Page 13 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)

Under any other circumstances, Bex would’ve been impressed.

On a stealth mission, though, Kirok’s surprise star power was a serious liability.

She and Iggs covered him up as best they could, tilting the helmet to cover his face and patching the gaps in his too-short armor with gold paint from Iggs’s kit.

The result looked decent from a distance, but up close it was another story. It was still better than Iggs’s though.

They’d used up most of the best pieces on Kirok, which turned out to be a mistake since Iggs was just as big and had much taller horns.

He also had only two arms, which was a serious problem for someone pretending to be a war demon.

By the time they’d used up all the armor, Bex was seriously starting to worry about their ability to pull this off, but she should’ve had more faith in Iggs’s resourcefulness.

After a lot of digging, he found a bunch of brass artillery shells in the bag of endless weapons Felix had given them and pried the casings off to get extra metal.

The result was actually pretty awesome. It would never survive close inspection, but the gleaming shell casings really did look like golden armor on a passing glance, and since passing glances were the only attention most warlocks gave their demons, that was good enough.

It was definitely less eye-catching than wrath-demon horns.

The only downside was how long it had taken to make.

By the time Kirok and Iggs were both ready to go, their team had been on the exposed banishment platform for forty-five minutes.

Lys had been standing guard at the doors from minute five, ready to jump any investigation teams that showed their faces, but no one did.

The dark hall on the other side of the horrifying doors was still completely silent, which was almost scarier than being swarmed.

“I don’t understand,” Lys said at last, turning to look at Bex with the scowling face of the dead, white-robed warlock whose identity they’d stolen for the intrusion. “We killed a banishment retrieval team. We should be up to our necks in trouble by now. Where in the Hells is everyone?”

“It’s probably the staffing problems Kirok was talking about,” Bex said as she banged her elbow against the top of Iggs’s golden helmet to wedge it down over his tall horns.

“I think you mean rank incompetence,” Lys growled, crossing the warlock’s arms with a scowl. “If I’d known security had gotten this slack, I would’ve suggested invading the Hells years ago.”

“I believe we have been blessed with a unique set of circumstances,” Kirok said, holding himself with such confident military precision that Bex was hard-pressed to notice how badly his armor fit. “Clearly, Ishtar favors our mission.”

“I wouldn’t say no to some divine intervention,” Bex agreed, grabbing one of the collars she’d cut off the war demons and handing it to Iggs so he could bend it around her neck.

“Okay,” she said when the awful-feeling metal was wrapped around her neck tight enough to look real but not so tight that she couldn’t get it off again.

“Everyone remember your roles. Iggs and Kirok, you’re our guards.

You also have the worst costumes, so I want both of you to stay in the back.

Lys, you’re our warlock and the only one who can actually take scrutiny, so you’re on point.

Do you have everything you need for that, by the way? ”

“I should,” Lys said, pulling a piece of elegant and only slightly bloody paper out of the pocket of their new white robes. “I grabbed this off the warlock before I shoved his body off the ledge. It was the only thing in his pockets, so I’m pretty sure it’s his warden pass.”

“Pretty sure?” Iggs asked in alarm. “Why only ‘pretty sure’? Don’t you read cuneiform?”

“That doesn’t mean I can make heads or tails of Gilgamesh’s stupid poetry,” they snapped, holding up the paper, which was covered from edge to edge in gleaming gold markings.

“This whole thing’s nothing but Ancient Sumerian ‘thees’ and ‘thous,’ and it’s written in calligraphy.

” They shook their head as they returned the paper to their pocket.

“It’ll probably be fine. No one actually reads this stuff.

I’ll just flash the badge and bully my way through any problems.”

That wasn’t what Bex wanted to hear, but “flash the badge and bully through” was how Lys got them into most places, so she wasn’t too worried.

It was the combined effect of all their hack jobs that had her really scared.

Even her role playing the prisoner was compromised by the fact that she had no horns.

She’d brought a headband from an online costume store with some fake devil points that looked a lot like lust-demon horns after a little paint, but nothing could cover up the fact that they had no magic.

Any demon who looked too hard at her head would know her horns were fake, but it was the best Bex could do on a week’s notice.

They were all doing their best. If they’d had months to prepare, Bex was sure they could’ve done better, but that would’ve meant leaving Adrian alone up here for months as well.

It also would’ve meant giving Gilgamesh more time to prepare and her own people more time to starve in the wilderness outside the Blackwood.

None of that was acceptable, so here they were, doing their best with the time they’d had. Bex just hoped it was enough.

“Let’s do this,” she said, sliding the fake horns into her hair. She’d just gotten them straightened and was about to step through the door when Bex realized she’d forgotten something.

“Wait, where’s Nemini?”

“I brought her in with us,” Lys said, looking around the cliff with the warlock’s concerned scowl before pointing over Bex’s shoulder. “There she is.”

Bex turned around to see Nemini standing at the farthest side of the cliff. She hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived, but that was pretty normal for her. The weird part was how she was standing.

Nemini was perched so close to the edge that Bex was shocked she hadn’t already fallen off.

She leaned even farther out as Bex watched, curving her body away from the doors to the Hells like she was trying to avoid an oncoming train.

It was strange behavior even for her, and Bex walked over with a scowl.

“Nemini? You okay?”

“That depends on what form of ‘okay’ you’re asking about,” the void demon replied, staring down at the glittering sea full of Anchors like she was seriously considering jumping. “I’m not in any physical discomfort, but this place is worse than I’d anticipated.”

Bex actually thought the Hells had been shockingly easy so far, but she didn’t want to tell Nemini her feelings were wrong.

“Do you want to stay out here and watch the kids?” she offered, tilting her head at the four war-demon guards who were still sitting on the cliff talking and laughing like a bunch of teenagers skipping school.

Nemini’s shoulders rose in a long, shaky breath. “No,” she said, stepping back from the edge at last. “I agreed to come here with you, so I will see it through.”

“Glad to hear it,” Bex said with a relieved breath of her own. “You’re on scout duty, then. Can you do your shadow thing down that tunnel and make sure there’s not a giant ambush waiting for us?”

She pointed at the deep black hole beyond the terrible doors, but Nemini was already gone, vanishing between one blink and the next.

“Guess that’s a yes,” Bex said, looking around for the last of their loose ends. only to spot his furry tail lashing in the same spot where Lys’s banishment had dropped them out originally.

“Boston!” Bex called, jogging over. “Come on, it’s time to go.”

“Almost done,” the cat replied, his black, whisker-covered face set in a deep scowl as he nudged what appeared to be a pile of yard trash artfully arranged inside a circle of twine.

“What’s that?”

“A finding charm of my own creation,” Boston explained as he nudged one of the seemingly random leaves slightly to the left with his paw.

“Since Adrian and I are so closely connected, I was able to combine the strongest elements of all seven finding charm variations into one super spell that should cover every possible parameter. Observe.”

He grabbed the end of the twine circle in his teeth and pulled it, closing the noose around the pile of plant parts until they were tied together.

It looked like a leaf-and-stick corsage at first, but as he kept pulling, the bundle changed shape until suddenly Bex was staring at a leaf-art miniature of Adrian.

“That’s incredible,” she said, getting down on her knees for a better view. “It looks just like him. You even got his hat.”

“It’s the best effigy I’ve ever made,” Boston informed her.

“I crammed it with every personal element I could think of—Adrian’s hair, feathers from his pillow, samples of his handwriting, five drops of his blood from before it turned white, crumbs from the last piece of food he ate, the works .

” He thumped his tail proudly. “Not bad for someone with no opposable thumbs, eh?”

“You’re amazing,” Bex agreed, leaning even closer. “Can we talk to him through it?”

“No,” the cat said sadly. “A speaking spell requires an actual witch, not a moonlighting familiar. I still think I did a good job, though. He might not be able to talk, but my little Adrian knows exactly where his big brother is. See?”

He nudged the doll with his nose, and sure enough, the little effigy rose to its feet and pointed its fir-needle finger at the mountain above them.

“Wow,” Bex said, legitimately impressed. “Can he feel if we touch him?”

“It’s not a voodoo doll,” Boston snapped. “That’s a completely different spell. Mine is much more useful. All we have to do is follow where the effigy points, and he should lead us straight to the real thing.”

The little Adrian nodded and pointed even more vigorously at the base of the upside-down mountain above them, and Bex’s giddy heart began to sink.

“I guess that means he’s up in Heaven, huh?”

“More than likely,” Boston agreed, squinting his green eyes at his spell. “It looks like he’s moving, though, which is a good sign. If he’s got that much room to walk around, he’s probably not locked up in some Heavenly prison.”

Bex prayed to Ishtar that that was true.

If Gilgamesh had been foolish enough to let his youngest son wander freely around the palace, then Bex was certain that Adrian was already up to his witch hat in escape plans.

That was going to make rescuing him much easier, but they had to get to Heaven first, which meant it was time to get this plan on the road.

“All right,” Bex said, rising to her feet. “Let’s do this. Boston, can you keep yourself hidden?”

“Of course,” Boston replied with a huff as he tied the little leaf Adrian to Bran’s carved handle using the loop of twine that held him together. “What sort of cat do you think I am?”

“The best sort,” Bex assured him as she checked to make sure her fake horns were straight and the cut in the slave collar was still hidden behind her hair.

When everything was exactly where she wanted it, Bex ordered the four war-demon kids to keep slacking out here in the sunlight and signaled her team to move out, hanging back to let Lys’s warlock take point as they marched through the terrifying gates into Hell.