"Attention Air Succubus passengers, this is your captain speaking," Filia said in a faux-garbled voice. "We're entering Rome airspace and may experience some slight turbulence. We apologize for any discomfort."
Judith rolled her eyes as the crackling arcane barrier around Rome loomed large in front of them. The arcs of power snapping and sparking back and forth were as wide as she was. There was a visible updraft from below, the air rippling with heat. "You sure we can get through that?"
Filia thrust out her chin. "Of course! Maybe. Well, we'll find out in a second."
"I already regret this decision to ally with you!" Judith snapped, gritting her teeth and screwing her eyes shut. A moment later, she was surrounded by heat that made her feel like bread crisping in an oven. An electric buzz thrummed through the air around her and made her teeth hurt. Something claw-like scratched at the back of her mind, giving her the sensation of a bad itch being scratched.
Then it was gone, and she opened her eyes. Filia had surrounded them with a barrier of hellfire, keeping the worst of the eldritch barrier away from them. The succubus shook her head, and Judith noticed that her eyes were beaded with tears. "Fuck, that sucked."
Judith started to ask if she was alright, then remembered just who it was she was talking to and shut her mouth. The Infernal would get no niceties from her. She looked down at the landscape of Rome below her to try and get a sense of what was going on.
The city - and, it seemed, the quarter mile of earth, dirt, and undercity beneath it - had been ripped free of the Earth, suspended in midair by an invisible force. The beautiful scenic plazas and domed buildings hung in a mind-bending configuration at various heights, defying Judith's attempts to get their bearings. She recognized a fountain that should be in the southern district of the city, yet was spinning like a carousel here on the north end. They flew past one intact city block that hovered like a island among the chaos, while above it what had been the next block over now served as a ceiling of sorts, loose roof tiles dropping down like terra-cotta rain.
"By the circles of Hell, where are we supposed to start?" Filia muttered.
Judith kicked her leg towards the city block that was intact and right-side up. "There seems as good a place as any. Plus my arms are starting to hurt."
"You need to hit the gym." The succubus winged towards the floating island, flying low over a cobbled street. Her wings flared, slowing her down and letting her set Judith down easily. Judith drew
Celerity
, holding it loose by her side as the succubus stayed airborne. "What's the play, papist?"
Judith raised an eyebrow. "You're asking me?"
Filia shrugged. "Call it a trust-building exercise."
"Nothing in Heaven, Earth, or Hell could ever make me trust you."
The succubus pouted. "Well, that's not very nice."
Judith was about to be even more not nice when she heard a commotion. Her head turned down the street, where a voice was shouting in panicked Italian. A moment later, a horrifying screech sounded.
Filia took off like a rocket, spinning in midair while Judith hurried to catch up. Another powerful flap of the succubi's wings shot her around the corner. Judith was hot on her heels, grabbing onto a lamppost and using it to swing around the corner without losing her momentum.
Ahead of her in a small square, Judith saw a woman with a toddler duck into a side alley just as a big...
something
crashed into the building after them, too big to wriggle all the way through after them. In the square itself, Judith counted three grotesque looking creatures with greenish-black skin the consistency of pesto, all of them moving on all fours to surround the fallen form of a middle-aged man. He'd been torn open at the middle, his lips moving soundlessly as the creatures gorged themselves on his insides.
Filia struck one of the creatures like a missile feet-first, carrying it across the square and into the far wall of a building. The force made cracks spiderweb out around the impact site, and Judith caught a satisfied smirk on the succubi's face as she drilled her heel into the thing's throat and twisted, snapping its neck with a loud crack. "Get the other creepies, I got big boy over there!" the succubus yelled. She sprang off the wall at the massive thing still trying to get into the alley, her chains clattering free.
As much as she hated taking orders from the succubus, Judith hurled
Celerity
at one of the other green creatures. Both of them were still trying to figure out what had happened to their companion. Her sword struck one in the skull with a wet crunch, and Judith was there a moment later to rip it free. As she did she got a good look at the creature, and she had to fight not to retch.
Though the thing was about the size and shape of a normal human, the similarities ended there. The creature's skin was gross and disgusting, mottled and rotting off its frame. It had no eyes to speak of, the area around where they should be torn and mutilated as if they'd been clawed out. Where fingernails should have been were sharp talons of bone, and it took Judith a heartbeat to realize that the talons were actually what were once human fingers, now elongated and hardened for lethal purposes.
With a noise somewhere between a click and a screech the remaining thing lunged at her. Despite not having eyes it was accurate in its leap, and Judith had to pivot quickly to avoid having her side split wide open. She spun and cleaved the creature from shoulder to hip with
Celerity
. She stepped back to take a moment to find an opening to spear it through the head.
Except she didn't need to. The thing fell onto its side with a gurgling death cry. From the massive wound in it's chest oozed rotting, putrid entrails that made Judith's stomach do a flip. She put a hand over her mouth.
Faster, but die more like normal things. Right.
"Incoming!"
Judith threw herself flat at the sound of Filia's voice. The massive beast that the succubus had gone to fight flew over her head and smashed into the side of a building, crushing the mutant that Filia had killed first flat. With a squealing roar the monster crashed onto the stone below.
Filia lighted down beside Judith. "So guess what that thing probably was before yesterday."
As the monster got back up, Judith picked out floppy ears, a broad muzzle, and a pair of large, twisted horns. "Is that a steer?"
"Probably was waiting for his turn at the butcher's block before things got all eldritch up in here," Filia said, the ends of her shadow chains sparking as they clinked on the stones below. "Wonder if he got his would-be cook first?"
Judith scowled. "Your callousness disgusts me."
"Hey, somebody's got to keep the mood light, and let's be honest, it isn't going to be you." Filia rolled her shoulders as the mutated cow got to its feet, it's flesh seared with blackened burn marks from the Infernal's weapons. "Are you a filet kind of girl or a T-bone?"
Rather than dignifying that with an answer, Judith surged across the square. She kicked off the ground just as the mutant cow rose fully and looked up at her with not one, but three pairs of eyes that had sprouted from the sides of it's head.
Celerity's
blade stabbed down right between all six of those bloodshot orbs, driving deep into the thing's skull with a loud crunch. Judith put all her weight on the weapon and drove it deep, seeking brain. The steer lowed, a sound that hit Judith's ears like nails on a chalkboard, but she hung on grimly, lighting the blade on fire with holy magic to be sure. Slowly, the thing's thrashing slowed, then ceased, it's bulk crashing down with Judith still atop it. She ripped
Celerity
free and shook the dark, disgusting gore from it's consecrated length.
Filia's chains snapped back into her shadow veil. "Well, you gotta cook it more than
that.
I'm an Infernal, sure, but I like my meat with a bit more sear on it."
"I don't want to talk about how you like your meat," Judith huffed as she stomped past the succubus towards the man on the ground. He was already dead, his face frozen as his eyes stared sightlessly at the distant horizon. Judith murmured a prayer for his soul and brushed her fingers over his eyes.
"Papa!" a child's voice wailed. A moment later, the little girl hurried out of the alleyway, her mother chasing after her. "Papa!"
Judith moved in front of the dead man, intercepting the little girl and holding her against her legs. "This is not something you should see, child," she said in Italian. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Filia move to cover the dead man with a broad wing.
The little girl's mother was there a moment later, grabbing hold of her daughter and crushing her to her. She looked between Judith and Filia with eyes that were fearful, grateful and confused all at the same time. "You're not one of them," she said. Her eyes lingered on Filia, with her red skin, bat wings, and whip-like tail. "But then again, what
are
you?"
"I am Judith Magdalena, Knight of the Templar Order, Blade of the Church, and servant of His Holiness and the Lord on high," Judith said, tugging her crucifix out of her neckline and showing it to the woman. The metal winked in the sunlight. "My...companion is named Filia."
"Hey, I have titles too, you know," Filia said.
Judith ignored her. "Please, I was abducted at the start of all this and have no idea what's happening," she said to the woman. "What are these creatures? Why are they mutated like this?"
The woman clutched her young daughter to her, the both of them shaking like leaves in a gale. "They are...
were
our neighbors here." She swallowed hard, her effort to keep her voice steady plain on her face. "Yesterday, when the sky darkened, we thought the end had come. But then the barrier around the city went up, and our entire block was ripped from the ground and brought up here into the sky. All we knew was the city was turning upside-down, and we could do nothing but watch. There's no power anymore, and no cell phone signal from the outside. All we could was try to hang on and figure out if there was anything we could do."
