Tear Down Heaven: Urban Fantasy Action with Witches and Demons, page 14
“You think they’re luring us in?”
Leander gave her an Are you kidding me? look, and Bex fought the urge to roll her eyes.
“Let me rephrase that,” she said, rubbing her temples. “What kind of trap are we walking into?”
The prince pursed his lips as he gave her second question some apparently serious thought.
“Something that needs us to be very close,” he said at last. “The palace can fire on anything within the Holy City’s walls, but Gilgamesh is too cheap to destroy his own capital if he doesn’t have to. When the lions didn’t start roaring the second we came up from the Hells, I suspected he was waiting until we were in bowshot because arrows don’t destroy buildings, but we’ve been within the constructs’ optimal range for a good five minutes now and still nothing.” He squinted up at the battlements again. “They must be waiting for us to walk into the palace itself.”
“That would be suicide,” Bex argued, pointing at the empty white courtyard she could see through the fortress’s gate. “There’s two hundred feet of open pavement between the palace wall and the front steps. We’ll be sitting ducks if we step into that.”
“We’re already sitting ducks,” Leander pointed out. “As I said, the only reason we’re not already full of arrows is because whoever’s running the defenses has chosen to let us live. Probably so we’d stand around talking about it like we’re doing right now. You did say Gilgamesh’s objective was to waste our time, and what wastes more time than a nervous army?” His thin lips curved into a mirthless smile. “This way he doesn’t even have to spend ammunition to stop us, which makes it the most Gilgamesh move I’ve seen yet.”
“Then let’s not let him keep making it,” Bex snapped, calling her sword into her hands. “I’m going to spring the trap. The rest of you stay here and wait for my signal.”
Leander waved for her to be his guest. Iggs, however, looked shocked and furious. Nemini didn’t look too happy, either, but Bex shook her head.
“If they’re going to shoot at something, I’d rather it’d be me,” she said before her demons could object. “I’ll report what I see over the comm, so listen for orders. Leander, did Lys give you a radio?”
When the prince shook his head, Bex pointed at Iggs. “Get him on the channel,” she ordered. “I’m going in.”
With a firm look back at her army to make sure no one got any heroic ideas, Bex lifted her six new horns high and marched down the last half block into the grand plaza that surrounded Gilgamesh’s palace.
It took all of her willpower to do it. She was the one who’d pointed out they’d be walking onto open pavement, but actually stepping out onto all that exposed stone when thousands of mechanical archers had their bows pointed at her head sent Bex’s fight-or-flight instincts into overdrive.
The palace itself wasn’t helping either. It looked so much taller now that she was standing directly below it. Just trying to see the tops of the towers from way down here was enough to give her vertigo, and the courtyard in front of her was equally discomfiting. The stones were cracked in places where pieces of the tower she’d destroyed had fallen, but someone must’ve cleaned up the rubble, because there wasn’t a pebble out of place. Just an empty, two-hundred-foot-wide expanse of blinding-white pavement leading up to the curved steps of the palace’s main door, which looked almost like the entrance to an enormous, super-ornate train station from this angle.
That felt like a silly way to describe the fortress of her ancient enemy, but that was seriously what it looked like. The bottom level of Gilgamesh’s palace was lavishly decorated with arches, reliefs of heroic-looking sorcerers, and ornate cuneiform inscriptions. Since the lowest floor also served as the base for all those towers, though, it had been built in a long, sturdy rectangle reinforced with columns and lined with wide white steps leading to multiple golden doors that looked like they’d been built to admit hundreds of people at a time.
The only buildings Bex knew of that were designed like that were train stations. The courtyard even had white stone benches along the walls so people could sit down. The seats were all empty now, of course, but the grooves worn into the stone spoke of centuries of use. Same for the wheel ruts in the plaza’s otherwise-pristine paving stones and the foot-traffic hollows that dimpled the palace’s white steps.
Put it all together and Bex felt like she was staring at the universe’s fanciest transport hub. Considering what Adrian had told her about the entrance to the chains being inside the palace’s main floor, though, that actually made sense. As the only reliable connector between Earth and Heaven, Gilgamesh’s palace basically was a train station. A realization that only made the vast emptiness feel even eerier when Bex walked out into it alone.
It felt like trying to sneak across a stage. Even the normally soft steps of her rubber-soled combat boots sounded like banging hammers as Bex made her way across the open pavement to the stairs that led up to what was clearly the main entrance. She was readying Drox to slice through the heavy golden doors when they suddenly began to swing open.
Bex froze in place, holding her sword ready in front of her as the huge palace doors creaked open to reveal—not an army of warlocks or a firing squad of sorcerers, but a single man. Not even an armored man. This individual was dressed in a spotless version of the same white silk shirt and trousers Prince Leander had been wearing when Bex found him in the Lowest Hell, though this man’s outfit also included matching white slippers. But while his clothes made him look like a lost guest from a five-star hotel, the white sword at his side and the mirrored eyes in his handsome face felt right at home.
“Welcome, Bex of the Bonfire, newly crowned Queen of All Demons,” Gilgamesh’s son announced in a ringing voice that filled the empty plaza. “I am Petros, Prince of Fear and defender of the Palace of the Highest Heaven. It is with great respect that my illustrious father, Gilgamesh, the Eternal King, welcomes you to his home. In his glorious name, he has bidden me invite you in so that we may discuss our differences like civilized individuals.”
The prince stepped to the side as he finished, revealing a golden table set with an artistically arranged feast of fruits, wines, cheeses, ice water, and fresh bread. There were two chairs with white fur cushions and a floating clay tablet with a golden stylus that seemed to be acting as a magical recording device. It looked exactly like what she’d expect from a peace talk with Gilgamesh, if Bex had ever bothered to imagine such a thing. But though the prince had yet to touch his sword, Bex backed several steps away.
“He’s lying,” Leander’s voice said calmly over the comm in her ear.
“No shit,” Bex whispered back, glancing up at the thousands of constructs still standing like statues on the palace’s battlements. “But why tell a lie so obvious? He has to know it won’t work.”
“He’s probably just wasting our time again,” Iggs said on the same channel. “I bet the food isn’t even real.”
“It’s a bad-faith negotiation for the purpose of stalling your advance,” Leander agreed. “You should kill him.”
“No argument there,” Bex said, eyeing the prince, who was still smiling at her like a morning TV host. “What does his sword do?”
“I don’t know,” Leander confessed. “The Prince of Fear has always been in charge of the castle’s defenses, so his abilities were kept secret from the rest of us in case of rebellion. He’s been doing that job for longer than I’ve been alive, though, so it’s safe to assume he’s good at it.”
The prince certainly didn’t look afraid. He was also still standing inside the palace’s giant doors, which wasn’t a place Bex wanted to step into alone, even with her new horns. That said, she also didn’t want to charge her army into a prince. Getting inside the palace would protect them from the shooting gallery, but even if they outnumbered him a thousand to one, trapping her demons in a room with a prince sounded like a quick way to get them all killed. She was still trying to figure out the right move when a new voice spoke over her comm.
“Keep him talking,” Adrian said. “And see if you can get him to step out of the building.”
“Why?” Bex whispered, flicking her eyes to the empty sky. “What are you planning?”
“I don’t want to spoil it,” Adrian whispered back, sounding enormously pleased with himself. “Just stall for a few more minutes, and try to get him over the vine if you can.”
Bex was about to ask “What vine?” when she saw it. There, growing along the bottom of the white step the prince was standing on, was a tiny green tendril. It was no bigger than an electrical wire, but it’d somehow managed to grow all the way over the palace wall, across the empty plaza, and up the stairs without Bex—or seemingly anyone else—noticing. The vine got even longer as she watched, working its way along the inside corner of the step like water flowing down a crack, and suddenly, Bex was having a hard time keeping the smile off her face.
“The Eternal King must be pretty scared if he wants to have a civil discussion with the likes of me,” she said, striking a confident pose as she plunged Drox’s point into the stone at her feet. “I don’t mind listening to what you have to say, but I’m not doing it in there. If you want to talk, you’ll have to come down to me.”
“But the banquet table is all set,” the prince argued, waving at the lavish spread behind him. “And the light is strong in the plaza. This could take quite a while. Surely you’d rather sit in the shade?”
“I don’t need shade,” Bex said, crossing her arms stubbornly over her chest. “And I don’t want your fancy food either. I won’t draw arms if you don’t, but I’m not discussing a damn thing unless you’re man enough to come stand out here under the arrows with me.”
For the first time since the doors had opened, the prince’s dazzling smile slipped. He snatched it back into place a second later, reaching down to fill two golden cups with wine from the cut glass carafe before taking both in his hands.
“As you wish, honored queen,” he said as he carried the cups of wine down the steps where the vine was hidden. “Let it never be said that Gilgamesh’s household was inhospitable. Even the enemies of Heaven deserve respect and dignity, so if you will not come to me, I am glad to go to you if it lets us speak.”
“You’re speaking right now,” Bex pointed out, uncrossing her arms again in case she needed to grab her sword quickly. “But I suppose you can’t help it. Being a font of endless words seems to run in your family.”
Once again, the prince’s smile sagged a fraction, but he kept his composure as he strode down the final step into the main courtyard to offer Bex her wine cup.
She took it from him like she’d take a hissing viper. But while Bex had zero intention of actually drinking, the wine didn’t smell poisoned, which meant it wasn’t the threat. That would be the prince, who was radiating malice like a furnace despite his sunny smile. Bex really hoped Adrian finished his plan soon, because whatever Gilgamesh was playing at with this fake peace offer, his son’s hatred for her was real and bone-deep.
Bex felt exactly the same way about him, except she didn’t bother with the fake smile. She held up her golden cup with an honest scowl and tossed it on the ground at the prince’s feet, splattering red wine all the way up his white silk trousers.
“That was uncalled-for,” the Prince of Fear said in a low, dangerous voice. “I know better than to expect grace from a demon, but I thought you’d at least respect the dignity of a gift offered in hospitality.”
“That’s just it,” Bex growled. “It’s not hospitality, because this isn’t Gilgamesh’s house. It’s ours. Our Paradise that your father stole. If you actually want peace, acknowledge that and leave, or we will throw you out.”
“I’d like to see you try,” the prince replied coldly, finally dropping the fake smile as he reached for his sword.
The moment his fingers touched it, terror like nothing Bex had ever felt seized her body. She’d seen no attack, but suddenly none of her muscles would obey her, and she wasn’t the only one. Bex couldn’t turn her head to look, but she knew from the instant deafening silence behind her that her army had also been struck. She could practically hear her demons holding their breath as the now-scowling prince stepped back.
“Open fire,” he ordered, giving Bex one last hateful look before a wave of scales—the same snakelike overlapping scales that fear demons used to cover their bodies, only in white instead of black—appeared to cover his face. They covered the rest of his body as well, protecting the Prince of Fear from head to toe as the ranks of golden constructs that had been standing motionless on the battlements this entire time finally loosed their bows.
The wave of arrows was so thick it blotted out even the ever-present light of Heaven. Bex could hear the lions roaring on the roof above, but she couldn’t see the white balls of fire through the wall of black-pointed sin-iron projectiles falling toward her head. The sight was even more terrifying than the prince. Him she could fight, but pinned by fear like she was right now, there was nothing Bex could do to block the avalanche of arrows before it landed on the demons behind her. Most of her army didn’t have armor, and the prince’s fear had frozen them so they couldn’t dodge. They were just standing in the middle of the street like target dummies. But before Bex could think of something—anything—she could do to stop what was about to happen, a peal of thunder crashed through the empty sky.
The scale-covered prince looked up in surprise. Bex didn’t know if that weakened the fear he’d used to grab her or if the noise had simply shocked her out of its grip, but she was suddenly able to look up as well, watching with wide, terrified eyes as a sheet of blindingly bright blue-white lightning engulfed the entire wave of arrows flying at her head.
The torrent of electricity vaporized the wooden shafts in an instant. It couldn’t touch the sin-iron arrowheads, but without the shafts and fletching to make them fly true, they’d become little more than dangerous hail. Now that the prince’s paralyzing fear had broken, the demons were able to dodge the falling metal easily, freeing them to stare up in new horror at the giant shape that had appeared behind the lightning in the sky.
It was a skeletal hand. Not a human hand, but a huge reptilian claw the size of a minivan. It slashed through the air above Bex like a scythe, cutting the golden battlements off the towers and sending the war constructs that had been standing on them crashing to the ground. The clockwork archers were still falling when the lightning flashed again, lighting up the now midnight-dark sky to reveal the giant skeleton of a dragon.
It was almost as tall as the towers, a fleshless creation of bleached bones held together with ropes of flashing lightning. And standing on its back with her white hair flying behind her like a banshee’s was Adrian’s aunt Lydia, the Old Wife of the Bones.
“The ancient oaths have been invoked!” the old witch cried, her raspy voice ringing with so much magic, it made Bex’s ears bleed. “In return for eons of safe rest within the shelter of the Blackwood, I call upon the bones that slumber within the roots! Rise up, rage of the past! Rise and hunt again until all who threaten our coven are destroyed!”
The undead dragon roared beneath her feet and opened its skeletal jaw to shoot out a wave of crackling blue lightning that eclipsed and consumed the lion cannons’ barrage. It wasn’t until the deafening thunder shook the ground again, though, that Bex realized the bone dragon wasn’t the only thing in the sky. Through its empty wings, she could see hundreds, maybe thousands of smaller skeletal dragons diving at the castle like kamikaze fighters.
Each one was only about a tenth the size of the giant dragon Lydia was riding, but the blue lightning that held their bones together exploded when they hit, turning the falling dragons into bombs. They crashed into Gilgamesh’s towers like a barrage, shattering the elegant windows and blasting the war constructs into the air. The explosions weren’t strong enough to crack the towers themselves, but the golden battlements bolted to the outer walls were blown away in a cascade of deafening thunder and shattering bones.
The silence that followed was so deep, Bex worried her eardrums had shattered. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case. Her hearing was perfectly fine. The suicide rain of falling dragons had simply stopped, giving way to the soft patter of raindrops as the black clouds—the only clouds she’d ever seen in Heaven’s sky—opened above the enormous circle of witches that was now floating above the palace courtyard on their brooms with Agatha in the center, standing on her broomstick like a conductor as she added her voice to her sister’s.
“The ancient oaths have been invoked,” she said, her calm, rich voice sweeping over the battlefield like a weather front. “In return for the life-pledge of every witch who serves the Cycles, I call upon our pact with the Great Blackwood. Rise up, sorrow of the present. Rise and wash away the enemy who hunts your children and burns your land.”
The rain pounded harder with every word, filling Gilgamesh’s formerly desert-dry Heaven with a flash flood of churning water that scoured the towers clean. It tore the battlements that had managed to survive the dragons’ attack straight out of the stone and washed the war constructs clean off their feet, sweeping them off into the empty city like golden trash caught in a flooding river.
Bex was still watching them float away in wonder when the scaled Prince of Fear suddenly lunged at her. A wave of paralyzing terror came with him, grabbing her body just like before, except this time it didn’t stick. This time was different, because this time, a witch was waiting right above her.
“The ancient oaths have been invoked,” Muriel said from where she was floating above Bex’s head on her broom like a petal in the pounding rain. “In return for heroism yet to be rendered, I call upon the best of all fates yet to be. Rise up, defenders of a brighter future. Rise and know that no malice of the enemy can touch you so long as the forest’s rain falls.”
The Old Wife of the Future’s words were softer than her sisters’, but Bex felt them to her bones, because they’d been spoken straight to her. As soon as the witch’s voice touched her ears, the prince’s paralyzing fear vanished. It must’ve been washed off her demons as well, because Bex’s army was suddenly roaring behind her, charging through the rain to tear apart the war constructs that were still trying to stand in the raging river the plaza had become.
