The Mammoth Book of Angels & Demons (Mammoth Books)

by Paula Guran

  Blinking away the after-images, Rennie ran to the north rail only to find another man there before him. As there had been no mistaking the master’s silhouette, so there was no mistaking the master.

  Tam lay stunned on the deck, yanked down from the ratlines.

  Cabot bent and picked up the pipe. Chest heaving, he lifted his fist, the pipe clenched within it, into the air. “I will not have this witchcraft on my ship!”

  “Master Cabot . . .”

  He whirled around and jabbed a finger of his free hand toward the mate. “Tacere! Did you know of this?!”

  Hennet raised both hands but did not back away. “He’s just a boy.”

  “And damned!” Drawing back his upraised arm, he flung the pipe as hard as he could into the night, turned to glare down at Tam . . . “Play one more note and you will follow it!” . . . and in the same motion strode off and into his cabin.

  Hennet barely managed to stop John Jack’s charge.

  In the silence that followed, Roubaix stepped forward, looked down at Tam cradled in Rennie’s arms, then went after Cabot.

  “Let me go,” John Jack growled.

  Hennet started, as though he hadn’t even realized he still held the man’s shoulders. He opened his hands and knelt by Rennie’s side. “How’s the boy.”

  “Did you ever hear the sound of a heart breaking, Mister Hennet?” The Scot’s eyes were wet as he shifted the limp weight in his arms. “I heard it tonight and I pray to God I never hear such a sound again.”

  Cabot was bent over the charts when Roubaix came into the cabin. The slam of the door jerked him upright and around.

  “You are a fool, Zoane!”

  “Watch your tongue,” Cabot growled. “I am still master here.”

  Roubaix shook his head, too angry to be cautious. “Master of what?” he demanded. “Timber and canvas and hemp! You ignore the hearts of your men!”

  “I save them from damnation. Such witchery will condemn their souls.”

  “It was not witchcraft!”

  “Then what?” Cabot demanded, eyes narrowed, his fingers clenched into fists by his side.

  “I don’t know.” Roubaix drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I do know this,” he said quietly, “there is no evil in that boy in spite of a life that should have destroyed him. And, although the loss of his pipe dealt him a blow, that it was by your hand, the hand of the man who took him from darkness, who he adores and only ever wants to please, that was the greater blow.”

  “I cannot believe that.”

  Roubaix stared across the cabin for a long moment, watched the lamp swing once, twice, a third time painting shadows across the other man’s face. “Then I am sorry for you,” he said at last.

  He would have retreated again to dark corners but he couldn’t find them anymore, he’d been too long away. Instead, he wrapped shadows tightly around him, thick enough to hide the memory of the master’s face.

  “He spoke yet?”

  “No.” Arms folded, Rennie stared across at the slight figure who sat slumped at the base of the aftcastle wall.

  “Ain’t like he ever said much,” John Jack sighed. “You give ’im yer other pipe?”

  “I tried yesterday. He won’t take it.”

  They watched Cabot’s barber emerge from below and wrap a blanket around the boy murmuring softly in Italian the whole while.

  John Jack snorted. “I’d not be sittin’ in Master Cabot’s chair when that one has a razor in his hand, though I reckon he hasn’t brains to know his danger.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more of that talk.”

  Both men whirled around to see Hennet standing an arm’s length away.

  “And if ya stopped sneakin’ up on folk, ya wouldn’t,” John Jack sputtered around a coughing fit.

  Hennet ignored him. “There’s fog coming in and bow watch saw icebergs in the distance. I want you two up the lines, port and starboard.”

  “Ain’t never been near bergs when we couldn’t drop anchor and wait ’til we could see.”

  “Nothing to drop anchor on,” the mate reminded them. “Not out here. Now go, before it gets any worse.”

  It got much worse.

  Hennet dropped all the canvas he could and still keep The Matthew turned into the swell, but they were doing better than two knots when the fog closed in. It crawled over the deck, soaking everything in its path, dripping from the lashes of silent men peering desperately into the night. They couldn’t see, but over the groans of rope and canvas and timber, they could hear waves breaking against the ice.

  No one saw the berg that lightly kissed the port side.

  The ship shuddered, rolled starboard, and they were by.

  “That were too buggerin’ close.”

  Terror wrapped them closer than the fog.

  “I hear another! To port!”

  “Are you daft? Listen! Ice dead ahead!”

  “Be silent! All of you.” Cabot’s command sank into the fog. “How long to dawn, Mister Hennet?”

  Hennet turned to follow the chill and unseen passage of a mountain of ice. “Too long, sir.”

  “We must have light!”

  The first note from the crow’s nest backlit the fog with brilliant blue.

  Cabot moved to edge of the fo’c’sle and glared down into the waist. “Get him down from there, Mister Hennet.”

  Hennet folded his arms. “No, sir. I won’t.”

  The second note streaked the fog with green.

  “I gave you an order!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Follow it!”

  “No, sir.”

  “You!” Cabot pointed up at a crewman straddling the yard. “Get him down.”

  John Jack snorted. “Won’t.”

  The third note was golden and at its edge, a sliver of night sky.

  “Then I’ll do it myself!” But when he reached for a line, Roubaix was there before him.

  “Leave him alone, Zoane.”

  “It is witchcraft!”

  “No.” He switched to English so everyone would understand. “You asked for light, he does this for you.”

  The dance moved slow and stately across the sky.

  Cabot looked around, saw nothing but closed and angry faces. “He sends you to Hell!”

  “Better than sending us to the bottom,” Rennie told him. “Slow dance brings fair weather. He’s piping away the fog.”

  Tam stopped when he could see the path through glittering green-white palaces of ice. He leaned over, tossed the pipe gently, and watched it drop into Rennie’s outstretched hands. Then he stepped up onto the rail, and scanned the upturned faces for the master’s. When he found it, he took a deep breath and jumped out as hard as he was able.

  No one spoke. No one so much as shouted a protest or moaned a denial.

  The small body arced out, further than should have been possible, then disappeared in the darkness . . .

  The silence lingered.

  “You killed him.” Hennet stepped toward Cabot, hands forming fists at his side. “You said if he played another note, he’d follow his pipe. And he did. And you killed him.”

  Still blinded by the brilliant blue of the boy’s eyes, Cabot stepped back. “No . . .”

  John Jack dropped down out of the lines. “Yes.”

  “No.” As all heads turned toward him, Rennie palmed salt off his cheeks. “He didn’t hit the water.”

  “Impossible . . .”

  “Did you hear a splash? Anything?” He swept a burning gaze over the rest of the crew. “Did any of you? No one called man overboard, no one even ran to the rails to look for a body. There is no body. He didn’t hit the water. Look.”

  Slowly, as though on one line, all eyes turned to the north where a brilliant blue wisp of light danced between heaven and earth.

  “Fallen angels. He fell a little further than the rest is all; now he’s back with his own.”

  Then the light went out, and all the sounds of a ship a
t sea rushed in to fill the silence.

  “Mister Hennet, iceberg off the port bow!”

  Hennet leapt to the port rail and leaned out. “Helmsman, two degrees starboard! All hands to the mainsail!”

  As The Matthew began to turn to safety, Roubaix took Cabot’s arm and moved him unprotesting out of the way of the crew.

  “Gaylor,” he whispered. “Do you believe?”

  Roubaix looked up at the sky and then down at his friend. “You are a skilled and well-traveled mariner, Zoane Cabatto, and an unparalleled cartographer but sometimes you forget that there are things in life you cannot map and wonders you will not find on any chart.”

  The Matthew took thirty-five days to travel from Bristol to the new land Cabot named Bona Vista, Glorious Sight. It took only fifteen days for her to travel back home again and, for every one of those days, the sky was a more brilliant blue than any man on-board had ever seen and the wind played almost familiar tunes in the rigging.

  Angel

  Pat Cadigan

  The angelic being in Pat Cadigan’s story lives in a universe that does not know good or evil, only less or more. Although “he” can speak, he and his human companion communicate telepathically. The idea of angels who can speak, but communicate through silence can be found in the writings of the great medieval Jewish philosopher and Torah scholar Maimonides. He called them chashmalim because “they are sometimes silent [chashim] and sometimes they speak [memalelim]”. These angels rank slightly above midlevel in the angelic hierarchy and help convey human prayer by donning our thoughts as one would clothing, then passing them on to the next rank of angel until the prayer reaches God.

  Stand with me a while, Angel, I said, and Angel said he’d do that. Angel was good to me that way, good to have with you on a cold night and nowhere to go. We stood on the street corner together and watched the cars going by and the people and all. The streets were lit up like Christmas, street lights, store lights, marquees over the all-night movie houses and bookstores blinking and flashing; shank of the evening in east midtown. Angel was getting used to things here and getting used to how I did nights. Standing outside, because what else are you going to do. He was my Angel now, had been since that other cold night when I’d been going home, because where are you going to go, and I’d found him, and took him with me. It’s good to have someone to take with you, someone to look after. Angel knew that. He started looking after me, too.

  Like now. We were standing there a while and I was looking around at nothing and everything, the cars cruising past, some of them stopping now and again for the hookers posing by the curb, and then I saw it, out of the corner of my eye. Stuff coming out of the Angel, shiny like sparks but flowing like liquid. Silver fireworks. I turned and looked all the way at him and it was gone. And he turned and gave a little grin like he was embarrassed I’d seen. Nobody else saw it, though; not the short guy who paused next to the Angel before crossing the street against the light, not the skinny hype looking to sell the boom box he was carrying on his shoulder, not the homeboy strutting past us with both his girlfriends on his arms, nobody but me.

  The Angel said, Hungry?

  Sure, I said. I’m hungry.

  Angel looked past me. Okay, he said. I looked, too, and here they came, three leather boys, visor caps, belts, boots, key rings. On the cruise together. Scary stuff, even though you know it’s not looking for you.

  I said, Them? Them?

  Angel didn’t answer. One went by, then the second, and the Angel stopped the third by taking hold of his arm.

  Hi.

  The guy nodded. His head was shaved; I could see a little gray-black stubble under his cap. No eyebrows, disinterested eyes. The eyes were because of the Angel.

  I could use a little money, the Angel said. My friend and I are hungry.

  The guy put his hand in his pocket and wiggled out some bills, offering them to the Angel. The Angel selected a twenty and closed the guy’s hand around the rest.

  This will be enough, thank you.

  The guy put his money away and waited.

  I hope you have a good night, said the Angel.

  The guy nodded and walked on, going across the street to where his two friends were waiting on the next corner. Nobody found anything weird about it.

  Angel was grinning at me. Sometimes he was the Angel, when he was doing something, sometimes he was Angel, when he was just with me. Now he was Angel again. We went up the street to the luncheonette and got a seat by the front window so we could still watch the street while we ate.

  Cheeseburger and fries, I said without bothering to look at the plastic-covered menus lying on top of the napkin holder. The Angel nodded.

  Thought so, he said. I’ll have the same, then.

  The waitress came over with a little tiny pad to take our order. I cleared my throat. It seemed like I hadn’t used my voice in a hundred years. “Two cheeseburgers and two fries,” I said, “and two cups of—” I looked up at her and froze. She had no face. Like, nothing, blank from hairline to chin, soft little dents where the eyes and nose and mouth would have been. Under the table, the Angel kicked me, but gentle.

  “And two cups of coffee,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything – how could she? – as she wrote down the order and then walked away again. All shaken up, I looked at the Angel, but he was calm like always.

  She’s a new arrival, Angel told me and leaned back in his chair. Not enough time to grow a face.

  But how can she breathe? I said.

  Through her pores. She doesn’t need much air yet.

  Yah, but what about – like, I mean, don’t other people notice that she’s got nothing there?

  No. It’s not such an extraordinary condition. The only reason you notice is because you’re with me. Certain things have rubbed off on you. But no one else notices. When they look at her, they see whatever face they expect someone like her to have. And eventually, she’ll have it.

  But you have a face, I said. You’ve always had a face.

  I’m different, said the Angel.

  You sure are, I thought, looking at him. Angel had a beautiful face. That wasn’t why I took him home that night, just because he had a beautiful face – I left all that behind a long time ago – but it was there, his beauty. The way you think of a man being beautiful, good clean lines, deep-set eyes, ageless. About the only way you could describe him – look away and you’d forget everything except that he was beautiful. But he did have a face. He did.

  Angel shifted in the chair – these were like somebody’s old kitchen chairs, you couldn’t get too comfortable in them – and shook his head, because he knew I was thinking troubled thoughts. Sometimes you could think something and it wouldn’t be troubled and later you’d think the same thing and it would be troubled. The Angel didn’t like me to be troubled about him.

  Do you have a cigarette? he asked.

  I think so.

  I patted my jacket and came up with most of a pack that I handed over to him. The Angel lit up and amused us both by having the smoke come out his ears and trickle out of his eyes like ghostly tears. I felt my own eyes watering for his; I wiped them and there was that stuff again, but from me now. I was crying silver fireworks. I flicked them on the table and watched them puff out and vanish.

  Does this mean I’m getting to be you, now? I asked.

  Angel shook his head. Smoke wafted out of his hair. Just things rubbing off on you. Because we’ve been together and you’re – susceptible. But they’re different for you.

  Then the waitress brought our food and we went on to another sequence, as the Angel would say. She still had no face but I guess she could see well enough because she put all the plates down just where you’d think they were supposed to go and left the tiny little check in the middle of the table.

  Is she . . . I mean, did you know her, from where you . . .

  Angel, gave his head a brief little shake. No. She’s from somewhere else. Not one of my . . . people
. He pushed the cheeseburger and fries in front of him over to my side of the table. That was the way it was done; I did all the eating and somehow it worked out.

  I picked up my cheeseburger and I was bringing it up to my mouth when my eyes got all funny and I saw it coming up like a whole series of cheeseburgers, whoom-whoom-whoom, trick photography, only for real. I closed my eyes and jammed the cheeseburger into my mouth, holding it there, waiting for all the other cheeseburgers to catch up with it.

  You’ll be okay, said the Angel. Steady, now.

  I said with my mouth full, That was . . . that was weird. Will I ever get used to this?

  I doubt it. But I’ll do what I can to help you.

  Yah, well, the Angel would know. Stuff rubbing off on me, he could feel it better than I could. He was the one it was rubbing off from.

  I had put away my cheeseburger and half of Angel’s and was working on the French fries for both of us when I noticed he was looking out the window with this hard, tight expression on his face.

  Something? I asked him.

  Keep eating, he said.

  I kept eating, but I kept watching, too. The Angel was staring at a big blue car parked at the curb right outside the diner. It was silvery blue, one of those lots-of-money models and there was a woman kind of leaning across from the driver’s side to look out the passenger window. She was beautiful in that lots-of-money way, tawny hair swept back from her face, and even from here I could see she had turquoise eyes. Really beautiful woman. I almost felt like crying. I mean, Jeez, how did people get that way and me too harmless to live.

  But the Angel wasn’t one bit glad to see her. I knew he didn’t want me to say anything, but I couldn’t help it.

  Who is she?

  Keep eating, Angel said. We need the protein, what little there is.

  I ate and watched the woman and the Angel watch each other and it was getting very . . . I don’t know, very something between them, even through the glass. Then a cop car pulled up next to her and I knew they were telling her to move it along. She moved it along.