“Argh! High order beings!” Yesterday kept tugging Haziel with him. As she still had Wrath’s ankles in her clasp, that meant he went with them, head jouncing against hidden rocks all the way.
Being dragged wasn’t his favorite. He would object. Later.
“Come on.” Yesterday panted. “I can’t pull you both.”
“You shouldn’t be pulling.” Haziel yawned. “Nobody should be pulling. So exhausting.”
“Remember who you are and why you’re here.” Veins bulged on Yesterday’s oversize cranium as he tugged. “It’s the mist making you feel tired. It’s pure sloth.”
“Sloth?” Haziel staggered another step forward and frowned at Yesterday.
“Yes.” The imp groaned and hauled at her. “It’s making you feel like you don’t want to do anything. Draining your will.”
Wrath’s exhausted brain churned the new input. He had come here…why? To talk to Belle. Yup, that was it. He’d come to talk to Belle and had been walking through the mist to find her.
“Shit.” Realization brushed his awareness. They had to get out of this mist. It seemed like a big ask.
Haziel dropped his feet and sat down.
If Wrath didn’t fight the mist’s effect, she might stay there until Belle released the mist.
Rolling to his belly, he forced his enervated limbs into action and stood.
He looked at Yesterday. “Which way?”
“Yes!” Yesterday took his hand. “Follow me.”
Wrath hesitated. There was something he needed to do, but his taxed brain resisted his attempts to get it to work.
“Get the angel.” Yesterday shook his head and yawned. “And do it now because I’m starting to feel it.”
Wrath had to get Haziel out of the mist. Get Haziel safe.
Fighting back the fatigue, he scooped her into his arms.
One…two, three steps forward.
Yesterday slowed but staggered another two steps forward.
Wrath followed. For Haziel. No matter how exhausted he was, he had to get Haziel out of there.
Five more steps.
Yesterday stopped and swayed. “Too tired.”
Wrath tossed Haziel over his shoulder and grabbed Yesterday by one horn.
He counted his steps in threes. Ha-zie-el. Ha-zie-el—out-the-mist, out-the-mist.
And they were clear of it.
Energy rushed back into him. He released Yesterday and lowered Haziel to the ground. He searched her face for any sign of lasting effects.
“Shit.” Haziel shook her head as if clearing it. “What was that?”
“Sloth mist.” Yesterday brushed dirt and water droplets off his stubby yellow legs. “Belphegor has surrounded her entire demesne in it.” He grimaced. “Nobody gets in or out.” Grinning, he pointed up at them. “Except you.” Jabbing a thumb at his chest, his grin widened, splitting the lower half of his head. “And you only got out because of me.”
Embracing the shadows like an intimate friend, Belle slipped through the human city of Johannesburg. She’d spent days first on a train and then on an airplane getting there. Staying unobtrusive and lowering her power to nothing was her secret superpower. The other hell princes overlooked her, at times even forgot she was there, but what had begun as a weakness had become her strength. No being saw her or perceived her unless she chose to let them do so.
Since she traveled as a human from the remote hell gate that opened into her demesne, with her power signature impossible to detect, not even Gabriel would know she was on the earth plane. And for her purpose, being invisible suited her perfectly.
She rented a car from a pretty human woman and activated the GPS. If the others detected her, they would try to stop her, and she couldn’t allow that. All through this crisis, she had stood toward the back of the greenroom and watched the other supernaturals plan and discuss, take on various challenges and put plans in motion. As she listened, she had waited for the task she could identify as falling to her and her unique talents.
“In seven hundred and fifty meters, take a slight right to merge…”
The GPS would help her traverse the human realm in lieu of using her power. Were she to unleash her wings, she would follow the steady pulse of dread northeast of the airport where she had deplaned an hour ago.
Flipping on the radio, she let the chatter of human voices soothe her. The man beside her on the plane had chatted to her through their long flight. She’d heard about his three little girls and the wife he was excited to be going home to after a long business trip. Entering the earth plane had been the one moment of possible discovery, but with all attention focused on Eddie’s hell gate, it had been a calculated risk. And calculating risk was another of her closely guarded skills.
She had often slipped onto the human plane and mingled with their lives. Humans had a passion for existence that fed her hungry soul. Her trips to the earth plane were a visceral reminder of her purpose and the reason for her creation.
She was counting on her ability to move like a ghost amongst them to delay even the discovery of that mist. The same mist surrounding her demesne that would delay the other hell princes until she was done. Opening her car window, she let the breeze blow through her hair. She felt free on the earth plane in a way she never did in hell.
For this beautiful plane, for all those humans who had shared small parts of their lives with her over the eons, she would do this now.
Life. It pulsed everywhere, thick like the blood in a glutted tick, and Pestilence followed. So much life, it nearly overwhelmed their long dormant senses.
A dog’s bark split the quiet night as they reached the outskirts of a small settlement. In the dwellings peppering the roadside, they sensed the humans going about their nightly routines. Pestilence did not concern themselves with the details.
On some rudimentary level, they had an understanding of the routines and rituals of human existence. Beings that were birthed, existed, and then blinked out in a mere glimmer of Pestilence’s existence.
The low growl of their engine grew louder as they rode beneath the awning of a service station. All the knowledge they needed to function on the earth plane in this time was now theirs, and through them, their siblings. Being the first, Pestilence would pave the way for their siblings.
Yawning, the sleepy attendant ambled toward them. “Full?”
“Yes.” Pestilence swung their leg over the bike and dismounted. They stumbled and their shoulder brushed the attendant’s. “Sorry.” They grimaced. “Long ride. My legs are stiff.”
The attendant accepted their apology with a nod and pulled the hose from the pump.
Inside the attached convenience store, four life forces glimmered, and Pestilence headed for them.
They found the first by the drink cooler to the right of the entrance. They reached for the fridge handle at the same time as the human. Their fingers touched and the human drew back with a sharp frown.
Pestilence smiled and stepped back. “You first.”
