(40) Justice For The Fallen

Ashcroft-Mastema—he's Mashcroft now—blinks slowly, all over his body. He doesn't seem to know how to respond to my question.

"Or what about hot peppers?" I continue. "Or salt? Have you ever, y'know, scattered salt by accident and ended up crying all over your own clothes? Or what happens if you need glasses?" I look him up and down. "I didn't think they designed those so... creatively."

The demon's face is darkening. "Foolish mortal," rumbles a voice from nowhere and everywhere, deep enough to shake the grass around me. The sun seems to flicker. "Bow, and I might find a use for you outside the fires of Hell."

Normally, I'd freeze in the presence of such overwhelmingly imposing authority. This time is different. Maybe it's the presence of Exie beside me, or the students behind us both. Maybe it's a manifestation of my waning sanity. Or maybe God is really on my side. I can't see Clarice in my periphery anymore, and with so many eyes on me, I don't dare look. Even if most of the eyes belong to a single entity.

On the ground behind the demon, something moves.

I cross my arms and shift stances in mock bravado, just to draw more teachers' eyes. Those close enough for me to see their faces wear expressions ranging from befuddlement to horror. I wonder if they also carry the souls of ancient cultists, or whether they're just brainwashed. I guess if we survive this, we'll find out either way.

"I guess Hell-smoke would be pretty bad, too," I say. If this doesn't work, I'm probably trashing my survival chances, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and I can't think of anything I'm better at than insulting people. "Did God at least send you down with eyedrops when she kicked you out of heaven? Or was that cursed pool enough?"

That's one step too far. The demon lifts an arm, and all my breath and courage desert me. I stumble backward as his claw-hand turns, ready to pluck the soul from my body like a child picking flowers. Half-formed prayers tumble through my mind. My tongue seizes. Not a pious word has left my lips when a gunshot splits the moment. Mashcroft staggers, his eyes all wide. Everything slows.

A second shot. The sky responds, lightning tearing open smoky clouds like those in Mastema's angel painting. The eyes floating where the demon's wings should be begin to wink out one by one. The ones across his body falter. Teachers turn in slow motion, some falling back, some reaching forward. They're all too late.

A third shot.

The demon falls. Behind him stands Clarice, stolen gun in hand, its barrel wreathed in gleaming silver chain. Her cross with angel wings dangles just beneath the smoking muzzle.

No sooner has Ashcroft's body hit the ground than that ground begins to rumble.

"Grab them!" I bellow over my shoulder. Students surge past me. Strong ones tackle the remaining teachers, none of whom match Ashcroft's stature. Clarice falls back, unscathed. I run to her, and catch her as she sways.

"We did it," I say. "I can take the gun."

For a moment, she just looks at the weapon in her hand, like she's not sure how it got there. Then she hands it over. It's a three-barrel pepperbox, now out of ammunition. I don't know which student originally loaded it, and now's not the time to find out. The gun's too hot to pocket. I flag down a nearby student that I halfway trust and tell him to take the gun to Exie. He dashes off.

Clarice is still markedly unsteady, and pale enough that I worry she'll pass out at any moment. I guess firing on a demon will do that to you. I offer her my shoulder, and we walk her back to Exie, who's mobilized the student body with the efficiency of an wartime General. She dispatches groups of them to hold the teachers, collect the judged students as they wake up one by one, and scout the landscape for a better place to hide. She spins to us as we join her.

"Oh thank God," she says. "Donovan, can you come look after Clarice? Des, I need your help here."

"Do you need anything?" I ask Clarice.

"Sitting down for a bit would be nice."

"That's fair."

The student Exie called comes to take my place. I make sure Clarice is in good hands, then turn to Exie again. "Tell me what to do."

"You remember the maps, don't you?"

"Any that I've seen. Maybe not perfectly, but if that's enough..."

"That's good enough. I trust your memory. Can you figure out how to get us to a town? When the scouts get back, you can take charge of them."

"On it."

We split up. A more violent tremor nearly shakes me off my feet. Black smoke belches skyward from the school. An orange glow lights its underside. I find the nearest, highest vantage point. The first tips of flames peek into view over the school wall, fading in and out of visibility through the smoke. They're only getting taller.

There's a scout running back towards us from further afield. I wave for her, then get distracted by a hissing sound nearby. A small crack has opened up in the grass halfway down my hill, spitting steam like a moribund teakettle. Suddenly alert, I scan the rest of my vicinity. Hitherto unnoticed, three vents are visible from where I stand. They're small, but widening. The tunnel entrance we escaped through still blows yellow-white clouds, but it's only now that I realize what this means.

The underground pool is boiling. If it's truly where Mastema fell to earth, it must punch all the way through to Hell. That water is flooding the school's tunnel system.

"Get away from the wall!" I yell to the students shepherding their judged classmates to their feet. Those not already stumbling away from the school take the cue.

The first scout skids up beside me, panting. "We found a spot. Tell me what to do."

"Mark it. Get people there and post a watchperson somewhere visible so the rest know where to go. Check the ground for steam-vents, too. This whole place is coming down, and we don't know how far it'll spread."

"Got it."

She speeds off again. The next scout to return is Haven, tasked with circling the burning school to round up anyone who escaped by other methods. A handful managed to scale the gate and hide nearby. I send those refugees off after the rest, then grab Haven and relocate as another tremor widens the steam-vent nearby to the length of my arm.

"Go see how far those extend," I say. "Don't fall into one. And stay away from the wall."

Haven salutes me and departs. By now, I'm the closest one left by the school, so I retreat beyond the current steam-vents, and promptly have to retreat again. The ground everywhere is cracking. I stay behind the fleeing stragglers, and relax only marginally as we get far enough that the cracks stop spitting steam. It's from here that I see the first section of the school's wall begin to sag.

First, the ground sinks beneath it. Cracks migrate up the masonry, and a block drops, followed by another. A third hits the ground and punches through it, leaving a hole that vomits steam. The wall fails in slow motion. Blocks tumble. The whole construction warps. At last, a stretch of it the length of three appended classrooms bows inward and disintegrates. The ground follows suit. In moments, there's nothing but a pit of boiling mud and stony brick, and a window through to the school beyond.

The view is apocalyptic. The shell of Melliford Academy is still visible, a cathedral's dark skeleton engulfed on every side by towering walls of flame. Even as I watch, a flying buttress crumbles. The school lawn is pockmarked with steaming sinkholes where the ground has caved in, but they're nothing but acne scars compared to the demon's pool itself.

In the middle of the school grounds, a portal to Hell has opened. The pool fountains what looks like magma into the air. It's fire, but not fire. Water, but not water. The water itself is on fire. The pool's whole cave has fallen in. The resultant hole is busy spreading like a bloodstain, eating into the soil and stone around it like they're nothing more than paper. It's already taken the last remaining willows, and the wall beyond is in the final stages of giving out.

The school's roof is gone. Its back wall still stands, its great rose window a fiery eye melting into itself. The demon in its upper wedge slips with it, his fall now very literal. If that's not symbolism, I don't know what is.

A hand rests on my shoulder. I turn to find Exie standing beside me, matching the direction of my gaze. "May God wipe this whole place from the face of the earth," she murmurs.

"She's working at it."

"We should go."

She's right. As poetic as it would be to stand here and watch the school burn, we've got fleeing students and captured teachers to attend to, friends to comfort, and towns to find. I turn away. Me and Exie are the only students left closer to the school, through I can see more up ahead. My first scout posted a watchperson like I asked. We make our way towards them, holding onto one another as the ground dances to the hiss and roar of the apocalyptic landscape all around.

Lightning shoots silver thread across the sky. It concentrates around the smoke cloud, whose choking clouds thin the farther we get from the school. The ground too begins to stabilize. The cracks look smaller, at least, and the steam doesn't seem to have migrated past the tunnels' ends. Haven comes to find me and confirm it. I thank them. They've scarcely left when a cracking sound behind us indicates the beginning of the school's end.

I stop, and Exie turns with me. The wall, as we watch, is the first to go. The remainder of it folds inward like a wave, succumbed to the unstable ground. The school's back wall is next. The great rose window crumples like burning paper. The hidden staircase cracks wide. From base to rib vaults, the school's chapel tears itself open to the sky. Its stone blocks cascade downward like a Biblical rain of fire. Robbed of structural integrity, the school's other walls follow. In less than a minute, all that's left is the magma pool and a blazing rubble pile.

Exie tugs my sleeve again. With an effort, I tear my gaze away. Like Lot leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, we trudge after the other students without another look back at the flames.