Chapter 174: Book 2 Chapter 81 - A Court Date

With the Black Star propelling her down, Zoe reached her friends faster than she expected. The four of them fell into the dark well. Anton’s floating eyes cast a silver light upon them and the walls of stone. He rotated in the air. His arms behind his head as though he lay on a couch. One of his eyes floated up to her.

“Boss! Wow, you look like crap.”

She coughed blood in response. Her chains flung her one last time and she fell in amongst them. Their eyes widened with concern at her condition, as well as for their situation. Voices babbled toward her. She could hardly focus enough to understand the words. Where were they falling? What was the plan? Would Zoe live?

She raised a single chain in a thumbs-up before her eyelids flickered. Her chains hung limp, utterly spent as the Black Star slept inside her mind.

She had tried to question it about its goals, about its declarations to kill the Crimson Armada system, but it had focused only on catching up to her friends. And now she was with them…

Nothing but silence from that region of her brain. Moth also lay in slumber. Alone in her mind and heart and soul and it felt like falling.

Bella said something to her, lips moving in concern, eyebrows raised in question, dark hair fluttering about her like a halo, but Zoe only nodded…

Before she fell unconscious.

Sleep unmarred by dreams.

Zoe woke to pain. Still falling. Skidmark and Anton sat on either side of her on a woven grass mat like a verdant flying carpet. They each held a hand of grass cards.

“I fold,” Skidmark said.

“You’ll never win your money back if you keep folding.”

“Poker was never my game. Wanna arm wrestle again?”

Anton shook his head as he shuffled the cards.

“Fool me once…”

Zoe groaned and they both jumped in surprise. Since they were falling, they only drifted away. The walls were wider down here than at the well’s mouth, almost a hundred feet apart. Anton floated toward the edge, somersaulted and kicked off the dry stacked stone, and shot toward Zoe.

“How are you feeling, boss?”

“Terrible.”

“You were all kinds of beat up when you reached us.”

Electricity crackled around Skidmark as she pulled herself toward Zoe’s chain. The slight tugging at Zoe’s limbs made her wince. Anton slapped Skidmark’s shoulder.

“Easy!”

“Sorry,” said Skidmark. “It’s amazing that you’re alive. Anton told us what you did, up until his eyes gave out. We’re all wondering, what happened?”

Zoe closed her eyes. She could still feel her broken ribs and fractured skull. Her legs as well. How much adrenalin had pumped through her that she fought with broken legs? The thought made her want to gag, but her stomach was empty — the meal of Angel meat long since passed. Her skin no longer felt burnt from the Angel’s heat, and some of the bruising was gone. Her Vitality must have prioritized the soft tissue damage.

What happened?

“I killed the Angel,” she said.

The other two sat in stunned silence.

“How?” Skidmark said. “I mean, no offense but…”

“The same way she kills everything!” Anton cheered. “Punched it to death. Hell yeah!”

Zoe tried to grin, but it still hurt too much. She hoped the Angel was dead. No, it had to be dead. Before they entered the well, the Angel captured Skidmark’s mind, as well as Bella and Oriz. If they were free then it must be dead…

“I pulled apart its brain.”

“Disgusting,” said Anton with a grin.

“I wonder if it was weakened after all that time bleeding?” Skidmark said. “Surely it wasn’t at its peak, no offense, but Oriz made them sound harder to kill.”

“Don’t diminish her efforts.”

“Where are the others?” Zoe’s voice was a dry croak begging for water they didn’t have.

Of course, if she stopped falling she could drink the blood falling toward them. Something deep in her guts told her to avoid that. It was one thing to eat Angel meat given as a gift, but to drink the blood of one that died?

Skidmark pointed down.

“The lovers went below us. The carpet is to provide some privacy. Couples stuff, you know?”

Anton rolled his eyes — quite impressive as other eyes opened up across his forehead to extend the expression.

“What’s the plan now?” he asked.

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Zoe closed her eyes and tried to remember the map. It had been clear that once they reached the well they had to cut their way to the Lower Demon City. Had there been a specific depth? She didn’t think so.

“We have to cut a portal with Bella’s sword.”

“Anywhere?”

“I think this well is kind of a looping place.”

“Like the staircase in the dungeon?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought it was just really deep,” Skidmark said.

“That’s terrifying.”

They examined the walls. The same dry stacked black stone as seen on the surface. Who had built this? Demons? The Angel? Or did the Gambler summon it into existence with a snap of his fingers? A speck of light caught her eye as she scanned the rocks.

“There’s eyes in the walls!” Zoe gasped.

Anton nodded.

“Creatures living there, yeah. We tried catching one. Bored, hungry, you know? But they’re too fast.”

“They laughed at us last time we tried,” Skidmark said, annoyed.

A tittering came from the walls around them and faded as they continued falling.

“I want to get out of here,” Skidmark added redundantly.

Zoe nodded. She regretted the action as white-hot nausea burst behind her eyes. How long until her pain faded? She could always burn her Skein to boost her Vitality but… the image of skin pockmarked by acidic wounds flashed in her mind. It said a lot that none of her friends had burned their Skein, even in life or death circumstances. Even after she relayed the knowledge, they acted as though it was self-evident.

Maybe she deserved the title of [Gluttony]...

No time for self-pity.

“I agree,” she said to Skidmark. “Let’s get out of here.”

###

Oriz and Bella were quick to rejoin the others. They all floated above the grass blanket. The cards fluttering up above them like a stringless kite’s tail.

“Good to see you back on your feet,” Bella said with a wink.

Zoe’s legs hung limp beneath her, in agony, but she couldn’t help grinning.

“Shut up,” she said. “Get ready to slice.”

“I’m always ready.”

“Um?” Skidmark raised her hand. “Would this be better if we stopped? We can try and anchor ourselves to the wall. You have your chains and Oriz has her grass.”

Zoe glanced up. The Angel’s blood still fell toward them out of that dark shaft. How long could they wait on the side of the walls before it hit them?

“I’m not sure it matters where we make the incision,” she said. “This isn’t a regular space.”

“No kidding,” Skidmark said. “We’ve been falling long enough to wrap around Earth.”

“New Earth or old?” Bella asked.

“Shut up. Point is that if our momentum is maintained we’ll either be splattered on the ground like a bird’s crap or we’ll be flung into orbit.”

They took a minute to process this.

“We better stop then,” Zoe said. “I can let out some slack and grab the walls with my chains.”

Skidmark shook her head.

“At this speed, it’ll rip your arms out of your sockets. We need a parachute.”

They glanced at Oriz, who nodded.

“Give me a second.”

“The Angel’s blood fell after me,” Zoe said. “I raced ahead of it to catch up to you guys, and the blood should be cooled now that the Angel is dead, but…”

“We won’t have long?”

“No.”

“Ok,” Skidmark did some calculations in her head. “We create the parachute. Once it’s slowed enough, we kick up off the walls. It might hurt, but it should decrease us enough to make the incision in space-time,” she frowned. “You know I used to have problems like this in physics books and I always thought it was so unrealistic.”

Oriz slowed her breathing.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Everyone else nodded.

“Do it,” Zoe said.

Vibrant green Skein unspooled from Oriz’s hands as she wove a complex pattern. It wrapped around the others before shooting up like a mushroom. Zoe was amazed by Oriz’s control over the intricate Skein. Even if the gap in their levels was closing, the gap in experience still lay like a chasm between them.

Oriz finished the working of her Skien, and the parachute exploded out above them. They all jerked together as their momentum slowed. The straps connecting them to the parachute tightened and they hung together in a bundle. The carpet whipped past them and they hung over the fathomless void.

“I hate hell!” Bella called.

The feeling was mutual.

After a minute of floating downward, Oriz flung a rope of grass into the wall. It secured itself with roots and the shoot of grass grew as they fell. They jerked as they reached the end of the rope. The grass strained, and a rock fell, but the rope held. The dislodged black rock plummeted past them. A small creature like a hairy insect with bulging eyes shook its fist at them as it disappeared into the darkness below.

They swung against the wall, bounced off it, and slapped to a halt. Chittering could be heard within the stones.

“We don’t have much time,” Zoe said.

Could she hear the Angel's blood raining down? Or did that rushing sound come from within the walls?

Anton’s eyes winked out, and the burning light of a single rune on Bella’s sword lit the dark well. The rune of [Endless Heaven].

“You’re sure I can cut anywhere?” she asked Zoe.

“I’m sure.”

“You should hurry,” Anton said.

“Hey mate, I —”

Bella’s voice was cut off as a furry insect leaped out of the crack in the rocks. It landed on her shoulder and started chewing. Tiny fangs pulled at her jumpsuit fibers.

“Ah! What the —”

Another insect jumped toward Bella’s mouth. She snapped her jaw shut and it bounced off her face and fell into the void. A tide of the creatures crawled and leaped out of the cracks in the rocks. They chittered as they landed on the party and crawled all over their bodies. Chewing, biting, stinging with teeth and claws and stingers.

Zoe slapped at them.

She tried to activate her Mirror, but Moth slept inside her mind. Frustratedly, she slapped and struck at the creatures but more slipped around her chains to latch onto her jumpsuit. They couldn’t penetrate but their tiny mouths still stung. Every second they lost put them in danger of being struck by the Angel’s blood.

“Cut now!” Zoe shouted.

Bella snarled through gritted teeth as a creature crawled across her face. She swung the blade into the rocks where they scurried from. The blade whispered through the stones and a blackened portal opened up. Black-tipped, pink swirling inside like an eye, already closing.

Zoe swung her battered arm into the portal. She pulled on her increased connection to the [Bell at the Center of the World]. Reality bent, her fist connected with the portal. Hums passed up and down her arm, through her Skein, and she attuned to the resonance of the portal. Instability in her, and stability inside it, and she felt it trying to close.

With her other arm, she wrapped her chains around her friends and pulled them through the opening in time and space.

The fuzzy demons screeched as they fell into the flickering pink and black light.

And then the portal closed, and the shaft lay empty as the blood of an Angel silently rained.

###

Zoe hit a cold marble floor and slid. She groaned, eyes fluttering as they adjusted to the light. Her friends lay around her, wincing, adjusting after the ordeal of interdimensional travel. She looked around.

They lay on the floor of a courtroom. The stands, the jury box, and the judge's seat — all filled with demons. A creature like a human with the head of a snail leaned over the judge’s bench.

It slammed a gavel multiple times. A trail of slime lifting every time.

“Order in the court,” the snail bubbled. “Who are these interrupters!”

“They are my surprise witnesses!” cawed a familiar voice.

A black-taloned foot stepped in front of Zoe’s view. She pulled a furry insect from her face and glanced up at a demon with a coat of midnight feathers. It seemed familiar as it cocked its head to the side.

Beside her, Bella groaned.

“It’s the One-Eyed Crow.”