Chapter 77

~~Day 120~~

~~David~~

Taking a break was nice. Taking it out in the open on the empty ground, not so much. But they’d been walking for another week, and other than some run-ins with hungry demons and hungrier hellbeasts, the walk had been uneventful.

The real concern was angels. Twice, white dots had streaked the sky, and David had had to carve caves for the group in a matter of seconds. Now, everyone watched the skies, justly paranoid.

“So no hellbeasts can fly?” David asked. He squatted in front of Pegasus, his chest to his pet’s, so Pegasus’s neck and head were over his shoulder. Hard to get in close to a small horse with a unicorn horn, body spikes, and wings. He reached forward, slipped his hands under the goort’s wings, and lifted them, flapping the bestest horse in the world’s wings for him.

Pegasus stayed where he was, nestled into David’s neck. Happy to be there, apparently. It tugged at David’s heartstrings every time.

“Nope,” Jeskura said. She sat nearby behind Daoka, examining her lover’s back spikes. “Only angels. Lots of hellbeasts have wings, but the best they can do is glide, like me.”

David shook his head and let Pegasus’s wings go. “Still makes no sense to me. If you have wings, just get under a hot air current going up, right? Or flap your wings and stuff.”

“It’s not about physics,” Tsila said, giving her angel wings a small flap. “We do not fly with physics; that is for the surface. We fly with the grace of God. Our graces.” She stood behind the sitting Acelina, examining the spire mother’s wings, but also examining Acelina’s armor, her four huge horns, and even her necklaces. Were those two getting along? Maybe. In David’s crew, they were the only two who seemed interested in fashion.

Maybe the Las were getting into fashion, too. They stood in front of Acelina, and watched with wide eyes as Tsila took Acelina’s necklaces and wove them into interesting chain patterns.

“Indeed,” Laoko said, lying on her side nearby. “I have seen hellbeasts with no name, gliding through dark depths you have not seen, deep within the most barren pits underneath the Grave Valley. But never flying.”

Free of David’s exploring hands, Pegasus hopped back and flapped his wings on his own, bouncing weight from front to back. Frolicking, like a playful baby horse, except with wings. And like a baby predator learning to hunt, Caera gave chase, purposefully going slow so she didn’t catch the goort. Pegasus made a playful whinny sound and clicked in his throat several times as he ran away.

“He says ‘play’,” Moriah said.

David smiled. Good. Play was good. He doubted normal hellbeasts did things like play, or vocalize it like this. Pegasus was definitely a unique creature with a lot of surface-animal qualities.

“I was wondering about that, too,” David said, standing back up. “Angels can speak Hellian?”

Moriah nodded. “It’s ancient and simple.”

Daoka mirrored the nod with a chirp, making some demons chuckle.

David took a step toward Caera and Pegasus, tripped, landed on his palms, and froze. Someone else’s hand reached up from the ground and grabbed his wrist. “Shit!” David yanked his hand free and threw himself to the side, but it wasn’t enough. The ground opened up beneath him, and a dozen hands grabbed him.

The remnants burst up from the rock and dirt, and as if they had an agenda, the ground turned soft under him. Quicksand. Fucking quicksand. Remnant fingers wrapped his ankles and wrists, and a remnant head poked up from the sand and bit into his flesh. Pain came a second later after the shock wore off, and David yelled.

The demons and betrayers weren’t any better off. If anything, the demons had a worse time, heavier bodies sinking into the muck and the churning, growing waves of desperate remnant palms.

“Pegasus!” David spun. His horse whinnied, the highest pitch and loudest sound he’d made yet, and he flapped his wings as hard as he could. Nothing. His four hooves sank into the sand and gripping fingers.

Like lightning bolts, Moriah and Tsila took to the air, wings flapping hard to free themselves from the sand. As Acelina sank deep, sank up to her waist, she threw the Las out of the pit onto its edge, and the little ladies scampered free.

“David!” Lasca yelled. “David! Do—”

Caera got her hands on David, pulled him out of the sand, and fell in. She’d been on the edge of the growing pit, and grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him tilted her forward. She fell into the dozens of remnant hands reaching up from the ground, and roared down at the limbs as her heavy body sank into the dirt.

“Caera!” he yelled. “Someone—”

Moriah swooped in from above, grabbed Caera’s hands, and pulled her out of the growing pit. She flapped her wings hard, the wind sending crumbling dirt and dismembered remnant fingers scattering over the slope of the pit until David had to close his eyes.

She set Caera’s massive bulk beside him and returned to the pit, dashing from side to side to grab every demon and betrayer she could. Tsila did the same, wincing every time she grabbed a betrayer’s hand.

Moriah grabbed Pegasus’s horns and dragged him, freeing inch after inch of the goort from the clawing remnants. He stomped his front hooves, finally free of the dirt, crushed remnant heads peeking up from the sand, and flapped his wings with the panic of a trapped songbird. More hands grabbed his rear legs, but Moriah was strong. She pulled Pegasus free of their grip, tore some remnant hands free of their wrists, and she set David’s companion on the solid ground.

David forced down a few deep breaths and got to his feet. Everyone had been rescued, each demon and betrayer free and standing on the edge of the deathtrap. The crew stepped back further as the pit grew wider and more remnants reached up, tearing at the ground in a futile attempt to free themselves as much as they tore at each other. Soon the pit was filled with dead remnants, and their bodies piled up at the bottom, churning as remnant hands stirred the sand like blender blades. The dirt turned red.

“Everyone okay?” David asked, turning and facing the crowd. A quick check showed all his girls were fine, and he squatted down in front of Pegasus and held the winged horse. Pegasus stomped his hooves and squirmed, breathing heavily and flaring his wings, but eventually he settled down, breathing slowing, wings relaxing. David sighed into his pet’s neck, pressed his temple against Pegasus’s, and stroked his thick neck and the spikes on his shoulders.

Danger past and Pegasus calm, David squatted in front of Caera and hugged the huge tiger. She licked his cheek and nudged her short snout into his neck. No need to say it, she’d been quick, quicker than the angels, and threw him to safety, knowing full well she’d fall into the pit. He squeezed her.

“We are fine,” Tatiana said, the succubus groaning. “I have never seen a red pit open so quickly.”

“Hell’s been acting weird,” Jeskura said, groaning and rubbing dirt off her legs and the dented grooves of her armor. “Remnants getting free and walking around like zombie hordes.” Cue full-body shivers. “And I swear other shit’s happening, too. More hellquakes. Worse weather.” She gestured at the churning sky and the relentless hot wind smacking their faces.

Daoka nodded, clicking as she squatted down in front of the Las and checked them for wounds.

“Slow,” Laoko said, grumbling and eyeing David. “You can control Hell, can you not? You were slow to react.”

“Oh shut up. You sank, too. Tsila saved your ass.”

Laoko gestured at herself. “I weigh eight times as much as you, little boy, at the least. I sank in a moment. You did not.”

“Then be grateful—”

“You could have saved us easily, is my point, David.” The curvy tetrad gestured down at the pit of remnants and the thousands of hands poking up from the ground. Heads peeked up just enough to reveal faces, aimed up at the sky, mouths biting at anything that got near their teeth.

“Can the unmarked control the red pits?” Tatiana asked.

Tacharius stood beside her, and the incubus scratched his small horn. “I’ve seen David do some pretty interesting shit. Can you freeze the ground or something?”

“You mean temperature?” David asked. “I uh, don’t think so. I can’t really alter how much energy is in stuff, just the shape of it.” He looked down and scratched his head. “You know, that doesn’t really make sense, does it? Why can I change the shape of things, and even make things move fast enough to stab, but I can’t alter the thermal energy of things? That’s—”

Tsila laughed. “It is still not about physics, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I guess not. I—”

“Hide,” Moriah said, head aimed up. Everyone stared at her. “Now.”

He’d been too slow to stop the red pit from catching him and the crew, but this time he was ready. He turned, put the pit to his back, pointed out his hands, and ripped the ground open, splitting it apart into a single ditch.

The crew jumped in, his girls and Tatiana’s crew. Pegasus hesitated, but Caera scooped up the creature and brought him with her into the trench. David followed them in, and with another silent song, forged a thick ceiling over their heads with a small hole in the center. In the cave’s darkness, a tiny beam of light shone down in its center, just enough light for David to see everyone.

They waited and listened. Nothing.

“I spotted angels,” Moriah said.

“Sure?” Jes asked.

“Yes, I am sure. They hid in the churning sky, but came lower. Tsila and I flying about moments ago gave us away.”

David winced.

“We must hide their wings,” Tatiana said, the princess bitch speaking with the same authority Acelina liked to use. “I told you their wings would give us away. All is black, red, and shades of death in Hell. An angel’s wings and clothes stand out to anyone.”

“Got an idea?” David asked. “I’m all ears.”

Sighing, Tatiana stripped naked and handed her red silks to Moriah. David stared at her, and somehow found the strength to not let his eyes roam her slim, fit, tall body, her small-but-perfect breasts, and the varying piercings; peripheral vision was more than enough for him to see it all. There was no getting around it: succubi were really fucking hot, and Tatiana had that runway-model physique that had everyone staring.

She had a few scars, too. Earlier delving questions had learned nothing. She was a closed book.

“Come on,” the succubus said, glaring back at Tacharius, the other demons with her, and the betrayers. They all wore silks, not as pretty as hers, but that wouldn’t matter. “Strip and give the clothes to the angels. We should have done this earlier.”

Tacharius sighed, stripped, and handed his black silk, skimpy toga to Tsila. “I want that back someday.”

“Oh shut up,” Tatiana said. “I am a bailiff and here I stand, nude, surrounded by ruffians. Be happy you get to see my naked body at all.”

David raised a brow and looked at the other vola sex demons. They were smiling. Apparently Tatiana’s princess attitude was pretty normal. Judging from the sounds they made almost every night, they were all familiar with her naked body, too.

“These will work,” Acelina said, and she gestured to the incubi and succubi. “Help the angels. Tie the silks around their wings and—”

“Quiet,” Moriah said.

The group went silent and stared at the beam of light stabbing the dark cave from above. Noise. Clinking armor. Flapping wings. Talking.

The noise grew closer.

“—were here,” a voice said, muffled through the meter of rock. David had made the ceiling thick.

“Are you certain?” another voice asked.

“Yes.”

“I see a red pit opened moments ago. Perhaps you saw its formation?”

“I saw white, captain.”

A deep breath. “We know the unmarked can change the shape of Hell. Perhaps they are hiding.”

“Hiding, captain?”

“Beneath the ground.” Oh fuck. “Come, back to the sky.”

David gulped hard and shared glances with Tsila and Moriah. Their eyes were wide, too.

“David,” Moriah whispered. “They will bombard the area.”

“I made the roof thick,” he said. “But I don’t know if it’s thick enough.”

Tatiana gestured to the wall beside them. “Form a tunnel.”

“I can’t just make tunnels,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “A cave isn’t the same.”

The princess sneered and rolled her eyes. “Then can you make this cave deeper?”

“I can try, but—”

An explosion shook the room, and the walls vibrated, unleashing a sound like someone had rung an enormous, heavy gong beside David’s head.

Pegasus flattened to the ground, on his knees and wings spread, covering the middle of their little cave.

Another explosion shook the stone, and another. David covered his ears. No one else did; maybe the loud sound didn’t hurt their skulls, but it hurt his, and he winced and shuddered as each explosion ripped through the cavern. The ceiling cracked.

“David!” Jes yelled. “You don’t have a choice! Get us out of here!”

“I can’t—”

“I know, but maybe you can try just digging straight down!?”

“It’s not that simple!”

They didn’t get how complicated digging a tunnel was, in any direction. It wasn’t simply a matter of moving mass. Digging a cave was a thousand times simpler, a two-step process of just moving shit out of the way, and then building a wall or ceiling. Moving shit out of the way while simultaneously creating the wall or ceiling with the same material you were moving, balancing both perfectly evenly, was a thousand times harder.

More explosions ripped through the ground, and flashes of gold pulsed through the hole in the ceiling. And as the cracks grew, hints of flashing gold pushed through them as well. Pegasus made to stand, but Daoka clicked at him once and set a hand on his back, gently squashing him to the floor.

“No choice,” Caera said, and she nudged him with her shoulder. “Try, or we’re all dead.”

Sighing, David took a deep breath, put both hands flat against the ground, and played a tune. Each explosion pulsed through him, screwing with the song, and he closed his eyes tight against them. Find a song. Balance it. A tune in one hand. A different tune in the other.

Start small. Move the ground. One hand, then the other. One song into another. Easy, right? Like playing two different guitar solos at the same time, that had to intersect and bounce off each other. Easy. He didn’t need to dig a big hole and travel large distances. For now, just a bit of extra ground between them and the angels above. Easy?