by Vox Day
“Yes. I think it’s supposed to make you think of the Big Apple.”
Robin laughed and rolled his eyes. “How very cosmopolitan. No wonder they have an inferiority complex. I swear, if only Dante had ever visited, he surely would have made it a circle of Hell. Somewhere between the fifth and sixth, I should think. Annoia, that lonely hell where those who bore others to tears and madness are sentenced. Isn’t there anywhere else we can go? Let’s pretend we’re mortals and we have livers to mistreat.”
“I don’t get it.” She stared at him blankly.
“I want a drink. Something that will put heat in my belly and make my head spin. Not like Linda Blair or anything, though. Hells below, that would be redundant!”
“Oh, okay. Do you have any money?”
“Don’t be silly.” He shifted, snapped his fingers and a fifty dollar bill appeared. “It’s just an elementary matter of moving around a few atomic particles.”
She stared at him, her gaunt face full of envy.
“I can’t even walk shadow, forget doing something like that. I’ll go with you, but you’ll have to drink alone. I’m stuck here.”
“Stuff and nonsense.” He pulled her to him and she did not hold back. He kissed her, and as he tasted her dry, cracked lips, he infused her with just enough power to walk shadow for an evening or two. “Have yourself a go now.”
She did, and a delighted smile spread across her emaciated face as she dropped two shadows and several centimeters and landed on the stool over which she’d been hovering. Even if her frame wasn’t bordering on the skeletal, her mouth would have been too wide for beauty, but for a moment there was something lovely in the pure delight which filled her angled blue eyes. Still smiling, she reached over and plucked the fifty from his hand.
“You said you’d been wandering the States for a while, now. If you’re looking for a taste of the old country, I know where we can go spend this. You might even want to conjure up another three or four, while you’re at it.”
“Brilliant.” Robin nodded approvingly at the image of the pub she held in her mind. It would be a poor, tacky imitation of the real thing, of course, but at least the ale, being imported, would probably be genuine. And if by the most remote chance there happened to be any of the Mad One’s agents lurking about, they wouldn’t be on the lookout for a mortal couple. He made a few alterations to both of their appearances. “Like it?”
“Oh, yes, thank you!” She ran her hand over her new clothing and unfamiliar curves. The Burberry skirt was a vast improvement on the tattered black rags that had hitherto adorned her formerly skeletal legs. “Can I go look at myself?”
“Go on, powder your nose,” he urged her, as she rose quickly from the table. “But don’t be too long. If I’m still sitting here in twenty minutes, my head might explode from the sheer lack of stimulus.”
She was beaming when she returned, well within his time limit. He couldn’t help returning her smile; perhaps not all demons could derive pleasure from the joy of another, but he could. “Let’s go!” she said, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. They walked along the avenue, past a block of dark, abandoned retail shops that ended in an explosion of neon lights, headlights, streetlights and people. Arm-in-arm, they crossed a pair of busy intersections before turning south and entering a somewhat quieter, though still distinctly urban neighborhood. There were trees scattered here and there on corners, and the traffic was reduced to an occasional car or two instead of the slow-moving throng that choked the main downtown thoroughfares.
But as they turned the corner, he was pleased to see that midway down the block, the sidewalk was barricaded by white plastic chairs, the vast majority of which were occupied by mortals in their second and third decades. Guinness was flowing freely from the taps, it seemed, unless the dark liquid that filled many of the mugs was Coca-Cola. Above the entrance was a large blue sign proudly adorned with three white lions and when a waitress emerged from beneath it, she was accompanied by the unmistakable aroma of fish and chips.
It was at moments like this that Robin almost envied mortals. What passed for a stomach in his Seventh form was rumbling. The taproom itself was crowded and noisy, and he was forced to resort to a moderate amount of mental coercion to encourage a party of four to vacate their corner booth in a timely manner. A waitress, seeing them leave, glanced over and caught Robin’s eye. It was too loud to call out his order, so he made do with holding up two fingers of one hand and pulling an imaginary lever with the other.
“This is fun!” said his companion of the evening. It was, to be sure, but it was a rather sad statement, since it was probably the most pleasure she had known in decades. And, he reminded himself, her pathetic existence would look like paradise compared to what his would be should he or Oberon fall into the wrong hands too soon.
Never mind that. Tonight, he fully intended to put such thoughts aside. They would wait for the morrow. He saluted her health and took a healthy slug of ale. Yes, that was rather better, wasn’t it!
They were on their third mug, and she was doing her cheerful best to stay with him when a strangely familiar figure walked past the bar and mounted the steps that led to what looked like a game room upstairs. It was an attractive woman, mortal, he’d thought for a moment, until he looked again and saw the flames coursing inside her. Her head was cropped close to the scalp, the reddish stubble showing starkly against the underlying white skin, as if it had been recently shaved. I’ve seen her before! But where? Could it be… yes, it almost certainly was! How strange that she should be here, of all places, although I’ve not seen her for ages. What has it been, four hundred years? No, almost five hundred! Still, he wasn’t entirely sure it was her, until she glanced back at the room and her green eyes swept unknowingly across his. But he knew her. He was sure of it.
“My dear, please do excuse me,” he apologized to the demoness of the bridge. “I believe I have seen an old friend, and I think it would be best if you left now.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” she said, her eyes on a handsome mortal at the next table.
“I think you misunderstand.” His icy tone caught her attention, and her eyes widened as he stole an image from her mind and allowed it to flicker out momentarily from within him. It was her notion of what the dread Teeth must be like; merciless eyes, black on black, staring out of a handsome, debonair face that was insouciant in its cold arrogance. The portrait of an assassin who gloried in his job and would not hesitate to destroy all that stood between him and his prey. She shivered before him, sheer terror mixed with delicious pleasure.
“I knew it!” she whispered triumphantly.
“Go,” he urged her, slipping the worthless mortal money he’d created into her slender hands. “Go quickly, before it is too late.”
She blew him a kiss, mouthed a silent “thank you”, and hastily exited the building. Robin smiled, feeling indulgent, and hoped that she’d make the most of her time in the mortal realm before the bridge began to draw her back again to her lonely prison. If nothing else, any tale she might tell was sure to confuse anyone inquiring into the actions of a stranger in this town.
He finished off his mug before making his way towards the stairs. He climbed them slowly, wondering if he was foolish to risk speaking with one who knew exactly who he was. But they had been allies before, long ago, and furthermore, if he could be sure of one thing, it was that she would not betray him to anyone who served the Mad One. She was at the far corner of the room, like him, disguised as a mortal, shooting American billiards with two other fallen angels who were in similar camouflage.
She was good, he saw. No expert, but a talented amateur. There were three solids and two stripes remaining on the table, and as he watched, she pocketed both stripes on a single, well-struck shot. Her leave was less than optimal, but somehow, she managed to sink the eight despite the partial obstruction afforded by the red solid. As it dropped into the leather, she punctuated her win with a brief cry of triumph.
<
br /> But her joy was short lived, as her head whipped around at the sound of his applause. Her eyes, the lovely shade of emerald green that had made him sure of her, narrowed with suspicion for a moment, before widening suddenly when he stepped towards her.
“Hello, Melusine,” Robin said, extending both his hands. “How delightful to see you again after all these years!”
Chapter 14
Clouds of Lies and Dust
A constant wave of tension
on top of broken trust
The lessons that you taught me
I learned were never true
—Linkin Park, (“Runaway”)
By mutual agreement, no less understood for all that it was unspoken, Robin and Melusine left the pub together without sharing more than the most trivial information with her companions. They had been conspirators once, and there was something comfortable about this easy complicity, insignificant though it was. She led him out the back, down an iron staircase and out onto an open field that looked as if it would serve equally well for cricket, lawn bowling or a romantic assignation.
They stopped in the middle of the field and stood together under the moonlight. Robin studied Melusine, struck by the changes time had unaccountably wrought on her. It was her, truly her, not some aspect she’d assumed. Highlighted by the night shadows, her prominent cheekbones were like blades, threatening to slice through the white, paper-thin skin that barely held them in check. Her figure was no less voluptuous than before, but there was a cavernous quality to her eyes, which in combination with the prison-camp hairstyle and the absence of her wings, made it obvious that she had suffered much since he’d seen her last. The years, for all their seeming impotence, had a way of leaving their mark on immortals too.
“What have they done to you?”
“To me?” She sounded startled, but then she ran a hand self-consciously over her shorn head. “Why, nothing much. Just a gentle reminder to watch my nose, that’s all. It’s not so bad. Even losing my wings has turned out to be more of an annoyance than anything else, really.”
“How can you say that?” Robin, recalling the beauty of those lustrous, perfectly-symmetrical black wings, was shocked. “Melusine, were I not so sure that it is indeed you, I do not think I would recognize you!”
She did not sound at all like the spirited, wildly rebellious fallen angel he’d known before. Where was the fierce pride he had known and admired? The towering ambition? She was like a falcon tethered, her will broken to the falconer. But where was the falconer?
“I’m not sure I recognize myself anymore. Puck, dear, what are you doing here in flyover country? Please tell me you’ve abandoned that mad scheme to find Oberon and put him back on the throne.”
“I’ve abandoned that mad scheme to find Oberon,” he repeated obediently.
“Hell’s below, but getting a straight answer out of you is practically a matter of eschatological significance. Tell me, honestly, what are you doing here?”
“I prefer to think of myself as a being of some circumspection.”
“Yes, well, everyone else thinks of you as a being who is full of it. You still haven’t answered me.”
He smiled, anticipating her forthcoming reaction. “No, it’s true, I have abandoned it. Looking for him, anyhow. Of course, that’s mostly because I found him. I’m still working on the latter half of the equation.”
“You found him?” She gasped, her lovely eyes widening with momentary excitement, before they darkened. She shook her head despairingly. “Oh, Puck. Didn’t you learn anything from last time? No, I suppose not. You didn’t enjoy a decade’s worth of close personal attention from the Sons of Sorrow.”
“Yes, I generally prefer to avoid such experiences.”
“I didn’t have a choice, and you know it. So, do you know what they’ve made of me now? A temptress, and a disgraced one at that. That’s how low I have fallen!”
“I have always admired fallen women,” Robin said, drawing a brief flicker of amusement from the emerald eyes.
“You should be in the Pit!”
“I fear the remnants of my better judgment sufficed to save me from that sad fate.”
“Yes, well, I should have exercised better judgment when you came begging us to dethrone Maomoondagh on behalf of your master.”
He shook his head, but responded gently. He knew on whose behalf she spoke so bitterly. “Don’t be silly, Melusine. You leaped at the opportunity. So did he. We all did. It was a risk worth taking. We failed, but even so, I cannot say that I regret it.”
Because you are still here to do so! Anger flushed her pallid face. Even bereft of her glorious mane, she was beautiful still, and Robin felt a pang of the old jealousy, knowing that he could never compare with the memory of her magnificent, long-banished love. The more so because her darling Raimon had fallen before the wicked blade of Merovael himself when his rebellious hand was forced too soon by an untimely betrayal.
“He will return one day, Melusine, if he has not already.”
“Yes, of course, but as what? The guardian spirit of a tree stump? The tempter of a Hindu child living somewhere in the deepest jungles of the subcontinent? He will not know me, nor I him! I’ve seen what happens to them, Puck, to those who finally finish the long road back. They know nothing of who they are, their memories are blank, as empty as the void itself! It’s true! Why, do you know, one of the tempters of my charge’s family was once a member of the Sarim!”
“What?” Robin was truly surprised. He’d never heard of such a thing. “He must be lying! Perhaps he’s trying to impress you?”
“Not at all! I was there when he called out Lord Kaym! He had once been an angel-prince, but when I met him he was a dryad calling himself Bog-something or other! He couldn’t even remember his name!”
“Which was?”
“Prince Jehuel,” Melusine said, and Robin blinked, feeling rather as if he’d been hit with a face with the side of a broadsword. Fortunately, Melusine was too consumed with her angry diatribe to notice that her audience was standing slack-jawed in astonishment. Jehuel was here? Jehuel was here! Robin fought the sudden urge to throw his arms around his old friend and cackle madly with glee. Jehuel, the Lord of the Sword his own bad self, was actually lurking about this civilization-forsaken charade of a jumped-up farm town! Hellfire and hallelujah!
“The shame, the shame of it,” Robin clucked and shook his head sympathetically, though at what, he was not sure since he hadn’t heard a word she said since the beautiful name of Jehuel had passed her lips. He was tempted to make a clean breast of it and ask Melusine for her help, when the back door burst open and a giant brute of ill visage appeared in the doorframe.
Illuminated as he was from behind, Robin couldn’t actually see his face, but judging from the multiple large protrusions that stuck out of the general region of the elongated shadow’s face, Robin doubted the interloper would be winning any beauty contests. The demon paused for a moment, then roared over his shoulder at someone behind him. Robin groaned. The timing could not have been worse.
“Say, Melusine, it’s been delightfully wonderful to see you again and I’m ever so tremendously sorry, but I need to vacate the premises—right now.”
“What?” She didn’t have the chance to say more as he shoved her to the ground and leaped into the sky, unfurling his wings as he rose.
“Where can I find you?” he shouted, darting at the demons—there were two of them—then spinning up and away. At all costs, he had to lead them away from Melusine before she tried to aid him. He wasn’t sure, but they looked like Nazkachi, mercenary trackers who were more than capable of dealing with those they tracked down.
“The Lewis house. In Mounds Park.”
Wherever that was. Well, first things first. He’d find it later, assuming there was a later. At the moment, there was the small, if rather pressing matter of losing this pair of unsightly brutes, who were showing a rather disturbing turn of speed as they pursued him, and losing
them in such a way that they would not be in any shape to investigate just what might happen to be of interest at the intriguing Lewis house in Mounds View.
He heard a hissing noise behind him and banked left. Just in time, too, as something very hot warmed the bottoms of his feet as it passed behind him. Glancing back, he saw the second demon’s jaws open, spitting out another ball of supernaturally heated flame. Flamethrowing Nazkachi, how perfectly fascinating! Not for the first time, he was glad that the first thing he did in any new city was find a place or two to leave unwanted companions behind, unfortunately, at the rate they were gaining, he was never going to make it.
Necessity is the mother of invention. After one more jet of hellfire nearly scalded his shoulder, he tucked his wings and rolled sideways, then hurled two daggers at his pursuers. One was forced to roll and drop, buying him a little space, but the other simply caught the blade, palm-first, and grinned savagely at him before belching out another roaring mini-inferno. Hades and tarnation, so much for fighting it out! The Nazkachi didn’t seem too worried about harming him, which was good to know. Either Maomoondagh had already found Oberon, or the Mad One simply wanted him out of the picture for good….
Robin ducked under a huge, evil-looking sword that was intended to behead him, then slid sideways. It was a dangerous move, but he was desperate now. He was trapped between them, with the second Nazkach coming in hard from behind.
His timing was flawless. Just as he slipped to the left, the approaching brute let fly with a prodigious flame that took his monstrous companion right in the face. Robin didn’t look back; every second counted now and the screaming stopped sooner than he would have imagined. They were powerfully strong, these brutes.
He reached the church parking lot in the nick of time, dropping under a gout of flame so hot it seemed to melt the air as it flew past him. He winked at the big, armored guardian, who watched with an expression of curiosity that turned to shock as Robin crossed the boundary line and flashed past him. Robin didn’t slow down, but the familiar crackle of swordfire was followed almost immediately by a demonic snarl.
