Angel Souls and Devil Hearts

by Christopher Golden

  “Better the devil you know . . .,” Cody started to say, and shook his head. “So now what? Why aren’t we up there fighting with Charlemagne and his men?”

  “No offense,” the Stranger said, “but there’s little you three could do this time. Those warriors’ abilities are far more developed than your own. And as for me, oh, I could stay alive if I concentrated like those warriors do, but we need another solution. I’m trying to figure out if there’s a magical or natural solution to this problem that will leave some of us alive. I’ve died once before, and painfully. I’d like to avoid doing it again.”

  “We’ve got to stop it,” Meaghan snapped. “No matter what.”

  The Stranger nodded. He was well aware of the stakes.

  Though there had been ninety fully capable vampire warriors on the attack, each a master of his abilities, fully a third of that number had already been destroyed. Charred and blackened bones lay in heaps scattered all about the battleground. Still, the others fought on. Beelzebub howled in pain as the sword strokes of silver blades cut through his flesh, but the wounds were already healing, and fresh ones could not be inflicted fast enough to do any real damage.

  “Mulkerrin’s moving!” Cody pointed across the plaza.

  “I thought he was dead,” Meaghan said, but she looked over, and sure enough, the sorcerer was struggling to rise to his feet.

  And then Stefan was moving.

  “Wait!” Meaghan shouted, but it was too late. She didn’t know much about this Stefan, except that Rolf trusted him. That was enough for her to worry for him.

  “Mulkerrin is too powerful for him!” Cody said, meaning to go after Stefan, but Courage stopped him.

  “Leave him, Will,” John Courage said softly. “I will get help for him, but we have other things to attend to.”

  Charlemagne’s sword was held high, and he fought with a savagery he’d long forgotten. There was nothing noble about this fight, nothing dignified or honorable. The demon-lord must be driven back to Hell. Its ploy had worked thus far, a gambit which would give it free access to Earth, and which conventional Earth defenses would not stop.

  He knew that the man and woman—Cody and Gallagher, the Stranger had called them—were not advanced enough for this struggle, but they might be needed despite their flaws. As for the Stranger, Charlemagne only hoped that his holding back meant he was formulating some kind of plan. Too many of his warriors had already died from the weird magicks this demon controlled.

  Charles. The Stranger’s voice was in his mind. The sorcerer is not as dead as we thought. Correct that error quickly.

  Charlemagne broke off his attack on the demon-lord, leaving his warriors to continue, and flew swiftly to where Mulkerrin struggled to walk. A tall, slender vampire that he had not seen before also approached, but Charlemagne waved him away.

  “Stand back,” he said in Spanish, hoping the other understood, and apparently he did, for he moved no closer.

  Charlemagne drew back his silver blade and thrust it into the once-priest’s stomach, determined that he stay dead this time. Whatever magicks kept him moving, the silver would force them from him.

  And then gibberish spouted from Mulkerrin’s mouth.

  “How dare you! . . . Lord, why have you forsaken me? . . . We will be free! . . . We will feast on your entrails . . . Dear God, let me die . . .”

  It went on like that even as Charlemagne used all his vampiric strength to wrench his sword up through the dead sorcerer’s chest cavity. Then the voices stopped, the light of some sentience returned to Liam Mulkerrin’s eyes, and he looked right at the vampire who had finally ended his life.

  “Is it true?” Mulkerrin slurred as the light drained from him. “Is the Stranger really . . . Is it true?”

  And, though the human spoke English, this time Charles understood perfectly.

  “Yes,” he said to the talking corpse. “Yes.”

  “Then I truly am in Hell,” Mulkerrin whispered, and the light disappeared completely from his eyes.

  Charlemagne lifted his sword to be certain, once and for all, that the dead sorcerer would not rise again, but the ancient emperor’s blow would never fall. Mulkerrin’s chest burst open as an arm shot out of his prone form and buried its fingers into the old king’s belly. Getting a grip somewhere in Charlemagne’s guts, the arm pulled him down, so that his face was buried in the gore of the sorcerer’s viscera. Behind the entrails, beyond them, he could see flames flickering off granite walls. The hand in his guts burned him, and Charlemagne was surprised to find that he was screaming.

  Stefan watched in amazement as demonic claws tore into Charlemagne’s stomach, latching onto whatever they found there and pulling the former emperor toward the corpse of Liam Mulkerrin. He was frozen for a moment, completely unable to move. He had found it difficult enough to overcome his awe of the shadows he had dealt with day to day, but this was the emperor Charlemagne!

  The old king had worked his sword far enough around to thrust it past his own face into the gaping wound in Mulkerrin’s belly, and apparently at the face of whatever had him in its devastating grip. A great shriek rose from inside the corpse, shattering Stefan’s eardrums from fifteen feet away, and he didn’t want to imagine what it had done to Charlemagne. His ears began to heal on their own, and he knew the shrieking continued, though Charlemagne was released and now began to back away. Stefan could see that he was unsteady, and he looked as if he were trying to concentrate on something without much luck.

  And then a pair of hands thrust forth and grabbed Charlemagne by the head, pulling him down once again. Stefan knew he had to act as claws dug into the elder’s face, tore at his white beard.

  Charlemagne could not manage the change; the hands tearing at his face were burning him horribly. The agony was incredible as they yanked him down, further opening the hole in Mulkerrin’s corpse, and then he was with them, wherever they were, and they were eating him. A terrible screeching filled the air, and Charlemagne realized that it was his own throat making the noise. He was being torn apart, for food.

  And then he was being tugged again, and he heard a voice shouting.

  “Let him go!” the voice shouted, and he was being pulled, stretched, mauled from below even as his arms were yanked up.

  Charlemagne’s mind came back to him suddenly, and his vision with it. Only then did he realize that he had momentarily lost both of them. Now, looking up, he saw the face of that young vampire, whose name he did not know, pulling on his arms, his head and upper torso bloody and hanging down through the wound in Mulkerrin’s chest, into whatever netherworld that gate of death led to. Beneath him, demons savaged his legs, tearing them to ribbons with jaws and talons. One, whose head was split in two and filled with fire, tore a huge chunk from his thigh as he looked on.

  And his decision was made.

  “Pull, boy!” he screamed up to the vampire who held him.

  “I’m fucking pulling!” the boy screamed back, and Charlemagne decided that he liked the rude creature.

  Grimacing, he pulled his sword hand free of his would be savior’s grasp and swung the blade down with all the strength that remained in him. But when the blade found its mark, it was not demon flesh that was torn asunder. It was his own. Charlemagne screamed out loud as the silver blade sliced through the meat and bone of his legs as if he were scything crops in the field.

  John Courage heard Charlemagne scream, and then covered his ears as an ear-piercing shriek issued from the body of Liam Mulkerrin.

  “What in the name of God is happening here?” Cody shouted in Courage’s ear, and then Charlemagne screamed again.

  It didn’t even cross the Stranger’s mind to transform as he rushed to Charlemagne’s aid. The scene before him was like nothing he had ever encountered. Charlemagne, whom Courage had sent to dispatch Mulkerrin permanently, and to make sure Stefan did not get killed, was now being pulled out through a huge hole in Mulkerrin’s guts by the very vampire he’d been intended to protect. Cou
rage didn’t know what to make of it, but when he saw Charlemagne’s double amputation, the stumps of both legs bleeding profusely as Stefan hoisted him into his arms, he at least knew what the screaming had been about.

  “Demons . . .,” Stefan said, his fear eloquent in itself, and John Courage had to think fast. Charlemagne would live, if allowed time to heal, but he needed to be removed from the scene as quickly as possible.

  “Stefan,” Courage said, the unmistakable tone of an order in his voice. “Take Charlemagne far away from here.”

  “But the battle . . .”

  John Courage looked into the other’s eyes, and knew that more than words were needed here.

  Understand, he said in Stefan’s mind. This battle will be won or lost regardless of your presence. That is not meant to offend; it is only the truth. It is your fate, however, to survive this fight, and to help Charlemagne to survive it. Our people will need him alive.

  His eyes wide, Stefan only nodded, and John Courage watched as he hefted Charlemagne in his arms and moved away from the battle. It was heartening to Courage to know that at least those two would survive, would continue the battle elsewhere if their gambit here in Salzburg were to fail.

  Courage was standing over the corpse of the sorcerer, and now he looked down into the huge, gaping hole in Mulkerrin’s body, and the three-eyed, fiery, cloven-skulled face of the demon-lord Alhazred looked back at him.

  “No,” he whispered.

  “Hello, Stranger!” Lord Alhazred said gleefully. “Long time no see!”

  And then Alhazred was cackling wildly as it pulled itself out of Mulkerrin’s body. John Courage knew a physical effort to prevent its coming through was useless, but he hoped he could remember the spell to bar the gateway.

  “Ia Athzothtu!” the Stranger screamed. “Ia Angaku ! Ia zi Nebo! Marzas zi fornias kanpa! Lazhakas shin . . .”

  “No!” Lord Beelzebub cried from behind and above the Stranger, stamping the stones of the plaza with its great hooves.

  Courage spun toward it, nearly losing his balance, but saw that for the moment, Charlemagne’s warriors were still keeping Beelzebub back. It was only a matter of time, though, because there were fewer and fewer of the winged swordsmen, less and less sharpened silver to hold the demon-lord.

  “Lazhakas shin talsas kanpa!” Courage yelled as he continued the spell, but in that moment when he had looked at Beelzebub, Lord Alhazred had pulled himself completely from Mulkerrin’s corpse, which had become a portal, a gateway in itself.

  When John Courage, the Stranger, looked back around Alhazred was standing only inches away. It stood several feet taller than Courage, with arms that hung nearly to the ground. Sharp horns lined its spine, and between the cloven halves of its skull, fire burned red and orange. The demon’s hand whipped out and slashed across Courage’s face, obliterating his left eye and the orbit of the skull around it. Courage screamed, continuing the spell, and fell back.

  “Hey, where you going?” Alhazred called. “It’s not a party till someone loses an eye!”

  Then Lord Alhazred turned toward the body of the dead sorcerer and began to help its brothers from the pit. Even as he scrabbled backward on the cobblestones, Courage mumbled under his breath, working his way to the end of the complicated spell. Alhazred pulled Lord Azag-Thoth from the pit then—the worm had a body like a serpent’s, a face like a wolf’s and the tail of a scorpion. Unlike Beelzebub, these brothers had little magic, but they were cruel and powerful.

  Then Cody and Meaghan were at John’s side, helping him to his feet even as he pressed one hand against his ruined left eye. It wasn’t healing, and Courage realized that was one small magic all these demon-lords shared. The wounds they inflicted did not heal the way others did. Unless they could be destroyed, Courage might never grow another eye.

  “Oh, shit!” Meaghan said even as Courage was finishing the spell to block the gate. “Pa-Bil-Sag!”

  And she was right. Lord Pa-Bil-Sag now emerged, with a great deal of help from Alhazred, from the gory mess that had once been the body of Liam Mulkerrin. Its bluish skin was flaking, as usual, a fine dust falling from the demon with every move. The tentacles from inside Pa-Bil-Sag’s mouth were darting wildly around its face, latching on to its own skin and to that of the crown of flesh, of sexual organs, that it wore on its head. The demon-lord was incredibly obese, and whatever might have been left of Mulkerrin was torn apart as it made its way into the world of humans. Its huge eyeballs hung in sacks like testicles between its legs, and it loosed a phlegmy laugh as it saw the three vampires at their mercy.

  “Ia gushe-ya! Ia inanna! Ia erninni-iya!” Courage said sternly, more calmly now. And then the gate was closed.

  “Time enough to open the gate again when you’re safely in our bellies!” Lord Pa-Bil-Sag called, and Courage saw Meaghan shiver.

  “You know them?” he asked her.

  “All of them,” she answered. “They led us in circles, but eventually to Peter.”

  “You performed exactly as we wished!” Beelzebub boomed behind them, but this time Courage did not turn around, not in the face of the demon-lords who now approached.

  We might be able to kill them, Courage sent to Meaghan and Will, and I can try to send them back with magic, but I don’t really understand how they got here. Nevertheless, unlike Beelzebub, they can be fought hand to hand, can be injured, killed. On my mark, split up and get silver weapons from where the fallen warriors have left them.

  “You seem to forget, Stranger, that I . . .,” Alhazred began, but Courage had already moved, and Cody and Meaghan with him, in different directions.

  The demon-lords merely laughed, and Courage knew that the lords didn’t believe there was any way for the vampires to be victorious. He feared they were correct. After all, even if they defeated the newly arrived demons, they would still have Beelzebub to contend with. After Lucifer, the First Fallen, he was the most powerful. In fact, Charlemagne’s warriors were doing no more and no less than keeping the creature exactly where it was, at the cost of their lives, with no apparent hope for victory. They were counting on their leader, John Courage, the Stranger, to find a way to destroy the huge demon. They were counting on him.

  And he was losing hope, losing faith.

  No! He scolded himself. I will never lose faith, for l know there is a Heaven. With that knowledge, we can drive these fiends back to Hell. And then he was selfish a moment, mourning lost friends. He would attempt the spell to drive back Pa-Bil-Sag, Alhazred and Azag-Thoth, and then there would be only one course of action left to them in order to destroy Beelzebub. Cody wasn’t ready for it, but the Stranger thought that Meaghan might be.

  As she picked up the silver sword of a fallen warrior gritting her teeth as its poison burned her hand, Meaghan found herself looking once again at Charlemagne’s men. They believed their king was dead, but they fought on. There was something about the fighting that confused her. Beelzebub’s touch was painful; sustained, it was fatal—so . . .

  Why don’t they turn to mist to avoid his touch? she asked John Courage in her mind.

  His body will absorb the mist, or flame, like a million omnivorous mouths, Courage answered, reminding Meaghan of Alexandra’s terrible death. With that memory, she resolved to die for her lover’s pain, to do anything she could to destroy the demon, or return it to Hell.

  Meaghan. Courage’s thoughts were somber. Lazarus taught you new forms in Hell, did he not?

  Yes , she answered, and then she was at his side as he grabbed a sword of his own.

  “But how did you . . .?” she began aloud, and he waved her question away.

  “Your hands, before, they were steel,” he explained. “You saw Charlemagne do it, I know, but if you can stand the pain, if you can concentrate through it, you can do this as well.”

  And as Meaghan watched, a new and deadly alchemy transformed the Stranger’s hands and arms into silver.

  “All of Charlemagne’s warriors are old enough to do this, and
if not for Lazarus’s tutoring, I would have thought you too young, but you’ll have to try. Cody probably isn’t able to, so he’ll be most vulnerable.”

  Then they turned to face the demon-lords, with Beelzebub laughing above them, those opposing him quickly dwindling in numbers.

  It’s not hopeless, Meaghan told herself. It’s not!

  Have faith, Courage said in her mind.

  She was trying.

  Who are you, really? she asked in her mind.

  Cody knows, he said, and though Meaghan tried to probe his mind further, to find the answer she sought, he blocked her out.

  And then Beelzebub’s voice rang out in the shattered square, louder than before, as if it were gaining in power rather than suffering from the vampires’ attack. But it was the thing’s words that startled Meaghan most.

  “Something is amiss!” it said, and the ground rumbled, the huge crack across the plaza stretching even wider. “You hide your plans from me, as if you might actually be able to hurt me?”

  And the demon leaned over, hands on its hips, ignoring the pain of the swords being thrust at it, and its face seemed to hang fifteen feet in the air, right above its smiling demon-lord brothers, and too close to where Meaghan, Cody and Courage stood.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Stranger!” it roared. “You don’t have the power to hurt me now.”

  And then Beelzebub rose up and began swatting at the warriors surrounding it, sending three more burnt skeletons crashing into the pavement. The other, smaller demon-lords had been slowly advancing on Courage and Meaghan, Alhazred smiling happily, confident that they had all the time in the world. And then Lord Beelzebub took a step toward them, and suddenly the other three were charging ahead.

  Meaghan concentrated, suffered the pain, and the transformation Courage had promised was hers. Her hands were long and thin, the fingers elongated into daggers of silver. She was her own weapon. Still, she wielded the sword, and it had fused to her, joining with the silver that her flesh had become. She leapt over Azag-Thoth as it struck out at her with both snout and stinging tail. Slashing as she flew through the air, she tore through that stinger with her left hand, and the demon-lord bucked with the pain.