Holy Hell, page 12
part #5 of Sins of the Father Series
“Come down here where we can see you, and also beat the shit out of you.”
Beelzebub’s laughter echoed around the dead mall. “Mason Albrecht, you really haven’t changed at all.” The soles of two expensive leather shoes clicked against old escalator steps as the Prince of Gluttony descended in all his odd, iridescent glory.
I’d only physically met the prince a couple of times – more than enough, if you ask me – and he always wore the same skin suit. And the same suit as well, incidentally. Beelzebub’s corporeal form was that of a tall, slender man in an expensive tailored suit, his hair long and jet black, gleaming in its obsessively styled perfection. He also favored huge sunglasses, as well as leather accessories – gloves, shoes, a briefcase, you name it – that shimmered with the iridescence of an oil slick, or a beetle’s back. More accurately, it was the color of a fly’s exoskeleton. The Lord of the Flies liked to leave clues that related to his station.
“So why a derelict shopping mall?” I said. “This hardly seems like your style.”
“Because I thought it would be funny,” Beelzebub said, looking slighted. “Isn’t it appropriate? We both know you’re looking for Durandal, and so here we are. I’ve hidden your priceless treasure somewhere amongst all this garbage, this ruined paragon of human greed and excess.” He rubbed his chin. “Perhaps it would have been better if I’d led you to the food court instead. Thematically, I mean.”
“Well, this was a terrible idea,” I said. “What a dump. Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you filled this place up with zombies, too.” My heart thumped as I said it. Holy shit. What if he actually did?
Beelzebub snapped his fingers. “Missed opportunity. I should have done that.”
I sighed in relief.
“But no. No revenants here. Only my servants.”
He snapped his fingers again, and one by one, overlooking us from the balcony on the second floor, appeared a small army of Beelzebub’s minions. All his horrible children, each in slender suits mimicking their master’s favorite fashion. I cursed under my breath, extending the fingers of each hand as I silently sketched out the schematics for two shields in my mind. One for Samyaza, and one for me, coming right up.
The three of us turned in a circle, backs to the center, as we studied our surroundings. Not too bad, slightly over a dozen minions. We could take them. Probably.
Warm divine steel materialized in my hands, lightweight and perfect. I handed Samyaza the larger of the two kite shields, shaped like inverted triangles, their bottoms wicked and sharp, perfect for digging into the ground in case we needed to plant them somewhere for additional traction. I wasn’t confident about the pointed bottoms spiking through the atrium tiles, necessarily, but I was in a hurry, you know?
“Pitiful,” Beelzebub said, the soles of his shoes striking the floor ominously as he approached. “Do you really think your shields will protect you from my power?”
I raised my chin, holding my shield up as well. “It worked before,” I said, defiant. And it really had. This wasn’t my first tussle with Beelzebub or one of his minions, but the last time I’d protected myself and a busload of innocents from their disgusting swarms, I’d used a shield I’d called from the Vestments. I had to hope that the armaments I created with my own power were just as sturdy.
A shaft of light pierced the space between Raziel’s fingers, solidifying quickly into a brilliant golden spear, one of his favorite weapons. “Come no closer, demon,” he said, holding it level.
Samyaza raised his fists, each of them bathed in the signature blue of his divine fire. “We’re not kidding, Beelzebub. Give us what we came for, and there’ll be no trouble.”
Beelzebub threw his head back and laughed. “Empty threats. Petty, pointless words. And to think this could all have been avoided if our little nephilim friend here would have just let me have a taste.”
I stumbled backwards a step. “Don’t you even think about it, you greaseball. I already told you, my soul is not a sampler platter for you to snack on.”
Beelzebub raised his hands, fingers crooked Nosferatu-style as he kept approaching. What the fuck was his deal? “Just a taste,” he murmured, far too creepily for my taste.
“We’re warning you,” Raziel said.
The Prince of Gluttony came so close that I could hear him lick his lips. That was far enough. Instinct took over. I swung the shield at the air in front of me, meaning to scare him away. I didn’t quite get the result I intended. The sharp edge of the shield made direct contact with Beelzebub’s throat. He gasped, then gurgled as blood began to spill in torrents from the wound.
“Holy hell,” Samyaza said. “Nice shot, kid.”
I looked down at my shield, the sight of so much demon blood at its bladed edge unsettling me. “It was an accident.”
Raziel placed a hand on my arm. “It was the right thing to do.”
Beelzebub’s expensive sunglasses slipped from his face, revealing the ghastly insect-like nature of his true eyes, glimmering like dark jewels with their many, many facets. Beelzebub clutched at his throat, like he was desperately trying to hold in his own blood. In vain, of course. I curled my fists, strengthening my resolve against the sight of him dying. This was a demon prince. This pain was temporary to him. He was only going to come back to very possibly literally bite me in the ass. I had no cause to feel remorse.
And all around us, watching from the second floor, all his minions stayed motionless and silent.
“Something’s wrong,” I muttered. “It shouldn’t have been this easy.”
Beelzebub’s throat bubbled and gurgled as blood rushed from the gash, his legs kicking at the atrium tile, his eyes lolling all about. And then his eyes focused on me, except they were no longer those of an insect. They were closer to human, and emerald green. He began to laugh, and a different voice tumbled past his lips. A woman’s voice.
I lowered my shield again, backing up. “Guys. This isn’t good.”
The laughter roared on, causing Beelzebub to violently convulse, every barking peal shaking his limbs akimbo. And then there was a different sound, something like the rattling of a snake.
“Shit,” I said. “Back up, guys. Shit.”
Beelzebub’s skin turned stark white, then slowly slipped away from his body, exactly like a snake molting. The husk fell away, papery and delicate, and as it peeled to the floor, so did it reveal the thing underneath, the thing that was pretending to be Beelzebub: Leviathan, the Prince of Envy.
I shouted over my shield. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Talk about shitty surprises. I hated Leviathan more than ever. She was so good at changing her skin that even the angel of death couldn’t see through her disguises. Damn it. We had to change tactics, and we had to do it quick.
The demon pouted. Leviathan shook her hair out, glossy and dark, like seaweed, or the coils of a snake. Her skin was pale, almost greenish, a crisscross of faint patterns across her skin like little diamonds, or scales. I could tell that the pattern repeated all over her body because she was also, uh, completely naked.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend? And here I thought you’d be so much happier to see me. I trust my servants were kind to you on your visit to the Ophidian Palace.”
“The what?” Samyaza said. “It’s called the Obsidian Palace. Wait. Isn’t it?”
“Idiots,” Leviathan said, laughing heartily. “Idiots, all of you angels. It’s called the Ophidian Palace. Ophidian. You know, as in snakes?”
And hence the Hall of Mirrors, all the voyeurism, the coveting. My heart sank. Damn it. The woman who guided us through the club didn’t once mention the name of the establishment, or else we would have spotted the difference. She was in on Leviathan’s game, even pretending that it was Beelzebub who owned the place. There’d been some miscommunication with Asher, or his intel. We could have been prepared.
“What do you even want with Durandal?” I said.
She blew me a kiss. “What motivation do I need beyond wanting what I can’t have? Fool. I’m the Prince of Envy, or have you forgotten?” She grinned at me with full lips and sharp teeth, running her hands down the sides of her body in a decidedly unforgettable way. I felt myself redden. “Mmm. Yes. This body just feels so much better. But something feels missing. Ah. Of course. My children.”
The demon prince raised her arms to the ceiling, a forked tongue slipping from between her lips as she hissed. All around us, the demons in suits collapsed inside their own clothing, then burst from out of collars and sleeves and pant legs fully transformed into a massive quantity of snakes. They slithered at top speed towards Leviathan, twining and climbing up her legs, then embedding themselves into her back.
“Mmm,” she groaned, cradling herself in her arms as a mass of serpents hissed and poised over her shoulders, a grotesque combination of Grecian gorgons and the Lernean hydra. “Much better.”
Without warning, Leviathan dropped her hand, wordlessly commanding a swarm of snakes to rocket out and smash into our midst. I held my shield up just in time. It splintered into pieces, and so did Samyaza’s. Fuck. My heart pounded as I imagined what might have happened if we had been up against the real Beelzebub.
I dived for the nearest cover, one of the pillars in the atrium.
“Come out, come out, little boy,” Leviathan sang. “Come and join your angel brethren as you die.”
I clenched my jaw and my fists in anger. The ouroboros outside and above the club’s front door, the black snake. The Ophidian Palace. We should have known.
If we made it out alive, I was going to punch Asher right in the dick.
23
I rummaged through my pockets, my mind a blur of panic and anger. My hands shook as I scrolled through my phone for Asher’s name. I licked my lips to moisten them, tasting salt. Night was falling outside the abandoned mall, but even my back was damp with sweat. It only felt colder with the pillar pressed against it. Damn it, Asher Mayhew. Goddamnit.
“Asher? Asher, hello?”
Florian’s voiced crackled onto the line. “Hey man, it’s me. Asher’s kind of busy right now, the plumber’s fighting this big old turtle. He looks mean.”
Artemis’s voice streamed in from somewhere in the background. “Yeah, kick his ass!”
“Get him on the line now,” I hissed. “I don’t fucking care.”
“Geez, no need to be so rude.”
I cringed at the staticky, shuffling sound of a phone being passed between hands. “Hello?” Asher said.
“Did you say that this was the Obsidian Palace, and not the Ophidian Palace?”
“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Ophidian. As in snakes. It wasn’t Beelzebub. It was Leviathan all along.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“‘Oh, fuck’ is right, you jerk. How could you make such a mistake? If we’d really known what this place was called we might have had a damn clue.”
“Mason – fucking, okay? Do you really think that the dead send me faxes? Do you think they just text me this intel? These are the whispers of the dead, asshole. You try speaking with rotted lip flaps and missing teeth.”
“This is stupid. And you two should be working on surveillance, anyway! Is there any zombie activity?”
“All is well in the world,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Don’t you worry about our part of the job.”
“I’ll let you get back to turtles and plumbers while we try not to get totally murdered down here.”
“Best of luck,” he said sweetly. Then he hung up. The bastard.
I rummaged in my other pocket, pulling out the little wooden cube rolling around in there, then placed it gently on the ground. Box knew when he was needed, growing into his normal size within a matter of seconds. He huddled up next to me behind the pillar, sensing danger, then licked at my fingers as a bonus. Warm and slimy, just like always. I reached into his gaping maw, trusting him enough not to chomp my arm off at the elbow while I rummaged around inside him for my sword. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. His insides were spongy and slick. Was this how it felt to be a dentist?
My arm came out wet, as did my sword, and I tried not to grimace too much, wiping off Box’s drool on my shirt. “Good boy,” I said, patting him on the head, then holding the sword out carefully in front of him. “Now go look for one of these. It’s very magical, and very important. Daddy needs you to find it and bring it back, okay? And if you see any bad people who are mean to you, Daddy gives you permission to eat them.”
He made a sound very much like an excited yip, then took off, toddling and clattering through the mall’s ruined corridors. I heard agonized screaming just a moment later. Box was a very good boy, indeed. Detecting enchantments and magical relics was one of his strange gifts, like how he’d easily sniffed out Lucifer Morningstar’s sword way back when. Like a truffle pig, only with, like, a hundred more teeth. I got back up on my feet, readying my sword as I assessed our situation.
Raziel was still taking the brunt of Leviathan’s attacks, hacking and slashing with his blade, weaving in between the masses of serpents that sprang from her back. Samyaza helped where he could, switching from punches to what looked to me like a series of chops and kicks, the best he could do to help sever Leviathan’s many heads. But what good was that going to do us? She was only going to keep multiplying her defenses. We needed to buy Box enough time to track down Durandal, and if we wanted any chance of actually damaging her, we needed to get at her core.
The others knew that, too. I entered the fray, and a silent agreement passed between us as we exchanged fleeting glances. Raziel and Samyaza were already flanking her, attacking at either side. It was up to me to be dextrous enough to dodge her snakes and try to strike at her body.
“Look who’s suddenly decided to join us,” Leviathan said. She held a hand over her open mouth, feigning a yawn, her human body relaxed and languid against her raging mass of serpents.
It boiled my blood seeing her hardly fight back even as I struck blows that would have, should have landed, if it weren’t for a snake intervening at the last moment, deflecting the edge of my sword. The floor was piled in shriveling snake heads, countless numbers that Raziel, Samyaza, and I had already chopped off, over and over. How were we supposed to defeat this monster?
“Brother,” Raziel called out. He followed with a string of words in the celestial tongue. Samyaza just nodded.
I kept one eye on Leviathan, still curious about the exchange. She was, too, evidently. “It’s extremely rude to speak a different language in the company of those who don’t speak it.” She set her focus back on me, green eyes gleaming as she sneered. “Isn’t that right, little nephilim? Didn’t your father teach you your mother tongue? Oh. I shouldn’t be so flippant about mentioning mothers. Isn’t yours dead?”
My lips drew back, my teeth bared as I roared and brought down my blade again. It should have struck home. It should have hit her square on the shoulder, but she deflected again, this time with her talons, wicked emerald things that emanated from the ends of her human fingers. I pulled, and she pulled back, her claws entangling my blade. I was stuck. Leviathan tutted, then drew her free hand back, extending another set of claws. She prepared to strike.
“Now,” Samyaza cried out.
Twin globes of gold and blue light seared from either side of me, blinding me enough that I twisted away from the fight. Fuck the sword, Leviathan could have it if she wanted it so badly. I staggered away, blinking hard, still aware that I was very much vulnerable unless I created another weapon to use. But more importantly, Leviathan was screaming in what sounded like legitimate pain. I blinked my eyes hard, shocked to find the serpents from her back wilted and frayed, trailing uselessly against the ground. My sword clanged as it fell from Leviathan’s talons, her hand shaking as she glanced wildly over her shoulders, at her back.
It actually worked. They smote her with their angelic essences, and they actually managed to severely injure a demon prince. Shit, I had to learn how to do that. Samyaza winked at me, then blew across the end of his finger. “It was worth a shot.”
Leviathan shuffled away, her arms folded protectively across her torso as the last of her serpents collapsed and dropped off her body, severed and forgotten like the sloughed-off skins of a hundred snakes. “You killed my children,” she gasped, eyes huge as she stared at the stark-white husks and serpentine corpses littering the atrium floor. “You murdered them.”
The point of Raziel’s spear stopped just short of her chin. “Tell us where you hid Durandal, or you’ll follow them to their deaths.”
The demon lifted her nose. “I’ll only reform in my prime hell, angel scum. And I’ll be better and stronger for it. Angrier, too. Just you wait.”
Samyaza sighed. “The sword, Leviathan. Give it to us and we’ll gladly be out of your hair. You’ll regenerate, if you say so – but we can make the time between now and then extremely painful for you.”
Leviathan’s fangs gleamed as she drew her lips back. “No. Mine. All mine. You’ll never find it.”
I extended my hand as I welcomed another golden sword into reality. Wow, this creatio stuff was getting to be second nature. Neat. I lifted it, pointing the tip at her face. “Samyaza isn’t kidding. This could get real awkward for you, real fast. Just give us Durandal.” She didn’t need to know that Junior Detective Box was already on the case. This was just some light threatening, a little extra insurance.
“No,” Leviathan said, her eyes huge, so incensed that she was shuddering. “I said it was mine.” She staggered away, just out of reach of sword and spear. “In fact – it’s all mine.”
An invisible force tugged at my sword, and Raziel struggled with his spear as well. Even the first sword that Leviathan had dropped began clattering, then lifted off the ground. The hilt worked its way out of my grasp, and Raziel grunted in frustration when he couldn’t hold on to his spear’s shaft. The three weapons shot to Leviathan’s side, floating there like sentinels, their tips pointing menacingly outwards. Leviathan grinned.
