by Vox Day
The subsequent explosion of white wings and flaming swords that erupted from the church, its rooftop and the general vicinity was like a bonfire in a blizzard. Several of both, in fact. An alert slinger managed to lob a fireball at him, but he dodged it easily, and then he was clear of the Divine domain. Turning about, he hung in the air and watched the ensuing battle with amused satisfaction.
The Nazkachi gave a good account of themselves—he’d expected no less—but even two Hell Barons might have found it difficult to defend themselves from what appeared to be half a Host of outraged guardians. The Divine even managed to produce a Throne riding a fiery chariot, and the great angel struck down the burned hunter with a great lance of blue-hot fire. The other Nazkach laid about him like a maniac, but try as he might, he could not fight his way to the edge of the domain, and he finally fell with a terrible, angry cry, disappearing in a great red-purple flash that made Robin see spots.
Good thing they do Saturday services there, he reflected idly, as he lazily stroked his way back towards the city. Time to find a phone book and figure out where this Mounds Park place might be.
Chapter 15
Black Wing’d Shame
When darkness hides inside its own shadow
the Devil beats his drum
Casting out his name
Dragging all his own down into shame
—David Sylvian, (“The Devil’s Own”)
These endless days of summer were growing increasingly dreary, thought Melusine as she stood idly on the freshly mowed grass of the backyard lawn and watched Jami kick around a soccer ball with Christopher and Jason. Which was strange, since little had changed over the last few weeks. Was it perhaps the unlooked-for reunion with Puck that had unsettled her equanimity, and the reminder that the proud angel she had once been would never have accepted her current fate with such unseemly resignation? The fact that he had left any such recriminations unspoken actually made her feel worse; what did it mean that he had spared her his sharp tongue, except that she was too pathetic to inspire his obvious contempt.
Still, there were worse things to face than boredom and contempt, and she consoled herself with the reminder that things were nowhere nearly as bad for her as they might have been. She was still surprised she’d survived the dangerous fallout from Kaym’s disastrous prom night failure; when she learned that it was Bogharael’s ill-considered and untimely boasting that had alerted the Divine to the Great Lord’s deadly plans, she’d given herself up for lost.
But it seemed that Prince Bloodwinter had not been entirely displeased to see the Master of the Star Wheel brought low by his pyrrhic victory. Melusine had not dared to meet the Prince’s eyes when she was dragged into his presence, chained and gagged, but it was definitely amusement that she heard in his voice when he pronounced her punishment. And there was perhaps some humor to be found in the notion that one of the Fallen’s greatest angels had gone to such efforts only to reap the meager harvest of a single mortal soul, while sending fourteen others straight into the bosom of the Enemy.
Whether it was Bloodwinter’s unexpected sense of irony, or simply hatred for Kaym that had saved her, Melusine neither knew nor cared. She had survived, that was the main thing, and if a portion of her beauty was taken from her, well, there was always the hope of reclaiming it again someday. She ran a hand over her shorn head, relieved that the prickly stubble had finally grown long enough to soften and feel like hair again. It wouldn’t be too long before it would start to lie flat, and even if the glorious mane she’d formerly possessed was forbidden to her now, there were some shorter hairstyles that wouldn’t look bad on her. This would be an excellent time to experiment with them, at least until she was permitted to grow out her hair once more. She made a mental note to steal a peek at some of Holli’s fashion magazines.
It was the loss of her wings that troubled her more, her nonchalant words to Puck notwithstanding. It wasn’t so much that she loved flying, although she did, but it was such a massive nuisance to have to walk everywhere, just like a cursed mortal. She mourned for them, for the loss of those thick, exquisitely textured feathers, blacker than midnight and darker than Lord Kaym’s great, night-starred cloak. How she adored the feel of the wind ruffling through them, of the wild, wonderful sensation that filled her when she stretched them wide to ride out the brutal tumult of a violent summer thunderstorm.
What angered her about her punishment was not its harshness, but rather, the mistakes she had made in bringing it upon herself. How could she have been so stupid as to think Bogharael would keep his mouth shut? Even as a lowly dryad he had been a fool, and her impetuous decision to replace the vapid, but harmless Pandaema with him had been a tremendous mistake. The Enemy must have been laughing at her all the while, but there was no way she could have known beforehand that her wretched tree-spirit had once been the most vainglorious of all the royal Sarim.
Jehuel’s punishment, like hers, had also been light, although she doubted the haughty angel saw it that way. When Kaym, quite understandably enraged by Jehuel’s exposure of his plan, made to blast the former angel-prince into oblivion, Prince Bloodwinter interceded, much to the surprise of every angel present. He claimed sovereignty over Jehuel as a Tempter active within his demesne, and forbade Lord Kaym to touch the former seraph. Never one to miss the opportunity to rub salt on a wound, the Prince of the Cities further insulted Kaym by insisting that Jehuel be fully restored to his former princely glory, golden wings and all. However, there was a catch.
Apparently Bloodwinter’s sense of humor was more vicious than Melusine had imagined, because his restoration of Jehuel turned out to be a matter of appearance only, without power, prestige or responsibility. Despite his lordly trappings, the Lord of the Sword was still to be nothing but an apprentice Tempter, and one assigned to assist a disgraced Temptress at that, not that he was ever much of a help. In one fell stroke, Prince Bloodwinter managed to thoroughly humiliate two major Fallen powers. It was a masterstroke, nothing less, and one that Melusine imagined would compel many of the prince’s rivals to think twice before daring to cross him in the future.
“Whoops!” Jami’s shout interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up to see the white Adidas ball sailing over her head. “Sorry!”
“I’ve got it, dude,” Jason called, and he ran right through her, without any idea that she was there.
How clueless were these mortals! She smiled momentarily, but the amusement soon faded from her face. They weren’t clueless enough, at least, not her charge.
“Hey Mel!”
She started violently as someone poked her rudely in the back. It was Incandazael, and his handsome, blue-skinned face was split from ear to ear in a grin that surely boded someone ill. It was an expression of pure self-satisfaction that made her want to slap him, but she restrained her itching hand. Incanno wasn’t a friend, exactly, but he was one of the few demons who was still willing to be seen speaking with her since her disgrace. Of course, since he was responsible for tempting Mark Lewis, the children’s father, he had no fear of being tainted by their continued association.
“Don’t do that,” she told him sharply. “You’re like a cat or something, a big evil blue cat!”
“You flatter me.”
“Not even a little, I assure you.”
Incanno raised an eyebrow and his eyes gleamed wickedly.
“I do love the hair, Mel, but don’t you think it’s maybe a little on the rough and tough?”
He laughed as Melusine growled low in her throat, and he held up a hand.
“Relax, my little skinhead beauty, I just wanted to see that lovely temper flare. I have news, good news.”
“Jehuel was hurled into the Pit?”
“Not that good. Where has your royal apprentice been, anyhow? Off sulking somewhere, I suppose. But never mind him, feast your radiant eyes on this!”
The Tempter flourished his hands elaborately, and a scroll appeared suddenly in his upraised palms. He presented it to
her, accompanied by an extravagant and wholly ironic bow. She opened it and read it quickly, then shook her head with disbelief and read it again.
“Did you arrange this?”
Incanno nodded, and his white teeth glistened like lustrous pearls as he smiled triumphantly.
“I sure did that thing!”
“How? How in the unspeakable name of the netherest nether power did you score this?”
The Tempter rolled his eyes upward and affected innocence in a completely unconvincing manner. “I just presented all the required forms, filled out in triplicate, of course, and submitted them to the appropriate authorities. The usual business, you understand. Oh, yes, and I did promise to assist a certain disgruntled power mired in a flea’s rump of a principality who is seriously thinking about moving matters forward with regards to the promotion he has hitherto been so unjustly denied. With his support, my application practically sailed through the committee with nary a voice raised in opposition, save the usual, of course.”
Melusine stared at him, appalled. “You promised what? I thought you were smarter than that! Don’t you remember what happened to Shaeloba, not to mention her massive idiot of an archon? Or me, for that matter? Sticking your nose in the big boys’ power games is a good way to lose your wings, or find yourself riding a one-way ticket Beyond!”
“I’m perfectly capable of performing basic risk-assessment, Melusine.” Incandazael assured her, his blue face growing serious. “You might think I’m being short-sighted, but let’s look at the risks, shall we? Now, I can play the good little tempter and stake everything on the hope that my bright, if admittedly self-absorbed charge doesn’t clue into the changes in his family for the next, oh, twenty or thirty years, and goes on to bravely face the final darkness like a good atheist. Yes, he’s an intellectual, yes, he’s arrogant and self-righteous, but on the other hand, his kids are in close cahoots with the Enemy, they’re ripping the Damned out of our very hands on every side, and worst of all, they’re praying for him. Not just the general, you know, ‘God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy,’ and all that , but specifically, by name! You like those odds? Well, I don’t!”
Melusine sighed and shook her head. A momentary pang struck her, as the missing sensation of her long hair in motion drove home her loss again.
“I suppose you could be right,” she admitted ruefully. “Five months ago, I thought I had Christopher’s soul well in hand….” Was it really only five months? It seems so much longer than that. So much had changed. “But now… you have to admit, you’re playing with fire here.”
“I know. That’s why I have to kill off my dear Mark as quickly as possible. I asked for a car accident or a brain aneurysm, something immediate, but a fast-moving cancer was the best they’d give me.”
Melusine nodded sympathetically. There were limits to the protection afforded a nonbeliever by the prayers of others, but prayer of one sort or another were always a hassle with which they had to contend. The Terminations Committee, bipartisan by Heavenly fiat, was the same in every Principality; the decks were always stacked against the single Divine representative, who nevertheless usually managed to delay, defer and otherwise put off the conclusive riding of the pale horse in order to allow their accomplices to warn their doomed charges in some underhanded way.
“How long do you have to give him?”
“One month from the first sign, he breathes his last. I’m only committed to three minor warnings, though, and we’re kicking things off with a sharp pain to go with his breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Only thirty days? Your power has some swing.”
“That he does, that he does. And here’s the kicker. No intervention, no miracles, no nothing, unless the man himself asks for it. Which he’ll never do. I know him, and his pride will never let him beg favors from what he knows is only an imaginary being. What he knows… what a laugh! A great mind like his would never contemplate such a despicable thing as a deathbed confession, Voltaire’s backslide notwithstanding. Mortals are made of much stronger stuff nowadays.”
The demon smiled evilly.
“I do hope you’re right.”
A wayward thought struck her. There was something odd about this termination notice. Incanno was not the upwardly-mobile sort, and he had less ambition than a mouse living in a Wisconsin cheese factory. Everything about him was petty, from his taunting gibes to his most cherished goals. While he wasn’t completely stupid, the notion that he had any connections in far-off principalities seemed more than a little far-fetched. Then she froze. If she’d had blood inside her, it would have run cold.
There was no prove that he was involved, of course, and she couldn’t think of any reason that he should be the least bit interested in the fate of any member of the Lewis family. All the same, Melusine sensed the delicate touch of a familiar manipulator extraordinaire.
“Puck, I swear I’ll kill you if you have anything to do with this,” she muttered under her breath.
“What’s that?”
She smiled sweetly up at him. “’Canno, my dear, darling partner-in-crime, would you be so kind as to tell me the name of this ambitious friend of yours?”
“Why do you want to know?” His eyes narrowed, making him look more catlike than ever, and he shook his head. “No, he said it was best to keep things on the down-low.”
Yeah, I’ll bet he did. I swear, I’ll stuff his lying head down low, she vowed to herself, envisioning a hundred different painful and anatomically-improbable punishments for Puck, the sum total of which would be far too good for him. Oh, but he was convincing, just like he always was, smiling and delighted to see you and patting you on the back just before slipping in the deadly dagger and exiting town precisely when the hammer came down and hit you smack between the eyes!
But there was a remote possibility that she was getting ahead of herself. With some effort, she forced down the anger that was threatening to boil over. Though it cost her dearly, she even managed to add a note of false sweetness to her voice as she attempted to wheedle at least a little information from Incandazael.
“I understand, of course, that anonymity must be preserved. But surely you can tell me the name of this principality that will soon be looking forward to an improvement in the management?”
“What’s it to you?” Incanno furled the scroll with an adroit snap of his wrist.
“Maybe I want one of those.”
She pointed to the scroll, and was amused to see the other demon’s eyebrows rise involuntarily. His reaction irked her; she was not pleased to know that her erstwhile reputation for ruthlessness had somehow been lost along the way, despite her forthright handling of Pandaema’s treachery.
“Do you think I like following human children around any better than you? Hah! I may have played and lost, but I was once a player in the Game, can you say the same?”
“Relax, Mel, baby, I didn’t even say anything!”
“But you thought it!” she hissed. “Don’t you ever insult me like that again, ever! Or I’ll rip your throat out and throw you to the tender mercies of the dryads behind the house. You might consider Pandaema’s example….”
She flicked her fingernails at him. He nodded, and his eyes, wide with alarm, were glancing off to the side anticipating a hasty escape. But she struck before he could make it. “Now, tell me the name of that cursed principality already!”
“He said V-Vouvant—I’ve never heard of it.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Melusine said sourly. She had, though, and she knew exactly what it signified. And, for that matter, what she had to do now. She sighed and resisted the urge to scream at the uncaring heavens. There was never any rest for the wicked.
Chapter 16
Scylla and Charybdis
Mephistopheles is not your name
but I know what you’re up to just the same
—The Police, (“Wrapped Around Your Finger”)
Melusine was furious. Being lost deep in the heart of the suburbs, a
nd facing what, given her wingless state, amounted to a forced hike, did little to improve her move. She was being summoned, not by word, but by deed. And while her first reaction to Incandazael’s audacity had been one of admiration, she also had the ominous feeling that things were about to go horribly wrong again. Now, after hearing that fateful word—Vouvant—she was certain of it. There weren’t many who knew the story, but there was one individual in town who knew it almost as well as she did. Unfortunately for her, the chances that this was a coincidence were roughly equal to the chances she would get out of this unscathed. As in none.
When Kaym had first approached her with regards to Christopher, she’d eagerly agreed to help him out, thinking only of the advantages that would accrue to her if everything worked as the fallen angel planned. That they would lose not only Christopher, but his sisters too, was a stunning and totally unforeseen result. It had, however, been an object lesson in the supreme importance of lying low. But in this case, it was highly unlikely that she would be able to do that. She had no idea what that infernal Puck had in store for her, but she had no doubt that she was not going to be happy about it when he finally deigned to inform her.
But by the time she’d shifted into mortal mode and found a seat on the bus that would take her to her destination, the first wave of her anger had subsided and she was able to consider things with a little more aplomb. Perhaps even a little anticipation. Although her initial assumption had been that this was nothing more than the latest round of Puck’s obsession with Albion, there were other possibilities to bear in mind. It was even possible that was the first step in something that would get her back into the only game that mattered. Was it truly only another internecine Fallen war?
After all, the Enemy was clever, certainly more clever than Prince Lucere had anticipated when he launched his great rebellion. How many times had they thought they held a great victory in their hands, only to learn that they were caught in the teeth of yet another Divine trap. The disastrous conquest of Heaven and the Golgotha debacle were only two of the most egregious examples. There were all too many from which to choose.