Pride's Spell

by Matt Wallace

  It may be a creature born of Hell, but it’s using a mortal body that requires oxygen to function.

  Astaroth, the Oexial elder who choked to death on a chicken bone at the first event Lena helped Sin du Jour cater, taught her that.

  The demon’s trapped arms wriggle wildly. The blade manages to knick her deeply at the thigh and buttocks in several places, but she ignores the pain.

  She reaches up and grasps the warrior’s bald, slimy head, digging her nails into its bare flesh and pulling it forward with both hands, increasing the pressure of her shin across the demon’s throat.

  The thing begins gagging and sputtering, its air supply restricted.

  It struggles raucously, but it can’t break free or shake Lena loose of her chokehold.

  The thing’s viscous green blood begins seeping around her fingernails where they only pierce deeper into its pulpy skull.

  In one last, desperate attempt, the demon lifts Lena’s entire weight several feet off the ground and slams her back painfully against the floor.

  Lena groans through clenched teeth, but she only wrenches the choke tighter.

  The demon’s struggles become weak; eventually they cease as the thing loses consciousness. His body slumps to one side, armor clattering against the marble floor.

  Lena rolls with him, maintaining the choke until she’s damn sure the thing is out, then she uncouples from it with great effort and rolls away, a yell of something like frustration mixed with rage mixed with victory escaping her lips before she can check it.

  Lena lies on her back, panting and bleeding and staring up at the shattered skylight and the utterly calm, starless night beyond it.

  Until it’s obscured by a thick-bodied figure leaning over her.

  It’s Bronko.

  “You’re shit at takin’ orders, Tarr,” Bronko tells her as he hauls Lena to her feet.

  “That’s why they threw me out of the army,” she says, labored and in all sorts of pain.

  She’s nearly knocked back off her feet along with the rest of them as the floor suddenly shudders violently beneath them.

  The wildly optimistic thought that Ramiel has called for backup crops up in Lena’s mind.

  It’s possible she’s never been quite that wrong in her life.

  The shuddering of the ground becomes a full-on epileptic convulsion.

  It’s enough to halt the battle and send the demons and humans left alive falling back to avoid catching a blade to their skulls because they’re preoccupied trying to keep their balance.

  A web of cracks begins to form in the marble floor in front of the far wall facing the pyre.

  Those cracks pull apart until a single seam is ripped across the floor from one end of the space all the way to the other.

  With a sound like the yawning of a giant, the seam becomes a world-shaking split that opens up thirty feet wide and descends far past the foundation of the building into the Earth itself.

  Half a dozen corkscrews of flame are belched forth from its depths.

  They see its horns first, rising above the lip of the sudden tear in the Earth and apparently reality itself, each one the size of a redwood twisted into a bizarre spiral.

  The cranium to which they’re attached is made of hide as hard as granite and seems to leak bursts of brimstone.

  Its face isn’t quite a dragon and isn’t quite a bull and isn’t at all human yet contains something horrifyingly relatable in its eyes and the expression on its mouth.

  All of it rests on a body like a bipedal mountain with five-fingered claws that could lance a house.

  No introduction is required.

  It’s the Lord of Darkness himself.

  It’s the devil.

  There isn’t a skeptic on Earth who could deny it in that moment.

  Imagine knowing—not fearing, not believing, not feeling, but knowing without a single doubt or the slightest ability to deny—that any and every form of joy is a lie. Happiness doesn’t exist. Love isn’t an illusion, it’s a cruel absurdity. Warmth is something that died long ego, an abstract, obsolete truth like dinosaurs or the big bang. You can’t remember what it felt like, and, worse, you—don’t expect to.

  Reality is a barren waste. The only sensation is cold. The only feeling is misery. The only hope is unfulfilled longing that stretches beyond the end of human experience.

  All of this is what suddenly composes the world of every human in the room, and it crumples them inward like dead stars. A very real physical weight grips their hearts and presses down on their minds. They’re each floored as if gravity in the room has just increased a thousandfold.

  The Oexial soldiers and elders sink to the floor as well, but they do so in supplication, immediate and without hesitation.

  Ramiel is the only one left standing. She strides forward defiantly, demon blood staining her celestial armor and the ethereal feathers of her wings. It drips from the blade of the halberd, burns black and charred on the blade of her flaming sword.

  Standing a dozen feet from the abyss, she stares up at the construct’s face unabated and raps the other end of her poleaxe against the cracked marble floor challengingly.

  The devil laughs, the sound a thousand rusted chariots driving hard off a cliff into a crackling inferno.

  “You look ridiculous,” Ramiel says, speaking for the first time, and with a voice that sounds like a powerful wind moving through caves. “You still love putting on the horns and flame show, don’t you?”

  The idling devil moves then, with inhuman speed and deeply terrifying purpose. One clawed hand as wide as Ramiel is tall swipes her off her feet. She tumbles awkwardly through the air, wings folded unnaturally around her, and collides with the far wall sickeningly before falling to the floor with a clatter like the sound of a car crash.

  Her holy weapons are banished from her hands to opposite sides of the room.

  Her flaming sword is extinguished.

  She doesn’t get up.

  From her own place on the floor Lena manages to angle her head just enough to spot Ramiel’s unmoving form.

  Whatever is more permanent and formless than death, Lena wishes for it in that moment.

  The Oexials kneeling before their master begin chanting in a language that scrapes human ears like the edge of a blade. Their bodies genuflect in time, the rhythm and their bloodred robes giving them the appearance of a single undulating organism.

  “We ask no mercy for this sacrilege, Master,” their eldest elder announces with grandeur. “But your offerings have not slipped the hook. Take them, and us, as you see fit.”

  The doors don’t fly open, they shatter completely, raining shrapnel on human and demon alike.

  For a moment it’s as if air has been let back into a total vacuum.

  The devil actually recoils, just a hair, but it’s enough to release the vicelike grips on all of their hearts.

  Silence settles over the space.

  Then, in the distance, a gentle skittering.

  It sounds like tiny feet falling on marble.

  Several tiny feet.

  In the next moment all the demons gasp and writhe as, through the tall, empty arch where the doors used to be, a small, slightly unkempt Shih Tzu putters into the room.

  CANIS EX MACHINA

  Its presence causes the demons to moan in severe pain even as it allows every human to breathe easier and feel the barest inkling of hope again.

  The devil watches the tiny dog with an undeniable pause that might even be fear.

  The Shih Tzu putters up to within a few feet of the chasm in the floor and settles gently on its hind legs.

  It stares up at the uncontested master of evil passively, its head slightly cocked.

  The chefs find they can move again. Lena begins to lift herself sluggishly from the floor.

  Several feet away, Darren struggles with the same action, his eyes on the dog.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  Lena just nods with as much defeat as relief in he
r body.

  “Dip me in shit and roll me in sugar,” she hears Bronko moan with genuine wonder.

  It’s the same “stray” dog the Sin du Jour staff took in just before Lena and Darren came in that first day for their interview.

  It’s the same dog that caused an Oexial elder to choke on a chicken bone before he could expose the fact that Sin du Jour had replaced the angel flesh they were ordered to serve at a demon banquet with a Chicken Nuggies substitute.

  It’s the same dog that freed Ramiel from a magical prison more ancient and powerful than any of Sin du Jour’s wizards and alchemists could quantify or understand.

  It’s also God, whoever or whatever such an entity really is.

  It’s the God Puppy.

  There is no denying it.

  The devil speaks in a voice designed to suck the soul from the listener, but somehow it’s not as awful as it should be, almost as if its power is being drained as soon as each word leaves him. The words themselves almost sound like questions, albeit in nothing any human would recognize as language.

  He’s addressing the God Puppy directly.

  Again, silence.

  The Shih Tzu barks, gently, just once, up at the Lord of Evil.

  Whatever answer has been given sends the devil into a sudden terrifying rage. Its hide crackles and burns. Its eyes are lightning. It flails its limbs and unleashes a stream of thundering, inhuman curses.

  It’s like watching a calm day become a category-10 tornado right in front of you.

  All the humans who were finding their feet drop back to the floor, curling up and shielding themselves from it.

  The God Puppy merely licks its own face and waits.

  Now the devil dips its horrible form over the edge of the chasm, until its face looks as if it will engulf the small animal.

  Its huge, bonfire eyes flash and its voice becomes the sound of the world’s end as it screams over the dog’s insignificant form.

  The God Puppy sniffs adorably, waiting.

  Whether the devil’s tirade runs out of words or steam is any human’s guess, but it finally ceases.

  The Desolate One stares silently and menacingly at his only true foe.

  A low rumble begins in the God Puppy’s chest. It builds until his fuzzy muzzle trembles with a gentle growl.

  The growl builds until the God Puppy lifts its head high and lets loose an absurdly high-pitched, single bark.

  It’s as if the devil’s form has been hit by an antiaircraft missile.

  The rest of them feel it too. The demons scatter. Some flee the room, others simply fling themselves into the fiery chasm.

  For the humans it’s more powerful than the devil’s presence and in exactly the opposite way. It’s like being shown the most powerful truth in the universe, and it cuts straight through the false darkness with which the devil’s nearness imbued them.

  Hell’s commander in chief sinks back into the crater that heralded his entrance into our world, disappearing into volcanic bursts of fire that are extinguished in his wake, leaving the chasm a cold, dark depression leading to nowhere.

  Bronko is the first one to make it all the way back to his feet. He stares at the rip in the earth, trying not to look at the God Puppy directly as he absently brushes cream slather and blood from himself.

  “Nikki!” Lena’s uncustomary terrified shriek cuts through the silence violently.

  Bronko whips around to see her cradling Nikki’s motionless, rag doll–like form. Blood has soaked through the entire lower half of her smock and the top of her pants. There’s a deep puncture wound in her abdomen.

  “Nikki?” Lena practically begs, checking her vitals with military precision despite her rapidly deteriorating composure. “Nikki? Nikki! No no no no no no no not you not you not you NIKKI!”

  Her screeching descends to unintelligible, manic sobbing. She clutches Nikki’s lifeless body close and buries her face in the dead woman’s neck, her crying muffled there as her body rocks and shudders.

  Bronko manages the few broad strides between himself and their coupled forms.

  Then he drops to his knees.

  With a haunted, vacant expression he watches Darren crawl to within a foot of the two women as well, registers that the overwhelming emotions dominating the boy are shame and guilt.

  A hand on Bronko’s shoulder, the sensation of physical contact feeling very distant and removed.

  It’s Jett.

  It’s the first time Bronko has ever seen his sous-chef weep.

  Pacific, supporting Mo with most of his weight, limps them both close to the others.

  Mo crosses himself, tears both of physical pain and grief staining his wrinkled, age-spotted cheeks.

  Pacific isn’t crying, but his is the most deeply troubled expression Bronko has ever witnessed the young server wear.

  Lena abruptly pulls her tear- and blood-slicked face from Nikki’s neck and screams at the top of her lungs, a violent, guttural sound filled with as much rage as sadness or loss.

  It’s a rage born of helplessness.

  None of them say a word as her exhausted scream dissipates.

  Then, in its silent wake, that gentle skittering of padded feet on the marble.

  The God Puppy putters between Bronko and Jett, then bounds up to the other side of Nikki’s body.

  He rears back on his hind legs and places his front paws gently on Nikki’s thigh.

  The dog’s intelligent, slightly sad eyes peer up at Lena.

  She stares down at him through a waterfall distortion of tears, her body still shaking, arms involuntarily constricting around Nikki.

  “What?” she manages raggedly. “What do you want? She’s dead! She’s dead and you’re a fucking dog and what good is that? What good are you?”

  “He saved us, El,” Darren says softly, desperately.

  “From what?” Lena demands, looking from the dog to Darren to the rest of them, so much hate etched on her face. “Didn’t he make all of this? Didn’t he? Then what good is any of it? What the fuck is the point?”

  None of them can answer that.

  The dog barks, and Lena’s attention snaps back to him.

  “What?” Lena bitterly demands. “Just fucking talk to us!”

  “Lay her down, child,” a new voice, melodious and out-of-time, bids Lena.

  It’s Ramiel.

  She’s standing in front of the other chefs, seeming unharmed for the blow she sustained.

  In fact, the blood is gone from her wings and armor.

  Lena looks up at her, taken aback, even in her consumed state.

  “Lay her down,” the angel repeats, her tone that of a loving parent speaking to a wounded child. “All will be as it should.”

  “We saved you,” Lena says, and it sounds like an accusation.

  Ramiel nods. “And so you did. Now do as I say. Please. Lay her down and leave her rest.”

  More than seeing it, Lena can feel the wisdom, compassion, and divinity contained in the winged creature.

  And she doesn’t give a shit.

  “Fuck you,” she says miserably, turning her attention back to Nikki’s body. “Fuck all of you.”

  In the end it’s not the forces of Hell that move her.

  It’s Bronko.

  His impossibly powerful hands seize her shoulders, prying her away from Nikki.

  As he does, Jett is there behind her, guiding Nikki’s head and shoulders gently to the floor.

  Lena shrieks and curses and protests, but Bronko’s grip is iron. He forces her to her feet and backs her away from where Nikki lies.

  “Let it go, girl,” Bronko instructs Lena through teeth gritted from the effort of controlling her. “Give ’em a chance.”

  As they all look on, the God Puppy crawls his front paws up Nikki’s body to her shoulder. He sniffs at her ear. His tiny button nose briefly nudges hers.

  Finally, he licks her cheek.

  Nikki inhales deeply, her eyes opening wide as life returns to her b
ody in an instant.

  Lena stops struggling against Bronko’s grip, and whether because of that fact or out of his own surprise he releases his hold on her.

  Everyone, Lena included, stares in struck silence as Nikki sits up on the stained, shard-covered floor.

  She doesn’t cough or sputter or convulse.

  There is no pain.

  She seems refreshed.

  The God Puppy turns his head up at Lena and barks.

  Her eyes are pulled away from Nikki, and she looks from the dog to Ramiel, questioningly.

  “The Giver’s words are not your words,” the angel explains. “They can never be. Not truly. However, the nearest your words might capture their feeling would be . . . ‘you only get one.’ Understand?”

  Lena nods, dumbly, yet somehow she does.

  The God Puppy sniffs, as if in assent.

  With that the Shih Tzu hops over Nikki’s prone legs and trots across the space to where the buffet table still stands. It leaps up onto the tabletop beside a half-depleted display of cupcakes and begins licking frosting from the top of one.

  Ramiel soon joins the God Puppy, picking up a cupcake and gingerly peeling away its wrapper with the same fingers that were swinging sword and axe not ten minutes ago. She bites into the silken confection with unabashed pleasure.

  “Come on, girl,” Bronko says, scooping Nikki up in his arms easily and cradling her like a child.

  “I can walk, Chef,” she assures him, confused. “What—”

  She finally looks around, taking it all in.

  “What happened? Are we . . . what’s going on?”

  “We’re leaving, is what’s going on,” Bronko says with finality. “Everyone. Let’s go. Now. Talk later.”

  They all obey without question, even Lena. The procession makes its way across the carnage scrawled on the floor in the fouled dessert topping Nikki spent so much time and care preparing.