Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As it happened, it was a good thing Sairche had hidden herself away in the far corners of her mother’s holdings instead of fleeing Malbolge. Glasya’s summons came more quickly than she’d expected, and Sairche was kneeling before the archduchess moments later. The audience chamber was empty but for the two of them and the ever-present hellwasps.

“There are problems with my agents on Toril,” the Lady of Malbolge said. “You will correct them.” Sairche had hardly finished agreeing before the archduchess rattled off a series of peculiar orders and tore a portal open in the wall beside her.

Now Sairche stood in a dank, poorly lit underground room, a little devil made of shadow twining around her ankles. The floor was heaped with bodies-tieflings, humans, an elf or two, and maybe more. Enough blood it was hard to tell. Not so much, though, that she couldn’t see the mark of Asmodeus branded on a few chests, embroidered on more sashes. Sairche pursed her mouth.

The eel-like devil flowed up her arm. “Where go?”

“That one,” she said, pointing at a tiefling male near the top of the stack of bodies. “And hurry.” The shadow devil chirruped to itself and flowed over the stack of bodies. It pried apart the dead man’s jaws and wriggled down his throat.

The door at the top of the stairs opened. Sairche stepped back into the darkness and pulled her invisibility close.

Three men and a woman came rattling down the stairs, weapons out. All four wore sashes with the mark of Asmodeus on them. As Sairche watched, they fanned out, searching the basement for some sign of life, for someone they could kill. She stayed well out of their reach, and after a few moments, they sheathed their weapons and turned their attention to the bodies.

“A wonder the alarms didn’t sound sooner,” one, a heavyset tiefling man, said. “Who could have done this?”

A taller tiefling man with gnarled horns leaned over the elf woman sprawled belly down across one pile. “This one’s been blasted,” he said. “One of them was a caster.”

“There’re enough wounds here to mark a caster, a blademaster, and someone with a club,” the woman said. She shook her head. “This is too strange.”

“It’s not a sacrifice,” the thicker tiefling said. “It would be a sacrifice if it were other cultists that did it. And they left the bodies.” He nudged one with a foot. “Won’t be the Thayans then.”

“Do you know any of them?” the human man asked. “Any of you?”

“Bought supplies from Yvon a time or two,” the woman said. “He’s probably in there somewhere.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the thicker tiefling said. “They were Ashmadai. Their deaths are an affront to the king of the Hells, and so an affront to us.”

“All well and good,” the taller one said. “But we have no idea who-”

The body the shadow devil had climbed into threw up a hand to claw at the open air. Together, the living Ashmadai pulled him free, a tiefling man with the insignia of a cell leader, his chest blistering and cracked by magical fire, his face a ruin of shattered bone. He could not stand on his own, and so they settled him on the floor.

“Who did this?”

The man swallowed, blinking his eyes at the world around him, as if he weren’t sure it was really there. “It was the warlock,” the shadow devil said in the man’s voice. “The tiefling. She came from the hospital-her robes were their blue ones. She … and orcs. Orcs with blades and terrible spellscars.”

Sairche had to give the little monster credit: it remembered every line and sold it all well. Spellscars, Sovereignty, and a mad-eyed tiefling. Sairche frowned. She hoped it wasn’t the Brimstone Angel she was setting up.

Don’t be so foolish as to hope, she told herself. You’ll have to deal with that later.

He shuddered, his breath caught, and his last words rushed out of him in a whisper. “She led them here. She said it was at the behest of the Sovereignty. Her powers came from the Chasm. You must stop them before …” The man shuddered and collapsed, dead.

“Well,” the woman said. “That’s a stroke of luck. Hail Asmodeus indeed.”

“Don’t be flippant,” the man said. “We must bring this to the others.” He looked out over the bodies. “I swear we will avenge this slight.” The other three repeated the promise, and Sairche rolled her eyes.

“What of the bodies?” the tall tiefling asked.

“Get Pellegri up here to guard,” the thicker one said. “And round up some fuel. We’ll have to burn the place down before the city guard notices.” They clomped back up the stairs.

Exactly, Sairche thought, as Glasya had ordered. They ate up every word. Though why this was necessary and why the Sovereignty needed to be implicated in the deaths of some cultists still made no sense. People killed Ashmadai every day, and it was no surprise. Why did Glasya care about these? The shadow devil squirmed free of the dead tiefling and flowed across the floor to her.

“Well done,” she said.

“Home now?” the little devil asked.

“In a sense,” Sairche replied, grabbing hold of its neck. It squalled and kicked, but she held it tight and slammed the little thing’s body against the stone edge of a support column. Its neck gave a sharp crack, and the corpse burst into flames.

Her first mission finished, Sairche left the dead Ashmadai behind as she passed through the portal, but they remained on her mind for quite some time afterward.

The last thing Havilar remembered was knowing she ought to be terrified. The almost overpowering calm that pressed on her when she opened her eyes again stirred a momentary storm when mixed with her panic, and she sat up thrashing even harder against whatever might be there.

Nothing. No claws trying to grab her. No devils in the shadows. Just a quiet little temple that she’d never seen before and Havilar, in her bloody, bloody armor.

“Gods,” she breathed. It was an obscene amount of blood.

“Havi?” Havilar looked around and saw her sister-her robes spattered with black gobs of dried blood, her eyes haunted, and her cheeks streaked-nearly running down the short aisle that the benches made. “Havi, are you all right? Are you …” She trailed away and stopped a step from Havilar. “Havi?”

Havilar’s head spun. “Whose blood is it?”

Farideh kneeled down beside her. “People who were trying to kill you,” she said.

“How many?” she asked, and Havilar heard her voice shake. “What happened? What happened?” Farideh hugged her tight, and despite the insistent calming magic of the temple, Havilar burst into tears.

M’henish, Havilar thought bitterly, somewhere under the roiling panic that made her cling to her sister as if there were no better anchor in the world. Now she’d be the delicate one too. But the sobs came in great crashing waves, and she could no more rise above them than she could swim the Sea of Fallen Stars.

“It’s going to be all right,” Farideh said, but she didn’t sound sure at all. “We’re going to be all right.”

“It should have always been all right!” Havilar cried, pushing her away. “What happened?”

Farideh sat back on her heels. “I did something … unwise-”

“Oh, there’s a surprise-”

“I went back to that shopkeeper. I was looking for … for a way to make Lorcan leave me be. He said he could help. I think he mistook me for something else. A cultist of Asmodeus.”

Havilar blinked at her, hiccupping from the sobs. What did that have to do with anything? “Did you tell him you are from Tymanther?”

“That’s not … They were devil-worshipers!” Farideh shook her head. “They think the hospital is arranged against them-I don’t understand why-but they figured out I was staying there and they were about to kill me and …” She pursed her lips. “You came in.”

“I don’t remember that.” Havilar looked down at the mess of her armor. “So I saved you?”

“Sort of,” Farideh said. “Something was … in you. Fighting through you. I’m not sure … Tam said you were ‘tampered with.’ By a fiend.” She peered at Havilar. “Do you remember anything?”

Havilar wrapped her arms around her knees. She searched her memory but there was nothing. She had been practicing with her glaive in the House of Knowledge … and then she’d woken up on the floor covered in the blood of devil-worshipers.

“How did you get me here?” she asked, still staring into the hollow of her legs.

“Knocked you out and put you on a donkey,” Farideh said with a little, empty laugh. “I think we can agree your record stands, under the circumstances.”

Havilar didn’t laugh. She was shaking and crying like an infant, she’d been manhandled or mindhandled or something by a devil, and Farideh had managed to knock her out cold in a fight. Nothing was all right. “I want my glaive. I feel naked.”

“Havi?” Havilar looked up. “Could it have been Lorcan?”

She made a face. “I don’t remember. I can’t … He wouldn’t have done that, right?”

Farideh shook her head again, as if she didn’t know, as if no one could know. “Lorcan sent that damned orc. He might do anything.” She got that faraway look again, as if she were trying to decide what would go wrong next tenday, and Havilar sighed. At least that was the same.

“I found something out that you should know,” Farideh said. “About warlocks. About us. I-”

The world lurched and flashed bright, and Havilar fell half a foot, landing hard on gravel and stone chips that cut into her palms. Beside her, Farideh broke off with a yelp and landed on her hands and knees. Havilar’s nerves exploded and she sprang forward and grabbed her sister’s arm tight.

The temple was gone.

“It’s all right,” Farideh said. “It was only temporary. We need to get moving.”

Havilar searched the shadows around them. Could she even recognize a soul-seizing devil if she saw one? She kept clinging to Farideh as they stood together. “Where?”

Farideh drew a deep breath. “We need to meet Tam at the South Gate. But we can’t leave without Mehen and Brin. We have to go back to the hospital. Are you up for it?”

No-all Havilar wanted was to curl up in a ball in a hole on an island where no one was and wait for things to settle. Cowardly thoughts, and she was not the cowardly one. She was not going to leave Mehen behind, and she was not going to let Farideh be the one to save Brin. She would just have to get all of her panicking done before anything got bad. She could do that. Probably.

“I want my glaive,” she said, letting go of her sister’s arm. “And we need to walk a little slow. At first. My legs are stiff.”

Farideh glanced around the square. “I’d offer the donkey, but it’s wandered off.”

“Probably something ate it,” Havilar said morosely.

“Good. Then it’s not hungry for us.” She squeezed Havilar’s hand and pulled the rod from her own sleeve. “Let’s go.”

They wound their way toward the main road, still hand in hand, Havilar still shaking. Farideh was pretending not to notice-Havilar was sure. Gods, if she just had a weapon in her hands.

A weapon didn’t help you before, dummy, she thought.

The lights were few and far between in this part of the city, and the ruined roads were perilous. When they stepped out of the dark into the light of a pair of magical streetlights set over a recently cleared crossroads, it felt like a miracle. The rain had lightened to a drizzle, enough to make the approaching sound of arguing voices clear. Farideh stopped and pulled Havilar behind a piece of broken wall. “Hush.”

“It’s clear,” one voice said. “Are you going to do this at every crossroads?”

Havilar straightened. “Brin?” She crept forward to peer around the wall. Silhouetted in the lights she saw two shapes, two men-one of them short and slim enough to pass for much younger.

“Brin!” she cried. Havilar ran, dragging Farideh with her for a few feet before their hands broke apart.

“Havi!” Farideh shouted, but Havilar didn’t care what she was worried about. It was Brin, looking up at her shout; Brin, she threw her arms around; Brin she nearly bowled over. He hugged her back tightly with one arm. When she pulled away, she nearly wept at the sight.

“Gods, you’re here. You’re safe. And you brought my glaive.” She hugged him again. This, she thought, is all right. This is normal. This is good.

“Why are you bloody?” Brin asked.

“She’s had a rough night,” Farideh said. Havilar glanced back and saw her staring intently at the other man-a fellow taller than them both, with dark blond hair that curled to his collar, and very black eyes that were watching Farideh like she might lash out with her sword at any moment.

He smiled-and something in Havilar’s memories turned over.

“Lorcan,” Farideh said.

The man smiled-and Farideh never thought that smile could be frightened, but somehow on a human face it was. Her scar started to prickle.

“Lorcan,” she said.

“Well met, darling,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“No.”

“Farideh-”

“No.” Farideh pushed Havilar and Brin behind her and yanked the amulet out from her under her robes, pointing it at Lorcan.

He took a step back. “What is that?”

Farideh thought back to Tam’s words. “A beggar’s miracle. Vennela.”

The amulet made no light or sound, but suddenly Lorcan was screaming as his skin flared red, wings sprouted from his back and horns from his brow, and the blackness of his eyes spread from lid to lid. He fell to his knees.

Brin grabbed her shoulder. “Gods, stop it!”

Stronger than her rage, guilt slammed into her chest like a physical thing-the sound of Lorcan’s scream was so like Havilar’s when the arrows hit, so like Farideh’s own chasing after it. Animal, fearful, pained-whatever the amulet did it was hurting him. Tam hadn’t mentioned that.

The change finished and Lorcan’s screams collapsed into painful gasps for air. He looked up through his disheveled hair at Farideh. “You went over to that priest!”

What he meant to do, she didn’t know. As quickly as he was moving at her, the amulet’s power reacted and a silvery burst of magic exploded over his outstretched hand before he could touch her. Lorcan cried out again, clutching his burned hand to his chest.

“Keep back,” she said, pointing the rod at him. “If you test its limits again, I’ll make sure they don’t matter.”

“Give me that amulet.”

Farideh narrowed her eyes. “Try and take it.”

He moved forward again and this time she let loose a bolt of fire. It shouldn’t have hurt him-she knew he, like she, didn’t burn easily. She wanted to startle him, to slow him down. But the blaze that burst from the rod was hotter, brighter than expected. It struck his upraised arms and broke into cinders, but it singed his armor nonetheless and forced him back several steps.

“I am trying to help!” he roared. “You are a little fool if you-”

“I don’t need your help anymore,” she interrupted. “Go.”

“Damn it!” Lorcan snapped. “I’m not losing you to Sairche and I’m not losing you to the shitting moon goddess. Give me the amulet and stop playing around.”

Something in her cracked.

“You cannot lose me because I’m not your pet!” she shouted, hurling a bolt with each curse. “I’m not your bauble! I’m not your prize!” Lorcan dodged and ducked, but as he covered his face, the last bolt hit his arms and threw him backward. Farideh stormed toward him, her fury plain in the miasmic shadows that swirled around her. She shoved the tip of the rod under his chin, her hands shaking with rage and the powers of the Hells roiling through her.

“I’m not a fool. You don’t tell me what to do,” she said. “And don’t you lay a hand on me.”

Lorcan stared up at her, still short of breath and more stunned than enraged. Wounded, she thought. Betrayed.

To the Hells with him and his betrayal.

“This rod is more than you said,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“Tell me what it does.” He hesitated, and she jabbed the point against his throat. “Tell me what it does or I will gladly blow your karshoji head into the ground.”

A smile flickered at his mouth. “I don’t know why you ever worried about me corrupting you. My virtuous warlock, a cold-blooded killer for the moon goddess’s pleasure.” At least you’ve an audience to appreciate your transformation. His eyes darted over her shoulder, and Farideh glanced back to where Havilar and Brin stood, watching her with wide, frightened eyes. She pursed her lips and turned back to Lorcan, still lying on the ground.

“Leave them out of this,” she said. “Tell me what it does.”

“Or what?”

Or what, indeed. This close and she might burn away the soft part of his throat, right in front of her eyes. The blowback would scar her knuckles and maybe worse. He knew she wouldn’t. He wasn’t afraid of her.

“I think the Ashmadai would leave me be if I gave you to them,” she said. “I’ll bet Rohini would too, if what you said is true.”

His mouth went small. “Don’t. Don’t even play with that one.”

“Tell me what it does.”

“Farideh, she’ll kill you. She won’t care if you’re mine or not any longer.”

“Better than being your oblivious plaything,” she said. “That isn’t how we’re doing things any longer. If it’s because we’re both dead, well, that wasn’t my plan either. So it’s your choice.”

Lorcan watched her. Wounded, she thought again. Defeated.

Fine. He could feel trapped and terrified for a bit too.

He wet his lips. “That is the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal,” he said. “It enhances your casting and … amplifies some of your spells. The fiery ones in particular, it seems. But only if you are defending yourself against someone bound to the same fiend.” Was it her imagination, or could Lorcan no longer meet her eyes? “I gave it to you to protect you from the orc in case he went after you.”

“Why did it work on you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You are bound to me, but it’s all a chain, isn’t it? I answer to Invadiah, so you do as well. And eventually all of us answer to Glasya, who answers to Asmodeus-for all I know the rod works on everyone who serves beneath the god of evil.”

“I do not serve Asmodeus.”

He laughed bitterly. “Whatever you say, darling.”

“Why did I have the rod?” Havilar asked.

“What?” Lorcan lifted his head, forcing the tip of the implement into his throat. Farideh hesitated, but pulled it back so he could sit up. “When did you have it?”

“Fari said I had it when I killed the Ashmadai,” she said. “There’s … Fari, there might be someone’s … blood and things on it.” The rod was indeed caked with blood and pinkish flesh. “But why did I have it instead of my glaive?”

Lorcan peered at it. “Did you beat someone to death with it?” He looked up and seemed to register for the first time the fact that Havilar was stained tip to toe in blood. He swore ripely. “What happened?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Farideh said.

Lorcan fumed at her. “Stop trying to be difficult and tell me what in the Hells happened.”

“I don’t remember.” Havilar started trembling again, and Brin put an arm around her shoulders.

“Farideh,” Lorcan said. But it wasn’t a threat or a chastisement this time. “Please.”

“Something took Havilar over,” she said. “Brought her to an Ashmadai meeting place and killed the lot of them.”

“ ‘Took her over’?” Lorcan said. “Ashes. And she was carrying the rod? You don’t remember anything and you killed, what, a dozen Ashmadai? A score?”

Havilar shook her head. Her knuckles whitened around the glaive.

Lorcan swore again. “Nothing? Not even as you’d remember a dream?” Again, Havilar shook her head. Lorcan turned back to Farideh. “This is very, very bad. We need to get somewhere safe.”

“We don’t need to get anywhere,” Farideh said. “Havilar and I need to get Mehen and-”

“And if you try you’re going to be killed,” Lorcan said, pulling himself to his feet. “Possibly by Mehen. Listen to me, darling, this time I’m useful.”

Farideh kept the rod pointed at him. “Mehen wouldn’t … he wouldn’t do that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lorcan said. “Rohini is a devil. She’s a succubus. She’s here for … darling, let’s put it as such: you do not send Rohini to cause mere mischief. And Rohini has Mehen in thrall. He’ll do whatever she says, whenever she says it.”

“Mehen?” Farideh said. “That’s not possible.”

“I was going to ask, how does a succubus …” Brin said. “I mean he’s a dragonborn.”

Lorcan rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t need to bed him, you dolt. She just has to get close enough to dominate him.” He smirked. “Besides … she’s a shapechanger. If she wanted to she could bed just about anything under the sun.”

“Is that what happened to Havi?” Farideh asked. “Rohini dominated her?”

“No,” Lorcan said. “Being dominated is like a dream. You’re watching yourself act. You’re aware, you just can’t do a thing about it. If Havi doesn’t remember, she was possessed.” He regarded Farideh soberly. “Which means Rohini is even more dangerous than I previously supposed, and our problem is growing rapidly.”

Possessed. Farideh kept the rod pointed at Lorcan, clinging tightly to it as if the implement were holding her up and not the other way around. Lorcan couldn’t hurt her under the amulet’s compulsion, but she could hurt him. She wanted to hurt him.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, and she wanted him to stumble, to lie, to give her more reasons not to trust him. She wanted to hurt him-some part of her wanted to obliterate him.

Give me a reason, she thought. Give me an excuse to reduce you to ashes and bones. Give me a reason to shove these stupid hopes aside and get rid of you before you hurt me again.

But then he sighed. “Normally, you shouldn’t. You know that and I know that, and I’m not foolish enough to pretend otherwise with that rod pointed at my heart.” There was no bravado, no threat, no wheedling, coaxing tone in his voice. “But this time, darling, if you don’t trust me you are going to die. Havilar is going to die. Mehen is certainly going to die.”

“You’re just repeating your threats,” she said. That was reason enough wasn’t it?

“Farideh,” he said. “Farideh, look at her. Look at the blood. Rohini did that. Rohini slaughtered an army in Havilar’s body and left her to answer for it. You know why she did that.”

“Stop it,” Farideh said, as Havilar-her brash, brave, reckless sister-started to shake again. She could not hold the rod on Lorcan and comfort Havilar. “Stop it.”

“Farideh, please,” he said. “Listen. That was supposed to be you. Why else put the rod in Havilar’s hand? Rohini took the wrong twin. My darling, you’re supposed to be dead, because we are both mixed into this now.”

Do not trust him, she thought. Do not.

“If she realizes you’re alive, she will make certain it’s not for long.” He shuddered. “Or worse. Much worse. You have to leave. You cannot get tied up in her plans. Let her think you’re dead.”

“What is she planning?” And how do I know you’re not a part of that plan too? she thought. Or some worse, greater plan?

How could she claim innocence if Lorcan held her reins?

“Get out of the street,” Lorcan pleaded. “I will tell you everything I know, just come out of the open. It’s not safe.”

Farideh shook her head. “Nowhere is safe with you.”

Lorcan started to retort but his eyes caught on something over her shoulder. “Shit and ashes.”

Farideh heard Havilar’s sharp intake of breath. Heard Brin’s whispered prayer. She turned back the way she and Havilar had come to see two creatures heading toward them, as unstoppable and imminent as a thunderstorm on the horizon.