She couldn’t make out the shape right, just that pieces were gone. Seven legs? A tail? Three tails? A wing? The blackness hid it all. But Asmodeus wasn’t whole. That much was clear.
“You are journeying to meet the creator,” Asmodeus said.
“The creator? God?”
The creature snarled. Hot air gushed over Mia, and the pile of skulls trembled, shortening underneath her.
“God is not my creator. Lucifer is.”
“Oh. Um… I don’t know? I–” She bit her tongue. Tell it? Him, according to the worshiping soul earlier. “I… don’t know how much I can trust you.”
The Old One leaned in closer, close enough she could have reached out and touched a tooth of his half mangled, short snout. Sensory overload. She should have been screaming and cowering in fear, but she wasn’t.
“The angels know your plot. I would know more.”
“You… spoke with the angels?”
Asmodeus pulled his head back, stirred in the black, and two limbs came up from the depths of shadow. They moved slowly, weighed down by gravity, but with time the Old One brought two of his smaller arms up. One pressed to the ground beside Mia’s skull pile. The other brought its fist in near. A torn limb, with bone exposed, and a little too insect-like for Mia’s liking. They stuck out from Asmodeus’s chest, and a squint revealed a dozen more of the small — still gigantic — limbs twitching on the monster’s front torso.
It opened its palm, peeled away a dozen black claws, and revealed two angels within. Alive, bleeding, with eyes open and wings shredded.
She knew these two angels. Azreal, and Noah. They’d tried to kill her, and Vin. She’d saved their lives from Vin.
“What… Why do you have two angels?” Don’t say their names, don’t say their names.
“I devoured the others.”
“What?”
“I heard your note on their bodies, these two. They were with other angels. I drew them down here to deal with the invaders, pests that lurk in my tunnels and my shadow, learning, analyzing. The invaders heard your note on their bodies, and came for them. They fought.” Asmodeus aimed his shadowed, Godzilla gaze down at his palm and the two broken angels inside. “Many angels survived their encounter with the invader. I killed the survivors and ate them, insects against my hunger. But these two, your note still resonates. A whisper, but I heard it. I spared them.”
Asmodeus had pulled angels down here for pest control? Why were they down on Hell’s surface at all? They’d fought the monsters, lost four comrades, and then took the hearts of their dead friends. They didn’t want others getting them. Or, it was so they had something to eat, since they couldn’t eat human hearts. Like Galon had asked before he died, for Yosepha.
And then the survivors ran into Asmodeus.
“My note?”
“You, and the other unmarked. You walk on the strings, and make distinct songs all your own. A note. A key.” Key? Like, a song key? “One of the unmarked died to an angel weeks ago. That was when I became aware of this… plot.”
Far be it from her to call him out on it, but Asmodeus was being very forthcoming with information. Possibly a good thing. Probably a bad thing. He likely thought they weren’t leaving, and wanted answers before he killed Mia and the others, too. Fuck.
“There was a group of angels on the ground?”
“There were. Twelve. They were searching for you. Other angels roam the sky in numbers I have not heard since my kin and I fought the archangels. But twelve came down. I think these two had some idea of your journey, and had wanted to speak with you, away from their armies.” He chuckled, and the bassy rumble shook the cavern. Mia almost rolled down her macabre hill. “They told me the council desires the death of the unmarked. But these poor fools know not why. Angels, forever pathetic, and mindless.”
How the Old One had gotten information out of them, she didn’t want to know.
“I still don’t understand. You pulled me down here for answers?”
“Indeed. We parlay.”
“I… guess.” This was classic villain behavior. Yeap, they were fucked if they didn’t figure something out. But what could she do? She was feeling healed since the battle in Death’s Grip. If she had to, maybe she could play the strings again hard enough to summon whatever she’d summoned last time.
“You journey to the Unholy Lands, in hopes it will have the tools to ferry you to the Frozen Heart.” False Gate, and the Forgotten Place. He knew the original names. Mia gulped. “You will find what you seek.”
“Oh. Oh! That’s good!” Mia risked a peek down behind her at her demons. They all stood around her hill of skulls, far below, some with dropped jaws, all lit up by the flickering flame of the burning bushes. They wouldn’t be able to see shit down there, but they’d be able to hear every word, hers included. “And, um… why are you telling me?” Please don’t eat me.
“The invader is here. It has found our forlorn tower, and it has come seeking the strongest notes in the dark. It draws ever closer, and strikes out with its tendrils in the black, trying to hit the instruments of our music. It will find the Great Tower, it will find us, and your existence has only expedited our doom.”
Jesus fucking christ. Mia stared at the colossal creature in front of her, and then at the two angels in his palm, both broken, but both alive. If she could save them, that’d be great, but she couldn’t do that if she was dead. And the longer the conversation went on, the more that sounded like the inevitable conclusion.
“The invisible monster is the invader?”
“The invader,” Asmodeus said, “struggles to adopt a form. But it must, if it wishes to battle in our world. It has found its form. It struggles to complete it, to provide it depth, detail, and nuance, but it will finish soon. And our world, my world, will swarm with its cold claws and empty eyes.”
“Your world?”
The Old One growled, and its throat shook. “My world. God is gone. Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel lie dead; as dead as an archangel can be. Lucifer is bound for all eternity, deep in the Frozen Heart, punishment for their war. I am this world’s new god, and when I am free, all will bow to me.”
Megalomaniac, much?
“I… I don’t know anything. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know–”
“I imagine you do not. The woman said as much.”
“Woman?”
“In aera armor. The counterpoint to the roaming one. You call him the rider.” Asmodeus withdrew his head, and most of it disappeared back into shadow, but he kept his palm out beside her. “She warned me, you see. Warned me, that if I ever wanted my freedom, that I ever wanted to complete my regeneration, I would need to let you pass by. Untouched.”
Oh no.
“But…”