The Mammoth Book of Angels & Demons (Mammoth Books)

by Paula Guran

  In the long, musician’s fingers of the Prince of Demons was a silver pipe, shaped like some sort of slender bone. Azhrarn blew upon the pipe.

  There was no sound, yet something seemed to pass through the skulls of the king and of Jaqir, as if a barbed thread had been pulled through from ear to ear. The king swooned – he was only a king. Jaqir rubbed his temples and stayed upright – he was a professional of the working classes.

  And so it was Jaqir who saw, in reverse, that which he had already seen happen the other way about.

  He beheld a black cloud rising (where before it had settled) and behind the cloud suddenly something incandescent blinked and dazzled. He beheld how the cloud, breaking free of these blinks of palest fire (where before it had obscured said fire), ceased to be one entity, and became instead one million separate flying pieces. He saw, as he had seen before when first they burst up from the ground in front of him, and rushed into the sky, that these were a million curious birds. They had feathers of cinnabar and bronze, sinews of brass; they had clockworks of iron and steel.

  Between the insane crowded battering of their wings, Jaqir watched the Moon reappear, where previously (scanning the night, as he stood by Yulba in a meadow) he had watched the Moon put out, all the birds flew down against her, covering and smothering her. Unbroken by their landing on her surface, they had roosted there, drawn to and liking the warmth, as Yulba had directed them with his sorcery.

  But now Azhrarn had negated Yulba’s powers – which were little enough among demons. The mechanical birds swarmed round and round the chariot, aggravating the dragons somewhat. The birds had no eyes, Jaqir noticed. They gave off great heat where the Moon had toasted their metals. Jaqir looked at them as if for the first, hated them, and grew deeply embarrassed.

  Yet the Moon – oh, the Moon. Uncovered and alight, how brilliantly it or she blazed now. Had she ever been so bright? Had her sojourn in darkness done her good?

  End to end, she poured her flame over the Earth below. Not a mountain that did not have its spire of silver, not a river its highlight of diamond.

  The seas lashed and struggled with joy, leaping to catch her snows upon the crests of waves and dancing dolphin. And in the windows of mankind, the lamps were doused, and like the waves, men leaned upward to wash their faces in the Moon.

  Then gradually, a murmur, a thunder, a roar, a gushing sigh rose swirling from the depths of the Flat Earth, as if at last the world had stopped holding its breath.

  “What did you promise Yulba,” asked Azhrarn of Jaqir, mild as a killing frost, “in exchange for this slight act?”

  “The traditional favor,” muttered Jaqir.

  “Did he receive payment?”

  “I prevaricated. Not yet, lord Prince.”

  “You are spared then. Part of his punishment shall be permanently to avoid your company. But what punishment for you, thief? And what punishment for your king?”

  Jaqir did not speak. Nor did the king, though he had recovered his senses.

  Both men were educated in the tales, the king more so. Both men turned ashen, and the king accordingly more ashen.

  Then Azhrarn addressed the clockwork birds in one of the demon tongues, and they were immediately gone. And only the white banner of the moonlight was there across the night.

  Now Azhrarn, by some called also Lord of Liars, was not perhaps above lying in his own heart. It seems so. Yet maybe tonight he looked upon the Moon, and saw in the Moon’s own heart, the woman that once he had loved, the woman who had been named for the Moon. Because of her, and all that had followed, Azhrarn had turned his back upon the world – or attempted to turn it.

  And even so here he was, high in the vault of the world’s heaven, drenched in earthly moonshine, contemplating the chastisement of mortal creatures whose lives, to his immortal life, were like the green sparks which had flashed and withered on the chariot wheels.

  The chariot plunged. The atmosphere scalded at the speed of its descent. It touched the skin of the Earth more slightly than a cobweb. The mortal king and the mortal thief found themselves rolling away downhill, toward fields of barley and a river. The chariot, too, was gone. Although in their ears as they rolled, equal in their rolling as never before, and soon never to be again, king and thief heard Azhrarn’s extraordinary voice, which said, “Your punishment you have already. You are human. I cannot improve upon that.”

  Thus, the Moon shone in the skies of night, interrupted only by an infrequent cloud. The king resumed his throne. The four angels – who were or were not parrots – or only meddlers – sat on their perches waiting to give advice, or to avoid giving it. And Jaqir – Jaqir went away to another city.

  Here, under a different name, he lived on his extreme wealth, in a fine house with gardens. Until one day he was robbed of all his gold (and even of the moon-pebble) by a talented thief. “Is it the gods who exact their price at last, or Another, who dwells further down?” But by then Jaqir was older, for mortal lives moved and move swiftly. He had lost his taste for his work by then. So he returned to the king’s city, and to the door of the merchant’s wife who had been his mistress. “I am sorry for what I said to you,” said Jaqir. “I am sorry for what I did to you,” said she. The traveling merchant had recently departed on another, more prolonged journey, to make himself, reincarnation-wise, a new life after death. Meanwhile, though the legend of a moon-thief remained, men had by then forgotten Jaqir. So he married the lady and they existed not unhappily, which shows their flexible natures.

  But miles below, Yulba did not fare so well. For Azhrarn had returned to the Underearth on the night of the Moon’s rescue, and said to him, “Bad little Drin. Here are your million birds. Since you are so proud of them, be one of them.” And in this way Azhrarn demonstrated that the world no longer mattered to him a jot, only his own kind mattered enough that he would make their lives Hell-under-Earth. Or, so it would seem.

  But Yulba had changed to a clockwork bird, number one million and one.

  Eyeless, still able to see, flapping over the melanic vistas of the demon country, blotting up the luminous twilight, cawing, clicking, letting fall droppings, yearning for the warmth of the Moon, yearning to be a Drin again, yearning for Azhrarn, and for Jaqir – who by that hour had already passed himself from the world, for demon time was not the time of mortals.

  As for the story, that of Jaqir and Yulba and the Moon, it had become as it had and has become, or un-become. And who knows but that, in another little while, it will be forgotten, as most things are. Even the Moon is no longer that Moon, nor the Earth, nor the sky. The centuries fly, eternity is endless.

  The Big Sky

  Charles de Lint

  Charles de Lint offers a modern, not traditionally religious take on guardian angels with the “watchers” in “The Big Sky”. The concept of special spirits protecting individuals or groups is probably as old as humanity. Judaic belief includes angels as heavenly guides and intercessors. Muslims also have guardian angels. But guardian angels linked to individual souls from birth to death to protect, inspire and aid in salvation are associated most closely with Christianity, particularly with Catholicism. Although not an article of faith, it is a firm tradition of the Church. As St Jerome wrote in the fourth century, “How great the dignity of the soul, since each one has from his birth an angel commissioned to guard it.”

  “We need Death to be a friend. It is best to have a friend as a traveling companion when you have so far to go together.”

  —attributed to Jean Cocteau

  1

  She was sitting in John’s living room when he got home from the recording studio that night, comfortably ensconced on the sofa, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, a book propped open on her lap which she was pretending to read. The fact that all the lights in the house had been off until he turned them on didn’t seem to faze her in the least. She continued her pretense, as though she could see equally well in the light or dark and it made no difference to her whether the lig
hts were on or off. At least she had the book turned right side up, John noted.

  “How did you get in?” he asked her.

  She didn’t seem to present any sort of a threat – beyond having gotten into his locked house, of course – so he was more concerned with how she’d been able to enter than for his own personal safety. At the sound of his voice, she looked up in surprise. She laid the book down on her lap, finger inserted between the pages to hold her place.

  “You can see me?” she said.

  “Jesus.”

  John shook his head. She certainly wasn’t shy. He set his fiddle case down by the door. After dropping his jacket down on top of it, he went into the living room and sat down in the chair across the coffee table from her.

  “What do you think?” he went on. “Of course I can see you.”

  “But you’re not supposed to be able to see me – unless it’s time and that doesn’t seem right. I mean, really. I’d know, if anybody, whether or not it was time.”

  She frowned, gaze fixed on him, but she didn’t really appear to be studying him. It was more as though she were looking into some unimaginably far and unseen distance. Her eyes focused suddenly and he shifted uncomfortably under the weight of her attention.

  “Oh, I see what happened,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  John leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “Let’s try this again. Who are you?”

  “I’m your watcher. Everybody has one.”

  “My watcher.”

  She nodded. “We watch over you until your time has come, then if you can’t find your own way, we take you on. They call us the little deaths, but I’ve never much cared for the sound of that, do you?”

  John sighed. He settled back in his chair to study his unwanted guest. She was no one he knew, though she could easily have fit in with his crowd. He put her at about twenty-something, a slender five foot two with pixie features made more fey by the crop of short blond hair that stuck up from her head with all the unruliness of a badly mowed lawn. She wore black combat boots; khaki trousers, baggy, with two or three pockets running up either leg; a white T-shirt that hugged her thin chest like a second skin. She had little in the way of jewelry – a small silver ring in her left nostril and another in the lobe of her left ear – and no make-up.

  “Do you have a name?” he tried.

  “Everybody’s got a name.”

  John waited a few heartbeats. “And yours is?” he asked when no reply was forthcoming.

  “I don’t think I should tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, once you give someone your name, it’s like opening the door to all sorts of possibilities, isn’t it? Any sort of relationship could develop from that, and it’s just not a good idea for us to have an intimate relationship with our charges.”

  “I can assure you,” John told her. “We’re in no danger of having a relationship – intimate or otherwise.”

  “Oh,” she said. She didn’t look disappointed so much as annoyed. “Dakota,” she added.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You wanted to know my name.”

  John nodded. “That’s right. I . . . oh, I get it. Your name’s Dakota?”

  “Bingo.”

  “And you’ve been . . . watching me?”

  “Well, not just you. Except for when we’re starting out, we look out after any number of people.”

  “I see,” John said. “And how many people do you watch?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, dozens.”

  That figured, John thought. It was the story of his life. He couldn’t even get the undivided attention of a loony.

  She swung her boots to the floor and set the book she was holding on the coffee table between them.

  “Well, I guess we should get going,” she said.

  She stood up and gave him an expectant look, but John remained where he was sitting.

  “It’s a long way to the gates,” she told him.

  He didn’t have a clue as to what she was talking about, but he was sure of one thing.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said.

  “But you have to.”

  “Says who?”

  She frowned at him. “You just do. It’s obvious that you won’t be able to find your way by yourself, and if you stay here you’re just going to start feeling more and more alienated and confused.”

  “Let me worry about that,” John said.

  “Look,” she said. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot – my fault, I’m sure. I had no idea it was time for you to go already. I’d just come by to check on you before heading off to another appointment.”

  “Somebody else that you’re watching?”

  “Exactly,” she replied, missing, or more probably ignoring the sarcastic tone of his voice. “There’s no way around this, you know. You need my help to get to the gates.”

  “What gates?”

  She sighed. “You’re really in denial about all of this, aren’t you?”

  “You were right about one thing,” John told her. “I am feeling confused, but it’s only about what you’re doing here and how you got in.”

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Me, neither. So maybe you should go.”

  That earned him another frown.

  “Fine,” she said. “But don’t wait too long to call me. If you change too much, I won’t be able to find you and nobody else can help you.”

  “Because you’re my personal watcher.”

  “No wonder you don’t have many friends,” she said. “You’re really not a very nice person, are you?”

  “I’m only like this with people who break into my house.”

  “But I didn’t . . . oh, never mind. Just remember my name and don’t wait too long to call me.”

  “Not that I’d want to,” John said, “but I don’t even have your number.”

  “Just call my name and I’ll come,” she said. “If it’s not too late. Like I said, I might not be able to recognize you if you wait too long.”

  Though he was trying to take this all in his stride, John couldn’t help but start to feel a little creeped out at the way she was going on. He’d never realized that crazy people could seem so normal except for what they were saying, of course.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  She bit back whatever it was that she was going to say and gave him a brusque nod. For one moment, he half expected her to walk through a wall – the evening had taken that strange a turn – but she merely crossed the living room and let herself out the front door. John waited for a few moments, then rose and set the deadbolt. He walked through the house, checking the windows and back door, before finally going upstairs to his bedroom.

  He thought he might have trouble getting to sleep – the woman’s presence had raised far more questions than it had answered – but he was so tired from twelve straight hours in the studio that it was more a question of could he get all his clothes off and crawl under the blankets before he faded right out. He had one strange moment: when he turned off the light, he made the mistake of looking directly at the bulb. His uninvited guest’s features hung in the darkness along with a hundred dancing spots of light before he was able to blink them away. But the moment didn’t last long, and he was soon asleep.

  2

  He didn’t realize that he’d forgotten to set his alarm last night until he woke up and gave the clock a bleary look. Eleven fifteen. Christ, he was late.

  He got up, shaved, and took a quick shower. You’d think someone would have called him from the studio, he thought as he started to get dressed. He was doing session work on Darlene Flatt’s first album, and the recording had turned into a race to get the album finished before her money ran out. He had two solos up first thing this morning, and he couldn’t understand why no one had called to see where he was.

  There was no time for breakfast – he didn’t have much of an appetite at the moment anyway. He’d grab some coffee an
d a bagel at the deli around the corner from the studio. He tugged on his jeans, then carried his boots out into the living room and phoned the studio while he put them on. All he got was ringing at the other end.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “Somebody pick it up.”

  How could there be nobody there to answer?

  It was as he was cradling the receiver that he saw the book lying on the coffee table, reminding him of last night’s strange encounter. He picked the book up and looked at it, turning it over in his hands. There was something different about it this morning. Something wrong. And then he realized what it was. The color dust wrapper had gone monochrome. The book and . . . His gaze settled on his hand and he dropped the book in shock. He stared at his hand, turning it front to back, then looked wildly around the living room.

  Oh, Jesus. Everything was black and white.

  He’d been so bleary when he woke up that he hadn’t noticed that the world had gone monochrome on him overnight. He’d had a vague impression of gloominess when he got up, but he hadn’t really thought about it. He’d simply put it down to it being a particularly overcast day. But this . . . this.

  It was impossible.

  His gaze was drawn to the window. The light coming in was devoid of color where it touched his furniture and walls, but outside . . . He walked slowly to the window and stared at his lawn, the street beyond it, the houses across the way. Everything was the way it was supposed to be. The day was cloudless, the colors so vivid, the sunlight so bright it hurt his eyes. The richness of all that color and light burned his retinas.

  He stood there until tears formed in his eyes and he had to turn away. He covered his eyes with his hands until the pain faded. When he took his palms away, his hands were still leached of color. The living room was a thousand monochrome shades of black and white. Numbly, he walked to his front door and flung it open. The blast of color overloaded the sensory membranes of his eyes. He knelt down where he’d tossed his jacket last night and scrabbled about in its pockets until he found a pair of shades.