New Title 1

by Dru Pagliassotti

  “Want to wait for Peter?” he whispered, glancing back up the stairs. Ally buried her mouth and nose in her sleeve, trying not to smell anything, and hesitated. He might come back. Guys puked all the time, right?

  But Peter had been reluctant to come here ever since she’d suggested it.

  She knew she shouldn’t be disappointed in him. It was okay for guys to be scared. But still, she didn’t think she’d be able to keep going out with him, if she lived through this.

  She wanted a boyfriend who was at least as brave as she was.

  She stole another glance at the charnel floor. It wasn’t quite as bad if she kept telling herself it was just a movie effect. Like one of the Hellraiser movies. Plastic and chocolate syrup, right?

  “We’d better keep going,” she said, after a long minute. Her shaking hadn’t stopped, but she didn’t think it was going to.

  Jarret nodded. His flashlight was still tucked away. His fingers were white on a bottle of gasoline and a lighter.

  She stood and slowly, carefully, set one foot down onto the shaking floor.

  The meat squelched beneath her borrowed socks and began to soak through. It was warm.

  Bile rose in her throat again, and her stomach burned. She choked, swallowed something sour, and shuddered.

  I’m not going to puke. Not. Going. To. Puke. It’s just a bad horror movie.

  She dragged her eyes up and lifted the beam of the flashlight. Maybe if she didn’t look too carefully at the floor, she wouldn’t see anything she couldn’t explain away as special effects. She breathed through her mouth, as shallowly as she could.

  In front of her was a cracked and sagging wall and a dark archway. Ally concentrated on it, grinding her teeth together to keep from making noise as her feet sank into soft flesh.

  Grinding her teeth was bad, because it meant she had to breathe through her nose.

  Her flashlight beam touched something that moved, just beyond the doorway. She whipped the light back down to her feet, her convulsive trembling getting worse.

  Jarret stepped up to her, so close that his arm brushed hers. He held up the bottle and lighter, giving her a look.

  She took another step closer, tentatively lifting the flashlight’s beam back up and through the doorway.

  At least one serpent was in there, squirming back and forth. The light played over its vast side, its blood-smeared pale scales, a flash of cilia, and a bony jut of its exoskeleton.

  Trying very hard not to whimper, Ally moved the beam around.

  The cellar extended downward, much deeper than it had originally. Long, tall tunnels pierced it—wormholes—and its concrete walls had broken and sunken into dark, compressed-dirt cavern walls. The floor was gone.

  She took a short step closer, dropping the beam lower. The writhing mass of carapace and scale was deep, as if the floor had sunk another ten feet or even more. She couldn’t see the bottom, but it had to be as bloody as the floor she was walking over, because the writhing serpents’ sides were covered with gore, and blood splashed as the creatures slid over each other.

  Ally turned and raised a shaking hand, gesturing to Jarret.

  There couldn’t be anyone alive down there. Time for fire.

  XXXVI

  Domitor’s frill of sensory organs and genitalia rippled and flushed in expectation as he watched the kine kneading and seeding the field into a mating-bed of nutrient-rich soil. Next to him, Carnifex crouched, her razor claws retracted, her egg-polyps pulsing as she shared his eagerness. Soon the mating-bed would be ready for them to descend upon the kine and inject them with germ-plasm that would mingle and merge inside the kine’s warm, welcoming host bodies. Then their spawn would grow and devour and absorb and learn. Through them, permanent passages to the void would be created, and the sigil-guardians would be scattered, and Verminaarch would be able to suck yet another endoverse dry of its manifold energy-states.

  Domitor felt satisfaction. After too long a delay, he would be able to complete his life-duty, and Verminaarch would be pleased with him and grant him more power, another endoverse to explore and conquer.

  Carnifex dampened herself with a feeding-tube that dripped acids, softening her bladescales for the impending mating.

  Domitor groaned in expectation.

  XXXVII

  Why do we not join them? Viator asked, watching the mate-pair from the limis hyperspace where she and Auctor crouched. The planespawn will require our genetic traits, as well.

  The probabilities have not collapsed yet, Auctor cautioned, his bodyeyes fixed on a million fluctuating spacetimes and divergent endoverses. In far too many of them, the hypospatial beings who traveled through the limis just a thought away from his staring, recording sensory organs succeeded in securing this dimension.

  Auctor had been charged by Verminaarch to watch, record, and learn. He did not have a genetic predisposition to take risks. He continued to keep his restless mate in check, content to wait.

  Let Domitor and Carnifex take the risks. They carried the biological programming for it.

  Viator swept out her tongues, tasting the pathways, and thrust her narrow head around.

  I sense the same traveler. Let us destroy this threat now and join our broodgroup.

  Auctor turned more of his eyes toward the hypospatial entities and dedicated more of his data-processing energy to determining their threat levels.

  XXXVIII

  Todd jerked, catching a glimpse of dark, shiny tubes shooting down past the stairwell. He stumbled and grasped the sharp handrail, barely feeling the long gashes the spinous processes left in his palm.

  “Beloved....” Amon rose on its rear four feet, its beak clattering as its head revolved. “Let us go.”

  “What’s wrong? Jack, hold on.” Markham turned. “Are you all right?”

  “The dragons are near,” Todd said, straining to catch another glimpse of the creatures, but all he could see was black on black, the space beyond the bone stairwell a pit of darkness. He shifted his gaze to the probabilities and saw them seething in a micropuntal froth of uncertainty. “Jack, can you conjure from here?”

  He heard the biker mutter an imprecation and caught a dim glimpse of the man kicking at the stair under his feet.

  “Lousy place to pick a fight,” Jack called back. “You got any idea how much farther it is to the bottom?”

  “No.”

  “They are watching us,” Amon whined, its head thrashing back and forth. “My love, we need reinforcements.”

  Todd felt a twinge of unease. Amon had never, in the hundreds of years they’d traveled together, suggested inviting another devil into their close-knit pairing. For it to do so now indicated that they were desperately outmatched.

  Calling devils to him on a hellward path, with Amon’s teeth still stained by his blood, would bring him far too close to the Destroyer’s gravity well. He might not be able to maintain his claim of neutrality if he acquiesced.

  “Andrew,” he said, “this might be a good time to call one of the b'nei elohim.”

  “No!” Amon hissed, glaring at him.

  “We’re too close to hell for your brethren, beloved.” Todd held out his bloody palm as a peace offering. “You don’t want me trapped, do you?”

  Amon held his gaze a moment, its mirroreyes reflecting his infinite emptiness. Perhaps the demon did want him trapped. If so, it was playing a careful and extended game. But then, both it and Todd had centuries to spar with each other.

  Now it reluctantly ran a rasping tongue over his palm, cleaning away the gore. Todd was aware of Markham’s disapproving gaze, but he ignored it. The former priest would never understand. Amon was his demon, and Todd cherished knowledge above all else.

  “I can send out a call,” Jack said, “but only if you say so, Andy. I know how you feel about it.”

  “Devil, how dangerous are the dragons of the abyss?” Markham asked, his distaste at addressing the nephilim obvious in his tone and expression. Amon turned its gaze on the
former priest, and Todd wondered what Markham saw in its eyes. Nothing too bad, he guessed—the priest didn’t flinch away the way his friend Jack did each time he looked at Amon.

  “Didn’t you hear the Watcher?” Amon hissed. “They will release the רוקניא and we will all be destroyed, the yhwh and the ha-satan and the mal'akhim and you.”

  Markham shook his head.

  “You’d better do it, Jack. So far the only ones to tell us about these ‘dragons’ have been servants of Satan. Maybe an angel will give us another perspective.”

  “You got it.”

  “Amon, you may leave, if you want,” Todd said, looking down at the demon. Amon hissed and pressed its head against his leg, but it didn’t make any attempt to return to hell.

  “Since we need real answers, I think we should call Raphael,” Jack said.

  Amon whined. Todd leaned down and patted its head.

  “An archangel?” Even Markham sounded dubious.

  “If this is as important as the devil says, it might show up. And Raphael’s always been talkative.”

  “It’s also a guide to the underworld, as well as one of the angels of the Apocalypse,” Todd added. He approved of the choice. He’d never met an archangel, but of them all, Raphael was reputed to be the most benign.

  “Raphael is a slavemaster,” Amon spat, coiling up closer to Todd’s calf, its legs hooking and piercing his trousers.

  “It won’t enslave you,” Todd assured his demon. To be honest, he probably wouldn’t be able to stop an archangel, if its mind were set on capturing Amon, but he’d do his best. Amon and he were close enough for that.

  Jack and Markham went through their preparations more scrupulously than they had in the chapel against Penemue. Despite being laicized, Markham blessed Jack and the endeavor with confidence. Then Jack began his invocation.

  “O glorious and benevolent archangel Raphael Labbiel Azariah, prince of the Cherubim, ruler of the Second Heaven, angel of the Throne and governor of the Sun, I invoke you, adjure and call you forth to visible apparition in and through the great prevalent and divine name of the Most Holy God....”

  The conjurer’s voice rolled on, strong and musical, showing no sign that a mere half hour earlier he’d fallen to a miniature stroke. Interesting man, Todd thought, scrutinizing the surrounding darkness for another sign of the dragons. Americans still fascinated him, even after spending seventy years in the U.S., moving from black-only colleges to the mainstream, following the probabilityscape as well as he could in the face of fear and racism. Americans adapted. They could be prejudiced, close-minded, and conservative, but they adapted to change much more quickly than any other people he’d encountered in his centuries of travel.

  The ability to adapt was a survival trait he, too, cultivated.

  “...come and show yourself unto me and let me partake of the wisdom of your Creator, amen.”

  Amon’s claws dragged down Todd’s trousers, shredding them into strips from knee to ankle as the archangel appeared.

  Todd started, seeing the probabilities around them jerk and warp into new patterns. The b'nei elohim had just added a new attractor to the iteration, and everything was transforming.

  Raphael, if that’s what had responded, stood several steps below Jack, but it towered over him, well over seven feet tall and wrapped in a shroud of six dark-colored wings that fluttered and moved around it. Flames licked between the feathers, but Todd had difficulty discerning them. If it was fire, it was a bright, cold fire.

  The archangel was as gorgeously, horribly inhuman as every other member of the b'nei elohim he had ever seen. Its almond-shaped eyes were bright and impassive, and its hair moved like a living creature.

  “James Ignatius Langthorn.”

  Its words dripped light, and all three mortals turned away, clapping their hands over their eyes. Todd smelled Amon excreting next to him and heard the demon’s long, low keen.

  The archangel’s voice was brighter than any he’d ever seen before, so bright that it burned through his hands and his closed lids to etch coronas into his retinas.

  “Andrew Thomas Markham. Ekow Addo. Kadir Paymon.

  “Be not afraid.”

  Todd wasn’t afraid, at least not in any way he’d ever experienced fear before, but the sound of his original name, spoken again after so many centuries, pierced him more deeply than he’d thought possible. Addo. Ruler of the ways. A name more fitting than his parents had ever imagined.

  He squinted, wheels of fire dancing before his seared eyes. Both Jack and Markham were on their knees, their faces buried in their arms. He guessed that neither would be able to speak.

  “Archangel Raphael,” he said, his own voice sounding thin and high compared to the archangel’s roar. “We need your help against the dragons.”

  Then he squeezed his eyes shut again and threw an arm over his face to protect himself from its reply.

  “The proud man who rejects my Lord’s invitation to the feast may not then demand scraps at the door,” Raphael said, its voice filled with a humor Todd had never heard from any other member of the mal'akhim. He threw his other arm over his face, imitating the two occultists. The stories were right—Raphael was a sociable angel. And every word seared. “But the humble man who begs scraps at the door will be invited to sit at the feast. Take this shield, Andrew Thomas Markham, and use it to protect the innocent. Take this sword, James Ignatius Langthorn, and use it to strike the enemy. And take this key, Kadir Paymon, and use it to lock the door.”

  Todd opened his mouth to protest, and then snapped it shut again. An archangel granting a favor to a demon? But they were both mal'akhim, he realized, his mind whirling; the same energy in different forms. And ha-satan was still God’s servant, no matter how obstructive its duties might be.

  If that were true, what kind of energy was he?

  “And as for you, Walker Between the Worlds, when your hunger becomes great enough, remember that my Lord’s invitation is still yours to accept.”

  Before Todd could think of a reply, the buzzing, shuddering vibration through the probabilityscape ceased, although the patterns of potential futures remained irrevocably altered.

  He cautiously opened his eyes. Through the fireworks display that still burned into his retinas, he could see that the archangel was gone.

  He looked at his three companions. They didn’t look any different. Whatever gifts Raphael had given them weren’t material.

  His leg ached. He looked down.

  Amon had dug its claws into his flesh, and blood was streaming down into his socks and Italian leather loafers. Their soles were already smeared with the demon’s runny excrement.

  Amon looked up at him.

  “Open the door,” it demanded, still huddling close to him. “Open the door.”

  Puzzled, Todd looked down the stairs, but they still seemed endless.

  Jack pointed behind him.

  Todd turned and found that he was standing in front of a large bone door covered with human teeth.

  XXXIX

  Auctor followed Viator deeper into the limis, racing away from the guardian-entity.

  What was it? she asked, her previous eagerness to attack the travelers gone. Auctor referred to aeons of recorded memory, seeking a more precise answer to her question than the one he understood instinctively.

  It is one of the barriers, he replied. It is one of the sigils that has locked this endoverse away from Verminaarch.

  Should we call Domitor? Can we shatter it?

  It has taken its minions to Domitor already. Auctor paused. Prepare a passage to safety. Battle is about to begin, and I must record it.

  XL

  Ally edged as close to the broken doorway as she dared, holding her breath. The snakes seemed too busy to notice her, lost in some kind of blood-frenzy of their own. The ground kept quaking beneath her feet, and dust sifted off the concrete roof. She didn’t want to stand too close for fear that a sudden jolt might throw her in.

 
Jarret crept up next to her and held out the gasoline bottle, giving her an inquiring look. Ally jammed the flashlight into the front of her jeans' waistband, casting the light up at the ceiling, and took the bottle from him.

  The hole was too big, the serpents too large, to hurt them with one tiny Evian bottle filled with gasoline. She mentally weighed the three backpacks Jarret was carrying, trying to decide what to do. If there was water down below, her plan wouldn’t work. Or even much blood.

  On the other hand, what else could they do?

  She gingerly uncapped the bottle and dumped the gasoline into the pit beyond the door.

  The serpents didn’t seem to notice anything, although the smell of gasoline was a relief, cutting through the sickly scent of carnage.

  Jarret handed her another bottle and began uncapping one of his own.

  Slowly, one by one, they dumped all three backpacks’ worth of fuel into the pit. Ally hoped the churning, thrashing motion of the serpents was coating their scales with gasoline.

  At last, Jarret reached the bottom of the pack. He held up the tiny camping stove and can of cooking fuel and mimed lighting it and pitching it into the pit.

  Ally nodded. She slid the flashlight back out of her waistband and pointed toward the stairs, then drew an arc with her finger from the stairs to the pit. She raised her eyebrows.

  He paused a moment, then gave her a thumbs-up.

  They retreated through the gore-covered room back to the stairway, then put their heads together.

  “When you throw it, we run,” Ally whispered.

  “What if I miss? Or it doesn’t work?”

  She made a face.

  “We wait long enough to make sure it goes in. If it doesn’t work...” she shook her head. “I don’t know what to do next.”

  He regarded her gravely.

  “It’s a good plan. If it doesn’t work, it’s not your fault.”