Demon Angel

streaking her face. "Okay. Okay." And more voices now, but they were fading. No—
    He was.
    Colin stumbled and it saved his head from being split in two, and the nosferatu's blade slashed his cheek open instead. It would heal, but only if Sir Pup stopped playing with that demon and killed the nosferatu, because it didn't look like Colin was going to last much longer—
    But the nosferatu paused, and Colin realized that the demon had given the creature a command in some unrecognizable language.
    "Your friends have abandoned you, vampire."
    There was a sickening clench in his gut as Beelzebub spoke again, and the nosferatu laughed. The hellhound lay on his side, whimpering, the demon's sword through its belly. Oh, no. No, no, no .
    But he forced himself to speak evenly, though the scent of Hugh's blood, the hellhound's blood, his own blood maddened him. "So they have." He smiled, his most charming expression, but could not hide his fangs. "Would you like to strike a bargain?"
    Delaying, forcing the demon to wait to hear the terms; he could not believe he was going to end this way, in his basement, surrounded by ugliness and death. But why would the Guardian come back for him? Hugh was injured, badly, and Colin had spent two days sucking the lifeblood from her. "You have nothing we want; vampires are good for nothing but feeding their betters." The demon smiled. "It is another type of halfling that interests us."
    What kind of halfling ? he wondered, and said: "But I'm extraordinarily handsome." He used the demon's flummoxed pause to leap forward, avoiding the nosferatu as best he could.
    Take out the demon first—the nosferatu was but a lackey, a valet, waiting for instructions from his master. No way to get out of this, might as well do as much damage as—
    Selah appeared in front of him, and he slammed into her. He would have laughed and kissed her on the mouth as they teleported, as the world ripped away from around them, but something went wrong. Her eyes were wide and blue, and he could not see his reflection in them—but he saw the sudden horror and fear.
    He recognized this place. "Don't look, don't listen," he said, his throat tightening. "Try again. Keep on trying." Just please don't leave me here .
    The nosferatu and demon would have been preferable to this.
    Lilith fell through the Gate with a rush of seawater, landing atop a stinking pile of—
    It didn't bear thinking about.
    No guards at this Gate, or in this territory. She glanced around, orienting herself. Barren, with red sand and crimson sky—it hadn't always been so. One thousand years ago, before the war between Belial and Lucifer, this had been one of the few almost pleasant territories Below.
    But Lucifer had reshaped it after Belial had claimed the territory abutting this one, erasing temples and fountains, and setting loose packs of hellhounds to keep the rebellion from encroaching further into Lucifer's holdings.
    Lilith quickly took to the sky; the hellhounds didn't differentiate between Lucifer's followers and Belial's, and it would be suicide to stay on the ground for long. Whatever she had landed in had probably fallen prey to them.
    No, that wasn't right—hellhounds wouldn't have left any carrion. So it had been killed by something else; whatever it was, she didn't want to meet it. After the Second Battle, Lucifer had never managed to call forth another dragon from Chaos, and had slowly lost access to that realm and its creatures— including the wyrmwolves, from which he'd bred his hellhounds. But the things he continued to experiment upon and create from the remnants of Chaos were almost as frightening as a dragon, and usually uncontrollable.
    She flew toward the throne. Even from this distance it was easy to see, rising like a gargantuan spear from the center of Hell. If not for the demon's false corporeality, she would have thought it grossly phallic; but Lucifer had no masculinity to prove, and it was a symbol of military power in its simplest shape—and the most inescapable height. The ground Below had no curvature, and the column was visible from every corner.
    Just as Belial's temples, newly built in the outlying territories, could be seen from the center though they stood not even an eighth as tall.
    Perhaps men had existed as long as they had because the horizon and poor eyesight saved them from perpetual insult. Lilith grinned, trying to imagine Earth if all men, instead of a few in power, were constantly aware of their