by Drew Foote
A smile flickered across the Empty One’s slack face, unlike any other before. It was the first of its kind, and likely the last. It was jagged, the muscles contorted in alien ways. The Void had never smiled before.
There had never been a reason.
It was the twisted, manic grin of a wolf wearing sheep’s’ skin.
~
“You know what you must do, Raphael. This world is corrupted, and we must begin anew,” Archangel Gabriele whispered.
Her voice was an icy caress that drove a spear through Archangel Raphael’s heart. Gabriele had always been a harsh creature, the unapproachable matriarch of Heaven. Her statement was irrefutable, her logic unassailable, and Raphael could not deny her. There was but one course left.
Despite that knowledge, Archangel Raphael could not help but feel as though it was a terrible mistake. He knew the ways the world could end, and this was unlike anything he had experienced in his myriad lives.
It was all wrong. There was no power of Hell, or of Heaven, great enough to destroy the eternal Nexuses. They were the constructs of God’s own hands, and His will infused their power. Raphael had believed that nothing could destroy them, but he had been mistaken.
There was something foul at work. The fact remained, however, that the way to Heaven and Hell was sealed. The world was a broken creature and it must be exterminated.
Let him be the herald of this world’s death, then, to allow a new universe to rise from its ashes like a phoenix. Raphael merely hoped the world that rose from its corpse would be true and whole. He prayed the disease would be left behind.
Raphael nodded to his sister, his glowing eyes filled with resignation. “So shall it be, Gabriele,” he acknowledged.
Raphael’s heart went out to the teeming masses of humanity below. Their lives would be cut short, harvested before their time. How they struggled and cried out for mercy, seeking shelter from the storm. Perhaps this was mercy, destroying the world so they might be reborn into better circumstances. Undoubtedly, that philosophy moved Gabriele’s thoughts.
Archangel Uriel materialized next to them with a burst of radiance. His emotionless mask easily gauged Raphael’s thoughts. The colossus whispered to Raphael with a dancing tongue of flame.
“It begins now, brother. Let your trumpet ring true.”
Archangel Raphael bowed his head. His heart was as heavy as the gilded trumpet that he raised to tremulous lips. It was the harbinger of the death of the universe: the bell that tolled for one and all. Its dread note would call the Angels home to prepare for Armageddon. Once sounded, there would be no future for this world.
Raphael inhaled a deep breath. He breathed in the essence of life, love, and loss, the poignant bouquet of creation. He held the dread breath in his lungs, his heart swelled to bursting from the pain of what he must do.
If this was just and necessary, then why did it feel so wrong?
All did what they must. Raphael exhaled his holy breath with the force of a divine hurricane, and it rang through the ivory trumpet in a harrowing sound of endless sorrow.
The black note pealed through the layers of creation. It resounded through the mountains and the valleys, the cities and the wild places. It echoed in the heart of every being and every atom with terrible resonance. The very surface of the Earth vibrated with anticipation.
All across the world below, Angels raised their eyes in fear, their white wings trembling. It called them home to muster for the bloodiest of battles. The spirits of light rose as one into the darkened sky, their radiance raining down on the forsaken Earth, and they left humanity behind. They would return in a tide of destruction.
Archangel Raphael lowered the trumpet from his lips, weeping radiant tears. He prayed that God was watching, and that He had a reason for His silence.
Gabriele nodded grimly, her gaze inscrutable. Six empyrean wings flared open from her delicate body in a cascade of cold, white radiance. With Michael absent, she would be the War Leader of Heaven’s army, and there was no one more suited than she was. Her strength beggared the imagination.
“Well done, brother,” she sighed, but her voice was the crack of a breaking glacier. She paused, peering at Raphael, and she seemed to momentarily thaw. She looked at him with what might be affection.
“Raphael. Know that you are a noble spirit, come whatever may. I salute you. I go, now, to prepare for war.”
She vanished into the ether.
Raphael was puzzled. That was most certainly not like Gabriele; never before had he seen the slightest crack in her demeanor, the tiniest glimpse behind the emotionless mask of the Patron of Mercy. If anything, he was more alarmed by that demonstration than anything thus far. The thought that there was anything that could so affect Gabriele filled him with a sense of dread.
“Raphael,” Uriel breathed, whispering like a forge. “Come. There is something I must show you.”
~
The forsaken realm of Earth below, now deserted by its Angelic caretakers, descended deeper into insanity. Humanity was already nearly mad with the growing tumult of the dead that filled the atmosphere, and the sound of Raphael’s horn reverberated within their hearts. They did not hear it with their ears, but they heard it in their souls.
They knew they were abandoned. They knew that their time had run out, and they lashed out at one another with every ounce of fear and anger they could muster. Brothers turned on each other, tearing each other to pieces over the slightest provocation. Giant, seething riots swelled into life in the bloated cities of man, storms of rapacious destruction that washed over the land. Nations, instead of destroying each other, now destroyed themselves in a cannibalistic frenzy.
Humanity was now truly alone. The air was a thick soup, filled with the psychic screams of lost souls that did not understand what was happening to them. Humanity begged for a release from the madness.
Some prayed and some laughed. Some hoped and some despaired. Some cursed God while others pleaded with Him to deliver them from evil. Some tried feebly to live by the ethics they had preached such a short time ago, but most did not; most descended back into the ravenous beasts they were, at heart.
They were wild things of howling hunger and desire. Humanity was seldom more than the sum of its parts. While there was sometimes a spark of greatness within them, in the end, they were seldom more than savage apes.
The fate of God’s creation now hinged on the actions of one such ape. The Throne of God watched silently.
Chapter 31
Public Domain
Oily smoke and screams filled the humid night air of New Orleans. An orange haze lit up the dark sky, a fitful glow cast by the countless fires that illuminated the city. Heaving mobs dominated the shattered streets, swarming like ants in the light of the bonfires. The city had given itself over to the spirit of chaos: wild revelry and destructive abandon now ruled in New Orleans. It was the end of days.
Barnabas, Kalyndriel, Walter, and Arcturus materialized in a shadowed alley. Walter spun angrily on Barnabas, furious.
“What the fuck, Demon? You just abandoned Paimon?” Walter shouted.
Barnabas did not flinch from the accusation, and he took a step closer to Walter. The Demon’s eyes glowed like the shimmering bonfires, and his mouth was a rigid, drawn line. He had had quite enough of the mortal’s recrimination.
“You listen to me, human,” he growled, his voice dangerously soft. “We don’t have time to point fingers, or grieve. That was Leviathan back there, a monster beyond your imagining, and you heard Paimon. We have work to do. Now sack up, and let’s get on with it.”
Walter stared wordlessly at Barnabas, his breathing tight. He had abandoned the one person who had actually been there through his life, his only true friend. Kaly stepped forward and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. Walter turned to her, and she nodded.
“He is right, Walter. There was nothing we could do … but there is something we can do now. If we succeed, Paimon will eventually be reborn.�
�
Walt let out a tormented sigh, and shook his head. He knew they were right, and he would have time to mourn Paimon, eventually. If any of them survived.
“Fine,” he acknowledged, and he glared at Barnabas. “Let’s go.”
Barnabas ran a frustrated hand through his dark hair. The belly of the Worm was not a place he had ever cared to visit, and that was quite nearly where he had ended up. Leviathan had come for them, in person, no less, and the significance of that was unmistakable. It did not bode well.
“All right,” Barnabas replied. “There’s a Possessor here named Pazuzu, and he owes me. Big. He should be able to help get you into a body, Walter.”
Barnabas turned and set off swiftly into the shadowy depths of the alley. The others followed after him wordlessly, lost in their own dark thoughts. New Orleans welcomed them into its rancid embrace.
The din of the rampaging mobs echoed furiously through the darkened maze, and the atmosphere was viscous and cloying. They heard the screams of lost souls, now filling the atmosphere of Earth, howling in the back of their minds. Bodies littered the filthy ground around them: some claimed by drugs or intoxication, others dead by the violent hands of their brothers.
They passed the corpse of a young man who looked as though he had died protecting his lover, their murdered bodies crumpled together in an undignified heap. It was but one of many such tragic vignettes that lay strewn through the bloody streets. Civilization was unraveling with enthusiastic abandon.
“This is bad,” Arcturus whispered softly from Kalyndriel’s shoulder. He curled up tightly and folded his wings around him.
“I know, Art,” Kaly quietly replied, her voice heavy. She placed a gauntleted palm delicately on his back, and rested it there. “All is not lost, however — not while we can yet fight.”
He eased slightly, and arched his tiny back into her hand. “Just pull your shit together, okay? Get a grip.”
She nodded, lost for words. She looked at her hand, now comforting a creature of Hell. Those same fists had ended the existence of countless of Arcturus’ Demonic kin. How long had it been since those callous hands delivered anything other than destruction, if ever?
She had not known that such bloody instruments could offer a thing such as comfort … or that she would ever feel the need to give it.
A divine butcher seeking to sooth an Imp, a vessel of obliteration providing solace. The irony was not lost on Kalyndriel. She knew she was nothing more than an expression of God’s merciless justice, punishment given wings. How she had fought through the ages, destroying the enemies of Heaven, and for what? Because it was her purpose, given at birth?
What feeble justification.
She realized, with great sadness, that she had never truly had a reason to fight: a reason she felt within her radiant heart. She had fought for humanity, but she had not loved them. She had fought for Heaven, but Heaven had forsaken her. The highest of the high, an Archangel himself, had proven no better than the Demons she slaughtered in the trenches.
She had fought for God, but did He even care?
Kalyndriel knew she would never have that answer. Perhaps now she had a reason to fight, though. Was the fate of creation, itself, a worthy enough reason? If not, then perhaps it was enough to stand by her comrades. She hoped so, because there was little else to believe in. Everything else had forsaken her. Everything else had turned to ashes.
Barnabas led on through the twisting alleyways, a maze of detritus and spent lives. The cobbled ground was wet with muck: a foul mixture of water, blood, excrement, and alcohol. They strode through the Earthly filth as their minds swam in dark lakes of fear and doubt.
Barnabas eventually stopped before a barred door cloaked in shadow, and he turned to regard the others.
“Okay,” he said. His usual flippant cheer was noticeably absent. “Pazuzu is inside. Let me take the lead; he can be a bit slippery.” He looked pointedly at Kalyndriel. “Try to avoid terrifying him, unless we need to.”
She nodded, and the party entered.
~
“Paz, old pal!” Barnabas called enthusiastically.
They entered a wide, open room in one of the upper stories of the abandoned building. Trash littered the floor, and the walls were crumbling and covered in profane graffiti. Dirty needles covered the ground like a pine forest. Even more hung from the arms of the decaying corpses collapsed in the corners. At the far end of the room, a twisted creature was peering through shattered windows.
The Demon spun swiftly around at Barnabas’ greeting. It was a vile and pathetic thing, the very picture of infernal wretchedness. Its form was short and gnarled, its dusky skin emaciated. Enormous black eyes, now suspicious, peered at them above a tiny mouth filled with broken teeth.
“Barnabas?” Pazuzu replied, surprised. His voice was a nasal warble.
“Indeed! You look well, friend!”
Barnabas was warm and friendly, his smile disarming. His face shone with camaraderie. He walked forward, stepping delicately over the dead bodies. Kaly and Walter stood silently in the rear of the room.
“Bullshit … but that’s not surprising, coming from you,” Pazuzu observed sourly. He jerked his head at Kaly and Walter. “Who’s the muscle? And why the Hell is there a soul with you? …oh, hey Art.”
Arcturus waved from Kaly’s shoulder, and then extended a stubby middle finger cordially. Pazuzu returned the gesture.
“This is Kalyndriel, my apprentice,” Barnabas replied with smooth ease, and Kaly raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And this soul the reason we’re here.”
Pazuzu also looked skeptical. He snorted wetly. “Your apprentice? Ha! Not fucking likely. That brute right there is a murder machine … Old Testament shit. I’m not an idiot.”
“So, what do you want?” Pazuzu continued. “The show outside is just getting good.”
“Do you remember Caligula?”
Pazuzu guffawed, a hideous sound. His face lit up with glee, and he heaved a pleasured sigh. Caligula was one of the most legendary possessions in the history of Hell, a true triumph. He had been one of Pazuzu’s greatest successes.
“Of course I remember Caligula! How could I ever forget?” the Possessor reminisced fondly. “I can’t believe those stupid Romans took four years to assassinate me. I made my horse a damn senator, for Hell’s sake!”
“Quite right! You even won a few awards for that one, eh?”
Walter frowned with displeasure. Arcturus chuckled, and Kalyndriel shifted uncomfortably. Her armor rattled with conspicuous clangor.
“I sure did,” Pazuzu acknowledged proudly. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at Barnabas suspiciously. “But you know that damn well, Barnabas. You tipped me off about him, after all.”
Pazuzu leered at Barnabas. “And now, no doubt, you’re calling in your favor. So, out with it!”
“I need you to stick this soul, here, into a new body. No big deal.” Barnabas smiled sweetly.
Pazuzu’s already-large eyes swelled to the size of comical dinner plates, his loathsome face contorted in disbelief. He stood in silence, staring at Barnabas, and then burst into raucous laughter. His amusement was so great that he seemed about to collapse onto the floor.
“You have got to be joking!” he wheezed through his laughter, tears of mirth running down his ruined visage. “Absolutely not! I’d have my license revoked.”
“I’m not joking, and piss on your license. With the way things are going, you won’t need it much longer. Just do it, Pazuzu, and we’ll be even.”
Barnabas’ tone was calm, but there was a thread of steel that ran through his words. It was obvious he would not be dissuaded. Pazuzu stopped laughing, and he stared at Barnabas maliciously.
“What’s it to you, Barnabas? Why do you give a rat’s ass about getting this sausage a new wrapper?”
“Would you believe me if I told you it was to save the world?”
“You? Not a fucking chance.”
“Fair enough,” Barnabas agr
eed. “What if I told you that the murder machine, here, will shove a stick through your head if you don’t?”
Pazuzu turned to Kalyndriel and examined the Angel closely. Her monstrous black armor, her expressionless beauty. Her aura of simmering brutality. She returned the stare, considering him coolly with a half-lidded gaze.
She shrugged noncommittally. Her shadowy wings flashed open like two scythes, hissing with furious steam.
“Okay, okay,” Pazuzu grunted, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I believe that, at least.”
Barnabas grinned, pleased, and Kaly folded her wings. Arcturus gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Walter sighed. He doubted he would ever get used to the way Demons handled business.
“Delightful!” Barnabas declared with satisfaction. “So, we’ll need a body for Walter, here. Additionally, it needs to be a body that, well, doesn’t already have a soul. Is that doable?”
Pazuzu groaned, shaking his head in disbelief. “Oh, that’s even better! You need a vegetable? I’m glad you managed to complicate this even more.”
“Pleasure to oblige. Can you do it, or not?”
“Can I cram him into the body of a brain-dead bag of meat? Sure!” Pazuzu hissed. “What happens after that? Fuck if I know. I’ve never done this before. He’ll probably just immediately die, again.” The Demon grinned a hideous smile.
Barnabas turned to Walter. His smooth face was dour. “You’re sure about this, Walt?” he asked.
Walter nodded firmly. “I am.”
“You’re sure about this, even with the fate of the world at stake? You risk everything … don’t be an asshole. For once.”
Walter hesitated, and he looked down. It was a good point; if there was any time an end justified the means, this was it. His naïve ideals could doom the universe. It was insanity.
And yet, Walter could not deny the horror in his heart at the thought of taking a body from an unwilling soul. It was blasphemous and evil, the ultimate violation, and he could not have such a taint on his already-blasted conscience. Could he even stand for justice should his heart be so stained? Could he have the right to stand against the darkness? He didn’t think so.
