The Prison of the Angels

by Janine Ashbless

  “Like you care.”

  “There’s been enough slaughter.”

  “Hey, you can’t hurt us. You’re not allowed to do anything to us; I know the rules!”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t need to raise a finger. You’re surrounded by mortal men who are determined to protect the treasure that is theirs. And they will do things to you that I could never countenance.”

  “Do you know what they’re doing to him down there?”

  “We don’t go back into the prisons.”

  “The bleeding?”

  Raphael grimaced. “I do know. I haven’t seen. But I know.”

  “Do you approve?”

  “Of course not.” His voice cracked with brief sharpness. “But you people are free to act as you choose, remember.”

  “You can’t stop them either, then? So remind me—what’s the point of you?”

  I saw his hands clench.

  “Walk away, Milja, while you have the chance.”

  “Just give up, huh? Leave the prisoner to rot?”

  “Save your Scapegoat. Don’t call him here. Just go, and make your peace with this world, and I promise I will say nothing to my brother the Dragonslayer.”

  To Michael? I felt my jaw sag. “What’re you saying?”

  “The Scapegoat can keep running, provided he does not let himself get cornered. Just run. There’s no need for more bloodshed. No need for Armageddon. It is not what he’d want, but it is life. It’s freedom.”

  This was not what I had ever expected to hear from an archangel. “I thought you wanted him caught?”

  Raphael looked down at his hands. “He was my friend once.”

  “You killed his children!”

  “Then that is something we have in common,” he said, knocking the wind out of me.

  For a moment we glared at each other.

  “I am tired,” he said at last, his voice heavy. “Tired of all the deaths. Aren’t you?”

  “Oh yes. It’s just a shame all your brothers in the Host don’t feel the same way.”

  “We are obedient to the Divine Command. We have to be—but you can choose your course. I am giving you a chance. Just take it, please.”

  I almost felt sorry for him. “Do you really think he will abandon his brothers? Would you, in his situation?”

  He sucked his lips. “If you go down there,” he said, “I will not follow. I will not interfere. You are on your own.”

  I drew myself up taller. “Then thank you for the warning.”

  He dipped his head, took a step backward, and vanished in a silver shimmer.

  What the hell was going on there? I asked myself. Are Michael and Raphael divided too? But I didn’t have any time left to consider what I’d just heard; the firelight was flickering again and the world was in motion. The flap of wings fanned my hair as the ravens ascended to the rafters. I could see Kjell’s face turning to watch me, and all of a sudden Egan was touching my arm lightly.

  “Milja, please…”

  I didn’t turn. I looked down into the glowing embers, and I plunged my hand in and grasped the key.

  Fire, do not hurt me.

  I felt the heat—like the warm lick of some huge animal. There was no pain. No reflex withdrawal. I closed my fingers around the iron shaft and lifted it out of the flames, raising it for Kjell and Aslaug to witness.

  “Hnh,” she said through her nose. It was impossible to say if she was impressed or not.

  Both ravens cawed triumphantly, and I peered up into the rafters wondering if they’d seen the archangel. Possession of a living body put them at some disadvantage, I had good reason to believe, even if it bought them anonymity.

  “Open the door then,” Kjell said, gesturing with a smile.

  Our hosts both rose from their seats and preceded us up the length of the hall, past the three enthroned idols, to a narrow wooden door with a barrel padlock. I desperately wanted to talk to Egan, but I had no chance.

  Raphael was here! He says it’s deadly down there. We have to be ready!

  He says he won’t interfere. He doesn’t go down there. He doesn’t want to see what they do to Samyaza, I think.

  He won’t interfere!

  The three wooden gods seemed to glower from under their shadowed brows. The angular key slid into the end of the iron barrel, and I felt metal leaves squeeze within until there was a click and the mechanism shifted in my hands and came apart.

  “Follow,” said Kjell, but it was Aslaug who led the way down the stone steps beyond that door. I risked a glance at Egan, trying to put a warning into my eyes.

  “Let me go first,” he murmured. The set of his shoulders was tense; I don’t think he needed any warning.

  “Come on,” I called the birds, and they flapped down onto my shoulder and my arm. Their feathers were fluffed and bristly with unease, and Penemuel cocked her head rapidly from side to side as if trying to read my expression.

  Of course, if this was anything like the tomb in Minnesota, they couldn’t even see this doorway. It was sealed from their eyes and they needed me to carry them through it.

  “Pruuuk,” said Penemuel with audible unhappiness, as I stooped under the lintel.

  Aslaug, then Kjell, then Egan, then me with the ravens—and behind me those guards, wordless. Down into the bowels of the mountain we descended. The walls here were rough rock, the passage narrow. It would be a terrible place to try to fight in, I thought, my scalp tingling as I listened to the loud breathing of the ax-carrying man at my back.

  The chamber at the foot of the stairs was scarcely better; tight and low-roofed, still rough underfoot and craggy with boulders. I’d expected something grander, after all the ostentatious paganism upstairs, but this was just a cave. Aslaug, using her staff to prop herself, bent to flick the switches on battery lamps as she led us onward. She was singing to herself. It was a whiny, creepy sound, I thought.

  The ravens fluffed and croaked and dug their claws in so hard that I caught my breath between my teeth.

  They hate this. They’re terrified. I can’t blame them. The two Watchers had spent five thousand years desperate to get out of places like this. To return, clad in flesh, must be nearly unbearable. This was the type of prison cell they were horrifically familiar with.

  And at the far end of the cave—naked, suspended upside down, one leg crooked and one straight, his hands tied behind him so that his elbows stuck out like stubby wings, and his head a little way above the floor—was the bound god Loki.

  10

  STRICTLY OLD SCHOOL

  He’s the Hanged Man, I thought. The one in the Tarot card.

  He was almost exactly as I’d seen him in my vision—pale and slender as bone, beautifully pared—except that his eyes were closed and his hair was not flame, only red at the roots and mud-colored further down where it had been trampled in the damp and the dirt of the cave floor. He looked asleep, or unconscious.

  Kjell squeezed himself to the side of the cave close at hand and gestured for me to approach. “Come closer.”

  The ravens were clutching me so hard that I could feel blood trickling beneath the cloth of my fleece sweater. I hissed with pain and shook Penemuel off my arm onto a rock, where she flapped in an ugly broken manner, not trying to fly, just hopelessly distressed. Azazel’s grip on my shoulder was making me twist. I tried to stroke his feathers but he recoiled from me and jumped off onto another boulder, wings half-raised and head darting from side to side.

  “It’s alright,” I mumbled. “Keep calm, you two.” Had it been a mistake bringing them in here at all? If they attempted to assume human form they’d be banging their heads off the roof, and if Azazel kicked off with his flaming sword we’d all burn.

  But there was nothing I could do to soothe them right now so I worked my way through the rocks to where Loki, or Samyaza, hung. His bonds looked like rawhide, as I’d anticipated. I hoped the serrated blade sheathed beneath my fleece would cut them quickly.

  “Where’
s the snake?” I asked, squinting up into the shadows.

  “Between his legs,” said Kjell with a laugh. “If you want to draw the poison, we’d be happy to watch.”

  I had to restrain myself from snarling at him for that crude joke. Loki’s member was admittedly turgid; it hung down toward his navel, the only dark meat amongst all that pallor. And it was more or less at head height as I stood. I wondered how many people had abused him over the centuries and I deliberately averted my face.

  Kjell didn’t miss the cold anger in my eyes. “No?” he said. “Blood for you, then?” He reached into the pocket of his Helly Hansen jacket and pulled out something I didn’t recognize; it was perhaps eight inches long and pale brown—bone, I thought, or wood. About half of its length was flattened like a miniature paddle, or a feather, while the other half was a spike.

  He used the point to jab hard into Samyaza’s inner thigh.

  I’d been wondering how they managed to pierce angelic flesh. This was some relic, I assumed—like the Nails of the True Cross—though I couldn’t imagine exactly what right now. Blood welled out and ran earthward, a long crimson tear that trickled into the foxy curls at his groin and then spilt out in a line down his belly. My gorge rose.

  Oh God. It’s always blood with these people. Blood carries intent. It carries vision. It carries power. It is communion with the Divine.

  ‘Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.’

  You bastards. You piece-of-shit bastards.

  Kjell stepped back, licking the tip of the dart. “Help yourself.”

  What does he expect me to do? There’s no cup to catch this poison. Does he think I’m going to lick it off Loki’s skin?

  I knelt down on the damp floor, crouching low so I was almost face-to-inverted-face with the captive. Cautiously I laid my hand on his breastbone and felt the kick of the heart beneath. His skin was cold, and pale enough to make my hand look dark. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a naked man with so little body-hair; he was almost eerily smooth. The red runnel tracked slowly down over his stomach and ribs, inching toward his nipple.

  “It’s me,” I whispered, taking his thin face between my hands. I had to risk his name, and hope it would not be overheard. “Do you know me, Samyaza?”

  His eyes opened, moss-green with pupils shrunk to pinpoints, like he was staring into a bright light. The blood-line was almost at his shoulder. Soon it would start to drip on the floor.

  “Milja?” His voice was the crackle of ice in winter trees. “No…”

  “It’s alright. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Don’t let it go to waste!” Kjell instructed anxiously. He grabbed the hair at the base of my hat and shoved my face at Samyaza’s chest; I had to twist wildly to stop my lips planting in the blood.

  There came a metallic sound and Egan’s voice, hard and harsh; “That’s enough of that.”

  As Kjell let go I looked over my shoulder and saw that Egan had drawn his pistol and was pointing it at Kjell’s head.

  “Step away,” he ordered.

  The entourage of men who had piled into the cave at our heels, the ones with the axes, all gradually started to realize that something was going wrong and stirred like bears waking themselves. Egan obviously didn’t like having them at his back, and gestured tightly with the muzzle of the Beretta at Kjell; “Move over this way. Milja, get cutting.”

  “This is how you repay hospitality?” Kjell demanded, as I unsheathed my knife.

  Aslaug was still singing, like she hadn’t even noticed.

  I stood up beside Samyaza as you’d stand beside a hanging sheep carcass, and began to saw the leather cords that bound his wrists at the small of his back. It was an awkward angle, even though I didn’t have to worry about slicing his skin, and I was trying to keep half an eye on what was going on with Egan—attempting to get his back to a niche so no one could jump him—and Kjell—moving reluctantly around—and the guys unsheathing their axes. I was desperately hoping the two Watchers would just sit tight for a moment so that we could avoid a bloodbath. I was trying to get though the cords as fast as possible. My forehead was jammed against Samyaza’s cold thigh as I sawed wildly.

  “This is our holy place,” Kjell said. “Desecrators!”

  The lead guard lurched forward, lifting his weapon. Egan swung his arm around, shot him clean through the middle of the head, and had the gun back to cover Kjell in one brutally effective motion. The muzzle report was so loud in this confined place that almost everyone recoiled; I nearly fell backward over a rock in my shock.

  “You move again and your priest dies too,” said Egan flatly. “Back the hell off. You: tell them!”

  Kjell hunched his shoulders.

  “Ta ravnene!” Samyaza cried, as the gut-cord parted at his wrists.

  There was a sudden movement from the shadows. Egan was so focused on splitting his attention between the lone man and the group that he’d discounted the old woman lurking among the rocks; now her staff shot out and smacked down hard on his wrist. The gun flew free and bounced off a boulder, and both men dove for it, spilling at our feet. Aslaug threw off her cloak.

  I was right—she was naked underneath, or nearly so, and skeletally thin. She had a net draped over either shoulder, and she threw the first one over the perched raven closest to her.

  I braced myself for an enraged angel erupting out of the bird and the net. It didn’t happen. The second raven tried to take off, wings laboring, but seemed weighted by lead and only made it into mid-air before the other net brought it down to smack hard against the rock surface.

  “Azazel!” I croaked, stunned. “Penemuel!” The birds were struggling beneath the brown cords of the nets, but seemed unable to rise or escape. Then I lost sight of them altogether as a wave of men poured over the rocks on top of us.

  I think Egan got the gun—certainly at least one shot went off, but someone body-slammed me so that I went heels-over-head and ended up crumpled on the floor, my skull bouncing off something so hard that for a moment I blacked out, I think. Rough hands pulling at me and hauling me upright was the next thing I was aware of.

  Kjell was screaming. With rage, I mean. “Samle opp blodet!” he was shouting over and over again. I had no idea what was happening anymore; everyone seemed focused on Samyaza’s body, which was awash with crimson, blood spilling down over his chest and face and going to waste on the rocks below.

  He’s hurt? How?

  Men were trying to catch the blood in their cupped hands, soak it up in their fleece hats, suck it from their fingers.

  Then I saw Samyaza’s hands, still clenched around the slim wooden dart that had been used to prick his leg. Kjell must have dropped it when he fought with Egan. His hands free at last, thanks to me, Samyaza had picked it up and thrust it under his breastbone.

  What? What?!

  “Azazel,” I gasped in terror. “Penemuel?”

  Then I was pitched forward in front of the skinniest pair of shins and the dirtiest feet that I’d ever seen.

  Aslaug.

  She was standing holding the ravens, each long net knotted shut to make a crude bag, one bag in each hand. The birds looked crumpled, their struggles feeble. She bared her teeth at me in a mirthless yellow grin and cocked her head as if to mime, These what you’re looking for?

  I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong.

  ‘It will end in death,’ Raphael had said. ‘If you go down there, I will not interfere. You are on your own.’

  Then someone grabbed my hair from behind.

  “Motherfuckers,” said Kjell, leaning in so close that I could feel his spittle on my cheek. He swung me around and I glimpsed Egan, pinned down in a chokehold by two guys. “Now you are going to watch him die,” he told me. “Drep ham.”

  I panicked.

  And I called on the only person left that I thought might have the power to interfere on my behalf. I didn’t know if he could hear me down in this sealed priso
n or whether he could find the way in—but if anyone could, it had be the one who’d sealed it in the first place.

  “Uriel!” I howled. “Please!”

  The archangel came, with a thump of silver light that felt thrillingly cold against my skin, as if he’d been walking among the stars. He wore a long trench-coat of grey herringbone weave, and a hat that shadowed his eyes. He stood in the center of that chaotic scene as if he were waiting for his carriage to pick him up from amid a crowd of brawling urchins.

  Everyone froze. Except me; I knelt up so I could look him in the face. And Aslaug, who fell to her knees, gasping, “Óðinn!”

  “Really, Milja?” he asked, looking down at me with bemusement.

  “Can you see what they’re doing?” I gabbled. “To your brother? To one of your own kind? Is that really okay with you?”

  He cast a glance around the cave which came to rest on Samyaza’s body. His mouth pursed, tightening until it almost vanished altogether, as the scene sank in. I saw realization dawn, and even though it was what I wanted, it made me feel sick with shame.

  Uriel really doesn’t like humans much, at the best of times.

  He took one pace, stooped, dropped a hand on both me and Egan and stepped out of that cave, dragging us along with him. For a moment we were in that familiar airless no-space between the folds of reality; the next we were outside, in daylight, on snow.

  Uriel released us and took a step back. His haughty face was twisted up like I’d never seen before, and there was blue light streaming from inside his mouth and the blanks of his eyes.

  “Ahh, God Almighty,” gasped Egan as the cold hit him. He was only wearing indoor clothes, after all, and there was blood on his face. I grabbed his arm to lend him my warmth as I stared around us. The archangel hadn’t taken us far. We were near the research station, but well outside the perimeter fences. I could see in the mid-distance those dull little buildings that looked like nothing dramatic could ever happen there.

  Then Uriel lifted his hand, and behind him the black face of the mountain detached itself from Svartfjell and slid down with a roar to bury the site. Thousands of tons of rock and ice; a hammer-blow from Heaven. A great fog-bank of snow billowed down the valley, but settled to the ground before it engulfed us. We felt only the cold blast of its breath.