Morning Star

by Nazri Noor

  “Where’s Belphegor?” I wondered out loud, my forehead furrowed as I glanced around the gardens and peered into the mansion. “No sign of him anywhere.”

  Florian shrugged. “Doubt that it matters. As long as we get our work done, we can put all this behind us, live our lives.”

  I nodded in agreement. It also meant that we’d never have to deal with Belphegor’s eccentric employees ever again. At least this time I was a lot better about ignoring the hags as they pressed up against the inside of the glass redhouse, waggling fingers at us and waving various bizarre bulbs and fruits and bubbling phials, as if they could be in any way enticing or appetizing.

  Yet that same bizarre aggression from before kept threatening to intrude on my senses, to make its presence felt. I’ll admit, I did my level best to suppress it that day, biting my tongue and keeping mostly to myself as we worked. Shoving in some earphones and letting a playlist of instrumental jazz do its thing helped, too, but that odd compulsion remained, this irresistible urge to find a source of fire, set the gardens ablaze, tell Belphegor to shove it.

  And, just as before, the desire was centered around the toolshed, emanating, I was sure of it, directly from the rusty hoe in particular. What the hell was that thing supposed to be? Whatever it was, Box seemed to notice something amiss himself, tugging on my pants leg with his teeth each time I glanced over at the shed. Bending down to pet him distracted me long enough the first couple of times, but like a moth to a flame my attention kept being drawn inexorably away.

  Florian and I ate lunch in relative silence, again on one of those convenient picnic blankets that Priscilla had packed for us. Whatever she’d cooked for lunch must have been good because I remembered finishing it all, but hardly recalled what anything actually tasted like. I kept staring at the shed the entire time I ate, my fixation hardly wavering.

  Box was content to take whatever leftovers I offered him, apparently still full from all the weeds and twigs we’d fed him over the afternoon. He’d kept up bumping against my knee to try and wrench me away from the shed and the hoe. But by then I was too overcome by want, this inexplicable and totally irrational desire to go exploring in the shed, to run my fingers across red, rough metal, to smell its blood-like rust for myself.

  “And how goes the labor? Eating on the job, are we?”

  Finally, something to shock me out of my extended stupor. I blinked up at the person standing before us, recognizing the hooded figure as Belphegor, in the flesh. I frowned at him, all thoughts of sheds and rust forgotten as annoyance took over.

  “Where have you been? We’ve been working all day. You sure took your time to show up. And it’s called lunch. I know you demons don’t go by the same biological needs, but we’re still part human. We need those calories to survive.”

  Belphegor recoiled, stepping away from me as he stuck his hands in his hoodie’s pockets, his shoulders sloping. “Okay, sheesh. I was just teasing. I wasn’t expecting to get such a violent response. What’s with you today? You look tense, nephilim. Uneasy.”

  It wasn’t in the Prince of Sloth’s nature to be empathetic, and I knew I was right when I caught the traces of mirth in his eyes, the sliver of a smile he wasn’t even bothering to hide from us. He knew something. He had to know. Belphegor had planted something in the shed, something to manipulate me, and now that I was at my weakest, he was going to pounce.

  “It’s nothing,” I said, keeping my fingers loose, my mind ready to conjure the Vestments. “Some bad indigestion, probably.”

  He could tell I was lying, anyway. Sweat clung to my temples and my nape, not from the heat of the hell’s strange red sun, but from the strain of resisting the siren call of the thing I still couldn’t understand. I was still sitting on the blanket, same as Florian was, but from where I sat, I could imagine myself rising smoothly into position and running a sword through Belphegor’s neck if the situation called for it. Sure, that probably wouldn’t kill him – certainly not in his own domicile – but I could hope that it would slow him down at least a little.

  “All this small talk is nice, Belphegor, but let’s be serious for a moment.” Florian wiped his hands off on a napkin – Priscilla was thorough when she made packed lunches, let it be known – then stood to attention, dwarfing Belphegor in his teenage boy body by over a foot. “Tell me that this is over. We’re practically done doing maintenance work on your garden and you won’t need us anymore. We’ve spruced everything up. You could get any of your minions to comb the grounds to find something we haven’t covered and it wouldn’t make a difference. Surely you won’t have to call on us from now on.”

  Belphegor grinned and tilted his head. “Come on now, Florian. You know that I wanted you and Mason here for good reason. I needed your specific talents to help tend the grounds.”

  “How? That doesn’t make sense. You haven’t asked either of us to use our magic at all. We’re just glorified gardeners here.” Florian looked over his shoulder at me. “Right, Mace?”

  He shouldn’t have turned his head.

  20

  “Florian, no! Watch out!”

  Too late. Belphegor held out his hand, fingers spread and grown to the length of knives, and when Florian turned back, five nails like spiked talons dug into his forehead. He screamed, his eyes rolling back into his head as he fell to his knees.

  “No.” My stomach wrenched as the word forced its way out of my body, as I bellowed in anger. “No!”

  I sprang to my feet, a sword summoned into my hand, and I brought it up against Belphegor’s chest. It should have skewered him, straight through the heart. Instead he disappeared in a cloud of crimson flames, taking Florian with him.

  My fingers gripped harder around the hilt of my sword as I whirled in a circle, searching the Crimson Gardens for the demon. Box made laps around my feet, yelping and snapping at the air with huge teeth before stopping and making what sounded like barking noises towards the redhouse. Belphegor had teleported there, just outside the entrance. Florian was still on his knees, bleeding from five holes in his forehead. My insides churned and roiled as Belphegor drew a bandanna somewhere from his jacket, wiping his bloodied fingers off on it.

  “I thought you wanted me,” I said. “Leave Florian alone. Use me however you want. Wasn’t that the plan all along?”

  Belphegor stopped messing with the bandanna, then laughed as he let it fall to the ground, soiled with Florian’s blood and, I hated to imagine the possibility, bits of his brain.

  “I commend you for your confidence and your overwhelming sense of self-importance, Mason Albrecht, but this was never about you. I made it clear from the very beginning that your task was to make Florian the best version of himself, to help him awaken fully from his hibernation. And now he is ready to be plucked from the vine, full of the sweetness and life of a long summer.”

  Belphegor gestured and the three hags streamed from out of the redhouse, their robes and locks of stark white hair swirling behind them. One carried a phial, another a pair of tongs. The last balanced a tray with both hands.

  “What’s happening?” Box barked louder. I stepped forward, aching to close the gap between us, to save Florian. “What are they going to do to him?”

  Belphegor smiled. “Nothing drastic. They’re only going to take advantage of his ripeness – bring him to the fullness of his bloom.”

  The first witch poured the contents of her phial over Florian’s brow, clearing away the blood. He moaned softly, his gaze distant and empty. The second witch picked up the tweezers, collecting what looked like a seedling from the tray. Then she brought it towards Florian’s head.

  “No.”

  My legs pumped harder as I ran for the redhouse. Belphegor’s laughter boiled my blood, forming the awful soundtrack for the horror movie playing out just inches away from him. The witch was inserting a small, wriggling seedling into each of the wounds Belphegor had punctured into Florian’s skin. I couldn’t believe how quickly her hands moved, how fast she finished.
By the time I was within slashing distance, the whole process was over. I raised my sword, prepared to take off Belphegor’s head in a single blow.

  Again the witches acted with preternatural speed. As one, they turned to face me, one palm held out, the tips of their fingers radiating a deep, red light that coalesced into a translucent bubble. My sword clanged as it struck the surface of the force field, the impact reverberating painfully up my arm, thrumming through my muscles as violently as if I’d struck a huge metal shield.

  “This is where we leave you, nephilim. We have much work to do.” Belphegor chuckled and gestured lazily towards the toolshed. “There. Collect your reward, straight out of hell’s armories. Some pitchforks should suffice, I trust? Just like your precious Vestments.”

  The hags joined Belphegor in his crazed laughter, their symphony of cackles rising to a fever pitch as they rose off the ground. The bubble around them lifted Belphegor, the witches, and poor Florian into the air. I watched helplessly as he blinked at nothing with glassy, mindless eyes, as he drooled out of the corner of his mouth. What had they done to him?

  I raised my hand at the fleeing villains in defiance, raising my sword as well, a threat, a promise. “I’ll track you down, Belphegor. And your witches, too. I’ll cut out all of your hearts, one by one. I’ll kill you all.”

  Belphegor cast off his hood and shook his hair to one side, revealing the burning crimson of his third eye. “We look forward to it, Mason Albrecht. Catch us if you can. We’ll just be topside, taking over the city.”

  The globe of force hovered up into the clouds, the laughter of Belphegor and his servants ringing in my ears as they sped into the reddened sky. I gritted my teeth, fingernails biting into the palm of my hand now that my sword had been dismissed back to the Vestments. What was I supposed to do? What could I have done? I needed to help Florian. But topside, Belphegor said. I needed to save the city, and to do that, I had to leave Sloth’s hell.

  I turned on my heels and started to race towards the sacrificial bed that led back to the Beauregard, only hesitating when the force of the thing in the toolshed pulled on me once more. It made no sense, and it drove me mad with anger that I was giving in to Belphegor’s manipulations. That was why he enchanted me the way he did, so that he could make a clean getaway while I wasted my time exploring the toolshed. Hell’s armory indeed. Yet even while I knew with all my heart that I was only mesmerized, ensorcelled, my feet carried me towards the shed anyway, unable to resist.

  The same, it seemed, was true for Box. Just moments ago he’d been barking his not-a-head off at the sphere that was imprisoning his Uncle Florian. Now he was yipping as he sprinted towards the toolshed, looking so unwieldy yet moving at top speed as he hopped and clattered jerkily with the four corners of his boxy body.

  I stumbled after him, my mind wanting to focus on the problem of Florian and whatever Belphegor had planned for Valero, my body sweating and lusting for the toolshed’s mundane, worthless wonders. Box shoved the door open on his own in his excitement, the wood creaking. I followed a close distance after him, looking around at all the pitchforks and scythes, what I only then realized were tools that really had no use in Sloth’s gardens. These were meant for farming. What were they doing there?

  A bright glow caught my attention, so lustrous and radiant that I had to bring my hand up to guard my eyes. And what exactly was that sword doing there?

  Did Belphegor know about this? In place of the rusted hoe was a golden blade, its point planted and stuck in the floor, its hilt a gleaming cross. This thing hadn’t been here on any other trip we’d taken to the shed, but immediately I recognized it as the source of my desire, its voiceless call and tuneless song trailing sensuous fingers along the back of my mind, stroking at my skin with its wordless promises of power, conquest, supremacy.

  Box sat at the foot of the sword, gazing up at it in wonder, finally calm and quiet as he bathed in its silvery-golden presence. I approached slowly, my cells quaking with want, but with reverence, and fear. This was no ordinary sword, so alien in its beauty and craftsmanship, yet so familiar. With a deep breath, with a sudden surge of confidence, I reached out and clasped its hilt, and at once I understood.

  I’d held this thing before. Once, a little time ago, when I promised to help my friend with a ritual, one that required several blades representing the greatest supernatural forces that walked the earth. We found a sword that belonged to demons, another from a fallen paladin, one wielded by a god himself. But this, I remembered stealing this sword myself, calling it out of desperation from what I thought were the Vestments. It hummed in my grasp, recognizing my touch even as I recognized its warm, divine metal.

  This sword belonged to an archangel.

  21

  I could feel it in the steel, hear it in the way the blade sang as it cut through the air. This was the same sword I’d stolen from an archangel.

  All the swords we collected scattered to different corners of the cosmos when the ritual to help Dustin Graves save the world was completed. Arachne somehow found Laevateinn, Loki’s personal blade, and Mammon’s beloved Duskfang was never tracked down. But I never once believed that we’d find an archangel’s sword buried in the back of a toolshed, of all places – a toolshed in the garden of a demon prince, at that.

  It had been hiding there all this time, reaching out to me, perhaps out of familiarity. I should have recognized Box’s behavior around the blade when it was wearing the shape of a rusted hoe. Beatrice did say that mimics had a way of seeing through glamours and magical camouflage. But what discomfited me was its eerie influence, how it probed at my mind and told me that it was okay to push back harder, to get into scraps, to rebel. To live a little.

  Even as I held it tightly in my grasp, racing through the streets of Valero all the way from the Beauregard, I could feel the sword whispering its sweet temptations to me. And I knew more than anyone that running with sharp objects, much less in such a public and criminally punishable manner, was a great way to get into trouble, but I couldn’t bear the thought of the sword’s touch leaving my skin. Every few steps I took my gaze would fall back to adoring it, even knowing that it was right there in my hand. I just wanted to make sure it was still there.

  Night had fallen on Valero, the darkness shrouding the city taking on an uncharacteristic malevolence the more I thought about Belphegor and his unspoken plans, how he meant to take over “topside.” How was he going to use Florian to accomplish that? More importantly, where were they?

  I wish I knew where to start, who to ask. My body’s plan was to rush all the way back to the Nicola Arboretum, to penetrate the wall between worlds back home to Paradise and alert my friends. I needed to prepare myself, sift through the notes I’d taken from Carver to find any sigils that might protect us, and beg Artemis to help. We needed to save Florian, but again – how?

  As I turned the corner, my heart thumping with anticipation at the thought that I was getting closer and closer to the very people who could actually help – entities, more like – another less savory entity made himself known. Standing there on the sidewalk, flanked by four of his attending bodyguard meathead angels, was Raguel, the angel of justice.

  I skidded to a stop, staring at the hand he held out in front of him, poised like a traffic cop. “Halt, nephilim. You and I have some unfinished business.”

  “How did you possibly find me?” I tapped my wrist in anger, feeling for the leather bracer hidden there, melded with my skin. Was this thing even working? God, I was going to give Beatrice such a talking-to.

  Raguel scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself. We weren’t drawn by your spirit – which, come to think of it, seems to have dampened.”

  I bit down on my tongue. At least I knew Beatrice’s enchantment was working. I didn’t need to give away much more than that.

  “No,” Raguel continued. “We’re here because we sensed the call of the sacred and most holy relic you’re clutching in your corrupted fingers.” He raised his rig
ht hand, gesturing at mine. “The sword. Hand it over.”

  Almost on instinct, my fingers clenched even tighter, as if the sword would slip from my hand, like squeezing down on its hilt would ensure that no one could wrench it away from me.

  I could almost taste the words forming at the tip of my tongue. “Over my dead body,” I almost said. The sword was egging me on somehow, like it had a mind of its own, beyond simply being smart enough to disguise itself.

  “You’re not getting this thing from me,” I said instead, brandishing the sword. “It doesn’t even belong to you. Why do you want it?”

  Raguel stiffened, sniffing as he raised his nose at me. “Because archangel or not, that blade remains property of the armories of heaven. It is the way of things. What you have in your hands is a holy weapon belonging to one among the most powerful of my brethren. And you, dear sweet, tainted son of the fallen, are undeserving to wield it. A nephilim, especially one who consorts with demon princes, isn’t fit to even touch that blade.” His lips drew back into a sneer. “You’re literally getting it dirty with the filth of your sinner’s spirit.”

  The heat in my chest flared even harder, hotter, and I could see the golden glow of my skin’s sigils against the faces of Raguel’s four grunts. The light of my body reflected in their eyes, the same eyes that watched me with deadpan lifelessness, yet exuded this bizarre, subtle mix of emotions all the same. All four of them held something like pity in their gazes. Pity, condescension, and there, right under the surface – revulsion. To the people upstairs, that’s all I was, after all. An abomination.

  I wrapped both my hands around the sword’s hilt this time, lifting it by my shoulders, preparing to strike. “You can take the sword from my cold, dead hands.”

  Raguel bristled, the corner of one eye twitching. “So be it.” He lifted a finger, pointing directly at me. “Seize the sword. Hurt him if you must. Break his bones. But leave him alive. Heaven must see justice meted.”