The Pleasures of Hell

~~Day 83~~

~~Mia~~

"The surface?" Yosepha asked.

"Yes," Mia said. "If I can--"

The giant hearts stopped beating, and the dead silence cut through Mia like a knife. She looked up at the eyes on the ceiling, but the eyes were slowly closing. The gold tears, their only source of light, slowed, and stopped. The pulsing flesh grew to a halt. The presence around them died.

"Raphael!" Mia spun and pressed a hand against the bone wall. "Raphael!"

Slowly, new runes wrote across the bone, amber glow soft.

"Be careful, child of Hell."

"Careful? Careful of what?"

New runes. "The flesh of my brothers has twisted many here, in Heaven's Tears." Angel's Spine. "And our corpses hide the remains of Lucifer's war. Your music will draw their eyes, and ire. You must be careful."

"What? Remains?" No response. "Raphael?" No response.

Sighing, she ran her fingers down the bone wall, and watched the runes fade. Instead of healing over like before, the runes faded into scars, and remained. The last words of a giant.

Romakus sighed. "Dobasi said this place was important. I just figured he was being obnoxious."

"You've spoken with Dobasi directly?" Yosepha asked.

"Yeah, long time ago."

The angel poked her lover with a wing. "You keep too many secrets."

"A girl needs her secrets."

She eyed the man, but her eyes drifted as the room grew darker and darker. The gold, shining tears faded away, and the runes died. Since the walls, floor, and ceiling were all archangel flesh, there were no amber veins, and eventually the room turned pitch black.

The angels changed their clothes. All three switched to their battle armor, and all three lit up the blades of their weapons, two swords and a spear tip now glowing gentle gold like the archangel's tears had before.

"Mia," Azreal said. "Is James still playing music?"

"No. I don't hear anything."

"Is he still alive?"

"I won't get the vision until I sleep."

"Then I go. I must return to James immediately." He held out a hand to Noah, and his comrade shook it without hesitation. "Be safe, old friend."

"Be safe." Noah shared a knowing nod, and Azreal took off.

He got halfway toward the tunnel exit, and lava burst up from the ground. The harsh amber light was blinding, and Mia squeaked and covered her eyes as the deadly fluid gushed up, splashed against the ceiling, and burned the surrounding flesh. The geyser settled into a slow flow, but the lava spread wide, blanketing the tunnel's path.

"It's him," Vin said, rumbling.

Azreal flapped his wings hard and launched himself back toward the group, summoning his giant shield at the same time. Yosepha and Noah joined him immediately, both summoning their smaller shields and taking up formation on the rapholem's flanks.

"Him?" Mia asked. Stupid question. The moment he said it, it was obvious who it'd be.

She stepped back, and Vin and Kas got between her and the rising lava. Julisa and Romakus both crept further to the sides in the large cavern, drawing their weapons. And Mia summoned her batlam rune again. Back in her full suit of black metal armor, spiky black crown, and wizard's staff, she peeked out from around Vin's leg, and watched the lava flow.

A wing of fire pushed up from the lava, and then another, each the size of angel wings. They flapped once, twice, and a head followed. A skull? A human skull poked up from the lava, and a single bone arm did, too. Bone fingers from a bone hand pressed down against the lava, pushing the body up higher, and the rest of the skeleton crawled out of the inferno too hot for anyone to approach.

Mia would have done something, should have done something, but the whole area was surrounded in archangel flesh. She couldn't control that, and she'd have to reach far and deep to grab a piece of Hell to do anything. Even if she had the wherewithal to do anything, she couldn't, eyes locked, body frozen, as a human skeleton stood upon the lava, and two giant wings of flames slowly flapped behind it.

It stuck out a hand, and heat waves from the lava flowed around the fingers and wrist, air solidifying into bronze, red, and gold. The rest of the arm followed, and--

Noah and Yosepha both swung their blades and unleashed gold arcs of energy. The two beams ripped through the air and crashed against the entity, but not quite. One slammed into the aera armor hand. The other crashed around the skeleton's body, but stopped shy of actually hitting the bone, hitting the air around the skeleton instead. Both gold arcs shattered like glass, and their shards scattered into useless, gold fairy dust.

More armor followed, beautiful swirls of amber that split into red and bronze with gold trim, each coalescing into solid shapes around the feet and legs, wrapping the bone limbs within. Gorgeous aera armor, shining like it'd been polished by a thousand slaves. Colossal and heavy, a suit of armor so thick it was as bulky as Azreal's, maybe even thicker and bulkier.

The breastplate came next, an embossed gold skull at its center. Greaves, legs, waist, shoulders and pauldrons, many carried a gold skull carved into joints. But it was the helmet that struck Mia still. A great helm, David would say, with its front in the shape of a large gold skull, a thin T-slit in front, and two horns.

The lava cooled and solidified, darkening into black rock. The rider's fire wings fell away. A tall man in absurdly massive armor remained, and he grabbed his two axes from his back. Their blades flickered with flame of their own, the only source of light in the cavern of flesh except the angels' weapons.

"Where is she?" the man asked, voice dull, quiet. Boring.

The angels spread their wings, weapons at the ready.

"You will not touch her," Azreal said.

The rider took a step forward. Clink, went the heavy metal.

"Stop," Noah said. "Or--"

"Where is she?" Another step.

Vinicius was behind the angels, but he stood over them and glared at the murderer. His tail wagged, just slightly. Excited to fight, maybe? Excited to see an old friend? Excited to kill said old friend?

"You can see her," Vinicius said. "What do you mean?"

The rider slowly hook his head. "My wife. She helped you. No more." The axes danced with flame, alive, chaotic, hungry, at complete odds with the gentle pulsing waves of the angels and their gold glow. "Where is she?"

Mia gulped, stepped around Vin's leg, and came close enough the rider could see her under the spread wall of angel wings.

"Wife? She... She's not here." The woman in aera armor was his wife?

"I felt her."

"She was here! Not here here, but did help us a few days ago. She left."

The rider stopped moving, arms at his sides, axes in hand. Like a statue, he just stood there, waiting for something more, but Mia had no idea what to tell him. No one did.

He turned around and walked away.

Yosepha flew after him. Everyone froze, but the angel flew over the rider and stopped between him and the tunnel.

"Where are you going, old monster?"

He said nothing.

"You seek the other unmarked, don't you?"

He said nothing.

"You seek to kill the unmarked. You seek to kill the woman in armor because she is helping the unmarked."

"Get out of my way."

"I cannot let you leave! The council has sentenced you to death, old monster. And you seek to stop the unmarked, the ones that can save us from the invaders. You must be stopped." No answer. "You have slain thousands of angels! You--"

"Millions." His flat voice cut through Yosepha's words like a wrecking ball.

Mia gulped. Yosepha wasn't wrong. Problem: they'd all just seen what happened. The rider had literally climbed out of a lava vein, a skeleton, his armor and weapons had been created after, and Mia could think of no rune that allowed for something like that. And when the armor had formed, she'd seen no flesh. A walking, talking skeleton.

He'd climbed out of lava! In Hell, lava wasn't just lava. It was sort of like the blood of Hell, and had the destructive power of hellfire, like it was hellfire's sister or something. It was special, and destructive in ways regular fire wasn't. And the rider had literally stepped out of it.

Was he a lich or something? A revenant? How would that make sense in the afterlife? How could they kill something like that?

"I will not move," Yosepha said, flaring her wings, sword and shield up.

"Then die." The rider charged forward and brought both axes down on Yosepha.

The angel blocked with her shield, but instead of standing her ground, she fell to a knee instantly, and her shield broke. The impact of metal on metal rang loud, somehow echoing in the flesh cavern, and a second explosion of sound followed: fire. The two axes unleashed an explosion of hellfire, and it flowed outward, crashing against everything. The flesh walls burned. The floor of muscle and blood burned. And only Yosepha's quick thinking kept her wings snug to her back and out of the path of the flames.

Noah and Azreal flew toward her, but Romakus jumped over and past them, wings out, and he flew the last dozen meters to reach the rider in silence. And unlike the angels, his weapon didn't glow. He tucked in his wings, let gravity pull him down, brought the giant meera sword down on the rider's back as he landed, and sparks erupted, white glowing dots that rained.

The rider almost fell to a knee, turned, and smashed both axes back against the giant sword. Metal on metal raged, and Romakus fell back, pushed back by the rider's swings. Noah and Azreal flew above, and just before the rider sank an axe into Romakus's chest, the rapholem put himself between the rider and the tetrad. His giant shield glowed gold as he summoned a wall, but a single hit from the rider's axe shattered it, and the rapholem slid backward across the burning flesh floor, physical shield still up.

It was enough of an opening for Noah, and he sent a gold arc of energy at the rider. And another. And another. The rider took each straight to the chest, and each knocked him back a few inches. But that was all.

Yosepha charged his back. But instead of wielding her blade and stabbing him, the angel abandoned her weapon and broken shield, and jumped him.

"Yosepha!" Mia screamed.

The angel got both her hands on the rider's helmet, and pulled. The warrior woman, still dressed in glorious armor, unleashed every bit of strength she had, and her screams proved it. Her wings glowed brilliant gold, and she flapped them hard, her boots planted against the rider's shoulders, and her hands clasping the bottom rim of his helmet.

The rider stood and prepared to cut Yosepha off of him. But Noah dove and brought his sword and shield to bear, and the rider had no choice but to block a slew of attacks with his axes. He was too fast. He hit too hard. Noah stepped back, fell to a knee, and blocked the two axes.

Noah's shield shattered in a rain of gold sparks, and he fell to his back. The rider brought up his weapons.

Julisa dove in and brought all four of her swords down. Again, the rider was forced to block, and he turned and faced the second tetrad. But it led to the same thing. Julisa wasn't Romakus, and she attacked with all four swords like she was a chopping machine, each sword striking in quick succession, and the rider blocked them all. Eventually he brought both axes up, blocked all four of her swords, and pushed her back hard. She came back, but he slammed an axe into the muscle ground, and hellfire exploded over the area, driving back Noah, Azreal, Romakus, and Julisa.

Yosepha held on, pulling as hard as she could, and making zero progress.

The rider brought up his axes again, but stopped as a quake shook the cavern. Vinicius. The child of the Belial charged forward, feet tearing up the flesh floor. He bulldozed through the flame, and crashed his full bodyweight into the rider. Yosepha was sent flying, and she crashed against the flesh of the tunnel, but that was a million times better than getting hit by one of those axes.

The rider fell on his back. Vin got on top of him, many times the rider's size, got all four hands on his helmet, many fingers overlapping, and yanked. His tail went rigid, and every muscle on his enormous back flexed hard. He roared, and his heavy voice shook the cavern, sending tingles up through Mia's spine.

Kas got between her and the carnage ahead, low to the ground. His presence shot awareness through Mia, and she looked down at her side. Kas was protecting her, and so was Cerberus. The hellhound roared and snarled, all three heads unleashing a barrage of sounds, but under the sound of metal on metal, screaming angels, and roaring demons, Mia hadn't heard him.

A helmet went flying. Vinicius jumped back, launching his enormous body into the air, and he landed hard, feet almost sinking into the flesh with his tremendous weight.

The helmet rolled toward Mia, and she scampered over and scooped it up. No idea why, but her legs moved on their own, and she stared down at the large helmet and its gold skull face with the T-slit down the front. Scoop quickly turned into deadlift when she realized how absurdly heavy the helmet was. Seventy kilos? A hundred? And it was gloriously, morbidly beautiful. Even angel armor didn't have such amazing detail.

She dropped the helmet, and it sank an inch into the flesh floor.

The rider stood up, true face exposed. Mia half expected the helmet on the ground to disappear and reappear on him, like it did with angel armor. Maybe it could, if the rider spent the energy to make it happen. He did not. He stood there, facing the group as hellfire burned shallow on the flesh floor around him.

It was as before, a skeleton's skull, but the rider slowly turned and faced Mia, and she froze solid. His eye sockets were filled with flame, flame normally hidden in shadow by the helmet.

"What are you?" she asked. A pointless question. He wouldn't answer.

The creature kept his flaming gaze on Mia, and began his slow walk toward her.

"Then I will kill you first."

He got five steps before everyone fell on him. Vinicius got in his path, and the rider took a swing at him. The ragarin jumped back, and again a small explosion of hellfire erupted where axe met archangel flesh. Romakus and Julisa came at him, swinging at the same time. The rider blocked Romakus with one axe, two of Julisa's swords with another, but she had two more, and two of them crashed down against the skull.

Mia couldn't see, but in the chaos and turning bodies, the skull remained, a few chips put in the top by Julisa's attack. How they'd all come to the conclusion to go for his head, Mia had no idea, but they were. But Julisa's attack didn't slow him at all, and he struck back with his flaming weapons. He swung back out at Julisa, she blocked, and stumbled back. The rider came for her.

Azreal got between her and the rider, and again summoned energy to his shield. The rider drove both axes down against it, and the room shook with the sound of unbreakable metal denting under the impact. Azreal stayed behind the shield, but fell to a knee as again, the rider brought both axes down and bathed the glowing shield in hellfire.

Several gold arcs crashed against the rider's back, but accomplished nothing. Noah and Yosepha flew up and unleashed a barrage of gold destruction, raining more arcs of energy down onto the rider. Eventually, Yosepha stopped, but Noah roared down at the skeleton, pointed his sword at him, and sent down a beam, the same beam he'd tried to kill Vinicius with the first time he'd met Mia.

It crashed down on the rider's back and skull, and the armored man fell to a knee. And while the beam smashed into him and buried the room in gold and thunder, the rider stood back up, faced Noah, and summoned his fire wings. He flew to the side, out of the path of the beam, and launched himself up at Noah. How was he so fast?

He brought his axe in from the side. Noah ceased his beam and blocked the axe with his sword, but the impact sent the angel back, and his arm flung violently to the side. The rider came in with the other axe, and Noah blocked it again as best he could, but the strength of the madman was too great, and Noah's sword fell out of his hand and disappeared in a gold blur.

Noah's roar of anger died, cut off, as the rider's axe sank into his stomach.

"No!" Azreal abandoned his shield. The wall of metal and gold vanished, and with both hands around his spear, he flew up to meet the rider, screaming a warrior's cry, and drove his spear directly into the rider's back. Gold erupted, and the rider's wings flared as the spear pushed through the aera armor. Barely.

Vinicius held out a hand to Kas. Kas took it without question, and Mia almost squealed as Vin threw the sarkarin up at the rider. Holy shit. He didn't have to throw Kas very high, but still. At the apex of the throw, Kas got his claws on the rider's legs, held on, and the rider spun out of control like a helicopter going down.

Vin, Julisa, and Romakus were on him in an instant, but Mia didn't watch. She ran to Noah, Cerb on her heels.

"Noah!"

The angel lay on his back, armor dented in at his stomach, and blood oozed out from around his waist, seeping out between the grooves of his beautiful, ruined armor. He forced himself up on his elbows and stared at the wound from within his helmet, eyes hard with rage.

"Mia. I--"

Vin roared in triumph, and the demons jumped away from the fallen rider. The madman fell to his knees, but didn't fall over, refusing to collapse even as he went limp. His head was gone. With a raised arm, Vinicius turned around and held out his hand, where the rider's skull sat, eyes no longer flaming.

"You got his head?" Mia asked. "Wha... How... Kas!" Oh no, not another one. The shark dinosaur limped her way, a burned cut on his arm. Not just him, but Romakus too, a burn and cut in his wing. Azreal's shield arm hung limp at his side. Julisa's shoulder had a nasty burn mark, but not cut; probably from a hellfire explosion. Yosepha had the same.

The group limped her way, but froze halfway when Vin snarled and dropped the skull.

The skull melted away, turned to lava, and dripped through the archangel flesh floor. Mia spun. Sure enough, the helmet she'd dropped was melting, too.

"Look." Yosepha pointed her sword at the rider's kneeling body, where a heat haze formed around his neck. Color formed, bronze, red, and gold, swirling mists that built up around the rider's missing head. And white, too, as a skull began to form.

"This is insane," Mia said. "He's immortal!"

"Invincible," Vinicius said, snarling. "Let us go." He gestured to the tunnel, the path back to James.

When Vin wanted to run, it was time to run. Azreal and Yosepha got an arm under Noah's, and together the three of them took to the air and--

And turned back when a dozen hungry roars filled the tunnel.

"Other way," Yosepha said.

Mia got up and waved her staff. "No no, we have to go that way! That's the way to James! I can't tell where this tunnel leads with all this archangel stuff blocking my senses. We--"

"No choice." Vin scooped her up, and the group got running. At least he had the decency to put her on his back, and she dismissed her staff and held on, still in her armor.

"Cerberus!" she yelled. The hellhound stood by the rider's body, snarling at it, but the rider's body began to move, and his flame wings began to rise and flap. "Cerberus! Come!"

Cerberus snarled one more time and took off after Mia. He fell in beside Vin, and the group took the random tunnel onto a random path they didn't know at all, and Raphael wasn't around to guide them anymore. Every step was archangel flesh, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, all of it, and the wide tunnel spiraled down deeper into the ground.

Where archangel flesh ended and Hell began, she couldn't tell, like trying to hear with earplugs on, or see in the dark, all a blurry mess her sixth sense couldn't make heads or tails of. At least the archangel's body was quiet now. No more pulsing meat and flowing blood.