Leander did look very intent when Bex glanced over her shoulder. He didn’t seem to be doing anything dangerous, though, so she just shrugged and got back to what was important: namely Lys not being dead.
“Why is he here again?” Adrian whispered as he slathered more green, piney-smelling glop over the hole in Lys’s shoulder. “Isn’t that the prince who tried to kill you on the Anchor chain back in Seattle?”
“That’s him,” Bex said. “But that fight is also the reason we were able to recruit him. After he lost to me, Gilgamesh memory-wiped his princess and banished him to the Lowest Hells. Surprise, surprise, Leander wasn’t feeling too loyal toward his dad after that, so he switched sides. He’s actually the one who got us into position to surprise-attack the tower, so he’s cool in my book.”
“If you say so,” Adrian muttered.
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Lys promised, flicking their eyes back to Bex. “I’m much more concerned about what Gilgamesh was up to with the wrath demons.”
Bex scowled. “What do you mean ‘up to’? I already said he was working them to death gathering sin, or were you still passed out for that part?”
“No, I heard it,” Lys assured her. “I just don’t believe it. Gilgamesh has been after your horns so that he can control the wrath demons for five thousand years. After all that effort, you’d think he’d be a little more careful, but it sounds like he forced them to go on a seven-day sin-collection bender the moment he got his hands on the goods.”
They shook their head as much as Adrian’s treatment would allow. “Gilgamesh isn’t exactly known for caring aboutdemon welfare, but that’s crazy. Other than the demons you pulled out of Limbo during the month we held the Seattle Anchor, the folks in that cavern are the only wrath demons in existence right now. Gilgamesh can’t just breed up some more if he works this batch to death, so why’s he doing it?”
“Maybe he really needs sin iron?” Bex guessed.
“He’s got eight other Hells for that,” Lys reminded her. “Gilgamesh has sin iron coming out of his ears. That’s why this doesn’t make any sense. Why’s he risking the demons he worked so hard to get to make more of something he’s already got mountains of?”
Bex had no idea. She’d been so caught up in the disasters in front of her, she hadn’t had time yet to think about what it all meant. Fortunately, it seemed Adrian had.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of getting more raw materials,” he said in a thoughtful voice as he started wrapping a clean bandage around Lys’s gunk-covered shoulder. “I think he’s after a specific combination.”
“A specific combination of what?” Bex asked.
“Sins,” the witch replied, taking his eyes off of Lys for a second to give Bex a worried look. “You told me once that every demon pulls a different kind of sin out of the river. That’s why there are nine different tribes instead of one united demonkind. Ishtar made each of you for a specific purpose, and while I don’t have any proof yet, I suspect that Gilgamesh is still working within the same system. He told me when he kidnapped me that his final goal required all nine demon queens to work. At the time, I thought he was just trying to destroy the last remaining opposition. Now that I’ve seen the Hells with my own eyes, though, I have to wonder if sins aren’t what he was really after this entire time.”
“That would explain a few things,” Boston said from his perch on Lys’s feet. “I always wondered why Gilgamesh botheredkeeping so many demons in the Hells. If slaves were all he was after, it would’ve been easier to keep only a minimum breeding population, and there would’ve been no reason to keep Bex’s demons alive at all. If Wrath was the final component he needed for a spell, though, that would explain why he went on a sin-collecting rampage the moment he got them under his control.”
Bex scowled. “Yeah, well, that monsterrampagedthrough my entire tribe!”
“I just wish I knew what he was gathering it all for,” Adrian said in a distracted voice. “Sorcerers don’t use components for their spells, so why does he need Wrath specifically? What does it do that the other sins don’t?”
The room fell silent as he finished tying up Lys’s arm. When he had all the bandage tails neatly trimmed, he let the demon go with a flourish.
“There,” he said, “You can move now.”
“Thank the gods,” Lys groaned, shoving themselves up like they couldn’t wait to get off the floor.
“How do you feel?” Bex asked nervously.
“Not great,” Lys admitted as they rolled their bandaged shoulder. “Everything hurts, and my arm itches like crazy, but I’ll live. Taking wounds is part of being a soldier. I’m way more interested in how Adrian knows so much about Gilgamesh’s goals. Did the Eternal King make you watch a video about his evil plans during your prince orientation or something?”
Adrian laughed. “Nothing that informative. He fed me a lot of lines about the greater good and being the savior of humanity but never gave any specific details. Everything I just said is my own conjecture. I don’t even know why he had me working on what I was working on.”
“Whatwereyou working on?” Bex asked.
It was the obvious question, but for some reason, Adrian dropped his mirrored eyes.
“Nothing we have time to dig into at the moment,” he said quickly as he packed the remaining medical supplies into his coat. “We’re still in the middle of a battle. I’m pretty sure the only reason we haven’t already been assaulted by every prince in Heaven is because of the teleport ban, but they have to be coming. There’s no way Gilgamesh missed the death of a prince andtwoprincesses.”
“Way to dodge the question,” Lys said, giving Adrian a pointed look before they sighed. “You’re not wrong, though. I told Nemini to guard the door to the Upper Hells, so I doubt any warlocks made it out alive, but I’d bet my horns there’s a war demon army mustering to crush us as we speak.”
“Probably,” Bex agreed, but her eyes were still on Adrian. She’d put her fire out when she’d come over, so maybe it was a trick of the intense shadows caused by Boston’s LED camping lantern, but Bex swore she’d seen him flinch when Lys said Nemini’s name. That wasn’t too weird by itself—Nemini made a lot of people uncomfortable—but Adrian had always seemed to get along with her. Add in his uncharacteristic refusal to answer her question earlier and Bex didn’t like where this was going. She was about to pull him aside and just ask him what was going on when the worst noise she’d ever heard came screaming down the stairwell.
“What in the Hells is that?” Boston yelled over the racket, which sounded like the piercing beep of a fire alarm combined with an entire dumpster full of aluminum going through a shredder.
“Alarm,” Lys said, covering their ears with their still-bloody hands. “I’ve never heard this one, though, so I don’t know what set it off.”
