Between their damaged bodies, I can see we’re in a war zone or, at least, what’s left of one. The buildings are burned out, the broken trees are charred, and the vehicles are smashed and gutted. At least, I’m assuming these were buildings, trees, and vehicles. They don’t look like ours, but the hulking shapes look like they used to be inhabited a long time ago. Like a village of some kind. Something that looks like stunted cacti that have been stomped and twisted sits rooted into the ground. And there is debris strewn around that looks vaguely like wagon wheels.
A nonangel with canary-yellow feathers reaches for me. His skin has been ripped right off his arm, leaving only the glistening muscles beneath. I cringe, but he grabs me by the hair and yanks me up to my feet.
‘What is it?’ asks Beliel. ‘Can we eat it?’ I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything more disturbing than empty eye sockets, especially on someone I know, even if it’s Beliel.
He puts a pointy ear in his mouth and chews on it. It looks a lot like a hellion’s ear. I wonder what happened to the hellion I rode.
Then I see what’s left of it on the ground, all smashed and torn apart. It’s hardly recognizable anymore.
Where’s Raffe?
‘It’s a Daughter of Man,’ says my captor. His voice is ominous, like those words have some deep meaning.
There’s a long silence as everyone stares at me.
‘Which one?’ Beliel finally asks.
The one holding me looks around at the others. He doesn’t ease up on my hair. ‘Is this one of yours? She’s not mine.’
‘There’s no reason to believe she would be one of ours, Cyclone,’ says Beliel. His voice is raspy as if he’d either been screaming himself raw or someone had choked him.
‘I’m through with them,’ says one. ‘The thought of them makes me ill.’
‘Yeah, maybe Big B’s right,’ says another. ‘Maybe we’re better off eating her. We could use some meat to help us heal.’
I squirm trying to get out of the nonangel’s grip. Where is Raffe?
‘Let her go,’ says another. This one has blue-tinged feathers.
‘Thermo, if we let her go, she’ll wish we had cooked her up and eaten her. Setting her free here is not a mercy.’
That’s not what I wanted to hear.
‘And is that a sword?’ Several of them lean down to look at my sword, which lies on the ground just out of reach.
One of them tries to lift it and grunts at the weight. He lets it go.
They all stare at me, scrutinizing.
‘What are you?’ asks Cyclone.
‘She’s a Daughter of Man, can’t you see that?’ says Thermo.
‘If she’s a Daughter of Man, where’s her pack of hellions?’ says a guy with black feathers and sharp eyes. ‘Where are her chains? Why does she look so healthy and whole?’
‘And how does she have an angel sword?’ asks one who has brown wings streaked with yellow.
‘It can’t be hers. Somehow, it got here. And somehow, she got here. But that doesn’t mean it’s her sword. We haven’t been here long enough to believe things that are that crazy.’ They all look at Pooky Bear with longing, but none of them tries to pick her up.
‘So whose is it?’ They all look at me.
I shrug. ‘I’m just a Daughter of Man. I don’t know anything.’
No one argues with that.
‘Where am I?’ I ask. The pull on my hair is becoming unbearable. Two of them have their scalps partly torn off, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is why.
‘In the Pit,’ says Thermo. ‘Welcome to the hunting district.’
‘Is this the same as hell?’ I ask.
The one with black feathers shrugs. ‘Does it matter? It’s hellish. Why do you care if it matches your primitive myth?’
‘What do you hunt here?’ I ask.
The angel with the brown-and-yellow wings snorts. ‘We don’t. We’re the prey.’
That doesn’t sound good. ‘What are you?’ I ask. I’m assuming they’re Raffe’s Watchers, but better to be sure. ‘You don’t look like angels, and you don’t look like . . .’ What do I really know about what demons look like?
‘Oh, do excuse us for not introducing ourselves,’ says the one with the brown-and-yellow wings. He emphasizes his sarcasm by bowing to me. ‘We are the newly Fallen. The Watchers, to be precise. And probably your executioners. Not that it’ll take more than one of us to do the deed. But you get the point. I’m Howler.’
Howler points to the one with black feathers and brown skin. ‘That’s Hawk.’ He points to the one with blue-tinged feathers, then to several others. ‘Thermo. Flyer. Big B. Little B. And the one holding you is Cyclone.’ He looks around at the others. There are too many to introduce them all, not that I’d remember their names. ‘Do we care who she is?’
‘Sure,’ says Flyer. ‘Maybe it’ll give us something to think about when we’re bored out of our minds for the next millennium. Who are you?’
‘I’m . . .’ I’m hesitant to give them my name. Raffe said names have power. ‘I’m the angel slayer.’
It sounds kind of ridiculous now that I’ve said it. It sounded better in my head, but whatever.
For a moment, they all stare at me.
Then, as if on cue, they burst out laughing.
Howler curls over his left ribs with his hands protectively covering them like they’re broken. ‘Oh, don’t make me laugh. That hurts.’
Cyclone chuckles behind me. He finally lets go of my hair, leaving my scalp tender. ‘Holy Mother of God, I didn’t realize I could laugh anymore.’
‘Yeah, it’s been a long, long time,’ says Little B.
‘The angel slayer, huh?’ asks Howler.
‘Well, that was great,’ says Beliel, who apparently is Big B. ‘Can we eat her now?’
‘He’s got a point,’ says Little B. ‘I can’t remember the last time we had a full meal. She’s scrawny, but I’m desperate for food to manage all this healing—’
Something grabs him – a tentacle? – and yanks him back. He yells and thrashes, kicking and twisting, but he can’t get loose.
It drags him behind a pile of rubble, bashing his head and shoulders on jagged fragments along the way.
The Watchers all become fully alert and ready for battle, but they’re practically hyperventilating. These guys have not fared well here.
I stand frozen. If these legendary warriors are afraid, what should I be feeling? I’m beginning to wish I had just kept my mouth shut about coming here. Being killed in a gladiator arena is starting to sound merciful now.
They all fly after Little B even though there’s more than a little stress on their faces. They kick and yank and try to pull him out of the tentacle’s grip.
Then another one of them gets sucked backward. As far as I can tell, the thing that took him was the scorching wind.
He gets yanked back through a window of a half-demolished building. Within seconds, screams erupt from inside.
The nearest Watchers rush to the window and look inside. They look away like they wish they hadn’t seen what they just saw.
Somewhere, another kind of screaming heads our way. It’s a mad shriek in the distance
that sets my nerves on edge.
The Watchers back away with Little B who is kicking off the last of the tentacle that had him. They turn and begin rushing away from the building and the direction of the mad screams.
Someone grabs my arm and pulls me with him. To my surprise, it’s Beliel. ‘Stick with us. We’re your best chance.’
I notice he doesn’t say best chance at what. I bend to grab my sword off the ground, not caring if any of them see me do it. They’re too busy getting in formation and scanning for danger to pay any attention to me.
We scatter, half running with our backs to each other. These guys have worked together before. Too bad it doesn’t seem to help them much here.
Where’s Raffe?
What have I gotten myself into?
36
We run through the district, zigzagging this way and that like a pack of wolves escaping from a hunter. The place is full of broken bricks and old bones. Charred and twisted chunks of wood lie alongside rusted pieces of metal among the debris.
I try to keep up with the Watchers, some who run and some who fly low to the ground as though worried they could be seen higher up. Beliel flies with his hand on a Watcher’s ankle to guide him. It must take a lot of trust to fly blind. The Beliel I know would have a lot of trouble doing that.
They’ll probably kill me as soon as they get the chance, but I’ll deal with that after we escape from whatever it is that’s trying to kill us now. I make the mistake of turning around to see what we’re running from.
There are three pumped-up demons like the one I saw the last time I was in the Pit. They’re all enormous, with huge muscles encased in leather straps crisscrossing their bodies. Their torsos are otherwise naked, and that’s as far down as I can see.
They probably don’t have cows here in the Pit. I try not to think about what animal hide they use for their leather.
They ride on chariots pulled by a dozen newly Fallen harnessed in bloody chains. The Fallen frantically sweep their wings as their demon lords whip them. I can tell they’re newly Fallen because they still have most of their feathers, although they’re crushed and twisted. I don’t have to look to know the chariots probably have broken angels strapped to the wheels as well, just like Beliel was in my last visit.