The Ancients and the Angels: Celestials

by M.C. O'Neill

  ***

  Down in the underground sanctum of the fiend Mitlan, Lucifer wiped the bloody blade on the sides of Minn’dre’s summer robe and threw it across the chamber with a blithe toss. Great cat blood poured into the summoning pool installed by the stupid financial mogul. At least the old lord was resourceful, the devil thought.

  With much haste, the dark lord spat the incantation to summon his lovely assassin. Mortals in the “elder cabals,” as they called them, would make the process out to be some sort of pretentious and grand ceremony, when it was really nothing more than placing a phone call. A rather disgusting and messy phone call, but still a mundane action, and Lucifer always thought the elves that had attempted to place them were all terrified idiots.

  Blood from the slain leopard bubbled in the small pool with each word uttered from Minn’dre’s lips. Even though her voice had changed to a nasal whine from the smashed nose, the summoning music was still true.

  Arising from the puddle of feline gore, a faint blue light snaked its way to the high vault of the room’s ceiling. With every one of Lucifer’s words, the light grew in intensity until an almost solid cylinder of azure glow formed out of the grue.

  “C’mon! ANSWER ME!” he hissed without patience.

  Soon, the limping form of a female filled the light. Her hair was fashioned in thick cornrows which were plaited to perfection, but her usually-heavy makeup was streaked down her catty face. The demon was clutching her sides in what appeared to be pain.

  “Ah, Bastet, my kitten,” the devil greeted. “So pleased you could answer my call.”

  Her face switched in a flash from wincing grief to anger as she could only see the prosaic form of a blond elfmaid with a broken nose before her. “Who are you! Why do you disturb me, mortal?”

  For the first time in hours, Lucifer was hit with a pang of mirth at that. “Bastet! It’s me! Can you not tell?”

  “This is not amusing, mortal! Who is ‘me?” she challenged with spite.

  All humor had drained from the devil. He didn’t like his assassin’s tone of voice and thoughts of Sammian’s suspected treachery welled in his mind once again. “Bastet! I am your master! Bow to your god! Bow to Lucifer!”

  His bellow was unmistakable, and she complied without hesitation. Glasya had been scratching and whipping her all morning and the demon cared not for a worse session of beating from the boss. “Yes, my lord. What do you wish of me?”

  “Sammian has betrayed us,” Minn’dre’s voice was grim and held a hint of panic. “She had this arranged all along with the Adversary. I am sure you realize the situation on the outside, yes?”

  Still locked in a deep bow, the cat demon nodded. “Yes. Glasya and I heard about the change of plans broadcast in the scrying pool. Our asura Quezz has confirmed this.”

  “That’s good. Tell my baby sister to continue with my contingency measures to release the behemoths,” he paused as Bastet remained silent before him. “But I have a special assignment for you, kitten.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  He gloated at the pain his sister had subjected the cat-fiend to earlier that day. Instead of this demon, he imagined that it was Sammian who was kneeling before him like a whipped dog. “Ready yourself. Destroy Sammian and Cadreth, and do not fail my directives.”

  Vespiary of Battle

  That afternoon, the arks were abuzz with the rumble of hellish mobilization. Deep within the innards of every one of the hulks worldwide, legions of demons were suiting themselves for their first open attack against elfdom. Troops were outfitted with wicked nets, barbs, bolos, and a variety of strange entrapment devices not known upon the earth. The Morning Star was no exception to this frenetic activity.

  “To all my legionnaires, steel yourselves and make ready! An instant promotion of rank will be bestowed unto whosoever captures the Princess and her brat king. Our master Lucifer has made the arrest of Prime Warden Venn’lith Mitlan and any member of her idiot family an ultimate priority. May their souls rot…”

  Under the incessant echoing blasts of Glasya’s announcements to her cohort, and the woeful howls of the great fiend Choronzon, the behemoth pen had turned into a deafening warehouse of evil. Atop the ornate gondola, Buboe double-checked the small crystalline orb that would assist in controlling (rather poorly) the behavior of that terrific beast.

  Seven twisted heads capped seven long necks from the monster’s bloated trunk. Four immense stumpy legs held the awkward anatomy aloft. Much like the ark’s shell, the hide of the behemoth swirled with colors as well, but much brighter. If the thing from the Nine were of a better temperament, mortal eyes could construe those hues as rather beautiful; much like a Xochian macaw. Its gargantuan dimensions dwarfed even mammoth or mastodon.

  “I’ll fly point, Buboe,” Quezz bullied. “The High President doesn’t want you failing this, so remember your responsibilities.”

  The chubby infernal shook his head and craned it over to the asura. The pen’s unholy din allowed nothing less than a scream to be understood. “What?”

  “I said, Fatso, Glasya said not to screw this up!” she howled with pure rancor toward the fallen cherub.

  “Don’t uh, what’s the word…,” he shot back. “Patronize me, Asura! Glasya ain’t nothin’ but a bus driver! I’m doin’ the real work here!”

  In terms of the infernal ranking system, Lucifer was rather tidy and ordered in his design. Insubordination was of a zero-tolerance policy in the Nine, but since everybody hated everyone else there, all such infractions were almost impossible to catalog or police. Buboe and Quezz were of the same hellish pay-grade, but held different offices and functions. The flabby demon hated being told what to do by a contemporary almost as much as he hated Glasya. The painful howls of the behemoth were growing with quick velocity to the top of Buboe’s list of resentments.

  Quen’die’s infernal guardian sidled up to Buboe within dangerous proximity and grabbed him by the back of his brazen curls. “When this is over, I am going to roast you!”

  “Just you try, you skinny wench!” he boomed. His fleshy cheeks were close enough to kiss the asura, although the two would never dare to contemplate such an action. “Now get off of me!”

  The first of the ready signals howled through the guts of the Morning Star. Worldwide, this alarm was sounded throughout every ark as the operation required flawless synchronicity. The booming GONK sang a horrible noise deep within the minds of every single demon on Earth. Buboe’s wretched steed wailed seven-strong in protest to the sonic burst from hell.

  “Let’s get ready!” the cherub barked. “I can do this!”

  Quezz rolled her eyes at his pathetic display of bravado before flying off in one quick movement. “Whatever.”

  Sight and sensation melted into a strange puddle of shape and color before the awaiting cohort. The behemoth pen was swirling with its form and size in such a way that no mortal could make possible sense of its true parameters. Dimension was meeting dimension as the ark was unfolding its gates to allow for true hell on Earth.

  Hell was what the world got as those gates attuned to the earth’s vibrational frequencies. Every infernal was greeted by the sick colorless sky of that terrible afternoon as they flew forth for the great culling. Glasya ordered out another great blast from the arks’ bodies just to demoralize the unwitting elves below.

  Moth wings blotted the wan daylight as flights and squadrons of demons filled the air over Corosa City with a complement from four arks’ full. Once the tone of their blast had died, the screams of the mortal citizenry replaced that great sound. That city was plunged into total chaos.

  On board the gondola, Buboe was experiencing his first sensations of the planet ever since his kind had appeared there months ago. It treated him to smells and temperatures that he was unaccustomed to, yet such an alien environment deterred him not. Dewy warmth crawled on his skin and the salty air of the nearby ocean assaulted his piggy nostrils. What a foul place, the little hellion thought.
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br />   Choronzon, as well as all of his monstrous brethren, skipped not a beat. The fallen shedus began feasting on the scattering elves down below with frightening accuracy. Each of their seven faces was a contorted mask of woe and suffering as they hated being what they had become. As one head reared up with a howl, another would dip down with great speed and bob for elves. Their huge maws accommodated whole crowds of the mortals, but their stinking bellies could hold much more.

  With a vainglorious attempt, units and squads of ADF troops shot forth howls of red mana up at the beasts. Behemoth and demon alike were all but immune to the crimson energy as the bolts simply bounced off their bodies without even a stun. The fighting spirit of elfdom did not subside, as the majority of the cordons surrounding the demonic raiding parties took not a step back.

  Like a big fat baby, Buboe laughed at the screams and howls of the hopeless denizens of Corosa City. His crystal ball before him meant nothing as he let the blind and stupid beast Choronzon have its fun. The heads continued to gather up elves from down on the streets and from the rooftops. It mattered not where they tried to hide, as the alien nose of the monster could root them out like an awful giant from an old faerie tale.

  Perhaps this was going to go better than expected, thought Buboe as his behemoth seemed to be making quick work of the citizenry with each of its seven gulps. Looking off to both sides, the demon saw that the forces from all of the other arks in the area were capturing and devouring the mortals with wonderful success.

  Above his brassy head, the cherub saw flights of his fellow legionnaires returning with nets full of elves. Their screams for hopeless help were sickening as the helltroops emptied their catches into the mouths of his mount. Male, female, young and old all fell deep down into its belly that day.

  “Say goodbye, you stupid fishies!” Buboe could not contain his glee in the dour light of their suffering. “Ewww! Help me!” he mocked their pleas with a porcine squeal.

  Peering ahead down his behemoth’s haphazard path, the anticherub could make out immense forms that were not of his compliment. Upon taking a closer look, he could see that the elves had their own beasts of battle. Squadrons of mounted mammoths hunkered ever closer to match the might of hell’s superior steeds. These great animals ignored their fear of the infernal and they soldiered-on under the prodding paddles of their pilots. The honk that would emit from their trunks sounded so pitiful compared to the deafening wail of Choronzon such that the contrast filled their elven pilots with dreadful feelings of defeat.

  Despite the honest effort, when the first charge of wooly cavaliers clashed with the behemoths, the infernal monsters bashed them aside with the mere force of their skulls. It mattered not if their gleaming white tusks could fell a tree, they could not dent the hide of the fallen shedu. Mammoth meat crashed into the buildings lining the streets with each powerful swipe. That afternoon, many of those gallant animals, as well as their elven commanders, did not survive their thrashing.

  “Nice try, fishies!” the cherub taunted as he snorted with evil joy while Choronzon stepped without care over an elephantine carcass.

  The procession continued as the war parties from the Nine pushed deeper into Atlantis’ capital city. At their rate, it would be sunset by the time Lucifer’s forces trudged to the steps of the High King’s palace to besiege it. Buboe was pleased with the speedy progress as he imagined his promotion that was, to be sure, awaiting him.

  Choronzon swung left for reasons only it knew. Buboe cared not as every direction before them was brimming with screaming, scattering bodies of the terrified. As it rounded the corner onto Wampler Avenue, the cherub’s chuckling was halted by a volley of sounds unfamiliar to him.