He stopped when the hem of his cloak touched the horn on the ground. Lissandra found it all most unnerving — the imagining of what the face of a demon would look like, and to be so close to one and not able to look into that face and read what she could off of it as it spoke.
Moon stood with Lissandra just at the other side of the line. The alpha-demon began to speak, and Lissandra was surprised at how pleasant the voice coming from a monster could sound. “You have signaled your arrival with the horn, and this is appreciated. We have drawn a welcoming barrier of clear purpose, and yet one of you has crossed the line before being given clearance to do so. Shall I take this as an act of defiance toward our ancient laws?”
“Certainly not.” Moon had her arms at her sides and spoke calmly. “The one who pressed his foot into your land is clumsy. You should not take direct offense to it.”
The demon was quiet for a long moment. “Then how should I take it? Not for what it is?”
“It is an offensive mistake.” Moon agreed with him.
“You come to us in a grouping of twelve. We find this number highly offensive as well.”
Moon studied the simple and ancient bluish-grey cloak the demon wore. It was a blank and unadorned, as all of them seemed to be. “Perhaps, I can offer a resolution to this offense?”
The head of the demon nodded, or the movement of its hood seemed to indicate that was the motion. “Perhaps that would be proper.”
Moon moved so quickly that before Lissandra realized what was happening, Moon had pulled one of her swords from its sheath and sliced off the head of the offending soldier. It went flying over the line to the feet of the demon. The face on the severed head twitched and still held the shocked expression of what had been done to it. The demon crouched down to take hold of it by the hair and lift it up as he stood.
Lissandra stared as the headless body of the soldier collapsed into a heap in the black sand. Moon ran her blade through her gloved fingertips, sliding the blood from her blade before re-sheathing her weapon.
The demon lifted the head to his face, and as he tilted back, his hood fell off his head to his shoulders so Lissandra could watch him drink the blood which flowed from the open wound which had once been the dead man's neck. The back of the demon's head, now exposed as he drank, revealed short white hair, cut close like a Roman emperor's.
“We are now eleven.” Moon didn't seem to care whether the demon was drinking blood out of a severed head or not. “Do you find this number less offensive?”
The demon dropped the head from his hands and it slammed the ground with the sick thud normally reserved for slaughterhouses. “If I said no, would you keep subtracting?”
Soldiers stepped out of sword range as Moon answered with a yes.
“Eleven is a fine enough number.” He wiped his arm across his face, and the blood he had taken from his lips stained his sleeve as he lowered it back to his side. His other arm extended into view as a mason jar was revealed.
He turned the jar down and Lissandra watched as he poured a dark liquid towards the ground, then filled the footprint the unlucky soldier had made on the other side of the line.
“Which of you will drink and end our sharing at the line?”
Lissandra watched the liquid bubble in the footprint, like it was too thick for the ground to soak up. Her nose detected a rich aroma— malt and hops, perhaps? Beer?
“The human I bring is most worthy.” Lissandra listened to Moon's words and then realized that she was the one indicated.
“Come now, Lissandra, everyone is waiting.”
Lissandra looked into Moon's eyes and got the impression that if she didn't drink, the demon's next toast would involve drinking from her severed head. “I hate you.”
Moon smiled and pointed to the liquid in the footprint. Lissandra reluctantly let her knees sink into the sand at the line and studied the liquid in the dead soldier's footprint.
The demon spoke as he waited for her to sample the drink. “It has been a long time since one like you has come down the lift, Moon. We've not seen your kind, nor humankind, in a very long while.”
“You know who I am then?” Moon seemed pleased.
“More importantly, I know what you are, Demiurge.”
Lissandra ran her fingertip into the liquid. It was certainly thick, and was as black as the ceiling of this canyon she stood within which shouldn't exist. It was neither cold nor warm, it simply was. It was almost comforting to the touch, and the smell was intoxicating.
“I promise you, gypsy.” The demon assured. “You will enjoy the taste.”
Lissandra looked up to the demon as she cupped the liquid into her hands and lifted it to her lips. “Well, here's to you, then.”
It reminded her of the dark beer brewed by the Irish. There were so many different flavors mixed into the concoction that it made her taste buds tired trying to count them all. It was dry and warm, with hints of chocolate, vanilla, and warm sunlit fields of hops. It tasted of love and companionship, sweet whispered chats beside him in the night, before the hearth of a safe place — a home. She could plainly hear his voice and taste his kiss.
She was lying on her back, staring up into the faces of Moon and the demon, when she realized that much of what she tasted in the beer were not tastes at all — they were emotions and memories. She must have had a silly smile on her face. She'd never felt so alive in her entire life, and her whole body tingled as she laughed.
The face of the demon did remind her of one of the stoic statue faces of the emperors of old. It was thin and angular, and didn't have the same sense of realism that the great masters liked to capture in their work. He looked like a man, but not really like a man. His eyes were silver rings and his short white hair was a stark contrast into all the darkness beyond him.
Of course he didn't look like a man, Lissandra thought. He wasn't one —he was a demon.
Lissandra giggled, even when she noticed the scars which intersected his face just above the nose. Like the scar Billy Purgatory had, but he had two that made an X. She pointed to him as she laughed, but not really at him — because in the back of her head somewhere, she was beyond horrified with it all. She was in horror at the face of the demon and doubly so at how she was acting. She couldn't help herself though; she felt so damned good.
“Wow, just who are you anyway?” Her body twitched and her scalp tingled and she smiled wide.
“I am Brau Ahl'Drow, Brewmaster of Heaven.”
Lissandra ran her fingertips into her hair, it felt amazing. “Heaven?” Lissandra cut her eyes up to the black ceiling of nothing above her.
Brau Ahl'Drow smiled as Moon grabbed Lissandra's arm to pull her to her feet. “Since removed.”
~28~
“ONCE YOU BEGIN BEING NAUGHTY, IT IS EASIER TO GO ON AND ON, AND SOONER OR LATER SOMETHING DREADFUL HAPPENS.”
— LAURA INGALLS WILDER
LISSANDRA WOKE ON A BED that was only a frame and a mattress. She was sitting up the instant her eyes opened and grasping at the iron bed frame at her back. Sunlight spilled in from a window, the light filtered by moth ravaged curtains and air swimming with dust. She didn't know where she was, and her last memories were of Level 5 and the purgatory caverns under Texas.
She'd been having horrifying dreams of a dark tentacle which chased her. Her only thought as she ran was that it could envelope her at any time, but chose not to do so because it enjoyed her fear much more than the act of catching her.
She was now considering that she must be above ground, thankfully, and how ironic it had been that one of her first thoughts when waking from such a horrible nightmare had been to refer to the caverns they had found the demons within as…
“Purgatory?”
Lissandra scanned the room, the voice which had spoken his name into the world had not been hers. She found a girl sitting on the floor to her left. The girl looked back to her inquisitively, she had a soft face like a dolls that was framed in two long brown braids which hung do
wn to her waist. She too had the grey cloak about her shoulders that the demons wore, the hood off her head and trailing down her back. Her pants and top were tattered and patched together in whatever fabric could be scavenged. She was young, fifteen perhaps, definitely a teenager.
She had bright blue eyes.
Lissandra released her grip on the bed frame and took a moment to breathe. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and after a long calming moment she faced the girl.
“I'm Lissandra. Now who are you and where am I?”
The girl watched Lissandra as she spoke — like she was fascinated by her. Only after she seemed satisfied did she herself speak back. “I am Morta, daughter of Brau Ahl'Drow, and you are someplace called LBJ's ranch house.”
“Dammit…”
“I'm sorry?”
“No, not you.” Lissandra brushed her hair out of her face and sat straighter. “I was hoping all of it had been a nightmare.” She wondered if there was running water in this place. Then she cursed the fact she was still in Texas.
Morta sat still and quiet and waited for her to rejoin the conversation. When it seemed that Lissandra was too lost in her thoughts to return, Morta took it upon herself to draw her back in.
“Who is Billy Purgatory?”
Lissandra snapped out of it. “He's someone who is not my favorite person right now, and more to point, someone I'm not sure ever has been.”
“Existed?”
“My favorite person.”
“My father and his generals have been speaking with your friend Moon…”
“Not my friend.”
“…with the woman who calls herself Moon.”
Lissandra could hear a conversation beyond the door to the room she was in, she hadn't noticed the sounds until they had been pointed out to her. “And?”
“Billy Purgatory is not Moon's favorite person either.”
“She's hinted. So, are your father and his generals going to lead the demons against Billy?”
“Moon has removed the marks of their faces.” Morta made the sign of the X over her own face. Lissandra saw that Morta did not bear the mark.
“Did they already take yours away?”
“I never had the mark.” Morta seemed sad talking about the scars. “I was created in that place, after our people had been cut.”
“So, demons can have children?”
Morta looked down at herself, and then back up to Lissandra as her answer. “The mark was a great source of discomfort for them.”
“What does it mean?” She thought about the single scar down Billy's face. “Why were they marked?”
“The X is a process, some spell, which takes away the abilities of the supernatural and the fantastic.”
“Moon was able to remove this?”
Morta nodded. “Of course.”
What exactly was Moon? She wasn't a girl, she wasn't a vampire, she definitely wasn't a demon. What had Brau Ahl'Drow called her?
“Moon and her kin placed the marks on them. They are the Demiurges.”
Oh yeah, that was it — Demiurge. Lissandra wasn't sure what it meant, other than she'd heard or read the word in regard to Gnosticism. “So it was Moon that put your father and his people down there in the first place and now she's just going to give them their powers back and all is forgiven?”
“It's a valid offer. The time spent in that place was only long in human terminology. The power she restores is sizeable, considering she asks for little in return.”
Lissandra stood from the bed. As informative as the conversation had been, it was time to move the negotiations along — Moon and that demon could probably sit around and tell each other how awesome they were for days. “What exactly did Moon say she wanted in return?”
“She wishes the death of Billy Purgatory and a vampire woman.”
Lissandra smiled, she wasn't sure how she really felt about Billy Purgatory moving on to his great reward — but she was more than certain she wouldn't be heartbroken if she never saw Anastasia again.
Morta rose from the floor as well. Lissandra saw where this was going, she was about to turn into the big sister this demon-kid never had. “What happens to the demons once they do what Moon wants them to do? Where will you go?”
“We go nowhere, this will be our new home.”
“Texas?”
“America. We get someplace called America.”
“All of it?”
Morta nodded. “Is it nice?”
“It's nice enough. Until your people redecorate.”
Morta looked at Lissandra quizzically as the gypsy opened the door. “When great curses are lifted change always comes.”
Lissandra started down the hallway with Morta in close behind. “Yeah, is that what you think happened to you and your daddy? That a curse got lifted?”
“Yes, the most horrible curse one can fall victim to. You'll know I speak the truth if it ever falls upon you, Lissandra.”
Lissandra turned around and walked backwards, she'd done it to look at the wide-eyed ramblings of the teenager face on. She kept doing it because she hoped it would freak the demons out when she made it across the house to where they pow-wowed with Moon.
“If what falls upon me?”
Morta stared at Lissandra, she'd seen it and heard the tales — how could she not still believe?
Morta spoke it slow, like it would help her new friend understand. “The curse of the Satanic Five.”
II.
Lissandra hadn't minded being back on the plane, it meant leaving Texas and LBJ's haunted ranch behind. In typical Moon fashion, she hadn't said where they were headed — other than how amazing this place would be. Lissandra wasn't so sure about her claims, she'd heard how amazing the last place they'd been was going to be.
Moon had sequestered herself to the cockpit and the four remaining soldiers Moon had in her army were all too happy at the opportunity of travel to buckle themselves in and sleep. The plane hadn't lifted fully off the ground before they'd all fallen off, heads hanging down towards their chests.
The discussion between Moon and the demons now in her employ had ended before Lissandra had made it to them — and she found them all in the front yard outside LBJ's old ranch house. There were hundreds of them, looking like lost peasants from the middle ages in their drab and patchwork clothing in the bright Texas sunshine.
Lissandra hadn't even cared how hot it had already become, even though it was still morning — she'd been happy to stand in the sunlight again and happy to feel warm.
Morta had broken from Lissandra to speak with her father. Lissandra watched the exchanged between the two of them, standing just in the sun and beyond the expansive front porch. She could see the former Brewmaster of Heaven, Brau Ahl'Drow, talking with his daughter. Brau no longer wore the “X” across his face — in scanning the crowd, Lissandra didn't see where any of the demons did.
The exchange between father and daughter had ended rather quickly, and she watched him raise his hand and point the girl in the pigtails back towards Lissandra.
“Great.” Lissandra muttered to herself. “I knew she was gonna end up being mine.”
Lissandra had looked over her shoulder to find Moon standing on the porch. She was beaming, and obviously quite proud of herself.
So, on the plane, Lissandra was wide awake and had finished off a packaged military style meal. She had offered some of it to Morta, who sat quietly across the plane from her — but the girl declined.
“Demons don't eat? I sure as hell know they drink.”
“I don't need anything in that box, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Lissandra's thoughts touched briefly on the Goddess of the Hunt, all the deer of the forest, and Billy Purgatory. She put it out of her mind quick enough. Billy had sealed his own fate, he should have stayed gone and left well enough alone. If people with the power level of someone like Moon, who could raise an army of demons out of some weird alternate dimension below T
exas, were after him then there was nothing that Lissandra, or anyone else, could do to save him.
“Do you know where we're going?” Lissandra called over to Morta.
Morta nodded.
“Is that something you can share with me?”
“We're going to Mu.”
Lissandra leaned back into the headrest and closed her eyes. “Oh, well of course we are.”
Morta seemed to like saying it. “Mu Mu.”
An hour of nothing but plane noise passed and Lissandra didn't open her eyes until she felt the craft come to a stop in the air, and heard the mechanics of it all change as jets fired down and the plane began to slowly descend.
Moon was making her way back before they hit the ground, she slapped the foreheads of her tiny army as she passed each, rousing them from slumber. “This is why we buy you idiots helmets.”
Moon had changed her clothing, there was still a lot of leather, and of course it was all black — gone was her blood-stained unicorn top and it was replaced by a much more form-fitting leather number that showed off her figure — Lissandra considered that actually might well be one of the functions of it.
Anything that can distract someone in a fight seemed legal.
Moon gripped overhead handholds as she went along. She pressed the big green button herself which would lower the ramp at the back of the plane. Lissandra watched as the hydraulics let it slowly down. Blue sky and sandy beaches came into view.
Lissandra let her buckles come undone and watched the soldiers spill out of the plane following Moon. The gypsy pulled herself up from her seat and didn't worry about Morta, she was confident that the girl would be no more than three steps behind her.
She stood in the sand and marveled at new surroundings. If nothing else, the view was pristine. The plane had landed on a tiny island, there was jungle to Lissandra's left and water all around. There was what looked like heavy equipment, which was covered in canvas tarps. A bulldozer and a backhoe — perhaps a dump truck or cement mixer. She didn't focus on any of that for very long though.
To Lissandra's right is where things got really interesting. The airship was massive, much larger than anything she'd ever seen in the sky before. It was tethered to the island by chains which extended from various points on the undercarriage of the vessel and to enormous steel pylons which rose out of the island. It dwarfed the island itself, and sent a vast shadow out over the ocean. It was inspiring, even to Lissandra who was typically uninterested in anything not of nature, that something that large could be floating in the air.
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 27
