Angels on Fire

by Nancy A. Collins

  “Shut up!” Lucy said angrily. “I know what you’re trying to do! But it’s not going to work!” She clamped her hands over her ears and screwed her eyes shut. “I’m not listening to you! See? I’m not listening!” She wagged her head back and forth, chanting stridently: “La-La-La! I’m not listening! La-La-La!” Two seconds later she opened her eyes and looked around to find Meresin gone, although the guy stocking the meat-case was now looking at her as if she was

  certifiable. Blushing bright red, Lucy hurried to the register with her purchases.

  Later, as she walked back to her apartment building, she couldn’t help but reflect upon what Meresin had said. She really hadn’t given why she was doing so much to help Joth too much thought. Granted, she didn’t really have any precedents for what to do in situations involving daemons and angels popping in and out of her living room, but one thing was for certain: she had done more to help and protect Joth than she had for anyone else in her life, including her own mother.

  She had repeatedly placed her physical and spiritual well-being on the line for someone—some thing, really—she had known for less than a week. And she had done so even though Joth had been instrumental in costing her a job, a shot at the big time art world, and, once the super got a gander at what was left of the bedroom window, her lease as well. And for what? It was not as if she and Joth had spent long afternoons over wine and picnic lunches, getting to know one another. So what exactly did she feel for Joth? She was still mulling these things over in her mind as she walked through the door of her apartment.

  Ezrael looked up as she returned. “That was quick.”

  “Not many shoppers out before noon in this neighborhood,” she grunted in reply as she escorted the groceries into the kitchen.

  Ezrael walked in behind her and watched as she busied herself with putting away the groceries. “You didn’t run into anyone while you were out, did you?” he asked pointedly.

  She paused for a second, deliberating on whether she should tell him about Meresin, then shook her head. “No,” she replied, a little more sharply than she meant to. “Like I said— it’s too early for anyone I know to be up and about.”

  “Just asking, that’s all.”

  “Sorry I snapped at you, Ez. I’m just kind of—you know—stressed right now.” She turned to give the muse a worried look.”Ez—do you think Joth will stay?”

  The Muse shrugged. “It’s impossible to say. But from what I’ve seen—I’d say it’s very likely.”

  “But—it has to be Joth’s idea to stay, right?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. It can’t be coerced or threatened or told what to do in any way. It has to make the decision to become mortal on its own.”

  Lucy bit her lip. “Ez—how likely is it Joth will end up being, uh, male—?”

  Ezrael sighed and smoothed back his white hair. “I’d say fifty-fifty—just like most children before they’re born. Lucy, there is a reason I always refer to Joth as an ‘it.’ That is so I do not prejudice myself—or you—as to what it might finally become. The fewer presumptions either of us make, the easier it is to accept what ultimately happens. Still, I suppose it’s only human nature to assign a gender to something. You have persistently thought of and referred to Joth as ‘he’ from the very beginning, but that may turn out to not be the case. I told you what happened to me— Miletus believed me to be a female, but when I became a mortal, my gender came as a great shock to him—one that took a great deal of soul-searching on his part before he could accept me for what I truly was. Lucy—are you prepared to accept Joth should it prove to be of the same sex as yourself?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she admitted, staring at her feet. “I’ve tried not to think about that—I keep telling myself it’s like having a baby. I don’t care what sex it is, as long as it’s healthy. But I can’t deny the fact that it does matter to me.”

  Ezrael smiled sympathetically and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I cannot speak for you, Lucy. Only you can look into your heart and see what is there. But I beg you—if you find that you cannot accept Joth, come what may, do not interfere when the time comes for it to make its decision. The dangers are twofold—first, it might take anything you say or do as a command and act on it, and not rely on its own thoughts and feelings. The result would be the same as if it Meresin claimed it. The second danger is that there is nothing worse than to be born into a world without comfort. Muses who are abandoned at birth can be easily corrupted. Not all become like the abbot who was so kind to me in my time of need. Some become devils in their own right—their souls twisted by the cruelty of being cast upon the cold and lonely shore of mortal existence without guidance or succor. All I ask you is not to be like Dr. Frankenstein, and turn your back on a creature you helped create, simply because its ultimate appearance is not to your liking.”

  “Look, that’s a lot of responsibility you’re laying on me!” she protested.

  “Joth isn’t a stray puppy you picked up off the street!” Ezrael said sternly. “Should its Fall render it mortal, it will enter into the world with the body and appearance of a grown adult, but in many ways it will be as helpless as a baby. Once severed from the Clockwork, its ties to all of Creation will be no more. It will know only one language and be ignorant of the mechanics of eating and drinking—even wiping its ass! It will fall to you to school it in the finer points of being human—to know love and fear and hate.”

  “I don’t know if I’m capable of handling something like that! I mean, I don’t even have a cat!” Lucy protested, trying hard to control the panic blossoming in her guts. “Hell, every potted plant I’ve ever owned died because I forgot to water it! And how am I supposed to clothe and house and feed him—I mean, ‘it’—? I don’t even have a job!”

  “As I said—there is much you need to think about before the time comes. I don’t mean to frighten or upset you—I just want you to understand that a decision such as this cannot be made lightly! But while you contemplate these things, you also must ask yourself: do you wish to see Joth lost to the Machine?”

  “No! Of course not!” she replied indignantly. “It’s just that I don’t know if I can handle the responsibility of taking care of him! I—I wasn’t even willing to take care of my own mother, for the love of God! Maybe it would be better if Joth went back with Nisroc?”

  “Perhaps. But that is Joth’s decision to make, not yours.”

  She glanced at where the angel sat cross-legged on the floor, still preoccupied with her mother’s jigsaws. She realized then, that for all its peculiarities, there was a gentleness and innate sweetness to the angel’s nature that touched her on some basic level that went beyond words and reason..

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she sighed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ezrael was once more crashed out on the sofa, snoring lightly as Lucy stood at the windowsill, nursing a cup of coffee. At her feet, Joth was busily reassembling the Monet jigsaw for the fifth time.

  As soon as the angel completed one puzzle and moved onto the next, Lucy would quickly disassemble the one it had just finished. Joth did not seem upset to discover all its hard work had been ruined, it did not complain or swear or give her a dirty look when she broke apart the pictures and scrambled the pieces around. It simply resumed putting the puzzle back together again. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so creepy—kind of like a cross between watching a Charlie Chaplin film and an autistic child at play.

  She glanced at her watch. It would be dark soon. Midnight was four hours away. Which meant she had another four hours of watching Joth assemble and reassemble jigsaws, blithely unaware that its fate was looming before it. She wondered if this was what was meant by the phrase ‘happy as a clam.’ In a way, she envied Joth its ability to exist only in the Now. God knows worrying about the immediate future—not to mention a near-constant flow of strong coffee—was tying her stomach into knots.

  The sunlight fell across the curve of the angel’s
back as it bent over its work, illuminating the web of muscle and flesh that joined wing to shoulder blade. She watched the muscles and tendons bunch and relax as Joth worked, unaware of her gaze. She was suddenly overcome with love for this creature—this being not truly angel, not yet devil. She realized, perhaps for the first time, that the affection she felt was not for the thing itself, but the potential human held within it like a seed.

  “Joth—?”

  The angel looked up from what it was doing. Even with its darkened eyes, there was a disarming openness to its gaze. She could tell it wasn’t simply listening to what she was saying, it was focusing every atom of its attention on her and her alone.

  Go ahead, tell him to stay, her brain whispered. He’ll do exactly what you tell him to do. You’ve been looking your whole life for someone who adores you, inspires you, excites you, and needs you. You can’t lose him now that you’ve found him. Tell him to stay.

  Joth continued to look up at her with a patient expression on its face, waiting for her to speak. It would be so easy for her to sway the angel to her will, because it had none of its own. It was a heady feeling, knowing that she could tell Joth to do anything, and it would obey her without question. But what right did she have to do such a thing? Joth wasn’t a dog that she could treat as chattel. Yet neither was it a free thing—it was powered by instinct and reacted to stimuli, like a hound tracking a fox through the woods. It knew all things, yet it was not wise. It did not possess a distinct personality of its own—at least not in the way Ezrael or even Meresin did—yet Joth trusted her, believed in her, and cared for her as best it understood the concept.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Never mind; go back to what you were doing, Joth.”

  “Who wants Chinese food?” Ezrael asked. “My treat!”

  Lucy was seated on the sofa, a pad of paper propped against her knee, staring intensely at Joth while she sketched with a piece of charcoal.

  Ezrael cleared his throat. “Lucy? Did you hear what I said?”

  She started as if woken from a daydream. “Hm? Oh—no thanks, Ez. I’m not hungry.”

  “Lucy—you really must eat,” he chided gently. “You need to keep up your strength! Nisroc will be here soon—you’ll need a clear head once it arrives.”

  “I’m really not hungry, Ez.”

  “I’m ordering you pork dumplings, anyway.”

  Lucy grunted and returned to her sketching. She didn’t mean to be rude to Ezrael. The Muse had been a good friend—better than any she had known since arriving in New York—but this was the only way she knew how to deal with the stress she was experiencing. She was under so much pressure it felt like she was on the bottom of the ocean. Anxiety wasn’t the only thing fueling her desire to sketch the angel kneeling before her. Her biggest fear, out of all those jostling for control, was that, in the end, she would eventually forget everything that had happened.

  Ezrael had warned her that if Joth returned to the Clockwork with Nisroc or fell to the Machine, the angel’s existence on earth would be erased from the minds of anyone who had met it. That meant she could simply go to sleep and wake up without any memory of what had happened over the last few days. All the miracles, and all the horrors, she had witnessed would be swept away, like a sidewalk chalk drawing after a hard rain. The thought of losing the most amazing experiences of her life scared her even more than the prospect of Joth turning into a daemon. But maybe, just maybe, if she tried to capture the angel’s likeness on paper, something could be salvaged.

  It had been a while since she she’d last sketched anyone. Time was money in New York, and, like cash, was often scarce in her household. That was why she’d started to focus on photography—it took a lot less time to snap a picture than it did to sketch and paint a subject. But a camera was too impersonal for what she needed. She didn’t want merely to capture the angel’s outward physical appearance, but its inner self as well.

  It seemed so horribly unfair: to walk and leave no footsteps; to enter people’s lives, yet register no memories. Even the lowliest of single-celled creatures, in time, were immortalized in fossil beds. Why not angels?

  Forty-five minutes later, there came a knock on the door. “Ez! Your food’s here!” Lucy shouted from her place on the sofa.

  “Could you get that for me—?” he yelled back, his voice muffled. “I’m in the john!”

  Lucy put aside her sketch pad and got up to open the door without first checking the spy-hole. Instead of the usual delivery man from the Five Happiness, she found Meresin standing in the hallway, holding a large paper sack.

  “I ran into the delivery boy in the lobby,” he smiled by way of explanation. “You owe me thirteen-fifty plus tip.”

  Ezrael emerged from the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel. “How much does the bill come to—?” The Muse froze at the sight of the Machinist standing at the door. “What’s he doing here?” he demanded angrily.

  “You owe him thirteen-fifty plus tip,” Lucy replied.

  Meresin held up his hands as he stepped into the apartment. “Please! I’m merely doing my job! Believe me when I tell you, my friend, I hold no animosity towards either you or Ms. Bender.”

  “Stop calling me ‘friend’!” Ezrael spat. “You don’t fool me, daemon! You’re trying to ensure Joth’s fall to the Machine by manipulating the woman’s doubts!”

  “No more than you are, my friend!”

  “I said stop calling me that!” Ezrael shouted, diving at the sephirah.

  The daemon and the Muse dropped to the floor, struggling like second graders in a schoolyard brawl. The combatants rolled out of the foyer and into the living room and past Joth, who was still seated on the floor, blithely assembling a picture of kittens in a wicker basket. The angel did not appear to notice them, even though their flailing about destroyed a just-finished New England landscape complete with covered bridge. Joth merely tilted its head to one side and began retrieving the scattered pieces.

  Ezrael’s hands glowed with blue-white electricity as he clawed at Meresin’s face and throat. The daemon’s eyes flashed darkly, but did not abandon its human form as it struggled to break free of the Muse’s stranglehold. Meresin’s hands pulsed with black energy as he grabbed Ezrael by the throat. The Muse shrieked in agony, but did not loosen his own death grip on his foe.

  “Let go, damn you!” growled Meresin. “This is madness! You’re no match for me, Muse!”

  “I’ve been waiting for a thousand years to get my hands around your neck, daemon!” Ezrael replied between gritted teeth. “You took Miletus from me—and I’ll die before I let you take the elohim!”

  Whatever reply the daemon might have made was cut short by a pail of cold water. The two combatants looked up, more stunned than angry, to see Lucy standing over them, holding a dripping mop bucket in her hands, a look of genuine outrage on her face.

  “Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop this insanity right this minute! This is my apartment, damn it! And I don’t care if you’re Batman and the fuckin’ Joker! While you’re in my house, you’re going to act like sane human beings—whether you are or not! Have I made myself clear?”

  “Y-yes, ma’am,” stammered Meresin.

  “That goes for you, too, Ez,” she warned, pointing a finger at the soaked muse. “How stupid do you think I am? So what if Meresin is trying to tempt me into telling Joth what to do? I know that’s what he wants me to do, so I’m not going to do it! But I’m not going to be influenced by you, either! You want Joth to stay. You might even want it more than I do. We all have reasons for trying to influence the outcome—but like you said, it’s all up to Joth.”

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. You’re right—it was exceptionally rude of me to conduct myself in such a manner in your home,” Ezrael said contritely.

  “Good. I’m glad we got that cleared up. Now, pay Rosemary’s Baby here his fuckin’ thirteen-fifty plus tax and tip and kick his forked butt outta my house!” Lucy suddenly froze as a breeze lifted her bangs. “Wait
a minute—do you guys feel a draft—?”

  Ezrael’s eyes widened in alarm as the smell of ozone grew heavy in the room and a wind from nowhere began to blow. “Lucy—what time is it?”

  Lucy glanced at her wristwatch. “Straight up midnight,” she whispered.

  The wind between the worlds increased, snatching up the jigsaw pieces scattered across the floor and swirling them about like a dust devil. Joth watched the puzzle pieces dance over its head, entranced by the patterns visible within the chaos.

  Meresin seemed to dwindle within his suit, like a turtle trying to pull itself inside its shell—or a rattlesnake coiling to strike. The sephirah’s eyes jerked wildly in their orbits as the he tried to figure a way out of the trap it suddenly found itself in.

  There was a flash of bright light and the wind from nowhere ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Nisroc of the seraphim, Lord Shepherd of the Sojourners, stood revealed in the middle of the room, its ever-present watcher, Preil, buzzing about its blazing shoulders. Upon catching sight of Meresin, Preil’s pupil dilated wide. Its optic tentacles snapped and writhed, sending out a shower of sparks.

  “What manner of trickery is this?” snarled Nisroc, gesturing at the daemon. “You dare to lay a trap?! ?”

  “N-no, that’s not what’s happening here!” Lucy stammered. “You don’t understand—”

  “I shall not tolerate such an Abomination in my sight! Get thee hence, foul tempter!” The seraph gestured with one brass-shod claw, and a ball of fire miraculously appeared in its hand. Meresin shrieked like a frightened alley cat and turned to flee, but it was too slow. Nisroc hurled the fireball, striking the daemon between the shoulders, and covering him in fire. Meresin screamed and began frantically slapping at its arms and head as its human aspect melted away, revealing the Infernal at its core.