Page 11 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)

“Good,” Bex said, taking her own comm from Lys and fitting it into her ear. When the bud was safely locked in place and communications were established, she repacked the empty container into her backpack and turned to Lys.

“You’re the only one of us who’s been banished before. How do we get inside?”

“You’ll see in a second,” Lys promised, tilting their head to the side so they could wiggle the comm’s black bud into their delicate pointed ear.

“Banishments always land on the outside. I’m not sure if there’s a legitimate magical reason for that or if warlocks are just assholes who like putting people’s backs to literal cliffs, but the wardens have definitely noticed our arrival, which means we should be seeing a retrieval team soon. ”

“I’m astonished we haven’t seen one already,” Kirok said, scowling gravely at the stone wall of the mountain in front of them. “What’s happened to discipline in the Hells that they leave a banished demon unattended for so long?”

Lys snorted. “I thought you weren’t on their side anymore.”

“I’m not,” the general insisted, folding his top two bronze arms with a sniff. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Well, I’m glad they’re late,” Bex said, reaching down to make sure the explosive short sword Iggs had loaned her was still ready in its sheath at the small of her back. “Gives us time to sort ourselves out before—"

Her voice cut off as the cliff they were standing on began to shake.

Bex’s first thought was that the reason the guards were late was because she’d been recognized, and now some warlock in a command room was hitting a button to drop the cliff and kill them all from a distance.

Fortunately, reality wasn’t nearly so coordinated.

The cliff was shaking because the side of the mountain directly in front of them was changing, the hard, featureless stone pulling back like a curtain to reveal an enormous pair of jet-black stone doors.

Bex took an involuntary step backward. So far, nothing about this trip had matched her expectations, but this? This was hellish.

The black doors were cut deep into the mountain’s side like a wound.

Their fronts were covered in carvings of terrified demons trying desperately to escape while chains pulled them back into the dark.

The art was so realistic, Bex swore she could hear them screaming in the silence that suddenly covered the cliff.

“Well,” Boston said nervously from his perch on Bran’s broomstick, “that certainly drives home the point.”

“Gilgamesh never was one for subtlety,” Iggs agreed, gripping the worn strap of Solomon’s Armory with both hands. “But at least now we know we’re in the right place.”

“There was never any doubt of that,” muttered Lys as they switched out of their elegant, pink-winged true form into a lanky, dangerous-looking male body that reminded Bex of Desh. “Get ready. Retrieval teams always come out swinging.”

Bex was about to ask how many they should expect when the air was split by the horrible sound of stone scraping against stone.

The noise went on forever as the doors slowly opened outward to reveal a middle-aged man wearing the elegant white clothing of a Heavenly denizen accompanied by a squad of four war demons dressed in the same golden armor the Anchor Guards wore.

It was clearly intended to be a dazzling show of force, but Bex had already noticed that these war demons were not prime specimens.

All four of them were in their bronze-skinned true forms, but only one was old enough to have grown all four of his arms. The other three had only two each, proof that they were barely more than teenagers.

That must be why they were wearing armor, she realized.

Young war demons hadn’t had enough time to develop their famously thick bronze skin.

Even their flat, protective horns looked narrow and small beneath the visors of their golden helmets.

Iggs could probably take all of them by himself, a thought that was definitely already crossing his mind from the smirk on his face.

Bex was about to give the order to go ahead and roll ’em when Lys suddenly shot forward.

They moved so fast, Bex almost didn’t turn her head in time to see the lust demon shoot past the first two guards to plant their knife—the same black sin-iron dagger that Desh had brought to kill Bex—in the warlock’s chest. The human didn’t even seem to realize what had happened.

He just stood there, dumbfounded, watching his white shirtfront turn red with eyes that were already black from sin-iron exposure.

When his body went limp a second later, Bex couldn’t say if it was from the knife in his heart or the poison in his blood.

Whatever it was, he was dead within five seconds of walking out the door.

His guards were still gaping in shock when Iggs slammed into them like a truck.

He wasn’t the only one. Kirok was also in there throwing punches with all four of his fists, which were way bigger than any of the baby war demons’. By the time the guards realized what was happening, all four of them were face down under Iggs’s boot and Kirok’s dinner-plate-sized hoof.

“Great job,” Bex said, sliding the short sword she hadn’t even had time to swing back into its sheath. “That was so fast I almost blinked and missed it.”

“I’m sorry it had to be this way at all,” Kirok said, easing up on the hoof he was using to crush the only actually mature war demon into the stone.

“Despite what our queen’s betrayal has forced us to do, war demons are slaves the same as any other demon.

The vast majority of us do not fight willingly. Just look at these children’s necks.”

He leaned down to hook a finger under the biggest war demon’s metal collar, pulling back his golden armor to reveal a thick black ring of sin iron wrapped tight around the young demon’s throat.

“You see?” Kirok growled as he let the boy go. “This place is a Hell for all of us. These children didn’t have a choice. Please don’t judge them too harshly, great queen.”

“I’m not judging them at all,” Bex said, giving the terrified-looking demons a smile. “They could’ve yelled the alarm the moment their warlock went down, but they held their tongues. That’s as good as helping in my book.”

“We’d help more if we could,” said the smallest war demon from his position under Iggs’s left boot. “You’re the rebel queen, right? The one Gilgamesh spared because Prince Adrian begged him?”

Bex winced at the mention of Adrian’s name after the hated title Prince then winced again when she saw how the young demon was looking at her.

It felt every kind of wrong to meet that hopeful look when she had no horns or royal name or divine sword to cut him free.

Still, Bex had been doing this queen thing for a long time now, and she knew exactly what reply was needed.

“I am Rebexa,” she lied. “Queen of Wrath and Ishtar’s Sword.”

The young demon’s dark eyes were huge by the time she finished. “I knew it!” he cried, thrashing against Iggs’s weight as he tried to get closer. “The old folks always said you’d come for us! So is it true? Have you finally come to free the Hells?”

Bex dropped her eyes at once. Hoo boy, how to answer that? She was still struggling for the right thing to say when Kirok reached down and snatched the boy’s helmet off to cuff him behind the horns.

“You do not ask questions of a queen,” the old general snapped. “Now get up and get out of that armor. Quick now!”

The war demons looked disappointed, but they did as they were ordered, taking off their golden armor and piling it on the ground at Kirok’s feet as fast as they could. They stole glances at Bex the entire time, and eventually she couldn’t take it any longer.

“Let me get those collars off you, at least,” she said, walking over.

She wanted to give them totally clean necks, but she couldn’t burn their slave bands without Drox.

She should still be able to cut the collars off their necks with the sin-iron dagger, though.

When she looked over to ask Lys if she could borrow their knife, however, the lust demon was still crouched on top of the fallen warlock.

The human was long dead, but Lys still hadn’t stopped stabbing their black knife into his chest. They were raising their arms to stab him again when Bex stepped forward to grab their elbow.

“It’s okay,” she whispered when they jerked. “It’s okay, Lys. He’s dead.”

“He can’t be dead,” Lys growled in a voice Bex had never heard from them before.

“He hasn’t paid enough yet. Do you know how many times I was banished back to this place?

What warlocks like this one did to me? To all of us?

” Their still-raised arms quivered in Bex’s grip as Lys bared their small fangs.

“I shouldn’t have killed him so fast. I should’ve made him hurt . ”

“We will,” Bex promised, using her still-superior strength to pull Lys toward her until the lust demon lost their balance and toppled into her arms. They landed against her chest with a sob, dropping the black dagger at last so they could wrap their arms around her.

“It’s okay,” Bex said, doing her best to copy Adrian’s soothing tone as she petted the soft hair between Lys’s short horns. “You’re safe, Lys. I’ve got you. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

It felt so odd, comforting the person who’d been her parent multiple times over.

It must have been the right move, though, because Lys clung to her like a child.

Their body shifted as they bawled, becoming smaller and younger as they clung to their queen.

The outburst lasted less than a minute before Lys pulled it back together, but Bex didn’t let them go.

She held on as tight as she could, squeezing Lys into her body until they finally went limp in her arms.

“Sorry,” they whispered after a long silence. “I didn’t realize it would hit me that hard.”