Chapter 11 Abaddon
ABADDON
Ilay beside Holly, watching her breathe, stroking a hand through her hair. Who would have thought a mortal could be so beautiful, so enticing, so incredible?
There wasn’t time for this. I should be up, working, fixing problems. Without electricity, my cabin wouldn’t be suitable for a human to live in. I had work to do before I faded, urgent work.
And yet there I lay, hand gently brushing Holly’s hair, waiting for her to recover. I was stronger than I had been in years, my soul aflame with power, but still I felt no urge to leap up and do something useful.
Holding this human in my arms, with soft caresses and whispered words, was exactly what I wanted to do.
Her breathing changed subtly as she woke, and I smiled down at her.
“Good morning.”
“…morning,” she repeated, blinking and looking around. A delightful blush spread across her face as she looked at the scattered wreckage surrounding us. “What… did we break the sofa?”
“It appears so,” I said. “I can make another if we need it.”
Her laugh held a hint of embarrassment, and she rolled in to hide her face against my chest. “I can’t believe we did that.”
“If you require evidence, Holly, I will be happy to repeat the experience.”
Her breath caught at that, and I chuckled. As though the sound reminded her of something, Holly froze, then sat up. Reluctantly, I let her rise.
“You said you wouldn’t last long without your wards, right?” I nodded confirmation. “How long is ‘not long’ to an immortal?”
I frowned. “Honestly, I did not expect to still be here when you woke. I shouldn’t be. An unbound demon rarely lasts the night, and the more powerful the demon, the quicker reality rejects us.”
Holly took a moment before replying, and her answer went in a direction I hadn’t considered. “You mean you expected me to wake up here, alone, and just cope? That’s kind of shitty, Abaddon. I’d be on my own, and if I survived at all, I’d be worried and wondering why you’d abandoned me.”
“I had planned to tell you, but emotions rather overtook us, if you recall.” Holly blushed, and I grinned. “After that you were unconscious, and I had no desire to wake or disturb you. It worked out, because here we both are.”
Though I had no answer to the question of why I remained. It bothered me too, probably more than it did Holly.
“Sure, you got lucky somehow, but if your plan had worked, I’d have been worried to death.”
“It was not a plan, little one. I simply wanted to let you rest. You needed it.”
She sighed, looked away, and relaxed with a visible effort. “You’re right, I did. I feel much better, even my head doesn’t hurt where I knocked it. Maybe you made the right call.”
“And now that you are awake, and I still exist, we can fuck again. Better now that I know your body and your responses.”
Holly’s face flushed bright red, and her mouth flapped silently. I chuckled, which only made things worse for her. But she shook her head, and buried her face against my chest.
“I think,” she said, voice tiny and muffled, “I think another round would kill me. Which, I mean, what a way to go, but I don’t plan on dying yet.”
Another chuckle from me, which made her squirm delightfully. “Very well, little one. I can wait. In the meantime, what would you like to do?”
“I like this,” she said, squeezing me. “Just being here with you, holding you. Being held. That’s enough for me.
“But if it’s not prying, I want to understand what’s going on.”
My turn to sigh, and I lay back, holding her close and loving the feel of her naked skin against mine. It was nice just to hold her. “I will do my best, but I do not understand everything myself. What do you want to know? I will answer what I can.”
“Let’s start at the beginning. Why are you here? How are you here?”
“Now that, I can tell you.”
I told her about the Hellwar. Fighting in hell was unremarkable, but the scale was all-encompassing. Hellfire raged across whole worlds, noble houses put to the sword, chaos and betrayal everywhere. The city of Dis, a world in itself, burned and broke as brother fought brother.
No one individual could rule all of Hell, but Lord Baal would destroy everything trying to prove he was the exception. Damn him for his pointless ambition!
“My lord, you must withdraw. We have lost the outer gate, and the Baalists are in the tormentorium.” Grael, the grizzled captain of my guard, sounded annoyed, as though this was a minor inconvenience rather than the end of everything we held dear.
Wreathed in lightning, he didn’t let the report keep him from fighting, throwing bolts from the throne room window as he spoke.
I laughed without humor. “Withdraw, Grael? Where should I go? This spire is the safest place in my holdings.”
He half-turned to face me, but whatever he’d intended to say, a tentacle of black liquid cut him off.
It shot in through the window, engulfing Grael’s head, and dragged him out before anyone could react.
My remaining two bodyguards rushed forward, trying to save him, but bolts of ice caught the first in the chest, impaling and freezing him at once.
His companion ducked back, prudence overwhelming her urge to rescue her comrades. She looked at me, and I read the horror and guilt in her expression.
“They are both past saving,” I told her. “There is no shame in abandoning the dead to tend the living. Vengeance is impossible unless you are alive to take it.”
She nodded, a shaky up and down motion of her wolf-like head. I wished I knew her name. Carnia? Carsis? Something like that. The war had seen too many deaths and rapid promotions for me to keep up.
“Take your own advice, Lord. Leave. Fight another day. If you die, we lose everything.”
“That is no way to speak to your liege-lord,” I said.
She shrugged, throwing a hellfire blast out the shattered window. Outside, someone screamed as their soul ignited. “You can punish me for that later, Lord Abaddon. If we both survive.”
I snarled. “I will not run from Baal.”
“Then we both die today.” She took my arm and pulled me toward the throne room’s massive brass doors. “So I can be as insubordinate as I want, you fucking asshole.”
That shocked a laugh out of me. “I have nowhere to retreat, even if I agree to.”
“You’re mistaken, Lord. There is one option. The gate.” She shoved me through the doors and into the corridor beyond. Statues of earlier spirelords looked down at me, judging. I doubted they liked what they saw.
Belial was happier to see me. I’d left my hellhound guarding the door, and now he leaped up to follow me, wagging his tail. At least someone was having fun at the end of everything.
Behind us, the outer wall of the throne room crumbled, hellfire bombardment doing its work. The doors swung shut, cutting off my view of the destruction, and I hurried onward.
“And where would I go?” I objected, though I had no other suggestion. “Baal’s forces are already attacking every world I have a stronghold in. He takes no chances.”
At least this plan gave me a destination to head for.
Grateful for that, I hurried toward the center of my spire.
Everywhere, chaos reigned, battle filling the corridors and gardens.
Baal’s infiltrators were everywhere, his treacherous attack carefully planned.
Where we identified intruders, we slew them.
It wasn’t enough to turn the tide, but it felt good.
My companion threw blasts of hellfire behind us, collapsing corridors as we withdrew. Between the battle and the demolitions, her wreath of flame had faded to crackling green sparks by the time we reached the gate chamber.
The chamber itself was one of the largest in the spire, and in its center stood a complex arch of silver and iron.
Black stone held channels of molten gold in complex shapes, movable panels allowing the patterns to be shifted and altered.
I felt power thrumming through the walls as I stepped inside, enough to shake the room free from the world.
The entire chamber was a cube carved from a single block of stone, the walls thick enough that it would survive the spire’s collapse, and the esoteric construction was strong enough to take more power than Baal could throw at it. If nothing else, it was a secure location for a last stand.
A futile one, with just two warriors and a hellhound. We’d hurt Baal’s forces, but not so much that he’d notice.
“What now, Captain?” I asked. It took her a moment to remember that meant her now.
“Now, lord, you vanish into another dimension, and—”
“—we,” I interrupted. “I have no intention of leaving you behind to die in my service.”
“If you die beside me, does it help anyone? No? Then shut the fuck up.” Despite the disaster of a day, I smiled. “Without you, I’m nobody. I can walk out of here while Baal searches for you. If you stay, we both die.”
That made some sense, though I didn’t like admitting it. A loud rumbling crash outside made it obvious we didn’t have long to argue.
“We both go, then.”
“One of us has to remain to scramble the gate, or Baal’s forces will simply follow. Besides, Lord, my husband is somewhere in that mess.” She waved her hand in a gesture that encompassed everything. “If I leave with you, I can’t save him.”
Reasonable. Damnably reasonable. I snarled, but thought quickly, looking for flaws in her plan and finding none. It might actually work.
“Captain, scramble the gate first. I will not go to one of my strongholds to be trapped by Baal’s forces. Send me to a random mortal dimension, scramble the gate again, and he’ll have a hard time following.”
“But—” I cut her off with a sharp slashing gesture.
“No time to argue. If I run to another stronghold, Baal will still have me bottled up. I have to go somewhere new, or this only delays his victory.”
The captain didn’t look convinced, but she leaped into action anyway. I joined her, redirecting the flow of gold into different channels, sending energy to the gate through the arcane architecture of the chamber.
It took too long to find a stable configuration, but at last blue flames wreathed the central arch. A portal to a mortal world, one so far unclaimed by any demon house. A desperate gamble, but the only one I had left in me.
Outside, Baal’s heralds called for surrender, their voices echoing through the halls.
The fighting was over; my spire was theirs.
Filled with the urge to destroy him, I seethed, but the coward wasn’t even with his legion.
If I stayed, I’d slay many of his followers, but they’d overwhelm and kill me.
Or worse, they might capture me. I had no intention of becoming a prize for Baal to gloat over.
Denying my enemy that might be the only victory left to me.
“As soon as you’ve rescrambled the gate, surrender.
Live. When I return, I will rebuild the house, and there will be a place for you and your husband. ”
“There’d better be,” she said. “Now go.”