Brimstone Angels

not Rohini. Not if I can’t control it. She had to control it. Had to think. Had to dominate her own self.

“They will want to know who sent you,” Vartan said. “They will want to know what you’re doing here.”

The words attempted to bubble out of Rohini, much as the prophecy had, but she reined them in, struggling against the force of the alien will perverting her own. She would not be the weak link.

Instead she said, “What benefits us benefits Asmodeus, and what benefits Asmodeus benefits us all.”

A slow, nervous smile curled Vartan’s mouth. “How interesting.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As it happened, it was a good thing Sairche had hidden herself away in the far corners of her mother’s holdings instead of fleeing Malbolge. Glasya’s summons came more quickly than she’d expected, and Sairche was kneeling before the archduchess moments later. The audience chamber was empty but for the two of them and the ever-present hellwasps.

“There are problems with my agents on Toril,” the Lady of Malbolge said. “You will correct them.” Sairche had hardly finished agreeing before the archduchess rattled off a series of peculiar orders and tore a portal open in the wall beside her.

Now Sairche stood in a dank, poorly lit underground room, a little devil made of shadow twining around her ankles. The floor was heaped with bodies-tieflings, humans, an elf or two, and maybe more. Enough blood it was hard to tell. Not so much, though, that she couldn’t see the mark of Asmodeus branded on a few chests, embroidered on more sashes. Sairche pursed her mouth.

The eel-like devil flowed up her arm. “Where go?”

“That one,” she said, pointing at a tiefling male near the top of the stack of bodies. “And hurry.” The shadow devil chirruped to itself and flowed over the stack of bodies. It pried apart the dead man’s jaws and wriggled down his throat.

The door at the top of the stairs opened. Sairche stepped back into the darkness and pulled her invisibility close.

Three men and a woman came rattling down the stairs, weapons out. All four wore sashes with the mark of Asmodeus on them. As Sairche watched, they fanned out, searching the basement for some sign of life, for someone they could kill. She stayed well out of their reach, and after a few moments, they sheathed their weapons and turned their attention to the bodies.

“A wonder the alarms didn’t sound sooner,” one, a heavyset tiefling man, said. “Who could have done this?”

A taller tiefling man with gnarled horns leaned over the elf woman sprawled belly down across one pile. “This one’s been blasted,” he said. “One of them was a caster.”

“There’re enough wounds here to mark a caster, a blademaster, and someone with a club,” the woman said. She shook her head. “This is too strange.”

“It’s not a sacrifice,” the thicker tiefling said. “It would be a sacrifice if it were other cultists that did it. And they left the bodies.” He nudged one with a foot. “Won’t be the Thayans then.”

“Do you know any of them?” the human man asked. “Any of you?”

“Bought supplies from Yvon a time or two,” the woman said. “He’s probably in there somewhere.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the thicker tiefling said. “They were Ashmadai. Their deaths are an affront to the king of the Hells, and so an affront to us.”

“All well and good,” the taller one said. “But we have no idea who-”

The body the shadow devil had climbed into threw up a hand to claw at the open air. Together, the living Ashmadai pulled him free, a tiefling man with the insignia of a cell leader, his chest blistering and cracked by magical fire, his face a ruin of shattered bone. He could not stand on his own, and so they settled him on the floor.

“Who did this?”

The man swallowed, blinking his eyes at the world around him, as if he weren’t sure it was really there. “It was the warlock,” the shadow devil said in the man’s voice. “The tiefling. She came from the hospital-her robes were their blue ones. She … and orcs. Orcs with blades and terrible spellscars.”

Sairche had to give the little monster credit: it remembered every line and sold it all well. Spellscars, Sovereignty, and a mad-eyed tiefling. Sairche frowned. She hoped it wasn’t the Brimstone Angel she was setting up.

Don’t be so foolish as to hope, she told herself. You’ll have to deal with that later.

He shuddered, his breath caught, and his last words rushed out of him in a whisper. “She led them here. She said it was at the behest of the Sovereignty. Her powers came from the Chasm. You must stop them before …” The man shuddered and collapsed, dead.

“Well,” the woman said. “That’s a stroke of luck. Hail Asmodeus indeed.”

“Don’t be flippant,” the man said. “We must bring this to the others.” He looked out over the bodies. “I swear we will avenge this slight.” The other three repeated the promise, and Sairche rolled her eyes.

“What of the bodies?” the tall tiefling asked.

“Get Pellegri up here to guard,” the thicker one said. “And round up some fuel. We’ll have to burn the place down before the city guard notices.” They clomped back up the stairs.

Exactly, Sairche thought, as Glasya had ordered. They ate up every word. Though why this was necessary and why the Sovereignty needed to be implicated in the deaths of some cultists still made no sense. People killed Ashmadai every day, and it was no surprise. Why did Glasya care about these? The shadow devil squirmed free of the dead tiefling and flowed across the floor to her.

“Well done,” she said.

“Home now?” the little devil asked.

“In a sense,” Sairche replied, grabbing hold of its neck. It squalled and kicked, but she held it tight and slammed the little thing’s body against the stone edge of a support column. Its neck gave a sharp crack, and the corpse burst into flames.

Her first mission finished, Sairche left the dead Ashmadai behind as she passed through the portal, but they remained on her mind for quite some time afterward.

The last thing Havilar remembered was knowing she ought to be terrified. The almost overpowering calm that pressed on her when she opened her eyes again stirred a momentary storm when mixed with her panic, and she sat up thrashing even harder against whatever might be there.

Nothing. No claws trying to grab her. No devils in the shadows. Just a quiet little temple that she’d never seen before and Havilar, in her bloody, bloody armor.

“Gods,” she breathed. It was an obscene amount of blood.

“Havi?” Havilar looked around and saw her sister-her robes spattered with black gobs of dried blood, her eyes haunted, and her cheeks streaked-nearly running down the short aisle that the benches made. “Havi, are you all right? Are you …” She trailed away and stopped a step from Havilar. “Havi?”

Havilar’s head spun. “Whose blood is it?”

Farideh kneeled down beside her. “People who were trying to kill you,” she said.

“How many?” she asked, and Havilar heard her voice shake. “What happened? What happened?” Farideh hugged her tight, and despite the insistent calming magic of the temple, Havilar burst into tears.

M’henish, Havilar thought bitterly, somewhere under the roiling panic that made her cling to her sister as if there were no better anchor in the world. Now she’d be the delicate one too. But the sobs came in great crashing waves, and she could no more rise above them than she could swim the Sea of Fallen Stars.

“It’s going to be all right,” Farideh said, but she didn’t sound sure at all. “We’re going to be all right.”

“It should have always been all right!” Havilar cried, pushing her away. “What happened?”

Farideh sat back on her heels. “I did something … unwise-”