by Matt Wallace
“This is the deepest blasphemy!” the Oexial’s elder announces from beneath a layer of ceremonial robe covered in a layer of vanilla ganache.
“It’s a temporary delay,” the producer assures him.
“My warriors will feast on your guts!”
The producer is unmoved. “Yeah? Get in line behind the Teamsters, pal.”
“We didn’t die, we didn’t die, we didn’t die,” Darren is repeating frantically, gratefully, half his head and face obscured by frothy cherries jubilee topping.
Bronko spits sweet cream from his mouth, blinking it out of his eyes simultaneously. “Jett,” he marvels, shaking his head and venting more cream from his hair. “Has to be.”
Pacific is chuckling. “This is so gnarly.”
“Yeah, great,” Lena says, licking away ganache angrily as she speaks. “Only they’re just going to wipe this shit away and start again.”
Nikki is incensed. “It is not shit! That is Malaysian vanilla bean! I cured them myself!”
Lena rolls her eyes. “Christ, Nik, you know what I mean!”
“Oh. Right.”
“What’re we going to do now, Chef?” Darren asks Bronko.
Humans in coveralls are already appearing from the background with industrial brooms, ready to sweep ganache from the platform.
“I don’t know, Vargas,” Bronko answers heavily. “Keep praying, I guess.”
But it seems Darren has already prayed enough.
The entire room begins to shake, and at first the locals in attendance are ready to brush it off as a minor earthquake.
Then the shaking becomes a steady, wholly unnatural vibrating that reaches all the way to each of their cores.
Then the artisanal skylight high above their heads shatters.
Glass rains from the ceiling torrentially, piercing the layer of dessert cream covering everything.
A blazing comet streaking down in a perfect, blinding arc follows it.
The ball of fire impacts several yards in front of the sacrificial pyre, cracking the marble floor and creating a wave of cream that splatters the walls in every direction.
The flames flash brilliant and twenty feet high, then extinguish in what sounds like a chorus of harsh whispers.
The world stops vibrating.
What’s left is a dissipating jet streak that touches the sky, the faint smell of ozone, and a figure that’s stepped straight out of a Biblical painting.
A statuesque woman now stands where the ball of fire made landfall. Her skin is a deep bronze and her hair a mane of dark, glistening curls. She’s bolted into resplendent armor from head to toe, every gleaming plate of it embossed with angelic script. In one hand she grips the haft of a halberd, a towering poleaxe crowned with a wicked-looking crescent moon blade. In her other hand she grips the hilt of a broadsword, and as they all look on its long blade bursts into golden flame that crackles on the surface of the steel without actually seeming to touch a single inch of it.
She also has wings.
Giant, majestic, feathery wings that span fifteen feet across and glow ethereal white.
She couldn’t be more an angel if she tried.
The angel looks up at the faces of the Sin du Jour chefs bound to their bottom-blackened stakes and smiles radiantly.
Shockingly, Lena is the first one of them to say, unequivocally and without hesitation, “It’s her.”
“Who?” Bronko demands.
Lena only shakes her head.
She can’t.
“Ramiel,” Darren answers for her, in awe.
In response, the divine warrior below them nods her perfect chin just so.
It hits them all then, like a wrecking ball in their cerebrums.
This is the same pitiful, alien creature who was delivered to Sin du Jour, and who the chefs were ordered to butcher and serve to the Oexial and their rival demons.
That creature was an angel stripped of its divinity by the darkest magic and laid bare on the mortal plane under human eyes.
This before them is an angel as humans were intended to glimpse them since the earliest recorded sightings, possessed of that same divinity and wearing it grandly.
Bronko, Lena, Darren, Nikki, Pacific, and Mr. Mirabel are awestruck.
The rest of the humans in attendance are confused and afraid.
The Oexial, on the other hand, are frothing with rage.
There are shouts and curses and demon lips spitting ancient, inhuman words that must mean “angel” in their dialect.
Rather, pejorative terms for “angel.”
Half the Oexial contingent strip away their ceremonial robes. Those that do are also heavily armed and armored beneath, the warrior sect of the clan. They unsheathe curved blades and axes fashioned from what looks like volcanic glass. Their already fearsome teeth have also been filed to even sharper points; many serrated and shaped like small knife blades. They begin encircling Ramiel at a distance, spacing themselves in obviously practiced battle formation.
“Get in there!” the producer yells above the din. “Help them! Take that thing down!”
A dozen humans break from the wall, most of them goons in dark suits like the two “private security” meat slabs that attempted to subdue Jett.
They take up position between the Oexial warriors, armed with tasers, tactical knives, and pistols.
Together they begin closing the net of bodies they’ve formed, surging in toward Ramiel.
She waits another two seconds, then springs into action.
Her armored feet leave the floor, wings beating so subtly their motion is barely visible, levitating her several feet in the air.
Ramiel suddenly begins spinning like a top on the end of a string, becoming a kinetic blur of motion.
The pole of her halberd extends fully from one hand as she does.
Before they’ve even realized it, half a dozen of the Oexial warriors and human guards have had their heads separated from their necks.
The force of each strike is such that the bodies hit the floor before their heads do.
* * *
The other minions manage to leap back past the edge of the sudden killing field.
Several gunshots are fired, the slugs bouncing off her armor harmlessly.
“Converge on the Enochian now!” the Oexial elder commands them. “Drown it in your own blood if necessary!”
The humans hesitate, but the demon warriors surge forth anew.
Ramiel bends at the knees and her wingtips point to the skylight she shattered.
In one frighteningly powerful motion her wings beat down and she launches herself into the air, the sudden and violent updraft knocking several demon and human minions off their feet.
The angel swoops down and cuts a hard turn, flying around the sacrificial pyre and behind the Sin du Jour crew bound to their stakes.
Ramiel extends her halberd and streaks in a perfect horizontal arc, the crescent blade of the poleaxe slicing cleanly through the body of each wooden stake directly beneath the platform supporting each chef’s feet.
One by one each length of timber falls forward or to the side.
Everyone except for Mr. Mirabel manages to land or at least brace their fall with their feet.
Ramiel sweeps around the front of the pyre and dives back into the fray, meeting demon and human with halberd and flaming sword.
Pacific is the first to deftly slip his bonds over the top of the fallen stake. He easily brings his tied wrists under his feet to return his arms in front of him.
“Pac!” Bronko yells. “My right boot! Quick now!”
Pacific kneels beside Bronko and dips several fingers into his right boot.
He retrieves a tactical folding knife.
“Whoa, sweet,” he says.
“Hurry, boy!”
“Right. Sorry, boss.”
Pacific flips the blade out and saws through Bronko’s bond.
The chef takes his knife back and quickly returns the favor, freeing Pa
cific’s hands.
Lena, Darren, and Nikki have all worked their bonds and themselves free of the stakes by now. Bronko cuts their ties in succession.
“Boss!” Pacific yells with uncharacteristic urgency. “Mo!”
The young server is on his hands and knees beside Mr. Mirabel, who hasn’t moved since his stake tumbled to the pyre’s surface.
Bronko runs over to them and drops to his knees, carefully sawing through Mo’s restraints.
“I think his arm’s broke,” Pac says with concern. “Is he breathing?”
Bronko single-handedly rolls the stake away from Mr. Mirabel and they gently lay the elder man on his back.
Lena, without a word, slips between them and kneels at Mo’s side, wiping away ganache from his face and mouth. Coupling her hands, she begins to expertly perform chest compressions.
As she does, Bronko looks up, staring past the battle on the floor Ramiel is still winning.
He squints into the human onlookers currently trying to melt into the wall, focusing just in time to see the producers slipping through an anterior door near the towering main doors.
Bronko’s attention is pulled back as Mo comes to with a burst of violent coughing.
But at least he’s breathing again.
Pacific’s usual unflappable demeanor returns immediately. “There ya go, Mo!”
Lena stands, breathing heavily, more from nerves than from the exertion of performing CPR on Mr. Mirabel.
“Tarr, I’m making you responsible for everybody here,” Bronko says suddenly. “Lead ’em off this thing and find a back way out of here. I’ll meet you at the van.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What are you going to do?”
The others begin to protest as well, but Bronko ignores them, focusing intently on Lena.
“You heard me! You’re responsible for ’em. All of them. You understand?”
Lena’s eyes communicate how absurdly unfair he’s being, but there’s also no time to argue.
She simply nods.
Bronko stares at her hard and points behind the pyre, at the area of the space where no one is milling or fighting.
Then he takes off in the opposite direction, leaping down from the platform.
“We can’t leave without him,” Nikki insists, aghast. “We can’t!”
“It’s his choice,” Lena says, turning back to Pacific and Mr. Mirabel.
“Puedes caminar?” she gently asks the old man.
His breathing is incredibly labored, and his arm is in obvious pain, even in the makeshift sling Pacific has fashioned for Mo with his tunic, but he nods.
“Help him,” Lena instructs Pacific.
“No worry.”
Lena musters the group and prepares to lead them over the back of the pyre, turning to take the lead.
She glances back just in time to watch Nikki’s body fold in half, flying back through the air and over the front of the platform as if yanked by an unseen tether.
Lena darts to the edge of the pyre and looks down to see Nikki’s prone body obscured on the marble floor by the armored Oexial warrior leaning over her.
Without a conscious thought Lena backs up three quick steps and charges off the edge of the platform, leaping down at the demon warrior and flipping forward in the air. Their backs collide, Lena’s momentum enough to knock him forward, off-balance, and send him crashing to the ground.
Lena hits the floor hard and rolls several times before stopping.
When she recovers and looks up she sees Nikki motionless on her side.
The demon she toppled is crouching two yards in front of Lena, snarling furiously at her, curved blade clutched in its hand.
Lena’s eyes dart briefly over its shoulder.
Ramiel is very far away, engaged with a dozen more of the things and their human counterparts.
She looks back at the enraged demon warrior covered head to toe in Hell-forged armor, preparing to bull rush her with a killing sword.
There’s a quick bubbling of acid in her stomach, and Lena sucks her gut in to squelch it immediately.
The rest of her is steady and calm.
She widens her stance.
Her fists clench and unclench.
“All right,” she says resolutely through gritted teeth. “Bring it, then.”
PRIVILEGES OF THE DAMNED
Producer One and Producer Two are hotfooting it while still attempting to appear casual down the hall outside the after-after-party.
Oddly, with the doors closed you’d never know there was a holy war between an angelic warrior and a battalion of demons in session.
“Amateurs,” Producer One practically spits. “I had them all helpless and unconscious within easy reach of an industrial meat grinder and a whole bunch of ovens. I could’ve had this whole thing put away an hour ago. But no, they needed the torches and the chanting and all that lily-gilding bullshit.”
“Showmanship went out with Technicolor musicals,” Producer Two agrees.
“And it should’ve stayed that way!”
He presses a smart phone to his ear. “Get my car out front in five minutes.”
“Four,” Producer Two corrects him.
“Fine, four.”
He lowers the phone.
“And I’ll tell you something else about working with demons—”
A shockingly powerful hand rams each of them between their shoulder blades, sending them both sprawling forward to their hands and knees.
The producers look back over their shoulders.
“Y’all are going to miss the after-after-after-after-party,” Bronko says.
The producers stand, slowly and cautiously, trading looks and watching him with uncertainty.
They’ve both just stared directly into the face of the devil himself.
Somehow the darkness in Bronko’s face at this moment is far more unsettling.
He moves toward them as they backpedal.
Bronko points a finger at them.
“You hurt my kids,” he says in a voice devoid of anything human in the philosophical sense.
“Whoa, buddy,” Producer One says. “You hurt your kids. You thought you could pull the wool over the eyes of the devil? Who d’you think you are? You’re a has-been Bobby Flay. Your arrogance landed you and them here. Not me.”
“Let’s agree to disagree,” Bronko says.
He reaches out and wraps his large hands around the man’s throat, totally encompassing it.
“Squeezing” is far too gentle a term for what happens next.
The producer’s face is far more surprised than it is pained or in panic or fear.
Strangling always looks so fake in movies, even his.
He simply can’t believe the power in Bronko’s hands.
His air is cut off immediately. In seconds his eyes are bulging out of his head and the strength below his waist leaves him, his knees sinking to the floor.
Producer Two shrinks back against the wall in horror.
Bronko’s eyes never leave the man from whom he’s choking the life.
There is no emotion on Bronko’s face.
None.
Producer One blacks out, going limp as a rag doll in Bronko’s hands.
Bronko maintains every ounce of pressure on the man’s neck until he’s sure.
Then he casts his body aside.
Bronko exhales, his chest and shoulders heaving from both the effort and all of the emotion he had to repress during the act.
He looks over at Producer Two, his entire face bloodred.
She attempts a smile, but what forms on her face is an expression of abject terror.
“Can I play the girl card here?” she asks meekly.
Bronko nods. “Sure.”
It takes one stride to close the gap between them.
The blade of his tactical folder locks in place in one hand.
Bronko sinks it into the same spot on her abdomen where Allensworth stabbed him not that long ago.
She dies the same way Bronko did.
She won’t be coming back, however.
He stares down at the bodies of the producers, breathing still as labored as his soul.
Once this would’ve been an unthinkable act for him to commit. His hands would’ve faltered. His conscience would’ve burned with indignation and protest.
Regardless of how evil these people were, Bronko never could’ve brought himself to harm them, let alone murder them.
That was a long time ago.
The truth is he’s damned, he’s seen and felt it, and nothing he does can or will change that fact.
And being damned should have its privileges.
THE GUEST OF HONOR
The Oexial warrior charges at Lena at full speed and with a baritone growl, curved blade clenched in one hand.
Lena springs forward to meet him, but quickly ducks low and launches herself into a shoulder roll across the slick marble floor.
She slides across the floor at high speed, aided by the soupy ganache covering it. Her body crashes into the demon’s running legs at the knees.
He tries to bend over and swipe at her with the blade, but he finds his legs swept out from under him and his body tumbling over hers before he does.
They end up in a heap upon the floor, Lena trapped under the demon and the Oexial warrior scrambling to recover his balance while keeping her pinned down.
Unable to slip out from under him, Lena’s whole purpose becomes grabbing the gauntleted wrist of his sword arm and controlling that short, deadly blade.
As they struggle, Lena looks up briefly above the demon’s scarred, grotesque head.
She glimpses the top of the platform just a few feet away.
She sees Darren poised at its edge, watching her grapple for her life.
His face is contorted, features tight and pained in an expression filled with obvious, frantic desire to help her.
But his body seems totally paralyzed by fear.
He doesn’t move.
The Oexial warrior crushes his weight on top of her. Lena rolls back on her shoulders and brings her legs up around the demon’s armored body, stretching them so far they rise above his shoulders and she’s nearly folded her body in half. Lena wraps her legs around his upper arms, restricting their movement, and hooks her foot under the thing’s chin, pressing her shin against the only truly exposed part of the demon’s anatomy: its neck.
