Serpent's Storm

by Amber Benson

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, my hands shaking.

  Marcel smiled like a crazed saint bound on a pyre, his face lit from within by his own madness.

  “I just want what I want from every Death I meet,” he murmured, his voice low and malevolent.

  “I just want you to die.”

  nineteen

  Way back at the beginning of time as we know it, God created the Heavens and the Earth and things were good. All the angels and demons (demons didn’t get a bad rap until way later in the future) lived happily together, enjoying their immortal existence by spending their days creating beautiful works of art, singing, dancing, and just having a grand old time. The angels were the good stewards of Heaven, and the demons, who were in charge of the day-to-day running of the place, kept everything in perfect working order. Everyone, regardless of their place in Heaven’s hierarchy, was grateful to God for creating them, and they paid their creator homage in their works of art, their music, and their poetry. There were no conflicts, no aggression, no bad vibes; Heaven was a splendid place to live.

  Now back then, Hell was just a suburb of Heaven—a quiet place with beautiful gardens and an overabundance of fruit and veggies that was used for recreational purposes only. The denizens of Heaven loved to take day trips there to frolic in the gardens, eat the fruit and veggies, and just, you know, chill. It was a nice place to visit, but no one wanted to live there full-time because it was in another dimension of time/space and kind of far from all the hubbub of Heaven.

  But then one day, totally out of the blue, God decided to do something nuts. He/she proclaimed from on high that he/ she was going get rid of the original inhabitants of Earth—the dinosaurs—and in their place he/she was going to people the Earth with these weird little furry creatures called Homo sapiens. When God showed the first Homo sapiens prototype (he/she called the very apelike creature “Adam”) to the assemblage up in Heaven, everyone was aghast. They couldn’t understand why God would want to get rid of the lizards—which were always a gas to watch because they attacked and ate each other in spades—and replace them with those weird furry beings.

  God didn’t like being second-guessed, especially when it came to the Homo sapiens—or “human beings,” as God had nicknamed his/her newest creations—and he/she got very mad. He/she decreed that anyone who said anything bad about the human beings would be stricken from the Record of Heaven and unceremoniously tossed out into Hell, where they could spend their immortal eternity weeding vegetable beds and watering plants. It seemed that God had chosen to lavish all his/ her love and affection on these new human beings, totally forsaking the angels and demons he/she had created first. The demons especially felt God’s cold shoulder. They had less magical ability than the angels, which put them closer in origin to the human beings, so it was particularly hard for them to accept a new hierarchy where they were placed at the very bottom of the pecking order.

  The majority of the angels accepted this new kink in the system, but a large chunk of the population—mostly demons, but a few angels, too—didn’t like how hot and bothered God had gotten over the ape-men, so they decided to confront God directly with their displeasure. They selected a spokesman from among their number—an angel called Lucifer, who had immaculate oratorical skills—and they descended on God, en masse. Needless to say, God had not made an empty threat. Upon their arrival, the protesters were counted and tagged, and then their names were duly stricken from the Record of Heaven and they were banished to Hell—all without getting a word in edgewise.

  As you can imagine, this was a real blow to Lucifer and the others, who’d just wanted to speak their piece. It twisted them, made them full of rage against the God who’d given them a taste of Heaven and then thrown them into the eternal damnation of Hell. They swore that though they might have to live under God’s rule, they would not like it. In fact, they would do everything in their power to undermine God and make the furry little human beings who had caused their downfall suffer as they had suffered. Lucifer was elected to lead the fallen of Hell, choosing “Devil” as his kingly name. Under his reign, the once-bountiful gardens were transformed into a desert wasteland, and a huge, enchanted forest was erected around the interior of Hell to mirror the darkness and hatred that consumed its people.

  And if that wasn’t enough to punish the minions of Hell, God did something even worse: he/she made Hell, the newly anointed land of wastrels and misanthropes, into a staging ground for the human Afterlife. Now the creatures of Hell would be responsible for meting out punishment to the naughtiest of the human beings from Earth before their souls were then recycled back into the human populace. On principle, the citizens of Hell refused the job. They didn’t want anything to do with the stinky fur balls God had chosen over them, but since he/she was the all-powerful Creator, in the end they were forced to do his/her bidding, whether they liked it or not.

  To add insult to injury, God created the office of Death to oversee the transmigration of the human souls—and to keep the balance between the good of Heaven and the evil of Hell, something that infuriated the Devil and his minions to no end. It drove them crazy to think that one of God’s Homo sapiens might have any kind of power over them—and they definitely didn’t need some immortalized human being reporting back to God about their comings and goings. So in secret, the Devil and his closest companions used their magic to create the Ender of Death, a soulless wraith sheathed in the body of an unsuspecting human being, whose job it was to find and destroy any and all incarnations of Death.

  The Devil was pleased with his creation, but he did think that it was too little, too late. So as the first of the human souls invaded Hell for punishment and processing, the Devil swore that one day Hell would have its bloody revenge on God and his/her cherished human beings.

  as i stood alone on an empty subway platform in Queens, my way to Heaven blocked by a revolving, full-height turnstile and the Ender of Death, I realized that the Devil’s revenge had finally begun.

  And I was the only person who could put a stop to it.

  the sun had risen by now, and even though the subway platform itself was covered by a metal shell, streaks of sunlight had started to filter in around its edges.

  “So, what’s the point of you getting rid of me,” I asked, “if another Death is just going to rise up and take my place?”

  The Ender of Death, or Marcel, as he had once asked me to call him, grinned at me.

  “I will take great pleasure in destroying the child of the Death who hid me away in the deserts of Hell for over twenty years,” he purred, his voice echoing in the empty platform.

  “Okay, I get that,” I said. “But what then? If the Devil and my sister have their way and they control Death . . . what’s that do to your job description? You really think they’re gonna put a stop to Death entirely? Imagine the backlog of souls that would create.”

  Silence.

  “Fine,” I mumbled. “Don’t answer my question. I don’t care. Once I get over onto that side of the platform, I’m gonna kick your ass six ways to Sunday anyway, so I don’t give a shit.”

  Marcel laughed. “You do have a certain way with words, Calliope.”

  I shrugged. “Just a God-given talent, I suppose.”

  Just then I heard the clattering of human feet on the stairs behind me. A man in a blue business suit, briefcase held protectively under his arm, emerged from the stairwell. He paused midstride when he saw us, but then he put his head down and picked up his pace, ignoring us as he walked over to the turnstile, a golden MetroCard in his extended hand.

  “Excuse me?” I called to the man. He paused again, this time with the MetroCard at the lip of the turnstile card reader.

  “Look, I know you don’t know me,” I began, “but I really need to get on the other side of this turnstile.”

  The man didn’t look up as I spoke, just stood there uncertainly.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t ask you to help me, but the fate of the world as we
know it is at stake and I’m totally broke. Please, will you let me go through on your card?”

  I waited expectantly for the guy to respond, but he just rammed his MetroCard through the reader and pushed through the turnstile as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d just said.

  Marcel found the whole exchange hysterical.

  “The human beings are a selfish bunch.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I shot back, watching the man with the briefcase move as far down the platform—and away from us—as possible. I’d probably totally freaked him out with my apocalyptical ravings, and now he was just gonna pretend like our conversation had never happened.

  Ah, denial, what a wonderful place to live, I thought.

  “I told you that there were greater forces at work here,” Marcel said suddenly. “You should’ve listened to me when you had the chance. Of course, I told all of them that you would never do their bidding. That you were too stupid to see the advantages one side or the other could afford you.”

  I walked over to the turnstile and put my face up to the bars.

  “I’m not scared of you, Marcel. Besides,” I continued, “I’m not Death yet. The job is being split between Daniel and me until one of us drinks from the Cup of Jamshid.”

  Marcel stepped up to the other side of the turnstile, his face separated from mine by mere inches . . . and a few metal bars.

  “You think that will stop me from ending your pathetic existence? You think because you aren’t Death in its entirety that it will keep me from snuffing you out like I did your father?”

  I glared at him.

  “Like I said. When I get on the other side of that turnstile, I’m gonna make you wish you’d never been created.”

  Marcel just shook his head.

  “And what’s stopping me from coming over there to your side, Calliope? Hmmm?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, goading him on. “But I think it’s’cause you’re just a big, old, fat coward.”

  “I’ll show you what a coward is . . .”

  Marcel pushed his way through the turnstile, but I was ready for him and I had the advantage because he was coming after me, not the other way around. As soon as he hit my side, I grabbed him by the forearms and yanked him out of the turnstile. I held on tight, my hands like meat hooks digging into his flesh, and I began to swing him around and around in a dizzying circle, using my body as the fulcrum point. I spun him as fast as I could, my feet doing a modified two-step as I gathered momentum.

  “Gonna kick your ass!” I screamed. The words ripped out of my mouth as we spun with more and more abandon. I could see the uncertainty on Marcel’s face. The Ender of Death couldn’t quite get a handle on what I was doing. He probably thought I was out of options and that this was some kind of Hail Mary pass I was trying in my desperation.

  I abruptly released my grip and he went sailing into the white subway-tiled wall, slamming into it with enough force to crack the tile into jagged little pieces that clattered to the floor around him.

  He was immediately back on his feet, hands balled into fists at his sides, a new gash on his other cheekbone—to match the one my dad had given him—where he’d hit the wall. He glared at me, his eyes full of fury.

  “You bitch,” he growled, his face frozen into a rictus of rage.

  “Come and get me, asshole,” I spat back at him.

  He took me at my word. Using his hands to push himself off the wall, he snarled as he raced toward me, his teeth bared in a frightening grimace. I threw my arms over my head, covering my face as if I were seeking protection from his attack—which only made Marcel believe he had the upper hand. Lucky for me, his ego was too big to ever consider I might be faking it. Taking the bait, he barreled toward me with enough forward motion to knock out an NFL linebacker, but I waited until he was just past the failsafe point and then I slid to my left, stepping out of his way and allowing him to crash headfirst into the revolving turnstile with a horrific gristle-and-bone-shattering crunch.

  Dazed, he crumpled to the ground, blood from his broken nose pooling around him. He didn’t stay down for long, though. Like a half-beaten boxer who’s about one minute from a knockout but doesn’t realize it yet, he slammed one fist into the ground and used it to leverage himself into a sitting position. I caught a peek at the other side of his face and saw that the skin above his eyebrow had split in two. Blood, like a string of black pearls, beaded in the tear.

  The Ender of Death doesn’t look nearly as handsome as he used to, I thought happily.

  Grasping at the bars of the turnstile like it was a trellis to climb, Marcel crawled to his feet and glared at me.

  “Had enough?” I asked.

  He ran at me again and this time he was close enough to do some damage, ramming me in the stomach with his head. The soft tissue of my belly screamed in agony as the velocity of his body slam threw me backward. Before I could right myself, Marcel grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me in the air so I was upside down, my feet kicking furiously at his face. He held me aloft so that the blood drained to my head and I could feel my heartbeat in my temples.

  “Let me go!” I screamed at him, my head throbbing painfully.

  “As you wish,” he said, flecks of coagulating blood raining down on me.

  As if my body were made out of foam, not flesh and blood, he hefted me high in the air and then, in a maneuver right out of the WWE, smashed my head into the cold concrete floor, compressing my vertebrae like a squeezebox. Pain radiated up from the crown of my head and I almost passed out, but then I was being hoisted back in the air again for another round of pile driving. I kicked with my legs, hoping to dislodge myself from Marcel’s cruel embrace, but it was no use. He was merciless. My forehead connected with the concrete this time, the cords of my neck snapping taut with the force of the impact.

  To my surprise, Marcel released me—he must’ve thought he’d subdued me with the second head slam—and I crashed to the ground, my chin colliding with my clavicle as my head twisted underneath my weight. I lay there on the cold subway floor barely able to string together a coherent thought because the pain in my head and neck was so intense. My nerves screamed at me to take some kind of sedative and put myself out of my misery, but I knew that wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon, so I ignored the pain and tried to focus instead on getting my eyes open. I’d unintentionally closed them at some point during the attack—I’ve found that violence is much easier to endure when you don’t have to see it—but now I needed them in good working order so I could get a better lay of the land and hopefully figure out a way to turn the tables on the Ender of Death.

  Fat chance of that, I thought to myself.

  Sure, I’d participated in a few catfights during my career as a woman and sister, but I’d never tried to take on a full-grown man before. Besides, Marcel seemed to have a lock on the whole “physical punishment” thing, at least where I was concerned. I’d sadly underwhelmed even myself by letting Marcel have the upper hand in our fight—and I didn’t know if you could really come back from a psychological defeat like that.

  I didn’t have much time to ponder these philosophical musings because Marcel chose that moment to hammer the small of my back with his boot as hard as he possibly could, pounding my vertebrae into smithereens with every blow he landed. It took me a few seconds to understand that the odd, guttural sounds I was hearing were actually coming from my own lips.

  “Still conscious?” Marcel whispered, dropping to a crouch beside me, his lips grazing my ear as he spoke. His mouth was so close to my face I could smell his gnarly breath.

  Someone needed to hit the gum before his big fight, I thought dreamily. My thoughts were becoming more and more disjointed with every lungful of air I took. If I’d been a normal person, I’d probably have been dead from the beating I’d taken, not just maimed.

  “Fack ew,” I slurred back at him, my eyes rolling up into my eye sockets as I fought off unconsciousness.

  “Well, now,” Marce
l said thoughtfully as he rammed the toe of his boot into my cervical spine. “That wasn’t really the answer I was looking for.”

  The next time Marcel spoke to me, I chose silence as my default response—but only because I couldn’t have managed a verbal reply even if I’d wanted to.

  I was out cold.

  twenty

  I returned to consciousness with the sound of human caterwauling tickling my ears. I didn’t think I’d been out of commission for very long, but apparently it’d been long enough for the commuter at the end of the platform (yes, the same one who’d previously ignored my pleas for help) to finally take an interest in the abuse I was receiving and threaten to call the police.

  I rolled over, pain shimmying up my body like an irate hula dancer, and I cracked my right eye open so I could get a look at the man as he stood on the other side of the turnstile, waving his cell phone with enough abandon to prove he was seriously freaked out by what he’d just witnessed: chiefly, a thin yet well-muscled seraphim-looking dude beating the crap out of some girl.

  “If you don’t get out of here, I’m calling the police!” the man said, his voice shaking with fear. Still, the fact he’d taken it upon himself to get involved after he’d totally blown me off was a good sign.

  Marcel stood a few feet away from me, grinning like a lunatic at the hysterical commuter. Having left my prone body behind him—I guess he’d beaten me to the point where he wasn’t worried I was gonna get up again anytime in the near future—he’d now turned his full attention to the terrified man on the other side of the turnstile.

  “You don’t want me to come over there, do you?” Marcel said, blood still running freely from both nostrils. He was wearing the stupid injury like a badge of honor, which only made me wish I’d bloodied his nuts instead, ’cause he couldn’t very well show those off, could he?