Harry didn’t let it slow him down and, as is often the case, the way back proved a far simpler task. In no time at all Harry had navigated his way back into the antechamber at the bottom of the stairs. But, with the terrible din overhead, Harry could hardly feel victorious. He had left his friends in the hopes of keeping them safe. He now hoped with all his might that he hadn’t jumped out of Hell’s frying pan straight into its fire.
Harry climbed the stairs, preparing himself as best he could for what lay waiting at the top. As long as he kept his focus fixed upon getting his friends out of here, he wouldn’t go far wrong. But he had to be quick; they all had to be out of this damn place before the Great Pretender downstairs could make his debut.
There was one last turn on the stairwell, and then Harry was at ground level. Emerging from the hole in the floor, Harry saw his friends standing with the Azeel at the other end of the cathedral, waiting patiently in front of the door.
“Run!” Harry shouted. “Everyone. Fucking run!”
All eyes turned toward Harry, who was winding his way through the forest of phantom forms that thronged the interior.
“Harry!” Norma shouted. “It’s all over.”
“That’s why we need to move! Quick!”
“No, Harold. It’s bad,” Caz said.
“I fucking know it’s bad,” Harry said. “You’re not listening to me!”
Nobody moved an inch as Harry reached his friends and, running past them, grabbed hold of the ornate polished handle on the door to the cathedral.
“Harry, you’re not listening,” Lana said.
“No,” Harry replied, flinging wide the door. “You’re not listening. I said—”
Whatever words he’d intended to press past his lips evaporated like water on a desert floor. Harry’s eyes widened when he saw what lay outside. As quickly as he opened the door, it was slammed with twice the speed, Harry pressing his back to it in panic.
“There’s an army of demons out there,” he said. It was then that he realized what the source of the terrible din was.
Dale grabbed Caz’s arm out of fear. Caz put an arm around him in an effort to provide comfort.
“Where the fuck did they come from?” Harry said.
“Hell, I’d guess. And they are calling for the Priest to give himself up,” Dale said.
“Okay. They’re not here for us,” Harry said to himself. “This could work.”
“Work?” Lana said. “Are you completely out of your fucking skull?”
“That’s beside the point. We have a very big problem in the basement, and there’s an army outside that wants to take care of that problem. The biggest issue now is that we’ve had the misfortune of being stuck directly between these two fucking obstacles. So, all we need to do is step aside and let them cancel each other out.”
“Not your best strategy, Harold,” said Caz.
“Harry’s right,” Norma said. “This fight ain’t ours to stop.”
And, as if on cue, a series of loud cracks came from under the spot where they all stood, slabs of marble fracturing beneath their feet.
“Fuck me,” Harry said. “That’ll be King Pinfuck. Listen, the ground’s going to give any minute. We need to get out of sight and let whatever is going to happen, happen. The floor will be stronger close to the wall. Let’s move.”
He barked orders while leading his group to a side of the cathedral, behind two large pillars. By the time they’d reached the pillar nearest to them, the floor was solid beneath their feet.
The din of the approaching army seemed to be coming from both sides of the cathedral. Harry knew that any minute they would be sharing this ground with a great weight of unholy flesh. He just hoped his friends would survive the fallout.
6
The assembly of demons burst into the cathedral with a mingling of veneration and terror. The fog that had concealed most of the building from the outside had left them unprepared for the scale of what awaited them inside. In response, some were so overwhelmed they lost all control over their bodily functions; others dropped to their knees or fell facedown on the slabs, reciting prayers in countless tongues, some simply repeating the same entreaty over and over.
Harry and company had retreated into the shadows, ready for whatever came their way. Every member of his party knew some powerful defensive trick, which they were all quite ready to unleash if the enemy got too close.
But they needn’t have worried. The last thing on the mind of this imminent force of demons was a few human interlopers. As the swarms of soldiers filed in, Harry and his friends retreated farther to one of the smaller side chapels, and they gratefully settled there, watching the number of demons entering the cathedral continue to swell, the presence of those at the door forcing the pace of the demons that had first entered. These soldiers had no desire to be pressed on into this mysterious place, with translucent towers and spiraling staircases, against their wills. But such was the size and curiosity of the crowd passing from behind that they could only advance before it and while they advanced let out cries of protest, which were only audible above the murmurs of the assembled masses as incoherent shouts, which were summarily ignored.
Those who had first come into the cathedral and were at the head of the crowd reached the middle of the structure where the violence from below had cracked the marble slabs and weakened the floor. Their collective weight was more than the compromised slabs could support. There were a series of cracking sounds as the fissures spread across the floor in all directions, then dropped away beneath those demons who were forced to venture over this uncertain ground. The din of their cries was loud enough to draw the attention of the leader of this damnedable army: the Unconsumed.
He carved his way through the crowd without meeting resistance, and when he reached the front of the horde the master demon raised his arms and two blazing spirals of light erupted from his hands, rising into the air a dozen yards above his head, where they burst like a vast parasol of iridescent fire, their ridges speeding on past the raw-edged circle of light to burst against the pillars or the walls—whichever they encountered first.
The blaze quickly silenced most of the crowd, but it left unrebuked and unhushed the swelling numbers at the beach, all of whom were being pressured from behind by yet more of the Unconsumed’s shapeless army, a vast throng still streaming over the gargantuan tree they had laid over the pristine lake, creating a bridge over which they passed.
The consequences for those already crowding the beach weren’t welcome; many had to walk in the shallows of the lake, obliged to venture farther and farther out as the mass of people increased. The Quo’oto was perfectly aware of their situation. It rose to the surface now and then, rolling over sideways as it did so, and, unseen amid the chaos of the assault, silently and routinely snatched several hors d’oeuvres that were stumbling through the water. Inside, of course, there was no knowledge of the mounting chaos on the beaches. The freshly silenced crowd only listened to the words of their leader.
“Silence!” the Unconsumed said, his voice carrying around the interior. “Let us all remember that this is a holy place. There is a power here greater than any below Heaven, and we owe our lives and our devotion to that power.”
There was an uncomfortable moment before the first whispers began: “Lucifer, Lord Lucifer.”
At the wall of the cathedral, saved from being crumbled by the great mass of demons who had followed the Unconsumed, Harry, his friends, and a small gathering of demons watched as the idol of this great crowd—who were by appearance and number members of every conceivable order of demon—spoke to his followers.
“I fought for you, brothers and sisters,” he said. “When you were taxed and every cup of marrow you brought to your table was snatched away again and a great portion of it taken before it was returned I protested. I wept for you, and begged that your agonies be heard and attended to.…” He paused, surveying his congregation. “Do you want the truth told? Well?” he said. He
had dropped his voice low, to a whisper that nevertheless carried with unnatural force across the cathedral, the proof of its reach in the power of the reply, which came from all directions.
“Yes … yes…” the crowd said.
“Then I will tell you, because in the end, like all conspiracies, the answer comes down to one.”
The word ran murmuring through the huge interior. “One? One. One!”
“Yes, one. One criminal who is at the heart of your miseries. All your suffering. One fiend who passed himself off as a minor tempter of souls, all the while laying his plans against the serenity of the state. The chaos in your streets? He put it there. Is there nothing to buy at your butchers’ but bone and gristle? That’s because he sells all the finest meat to humankind, who have a taste for themselves that he has nurtured over the years. You will know his face when you lay eyes upon him!”
“Show us!” came a call from somewhere near the door. It was instantly taken up on all sides.
“Show us!” they were demanding over and over again. “Show us! Show us! Show us!”
The Unconsumed sent up a plume of flame, its color venomous, the light it shed on the upturned forces of the demons illuminating in each evidence of their worst attributes. Their mouths too wide, their eyes tiny darts of malice or simply offering up wide, idiot stares. There were no two faces the same in the many thousands that were illuminated. Each was grotesquely perfected by their revealing light, their ambitions gorged with their joyless faces and burning in their crazed eyes.
The flame the Unconsumed had sent up had virtually silenced the mob inside the cathedral, though those outside the entrance continued to bellow and howl.
“Forget them,” the Unconsumed said. “They’ll have their moment, when I choose and not before. But now, you have asked me to show you the felon who masterminded the many crimes against you. And so you shall see him. This villain had murdered his entire Order. Left a high priest in ruin. He will elude us no more.” He threw another flame into the air above his head, where it hung for a moment before plunging back past him, past the platform on which he stood, and down through the gasping marble slabs and onto the secret space below.
Taking his time, so as to squeeze as much drama as possible from the situation, he turned and took a step back from the edge of his platform.
“In here, comrades, is the felon. The thief. The destroyer. His head will roll before this day is done.”
“It isn’t my time,” the Hell Priest said from the gaping hole in the floor.
It was at this moment the Hell Priest rose out of the cracked floor, adorned in Lucifer’s armor. Despite the incredible density of the bodies, the crowd still managed to clear a space around the Hell Priest as he made his ascent. When he had fully emerged from the space, he turned to face his supposed executioner.
Without a moment’s hesitation the Unconsumed carved a sword of fire and swung it at the Hell Priest, who raised his armored hand and grasped the burning blade. Sparks of white flame spurted from between the Hell Priest’s fingers, and he laughed, as though this were the finest sport he’d had in a long time. And while he laughed, and held the blazing sword in his grip, he took time to cast gestures out toward the demon soldiers who stood and watched.
Serpentine chains, hook headed, came weaving between the feet of the spectators, striking with razor edge anyone fool enough to block their way. The condemned knew with the appearance of the first hook what horrors would inevitably follow, and each attempted to outrun the judgment. But the Hell Priest knew his game better than breathing.
Whether his victims fell to their knees and begged salvation, as one did, or tried to outrun the pursuing hooks, as did two more, or simply attempted to go against his enemy as he would any other, with sword and dagger, as did the many, all were lost. The hooks found their eyes, their mouths, their asses, their bellies; and finding them, the hooks dug deep and tore hard, reducing their victims in a matter of seconds into thrashing, incomprehensible knots of twitching muscle.
They made their sounds still, protesting their suffering state, but anything remotely resembling words was beyond them now. The stomach of one had been hooked and hauled up through his throat; the face of another was emerging from his butt hole like a prodigious bowel movement. Their anatomies could not sustain such violent disfigurements. The demons tore, their bodies opening like overripe fruit, spilling their contents as they did so.
Harry had seen this before, but never on so massive a scale. This was full-blown war, all of Hell on one side and a single armored priest on the other. Harry wondered at the ramifications of the chaos that played out before him. If the priest won, would he then take his battle to Earth and the heavens beyond? When would his thirst be slaked? Harry never imagined he’d be on the side of the infernal, watching and even praying for Hell’s victory—powerless to do anything else.
Harry remained fixed on the warring figures at the center of this battle. The Hell Priest, content to let his chains dispatch the horde, still had hold of the Unconsumed’s fire-edged sword and was bending it back toward its wielder, a trial of strength in which he was steadily gaining the upper hand. He suddenly put all his weight behind the moment, and with a quick twist he had freed the blade from the Unconsumed’s grip.
The Hell Priest rose up, the armor feeling good around his body, not like a carapace—hard and brittle—but flowing with him and through him, its power given over to him, wed to him. He was a force unto himself, beyond the reach of any living thing, and though the years that had brought him to this moment had been filled with the most intense personal suffering, it had been worth the agony in order to bring him to this glorious, heart-leaping moment, when Lucifer’s armor shot strength into every place where the monkish life he’d lived had left weakness and bliss into the muscles he’d hacked at in order to mold his body to fit the royal armor.
Lords Below and Above, what joy! He’d never felt his flesh and mind and soul in one world like this, a single system, scoured of contradiction. He hadn’t lived until this moment.
He saw the Unconsumed from the corner of his eye, his arms raised above his head. Two more swords were being etched out of the incandescent air above the demon’s fists, streams of raw lava stuff dropping from their blazing lengths and spreading over the fractured marble floor. The Hell Priest had no fear of walking on liquid fire, not adorned in the full armor of the King of Hell.
He moved toward the Unconsumed and was in front of his enemy in three fire-splattering strides, aiming a sideswipe at his belly. The Unconsumed came back at the Hell Priest with his swords slicing the air like twin threshers. But the Hell Priest was in no mood to retreat; he stood his ground, striking at each of the enemy’s swords in turn, the force of his blows enough to slow his adversary’s approach a little. But the gusts of wind raised by the threshing swords suddenly caused the flames between the opponents to rise up like a blazing wall, and the Unconsumed came through the fire with his swords spinning.
The Hell Priest raised his own blade to protect his head, and the Unconsumed’s left-handed sword struck it, the impact spitting out serpentine lightning bolts that flew out across the heads of the assembled demons, striking stone dead those stupid enough to reach up and try to grab them. With the Hell Priest’s blade locked against one of his own the Unconsumed used the other to strike at his adversary’s exposed chest. Surges of power broke over the Hell Priest’s armor from the point of impact, their brightness melting into the armor, stealing the energy of the Unconsumed’s blow and adding to the armor’s power.
The Hell Priest felt the increase of his strength and instantly acted on the knowledge; he took his sword in a two-fisted grip and raced at the Unconsumed, loosing a roar of pleasure. The Unconsumed again raised his left-handed blade to ward off the Priest’s attack, but his sword shattered as soon as it was struck, the metal shards going to flakes of fire as they were strewn. The blow was deafening. Every creature in the foyer who had not met an untimely death watched the Uncon
sumed as he staggered back and gaped at the Cenobite who stood before him.
“What is this magic?” the Unconsumed asked, his voice quivering with cowardice at the prospect of an unfair fight.
“The Crown Jewels of Hell,” the Cenobite said.
“It can’t be.”
“Oh, but it is.”
The Unconsumed took several backward steps away from the Cenobite. Quickly he turned to his soldiers and, showering his lips with spittle, howled: “This is the enemy of Hell! He will bring you all to dust if you do not act against him now. I have seen visions. Save Hell before he unmakes us all!”
His words died into darkness, leaving the air empty.
“Visions?” said the Hell Priest as he approached the Unconsumed.
“I’ve seen your ambitions, Priest,” the Unconsumed said, staggering back.
“You couldn’t possibly,” the Cenobite said. Then, turning to the soldiers, he gestured to his suit of arms. “The armor I wear is a gift from Lucifer, who is reborn in me. My authority is now absolute. My word is now law.”
“Madness!” said the Unconsumed. “Soldiers! This is your hour! I have brought you to your enemy. Now it falls to you! You must take him out of this sacred place, and tear him to pieces! Don’t listen to his lies. He’s afraid of you! Don’t you see that? You have righteousness on your side and he has nothing. Nothing!! He came here only to steal from our lord Lucifer—hallowed be his name—in his place of meditation. He’s admitted to it! The armor belongs to the Morning Star! And I believe our lord would be bountiful in his thankfulness were you to tear it from this vile thief’s back.”
The Unconsumed’s speech worked. The crowd roared an immediate “Aye!” and as they did so the Unconsumed drove the point of his blade into the conflagration above his head. It instantly refracted the light in a blazing show that spat incandescence out across the length and breadth of the cathedral’s foyer.
The single, booming “Aye!” became stronger as the beams exploded against the stone walls, blowing ragged holes in them, none of them less than ten feet across, many twice that.