by Paula Guran
Paula Guran is the senior editor of Prime Books and edits the annual Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror anthology series. Her previous anthologies include Embraces; Best New Paranormal Romance; Zombies: The Recent Dead; Vampires: The Recent Undead; New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird, Halloween, Brave New Love, Witches: Wicked, Wild and Wonderful, Obsession, Extreme Zombies, Rock On: The Greatest Hits of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Ghosts: Recent Hauntings, Season of Wonder, Future Games and Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations. She edited the Juno Books fantasy imprint for six years from its incarnation in small press and then for Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books. Guran has been honoured with two Bram Stoker Awards and two World Fantasy Award nominations.
Recent Mammoth titles
The Mammoth Book of Weird News
The Mammoth Book of Antarctic Journeys
The Mammoth Book of Muhammad Ali
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9
The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies
The Mammoth Book of Lost Symbols
The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF
The Mammoth Book of Body Horror
The Mammoth Book of Steampunk
The Mammoth Book of New CSI
The Mammoth Book of Gangs
The Mammoth Book of SF Wars
The Mammoth Book of One-Liners
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance
The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25
The Mammoth Book of Jokes 2
The Mammoth Book of Horror 23
The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies
The Mammoth Book of Street Art
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 11
The Mammoth Book of Irish Humour
The Mammoth Book of Unexplained Phenomena
The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10
The Mammoth Book of Combat
The Mammoth Book of New Sudoku
The Mammoth Book of Quick and Dirty Erotica
The Mammoth Book of Dark Magic
The Mammoth Book of Zombies!
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
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First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013
Copyright © Paula Guran, 2013 (unless otherwise stated)
The right of Paula Guran to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication
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UK ISBN: 978-1-78033-799-9 (paperback)
UK ISBN: 978-1-78033-800-2 (ebook)
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First published in the United States in 2013 by Running Press Book Publishers, A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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US ISBN: 978-0-7624-4937-8
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For John Shirley,
a man who knows both angels and demons.
Contents
Introduction: Things Are Complicated Paula Guran
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Suzy McKee Charnas
Stackalee Norman Partridge
Bed and Breakfast Gene Wolfe
Frumpy Little Beat Girl Peter Atkins
The Night of White Bhairab Lucius Shepard
. . . And the Angel With Television Eyes John Shirley
Lost Souls Clive Barker
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel Peter S. Beagle
Demon Joyce Carol Oates
Alabaster Caitlín R. Kiernan
Sanji’s Demon Richard Parks
Oh Glorious Sight Tanya Huff
Angel Pat Cadigan
The Man Who Stole the Moon Tanith Lee
The Big Sky Charles de Lint
Elegy for a Demon Lover Sarah Monette
And the Angels Sing Kate Wilhelm
The Goat Cutter Jay Lake
Spirit Guides Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Demons, Your Body, and You Genevieve Valentine
The Monsters of Heaven Nathan Ballingrud
Come to Me Sam Cameron
One Saturday Night, with Angel Peter M. Ball
Lammas Night Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Pinion Stellan Thorne
Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark George R. R. Martin
Murder Mysteries Neil Gaiman
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Things Are Complicated
Paula Guran
Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things are clearly more complicated.
– Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
The combination of the angelic with the demonic is not a pairing of opposites: angels fall and demons sometimes seek redemption. Despite Western religion’s tendency to define the one as purely “good” and the other as completely “evil”, other religions, mythologies, traditions and folklore do not always hold fast to that dichotomy. Today, humankind’s fascination – even belief, as numerous polls substantiate – in these supernatural entities remains as strong or stronger than ever. Of course, modern ideations of what angels and demons are may be totally secular, indifferent to established religion, or vaguely based on past traditions and embroidered with more recent notions.
Storytellers, like the imaginative and talented ones assembled here, often provide us with new ways of looking at old concepts or devise entirely new visions of demons and angels. Their ideas are sometimes spurred by the concept of good versus evil, but they often find the gray area between the two even more inspiring.
This is an anthology of speculative fiction, not an exploration of angelology or demonology. The stories will delight and provoke without any editorializing, but the more I discovered about angels and demons, the more I felt inclined to include at least a very basic overview here and provide additional tidbits of trivia in story introductions. Please feel free to ignore my non-fictional tangents and simply enjoy these fine tales of fantasy and science fiction solely without editorial intrusion.
Popular interest in both angels and demons – and related beings that dwell between Heaven and Hell – borders on the obsessive.
Current (Supernatural, Grimm, Once Upon a Time) and recent television series (the British series Demons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Touched By an Angel, Charmed, etc.) bring the angelic and the demonic right into one’s home. “Real” demons are encountered on paranormal investigation “reality” shows. CMT, a cable channel, presented Angels Among Us, with episodes featuring folks who felt they had been saved by an angel.
Demons are a mainstay of film (Possession, The Rite, M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil, Paranormal Activity, To the Devil a Daughter, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, The Witches of Eastwick, Hellraiser, Wishmaster, The Devil’s Advocate, The Ninth Gate, End of Days, Hellboy, etc.), gaming (Diablo, Doom, World of Warcraft, others) and comics.
Angels have entertained us on the silver screen from the 1940s (Here Comes Mr Jordan, It’s a Wonderful Life, Stairway to Heaven, Heaven Only Knows, etc.) through the eighties and nineties (Date With an Angel, Ghost, Angels in the Outfield, The Prophecy, City of Angels, What Dreams May Come, Michael, Wide Awake, Dogma, etc.) and into the current century (Down to Earth, Constantine, Legion). Angels appear on television (Touched by an Angel, Teen Angel, Fallen, Saving Grace, Highway to Heaven, and more), fly through video games (Sacred 2, Fallen Lords, Aion, Heaven, others) and comics as well.
Writers from Dante to C. S. Lewis to Stephen King have dealt fictionally with the devil or demons. This figure of many guises – adversary, trickster, rebel, tempter – has appeared in countless tales. Demons, like vampires before them, have even become romantic heroes and heroines, seductive enemies, and fascinating supporting characters in bestselling fantasy series from Kim Harrison, Richelle Mead, Kelley Armstrong and others.
In modern entertainment, demons and devils may be portrayed as forces of great supernatural evil: incorporeal, or taking benign human visage, or hideous form. They can be fallen angels . . . or not. They may torture the damned in the fires of Hell or connive to lead humans to sell their souls. Demons might be cute little red tricksters with horns and pitchforks. Or they are God’s foes who Jesus will defeat in the Battle of Armageddon. Some see the Devil and his demons as a path to power and magic. For others, demons are just difficult monsters to be defeated in role-playing and video games.
Angels – messengers, guardians, warriors; fearsome or friendly, sexy or innocent; godly or fallen – have ascended of late in bestselling fantasy literature: Anne Rice had a series of novels concerning angels. Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology was a New York Times bestseller in 2010 and a sequel is expected. Paranormal and urban fantasy series with angels in major and supporting roles include those by Cassandra Clare, Sharon Shinn, Faith Hunter, Nalini Singh and more.
Otherworldy aliens, fluffy-winged babies with haloes, spiritual guides, protectors, the foci of meditation – whether obvious or disguised as mere humans, many find comfort in a belief in angels that has no direct connect with traditional religion.
But whatever we believe or imagine demons and angels are, ancient myth and religion probably supplied at least part of our ideas.
Angels and demons – or their close equivalents – exist in many cultures and religions. These spiritual beings mediate between humans and the domain of the transcendent and holy or the realm of that which brings misfortune or opposes the holy. In Western religions, angels are seen as benevolent and demons as malevolent. But the roles of these intermediaries are not so clear-cut in Eastern religions and more ancient belief systems. They often can be both righteous and wicked and can switch roles as needed.
The ancient Greeks considered a daemon1 to be a spirit or demigod. Depending on the source and era, they played a number of roles – including that of a guardian spirit – but they could be either good or evil. Although we derive the English word demon from this Greek word, it came to mean a supernatural being that troubles, tempts, or brings woe (including illness and bad luck) to humankind. Sometimes the demon’s power could then be harnessed by a magician or summoned and controlled by sorcery.
The Jews were influenced by Egyptian, Chaldean and Persian beliefs in good and evil spirits. In the Hebrew Bible, there are two types of demons, the se’irim (“hairy beings”) and the shedim. The se’irim resembled goatish satyrs and were described as dancing in the wilderness. Sacrifices were offered to both and they seem to be more akin to the pre-Islamic jinn – a supernatural being that could be either good or bad – rather than evil demons. In popular lore, the early Hebrews may have seen demons as ungodly creatures from a netherworld, which either acted on their own or were ruled by a particular devil.
That demons or unclean spirits were thought to exist in Judea 2,000 years ago is borne out in the New Testament. According to the gospels, Jesus cast out many demons causing various afflictions. Some of the disciples cast out demons by uttering the Messiah’s name.
By the time the last books of the New Testament were written, demons were associated by Christians with “fallen angels” – followers of Satan/the Devil, an angel who rebelled against God and was cast out from heaven. (The Devil was also the serpent that convinced Eve to disobey God, and the tempter of Job and Jesus.) Satan’s intent was to lead mortals away from God; demons (or lowercase “devils”) assisted him in his goal.
Using the few references to demons and Satan in the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation – in which the ultimate battles between God and the Devil were envisioned – Christian theologians began postulating more complicated beliefs about the demonic.
Similarly, although not truly a part of Judaic theology, rabbis, Talmudists, and later medieval scholars – with the exception of Maimonides (1135–1204) and Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164) – accepted them as real. Rabbis eventually developed a classification of demons.
The Kabbalah – a mystical school of thought not taken seriously by most Jews but integral to Chasidic Judaism – has a vast demonology of its own. Under the influence of Kabbalah, popular belief in demons became widespread and even influenced Christian scholars constructing their own demonologies.
Although other mythologies and religions posit helpful guardian spirits and supernatural messengers from the gods, angels are specific to the three Abrahamic religions. Angels were mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but angelic mythology was greatly expanded between 530 BCE and 70 CE in non-biblical Judaic literature, particularly the Book of Enoch2 which includes an angel hierarchy, describes different types of angels and provides several with names. As with demons, the mystic Kabbalah also developed an influential angelology.
Islam views angels as beings who have no free will and only obey God. They praise God and ask forgiveness for humans. Angels act as messengers for God and perform other tasks. In Islamic tradition, Muslims have two recording angels – kirman katiban (“honourable scribes”) – named Raqib and Atid that note all of a person’s good or bad deeds.
Belief in angels is an article of Islamic faith, but Muslims don’t have demons per se. According to the Qu’ran, God created three sentient species: angels, jinns and humans. Jinn, like humans, have free will and can choose between good and evil. One early jinn, Iblis, disobeyed God and was condemned to Hell. But God also granted Iblis respite until the final day of judgement. Jinns who chose evil become shayatin and Iblis – or Shaytan – rules them. Shaytan and his minions tempt those who are not sincere believers into sin.
The closest mainstream Judaism comes to belief in the Devil is a
being whose role as accuser and adversary has been assigned to him by God. Demons and dybbuks (dead spirits that possess the living), however, are mentioned in both biblical and rabbinic literature, and are often found in Jewish folk tales and fiction.
Early Christian theologians wrestled with what to believe about angels for several centuries, always fearing adherents would worship them rather than Christ. Eventually deemed acceptable, there was much scholarly discussion of roles, classifications and hierarchies. Much of that tradition is still kept by the Roman Catholic Church.
Martin Luther (1483–1563) was more concerned with the corruption Satan and his demons could bring to humans than dealing with angels. He acknowledged angels as providential agents of God, but nixed praying to them (or the saints) or regarding them as “helpers in time of need” or as assigned to individual functions. John Calvin (1509–1564), even more concerned with the demonic, kept strictly to scripture and further downplayed the angelic. Later Protestant theologians continued in this vein.
The division continues to this day. Catholic doctrine affirms that prayers can be made to angels asking for intercession. Protestants only pray directly to God.
Although there is now a great diversity among Protestant denominations, Protestant belief can be discussed in a general manner. Both Protestants and Catholics agree there are angels, and both accept what is written of angels in the Bible, but they have different Bibles. The Catholic Bible includes the Book of Tobit, which mentions the archangel Raphael; for Protestants the only named angels are Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer. The Catholic Church also accepts traditional teachings about angels not included in the Bible, including other named angels and the role of guardian angels assigned at conception. The recognition of the presence of angels in daily life is also part of the Catholic faith; Protestants differ on the ministry of angels, but few denominations emphasize them. Protestants do not accept the nine choirs of angel hierarchy, while Catholics have a long, if unofficial, tradition recognizing seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels. In worship services, Protestants mention angels primarily at Christmas and Easter while Catholics are reminded they worship with the angels, archangels and hosts of heaven. The Roman Church also observes two angelic feasts: the Feast of the Archangels (29 September) and the Feast of Guardian Angels (2 October).
