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The souls of the Fallen had waited for the moment the Asterian Guard and their mech-suits had begun to march toward the city below.
And the remaining souls of the Fallen that didn’t have a mech-suit to slip into … Well, there were plenty of dead demons and Asterian Guards with bodies intact enough for occupying. Twitching, as if adjusting to the new limbs, those corpses lurched to their feet. Came to stand beside their Fallen brethren in their mech-suit hosts.
“You’re up,” Hunt said to Isaiah and Naomi. “Time to get into the city.”
The angels bowed their heads. And with a great thrust of their wings, they launched skyward. Isaiah’s voice boomed out. “Fallen, you are now Risen! To the gates!”
Isaiah looked back at Hunt, his eyes brimming with pride and determination. The warrior touched his heart and flew off. Hunt lifted his arm in salute and farewell, as if beyond words.
It was indeed a sight beyond words—beyond any description. An army of the undead, of machines and demons, marched for the city walls.
“Incoming,” Hunt said. “Seems like that footage kept them distracted until now.”
“Right on time,” Aidas confirmed, as the glowing figures approached the battlefield spread before the northern gates of the Eternal City, come to exterminate this threat themselves.
The Asteri.
And walking toward them, the armies parting before him, was the Prince of the Ravine, with the Prince of the Pit trailing close behind.
90
Hunt refrained from heaving a sigh of relief, even if his helmet would have masked the sound.
Bryce had freed the souls of the Fallen from the throne room and placed them into those mech-suit bodies, but the hardest and most dangerous part of their plan started now. Hunt fought to keep his breathing steady, his focus on the unfolding battle and chaos. His helmet blared with alerts and assessments.
Aidas unsheathed a shining silver blade that seemed to glow with bluish light. “My turn,” the demon prince said, the dry breeze whipping his pale blond hair. He asked Bryce, “A ride?”
Hunt had only a moment to glimpse the worry, the fear in her eyes as she grabbed Aidas’s hand, then Hunt’s, and teleported them. With the power of Theia’s star, it barely took a moment. Barely seemed to drain her. But what arose around them as they reappeared on the battlefield was a scene straight from a nightmare.
Kristallos demons, deathstalkers, hounds like the Shepherd, and worse … the pets of Thanatos, all racing past the Asteri and into the city itself. Hunt’s helmet turned them all into distant figures, the world awash in red and black.
But the Asteri had bigger fish to fry: The three princes now before them. Especially Apollion, standing between his brothers.
There was no sign of Rigelus. He’d sent the other five Asteri to do his dirty work.
“You shall pay for marching on our city,” Polaris snapped at them.
Hunt unfurled his power, lightning bright even from behind the visor of his helmet. Beside him, Bryce had already peeled off the Mask. And beyond them, around them, the Fallen—his Fallen, now in bodies of metal and nightmares, all still bound by the command to follow Isaiah and Naomi—engaged the Asterian Guard. Swarmed them.
Miniature brimstone missiles launched from the mech-suits’ shoulder guns, fired at the Asterian Guard. Floating feathers and cinders were all that remained.
It had been Hunt’s idea to play on Rigelus’s arrogance. He thought them reckless and stupid—thought they’d be dumb enough to believe that they could somehow smuggle an army down from Nena and launch a surprise attack on the Eternal City. That they’d be dumb enough to leave Hel open and vulnerable.
So they’d let the Asteri split their Asterian Guard in two, sending half to Nena to conquer Hel … only to be slaughtered by a host of demons awaiting them there, under the command of one of Apollion’s captains.
And this half of the guard, the most elite and trained of all angels …
They wouldn’t stand a chance, either.
Three Princes of Hel faced off against five Asteri in the dry scrub beyond the city walls, war exploding all around them.
It was Polaris who looked to Bryce. “You shall die for this impertinence,” she sneered, and launched a blinding blast of raw power for her. Apollion stepped forward, a hand raised. Pure, devouring darkness destroyed Polaris’s light.
And satisfaction like Hunt had never known coursed through him at the way the Asteri halted. Stepped back.
Apollion inclined his golden head to the Asteri. “It has been an age.”
“Do not let him get any closer,” Polaris hissed to the others, and as one, the Asteri attacked.
