John grunted. “Bound in what way?” Cunning’s magic battered his mind so much he could barely think.
“Bound to not attack us. This is only fair, as we are bound not to attack them.”
Satan laughed, behind John. John waved his hand at her. “You don’t want to even try binding her,” he said. What Satan had done to the Seven Suits was an important revelation about her leverage over the powerful. “Reed? I can talk him into being bound.”
“Then you must go until you learn better,” Cunning said. “She we do not trust.”
“Bais can’t do anything to you if you’re nice to her,” John said. “Bind her with kindness. I have.”
“That’s the spirit,” Satan said.
Cunning frowned. “Let me see into your mind. Open to my magic.”
“Sure,” John said. He had to trust his months of buttering up Satan. If the trick worked for him, the trick should work as well for the Fallen Angels. If they got down off their pearl thrones. “Try anything besides looking and you’re in for a fight, though.”
“I promise,” Cunning said.
John shrugged, noting the magic in Cunning’s promise, and let down his magical defenses.
Cunning put his hands over his face after a moment of examination. “I suppose,” he said. “Distasteful.”
“Truth is always distasteful,” Satan said.
“Expect a lot of that from her,” John said, muttering an aside to Cunning.
“Your turn,” Cunning said. John turned to look at Reed, who shrugged. He did the binding.
“Good. There is a quiet place in the grove of silence. Let us go there, and talk.”
The grove of silence was a cedar grove in a low hollow a half mile from the village, with a spring at one edge bubbling into a small pool in the center, to drain by way of a tiny stream exiting on the other side of the grove. Stone benches surrounded the pool, and stone lions stood guard at each of the four directions. Birds rustled and occasionally sang in the branches of the towering trees, and needles crunched softly underfoot.
The cedar smell brought back old memories, some of them involving the Blessed Virgin of his prayers. John pushed the thought of the Blessed Virgin out of his mind. It was too painful, and he could not afford to get angry.
The Fallen Angels matched John’s group in numbers. The two Cunning brought in introduced themselves as Glory and Knowledge. Glory, a tall woman who had presented herself as the co-leader of the Fallen Angels to Nessa and crew, projected haughty down to a T. Knowledge, a tall thin man with a vaguely Mongol demeanor to him, carried an air of reticence. Nessa’s group hadn’t mentioned Knowledge to him. John did his introductions, introducing Satan as “Bais, ancient Telepath, who also answers to the name Satan.” Which got him a frown from the old woman.
Everyone sat.
“You, at least, I am glad to see,” Glory said. “Now that the Daughter of Light has lifted the blindfolds from our eyes, it is obvious to all that you are the Father of Darkness. You share in all our convoluted aspects, both evil and good, wisdom and emotion, ignorance and learning. The prophesy is clear: you are to prepare the way for the Child of Morning, who will save us and be to us as Jesus was to mortal men.”
“And women,” Satan said, frowning. Glory frowned back.
“So, Father, who is the Child of Morning you will lead to us?” Glory said.
“I have no earthly idea,” John said. “My work will not be easy. You are wrong in thinking otherwise. Consider. For a millennium, I denied all magic save the magic to end magicians. Instead, I worked with my wits and skills and by doing a lot of schmoozing. I doubt this was an accident and yes, meeting you, I understand the religious calling behind my being here. Do not neglect the fact I am a Priest.”
“A Priest of a religion corrupted into caricature by mortal politics nearly seven hundred years before your birth,” Knowledge said. The Fallen Angel rubbed his hands together human-like. “Produce the Child of Morning for us and be gone with yourself.”
John shook his head, still struggling to think. What had this place done to Nessa and crew? He now doubted everything the group learned. “Do you sense what I sense here, Satan?”
“Of course, Johnny boy,” Satan said. “We’re drowning in evil magic. You’ve practiced a millennium for this day. Do your job.”
“You cannot be serious,” Glory said. “You cannot remove our ability to do magic. We are magic.”
“I must try,” John said. He couldn’t do otherwise. As one of the 99 would say: ‘Mission trumps all’.
“I am willing to see a test,” Cunning said, a smile playing on his lips. “A test against one of our weaker members, say Aval.”
“Aval? An untranslated name? What is your criteria for naming?” Reed said.
The Fallen Angels ignored him.
Cunning summoned up Aval, who turned out to be a medium height Middle Eastern-looking man. Aval bowed and smirked. “I will submit.”
His sarcastic words prodded John’s memory, and he remembered his submission, a millennium back, to the Scholars of God. The Fallen Angels possessed no feeling of submission to anyone, especially to God Almighty.
They needed to submit. That would take work, time, and hard preaching.
“Don’t throw a monkey wrench into this,” John said, and began to work his spell. When he finished, and tried to push the magic out of Aval, instead of release and success, his spell vanished, reflected back at him as a violent attack. Natural and involuntary, as Aval had no skill for such things. John blocked the painful attack, clenching his jaws together to keep conscious.
“Perhaps you understand now,” Cunning said, the smile playing on Cunning’s lips now a full grin.
“More than I ever wanted to,” John said, noting direct confirmation of Ken’s observation that the Fallen Angels magically subsisted on the pain of others. “You are magic; I needed the proof. Well, if I can’t remove the ability to do magic from you, then you must do us a favor and undo what magic you can. I’m not going to be able to make any progress figuring out what we need to do to prepare you for the Child of Morning if I can’t think.”
“You rave,” Glory said.
“Let me make a prediction,” John said. “To face God, to submit to God, you will do so without any of your magic. The Child of Morning will insist.”
“You are not the Child.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Let me,” Cunning said. He concentrated and the miasma of magic around them diminished. Still, to John’s senses, hundreds of spells remained around them, while thousands still hovered around Cunning.
“Better,” John said. At least he could think clearly now. “But not perfect.”
“Anything further we must negotiate,” Cunning said.
“What do you have to offer me to allow you to keep your magic?” John asked. He couldn’t let up. The Fallen Angels were ‘give us an inch and we will take a mile’ people. If not pushier. They ought to live in Manhattan or serve in the US Congress.
Glory laughed at his comment. “You are as dark as we are,” she said. “Pleasures of the flesh? Eternal life? Riches beyond imagination? We can offer all of this to you.”
These Watchers were blind, which galled John. “You offer me nothing I want or cannot take for myself. You, of all people, should know better.”
“We can make you young again.”
“I’ve heard of your cheating elixir and I possess the knowledge to become young again, in my own way, should I covet such a thing. No, I want or need nothing from you for myself or my spent desires, which is why you will do exactly as I say,” John said.
“We cannot simply undo the magic we support,” Cunning said. “Much of our magic works not only on us, but on and in the greater world around us, protecting us. Protecting humanity from Hell and from itself, indirectly protecting us.” Protecting Humanity from Hell? Well, another of Grover and Lara’s predictions turned out to be true. “Much is bound into objects we call gamme, and such objec
ts cannot be simply dispelled.”
Gamme. Dave and Elorie had been right about at least that much. The comment also explained John’s troubled feelings about some of the magic around him, which had a solidity he hadn’t felt for centuries.
“You admit this? Openly?” Satan said. “John, thoughtlessly removing their defensive magic would be wrong. I suspect, if you look hard enough, you’ll find some of their magic must remain until the arrival of the Child of Morning.”
He nodded, accepting Satan’s point. “In that case, we’re going to need to examine your magics one at a time and figure out what’s applicable and what’s not.”
The Fallen Angels magically chattered amongst themselves. “Tedious, but if this is the path you require, we will acquiesce,” Cunning said.
“Good.” He expected an argument. Something made them agree. “Start by removing everything on me.”
“What do you mean?” Cunning said.
“Remove all the magic you placed on me. Look, I’m not stupid, and I’m not happy to realize how much of my life has been guided by your whims. Free me from all the bindings you put on me over the centuries, as a normal mortal and as a magician.”
“No,” Glory said. “Absolutely not.”
“In this he is correct,” Knowledge said, earning him glares from both Glory and Cunning. “He cannot function in his role as a prophetic savior if he is so bound. Have we not said, over and over again, across the years, that when the prophesied ones come among us all is to be revealed to them?”
“To the prophesied ones, perhaps, but not to their companions,” Cunning said. “What he figures out he will reveal.”
“They’re with me, they’re not going anywhere, and the faster we figure everything out the less of a chance you have of being made a light snack of one of the top Territorial Gods,” John said. “You think they don’t know of you by now?”
“They understand a little, but not enough,” Glory said.
“They understand enough to know you aren’t a problem to be tackled lightly. Yet, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the leading Gods are consolidating their power one victim at a time. Eventually they’ll get around to you, and you won’t go to heaven but to Hell, and feet first.” The Fallen Angels didn’t respond. “Tell me I’m wrong, if you can. Hell and damnation, tell me you have something on the 99 Gods, if in truth you do. From our experience, they’re unstoppable.”
“Again he is correct,” Knowledge said. “Verona’s letter to us, where he demanded we flee to Hell or be destroyed, shows his logic to be sound.” They had no weapons against the 99 Gods, or they would have said so. He could always hope a miracle would show up.
“This is too soon,” Glory said. “We must wait on the appearance of the Child of Morning. If we open ourselves up too early, we risk all.”
“If you cannot even give me this much you risk missing the Child of Morning,” John said.
“We must,” Knowledge said. “If you will not do this, Cunning, I will undertake it on my own, despite the consequences.”
“You offer us pain, voluntarily?” Glory said.
Does Howdy Doody have wooden balls? John stole a quick glance at Satan and Reed, now wide eyed and pale. The Fallen Angels were sick, very sick.
“Yes,” Knowledge said.
“That bargain I will accept,” Glory said.
Knowledge concentrated. Magic unwound in John’s mind, sending him gasping off the rough stone bench on which he sat. So much! Too much!
Knowledge screamed and vanished. Another male Fallen Angel flew down to take his spot. Knowledge hadn’t removed the Fallen Angel’s magic; instead, he had shielded him. The work exhausted the now-departed Fallen Angel.
“I am Wisdom,” the Fallen Angel said. “You will find me less pliant than Knowledge, Father of Darkness. I, for one, am not convinced we should suffer your companions to live.”
“Lucky for you Nessa bound peace into your rules,” John said. Now he understood the nagging suspicions haunting the edges of his mind. Bloodlust was second nature to the Fallen Angels.
Elorie’s quest-end presentation had been correct about everything, he realized as he pulled himself back up onto his seat. With her immunities, he should have realized she would have pierced all the mysteries. Only the weight of the magical blinders the Fallen Angels made him and everyone else wear blinded him to the obvious.
“I understand now,” John said, addressing the Fallen Angels. “You are Gods, the first Gods. Like the 99 Gods you were made by another Angelic Host.” Satan muttered curses in Russian that Reed echoed in English.
Wisdom drew himself up tall. “You are correct that we were once peers of the 99 Gods. We haven’t been so in a long time. Nor were we first.” Spaz! Were the Ecumenist legends about the Ha-qodeshim being divine true as well? What role were they playing in all of this? This he didn’t need. “We called our makers Gods, though in your modern terminology they were an Angelic Host. Do not seek to judge us.”
John didn’t back down. “Your Mission failed and God Almighty abandoned you centuries, if not millennia, ago. Because of that you’re stuck here with the rest of us mortals, reduced to nothing more than an object lesson to the 99 Gods and protecting this part of Earth from Hell.”
Wisdom nodded. “If the 99 Gods come to possess us, our evil will corrupt them instantly. They were made to withstand different tests and opponents, and we are not compatible. All life on Earth will perish within a decade, as they can use us to make soldiers of horror for use in their conflicts. They have already touched the edges of our incompatible good and our incompatible evil, touched because of your actions. Then again, if they come to their own evil and become as we are, as they appear to be doing, the result will be the same. Only their fall should take a millennium, not that they need that level of evil or that amount of time to render the Earth lifeless.
“Now and only now you see, Father of Darkness, the fate of all living things on Earth lies in your hands. You must find us the Child of Morning so he can send us on, to God, before the 99 Gods capture us!”
Lara shivered in Grover’s arms. They gathered in the plain central room of the building the Watchers had allocated to them. Coarse blankets and pillows covered stone benches, and a simple meal of wine, bread and goat cheese lay mostly eaten on a table by the hearth. Smokeless lanterns hung suspended from the walls. The place reminded John of his youth, so many centuries ago. “I can’t tell you what we’re learning,” John said. He liked these two as persons, but when they began thinking as Indigo members, he couldn’t stand them. They were too modern and naïve to be cogitating about grand unnatural things, and power-wise, they were extended-lifespan mortals and little else. “We are bound not to.”
They kept trying to solve all the mysteries.
Lara shrugged. Her hair remained plastered down flat with sweat, and black bags gathered under her eyes. Grover looked far worse, utterly flattened in spirit. “I can tell you what they’re teaching us, but not the details,” Lara responded. “They believe their time on Earth is ending, and someone needs to understand the secrets of Hell. They chose us. They’re giving us, and through us the Indigo, the burden to protect all of the Earth from Hell once they’re gone.”
Grover nodded, but didn’t speak. The absurd responsibility he had gained weighed heavily on his soul.
“What are they doing to you?” Satan said. She tapped her cane restlessly on the floor. Unlike John, she didn’t find the room comfortable. Reed, who still considered Grover a living nightmare, wasn’t participating in this campfire discussion.
“Filling us with information,” Lara said. “All the information. Much of it so far down inside us we’re going to need to relearn inseer to be able to access the crap.”
“What they’re doing is much worse,” Grover said, his voice a bare whisper, his words stuttered. “They’re putting everything lost in Hell’s Great Conflagration into our minds. Every power of Hell is going to be after our hides. We won’t last a week once the
Watchers kick us out.”
“What I want to know is whether they ripped us out of the Indigo,” Lara said. “I can’t…contact our guardian angel now.”
“You’re still part of the Indigo,” John said. He pitied them. He knew of the Great Conflagration from legend; the demon Gods of Hell had gone to war with the natives of Hell and destroyed their information base. He doubted the Watchers had the entire store, as many were likely pointless bureaucratic records. The rest, though? Too much for mortals. Grover and Lara had every right to worry. “At least for now. In the olden days, before the Great Conflagration, the Aristocrats had people like you. They called people like you Sages.” They nodded, recognizing the term, likely from the Godslayer’s lessons. He did find it amusing that they weren’t willing to use the Godslayer’s title around him; he suspected the ever opaque Epharis hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about how close the two of them had been over the years. “If you can cope with the knowledge, your new station will suit you well. You two never liked the fighting, and Sages don’t fight.”
His comment at least put tiny smiles on their worn and worried faces.
11. (Dave)
“…and you don’t want to know the details,” Dave said.
“We understand,” the man said. “We’ll leave the place to you and spend the time fulfilling Boise’s social work requirements in ‘Springs.”
Dave rang off on his smartphone; the idea of hiding under some existing Boise Supported protections had been Diana’s. They circled the Pueblo suburb until they saw the family leave. Ken plummeted them down and into the house. Nessa dove into Elorie’s arms and huddled with her and the twins, shaking and sobbing, and pointedly not looking anywhere near Diana. Too much empathy, too many echoes from her past.
Diana did knee bends, stretches and handstands, trying not to overstress the recently restitched body parts. Luckily, she had just been dissected, not dismembered and the parts destroyed. Persona had finished her healing and had the Indigo take the blood filled feeding tube out of Diana’s throat. After that, Persona had ensconced herself in Kara, after a five-minute negotiation and an overly solemn promise to help Kara cope. Kara looked almost normal, now.
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