One

  “Whoever said time heals all wounds was a straight-up liar,” Nicole thought as Mastemat drove her sword through Lord Beloth’s heart. One hundred fifteen years and nine — now ten — dead demon lords later, and she was no closer to breaking free from Aamon’s control than she had been when she first signed that despicable contract.

  “But at least we get to kill demons,” Mastemat thought as she pulled the sword free before dismissing it. “They also say that time flies when you’re having fun, don’t they?”

  “You’re having fun,” Nicole replied. “I never wanted any of this.”

  “I thought you liked killing demons,” Mastemat thought as she sat, exhausted, on a chunk of rock while Beloth’s body crumbled to dust on the ground beside her. “It’s better than collecting souls for Aamon, isn’t it? But then, you never did have what it takes for even that simple task. That’s why I’m here – to make sure someone’s holding up our end of the contract.”

  “The Compulsion made sure of that. I didn’t need you stepping in.”

  “I am the Compulsion, dear, and you asked me too. Every time you retreated and cowered like a scared little girl in the back corners of your mind, leaving me to finish the task for you. You simply gave me a voice after realizing you’re too weak to do what’s necessary. If you had realized that sooner, I probably would have defeated Nergal before he sent our brother to the abyss.” Nicole didn’t respond. Mastemat knew her too well and could strike precisely where it hurt the most. It was true; she had been too weak to save him. Instead, he had been forced to sacrifice himself to save her. Looking around at the destruction surrounding them, Nicole thought it may have been better if he hadn’t – for the Soul Divide, at least.

  Mastemat let out a long sigh and dismissed their golden armor, replacing it with white robes that were torn and tattered in the same places the armor had been damaged. “Anyway,” Mastemat thought. “Now that I’ve done the hard part for you, I’m going to get some rest. Have fun with the clean-up.” Before Nicole could protest she found herself thrust to the forefront of their mind while Mastemat stepped back, going silent. Nicole winced as she was hit with the pain of the injuries they had sustained during the fight. Beloth had not gone down easily, and Mastemat had been forced to fight her way past two leviathans and several warlocks before finally reaching Beloth’s heavily reinforced bunker. Even if their body was practically invincible, Nicole wished Mastemat would be more careful with it sometimes – especially since she was usually left to suffer the pain after the adrenaline from the fight wore off.

  “Lady Mastemat…” a wispy, hesitant voice said beside her.

  Nicole whipped around, her sword appearing in hand. She brought it to a stop only a few inches from the neck of a shade that had entered the room unnoticed by her or Mastemat. Shades were good at that, for obvious reasons. That was about all they were good for, really, since they couldn’t cause any actual harm. “What is it?” she snapped.

  “Pardon the intrusion, my Lady,” the shade said. “But Lord Aamon has been requesting an update for some time. Since the fighting is now over, I thought it best to respond. What should I tell him?”

  Nicole sighed and dismissed her sword. They had started sending shades as messengers after battles when it became apparent that any creature with a physical body would be very likely to have parts of it removed if they weren’t careful in how they approached her. “Tell him it’s over and that I have won. I’ll be delivering the ultimatum to the surviving troops after I have recovered some of my strength.” She winced again as her left wing popped back into place. It had been broken at some point during the fight, it seemed. Several charcoal-grey feathers floated slowly to the ground. They had been pure white once, before her brother died. “Assuming they don’t choose the abyss over serving a new master, I’ll be bringing him ten legions of soldiers, plus five hundred new souls and three hundred cases of essence.” The words brought bile to her throat, but she choked it back down. This was her reality now, it had been for over a century, and would continue to be until someone sent her to the abyss. Beloth had come close this day. Part of her wished he had succeeded.

  “You don’t mean that,” Mastemat thought, breaking her silence. And Nicole was ashamed to admit that she was right.

  “They actually said that?” asked David as he moved a pawn to E6, effectively killing the attack on his queen that I had been – I thought – subtly preparing with my white bishop.

  “Yep, they want me to go to the Soul Divide and bring Nicole back. There’s some other stuff they want me to do while I’m there too, but I can’t tell you what that is. I shouldn’t even be telling you about Nicole.” I studied the board and decided to go ahead and press the attack anyway, just from a different angle, and took the pawn with my knight, hoping to goad him into a mistake.

  “But isn’t the Divide off-limits?” he asked, casually taking my knight with his own knight, which I hadn’t even noticed was in position to do so. He added the knight to the stack of my other pieces he’d already captured, including my queen. This was going to be a shorter game than usual. “Is the treaty ended, then?”

  “Not officially, which is why I can’t just pop over there. That would send alarm bells off all over the place and give them an excuse to say we broke the treaty first. I’ll have to find some quiet way to sneak in, probably from Earth. I’ve already got a few ideas about that. I just need to run them by Michael first.” I squinted at the board. How long had his rook on H8 been wide open like that? My black bishop on B2 was in a perfect position to take it, so I swiped it across the board and triumphantly knocked the rook aside, grinning.

  “Well, I hope you’re better at real subterfuge than you are at chess, Raphael,” David said with a smile. He slid his queen down to C1. “Checkmate.”

  I blinked stupidly a few times. Oh yeah, that’s why I had been keeping that bishop there. It was guarding that hole. I leaned back in my chair, careful not to smash my wings against the backrest, and stared at the ceiling. “Sorry, I’m not much of a challenge today, Dave. I’m a bit distracted, I guess.”

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  “Hey, man, I get it. I’ve always hoped I’d get to meet Nicole someday, so I’m excited, too. Your family means a lot to me, you know?”

  I shook my head and took a sip of chilled wine. Even after all this time, my friend’s humble attitude amazed me. “It’s you we should be thanking. If you hadn’t saved me that day, I’d never have wound up in the Divide. We’d of been up here, wondering about where Nicole was for all eternity.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. They seem to have a decent information network. They probably already knew about it. But that night changed my life too, you know? It made me reevaluate things – get serious about my future and such. It was the reality check I needed. I’m just glad I got to meet you again. Though I was a bit surprised to find that you beat me up here.”

  I leaned forward, studying his face. He may not have had wings and a halo like I did, but in my mind, he had always been my guardian angel. “This is all old news,” I said. “Why the nostalgia?”

  “I don’t know. I kinda got the feeling it’ll be a while before I see you again. When do you leave?”

  “As soon as Michael approves my game plan. As early as tomorrow, I’m hoping. She’s been Aamon’s captive for a hundred and fifteen years. Even one day longer is too much.”

  David grabbed his wine glass and held it up in salute. “Couldn’t agree more, brother. To family reunions.”

  I clinked my glass against his. “To family reunions, indeed.”

  Nicole hovered over the city, watching as legion after legion of demons filed out of the ruined gates and formed up in the killing fields beyond. Ten legions – that was all that was left of the eighty-five legions Beloth had begun this campaign with. Nearly half a million troops, whittled down to a fraction of that by Mastemat and her forces. Aamon’s army had grown to nearly two million troops over the years, but those were spread out across most of the Soul Divide, maintaining his presence on multiple fronts and engaging any resistance when necessary. He allotted ninety legions to Mastemat for this campaign, a superior number to Beloth’s forces, but it had proven to be barely enough when facing an enemy entrenched within their own territory. Still, once she broke through those hard outer defenses – after years of besiegement and surgical strikes – the interior of Beloth’s territory had proven soft and quickly succumbed to her superior fighting forces. Having a healthy supply of brutally hard-to-kill semi-human imps didn’t hurt matters, either. Just thinking about that nearly caused Nicole to retreat, giving Mastemat a bit of a jolt.

  “Watch it,” she said irritably. “I decide when I work.” Nicole took a deep breath and steadied her nerves. Time to herself – where she was fully in command of her actions – was rare enough. Even if that time was spent doing Aamon’s bidding, as long as it wasn’t too distasteful a task, she should try to make the most of it.

  “Do you find the new troops satisfactory, Lady Mastemat?” asked the shade that was her acting messenger for the day.

  “It depends on how they respond to my speech. They survived the war, so they’re either very tough or they’re simpering cowards. We will need to determine which before presenting them to Lord Aamon…” She trailed off as a disturbance down below caught her attention. Some of her troops were pulling soldiers out of the lines of new troops and separating them from the rest. “What is Methelsachek doing?” she asked the shade.

  “Methelsachek perished in the final assault, my Lady,” the shade responded. “You were engaged with Beloth at the time, so we were unable to inform you.”

  She frowned. Methelsachek was boastful and proud but had proven to be a capable commander nonetheless. His loss, while hardly heartbreaking, was going to be problematic. “Who has replaced him?”

  “Duke Valefor, my Lady.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “He arrived last week with the latest batch of reinforcements. When Methelsachek fell, he claimed his right as a nobleman and assumed command.”

  “And he hasn’t bothered to come find me, now that the battle is over,” Nicole said, mostly to herself. It sounded like Duke Valefor was going to need some instruction on where he stood in the grand scheme of things.

  “You want me to handle this?” Mastemat asked.

  “I can deal with it,” Nicole thought back, irritated. “That doesn’t explain what he’s doing down there, though. I ordered the troops to form up. I didn’t want them split yet.”

  “I do not know, my Lady,” said the shade. “I am only a messenger.”

  Nicole waved an irritated hand at the shade and then flew down to the fields, landing near several imps who were herding a few haggard, but important-looking, demons toward a group of other similarly-dressed demons huddled together nearby. She recognized the uniforms as those the enemy officers wore. “What is going on here?” she demanded. The imps squawked and cowered back. She tended to have that effect on them.

  “Please, my Lady,” one of them said in its raspy, high-pitched voice. “Lord Valefor ordered us to gather the enemy officers for execution.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “He did? I gave no such command.”

  “The order was my own,” a deep, rumbling voice behind her said. “I am the commander of Lord Aamon’s army in this region, after all. I did not think I needed to consult with you on such matters.”

  “And what would lead you to believe that, Duke Valefor?” Nicole asked, spinning around to find herself facing a hulking demon the size of a grizzly bear back on Earth. He wore a sharp and crisp uniform that looked like it came straight out of Nazi Germany. His skin was bright red and he had two horns growing out the top of his forehead and curving back over his bald head. Folded at his back were a pair of huge bat-like wings that probably had twice the span of Nicole’s. A long and thin tail that ended in a sharp point curled and twisted behind him like a snake ready to strike. He smiled down at her.

  “You are much smaller than your reputation would suggest, Destroyer,” he said, decidedly not answering her question.

  “I might say the same about you, Duke Valefor,” she said, eyeing him up and down, “except your reputation does not precede you, I’m afraid.” She gestured at the enemy officers. “Answer my question. Why have you decided to execute these demons without first consulting me?”

  “I’m not in the habit of discussing important military matters with little girls,” Valefor said.

  “Tell me, Valefor,” Nicole said, releasing some of the energy she had been storing up for her speech. Dark clouds began to gather in the sky and thunder rumbled. Some of the imps nearby whimpered and, wisely, began to back away. She took a few steps closer, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. “Are we acquainted with one another?”

  “Hardly,” he replied, looming over her.

  “And are we equals?”

  “Not even close,” he said, openly sneering now.

  “Well, I’m glad we’re agreed on that point. So, knowing who I am and my reputation, why would you dare disrespect me by failing to report to me at the soonest possible opportunity, forcing me to come find you? And then, when we do finally meet, you fail to use my correct title, even though I afforded you that very same courtesy? Are you that brave, or just that stupid? My bet is on the latter.”

  Valefor’s sneer turned into an angry scowl. “You are nothing more than Lord Aamon’s puppet, Destroyer. A pretty little tool he likes to take out and show off every now and then. You are a woman and a slave. Do not deign to think you can speak to me thus.” He raised a hand larger than her head and swiped down to slap her. If it had connected it would have snapped her neck like a twig. But she was too fast for that.

  She sprang to the side, away from his strike, and knocked his feet out from under him with a sweeping kick assisted by a bit of supernatural power, courtesy of being an angel. He fell hard on his back and she lept up onto his chest, landing with her sword point directly over his heart, the tip digging into his skin ever so slightly. She ignited it, letting the fire start near the hilt and slowly creep down the blade, inching closer to the end. She leaned over, looking him directly in the eyes. Lightning flashed in the clouds above, followed by a crack of thunder so intense it shook the ground. He stared back, stunned. “I am Lady Mastemat,” she said, loud enough for those around to hear. “Named by Lord Aamon himself. I am his eyes, I am his hands, I am his voice. What I see, he sees. What I do, he wishes done. When I speak, they are with his words. Ruin is my domain. Destruction is my slave. Twelve mighty Lords of the Divide once reigned. Ten have perished by my hand. Look around. What has become of Beloth’s mighty city? Where is his keep? Continue in this folly and I shall visit such horrors upon your lands that you will curse the day you ever crawled out of the pits of Hell.” The fire reached the end of the sword, burning a hole in Valefor’s shirt. He grunted, the holy fire burning him despite being a fire demon. “Am I clear?”

  “Yes, Lady Mastemat,” he said through gritted teeth. “Forgive my impertinence.”

  Nicole dismissed her sword and spread her wings, lifting off his chest. “Then get up,” she said. “There’s work to do.”

  “Nicely handled,” Mastemat said. “You nearly had even me convinced. Too bad I know the truth – that he’s right. You’re merely a puppet, and I’m the one pulling the strings.”

  “Wrong,” Nicole thought as Valefor slowly pushed himself back up, glaring at her with hatred. “You’re the strings. Aamon is the one pulling them.”

  “I guess that’s true enough. Though without Lord Aamon, you’d be nothing more than pathetic little Nicole.”

  “Without him,” Nicole replied, hovering at eye level in front of Valefor, staring right back at him. “I wouldn’t need to be anything more than myself.”

  End of Chapter One