When powerful beings battled, there was always collateral damage. “Who do you think gave Lilliana the poison?”
Hawkyn’s expression became even grimmer and more troubled than it already was. “I don’t know. I still can’t believe anyone here would do that.”
“I’m surprised Zhubaal hasn’t expelled all but essential personnel.”
“Father told him not to let anyone but me and a couple others leave Sheoul-gra.” Hawkyn stopped to let them into Azagoth’s office. “Only Memitim whose heraldis have activated can go to protect their Primori. He doesn’t want to give whoever poisoned her a chance to get away.”
Made sense. And, man…she did not want to be around when he caught the bastard. Azagoth was going to make whoever it was wish they’d never been born. She shuddered as Hawkyn walked to the far wall and opened the portal to the Inner Sanctum.
“Have you ever been inside?” she asked.
“Just once, and only in the gateway area. I can’t even tell you what it’ll look like because it changes all the time. That’s where Father should be. I can’t imagine he’d take anyone, let alone a Charnel Apostle, to one of the rings.”
No, she couldn’t imagine that, either. Azagoth, out of necessity, had very strict rules regarding who could enter the Inner Sanctum, and no one was allowed unless accompanied by him or Hades.
“Maybe we should summon Hades,” she suggested.
He shook his head. “Don’t need to. The portal will alert him to activity. If Azagoth isn’t right inside with the demon priest, Hades will be there shortly to kick you out.”
“Then I should get going.” She hesitated, a sudden, disturbing thought popping into her mind. “Hawk? What if our father has taken the demon to one of the rings?”
Shadows flickered in his bright green eyes, turning them into a forest at night. “Then things are even more serious than I thought.”
“Got any tips?”
“Yeah. Don’t get dead.”
It was something Wraith would have said, and she smiled sadly as she stepped through the doorway and into one of the strangest areas she’d ever seen.
Endless, parched gray earth stretched as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by six stone buildings that resembled mausoleums, one newer than the rest. There was definitely no Azagoth or Charnel Apostle priest.
What she did notice was a crimson aura surrounding one of the buildings. Weird. Was that where Azagoth had gone?
A rumble rose, shaking the ground. Footsteps? She spun around to see Hades in the distance, coming at her quickly, even though he appeared to be walking. How was he doing that?
Get out.
His voice boomed inside her head.
Get out now!
Shit. Without thinking, she sprinted to the crimson-ringed mausoleum.
“Idess! No!” This time, his voice wasn’t inside her head. It was practically in her ear.
She darted inside…and stepped out into a realm so horrifying, so grotesque, that she started to turn back.
Until she heard Azagoth’s voice.
Swallowing bile, she eased her way between blobs of bloody, quivering flesh the size of dump trucks, and skeletons that writhed on the ground. Things skittered and slithered underfoot, and twisted, bloated beings with their organs on the outside moaned as they hung from thorny crucifixes.
She rounded a wall of snapping teeth, jumping backward when a fang caught her sleeve. Shit. She rubbed her arm as she peered beyond the wall and caught sight of her father on the edge of a cliff. The Charnel Apostle stood next to him attired in something straight out of Mad Max, including his helm, which appeared to be fashioned from the skull of some sort of humanoid creature.
Azagoth watched as the priest chanted in Sheoulic, his bone staff glowing as he held it aloft. What was he doing?
Suddenly, something grabbed her and covered her mouth. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t even see as she was spun and dragged into some sort of gooey cocoon. Panic frayed the edges of her control as visions of herself being slowly digested or chewed into burger meat filled her head. Then, Hades was there, his blade cutting through the rubbery arms that held her.
“Fool,” he whispered harshly as he tugged her free. “This is no place for anyone who isn’t evil, let alone an angel.”
She was no longer an angel, but now wasn’t the time to argue.
Hades bared his fangs at her, teeth much larger than the ones on the wall. “Let’s go before Azagoth knows you’re here.”
“I already know.” Azagoth’s voice, little more than a serrated growl, came from every direction, blowing Idess’s hair like a gust of wind. “Bring her to me.”
Oh, no.
Cursing, Hades glared at her and brought her before Azagoth as he stood at the precipice overlooking a valley. A gorge filled with demons. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.
The disappointment in his expression combined with the angry flames—literal flames—in his eyes, made her mouth go as dry as the desiccated husk of whatever creature currently lay at his feet.
“So, you’re the chosen sacrifice.”
She swallowed. “W-what?”
“Your brothers and sisters. They chose you to spy on me and then talk me down if you discovered I was doing something crazy.”
Relieved that he wasn’t being literal and needing a blood sacrifice for whatever he was doing here, she tried to muster a little dignity after being manhandled by first a carnivorous, stinky plant, and then by Hades.
“It’s not like that,” she said, even though it was. “Everyone wants to help. We want to get Lilliana back.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
She eyed the demon priest, his chalky skin made paler by his black lips and dead, black eyes. “By doing what, exactly?”
Azagoth gestured to the legions of demons below. “By enlisting their help.”
She had a bad feeling about this. “Father, surely there are other ways.” She turned to Hades for help. “Right?”
“Fuck that.” Hades held up his hands and stepped back. “Don’t put me in the middle of this shit. I just work here. For free, I might add.”
The priest droned on, the crowd below chanting with him, and she caught a few stray words. But she couldn’t have heard what she thought she did. She listened more carefully as the priest’s chant grew louder and more frenzied. When it all finally clicked into place in her head, she gasped.
“He…he’s giving them the power to kill.”
Hades’ head whipped around to Azagoth. “I thought it was just the griminions.”
The griminions, too?
The air went bitterly cold as Azagoth took Hades by the throat. “And I thought you didn’t want to be in the middle of this shit.” He bared his fangs, discouraging any further comment before releasing Hades and turning his focus back on Idess. “Priest-boy here is giving a hundred thousand souls the power to make a single kill and possess the body of their victim after griminions collect the soul. Then they’ll punch through Moloch’s defenses and rescue Lilliana.”
Holy shit. The plan was ballsy, brutal, and a huge middle finger directed at Heaven. She couldn’t let him do this.
“But, Father, Moloch has millions of supporters now. Even if your freshly re-souled soldiers get through the lines, even if they rescue Lilliana, Heaven will—”