Bex whistled. Amilliondemons. That wasn’t much by human population standards, but it still sounded like an impossible number in more ways than one.
“How are we going to get them all out of here?”
“Who knows?” Lys said, then they smiled. “But I’m sure we’ll figure it out. If we could manage an Anchor, we can do this.”
Managing the Seattle Anchor had hardly gone smoothly, and twenty thousand demons was alotless than a million. Bex didn’t want to rain on Lys’s optimism, though, so she kept her mouth shut and turned her attention to Kirok, who’d stepped forward to meet them at the place where the Middle Hells’ staircase transitioned into the Lower.
“Great Queens,” he said, lowering his horns once to Bex and then again to Nemini, which seemed to freak the former void demon out more than anything else so far.
“What’s the situation?” Bex asked, reaching out to squeeze Nemini’s hand before the crowd noticed her trembling.
“I’ve interviewed all the war demons who surrendered after their warlocks were killed,” Kirok reported.
“And?” Bex asked.
“And it seems that the reason security in the Middle Hells is being neglected is because Gilgamesh has been running the forges in the Hell of War at full capacity for the last seven days. Apparently, the Eternal King personally rearranged the work schedule so that the stronger, more experienced demons would be on the forges while the younger, weaker demons were sent down here for guard duty.”
Bex frowned. “I’m guessing that’s not normal.”
“It’s the opposite of standard procedure,” Kirok confirmed. “I thought the children we talked to when we first arrived were an anomaly, but with a few notable exceptions, all the demons working in the Middle Hells appear to be as young or younger.”
Lys snorted. “So he’s got child soldiers subjugating their fellow demons while the older ones slave in his forges? Sounds like typical Gilgamesh behavior to me.”
“Do you know what he’s using the forges to make?” Adrian asked as he pushed his way to the front.
General Kirok stiffened when he saw the witch’s mirrored eyes. When Bex made ago onmotion with her hands, though, the war demon grudgingly continued.
“According to the soldiers I just spoke to, the Eternal King commanded them to throw out all the sin iron currently in production and restart the forging process over with all new material. That was a week ago, and he’s been working the entire Upper Hells around the clock ever since. He’s even got war demons delivering the finished ingots to the palace by hand, which is highly unusual. Unless Gilgamesh needs it shipped to Earth for an Anchor, sin iron is typically kept within the Hells.”
“I saw them carting it through the streets of the Holy City earlier,” Adrian confirmed, tapping his wooden pinky finger worriedly against his chin. “I didn’t see where in the palace they were taking it, but I bet if we follow the delivery line to the end, we’ll find Gilgamesh. He likes to make the important things with his own hands.”
Kirok’s shoulders had been getting stiffer the whole time Adrian was talking, but that last sentence was apparently the final straw. “How do you know so much about the Tyrant King?”
“Because Gilgamesh forced me to work for him as well,” Adrian replied matter-of-factly. “He never told me the real reason why, though, and that’s a problem. If we’re going to stop him, we need to know exactly what he’s working onbeforehe unleashes it. That’s why I’m being so nosy. I need to figure out why he wanted me to repair the Queen of Pride’s horns so badly and what that has to do with everything else.”
Bex had just said she didn’t care how Nemini got her horns back, but that confession still threw her for a loop.
“Wait,” she said, whirling toward Adrian. “Gilgameshis the reason Pride’s crown was restored?”
“It’s what he kidnapped me to do,” Adrian told her with a nod. “Like I mentioned downstairs, Gilgamesh told me he needsthe crowns of all nine queens to finish his great work, but I still don’t know what that great workis. Going by other things he’s said, my best guess is that he’s trying to solve an infrastructure problem involved with keeping the gods in their graves. Other than using Wrath to make a better sin-iron chain, though, I don’t know what that could be.”
Bex scowled. “Could he be making a better chain?”
“Possibly,” Adrian said. “But I don’t think that’s his endgame. He’s lied to me about almost everything, but I still get the impression that the Eternal King isn’t the sort who puts a bandage over a problem when he can solve the root cause.”
“He did force my wrath demons to collect sin until they died from overwork,” Bex agreed angrily. “He’s clearly in a hell of a hurry for something, but what? Andwhy? The gods have been dead for five thousand years. What could he possibly be in such a rush to—”
She cut off with a gasp when the floor of the Hells rumbled beneath her feet. The crowd of demons around them started screaming a second later, falling to the ground and covering their heads against whatever disaster was sure to follow, but nothing came. The ground kept rumbling, but no armies popped out to kill anyone, and eventually Bex got tired of waiting.
“Keep unlocking the people up here,” she ordered Kirok, whose face was looking ashen despite his shiny bronze complexion. “We’re going down to start evacuating Wrath and Pride.”
When the general nodded, Bex turned around to address the enormous crowd cowering on the floor. “Don’t let Heaven’s rumbling scare you!” she yelled, bellowing as loudly as she could to make sure her voice reached all the way to the demons in the back. “The plan hasn’t changed! We’re all still getting out of here, so I want everyone who’s capable of running to go out there and help the key teams. The rest of you clear the stairs so that thedemons coming up from below have somewhere to go. General Kirok and Desh are in charge of this floor until the Queen of Pride and I return.”
As always, yelling orders at terrified people left a bad taste in Bex’s mouth, but it worked like a charm. The moment the demons had something to focus on other than their fear, they leaped into action, running off into the dark to help Desh’s key team. Kirok himself took over clearing the tower so the demons who were still downstairs would have room to evacuate, yelling at the war demons—who did look really young, now that Bex was staring at them—to get off their asses and start forming a perimeter.
“All right,” Bex said when everything was in motion. “Let’s get moving.”
“That was some fast work,” Adrian noted as the five of them started going down the stairs again, this time at a jog. “How did you get everyone to listen without horns?”
