“Fine,” he said. “Moriah, I’d love to tell you everything. But I won’t.” He gestured around at the girls. “But if I can at least convince you I’m trying to help, that’ll be something, right?”
The angel’s red eyes stared at him, into him, but she looked away and at the girls.
“What do you plan to do with me?”
“What? I said–”
“I mean logistics, unmarked. You journey to the bailiff of this region. Do you really think Timaeus will simply let me be? He will desire my heart, as will all the other demons and Cainites we run into.”
They all looked at Laoko.
“She does make a good point,” Laoko said. “If we can reach Timaeus, I can convince him to keep us protected, but there are many factions in the Grave Valley. Even if we reach Azailia, these groups will lie in wait outside the spire until we depart. Ambushes will become a nightly concern.” The tetrad stood up and tested her wound. Healed over, but she didn’t heal as fast as the angel, the comparatively minor wound pulling some hisses and winces from her.
“I’m not letting her die,” he said. “She comes with us. And if I have to shatter another forest to do it, I will.” He bit into the heart Jes gave him, and ignored the nasty memories that came with the delicious taste. Tingling warmth spread out through his limbs, and the sinking hole in his gut quietened. Even his inner fingers stopped aching so much, far faster than they had in the past.
How many demons had the two girls fought? Did they sneak up on some demons with their betrayers and slit their throats? Or just catch a small group about to eat their meal, kill them, and get two meals for the price of one? He didn’t ask.
They ate in silence for a bit, and David let his eyes settle on the angel. Long, smooth black hair, tan skin, and red eyes. No, not red. Ruby. Something about the way they sparkled insisted ruby was the right word; the first two angels he’d met in Hell had been the same: bronze and obsidian eyes, not brown and black.
She had the body of an athlete, with a narrow waist and moderate breasts that highlighted the large curve of her ass. Much as it was pretty fucked up to notice all that right now, the white silks she wore demanded it. Sexy clothes, with obvious intent to be sexy, same as his. She was just as tall as Jes, too, and just as lean.
The two of them–
Dao elbowed his side, and he snapped his head up out of the gutter.
“Sorry. It was the heart. It’s… spicy.” Damn aura.
She giggled, rubbed her closest horn against his head, and finished her meal. The Las did, too, chirping and nodding, and with a full belly apparently clouding her judgement, Laara crawled forward on her talons toward the angel.
Moriah waved a wing at the little lady, and Laara skittered back.
“Leave me be, vermin.”
“Laara want to talk with angel.”
“This angel has does not wish to speak with Laara.”
Laara frowned and squatted at the angel’s feet. Wing-striking distance, but she risked it anyway.
“Laara is sorry about… other angels. Even the mean one, in the mountain.”
David raised a brow. Jes and Caera raised a brow. Acelina and Daoka aimed their eyeless gazes. Laoko looked back long enough to raise a brow before peeking between the tombstones. The other Las approached and squatted behind their friend, four sets of little wings, two sets of talons, two sets of hooves, all girls watching the angel with their big, red eyes.
They could be so damn adorable when they weren’t behaving like swarming piranha.
“A demon, sorry?” Moriah snarled at the creatures and swung her wing at them again. “Ridiculous.”
White feathers put the ladies on their asses, but they didn’t scurry away. Determined, they got back up and resumed their positions. Moriah glared and swung her wing at them again. This time they got on their elbows and knees and covered their heads and horns, like diving to avoid a bomb. Wing past, they got back up and snuck in a little closer.
“Angels scary,” Lasca said.
“But pretty,” Latia said, and she tapped a hoof on the ground. “So pretty.”
All four little ladies stared at the wounded angel with wide, open eyes, and their jaws dropped slightly as they looked her up and down. Demons may have thought humans were the most sexually appealing of the species, but angels were beautiful in an epic, and dare David think it, biblical way. Her white silk toga, not even a toga, wasn’t much more than a few straps of white wrapping her breasts almost like a revealing criss cross halter top, crossing the chest and behind her neck. Her skirt was long on one side and left the entirety of her thigh exposed on the other. Only a thin loin cloth underneath covered her bits.
To top it all off, she wore gold jewelry. A couple gold rings, gold wrist guards, a gold necklace, a gold chain that hung from one hip. Even the straps of her gladiator sandals had gold trimming. There was no gold in Hell. No wonder the Las were enamored.
If it weren’t for her injuries, David’s aura would have flared up. But the injuries — plus the fact she hated him because he’d killed her friends — was a wet blanket on any arousal. Thank god. He was damn horrible, thinking horny thoughts right now. Had to be the heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“This way,” Laoko said, and she dipped around a tombstone bigger than any others.
Behind it, a valley swallowed them, a dip in the ground that was smooth walking. Shattered tombstones decorated the ground, but as long as David kept an eye aimed at his feet, walking on them wasn’t much harder than walking on a sidewalk and avoiding the cracks.
“Don’t step on a crack,” he said, “or you’ll fall and break your back.”
“Excuse me?” Acelina said. For a single moment, she paused at the back of the group and aimed her eyeless gaze at the ground. Groaning, she shook her head and followed them. “A ridiculous notion.”
The Las giggled and hopped side to side, throwing their weight from foot to foot or hoof to hoof as they avoided cracks. Dao did too, giggled, and fell in beside David. High spirits. Jes and Laoko walked ahead, and David and Caera with the angel on her back, walked in the center of the group.
“We want to go into a canyon?” Caera asked. “If we’re found out…”
“There’s a church built into a crevice,” Laoko said. “We can sleep there, and then it will be a full day’s march to reach Timaeus.”
The demons whined. Long distances and all that.
Miraculously, they reached the church with no encounters.
“I’m surprised no one’s down here,” David said, and he gestured around. The canyon was easy walking, not super deep, and the walls were soft dirt. “I’m surprised we didn’t run into anyone on the way here, either.”
“The Grave Valley,” Laoko said, and pushed open the large black wood door, “is formed of pockets of activity. Hunting grounds, and the groups that fight over them. There are many places between these pockets where we may hide and sleep, more or less in safety, but finding food is problematic. Each hunting journey means hours of travel, sometimes days.”
The group followed her in. Just like last time, it really did look like some kind of church, except this time, it had no windows. Built into the slope, the stone walls merged with the canyon, and small tombstones outside decorated the ground.
Everyone got back into their usual positions. All in all, not much done today, except for save an angel’s life. An angel who hated him.
Moriah dragged herself off Caera’s back, accepted no help from the Las, and sat in the pew closest to the pulpit.
“Resting in an abomination. This building is an affront.” Sighing, Moriah touched her wound and hissed. Partly skinned over, plenty of it not, David could almost see the bone. “You all travel together and sleep together every night?”