by Karen L Mead
“Whatever. Listen, I’m here for a reason. What do you know about the Watchers? We know they’re planning something big. I don’t know if you’re pen pals with them or what, but the word is that you know something.”
Lucifer stood up and stretched. The flames surrounding him took on a bluish tinge, but Sammael still couldn’t make out his features. “I forgot to ask. How is your wife doing?”
Sammael froze, feeling suddenly like there was a chill bearing down on him even surrounded by an ocean of fire. “Don’t you bring up my wife. Don’t you talk about her with your filthy mouth.”
Lucifer made a tsk sound, disappointed. “Harsh, Gramps. It’s just, she’s the only one who ever listens to me, so I worry about her.”
Sammael had to fight an urge to hurl a curse into the pit of fire, which would perhaps be the most redundant curse in the history of Creation. Stay calm, he couldn’t have possibly met Helen, he’s been imprisoned here since LONG before she was born. He’s just bringing her up because he knows it’ll get a reaction out of you. Stay on task, don’t let him win.
“The Watchers, Luce,” said Sammael, evenly. “I won’t ask again.”
“What’ll you do if I refuse to answer? Curse me?” said Lucifer in a mocking tone.
“No, I won’t visit you again. I won’t come here, and I’ll see to it that no one else does either. You’ll be completely alone for the next five millennia, minimum.”
Lucifer shook his head; for a moment, a mane of shaggy black hair was visible. “Oh, fine. The Watchers are going to come through a portal and take over the earth. Don’t bother trying to stop them.”
Sammael didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. “So that’s it, then? That’s how it ends? Us, humanity…everything else.”
“Possibly. Maybe not. I’m working on it.”
“How are you working on it when you’re trapped here? Luce, you can barely move in here, barely even think. You’ve been stuck here for thousands of years! Do you mean to tell me you’ve been faking it, and you can actually get out of here?”
“Oh no. I’m quite stuck. You all did a number on me.”
“Then how?”
“There’s another me out there, and he isn’t alone. You have more family than you know. Family is…the most important thing.”
Sammael was overcome with the urge to throw something at Lucifer, except all that was available was chunks of flaming obsidian. He hurled a giant block of the stuff at Lucifer, only for it to shatter into black dust right before reaching him. Still, it was better than nothing; he kept throwing.
“Why! Are! You! Like! This! It’s! So! Annoying!”
He took a moment to catch his breath, then went back to yelling at the Devil. “What good does it do you to hold out on me? If the Watchers get out, eventually they’ll get to you too. Or did you forget that?”
Lucifer shrugged. “You mean, they might put an end to this incredibly pleasant, relaxing existence I have right now? Oh, the horror. So worried.”
There was a pause as Sammael thought about that.
“Well, okay, you don’t exactly have a whole lot of incentive to work with us. I’ll give you that,” said Sammael, regaining his composure somewhat. “Look, can you just tell me one thing? One thing, and I’ll put in a good word for you to get some fire-free time soon, okay? How are they going to get out? The Almighty made that prison, himself, by hand. It’s not like they can break out.”
Lucifer stretched; he had the appearance of being long and lean, like a teenaged boy who hadn’t quite developed his musculature yet. “Obviously, something more powerful than the Almighty is going to have to break them out. Do you really need me to explain such simple logic? Thank heavens I don’t take after you.”
Chapter 19
Before Sam could knock on the door of Cassie’s new house, Nyesha opened it.
“Hello. I assume you’re the new fairy in town?”
Dorothy was standing next to Sam, scowling. “More vampires.”
“I told you they would be here,” Sam muttered, shifting the twelve-packs of soda that he was carrying in his arms. “I forgot to ask what everybody else brought, so I just picked up some drinks. I hope that’s alright.”
Nyesha motioned for them to walk past her. “It’s fine, we’ve got enough food for fifty people, but more drinks won’t hurt.” Sam walked past her, only to turn around and see that Dorothy was staring at the young vampire.
“Dorothy? Are you going to behave, or do we have to go home?”
The fairy was giving the vampire an odd look. “I must say, you are perhaps the least putrid, least disgusting undead creature I have ever seen.”
If Nyesha was taken aback by that, she didn’t show it. “Oh, thank you. That’s nice of you to say.”
“You would have made a good forest nymph. It’s a shame,” said Dorothy, shaking her head. Nyesha gave Sam a quizzical look as the fairy walked past her, and Sam shrugged; he’d stopped trying to make sense of most of what the fairy said.
“Necromancer,” said Dorothy, turning on her heel suddenly. “This house is made of wood. Someone cut up trees to make this dwelling.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It’s not a question of whether it poses a problem or not. I simply must go talk to the wood.” Dorothy disappeared down a flight of stairs, and Sam decided to leave her to it. He found the kitchen and put his three crates of sodas down on a large, mahogany dining table. There was already about ten boxes of pizza, eight kinds of chips, a giant deli hero sandwich cut into about a hundred pieces, cartons of donuts, and several white boxes that he assumed must contain decorative cakes.
Cassie must have let Miri do the shopping for this party. Hasn’t she learned by now?
“Is Khalil coming?” asked Nyesha, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “I know Miri wants to ask you, but she won’t.”
“Probably not. He’s, uh…he’s been busy lately.”
“Oh,” said Nyesha, looking at the kitchen table overladen with food. “That’s a shame. I was going to say goodbye to him.”
“Goodbye?”
“I’m going to Chicago, to finish medical school. I leave next week.”
“Oh, really?” he said, feeling awkward. Ever since they’d met, he’d only talked to Nyesha a handful of times. “Eugene is all right with that?”
“He helped set it up, of course. He’s friendly with an entourage over there, so they’re going to take me on as a kind of honorary member. Seems like he has friends everywhere.”
“I see.”
There was a pause. Nyesha laughed, throwing her head back.
“Wow, you really don’t care about me at all, do you?”
Before Sam could figure out what to say, she smiled and shook her head. “No, I don’t mean it like it’s a bad thing. It’s just that ever since we met, you’ve never seemed that interested in me, one way or the other. For my whole life, I’m used to people—especially men—paying a lot of attention to me,” she said, looking down at her short-cropped nails. “When we moved here, after what we’d been through in New York, the fact that you weren’t interested…it was such a relief. You can’t even imagine.”
“Oh. Well, glad I could help,” said Sam, feeling even more awkward. I’m definitely being insulted on some level here, but if she’s happy, I guess it’s fine?
Nyesha led him outside to where the rest of the party was. In the large backyard, someone had set up a volleyball net. Miri, Billingsly, Cassie, and Jay were playing, with the vampires evenly distributed on both teams. Teddy was also on Cassie’s side of the net, following her around. Over on the patio, Eugene, Dwight, and John Golding were having some kind of serious conversation; at another table, Dmitri and Liam were playing Sorcery with Ethan. Mike was at the same table, doing something with his computer.
Miri jumped in her high heels and spiked the ball, hitting it so hard that it stuck in the dirt. After the dust cleared, the ball was half-submerged in the ground,
still rotating.
“Um,” Cassie said, kneeling down to look at it. Teddy tried to push the ball out with his trunk. “I thought you said you were being gentle?”
“I was!” said Miri, sounding petulant. “I don’t know what happened.”
“That’s our Miri for you. Great restraint when fighting, but give her a ball and she becomes a giant monster trying to destroy Tokyo,” said Billingsly. He picked the ball up out of its crater, and gently set the ball so it bounced harmlessly off of Teddy’s back. Miri responded by kicking him in the shin.
Eugene crossed the yard quickly when he saw Sam; it was still unnerving how fast the old man could move. “Good evening. Did you bring the fairy with you?”
“I did. She’s uh…well, you’ll see.”
“I look forward to it,” said Eugene, smiling broadly.
“I’m hungry!” Miri called, running away from the volleyball net and putting her arms around Ethan’s neck.
“You’re always hungry,” said Ethan, shuffling through the cards in his hand as though the vampire wasn’t there.”
“I mean, it’s time to eat!” said Miri, running her fingers through the boy’s dyed-black hair. “Let’s go inside and have pizza, before I eat you.”
“You would never eat me; you told me my blood smells too much like microwaved chicken fingers, and it’s gross,” said Ethan, looking up from his cards.
“Mine smells like lasagna,” said Jay. He sounded oddly proud.
“The point is, everyone’s here now, so let’s eat. Hi, Sam,” said Miri, running past him into the house. Sam looked after her, concerned. He felt like he needed to talk to her, but wasn’t sure quite what he wanted to say.
“I’m sorry” would be a good start. Maybe go with that?
As the sun set behind the treeline, everyone made their way toward the house. When John got near Sam, he paused next to him for a moment. “Everybody isn’t here,” he whispered. “I know Cassie invited Dr. Zeitbloom to this little gathering, but there’s no sign of him. Is he avoiding us?”
“I think he is,” said Sam, seeing no reason to obfuscate. “He showed up at Cassie’s parents’ last night, but then he dropped off the face of the earth again. He’s not answering anyone’s texts.”
“He may be compromised,” said Golding thoughtfully.
Sam was taken aback at the suggestion. In truth, he’d been wondering the same thing himself, but hearing someone else say it out loud made it seem much more likely. Not sure what to say in response to that, he shook his head and followed everyone else into the house.
In the kitchen, everyone loaded up their paper plates with pizza, giant sandwiches, donuts and chips. Sam had already eaten pizza with Dorothy earlier, so he just took a donut and a soda to be social.
“Can we eat this in the living room?” asked Ethan.
“Let us ask the Lady of the House,” said Miri, gesturing elegantly to Cassie.
“Oh, uh…sure, I guess? Just try really hard not to drop pizza on anything.”
When they were all seated, some on the huge black couch and some on various easy chairs in the well-equipped living room (Mike and Jay were relegated to sitting on the floor, but didn’t care), Miri raised a glass of cola. “Let’s have a toast to the new house, and new beginnings.”
“Hear, hear,” said Eugene.
Everyone clinked their plastic cups with the people next to them, and took a sip.
“Now that that’s done, let’s talk about what’s important,” said Golding, standing up.
Miri face-palmed. “You couldn’t let it be an actual party for like, five minutes?”
As usual, Golding ignored her.
“Between Cassie’s dreams and my…research, it’s becoming clear that the Watchers, or rebel angels, are fighting to break free of their prison. This could be an Apocalypse level-event for us.”
“Ethan, why don’t you go upstairs and play some more of your games?” said Eugene, patting his charge on the shoulder. “I think this meeting is for the adults.”
Ethan slapped Eugene’s hand away, peeved. “I’m not a stupid kid! And I’m part of this entourage too,” he said in a quavering voice.
Eugene sighed. “Very well.”
Golding continued. “I’m pretty sure their plan involves Cassie in some way, she’s their foothold in this world. Killing her would probably take care of the problem, but--”
He jumped back as half a dozen vampires, as well as Sam, jumped out of their seats. “—but obviously, obviously, we’re not going to do that! I’m just saying, that would be the most obvious way of stopping them.”
“Perhaps you could offer an alternative suggestion,” said Eugene through gritted teeth. He sat back down in his chair, but looked ready to lunge for Golding’s throat if necessary. The other vampires followed his lead; Sam remained standing. He looked at Cassie; she looked pale, but not really surprised.
Golding took a deep breath, and continued. “For some reason, Cassie, as she is now, isn’t sufficient to open the door for them. They need her to change in some way. If we can find out what that is, maybe we can stop it from happening. But I’ve reached the limit of what I can learn about Angels through magical texts; most of what’s written about them just isn’t credible.”
“So you are telling us this is a huge problem, but you have no idea what to do about it,” Dmitri summed up. Golding frowned at him.
“Did it occur to you to ask Aeka?” Dwight said, pushing aside his pizza, uneaten. “Everyone forgets. She can talk, you know.”
“Actually, I did,” Golding snapped. “I’m not an idiot. She said she had no idea.”
Why do I doubt that? Sam thought.
“Where is she, anyway?” Sam asked. It wasn’t until Dwight mentioned her name that he thought to wonder where the tiny blond girl was.
Cassie pointed upstairs. “Napping in her new bed. I asked her to come down, but she said she wasn’t hungry. She’s been really sleepy lately.”
“If these…beings do come here, can we kill them? Are they vulnerable?” asked Eugene. He had put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder again, and this time, Ethan didn’t push him away.
Golding bit his lip. “I can’t say for sure, but…I wouldn’t count on it. We’re talking Biblical-scale destruction here.”
“Biblical-scale destruction isn’t as rare as you think,” said Sam. He was thinking of the Arcane Phantasms that Dorothy had shown him, but Golding mistook his meaning.
“Sam, maybe you have a chance against them, but even if you do, you’ll be horribly outnumbered. There’s supposed to be dozens, maybe even hundreds—”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Sam, sitting back down. He hadn’t planned on telling everyone about the Phantasms tonight—why scare them, when he had no idea what to do about them yet?—but now it seemed like it was foolish to hold back about yet another grave threat.
He told everyone what he’d seen, earlier that day, what Dorothy had shown him. Jay stared at him open-mouthed, while Cassie put her hands over her mouth, sickened; she had enough experience with magic that she understood what a giant creature of pure magic could do. Everyone else displayed some mix of shock and terror.
“Can we just, you know, go back to the housewarming party?” asked Miri, after a moment of silence, playing with her drinking straw. “I could handle the housewarming party. I was good with that.”
“The answer is staring us right in the face,” said Mike. His laptop was closed, which just went to show how engaged he was in the subject. “Have the Phantasms fight the Watchers. Divide by zero.”
Eugene was pacing back and forth, in front of Cassie’s brand-new flatscreen television. “If only it were that simple. But they’d destroy God knows what in the process, and we’d still have to deal with the winner.”
“Do we even know which of ’em is worse?” asked Dwight.
Golding was standing in the middle of the room wide-eyed, like he was doing complex calculations in his head that he couldn’t qui
te keep up with. “This is…I’ve never even read of anything like this. How could there be no records?”
“Those records were obviously destroyed,” said Eugene. “This is all my fault.”
“WHAT?” said about seven people in unison.
Eugene turned toward the rest of the group, hands at his waist. “I have no memory of these creatures, but when I was…young,” he said, “I remember others talking about them. Vampires, older than me. Probably all gone now, but they remembered; they had seen the Phantasms first-hand. And all my life, I dismissed it as a fairy story. If only I’d realized…I could have prepared. All this time, I could have been preparing….”
“Everybody tends to dismiss Fairy stories, don’t they?” said Dot. She had come back upstairs from the basement at some point, and everyone was too involved in the conversation to notice. She bobbed her head toward Cassie. “Lady of the House, you have a beautiful home. The wood here is very happy. I had my doubts, but the trees had a good life before becoming the bones of your dwelling.”
“Oh…thank you,” said Cassie, barely missing a beat. “Um, excuse me, but who are you?”
Chapter 20
Dorothy’s entrance gave the group something to talk about except terrifying, cataclysmic events lingering just around the corner. After everyone had been properly introduced (and the fairy had gone to eat more “round food”), they tried to figure out how to proceed with either the Watchers issue, or the Phantasms issue, but other than Mike’s glib suggestion to have the two take each other out, no one had any ideas. Eugene and John Golding both offered to do more research, in their own unique ways, to see if they could find anything helpful, but neither seemed optimistic.
Eventually, they decided that all they could do was try to stop thinking about it for the time being, if only so everyone could get some sleep. Eugene offered his hand to Dorothy, who was finishing off her fourth slice of pizza.
“Madam, may I just say, though I have met other fae before, I have never seen one quite so beautiful as you.”
