The Angel of the Abyss

by Hank Schwaeble

  “Then maybe you should avoid doing that kind of thing.”

  “As I told you, it was necessary. I needed to show you what your actions have resulted in. Give you a sense of the implications.”

  “If you're trying to guilt me into agreeing to undo what I did, it won't work. Even if I had some idea of how I could, I frankly have more important things to worry about. If you're a psychic, you should already know that.”

  The woman nodded. “Oh, I know what motivates you. But you need to think beyond exorcising your own personal demons. Do you know what a Blood Moon Tetrad is?”

  “No. Something you play on your Xbox?”

  “A Blood Moon is the first full moon occurring after a Harvest Moon. It often appears red, due to its position in the autumn sky in relation to the sun.”

  “And here we are in October.”

  “Yes. But not just any October. The Blood Moon this year is one of four moons occurring during consecutive lunar eclipses, without any intervening partial eclipses. Such an event is unusual in itself, but this tetrad happens to coincide with the dates for Passover and the Feast of the Tabernacles.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “Nothing good. I'll put this in terms you can appreciate. There is a war coming, Mr Hatcher. And we both know that war is something you're quite familiar with.”

  “Right. Heaven versus Hell. That old chestnut. Know all about it. But it seems less like a war to me than a game. It's been going on so long I don't think they even know the territory they're fighting over anymore. Frankly, I'm starting to see more and more merit in the hippie point of view. I think I'll burn my draft card and sit this one out.”

  “Oh, they definitely know what they are fighting over, Mr Hatcher. And I have made just the kind of decision you're alluding to, the decision to remain neutral. However, we are not talking about the conflict between Heaven and Hell. We're talking about something far more... destabilizing. I'd keep an open mind if I were you.”

  “The last time some woman pitched me something like this, I ended up playing right into her scheme, a scheme I thought was someone else's, but I've started to think she and her demon girl gang had him bamboozled, too. So, thanks. But no, thanks.”

  The psychic laughed. “I'm not a Carnate, Mr Hatcher. Until somewhat recently, I had never even heard of such a thing. But obviously my attempts at explaining things I don't really understand that well myself are getting us nowhere.” She inched closer to the fire, circling behind it. She held her hands out over it, then reached down and produced a small pointed knife with a gnarled handle.

  “You are going to feel a sudden chill,” she said. “My apologies in advance. Just try not to react to it. It will pass.”

  She held her hand over the fire and poked her finger with the knife. Drops of blood made brief sizzling noises as they disappeared in the blaze. She set down the knife and with a flare of her fingers she extended her arms wide then focused on the flames. Hatcher started to speak, but wasn't certain what to say. He watched as she stared at the fire, the flicker of it in her eyes like the claws of some creature trying to escape. Her arms started to tremble, as if under a strain. He realized she was pushing, pressing down against resistance. The flame began to recede as she brought her hands closer in until it had shrunk into a tiny glow. Shadows rose. Then the fire disappeared.

  A few seconds passed before he felt the temperature drop. The air stung the skin on his face and arms and a shiver slithered down his torso. His body tensed. The cold sunk its teeth deeper with each breath, the vapor from his mouth hanging in the air and glistening in front of him, every attempt at filling his lungs like a swallow of razor blades. The sheets of water spilling down the walls hardened in layers, turning to ice and audibly solidifying. The hardening sound of all motion coming to a complete stop.

  Without the fire lighting the room a shroud of pitch blanketed everything. Only a dull blue-green glow from the floor allowed him to see. Sahara Doyle was an ice sculpture, a diorama of herself standing over the fire pit. Her skin was pale and frosted and parts of her sparkled faintly. There was still a hint of flame in her eye, clear and colorless, as if that image had frozen, too.

  He was trembling now, his eyes screaming raw and icing over, his fingertips feeling shredded and jabbed with needles. He hugged his body, the fabric of his shirt cracking. Tried to move his legs, couldn't. The soles of his shoes were iced in place.

  The cold started to have a numbing effect, and within seconds he started to feel warm, which scared him. It was a lethal symptom of hypothermia, a point drilled into him during survival training. He struggled more and felt warmer still, until one foot peeled free, followed by the other. His clothing softened. He wasn't just feeling warmer, he was getting warmer.

  Then came the heat.

  It rolled down the room, top to bottom, a ring of it, flameless fire, a circle of white-orange light melting everything in its path. The frosted columns, the frozen waterfall, even his psychic host all simply disappeared, vaporized into nothing. His clothes began to scorch his skin, torrid as the air. The singeing forced him to shut his eyes.

  “I won't go so far as to say it's all in your head, but it would seem only polite to tell you what you're feeling will not consume you. Hell is a state of matter over mind.”

  Hatcher blinked, tried to regain his bearings, understand his surroundings. He was in a large cavern of some sort. No, he realized. More like a pit. Walls of black rock, glowing red in every crevice. Veins of lava flowing down, filling arteries. Vast black emptiness above, a sky of nothing, endlessly dark.

  “Knowing that should help you adjust. To the discomfort, I mean. We're nothing if not experts at that kind of thing. The sensation is designed to bring you right to the threshold of intolerable. Because beyond that, it just wouldn't be as effective. Surely, that's something a man of your particular experience can understand.”

  Every inch of his flesh, especially his face, felt scalded. It was all he could do not to scream. His body was buckling, shaking. He imagined his skin sloughing off, frying, smoking, melting. Each breath was like acid in his lungs, searing through his heart.

  “To characterize it in a way you can relate to, think of it as nerve pain.”

  Hatcher forced himself to straighten. Mental images of his body burning, flames climbing over him, peppered his vision. He couldn't understand how his clothes were not on fire.

  That voice. He knew that voice. Nerve pain, it had said.

  He closed his eyes. He tightened his thoughts like a muscle, pressed them into a space right behind his brow. The key to overcoming pain, any pain, was focus. Focus on the voice, he told himself. He knew that voice.

  When he opened his eyes, the man was in front of him, maybe twenty feet away. Sitting in a large leather chair, legs crossed, a book open over his lap. He was wearing a gray suit with a brilliant silver tie, impeccably knotted. He had blond hair, a hint of strawberry to it, combed back, with a widow's peak.

  “I know you,” Hatcher managed to say. The pain creased his mouth at the movement, forced him to hunch again.

  “Oh, enough of this.”

  The man raised his hand and gave it a flutter. Hatcher felt his skin start to cool. He realized the pain that remained was just an echo now. He stood straight, taking in and releasing a full breath and twisting his neck loose. It cracked like a sheet of bubblewrap.

  “You disappoint me, Jake. I never took you for such a drama queen, with the animated facial expressions and the quiet body language. Oh, poor me, boo-hoo. Too angsty to cry out. At least the guys who groan and shriek in agony show some personality.”

  Hatcher locked eyes on him, held his gaze. “You're the one from the—”

  “Yes, yes. The one from the tunnel. The one who tried to warn you, by the way. I certainly hope the record reflects that. But would you listen? Oh, Hell no. Not you. And there I was, in one o
f those rare instances where I was constrained to tell the truth.”

  The name finally popped into place, like a tiny metal ball in an old-fashioned arcade. “Raum,” Hatcher said.

  “Very good. Pat yourself on the back. Too bad you don't get any points. Down here, there are no scores. Because there can be no winners.”

  “What do you want?”

  “So direct. No charming banter. No, hey, you, how have you been? What have you been up to? Straight to the point, as always. I understand it's not in your nature to beg or plead, wouldn't sit well with that stoic, hyper-macho construct you've built of yourself, but doesn't the thought ever cross your mind that at least a few pleasantries might make things go more smoothly for you?”

  “I think you're going to do to me exactly what you want when you get the chance, regardless of what I say or do.”

  The man templed his hands in front of him, elbows on the rests of his chair, touching his fingertips. It occurred to Hatcher something was different. The chair. It had been leather, brown and soft. Now it was dark, with ridges and scales and something like fangs fringing the backrest. Had he just not noticed?

  “Believe it or not, Jake, I actually like you. You're right, it's not going to stop me from tormenting you for all eternity, driving you to the brink of insanity with agony and suffering and hopelessness, but I can assure you I will take no personal satisfaction in it. Okay, that's not true. But I will definitely take less personal satisfaction in it than usual. That's where the liking-you part comes in.”

  “Won't all the others be jealous?”

  Raum smiled, cocked his head. “You are most definitely going to be a fun one. You, and me. I am so looking forward to forever. Now, before you make a crack about you starting to understand what forever feels like or some such facetiousness, let's get down to it.”

  A gesture, something fast and smooth. Hatcher couldn't quite make it out, some sort of sweep of the arm, a zag in the middle. Whatever it was, it created a tear in the air. A jagged rip of some kind, like he'd been looking at a screen he hadn't realized was there. Raum stood and walked around it, then hooked his hand inside and pulled, ripping away a chunk of whatever it was and exposing something else. Another space. Someplace even darker.

  More ripping, until a rough opening like the mouth of a tunnel displaced what was torn away. It was almost large enough for a car to pass through. More than large enough for Hatcher to peer into.

  She was there, a few yards away, a few feet below. Face obscured in shadow, a drape of thin blond strands over it.

  “Vivian...”

  Raum held up a hand. “She can't hear you, I'm afraid.”

  She was lying on her side, beginning to stir. There was nothing visible around her but blackness. No floor, no walls, not even an umbra of light. Just her illuminated body, wearing something like a rag that may have once been a dress. Or a toga. It may have once been white. Her hair was tangled and limp.

  Pressing herself up, she shook her head, blinked her eyes open. Then an obvious panic set in.

  She glanced around, hair sticking to her face, seemed to realize something, and opened her mouth to scream.

  A gush of liquid splashed over her, ripping away part of her face and most of her hair. Chunks of flesh fell, molting off as she dripped. She was clearly screaming now, silver-dollar eyes darting, no lids to hide behind. Silent shrieks he couldn't hear.

  Her body was shaking violently, hands and arms not knowing what to do, shooting to cover spots that had burned away, then yanking away to another. Flailing, frantic motions, a pantomime of someone warding off a swarm of bees.

  “We allow a few moments of forgetfulness. Knock them out for a beat or two. They wake, have to re-orient themselves. As soon as they remember, the second they start to anticipate, BAM! Quite a jolt. Never gets old, let me tell you.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Don't be so naïve. This has been going on for almost every minute of every day for two years now. Of course, the torment varies. We can't allow them to know exactly what to expect. Then maybe it would get old. For us, at least.”

  No sooner had he said that than three creatures descended upon her. Beasts with long hair and wings and gaping maws of jagged spikes, dirty, mottled flesh covered with boils and quills and sores leaking pus. They immediately began to rip at her limbs, tearing pieces off with their jaws. One clamped its mouth over her exposed eye and bit down.

  “I said stop it! I'm here! For fuck's sake, just tell me what you want!”

  Raum shook his head and sighed. He looked at Hatcher for a one engorged second, then two, then three, then made another gesture. Another movement Hatcher couldn't make out. A shudder, a satellite glitch. Over before it started. The scene through the opening shifted, like a sudden change of a lens, and she was asleep again. There was nothing to suggest she'd ever woken.

  “Quite lovely, I must say. All the more so because of that little strip of nothing. It's all part of the psychology. Completely naked wouldn't do. There has to be something to cling to, you see. Without any retention of humanity, all you have is pain. And what we're about is so much more than that.”

  Something else was different now. Raum's face. It was the same face, only more of it. Was it larger? Yes, but that wasn't it. It was that each part of it was larger, more exaggerated. The cheekbones more pronounced, the Roman nose more severe, the chin sharper. The hair was now more strawberry than blond.

  “What is it you want? Me? Fine. Just let her go. I'll stay.”

  “My, aren't we self-centered. Practically solipsistic, if you ask me. You really do think you're all that matters, don't you? That the universe is some sort of enormous stage production and you're the lead.” The demon walked across the front of the opening, stopped on the other side. “Sacrificing yourself is only noble in fairy tales my plucky friend, and that happens to be the only place it doesn't mark you a fool, to boot. There's a woman who loves you sitting in a waiting room right out—” Raum pointed to his left, then made an oopsy! face and looked up, raising his finger. “There. She's given up her career, forgiven you for running off and leaving her without so much as an explanation. She's surrendered her entire life, everything she knew, to be with you. And you would cavalierly destroy her world, break her heart, just to ease your own guilt? And after all she's put up with, indulging your... well let's just call it what it is – obsession with rescuing your former lover? A lover you took up with after you skipped out on her, by the way. The woman must be a veritable saint. The morgue will fill with the scent of roses at her autopsy. And what does she get from you for all that love and patience and understanding? An arrow to the heart and a kick to the curb without so much as a curious regard for what she would think of the idea. You really turned out to be quite the catch, didn't you?”

  Hatcher felt his temples pound. Every muscle in his arms and shoulders tensed, electric sizzles running up and down his body. A stress reaction, he told himself. Stuff he'd learned in basic combatants. The instinctive parts of his brain demanded fight or flight but he could do neither.

  Combat required that you learn to overcome it, because circumstances often required something more. This was one of them.

  “Look at the vein in your forehead throb! You are so much fun, I must confess. But let's be honest here. Put aside your foolish delusions of heroic outcomes, just for a moment, and think. Why would I accept that kind of offer? I'm already assured of an eternity with you as my personal whipping boy. What's a few more decades or so of delayed gratification?”

  Hatcher stared at the man. Was the son of a bitch fucking with his head, or had his suit always been red like that?

  “Your frustration is understandable. You see these things, but they make no sense, and because they make no sense, you don't know how to comprehend them. They don't seem real. So, go ahead. Ask. Ask the question you're just dying to know the answer to.”

&
nbsp; Hatcher hesitated. Then it came to him, almost like someone else put it there. “Why?”

  “Yes. Why. That's the big one, isn't it? Why is all this time and effort expended to torment souls? Why terrorize and torture? If I wanted to disturb you, I would pretend there is no reason, that it's simply cruelty for the sake of cruelty, dominance for the sake of domination, sadism born of power that delights in its own exercise. But that would leave you unsettled, shaken, and I need you more grounded than that. So I'll tell you the truth.”

  He gestured with a flourish, and for a split-second things changed. Everything took on a different aspect, a revealed nature, the way a flash of lightning might illuminate a darkened room. Details sprang from the shadows, what had seemed to be molten walls deep in some remote bowel of earth gave way to a glimpse of vast catacombs, of desolate corridors, of fires and ruins and barren landscapes of despair. All visible one instant, gone the next.

  “Do you know what sustains an angel, Hatcher? Love. Not the hold-hands-and-make-moon-eyes kind, or the sweaty grunting in motel rooms kind, but the boundless love of Grace, the energy that flows through Heaven, that fuels life. Like a cosmic battery, it is the power that vitalizes those in its embrace.”

  “And you're not in Daddy's embrace.”

  “No, we are not. But the thing is, every human soul, no matter how wretched, contains a trace of it. It’s part of that miraculous gift of life, of being a living soul. So, that is our lot. We do this because this is how we survive. Pain and fear and suffering and terror is the manner in which we drain each soul of its power. That, you see, is the reason for all this. Millions upon millions of souls, sustaining thousands upon thousands of demons. Once each soul is drained, the best candidates are given the chance to become demons themselves. The higher up the chain, the bigger your share of the power produced.”