Chapter 27

~~Day 39~~

~~Mia~~

“I get it,” Mia said. “Really, I do. Too much, even.”

“Oh?” Yosepha said, eying her suspiciously. The angel was not convinced.

Mia and Yosepha both sat together in a random alcove away from the other demons. Not the fancy, out-of-the-way one from earlier, but a great place to have a quick chat. Both ladies also wore their potram rune, which was absolutely awesome.

“He is really sexy, in that psycho madman kinda way.”

Rolling her eyes, Yosepha shook her head. Such a beautiful woman. The dark skin, eyes so dark they were obsidian, super short curly hair, the lean warrior woman physique, it all fit her white silks and gold jewelry perfectly. Not that she needed it to look beautiful. All angels were unfairly gorgeous. But it was her stubborn, proud attitude that drew Mia in.

“He is a menace.”

“Romakus is ... okay, yeah, probably. But on the menace scale, with people like Vinicius or the rider near the top, Romakus is probably a lot lower, right? It seems like he wants to be ... good? Good as far as demons are concerned.”

“A rebel in an ocean of killers.” Yosepha looked down, but her usually serious face softened. An even better tell was her wings, and how they fluttered slightly, like a dog who couldn’t keep their tail still.

“You like him.”

“I do not.”

“Oh come on. You like him!” Oh my god, girl talk. Mia never got to do this! This was fun. “He’s a classic bad boy.”

“He is a demon, Mia. Male-female dynamics do not exist for angels and demons. He is not even technically male, but merely looks it. The same for myself. I am not, by surface standards, female.”

“Okay, sure, there’s some key differences between surface life and how demons and angels work. But that doesn’t mean the important stuff isn’t there. Romakus is fun, and smart, and”—she leaned in close—”isn’t afraid to be naughty with you.”

“Naughty? Heaven is an unending orgy, Mia. Sex is hardly considered naughty.”

“Yeah, but that’s between angels and humans, right? Romakus is a demon. A big one. And he’s comfortable being aggressive with you. How many humans or angels are aggressive with someone like you? Sexually?”

“It is Heaven. Aggressiveness has to be ... considered carefully. Many souls wish for someone to approach them in a sexually aggressive manner, but the gabriem manage that. They are experts in such matters. And we mikalim do not approach each other so casually and—”

“Right. So, none. He’s a bad boy! He knows you well enough to know when he can get away with ignoring your words, and that’s hot. Guys who know how to approach that line without crossing it are hot. They’re infuriating, and frustrating, and hot.”

Yosepha frowned. “I am not some school girl reading about a vampire stalker, Mia.”

“Noooo, but come on, you’re an angel! I bet all the souls in Heaven look up to angels like you’re all super deadly and unapproachable, right? Especially mikalim.”

That got a deep sigh out of her.

“They do.”

“So now there’s Romakus, who’ll happily approach you, dismiss your ‘silly’ resistance, and take you ... roughly. And when a smart — and hot — guy who knows how to read you does that, that’s fucking scintillating.”

With another heavy sigh, Yosepha sat up a little straighter and gestured to Mia.

“You say you studied psychology?”

“Yeah, but I only got to my second year. I enjoyed it, though.”

“I can see your passion for the topic.”

Mia beamed. “Thanks.”

“Romakus was not planned. I never intended for this relationship to exist.”

“Well yeah. That’s part of what makes it so spicy!” She scooted in closer until she was touching knees with the angel. “Does he always ... you know.”

“Does he always what?”

Squirming, Mia gestured to Yosepha.

“Choke you and stuff, and ... anal, and stuff.”

“You are one of the most sexually obsessed souls I have ever met, Mia. If you were in Heaven, you would take advantage of the gabriem every single moment of your time there, wouldn’t you?”

“Hey! I ... I mean, maybe?” Mia looked left and right, as if a demon might have snuck into the alcove to eavesdrop. “W-What sort of stuff would they do for me?”

“Whatever you desired. My good friend Janiya, endowed as well as a zotiva spire mother, frequently enjoys indulging men their breasts obsession in whatever fashion they wish. Often in a shared pool. Last I spoke with her, she was in the middle of giving a man a handjob as he suckled on her, and only ten feet away sat the gabriem Masada, enjoying slow, gentle sex with a woman. Angels must often be slow, to make sure the soul’s body can comfortably fit their girths.”

“Can comfortably ... How big are angels? Er, I mean ... you know.”

“As large as an incubus’s, if you must know.”

That was big, then. Like, nearly a foot long big. Not that Mia was obsessed with dick size, nope nope.

“So, I mean, if I desired ... a few angels ... taking turns with me, passing me around like a toy, I could have that?”

Yosepha laughed. It was a short burst, but a delightful sound, borderline a giggle.

“You would not be the first to request such a treatment, or receive it.”

“Awesome.”

“Many souls speak to angels for therapy, as well.”

Mia sat up straight. “Really?”

“Yes. The gabriem are well versed in how to heal an ailing mind. The pains of the surface are unique, and many strike the soul so deeply, they leave scars. For many humans, they stay in Heaven until those wounds heal, and for some, it can take centuries of deep, often painful conversations with gabriem who have seen the rise and fall of entire civilizations. Or, a conversation with a fellow soul, guided by a gabriem for the two to meet and share their pains.”

“Wow. That’s ... That’s the kind of stuff I got into psychology for.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I wanted to help people. But, I mean, I aimed to be a psychologist with a specialization in sexuality.”

“Of course.”

Mia frowned. Yosepha held a neutral gaze. Either she was being sincere, or she had the best poker face. The former, definitely.

“I’m kind of surprised Heaven is so cool with sex. I mean, it’s pretty common for religions to treat sex like it’s bad, or should only ever be done post marriage, you know?”

“That ... is a complicated question, and one better suited to the gabriem. Suffice it to say, sex has indeed caused many problems for humans. Some of the greatest sins in the history of mankind have been due to sex or sexual desires, by both sexes.”

“But, that’s like blaming a weapon for violence and not the wielder.”

Yosepha held up a hand. “I am not the one to ask. But here in the afterlife, you cannot acquire resonance. All resonance here in the afterlife is that which has been brought by those who lived on the surface. Acts that could be considered ... potentially problematic, do not exist in Heaven or Hell, at least not as far as resonance is concerned.”

“Resonance ... I don’t suppose you can explain to me how all that works? Why angels and demons need it? Why the universe works the way it does? Why—”

“No. It is not my place, and I am no expert in the nature of our universe. But, I can tell you that resonance is acquired from the surfaced based on you, your choices, your desire to aid, and your desire to harm. It is experience.”

“Experience.” It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the idea that life itself was about experiencing it, so that a greater being or entity could somehow experience it through its smaller pieces.

David probably would have made some dumb, quiet little joke about experience meaning leveling up. She would have laughed, too.

“Here in the afterlife, you may have noticed demons do not go through the same ... mental gymnastics, when coming to terms with their actions. They are simpler than humans, in a way, as are angels. Perhaps we lack the spark needed to create resonance. Perhaps it is the surface itself that creates the resonance, and souls absorb it. I am not sure. It is not how the afterlife works. The rules here are different.”

“What rules?”

“Exactly.”

Mia laughed and buried her face in her palms.

“So what you’re saying is, all the reasons the surface came up with rules and stuff, none of that really applies anymore?”

“Correct. In Heaven, for the better. In Hell, for the worst.”

Sighing, Mia nodded a few times, but a kernel of a thought built up inside, and despite her attempts to stop it, she smiled.

“It’s not ... always, for the worst, right? The sex is—”

“How lucky you are,” said a new voice.

Both girls snapped their heads to the alcove entrance. Julisa stood there, and her largest talon gently tapped the ground as she grinned at them and licked her lips. How could a demon that huge be so quiet?

“Lucky?” Mia asked.

Without invite, Julisa sat down with them, and towered over them. But her body language was anything but imposing. If anything, she looked excited to be talking with them.

“Is this what the scrying pools call ... girl talk? Speaking of sex and boys and our boss who doesn’t appreciate our efforts?”

“We speak of greater things than such small-minded concerns,” Yosepha said, glaring.

Mia slowly raised a hand. “I like talking about sex and boys and, if I had a boss, a boss who doesn’t appreciate my work. But, that last one isn’t really girl talk.”

Julisa laughed, brought around her tail, and poked Mia in the thigh.

“What else would girl talk include?”

“I’m ... not entirely sure. I’ve never been that close with other people, not as a teenager, anyway. But according to really shitty TV, girl talk should include taking bad pictures of each other with our phones, showing off new clothes, talking about music and TV, talking about the bitches at school making our lives miserable, stuff like that. And boys.”

“The size of girths?” Julisa asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Did ... Did you come here just looking to talk about Vinicius?” Mia clutched her necklace. “You want me to force him to fuck you again, don’t you?”

With a heavy sigh, Julisa’s tail poked at her again. It was almost as long as Mia was tall, and thick as Mia’s leg at the base, but Julisa was gentle.

“Please?”

Oh god.

“No! No I’m not going to force him to do anything.”

“But you enjoyed yourself last time, did you not?”

“I...”

Julisa leaned in closer. “Perhaps you would prefer to take the beast inside you this time? I could help.” And imitating last time, she held out two hands in front of her and wiggled them left and right, like she did when pushing Mia down onto Vin’s tongue.

“Aren’t you Damall a little more concerned with big things?” Mia asked, doing her best to suppress her blush. She couldn’t. Ginger curse. “Like ... big, political war things?”

“Of course. But while we sit here and figure out how to deal with this absurd situation that has never, in the history of existence, ever occurred, we must relax.” Julisa leaned in closer again, and with how tall she was, she loomed over Mia. “You have to understand, little soul. Vinicius is the last child of the Old Ones that we’re aware of. Perhaps there are more, hiding, or on the other side of Hell, but as far as the Damall are aware, there are no children of the Old Ones alive in Death’s Grip, or the Black Valley or Grave Valley. Rare beyond rare. And you have one under your thumb.” It was a good thing the fujara tetrad was wearing armor, or she’d have touched herself, given the sighs she made. “How can you not indulge?”

“Mia,” Yosepha said, “may have the sex drive of a succubus, but she is no succubus. She would not debase herself by using the leash so.”

“Ha! Any human girl would love to have Vin’s tongue inside them. And if they could handle it, his—”

Mia put up her hands. “As much as Vin ... is pretty hot, he’s also a killer. The really big, bad, wipe-out-an-entire-country-for-fun kind of bad. There’s bad boy, and then there’s that.”

“It’s Hell,” Julisa said. “It’s not as if he went on a rampage killing innocent souls on the surface.”

“What if he somehow got to the surface? What would he do? What would you do?”

Julisa opened her mouth, and closed it as she looked down. She furrowed her eyebrows and tapped some claws with her four hands on the stone ground as she thought about it. Getting to the surface was not something she’d ever considered. Did demons never daydream or fantasize?

“I ... do not know what I’d do.”

“No demon would know,” Yosepha said. “Many are convinced if they got to the surface, or to Heaven, they would have a feast. But I do not think so. These creatures”—she gestured to Julisa with a wing—”have spent their entire existence surrounded by only the worst humanity has to offer. To them, humans with sympathy, empathy, and compassion, are merely images in a scrying pool.”

Julisa growled at the angel, but she didn’t retort, either. The angel had her.

“I dunno,” Mia said. “I ... I knew a girl, here in Hell. Hannah. A betrayer. She had a horrible past, yeah, and she definitely had some dark edges to her. But she ... she saved me, when the rider attacked. I don’t think she knew doing that would ... get her killed, but she saved me anyway. A reflex. Yanked me out of the path of his axe. Not all souls in Hell are scumbags. Or maybe, they don’t stay scumbags? Maybe they can change?”

Yosepha looked down in thought, too, and her wings settled as she pondered.

“I cannot say I have ever heard of a human changing their colors while in Hell,” the angel said before looking to Julisa.

“Me neither,” the demon said.

Mia frowned and hugged her knees up to her chest. The fun was gone, sucked out of the room, and that blew. Fun was hard to find in Hell.

“I’m not surprised,” Mia said. “Hell is mean. The demons are mean. The angels offer no help. All the souls sent here just ... die, and get tortured, and...” She shook her head. “What’s the Great Tower like?”

“I don’t understand the question,” Yosepha said.

“When people die in Hell or Heaven, they go to the Great Tower, right? Uh, here in Hell it’s different. They have to die as remnants until their number hits zero, right?”

“You would have to ask the council about remnants, but, yes, that is what we believe.”

The fact Yosepha didn’t know for sure was infuriating. No wonder she was trying to figure out what was going on, and didn’t trust the council anymore.

“So, they go to the Great Tower, and ... what? What happens?”

“They are reborn on the surface. It is a cycle. On the surface, they gain resonance.”

“Then they die, and bring the resonance to the afterlife.”

“Yes.”

Mia shook her head. “Only people on the surface can acquire resonance, but that doesn’t mean that only people on the surface can change. So if someone who’s a horrible person comes to Hell, and manages to change, then ... what? They still have to die, and die hundreds of times more, painfully, horribly, until they’re purged clean of all the bad resonance before they go to the Great Tower? Like, someone cleansing seeds before planting them? That’s fucked up!”

Julisa and Yosepha looked at each other like Mia had just lost her mind.

The demon spoke first. “You think you can create a better system than God?”

“What God!?” Mia jumped up and gestured up around at the rock and amber veins that surrounded them. “Where is God!?”

Again, the demon and angel shared a glance.

“I didn’t join this conversation to question reality,” Julisa said, “or be sad — ha — about damned souls suffering their due punishment.” With an annoyed growl, the tetrad got back to her feet, and walked away. “I think I will try to seduce Vinicius once more.” She didn’t even wave.

Alone again, Yosepha and Mia shared glances before looking back down at the stone.

“Sorry,” Mia said.

“Don’t be.”

“But, I was enjoying the girl talk. Especially with someone who isn’t an asshole.”

“Yes, well, you remind me of gabriem quite a bit, little soul. And some of my closest friends are gabriem.”

Mia perked up. “Do gabriem talk about boys? Do angels?”

“They do. Though, it is generally discouraged for angels to become romantically attached to a soul. They never stay forever.”

“Aw, that’s sad.”

“Yes, it can be. Some angels become romantically entangled with each other, as well, but in Heaven, souls outnumber us by many fold. The gabriem have their hands full, and often the rapholem and mikalim find themselves socializing with the souls, as well.” She leaned forward a little and poked Mia in the forehead with a wing feather. “And they talk about more than boys and sex.”

“Sorry! Sorry. But hey, I’m nineteen years old. I should be hanging out with girls and talking about sex, right?”

Yosepha laughed. “If you were in Heaven, yes, that is what you would be doing, both with angels and other souls.”

They smiled. Both knew they were avoiding the topic Mia had brought up, about the distinct lack of God’s presence, but either Yosepha didn’t want to talk about it, or she didn’t know. Probably both.

~~David~~

The death pits was an apt description.

Death’s Grip was a province of rock and bone, with veins of lava. Mountains, jagged and harsh, with only bloodgrip vines and the occasional burning bush to remind him that plant life was a thing in Hell. The tunnels weren’t much different. Hell also occasionally grew some artful statues and stuff, but mostly, Death’s Grip was a barren wasteland.

The death pits were a stark reminder that Hell wasn’t just some rocky desert from Earth’s surface.

David and the eight demons with him all stared down into the whirlpool of limbs. The remnants screamed, tore at each other, ripped off clumps of hair, chunks of skin, jaw bones, and killed each other. But the moment a remnant died, another grew into their place.

A giant hole in the ground in the shape of a funnel fifty feet wide and deep, filled with remnants, and at the bottom, remnants were jammed face to face, endlessly tearing each other to death.

David forced down the rock in his throat and looked around at the cavern. No remnants on the walls, as if Hell wanted to save every nearby one for the death pit. It was dark, with only a few amber veins. Around the pit, metal poles grew from the upper edge horizontally over it, maybe five feet long and pointing inward, like black teeth. It was oddly similar to a sarlacc pit.

“What the fuck,” David said.

“Don’t fall in,” Caera said. She kept her body pressed to the wall, and began the trek around the pit. An exit waited for them, large, and far as David could see, another pit awaited, and beyond that, a bunch more. It was the death pits, not pit, and the distant screams confirmed.

There was only a few feet of space around the pit at their feet.

“I’ve never seen this,” Jes said, and she walked up to the edge of the pit. With one of the black metal teeth sticking out and over the pit in front of her, chances were good if she fell in, she’d grab the metal and pull herself to safety. But that didn’t mean it was a good idea, and Daoka pulled on her lover’s tail.

But the Las didn’t care. All four of them hopped out onto the metal poles, and perched on them like birds as they looked down at the pit below. The remnants reached up for them, but couldn’t reach.

“Las!” David said. “Be careful.”

Lasca looked at him, tilted her head to the side, looked at her kin, who all tilted their heads too, before they shrugged and glided back to him.

“We were fine,” Lasca said.

“Yeah, you probably were. But what if a Cainite showed up and threw a rock at you and you fell in? What if an earthquake or hellquake knocked you in? What if—” Sighing, he shook his head and gestured down at the pit. “Be careful, okay?”

All four of the little ladies looked between each other again, and traded raised eyebrows. They didn’t understand his concern. Or, they didn’t understand concern in general?

“Acelina?” he asked. “You think you can get around this?”

The demoness leaned forward over the pit slightly, and one of the remnants growing on the edge reached up over its lip for her ankle.

“Acelina! You—”

She lifted her hoof and crushed the remnant’s hand. Truly crushed, like a hydraulic press squashing a grape, and the hand broke apart into a mess of bone and flesh.

“I will be fine,” she said. “Let us do this quickly.”

David looked up at her and did his best to read her face. Pointless. Unless she opened her mouth, her face was a smooth obsidian mask that betrayed nothing. But his wasn’t, and he knew he probably had ‘worried’ stamped on his face in big red letters.

Daoka clicked a few times up at Acelina, and tugged on her tail, too, pulling her away from the pit. David braced for the inevitable tongue lashing the huge demoness would give the comparatively small satyr, but none come. Whatever strange relationship the two eyeless demons had developed, it was enough for Acelina to listen to Dao, and back off from the edge.

The problem was, they still had to actually get around the pit. Caera already had lead, and most of the Las followed her, but Lasca stayed with David. Jes and Dao followed Caera and the other Las, then David and Lasca, then Acelina. Three feet of space between the cavern wall and the pit.

David wasn’t afraid of heights, but anyone would be afraid of this, three feet to work with, and a painful death waiting for anyone who stumbled. If it was a video game, this would have been the section where he’d have been terrified of getting ambushed. Someone was bound to show up ahead, with a gun, and force him to run down the narrow path, avoid bullets, and do his best to not fall in.

Thank god that did not happen. They circled the huge funnel of death, and the cave tapered before opening up to another pit, again filled with remnants screaming and crying. No wonder demons were so desensitized to violence. Even a normal human would eventually grow deaf to suffering if they were surrounded by it twenty-four-seven.

They got around the second pit, and the cave changed. The next cavern was bigger, and filled with death pits, some partly overlapping. Like the lava rivers, finding a path around the pits would have been a nasty process of trial and error, but Caera knew the way.

“Watch your footing,” she said. “The path shrinks.”

Acelina hissed and gestured out ahead of them with a torn wing.

“This is ridiculous. What led to such a concentration of remnants?”

“That was part of the reason I was exploring these tunnels,” Caera said. “There are a lot of memories down here, more than even Zel knew. Belial was up to something down here, something fucked up if Hell responded like this.”

“How do you know it was Belial?” David asked.

“The temple. We got another couple days travel to get there, and we should stop by Renato’s hole first. He’s past these pits. I know the way.”

“The temple was dedicated to Belial? Not Lucifer?”

“I didn’t get to see for sure, but I think so,” she said.

David peeked down over the edge of the closest pit.

“That doesn’t sound like something Lucifer would allow.”

“You knew the archangel?” Acelina asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“No, but, if someone’s willing to go up against God and Heaven and all that, I have to assume they’re pretty egotistical, right?”

“Maybe,” Caera said. “Maybe God was a giant asshole, and Lucifer was trying to break free of those chains?”

“Satan was a revolutionary?” It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that idea. Sympathy for the devil, and all that. “I guess we’ll—”

Acelina let out a harsh hiss, and fell.

David threw himself to the right, straight over the pit. All the pits had the metal poles sticking out over their edges, and for the half a second it took his chest to crash down against it, he prayed it’d hold his weight. And Acelina’s.

Thunk. The metal vibrated with his weight, and bent with the second impact of Acelina’s weight suddenly pulling on David’s wrist.

“Fuck!” Pain ripped through him, and every muscle clenched into steel as the great weight of the huge demoness pulled on him. The only reason she didn’t dislocate his shoulder was her enormous wings, flared wide to catch air, but it cost her. She screamed, loud, a banshee shriek that crashed against the cavern walls as the holes in her wings, almost healed, tore open. But it was enough to keep her from ripping his arm off.

She got her free hand around the metal pole, snarling endlessly, but it got her weight off David’s wrist. With both her hands on the metal underneath him, David was free to sit up, and stare down at the death pit and the remnants below who wanted them. Don’t fall.

“What happened?” Caera asked. “What—”

More shrieks followed. They weren’t Acelina’s.

“Look!” One of the Las said, pointing down into the pit.

They all looked, and all of them gasped. Hands came out of the pit, tearing and grabbing at anything they could. Human hands. And then arms. Shoulders. Heads. Torsos. And legs. One by one, and then by dozens, remnants pulled themselves out of the swirling mess of gore, and climbed. And not all from the bottom. Some pulled themselves free closer to the pit edge, exposing the bloody rock underneath, only for another remnant to replace them. And then climb free, too.

One of them hung from Acelina’s ankle.

“Begone!” Hissing, she kicked her leg hard, and the metal pole shook and bent more as the spire mother threw the dangling remnant from her ankle. The remnant came off, but their arm did not, and it dangled uselessly, fingers wrapped tight above her hoof.

“What the fuck is going on?” David yelled. The remnants and their unending screams only grew louder as more of them began their ascent.

“I don’t know!” Jes yelled back. Unlike everyone else, she didn’t so much as hesitate to tear up the first remnant that got out of the pit close to her. Remnants were soft, flesh and bone, and one swipe of her claws was all it took to almost split an emaciated woman in half. “Let’s go back!”

“We’re not going back!” Caera’s voice. She turned around and got to work, slicing a couple of remnants apart at the waist, and unlike Jes, she got all the way through. Blood rained onto the remnants below, lost in the chaos. “Get David!”

“That pole is going to break!” Jes gestured to the metal tooth. “David, get over here!”

“Not without Acelina!”

“She can handle herself.”

David looked down at Acelina and squeezed the metal until his knuckles turned white. It was all too scary how she dangled from the metal, like some sort of action movie where she’d slip and die. But not only did she start pulling herself up, she did it easily.

“Go,” she said.

David gulped, and watched the huge woman do a pull up, and then a muscle up, until she’d pushed herself high enough the bar was under her against her waist, both hands pressed down against it.

Of course, the huge metal tooth had already started to bend, and Acelina driving her weight down to push herself up was the tipping point. It broke, and the metal ripped out of the stone at the lip of the pit.

“Shit!” Gravity went out from under him, and the world turned upside down as both he and the huge demoness fell. They didn’t fall far. The metal pole only stuck out half a dozen feet from the edge, and the wall of the pit itself went down maybe forty-five degrees. But it was a steep enough angle David hit the layers of remnants, and rolled down.

Acelina didn’t roll. She hit the remnants and hit them hard. Unlike him, she managed to get right side up before landing, and her hooves ground into the remnants beneath her as she slid down the wall of flesh hard enough the remnants tore apart. She slammed her claws into the wall of gore deep enough she came to a stop, earning more death screams from the emaciated souls, and another rain of blood.

Her tail snapped out, and slipped under David’s arm. He grabbed it, and earned another shriek of pain from the demoness.

Daoka stood at the edge of the pit, clicking like an angry cicada and looking around in a panic.

“David!” All the Las yelled. “David! David! David! Da—”

Before they got to do anything about his problem, remnants crawled out of the hole, and created a new one. Dozens of remnants. Hundreds. Some groaning, some weeping, some shrieking like demons, they climbed out of the pit, stood with hunched backs and dragging limbs, and looked around with tear-filled eyes.

Movement underneath David yanked his eyes down. Remnants, half buried in flesh, rock, and blood, reached out for him. Fingers wrapped his wrists, his ankles, and arms hooked behind his shoulders and knees.

“Let go!” He pushed down against the sea of flesh, and cringed from head to toe as his fingertips slipped into soft things. One broke through someone’s skin on their cheek. Another pressed into organs sitting between the shoulders of remnants that’d rolled down from above. Another stabbed into one of their eyes.