spun on my feet, my blade already carving a semicircle through the air. One of the hags had snuck up on me, and she would have dodged the cut of my sword as she attempted to duck – but something had stopped her dead in her tracks. Time magic? Her eyes went huge with terror as she watched the sword cleave her skull open.
“Thanks,” I told Maharani over my shoulder, still looking out for the last witch. “But I thought you said you couldn’t stop time for – ”
“For something like Belphegor, yes. That is correct. But his minions, I can handle.”
Belphegor’s chanting rang through the air, a bizarre, layered cacophony of words and voices. I’d had very little experience with the demonic tongue up until that point, and I realized that night that ignorance truly was bliss, especially when it came to their language. I couldn’t understand a word of Sloth’s incantations, but I knew in my heart that everything he said was intrinsically blasphemous, evil, corrupt, as if the very vernacular itself was built upon the unholy concepts of the prime hells.
It was just distracting enough to confuse the senses of even the most stoic and experienced among us. The third hag came stampeding out of the underbrush, shrieking at the top of her lungs as she descended on Maharani in a rage. It was almost effortless, how Rani held her hand out and froze the witch in place. A single whistling arrow in the chest sealed the hag’s fate. Her body crashed to the ground, disintegrating into a pile of petals.
From above us, Belphegor roared. “You think you’ve stopped anything? You’re only delaying the inevitable.”
He roared louder when another gout of fire consumed an even larger section of crimson flowers. Loki’s garden was going to be just cinders and ashes by the time Quill was finished.
Belphegor scowled, then slashed his hand through the air. It wasn’t there just seconds ago, but a projectile the size and shape of a crimson spear materialized from thin air, soaring directly for Quilliam. His eyes went wide with surprise, and maybe some slight terror.
Damn it.
I raced to Quill’s side, raising my free arm in front of us both, a golden kite shield from the Vestments springing into our reality from out of the armories upstairs. I flinched, digging my heels into the earth as the spear struck the shield, its impact threatening to throw me off my feet. But we were safe. The spear disappeared, its power spent.
Beside me, I could hear Quilliam gasping for breath. His knees were bent, his body huddled behind my shield.
“Didn’t need you to save me,” he grunted.
“Get over yourself. You did us a favor, so I did you one. We’re even for now, but when this is over, we go back to wanting to kill each other.”
His eyes flashed as he gathered a clump of fire in one hand. “Deal. Lower the shield.”
I did, and Quill thrust his arm out, hurling a fireball at the crimson flowers. Royce and Maharani had handled the rest of the rooftop – fire magic was probably the most common tool for arcane combat, but even that was too complicated for me. It meant nothing to a Scion, and even less, apparently, to Quill, who wielded the element like a flamethrower.
Note to self. Never, ever let him know that I’d complimented him, even mentally, at any point in my existence.
“It’s over, Belphegor,” I shouted. “The Lorica’s sweeping the city. We just need to do some cleanup here, and that’s it. Your plan is ruined. Give us Florian. Give up your insa
ne plot.”
The Prince of Sloth looked down coolly on us, studying each of our faces and finally settling on mine. “Your first mistake, nephilim, is thinking that this is finished. Your second is trusting the hell-spawned mongrel pretending to help you.”
Quilliam stood on the balls of his feet as he shouted. “I am not a mongrel!” He turned over his shoulder, glowering at me. “And not that you should care, but I’m not doing this to help you. Belphegor cannot be allowed to overtake the others. Mother will be angry.”
There it was. Mother? But before I could think to ask, Belphegor spoke again, this time in a gloating, taunting tone.
“Yes, that’s right! Your mother. How is the old whore these days? Still squirting out undeserving heirs left and right?”
“I am not undeserving.” Quill reached for another ball of fire, reeling back as he prepare to lob it at the prince. “And you will never be allowed to speak of Mother in that tone again.”
The fireball flew, smashed into Belphegor’s shield, then dissipated, as expected, into sparks and useless smoke. I knew that Sloth was good at baiting me into anger, but Quill was buying into his game even harder.
Belphegor shrugged as the flames died away. “You really are your mother’s offspring. Just as impulsive and single-minded as that reprehensible harlot could ever be. This has been a waste of my time. Send Asmodeus my regards.” He lifted his head to the sky, levitating higher.
“He’s getting away,” Royce shouted.
From near him, I heard Maharani mutter. “Asmodeus. The Prince of Lust.”
“That’s right,” Quill said. “The Court of Sloth has always yearned for power it doesn’t deserve, but this time it looks like Belphegor may just get what he wants.”
I raised my head, releasing my shield back to the Vestments, tracing Belphegor’s ascent as leathery wings burst from his back, carrying him higher and higher above the clouds. To my horror, the tendrils linking him to Florian disengaged. I rushed to his side, falling on my knees as the last of the vines left the sockets in his forehead. He was breathing. Either Belphegor was lying, or he’d already siphoned all that he needed out of Florian’s brain.
“Florian?” I spoke softly, careful not to shock him, wanting to nudge him on the shoulder, but terrified that it would hurt him even more. “Florian, buddy? You okay there?”
He groaned, coughing out what looked like clods of dirt, and somehow it was the best thing that I’d seen happen all day. The holes in his head were dry, no longer bleeding, but it was still alarming to see them up close, these fissures that Belphegor had used to reach into his mind.
Florian’s lashes fluttered, and his eyes focused on me. “Mace? That you, buddy? Did we win?”
I patted him on the arm. “Not yet, we haven’t. But I’m going to change that.”
Artemis ran over as well, running her fingers across Florian’s brow. “You’re okay,” she said. “He’s going to be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”
I nodded, then turned to the Scions. “Will you make sure my friend will be safe? He didn’t want any part of this. You have to know this isn’t his fault.”
Royce pursed his lips, but Maharani’s gentle smile answered for them both. “You have my word, Mr. Albrecht.”
I nodded again in thanks, then looked to the sky, following the faint trail of crimson fire burning just beyond the clouds. Quilliam stepped up next to me, his cheeks still flushed with anger.
“So,” I said. “Half demon, huh? Must be interesting.”
He shook his head. “It is what it is. I fucking hate it sometimes. Shitload of politics.”
“Yeah. I think we can fix that. Part of it, at least.”
I shrugged off my jacket, the chill of the night running across my bare arms. Quill frowned at me. “The hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Nipping things in the bud. Hold my jacket.”
He did, confused, folding it into a bundle in his arms. I gripped my sword tight, then sprinted for the edge of the rooftop.
“What the hell are you doing, Albrecht? Are you fucking crazy?”
I jumped.
My body fell into a swan dive, and I fell, and kept on falling, the wind screaming in my ears. Then, for the first time in far too long, I became who I was. I spread my wings, danced on a gust of wind, and swung up into the sky, flying once more.
The Prince of Sloth had better be ready, I thought, sword in hand, wings fully unfurled. The son of Samyaza was coming for him.
27
Yes, I know. Fine. The last time I took to the skies, I was throwing up into a bucket and sick for days. That was just going to be a risk I would have to take.
The wind was howling, my wings beating faster and harder as I fought upstream to reach Belphegor, now just a crimson sphere in the distance, an ominous red glow in the night.
I regretted leaving my jacket behind, but I didn’t want it ruined. How angels dealt with clothes and wings, I couldn’t even fathom. My shirt had ripped open and apart the moment I’d engaged my wings, falling into a tattered swirl into the abyss far beneath me. The night wind was cold, icy as it sheared against my skin. All the more reason for me to hate Belphegor, for this potential future bout of pneumonia, for what he did to Florian.
And yet all I could think of was how much Tylenol I was going to need to kill the big honking migraine I would get after touching down. That presupposed the possibility that I was going to survive, but I liked Maharani’s way of thinking, of looking ahead to the better eventualities despite how hopeless everything might seem. If I was going to take advice about the future, I was going to take it from the lady who could play with time magic.
The worst part was knowing that all this creatio ex nihilo stuff wasn’t going to help me in the slightest out there. You can’t just conjure a cannon and hold it up in the clouds. I work out, but I don’t have the upper body strength for that. No one does. Concentrating on flying and not plunging to my death was hard enough.
But not far now. I could see from Belphegor’s position that he hadn’t moved in the last few seconds or so, content to stay in one spot. Of course, that could have heralded worse things. It meant that he was brewing something, gathering his energies for something big. I chanced a look at the world below us, hardly able to tell what we were flying over, exactly, only vaguely aware that the splotch of concrete and steel beneath us – with its occasional blooms of magical fire – was Valero. I looked closer, and among the twinkling city lights, even from far above, I could spot the unmistakable blood red of the flowers crafted by Belphegor’s witches and their awful hagriculture. The fight wasn’t looking good. The flowers were still spreading.
I clenched my teeth and soared forward, resolute. Then the key really was to destroy Belphegor, to stop this madness at its source. He couldn’t be allowed to become the strongest of the Seven. The prime princes were just fine the way they were, already dangerous in their individual capacities as demon nobility. Humanity didn’t need one running amok and trying to turn the planet into something out of Sleeping Beauty.
“Belphegor,” I shouted. “Whatever you’re doing, stop.”
His eyes burned red, even redder than the crimson glow of his skin, and he extended a finger at me. I flinched, expecting him to hurl another of those dangerous energy projectiles he’d used to attack Quilliam. But what came at me instead was far worse. It was an evil, gloating monologue.
“So, the son of Samyaza comes,” he shouted back, sneering. “He’s a big man now, isn’t he, using his wings? Your father would be so proud.”
“Well, now you’re just being an asshole.” I flew on a gust of air, rushing Belphegor so suddenly that he didn’t expect me coming. My sword was poised to strike at his throat, but he was quick to react, one hand lifting to deflect the blow with the clang of metal on metal, a red flicker of light flashing from his palm.
“Look at you now, biting the hand that feeds you.” Belphegor’s lips drew back. “Haven’t I treated you so well? I could have
killed you at so many points during our fragile friendship, nephilim, and yet I spared you. Was that all worth nothing?”
Gritting my teeth, I doubled back, hating that my anger made it so easy for Belphegor to read my actions. He raised his other hand, and I landed another glancing blow that made my arm shudder with the impact.
“I don’t take kindly to people who hurt my friends. For that matter, I don’t take kindly to people who threaten the world I live in.”
He scoffed, his forehead wrinkling, his third eye blazing with red fire. “You’re a mongrel. Only half human, and yet you show these people your loyalty. Why? You are nothing to them. And they’re nothing to you, as they are nothing to the Court of Sloth. Let me do this one thing. Let me take what’s rightfully mine, and I will give you a seat in my house, nephilim. Heaven won’t take you. You’re an aberration. And you’ll never be truly human, either. Come to me. Join me.” He reached forward with his hand, talons glinting in the moonlight as he stretched out his fingers. “What choice do you have but to go to hell?”
The flames in Belphegor’s eyes burned hot when he grinned, thinking he’d maneuvered me into a corner. But the fire in my heart, the sigils on my chest burned stronger, casting a golden haze against the clouds.
“There is always a choice. I have my free will, as you have yours.” I raised my sword again, ready to rush for another assault, as many as it would take to break Belphegor’s demonic shielding, to make him yield. “I choose what’s right for me, for humanity. You can go fuck yourself.”
Red fire flickered as Belphegor’s eyes twitched, making every effort to keep his anger to himself. But based humbly on my own experience with demons, restraint was never really one of their strong points. He sucked in a deep breath, for a split second seeming almost larger than the teenage vessel that contained him. Something was coming, and I was sure I wasn’t going to like it.