by Marcus Wynne
Lucifer reached as though to stroke his chin, came short because of the chains.
“Perhaps not this time,” he said. “Perhaps Otto will walk away with a reward. Otto? Would you like the woman? A bit damaged goods, I’m afraid, but perhaps you can put her right. So to speak. Would you?”
Otto trembled. Was silent. Could not meet my eye.
“Ah,” Lucifer said. “The humiliation of the strong made slave. Something he should be used to by now. You would think, wouldn’t you? How about you, Marius? Are you ready to be made slave? I have so much you could do around the place . . .”
Otto.
I raised the Sword. “He’ll be freed either way, Lucifer. You cannot bind the Sword. Nor me. Not while I draw breath and the Sword has Light.”
I advanced on Otto. “I’m sorry, my friend.”
“As am I,” Otto said. “I am so sorry. No matter. If it is meant for me to win this day, I will see Jolene released and returned. I swear this.”
“Be silent, slave,” Lucifer said. “You can promise nothing. Do as you are told.”
“You promised me!” Otto shouted. “And I hold you to that!”
Lucifer smiled and licked his lips as though savoring a particularly tasty treat. “Oh, well, there is that. First you must defeat the Sword Bearer . . . Champion. And of course you’ll have your reward. I promise.”
Hatred and rage in Otto’s eyes. His scar pulsed with his heartbeat. He turned towards me, raised his sword in the classic salute. “On guard, my friend. May this unfold as it is meant to.”
I raised my Sword and he lunged forward. I parried in fourth and ducked aside wishing for an additional foot on the end of my blade—which immediately appeared.
“That’s useful,” I said.
And I prayed silently that the hand of Michael guide his Sword as I crossed blades with Lucifer’s Champion, my friend and ally, Otto Skorzeny.
And our blades went snicker-snack, snicker-snack. Lunge, riposte, beat, parry, cut, back to en garde, repeat as needed; Otto was by far the more experienced fencer, and the blade of Satan had an energy of its own, the red fire against the blue light, but my hand was guided by something, someone much larger than myself, whose wisdom and guidance and experience and love flowed through me, quenching the rage that had roiled in my heart, rage at the twisting of a good man. The lesson was burned into my soul; the only way to defeat the Dark Forces was to keep love and Light in one’s heart always, to move through the rage and the anger to the still, white, calm space within, where a hand much greater than ours would wield the weapon without passion, without hatred, without anger. As the blades whirled around us, a ring of steel, a mesh of razor edges and needle points, it was as though there were a movie overlaid over us, images of lives past . . .
Otto giving a briefing in his Wehrmacht uniform, me in an American paratrooper uniform listening intently . . .
. . . the edges bound as he beat the blade and lunged at my face, narrowly missing it as I ducked and back-cut at his hand . . .
. . . the two of us beneath the Eagle of an Imperial Legion, marching through the hinterlands of the Empire . . .
. . . and Otto enraged, hammering with both hands like an ax down on my upraised Sword, for I would not bring the Shield into play despite Jolene’s pleadings . . .
. . . the two of us in frontiersman’s garb, accompanied by an Indian warrior band, stealing alongside a red-clad British detachment, somewhere in the American wilderness . . .
. . . and an unexpected kick to the chest, not enough that he be good with the steel but deadly with the integration of blade and hand and foot at close quarters, far better than me, Marius, but it wasn’t me, Marius, in this fight it was the . . .
. . . two of us in vinyasas, speeding over the land, and raining fire down on the assembled troops on the plains below us . . .
“MIIII-KAI-ELLLL!” I shouted.
The Sword gleamed with blue fire and hammered on Satan’s blade, knocking Otto to his knees. I returned his kick with one of my own, straight under his blade and into his chest, knocking him back, stumbling and tripping—and then I held my blade high . . .
“Otto! Fight him . . .” I said.
He scrambled back to his feet. “I cannot. I cannot. He holds what I hold dear. As he does with you. I’m sorry, Marius . . .”
He charged me, changing his fencing style to a whirling scythelike approach of figure eights, hacking and hacking at me. I ducked to one side, slapped at his blade and thrust into his side, felt the Sword cut into meat, searing with its blue light.
“Aahhh!” Otto shouted. He slashed, bashed the Sword away, slashed at my inner arm, nicking me and drawing red blood, human blood, that ran down my arm and spattered across the black floor. My wound closed and, for a moment, a part of me exulted that, man, I was just like Wolverine.
Never get cocky when you’re fighting the Champion of Belial, especially when it’s Otto Skorzeny, one of the modern masters of Special Operations and deception.
He hesitated as though injured far worse than he was, and then back-cut impossibly fast with his edge. I ducked, lunged forward, watched him dance back and beat my blade down and come in the high line, aiming for my collarbone with a lunge designed to pierce my subclavian artery. I felt the tip touch me, stumbled back, and fell.
Flat on my ass.
Otto didn’t hesitate. He stomped in and pressed the tip of Satan’s sword directly against my neck; the length of it gleamed with fire barely contained, lit his eyes with red highlights.
“Otto,” I said. “Fight him. Fight it down. You can do this . . . of anyone, only you . . . you can do this.”
He stared at me.
Lucifer/Belial’s laughter pealed throughout the chamber. “Oh, how elegant! My Champion, pinning my brother’s Champion, and the appeal to his higher nature . . . how perfect! Marius, you missed your calling. You should have been an author of penny romances, a writer of soap operas, something of that sort. How dramatic! Is this the denouement? Do tell!”
“Otto,” I said. “You must do this. Only you can. Together, we can find those he holds . . . we can free them . . . but you must be the one who fights free. I cannot do it for you . . .”
“Why?” Otto shouted. “Why? You help everyone else, why not me? Why can you not do it for me?”
“Free will, brother,” I whispered. “You must choose, or unchoose. I cannot do it for you.”
His hands trembled. His face was drawn in the fierce Teutonic visage of the Odinic warrior. Ready to thrust.
“I’m sorry, Marius. It is my nature. I have to . . .”
I knocked his sword aside and rolled clear, came up with the Sword ready. “No worries, Otto. I know what it’s like to be a slave to my nature.”
There was no hesitation, for the Sword had a mind and a life of its own. Steady pressure, constantly banging and cutting, pressing Otto back all the way to the dais, his back pressed against the metal. I lunged and when he ducked his head, as I knew he would, I flipped the blade and slapped him hard with the flat, stunning him just long enough for me to round-kick his knee and yank him to the ground, lever the sword of Satan out of his hand, and now we were reversed. He was pinned, and I held my Sword and his, one to his neck and one to his chest.
“It’s one of the Great Lies, Otto,” I said. “The Lies of Belial, Lucifer, Father of Lies. The Lie that you can never undo the covenant he forces on you. That the contract is irrevocable. That’s the Lie, Otto. He cannot bind you. He tries. But he cannot. What he holds of you can be released. Can be set free. And you can be the instrument of your own freedom. Remember when you entered my house, Otto? I asked you. And you said you were of the Light. You would not have been able to enter were you not. The Light of the Son of the Light that is Lucifer is Dark. And you are not. You are of the Light.”
I leaned on the blade and stared him right in the eye. “Choose.”
“I cannot. I cannot,” Otto choked out.
I waited. I stared. Even L
ucifer was silent.
“Yes,” I said. “I see that you cannot. And I cannot make that choice for you. So I must take your life.”
“Yes,” Otto said. “You must. I am sorry, Marius.”
“So am I, Otto.”
I leaned on the blade.
Then lifted it and stepped back. “Get up.”
“What? You cannot, Marius! You must finish me!”
“Ah, I don’t think so. Get up.”
Otto scrambled to his feet.
Lucifer bellowed. “FINISH HIM!”
“You don’t give me orders, Lucy.” I handed Otto the sword of Satan.
“We can either go on with this or you can join me, Otto. Together, we can do this.”
He held the sword, looked up at Lucifer looming above him.
“Remember who I hold!” Lucifer-Belial shouted.
“I do,” Otto said. He turned to me. “I choose the Light of the One.”
“That’s all I needed to hear, brother,” I said.
I raised the Sword. “I call upon the full Power of the Mighty General of the Lord’s Host, MIIII-KAI-ELLLL!”
A blue blast of light, the heart of the sun made even more brilliant, burned inside the chamber.
White Light poured out of my chest, and there in the chamber was the likeness of the Mighty Archangel, illuminated within and without, Michael, standing before his bound brother—
—Lucifer screamed in rage—
—Hitler curled up in a ball—
—the chains binding Jolene, Tigre, Burt, First In Front exploded into blue sparks.
I grabbed the blinded Jolene by her hand, the Shield slung over my shoulder, Tigre knelt and we all leaped on her back.
“Get us out of here, Tigre,” I shouted.
The Archangel Michael stood between us and his bound brother. Blasts of atomic red and blue between them.
Tigre bounded down the long passageway to the doors.
“Marius, the . . .” she began.
“Doors?” I pointed the Sword and the bolt of blue lightning that came from above shattered the doors and Tigre sprang through the rubble of the collapsed doors.
Inside, there were brilliant flashes of blue and red, red and blue, and parts of the tunnel collapsed, hiding that within from those of us without.
Dust settled, though the rock itself pulsed with the fury exchanged inside.
“He is still bound,” Otto said.
“Yes,” I said. “And still Lord of this Dominion. So we need to call on some help . . .”
I knelt. I held the Shield in one hand, the Sword in the other. Otto led the blind Jolene to the Shield, where she grasped it with one hand, and Otto held the other. Tigre leaned against the German, and First In Front grasped her shoulder in one hand and held out the other for Burt to perch on; he spread his wing to touch my shoulder.
We were in Circle.
“I call on you, Father, Mother, Creator God, Great Spirit, Holy Spirit, Goddess . . . I call on you, Jesus the Christ, Light of the Creator Made Flesh, and I call on You, Mother Mary, Queen of the Angels, First Among Healers, and I call on the Mighty Archangels of the Presence, Raphael, Archangel of Healing, Uriel, Archangel of Fire, Gabriel, Archangel of the Call, and Michael, Archangel of Protection, I call on you and I ask for your help on behalf of your beloved daughter, Jolene, I ask that she be joined once again and be made whole in accordance with your Divine Plan, that she be healed, and that all of those who have traveled this road in Service to the Light of Creator God be healed and made whole . . .”
And the most brilliant Light of all descended around us, filled us and infused us with gleaming golden Light, and as the Light filled me from the inside out, till all that was Marius Winter dissolved into the Light, I heard Burt say in his definitive Brooklynese: “Lucy, I’m home! And you’re in big trouble. . . .”
As we all dissolved into the Light and the laughter, I saw Him grinning at me, waving for me to follow him as I always have.
“C’mon, Marius,” Jesus said. “Time to go home.”
CHAPTER 33
I opened my eyes. I was on the floor of my healing room. I sat up. The wand I’d carved was in my hand. There were burn marks on it I didn’t remember making. Jolene was on the healing table. Sleeping on the floor beside her were Dillon and Sabrina. Curled up in one corner was my Tigre, fully restored and unharmed. Burt rested on her shoulder. First In Front was laid out full length, his head propped up on Tigre’s haunch.
Otto stood guard at the door.
We studied each other.
The others stirred.
Otto held one huge finger to his lips, and shook his head no.
I went to Jolene’s side. Her face looked calm and beautiful and rested. There was a shock of gray in her red hair. She opened her eyes.
“Hello, beloved,” she whispered.
I hugged her. I held her. I loved her.
* * *
Bella Italia had reserved the back room for us. We were a boisterous party; we were loud, proud, and out of control. The bar tab alone would probably cause the Inspector General of Homeland Security some fits when Otto submitted his credit card voucher.
“I don’t understand why I don’t remember,” Jolene said. “When I journey on it, there’s . . . nothing. Like a black road, but nothing on it. I’ve never experienced that before.”
She’d kept the gray streak in her hair.
Dillon and Sabrina exchanged glances, said nothing.
Otto looked to one side and grinned.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the flash of a white tiger’s tail disappearing around the corner to the ladies room. A man at a nearby table looked up: First In Front in an expensive business suit with no tie, a cowboy hat parked on the table. Tap-tap-tap at the window and there was a crow from Brooklyn . . .
All my loved ones.
All of them home.
Home again, home again, home again home.
“There’re some stories to tell, I’m sure,” Dillon said.
“I don’t know,” Sabrina said. “You know what they say.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“What happens in Hell, stays in Hell.”
After the laughter, Otto and I stared at each other, till the others noticed and fell silent.
“I’m thinking there’s an unfinished part of the story,” I said, “but I’ll leave it be. For now.”
Otto nodded once. “Yes, my friend. For another time.”
