The Morning Star

by Debra Dunbar

  His voice trailed off as he stared down at the pile of sand. I knew he was reliving that—relieving a very specific part of that war.

  “Did the other angels die like this as well?” I put my hand on his shoulder, leaned my spirit-self against his in warm reassurance. I was torn between wanting to comfort him, and the panic that this was going to all be blamed on demons. I’d been working my ass off to integrate our two groups. This was just the sort of thing that would set us all right back to where we were at the beginning—hating each other and wanting nothing but to see each other dead.

  The archangel shook his head. “No. I’d assumed those angels weren’t adapting well to a corporeal existence, that perhaps a human had killed them and they hadn’t been agile or skilled enough to recreate a new form before their spirit-beings shredded, but when this happened to the Grigori, I began to wonder if the two issues were connected somehow.”

  I nodded, remembering when the elves first migrated and how many of them had gotten plowed over by vehicles, or died from a metal allergy they hadn’t realized they’d had.

  “The others weren’t transmuted.” He reached out a finger to touch the sand once more. “Of course, they weren’t Grigori enforcers either. The angels who died before this had moderate powers and abilities. They were more skilled in administration than battle.”

  “Do you really think those deaths are related to this one?” I held my breath, afraid he’d say “yes”.

  He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Probably not, but we should remain open to the possibility even though those angels may have died due to their inability to adjust to life here.”

  I felt so sorry for Gregory. To lose thousands of his kind… “Why didn’t you say something? We could have put together some sort of onboarding process like we did for the elves. Some kind of ‘this is how you cross the road without dying’ seminar.”

  “And clue them in that this may be their life for the next million years or so? That this might be their life forever?” He turned to face me. “Cockroach, these angels are enduring a physical existence here because they believe they will soon return to Aaru. If we start having seminars and onboarding sessions, that hope will be gone.”

  I understood the words behind his words. Angels of Order felt suicide was inexcusable, but an angel who had spent their entire life in Aaru, who was facing an eternity of exile, of life inside a physical body that revolted and disgusted them… There were many angels who would possibly step in front of a semi on the highway rather than live that future. And as painful as that would be for Gregory, it would be worse for me.

  It was all my fault. It was my fault that the entire angelic host was here with no foreseeable return to Aaru. They’d know. They’d blame me. All the deaths would be on my head. Thousands of angels would try to kill me in revenge, and they’d either succeed or die by my hand. My whole future would be painted with the blood of angels.

  Actually, my whole future was already painted with the blood of angels. And I was beginning to fear nothing I could do would change that.

  “I tried everything.” My voice faltered, and I cleared my throat. “I tried, but I’m worried this is forever.”

  He put his arm around me. “There were loopholes in my banishing. I’m sure there are loopholes in yours.”

  “Maybe not. You’re an Angel of Order and you pronounced your banishment in the heat of anger, but even then you knew deep down inside that you didn’t want your brother and the other angels to be gone forever.”

  “At the time I did want that. And although I delivered my banishment in anger, you delivered yours in fear. With such great emotion, I’m sure there were circumstances not covered that will reveal themselves in time.” He gave my shoulders a squeeze. “You’re an imp, an Angel of Chaos. That banishing should have more holes than the metal thing you use to strain water from cooked noodles.”

  “Colander,” I told him. “And Chaos means that my results are frequently unexpected. The banishment shouldn’t have worked. It should have been flimsy with the kind of conditions that let angels who master the skill of chewing gum while walking on their hands back into Aaru. But just like I’ve managed to kill angels and demons far more powerful than I, just like I’ve been able to devour half a mountainside in Alaska then recreate it without a flaw, I’ve somehow managed to construct and deliver an airtight banishment. You all are stuck here. You’re stuck here forever. And while I know you don’t want to announce that to the angelic host, maybe you should give them a heads-up and bring them up to speed on how life works here before half of them die by drowning in the bathtub or getting their wings caught in an escalator.”

  He winced. “That was…it was unfortunate. But if those angel deaths were connected to this one, then I’m afraid no onboarding seminar is going to rectify the situation.”

  I looked down at the sand once more. “Why do you think they’re connected?”

  Gregory stood. “Intuition. Come with me. I want to talk to the gate guardian about this, and I’d like your insights on the matter.”

  “It’s not who you think it is,” I told him again, standing. “The others got hit by a bus, and this one got dusted by an Ancient or possibly an angel with a weird energy signature. Or a human.”

  He turned, his one eyebrow raised. “A human? Did this?”

  “They did manage to blow up one of the main angel gates,” I countered.

  “This angel didn’t die of a nuclear blast, and as far as I know, no human has a weapon that could do this.”

  “Could be,” I insisted because I’d been watching far too many comic-book based superhero movies lately. “Some human guy gets bitten by a radioactive gamma-filled jumped-up possum and develops mad skills. Some human guy is a braniac son of a high-tech weapons developer and figures out a way to copy my sword. Or some guy is a demi-god from another planet or plane of existence and thought an angel chasing down a demon was the one who was the bad guy.” Gregory stared at me. “What? Could happen. Totally could happen.”

  “Those scenarios are completely improbable.”

  “Improbable? Like an imp banishing the entire angelic host improbable?” I waited a moment for that to sink in. “There were artifacts missing from Aaru, and now that none of us can get in, we’ve got no idea what may have also been taken before everyone got dumped out on their ass. Could this be a human, or a demon, or an angel with an artifact?”

  Gregory narrowed his eyes in thought. “There are artifacts that could kill an angel in this way, even in the hands of a human. But how could a human get a hold of them? And why was there Sa— Why was there that energy signature?”

  “Coincidence.” I told him. “Let’s say a rebel angel stole an artifact. He gets banished here. He’s barely able to walk, let alone do things like navigate the transportation systems, and culture of the human world. He takes a nap, completely bewildered that he even has to nap, and when he wakes up, some junkie has stolen the artifact. It gets sold to a pawn shop, then resold to some nutjob who accidently uses it on that weirdo with wings who won’t stop going on and on about how he needs to give up carbs and pray more, then realizes what he’s got and goes on a rampage.”

  The archangel was actually taking that seriously. He frowned for a second.

  “But why kill through dismemberment and fire with lesser angels only to turn to this method now?”

  I shrugged. “He couldn’t figure out how to work the artifact properly until now? Or the deaths are unconnected and those other angels really did get hit by a bus or died trying to start their gas grill.”

  Gregory slowly shook his head. “Okay, Cockroach. I’ll consider it. But before we go any farther down that twisted improbable pathway, let’s first talk to the gate guardian.”

  Chapter 4

  The gate guardian was a sullen teenage girl texting on her phone and occasionally flipping her hair over a shoulder. I blinked in surprise because the angel watching the Seattle gate had always been either a hippy playing a gui
tar or a homeless guy begging for change. I’d known what he’d done with that change too. For some reason, this type of angel had a thing for fast food—especially sweet and sour pork from the cheapest Chinese takeout they could find. Extra sauce.

  The angel jumped to her feet as we approached, shoving the phone in her back pocket and watching Gregory with apprehension. I wasn’t completely sure this wasn’t the original gate guardian with a new look, so once we got close enough, I felt her up.

  “Hey!” She glared at me. “Get off me, perv.”

  It wasn’t the same gate guardian, although this one seemed to have gotten the slang to match her physical form down pat.

  “Where’s the other guy?” I asked Gregory. “He’s been here for the last sixty years, give or take.”

  “Dead.” Gregory turned to the other angel. “Please tell us about the demon who slipped through. The one you called Humiel to assist with.”

  “Whoa. Wait just a damned minute. Dead? Dead?” I grabbed Gregory’s arm. “What happened?”

  I’d spent a good part of the last century sneaking past that guy as well as annoying him whenever possible. We weren’t as close as Beatrix and I were, but I still felt as if an old childhood friend had suddenly been ripped away from me.

  Gregory shrugged. “He chased down a demon who came through the gates a few days ago. They fought. The demon killed him. Now, if you’ll—”

  I shook my head. “No way. That guy struggled to catch Lows. We all just ran away from him. No one would have killed him and risked you putting in a gate guardian that might actually be competent enough to do his or her job.”

  The new gate guardian snorted. “Yeah he was a bit of a screw-up, wasn’t he?”

  “It happens, Cockroach,” Gregory assured me. “It’s a dangerous assignment. Occasionally one of them encounters a demon they can’t handle and doesn’t have time to call for backup.”

  “Not this guy,” I insisted. “I mean, I don’t think he could handle much more than a rogue butterfly, but we wouldn’t have killed him. It was pretty widely accepted that this was one of the easiest gates to sneak through. No one wanted to fuck that up.”

  “One did.”

  There was something weird about this, something weird about Gregory’s casual acceptance of the loss of his Seattle gate guardian. I knew he was an asshole to work for, and wasn’t particularly good at expressing appreciation or affection toward his Grigori staff, but this seemed cold even for him. Aside from a few brief temporary reassignments, this gate guardian had been here for the last sixty years. He’d never been a threat serious enough to warrant killing. Had he pissed off the wrong demon? I just couldn’t see it. And something else about this situation bothered me as well.

  “Wait. If a demon killed him, why didn’t that land on my desk for some kind of report or something? Why didn’t you come yelling to me about a demon killing an angel? Because that’s serious shit. This happened a few days ago, yet you didn’t tell me, or bring it up in the Ruling Council meeting yesterday? What gives?”

  Gregory sighed. “It wasn’t just one demon that killed him, it was an ambush. A demon led him away from the gate, then a whole host of demons came through and they all cornered him and killed him. I have no idea how many demons were able to come through the gate during that time when it was unattended. It could be as few as five or six. It could be an entire army.”

  I stared at him openmouthed. An army. Bad enough that I had a group of demons on the loose here that had ganged up and killed a harmless gate guardian, but I potentially had an army here as well. The gate guardians had been carefully keeping track of what demons they allowed through and which ones they turned back. I got that motherfucking report in my hands from Gregory weekly. As much as I joked that for every demon they recorded, three probably slipped through unnoticed, it had been good to know what demons were this side of the gates with a sizeable margin of error. Now I had no fucking idea.

  “You should have brought it up.” As I said the words, I felt a hard cold lump settle in my stomach. A band of demons ambushed and killed a gate guardian. And now with that and the enforcer murders, demons were being suspected of all angel deaths since the fall. Stupid fuckers. We were heading toward war again because some dumb ass demons couldn’t follow a few basic rules.

  No, we were heading toward war because I was a shitty leader and the majority of Hel didn’t give a crap about what I said or wanted.

  “You should have brought it up,” I repeated.

  “I thought it was a random occurrence, just a few bad eggs acting out. I was going to discuss it with you when the moment was right. You were negotiating to allow demons unhindered travel here through the gates and were about to propose the world-share idea. The timing would have been bad to bring this up.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You opposed my proposal,” I countered. “If you had brought this up, it would have quashed the matter. Why didn’t you?”

  “It wouldn’t have quashed the matter, just complicated it. And I wanted your proposal heard and discussed. I do believe that that’s the future for all of us, Cockroach. Just not now.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t bring it up because you didn’t think I could take care of it, did you? You figured I’d waste time running around after five or ten demons, and not find them, or not be able to either kill them or bring them into line? That’s it, isn’t it? Why would you bother to tell me something like this when you feel that I can’t fix the problem?”

  “That’s not true. I thought it was a minor matter that I could handle myself.”

  I clenched my teeth, trying to keep control of my temper. “It’s not your matter to handle. Demons killed a gate guardian. Demons are my responsibility. You kept me in the dark on something that falls under my purview.”

  He thought about that while I glared at him. The gate guardian watched, fascinated, as if she were seeing a particularly dramatic soap opera scene being acted out right in front of her.

  “You’re right, Cockroach. I should have immediately come to you with this. I promise I will in the future.”

  That helped, but it still didn’t touch that he didn’t think I was capable of the task at hand, of truly being the Iblis. I wasn’t capable, but I still wanted Gregory to believe in me. He used to believe in me, but that was before I dumped all the angels out of Aaru. Now…I knew he loved me, but the world had just gotten very complicated and he felt I wasn’t up to the task.

  Sadly, I didn’t think the world was going to hit pause until I grew older and better able to handle ruling Hel and its residents. It was our discussion from last night all over again, and rehashing it wasn’t making me feel any better.

  I sighed and turned to the gate guardian. Step one, find these motherfuckers who killed the previous gate guardian and lay down a serious amount of asskicking. No, step one was find who was killing the enforcers and lay down some asskicking. Or basically just kick everyone’s ass preemptively. That might be a better plan.

  “So what exactly happened with this demon and Humiel?” I asked her.

  “Well, with the enforcement of the treaty in question, we’ve had to change how we handle demons coming through the gates. I have a list of questions for the demons wanting to enter. I note down who they are, how long they intend to stay, and where. Then I sample their personal energy for our records, and stamp them with my own to make tracking and enforcement of the rules easier.”

  What the fuck? “You take a sample of their personal energy? You mark them?” My eyes narrowed and I shot another glare at Gregory. Since when? Clearly this was another thing I’d been kept out of the loop on.

  “We have to,” Gregory informed me. “It ensures we can quickly locate offending demons and allows us to know if they are living where they are supposed to.”

  “I thought you were going to trust us? Was everything you said about putting aside old prejudice a load of crap? Because I’m beginning to think so.”

  “It’s strictly administrative,
Cockroach. This has nothing to do with trust, it has to do with being able to keep track of who is here and if they’re following the rules they agreed to.”

  I was about to ask him who the fuck gave him the authority to do that, but decided not to. Up until recently the angels had ruled everything with a heavy hand. There had been a loosening of the rules and concessions, but clearly I’d been a fool to completely trust that things had changed, to think the angels wouldn’t be trying to control every demon that came through.

  “You do realize that you’re only tracking and enforcing the demons who are most likely to comply, where others, the more dangerous ones, are sneaking through without this tracking shit? Something bad goes down in Cleveland, you’ll be all over the poor Low minding his own business, because according to your records he’s the only demon there, meanwhile some untracked higher-level demon has gotten away with killing half of City Hall.”

  “It’s an imperfect system,” Gregory admitted.

  I snorted and turned back to the gate guardian. “You were saying?”

  “Well I try to take a sample and stamp them, anyway. Demons get really pissed off at that, so really it’s only the Lows.” The girl shot an apologetic grimace toward Gregory. “I try to keep those who won’t comply from coming through, or I try to get them to go back, but if they run for it I’m not supposed to chase them or anything. I call an enforcer and he tracks them down and informs them of the conditions they need to abide by to remain here among the humans. He asks them how long their stay is, where they intend to reside, what the purpose is of their visit. Then he collects the sample and stamps them.”

  “What percentage are you successfully able to do this to?” I asked.

  She shot another nervous glance at Gregory. “I register maybe ten percent of those who come through the gates, and the enforcers pick up another five percent or so.”