Bex lifted her eyes hopefully to the glittering chains passing over their heads, which looked no thicker than power lines even though she knew they were actually big enough todrive a truck down. “Do you think we could jump up there and grab one for a straight line into Heaven?”
“I tried that once, actually,” Lys said with a laugh. “But either the chains are a lot farther away than they look or they’re not actually here at all, because the one time I said ‘screw it’ after a banishment and tried to fly up to them, my wings got so exhausted that I almost fell out of the sky before I even got close.”
Bex scowled. She’d really been hoping for a shortcut, but Lys was the only one of them who could fly aside from Adrian’s broom. If they couldn’t reach the chains, then operation “Stairway to Heaven” was out. That was probably a good thing since walking up a golden bridge into the heart of Gilgamesh’s city while the Anchors were still on lockdown sounded even more dangerous than their actual plan of sneaking into the Hells. And speaking of plans, since they were currently standing on the barren side of a dark stone mountain with no threat in sight, Bex decided it was a good time to make sure all their new additions were up to speed on exactly what it was they were about to attempt.
“Okay, everyone, listen up,” she said, holding her hands over her head. “We got ourselves banished to the Hells for three objectives. One, retrieve my hand with my ring so that Drox and I can get back to cutting slave bands and freeing demons. Two, rescue Adrian and return him to his coven. And three, find my horns so I can get my powers back.”
“Four, kick butt and take names!” Iggs added, reaching back to pat the knapsack of endless weapons that Felix had given them. “It’s time Heaven remembered we’re the rightful people of Paradise.”
“I’m sure you’ll get plenty of chances for that,” Bex promised, pulling the box of comms out of her backpack and handing it to Lys so they could start passing out the sleek blackearbuds. “Just don’t forget that this is an intrusion and retrieval mission. I want to smash the Hells as much as the rest of you, but if we draw too much heat and get ourselves killed, it’s over. I need you all to keep a cool head and stay on target. Got it?”
“Yes, my queen,” replied everyone except Boston, who was busy digging through his cat pack.
“Good,” Bex said, taking her own comm from Lys and fitting it into her ear. When the bud was safely locked in place and communications were established, she repacked the empty container into her backpack and turned to Lys.
“You’re the only one of us who’s been banished before. How do we get inside?”
“You’ll see in a second,” Lys promised, tilting their head to the side so they could wiggle the comm’s black bud into their delicate pointed ear. “Banishments always land on the outside. I’m not sure if there’s a legitimate magical reason for that or if warlocks are just assholes who like putting people’s backs to literal cliffs, but the wardens have definitely noticed our arrival, which means we should be seeing a retrieval team soon.”
“I’m astonished we haven’t seen one already,” Kirok said, scowling gravely at the stone wall of the mountain in front of them. “What’s happened to discipline in the Hells that they leave a banished demon unattended for so long?”
Lys snorted. “I thought you weren’t on their side anymore.”
“I’m not,” the general insisted, folding his top two bronze arms with a sniff. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
“Well, I’m glad they’re late,” Bex said, reaching down to make sure the explosive short sword Iggs had loaned her was still ready in its sheath at the small of her back. “Gives us time to sort ourselves out before—"
Her voice cut off as the cliff they were standing on began to shake. Bex’s first thought was that the reason the guardswere late was because she’d been recognized, and now some warlock in a command room was hitting a button to drop the cliff and kill them all from a distance. Fortunately, reality wasn’t nearly so coordinated. The cliff was shaking because the side of the mountain directly in front of them was changing, the hard, featureless stone pulling back like a curtain to reveal an enormous pair of jet-black stone doors.
Bex took an involuntary step backward. So far, nothing about this trip had matched her expectations, but this?Thiswas hellish.
The black doors were cut deep into the mountain’s side like a wound. Their fronts were covered in carvings of terrified demons trying desperately to escape while chains pulled them back into the dark. The art was so realistic, Bex swore she could hear them screaming in the silence that suddenly covered the cliff.
“Well,” Boston said nervously from his perch on Bran’s broomstick, “that certainly drives home the point.”
“Gilgamesh never was one for subtlety,” Iggs agreed, gripping the worn strap of Solomon’s Armory with both hands. “But at least now we know we’re in the right place.”
“There was never any doubt of that,” muttered Lys as they switched out of their elegant, pink-winged true form into a lanky, dangerous-looking male body that reminded Bex of Desh. “Get ready. Retrieval teams always come out swinging.”
Bex was about to ask how many they should expect when the air was split by the horrible sound of stone scraping against stone. The noise went on forever as the doors slowly opened outward to reveal a middle-aged man wearing the elegant white clothing of a Heavenly denizen accompanied by a squad of four war demons dressed in the same golden armor the Anchor Guards wore.
It was clearly intended to be a dazzling show of force, but Bex had already noticed that these war demons were not prime specimens. All four of them were in their bronze-skinned true forms, but only one was old enough to have grown all four of his arms. The other three had only two each, proof that they were barely more than teenagers.
That must be why they were wearing armor, she realized. Young war demons hadn’t had enough time to develop their famously thick bronze skin. Even their flat, protective horns looked narrow and small beneath the visors of their golden helmets. Iggs could probably take all of them by himself, a thought that was definitely already crossing his mind from the smirk on his face. Bex was about to give the order to go ahead and roll ’em when Lys suddenly shot forward.
They moved so fast, Bex almost didn’t turn her head in time to see the lust demon shoot past the first two guards to plant their knife—the same black sin-iron dagger that Desh had brought to kill Bex—in the warlock’s chest. The human didn’t even seem to realize what had happened. He just stood there, dumbfounded, watching his white shirtfront turn red with eyes that were already black from sin-iron exposure. When his body went limp a second later, Bex couldn’t say if it was from the knife in his heart or the poison in his blood. Whatever it was, he was dead within five seconds of walking out the door. His guards were still gaping in shock when Iggs slammed into them like a truck.
He wasn’t the only one. Kirok was also in there throwing punches with all four of his fists, which werewaybigger than any of the baby war demons’. By the time the guards realized what was happening, all four of them were face down under Iggs’s boot and Kirok’s dinner-plate-sized hoof.
“Great job,” Bex said, sliding the short sword she hadn’t even had time to swing back into its sheath. “That was so fast I almost blinked and missed it.”
“I’m sorry it had to be this way at all,” Kirok said, easing up on the hoof he was using to crush the only actually mature war demon into the stone. “Despite what our queen’s betrayal has forced us to do, war demons are slaves the same as any other demon. The vast majority of us do not fight willingly. Just look at these children’s necks.”
He leaned down to hook a finger under the biggest war demon’s metal collar, pulling back his golden armor to reveal a thick black ring of sin iron wrapped tight around the young demon’s throat.
“You see?” Kirok growled as he let the boy go. “This place is a Hell for all of us. These children didn’t have a choice. Please don’t judge them too harshly, great queen.”
“I’m not judging them at all,” Bex said, giving the terrified-looking demons a smile. “They could’ve yelled the alarm the moment their warlock went down, but they held their tongues. That’s as good as helping in my book.”
