Erin Evans - Brimstone Angels

Farideh’s face fell. “Havi …” she started.

Mehen stiffened. “What happened?”

She paused and wet her lips. “Havi’s been captured. It was an accident, I wasn’t-”

“ Thrik, ” Mehen said gently. Planes, she was so ready for him to blame her. No wonder Rohini had you so easily, he thought. You push her too hard. “You’d never have let it happen if there were any way to stop it.” She unknotted the harness and he listened to Farideh explain what had happened, and what she was afraid was coming. “Do you have a plan?” he asked, coming to his feet.

“It’s … sort of,” she said. “I don’t know if it will work. You’ll go after Havilar,” she said. “The Ashmadai will converge on the House of Knowledge soon, but you need to catch Yvon as far from there as you can. You can’t get near Rohini again.”

“Let me near her and I’ll rip the kothar karshoji’s head off.”

“No,” Farideh said. “She’ll dominate you again, and then we’ll just be in worse shape. Get Havilar and head for the gates.”

“And you?” Mehen said. “Where will you be?”

“Making room for you to get Havilar,” she said. “I’ll find a way to distract Yvon’s fellows so they don’t come after you.” She looked up at Lorcan. “If all of this is just another distraction to keep eyes off Glasya, perhaps everyone would be more interested in what the Sixth Layer might be doing.”

Lorcan looked as if he might have protested, but something changed in the air and both of them, devil and warlock, seemed to have the wind momentarily knocked from them. Mehen reached to steady Farideh.

“What was that?” Farideh said.

Lorcan’s mouth made a line so hard it might have been chiseled there. “That,” he said, “was an extremely large portal opening. Considering our circumstances, I suggest-again-we get out of here, because if we are fortunate that is my mother and her army, and if we are not, the Ashmadai have called down their god.”

Farideh turned a cold eye on Lorcan. “Make up your mind, right now. You’re helping or you’re not: which is it?”

“That depends entirely on your plans-”

“Which I am not stupid enough to tell you if there’s still a good chance you’ll hare back to your mother’s side. Choose.”

He fidgeted. “You cannot fight them all.”

“Choose, Lorcan.”

“Promise me first you won’t try.”

“I swear I won’t try to fight all of them. I want Havilar back safe and the hospital not burned down. If we can manage else, we will.”

Lorcan hesitated. “Fine. I promise I’ll help you get Havilar back safe. And the hospital if it’s convenient.” He scowled. “And I wouldn’t go back to my mother-giving her your silly plans isn’t going to make her want to kill me any less. I’d like to hear your plan for that. ”

“We cannot fight them all,” she agreed, “so we deal with them each separately. The Ashmadai first, then the Sovereignty, then the erinyes.”

“Of course,” Lorcan said, “and afterward we bring down the demon princes. You cannot kill any of those!”

“We don’t need to kill them,” she said. “We just need to make them back down. By playing them off each other.”

“My enemies’ enemies are allies not-yet-confirmed,” Mehen quoted.

“Exactly,” Farideh said, turning to Lorcan. “Your mother will deal with Rohini handily enough, yes? So we lead the erinyes to Rohini and let them take care of things. You don’t get in the way when your enemies are willing to kill each other.” She looked to Mehen. “You’d better go. He’ll be between the shop we stopped at the first day and the House of Knowledge. He’ll want as many of the Ashmadai near before …” She swallowed. “Before he makes his point.”

Mehen seized her in a fierce embrace. She went stiff in his arms, as if she didn’t know what was happening. She reached an arm around Mehen and relaxed a little.

“For the love of all the planes, be careful,” he said. “We have too much to say to leave it here.” He squeezed her once and stepped back. He glowered at Lorcan. “And you …” He’d still have liked to punch the cambion right across the jaw, but not now. Not while Farideh needed him. “Prove your damn worth.” He spat.

“To you? I think I have,” the cambion said. “Twice now in fact.”

“Stop it,” Farideh snapped. “Mehen, go. Lorcan and Brin, we have to find where the erinyes’ portal opened.” They all started toward the end of the alley.

“How will you get rid of Invadiah once she’s finished?” he heard Lorcan ask. “And who will kill the Ashmadai? Not the erinyes-you can’t start a battle in the Hells.”

Farideh hesitated. “We don’t kill the Ashmadai,” she said. “We make them think they aren’t needed so they go away.”

Mehen eyed the empty street and turned toward the south.

“Are you going to burn down the House of Knowledge yourself?” he heard Lorcan ask.

Mehen almost wished he’d been too far to hear Farideh’s answer. “Not precisely,” she said. “I need you to set fire to me.”

Farideh had no glass to tell the time, but surely by now the amulet’s power over Lorcan had faded, and she watched him with a fair amount of trepidation and more than a little respect. He meant what he’d promised, it seemed.

“The erinyes are heading this way out of the ruined district,” Brin reported back. He had run ahead and scaled the tallest building he could find. “They’re staying on the widest road, a straight shot for here. Torm knows what they’ll do when they reach the Wall. There’re at least ten of them.”

“Thirteen,” Lorcan said when he returned. “If there are only erinyes, then there will be thirteen. The praxidikai -a full ‘justice’ of erinyes for Rohini, because she broke her oath to an archdevil.” He shook his head again, but to his credit did not insist they should flee.

“The Ashmadai seem to have split themselves,” he reported, “but you were right. The larger group is headed to this intersection.” They stood at the plaza of the fountain, the spot where the Chasm wall dipped farthest into the city, and where the widest northern road met the main road.

“Tell me,” Lorcan said, “that you have given up this fool idea of setting yourself on fire.”

“A person on fire is going to catch their attention,” she said, tying the rags of her torn robes to the sleeves of her armor. “And if she is not screaming and trying to put out the flame, then they are really going to notice.”

“You are a tiefling,” Lorcan said, though he pinned the pair of charms that would keep her from catching fire too easily to her shoulders. “Not a shitting phoenix-the flames will burn you through eventually.”

“Which is why we must time everything right.”

Before long Farideh stood atop a crop of rock, Brin at the base, shrouded by Lorcan’s invisibility charm, and Lorcan behind her, muttering steadily about the futility of the plan and how he would take off with her the second the Ashmadai came too close.

“If you do,” she said, “I will kick you in the knees until you drop me. Stop complaining.” But for all her surety, the shadows crept out of her skin and swaddled them all.

Down the opposite road, the Ashmadai marched, their faces covered and hooded but the insignia of their alliance clear in the light of the flickering torches they carried. Those who did not hold torches carried bundles of kindling and glass bottles stuffed with rags and sloshing with accelerants. They made a poor pretense of quiet, too riled, it seemed, by the promise of impending havoc.

Behind her, beyond the Wall, she heard the terrible march of cloven feet.