by Tim Marquitz
“You have never killed anyone like me.” His grin spread, his pale cheeks stretched in its wake. “I am no average angel whose power can be so easily separated from him as Raguel presumes. While he might steal my magic and keep me imprisoned in my flesh, he cannot take the essence of who and what I am while I still live. Let Raguel gloat upon his hollow trophy, but I offer you the true spirit of Azrael, the Angel of Death.” He drew closer, limping, doing his best to puff his bony chest out. “You have only to kill me, Triggaltheron. Free me from this eternal prison of nothingness and all you wish to know will be yours, and so much more.”
Azrael stopped right before me, meeting my eyes with the rigid brown of his own. I stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to do. Would killing him truly give me access to the answers I was looking for? Did it really matter? He had no intention of talking to me no matter how much I tortured him. I could be at it for days. As fun as that sounds, I’d likely never learn anything, so what was the point? He wanted to die. I wanted to kill him.
Done deal.
I nodded and pressed my gun under his chin. He smiled. I pulled the trigger.
The shot ripped through his head and exited the top of his skull. Blood and brains exploded in a volcano of chunky gray and red. Azrael crumpled as the last of his life rained down over his body. He was dead before he hit the ground, the swirling haze burying him in a cloudy grave.
I stood there a moment, feeling nothing, and then the soul transfer hit. It wasn’t much of one. I felt a vague warmth bubble in my belly and a slight tingle across my skin, but that was it. Normally orgasmic, filling your veins with a methamphetamine rush mixed with ecstasy, this one felt more like I’d accidentally rubbed up against a dusty TV screen. A little bit of a static tickle and it was done.
Certain that Azrael had tricked me, I dug down deep to look for his essence. To my surprise, I found it easily. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The closest thing I had to compare it to was when Baalth had me swallow a portion of his powers, the process leaving them inside me until I called upon the magic and made it my own. Thinking I had to do the same with this, I pushed against Azrael’s essence with my senses and willed it to surrender to me.
Nothing happened.
I could feel it in me, pick out the subtle flicker of Azrael, the scent of the tomb, but there were no memories I could find. The essence felt as though it were sealed against me, keeping me from prying inside. Something stopped me from cracking the shell of it and absorbing Azrael’s history.
Disappointment welled up, and I growled at my stupidity. I’d let Azrael trick me into killing him. He’d told me the truth, but not all of it. I should have known better. There’d be no answers from him or the tiny remnant I’d acquired through the soul transfer. He’d gotten what he wanted, and I’d gotten nothing more out of it than the pleasure of putting a bullet into his head.
It’d have to do.
Chapter Ten
Azrael a bust, I was running out of people who might know something about Lucifer’s relationship with my mother. They’d apparently had a baby together, at some point, but the letters weren’t dated so there was no telling if my mother was pregnant when she was killed, or if I had a brother or sister somewhere out in the world I didn’t know about. Both were a horrible thought.
I could probably use the summoning stone Hasstor gave me and call on Dip and Shit to take a message to Lucifer, but that didn’t seem productive. He managed to keep their fling a secret from me for five hundred years without a slip, so it didn’t seem likely he’d suddenly divulge anything. He kept it to himself for a reason, whatever that was. No, I wouldn’t be getting answers from Lucifer, so I had to settle for the next best thing: Baalth.
Still worried about the freak who’d come a knockin’ after the werewolf attack, I drove along the main streets, doing my best to stay amidst traffic. I was probably putting everyone at risk as the guy had shown he didn’t really care too much about witnesses or passersby, but if nothing else, it might stop the weres from springing an ambush.
As I wheeled into Old Town, it was clear there was something in the air. Just past the line of downtown, the traffic on the streets dwindled to almost nothing. There were a few homeless folks wandering the sidewalks, but they stopped and stared as I drove by, all of them appearing to hunker close to the buildings and alleys as if they expected violence.
I kept my head on a swivel as I drove, trying my best to see what had spooked the locals, but there was nothing to be seen. My senses weren’t picking up anything, so the threat didn’t appear supernatural. Maybe they were just antsy about all the crap going down lately and were waiting it out.
No idea what was up, but certain something was, I figured out where Baalth was hanging out and pulled into the parking lot of a rundown strip mall, which covered half the block. I stashed one of my guns and an extra clip under the driver’s seat, then got out of the car and made my way to the comic book store that looked like it hadn’t seen a customer since the early eighties. It still had a poster advertising the New Mutants, for Starbuck’s sake.
I went to the door and pulled it open. Alexander Poe met me before I could step inside.
“Good afternoon, Mister Trigg.” He greeted me with his usual cold professionalism. Dressed as he always was, in a tailored suit fitted to his exact dimensions, he was intimidating despite his advanced age. His thinning gray hair immaculate, he stared at me through ice-blue eyes that didn’t blink. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to speak to Baalth, and don’t give me any of that vacation stuff, because I know he’s back.”
Poe nodded. “He is, but he’s not up for visitors, having more than his fair share of uninvited and unwelcome guests today.” He glanced casually toward the rooftop of the building across the street, his eyes lingering.
I followed his gaze, and there, plain as day but out of sight from the street, were several men dressed in SWAT uniforms without emblems. They all carried some variety of automatic rifle-Ar-15s, or some such thing-and had their faces covered. That explained why the locals were hiding. The feds had moved in. One of the men waved and mimed shooting me. I flipped him the bird and turned back to Poe.
“I guess the Department of Supernatural Investigation is taking their job seriously.”
“It would seem, so you can understand why Baalth wouldn’t want to see you right now. They’ve been hounding him since his return.”
“ Deja vu.” I still didn’t know where Baalth had up and disappeared to during the Heaven fiasco, but apparently everyone knew he’d come back…except for me. If he hadn’t burst in on us ransacking Lucifer’s chambers, I wouldn’t have had a clue. I didn’t know whether I should be offended or not. Of course, seeing how I’d blown a gasket and poked old Baalthy boy in the chest, I figured Poe’s reluctance to let me in had more to do with that than the government agency perched across the street. Baalth didn’t have much to fear from the feds.
“Look, I know he’s pissed at me, but he caught me at a really, really, bad time, you know? Let me talk to him, and we can straighten things out. I also have a message he won’t want to miss out on.” I was tempted to flirt my way in, Poe having mistakenly shown me a part of his character he kept under lock and key, but decided against it. Getting to see Baalth wasn’t worth my grunting into a pillow. “Besides, the DSI thinks I work for Baalth anyway, so it’s not like you’re saving your boss the shame of being connected to me.” I plastered on a grin to punctuate my seriousness.
Poe sighed and waved me inside. “Baalth said to let you in if were you suitably humble and apologetic. We both know this is as close as it gets for you.”
So true. As a powerful mentalist who could read whether I was lying to him, he knew I wasn’t trying to bullshit my way in…at least no more than usual.
Poe shut the door and told me to follow. He led the way past the sales counter where a pimply-faced kid picked his nose and stared at us as we passed. In the back room, we wound our wa
y around a minefield of cardboard boxes overflowing with comic books and nerd paraphernalia. Posters and cardboard cutouts covered the walls and shelves, advertising everything from Superman to Star Wars. I was jealous. Just don’t ask me to admit it in public.
Too busy checking out the life-sized Princess Leia in the slave outfit cutout, I nearly ran into Poe who’d stopped before a small desk stashed in the recesses of the store. He muttered something that didn’t sound cultured, but still ended with, “Mister Trigg,” and waved me to a seat. Baalth sat behind the desk, staring at me with a look that said, “You better be here to kiss my ass.”
I might nuzzle it a bit, but he wasn’t getting any tongue. “Uh, hi. Sorry about earlier. PMS.”
Poe rolled his eyes and went to stand beside his boss. Baalth stared and stroked the point of his black goatee. “I’m not quite sure what set you off, Frank, but I was serious about your lack of respect. I draw the line damn far back when it comes to you, but it’s still there. Don’t cross it again.”
Having grown up around Baalth and the other demon lieutenants, I’d always had a casual relationship with them thanks to being the Devil’s nephew, but that dynamic was out the window these days. Especially now that Baalth was the true power in the world with no other beings even close save for Metatron and possibly Longinus. Even if I didn’t work for him, it made sense for me to stop antagonizing him. I didn’t have many friends these days, and while Baalth could never be considered that, it made life a hell of a lot easier to have him in the ally column rather than the enemy; more so now than ever.
I nodded. Baalth knew me well enough not to expect much more. He could push the issue, but there wasn’t any point to it, so he let it go. He stopped stroking his beard and leaned back in his leather office chair.
“You made quite a number of enemies by standing alongside Heaven.” A quiet chuckle rumbled out. “It seems the weres and vampires have put a sizable price on your head for ruining their plans of world domination.” A small grin broke across his lips as I squirmed, unsure of how to replay. “That aside, you did the right thing.”
I stared at him, eyebrows raised as I waited for a laugh. It didn’t come.
Baalth’s grin grew a little wider. “I’m serious. For all their righteous indignation and holy blather, you saved far more than just the Kingdom when you woke Metatron from his guilty slumber. Lucifer would be proud of you.”
I snorted. While that kind of comment would have lit the wick a while back, it didn’t do shit besides piss me off now. “You know, I came to talk about Lucifer, but I’m certainly not interested in his feelings.”
“Then tell me, Frank, what were you doing in his chambers?” He raised an eyebrow. I had his attention.
“Looking for answers.”
He stared at me a moment, and then waved Poe out of the room. Once the mentalist was gone, Baalth sighed. “I read the letters you threw at me. It seems, perhaps, it might well be time to tell you the truth.”
Long past, but I kept that little comment to myself and sat quietly waiting for him to continue. I couldn’t keep the anger from warming my cheeks, though.
“Those letters are just a glimpse into the complicated relationship between Charlotte and Lucifer.”
“I’d like to hear the rest of the story.”
“Doubtful, but since you’re as stubborn as Lucifer, I know you won’t rest until you do.” He leaned forward and set his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers before him. “It begins well before the snippet you stumbled across. Lucifer and Arol had long disagreed about the politics of Hell. After centuries of muted conflict, it had come to blows, Arol fleeing the Demonarch for the relative peace of Earth, as it was at the time. For years he wandered, living amongst the humans until he found a cause to settle in a tiny village in the Siberian tundra. That reason was your mother.”
I felt my stomach tighten, a sourness churning inside, but I pushed it aside so I could pay attention to what Baalth was telling me.
“The two were married under the auspices of the village elders, and you were born a short time after.” He smiled. “You were much cuter back then.”
“Azrael told me Arol wasn’t my father,” I said, ignoring Baalth’s attempt to lighten the mood.
“Azrael lies.”
My guts grumbled and twisted like roiling serpents. A sick knot formed as I listened.
“That angel was a major part of the reason your mother ended up dead. Though Arol had formed a family and left the politics of Hell behind, he could not let his feud with Lucifer go. It ate at him until he was forced to do something or be devoured by it. This is where Azrael comes in.
“Unable to defeat his brother on his own, Arol recruited Azrael to help bring Lucifer down. Arol would gain control of Hell, deposing his brother. Azrael would win God’s favor and that of the new lord of the underworld. Not bad friends to have. But Lucifer learned of their plan to overthrow him and confronted Azrael. The angel was cowed and confessed all that Arol had in store. Lucifer bound the angel to him and kept him close.”
I stood and took a deep breath, pacing in front of the desk, hoping to ease the strange feelings that had come over me as I listened to Baalth.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Nerves, I think.” Despite wanting to hear every sordid detail, I wasn’t sure I was up for it, but I knew better than to stop Baalth when he was so willing to tell me. “Go on, I’m fine.”
He nodded. “Furious at his brother for daring to continue the conflict he believed settled, Lucifer struck first. Seeing no point in killing Arol, for the truly dead do not suffer, your uncle thought it best to wound your father where it would hurt him the most; in his heart. Lucifer turned Charlotte away from Arol, and set the people of his new home against him. While your mother and you were hidden, your father was chased from the village and left on his own once more.
“Never a kind man, not even to Charlotte, Arol laid waste to the village and set it alight, his fury stealing the last of his reason from him. He vowed to ruin Lucifer and go to war with Hell. Meanwhile, your mother learned of what he’d done to her village and family, and forswore their marriage. Grateful to Lucifer for having saved you both from the cruelties of Arol, she fell in love with him…after a time. Feeling obligated to protect the two of you from his brother, Lucifer saw to your protection personally. It was during this time that he learned what Arol had seen in your mother, and he too fell for her charms.”
“Did they have a child?” The question burst out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“No, though there were rumors of such,” he answered, shaking his head with confidence. “Lucifer dared not produce an heir. Longinus sat with the mantle of the Anti-Christ, and your uncle knew no child of his would survive to inherit the throne.”
“But the letter-“
“The letter you read was likely some small source of the rumors, as was your mother herself. Charlotte believed she was pregnant, at one point, but it was not so. For all their attachment, Lucifer was still betrothed to Lilith and he knew she would be the first to murder Charlotte were such a breeding to occur.”
My head reeled, white dots sparkling before my eyes. I dropped into the chair. A cold sweat broke out across my skin.
Baalth went on, undeterred. “As for your father, despite his bloodline, he was poorly suited to offer a true threat to Lucifer’s rule. He spent the next decade learning this cruel truth.”
“But he found my mother.”
“He did, at last, yes. Once more he could thank Azrael. As Lucifer became more and more distracted by Arol’s attempts at overthrowing Hell, Azrael saw the opportunity for revenge and to salvage his pride. He snuck away and made plans with Arol. As your father’s army massed and struck at Lucifer, Azrael led Arol to your mother.”
I leaned forward in the chair. Though I knew the aftermath of what had happened, I knew nothing of the details. “And?”
“Are you sure you want to hear this? You know well enough the c
ruelty of your bloodline…is it necessary to relive it?”
“Just tell me,” I blurted before I could talk myself out of it.
Baalth sighed and went on. “Arol found your mother in the barn. Azrael as a witness, your father raped her violently, viciously, showing her no mercy in flesh or spirit. You were out in the fields and Arol knew he had time. He took advantage of it. He spent the day violating Charlotte, butchering her before he was done.” His dark eyes met mine. “You know the rest.”
I covered my mouth as bile burned at the back of my throat. Memories flooded my mind and I relived the moment. I’d found my mother hacked apart in the barn. The hay scattered across the floor was stained red with her blood, the walls, the ceiling. Only her head was still recognizable, but just barely. The agony carved into her gentle face still fuels my nightmares.
Sickened by the images screaming across my mind’s eyes, I jumped up and stumbled through the labyrinth of collectibles and out past the counter. I barely noticed Poe as I did, and then I was outside the store. Sweating and weak, I staggered down the street. At a nearby alley, I turned and went down it, emptying my stomach behind a rusted trash dumpster, out of sight.
I stayed there a while, until I started feeling stupid for reacting so foolishly. This was the second time I’d spewed my guts, and there wasn’t anything in me but a couple sips of beer. I dropped against the dumpster and took a moment to catch my breath.
The stories Azrael and Baalth told didn’t match exactly, but there was enough similarity between them as to make it impossible to tell who was lying. Normally I’d trust Baalth to be more honest, but like Lucifer, Baalth had kept the story a secret. He’d never told me any of it until I stumbled across a piece of evidence he couldn’t deny. Where did that leave me? Was Baalth lying, or was Azrael? Or both? That could easily be the case, which only left me fucked and even more out in the cold when it came to the truth.
