Hope's Light

Chapter 13

by Erisian

Book 6

 

If you have yet to read the saga - the tale starts here:

Into The Light

Hope you enjoy!

 

Chapter Thirteen - Traces

 

“Alright dude, how’s this supposed to work?”

Nick and I were standing on the tower’s rooftop. A wide variety of antennas, all made of clumped bundles of wire or actual dishes pointed at distant targets, surrounded us. The power and signal cables, hardened against the ridiculous heat from the uncomfortably close burning sky, coiled about like massive snakes having a grand ol’ party.

A party we’d intruded upon, though we had done our best not to trip over anyone.

Nick ran fingers through the still-damp mess of his hair - a tricky task due to getting stuck on some of the nested mats lurking under all that mud-colored overgrowth. “Never done it myself,” he admitted. “But those bracers are part of him - you want to find Camael, they ought to have a connection you can trace. Because you were right, he always knew roughly where you were.”

“That’s so not helpful.”

“Yeah, well, it’s what I got. If it works, there should be two traces. One from the wing, and the other from the bastard himself.”

That earned Nick a hard glare.

One which he didn’t shrink from. “He should be the stronger of the pair.”

“And then what? We just fly after it?”

“You do. I get to wish you bon voyage then go downstairs for a bite to eat.”

“Like Hell. You’re coming with me.”

He tilted his head in disgust. “No wings, remember. I can’t traverse the realms.”

“But you can be carried.”

“By you? C’mon. You’ve never done this before, you’re gonna have a hard enough time focusing on the path. One mis-attunement along the way and I’d be falling through the void. No fucking thanks.”

I grinned. “Who said it’d be me?” Pursing lips, I gave a loud whistle. Okay, it wasn’t as loud as done by folks who magically use two fingers to emit ear-piercing shrills - but for some reason I never could make that work reliably.

The effect however was still impressive, as behind me materialized my very own battle tank - sorry I meant battle gryphon. In full white-gold armor covering torso as well as gleaming along the edges of all four wings, Tsáyidiel appeared. His large raven head hovered above mine to offer Nick a glare of his own.

Speaking of, Nick’s reaction was totally worth it. Stumbling backwards he exclaimed, “Holy shit!”

“Barakiel, meet Tsáyidiel. Tsáyidiel meet Barakiel. Though I call this bearded bum Nick because he can’t seem to make up his damned mind.”

Nick’s hands had flared with purple power, which after a moment’s hesitation he shook away. “The Hunter. He’s…” The words failed in his throat as he took in Tsáyidiel’s full and restored glory.

I nodded. “Yeah. He is.”

“But he tried to kill you.”

“And Danielle. Stopping him from succeeding is how the First Seal got broken.”

“Then…why?” His voice cracked asking the question.

Without needing to look, I reached up and put a gentle hand against my hunter’s beak. “Because he was enslaved. Because he fought it however he could, or else I would have died a second time right there in front of my house. Because even after dropping her out of the sky, Danielle asked me to save him.” Tsáyidiel lowered his head so I wouldn’t have to stretch as far.

“I…I thought Kokabiel and Tamiel were the only ones.”

“No. Tsáyidiel was the first. And aren’t you forgetting Nathanael?”

“He doesn’t count,” he said with a shake of his head. “He only got severed because of flying into Hell to help you.”

“Splitting hairs.”

“Important ones.” His jaw set.

“Are they? Is love so quantifiably deterministic?”

He paused. “Fuck. You’re really gonna make me go with you.”

“You better believe it.”

“Why? I’d just slow you down.”

“You still know more about the rest of Hell than I do. But mainly, because you need me to.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.” Closing eyes, I focused on the bracers - tossing the thought at them that I’d really, really like to find the rest of the angel they were a part of. Their response was instant; a line of red fire blossomed across that inner vision to spear through the orange flames above us. If there were supposed to be two, I only saw the one. Seemed pretty bright, though. “Tsáyidiel, you see it?”

Tsáyidiel, in a rarity for him, spoke aloud. “Through you I do, my Queen.”

“Good. Load up Nick and lead the way. If he weighs too much with everything hidden inside that coat of his, make him fly naked.”

“Hey!” Nick protested.

I couldn’t help it and chuckled. “Aw, it’d be funny.”

Tsáyidiel didn’t say anything, though he did lower himself to allow a reluctant fallen angel and former magician climb aboard.

As my own wings flared for explosive liftoff, Nick frowned. “Wait a minute, did he just call you ‘Queen’?”

Rising into the air, the giggle became a laugh. “Yep. Now hold on tight - because we like to go fast!”

With that Tsáyidiel launched himself and his passenger beyond this realm, and muting my brightness as best I could I gave chase.

Those elemental fires above us tickled as we flashed on through.

 

~o~O~o~

 

Unlike the spirit-realms near Earth, spawned as those were by billions of dreamers each and every day, the regions between the realms of Hell were empty, like the physical vastness of space spread between stars and galaxies. With only that narrow passage to Elohim’s Gate connecting it to the rest of Creation, the whole of Hell was like a gigantic suspended waterdrop dangling from a broken faucet - as if waiting for the surface tension to finally break so it would fall the rest of the way into the surrounding Abyss.

And of course that surface itself was covered by that infinite fractal layer of Primal Chaos, ready to shred anything passing through to the nothingness beyond. That imponderable insanity continually pressed against the drop, containing and granting it shape in an unstable equilibrium between what Is and what Isn’t.

Crossing the emptiness was a conflict of sensations, an absolute hollowness tugged by more than just emotion but resonances of states of being, each stretching out hooked claws from the realms floating aimless within that void. The Rock’s crushing sorrows and regrets, Dis’ stolid repudiation of weakness, and more: of ultimate greed and selfishness, of untempered pain and hatred, of vacant ecstasies, of the pettiest and sharpest of cruelties, and of every shade of darkness which slithers across to dampen the sparks of bright divinity inherent to every soul.

Together there was this cacophony of wretchedness, but underneath lay a singular beat: one of abandonment, of awaiting dissolution, of slammed doors and futures bereft of all possible purpose.

We flew through that tapestry of hurt, and the reaching tenterhooks pierced an aching heart.

Eventually the fiery line we were chasing led to what appeared, to me anyway, as a tightly grouped collection of balloons - each flashing with contrasting shades of browns, reds, and blues. Except their edges were smeared, like all those diagrams of electron probability clouds found in undergraduate chemistry books - or as if someone had played with the image too much using a blur tool in a photo editor. Slipping beyond the fuzzy edge of one of the orbs to phase into its existence, we found ourselves standing within a new realm.

And also smack-dab in the middle of a skirmish.

Having followed the Nick-carrying gryphon, the metaphysical barrier mists barely had begun to clear when Nick shouted, “LOOK OUT!” and before I could react he’d launched himself from Tsáyidiel’s back to tackle me from a frantic swan dive.

His coat flared out like a cape escaping the red sky behind as he did so, and its spell-woven protections gleamed with brightened gold as a stream of bullets smashed into its weavings - right where I’d just begun to stand.

My wings, Nick, and coat crashed into wet yet hard-packed earth, glowing feathers acting like a slip-n-slide to speed us along a few meters more. As my energy surged to re-orient, Tsáyidiel was already in motion.

His roar of fury bellowed forth, sending even more clumps of mud outward like a miniature earthen tidal wave. With a four-winged leap he launched airborne, and the sparsely-armored demon holding a crude AK-47 knockoff went down in a shower of blood and talons.

Shouting in demonic immediately came from all around.

“They’ve got a heavy!”

“Pull back! Pull back!”

I tried to rise, but the mage straddling my stomach pushed a tattooed hand against my chest. “Stay down!” His other palm projected a bluish shield around the two of us, while with eyes more focused than I’d seen in quite some time he hurriedly scanned our surroundings.

A squad of mismatched demons was running towards a number of trucks, including a massive tanker whose coiled piping stretched out to plunge into a small pond, its internal charged crystals powering a pump trying to suck the pond dry. One of the trucks - modified with spikes and decorative skulls - was a pickup, and in its bed a Ma-Deuce clone began to belch fifty caliber rounds at the enraged gryphon, spent casings spilling upward one after the other.

Without thought, I threw reinforcing power into Tsáyidiel - and with the surge his white-gold armor flashed across feathers to harden them against the onslaught. Bullets sparked off the surface and with another leap the pickup’s suspension groaned mightily under the full weight of the gryphon’s panther-like torso and rear paws.

Oh, and the demon operating the gun got dispatched by a single backwards thrust of a rear paw right through his helmet-covered head, kicking the rest of him free of the vehicle to tumble into the moist dust besides the pond.

The other demons didn’t bother with any further attacks, hopping into and on these apocalyptic-styled patchwork vehicles which immediately took off across the barren plain stretching out around us - heading towards a grouping of rocky hills at least ten to twenty miles away.

As Tsáyidiel’s front talons began slashing through steel and aluminum at the hapless demons in the front cab of the vehicle left behind (whose occupants were busy lamenting that the weight of the gryphon had snapped the geared connection from engine to rear wheels), I stared up at the mage pinning me to the ground.

“Nick.”

“They’re fleeing! Stay put!”

“Nick!!”

He finally broke attention from the dying demons to look at me. “What?”

I flicked eyes to the hand firmly holding me down. It wasn’t exactly centered - or maybe it was, just not against the chest as a whole. And gone was the leather cuirass I’d manifested before, as once again the subconscious had decided upon a simple all-purpose lavender toga-like dress. Maybe it was because of the high temperatures radiating from this sky.

Which, of course, meant I wasn’t wearing a bra.

From behind the draping bangs in desperate need of a trim, Nick’s eyes boggled. “Oh. Oh!!” The forceful fingers released, and with a flush creeping up over the beard, he carefully rolled to one side. But along with the increased blood flow came a mischievous grin.

“Don’t!” I said, raising an index finger in warning. “Don’t say a word.”

“Not even ‘sorry’?” The smirk widened.

Doing a sit-up, I pulled knees in so I could jump back to my feet. “Just shut it,” I growled. “I mean that.” With another bright surge, all the mud and grime caked into my hair, wings, and dress disappeared.

“My Queen, shall we give chase?” Tsáyidiel again spoke mind-to-mind, conveying the full thrill of a potential hunt as multiple prey scurried off into the distance.

I answered him aloud. “Not until we’re oriented. Alright, Nick. Where the heck are we?” Trying to get a better sense of things, I checked around us, noting a lack of features under the scarlet-covered sky. There was no sun, the illumination was this constant glow horizon to horizon over scrub brush and heat-cracked stone. I also couldn’t help but note that the reality of the realm felt, well, squishier than even the Rock or Dis had ever yielded.

Much like a half-baked dream barely hanging on while the dreamer’s cat kept meowing a demand for breakfast in their ear.

Dangit, I already missed my kitty.

The smirking mage, busy miming fondling something in a hand with an over-dramatized appreciation of texture, blinked. “Hmm?”

“The flag on that tanker. Puce green dinosaur skull with pink agate for bottom teeth on yellow background. Recognize it? It should stand out as those colors are horrible.”

“Not really. Which isn’t that surprising.”

“Thought you were an expert on all the factions down here.”

Finally getting serious again, he shook his head. “No one can keep track of all the demonic groups, especially not here.”

“Here as in Hell, or here specifically?”

“Eh, both.”

I glared. “So you know where we are?”

“Specifically? No. But I don’t need to.”

“Oh for…are you deliberately being an ass?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Okay, okay,” he said as he noticed anger becoming genuine. “There’s only one place that’s comprised of a clump of soap bubbles like we saw coming in. Welcome to the Asmodian Pearls.”

“Asmodeus then? Wait a minute, doesn’t he-”

Nick answered before I could finish the question. “Yeah. He’s got Camael’s wing. Which means we followed the wrong trail.”

“I saw only one.”

“That may not be good news.” His face went hard under the scruffy beard. But with wings still extended I could feel the confused conflict he felt inside about the possible implications.

“Shit.” I turned towards where the line of red fire in that inner sight still stretched off towards a point on the horizon.

“Asmodeus has a palace at the center of the pearls, like this huge museum where he shows off his greatest treasures. You won’t like them, but I bet you the wing is on display in there.”

“What do you suggest?”

He brushed mud off his knees. “Well, either there’s only one trail because Camael is truly gone, or he’s extremely well hidden. Either by his own hand or someone else’s.”

“Wouldn’t he have carved out an exception so I at least could find him?”

“Dunno. Though I’d have thought that highly likely, all things considered.”

“Dammit.”

The mage scratched at his scruffy and unkempt head. “He hasn’t worn those bracers for millennia, but the wing is freshly removed. You want to break the concealment, adding the wing would greatly help.”

I stared at him. “What are you saying?”

He grinned through the matted beard. “Want to sneak in and steal it? With Tsáyidiel’s stealth we might be able to pull that off - you and I can disguise ourselves. Get into his Heart of the Pearls, grab it, and get out.”

“No.” Muscles underneath cheeks tightened.

“You sure?”

“Tsáyidiel is a hunter, not a thief.”

“Trust me, Asmodeus won’t give it up otherwise. You want it, we steal it.”

“I said no.”

“Well then, just what do you suggest?”

“Mount up. We’re flying directly to this palace. No stealth. No pretenses.”

“Where we’ll do what exactly??”

“Make an offer even one of Hell’s Sarim cannot refuse. I’m tired of pretending to be human.”

The mage wanted to ask more, but a nudge from Tsáyidiel’s beak into the small of his back kept him from it.

My gryphon however did comment, mind to mind. “My Queen, if you are contemplating what occurred at Arcadia, Asmodeus is far stronger than Queen Fionnabhair. And this is a much larger realm.”

“If anything, beloved Hunter, my intentions lie towards the opposite. But should need arise and all six wings manifest, be ready.”

“Always, my Queen.”

Nick again climbed onto the gryphon’s powerful back, and together we took to the air. Not trying to hide, we streaked towards the flat line of the horizon in pursuit of the connection between bracers and distant angelic wing. The continual flow through my feathers left a brilliant trail across an otherwise solid crimson sky.

For those scraping out a living from the harshly barren desert below, it must have been quite the sight.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading...and for commenting!

- Erisian