‘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.
The demons use multiheaded sticks like the one I saw back then to whip and bite the angel slaves pulling the chariots. These sticks are topped by circles of shriveled heads all with the same shade of red hair and green eyes. The hair floats as if underwater just like the ones I’d seen before. And like the others I’d seen, these are also screaming soundlessly.
When their masters whip the stick, they come shrieking toward the Fallen, biting and ripping strips of skin and feathers off them when they land.