by Darcy Town
Belial threw Celeste out of the house. Celeste rolled across the concrete and righted herself in a smooth motion. She reset a dislocated shoulder. Belial jumped on her then looked up. “Spider!” Belial left Celeste and jumped past Jacob and Tracy.
Celeste stood up. Her clothes were in tatters, but she grinned. Her eyes faded to their normal hue. “That was so much fun! I could do that for hours!”
Jacob and Tracy eyed her warily. “Okay.”
Tokala blinked and stood up on his own. The bite mark above his heart healed. He waved to Celeste, Jacob, and Tracy as he stumbled over. “Miracle worker.” He looked drunk. “She’s my great aunt. Did you know that?” The three nodded, semi-nauseous. Tokala staggered. Celeste helped him stay on his feet. They shared a shy smile.
The Chulyin waited until Belial finished hugging Spider to give her his message. “Message from the north, Andrealphus and the rest of his party are safe and travelling to the Old Road.”
“Awesome.” Belial grinned and looked from the Chulyin to Spider. She hugged Spider again and helped her to her feet. She pointed to the burning house. “Why didn’t you kill them?”
“That house was old and the plumbing needed to be repaired anyways.” The woman shrugged. “The Solomon Soldiers attack my relatives and the Earth worshippers. They even stalk the hippies from Sedona. I went to protect them. I did not know you were on your way.”
Belial hugged her. “Your desire to protect your human converts has always confused me.”
Spider smiled. “If I had the desire to kill them as you used to, then we would be much the same, and I so enjoy the ways we are different, Belial.”
“Thank you for healing him.”
“Of course, he is blood as are the three you have collected.” She glanced over at Tracy. “Strange, rare ones.”
Belial grinned. “They are the Mother’s childhood friends.”
“Then the rumors are true.” Spider reached out for Tokala’s hand. He took it and hugged her. She smiled at Celeste. “Belial has not had anyone to wrestle with besides those boys for so long. It’s good to see her playing again.”
The trio looked between Belial and Spider. Celeste smirked at Belial. “She’s acting like she’s your mom.”
Belial shrugged. “It’s her thing. I am perpetually a child. She is perpetually a grandmother.” She slapped Tokala on the back. “Our plan is back on track!”
Tokala nodded. “We do not have an entrance to the Old Road for some ways, so we might as well cause some mayhem on the way.”
“Yes!” Belial grinned. “I am sick of these fucking Solomon Soldiers. They’re attacking new agers in Sedona? That’s fucked up. I don’t like hippies, but that’s fucked up. You’re sure they’re converts?” She looked at Spider.
Spider nodded. “We have many on our side in the southwest, and they do not deserve to die.” Belial made a face. Spider sighed. “There are also a number of Lilliam, my children, who also refuse to go below ground if I won’t. Is that a good enough reason?”
Belial grinned. “As if I need a reason. So here’s the deal, instead of ‘Draw Angels Away from Dahlia’ our plan is ‘Draw Out Lots of Solomon Soldiers and Kill Them All!’”
Jacob smiled. “Nice name.”
Belial hopped from foot to foot. “I need a stage. I need gear. I can’t do this without gear. I never go on stage without it. I haven’t done this publicly in millennia. I need to look the part!”
Spider patted her shoulder. “I will accessorize you. You will be resplendent, yet modern, a blood-curdling terror, but in vogue.”
Belial grinned. “This is going to be great!”
Celeste looked between them, confused. “I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Belial ignored her. “Are there any big sporting events or conventions going on in town? Ones that will be televised?”
Jacob shrugged. “There’s bound to be a Diamondbacks game if the city hasn’t completely fallen apart.”
Belial wrinkled her nose. “What’s that?”
“Baseball.”
She shrugged. “Okay, whatever that is, does it have a large crowd? Do people watch it on TV?”
Jacob nodded. “Yeah, nationally.”
Belial smacked her palms together. “That’s our target. We strike these Diamondbacks tomorrow. We get the Solomon Soldiers gathered in one spot, and then we kill them all on live TV!”
Tracy shook her head. “How are we supposed to do that?”
“Leave that part to me.” Belial grinned with more than a little crazy in her eyes. “Killing heaps of people in a flashy manner is my specialty.”
***
Paimon was pissed off. He was wet, his clothes barely held together, and he had not had a drink all day. He’d been shot, stabbed, punched, hit with cars, baseball bats, and a golf club. He’d had to hide, run through alleys, and fend off attacks by mind-controlled humans. He had no idea if Furcas was okay, it had rained the entire day, and his temper could not stand another blow.
Paimon stomped up his paved driveway. He ripped his wrought iron gate off its hinges and threw it into his vegetable patch. The yard was silent, but occupied. Three cars that were not his or known to him, were parked and empty in his driveway. One had run over his heritage rose garden. Paimon’s eye ticked.
“Motherfuckers.” He un-slung his shotgun and double-checked that it was loaded. He had one shot left. Paimon grabbed a spade from his shed and kicked in his front door. Three Solomon Soldiers looked up from one of his filing cabinets. Paimon shot them, killing two instantly. He drove the spade into the neck of the third. He shoved the bodies aside and examined what they had been looking through. The papers were nothing more than his pasta recipes. He snorted.
A woman emerged at the end of the hall and shot at him.
Paimon shook off the hit, jumped, and drove his shotgun into her face. He brought the spade around and sliced through her neck. Blood sprayed his chest, adding to his layers of grime.
Movement out of the corner of his eye brought his attention to his dining room. A man walked into the room, an iron knife at the neck of a hostage, a Chulyin soldier beaten and limp. The Solomon Soldier eyed Paimon, then the Chulyin. “This is the owner?”
The Chulyin spat at the man’s foot.
Paimon dropped his spade. “Yeah I’m the owner. What the fuck do you want?”
“The City.”
Paimon smacked his lips and walked past the man to his kitchen. He tore the door off his freezer and grabbed a bottle of vodka. He broke the top off and took a swig. “I dunno where it is.”
“All Lilliam know where it is!” The man raised the weapon and pricked the neck of the Chulyin. “Tell me or this one dies!”
Paimon took a drink and hucked the bottle at the Solomon Soldier. The bottle slammed into the man’s forehead. The Chulyin shoved his palm into the man’s nose and shrugged the body off. “Thank you, Paimon.”
“Any more of them?”
“I killed three, two ran. I got here and they were violating your house.”
Paimon shrugged. “They weren’t going to find anything except for excellent recipes and booze. Speaking of which.” He smiled and grabbed two bottles out of his cabinets. He took a drink from the first and wiped his lips. “So what’s up? I’m in a hurry.”
“Message from the north, Andrealphus and the rest of his party are safe and travelling to the Old Road.”
“Lanes down there too?” The Chulyin nodded. Paimon sighed. “Shit.”
He pointed towards the front door. “Can you find Powell’s Books? Furcas is there and he is badly injured. I don’t want him to run raving into the streets, I just can’t handle tracking down his crazy ass right now. Let him know I am on my way back.”
“Are you sure you do not want me to stay until you are ready to leave?”
“No, he needs you more than I do.” Paimon handed the Chulyin a fifth of scotch. “He’ll need this too. Can you carry it?”
The Chul
yin nodded, changed, and flew out the open front door with the bottle in his claws. Paimon sighed. He flicked his light switch, but the power was dead. He tore his fridge out of the wall and walked through the passageway below it. Underneath his house, the generators worked and his lab was active. The lights flicked on at his presence. He took another pull from his bottle and looked around. His plants ran rampant.
“Babies, sorry I’ve been away.” He touched the leaves of those closest to him. A botanist would have been in awe. Species of plants that existed nowhere else on the planet resided in his basement. He liked to seed them into the general population ever so often, but only those he thought would create the most fun, like non-lethal, but very psychedelic mushrooms.
He grabbed a worn leather jacket off the wall and slipped it on over his tattered shirt. He walked between rows of plants and collected flowers, leaves, seeds, and mushrooms of various shapes and colors, stuffing the small stuff into his pockets. He found the plant he was looking for. He picked up the entire pot and kissed the stone container. “There you are. Furcas needs you.”
Paimon rummaged around the room for a cart. He set the potted plant and his bottle on it and rolled both towards the doorway. Along the way, he grabbed random pots of flowers and fruit. He hoisted the plants up the passageway and came face to face with another Solomon Soldier. Paimon sighed.
The man raised a gun.
Paimon tossed a potted plant. The plant erupted out of its container and twined itself around the man, ripping through his clothing in seconds. The vine latched on to hair follicles and pores. As he bled the plant sucked, grew larger, stabbed, and clung more. Paimon left the man twitching on the ground.
He poked his head around the corner of the room towards the front door. One soldier played lookout, watching the front yard. Paimon grinned. He rolled neon green flower petals between his fingertips and snuck up behind the man. He touched the base of the man’s neck. The spot smoked and sizzled, turned green and spread. The man gagged and fell to the ground dead.
Paimon went back for his cart. He rolled it to the door and set it out on his porch. He walked back into his house and punched through the wall. Between sheetrock and plumbing, he had stashes of bombs, guns, knives, and acids. He grabbed three bandoliers of bombs and a fresh shotgun. He looked at the corpses in his hall. “It always pays to be paranoid.”
Paimon stepped over the body. He looked around outside, but no more soldiers waited for him. He decided on the van. He loaded up his plants and hotwired the car. He backed out of the driveway and chucked one bandolier of bombs towards his home. He drove away as his house exploded.
Paimon hit the gas and drove full speed to the bookstore. A car pulled up behind him and honked. He tossed bombs out the window and kept driving. He did not have time to play. Another car took the place of the former. He dropped plants out of the window until the road behind him became an impassable tangle of flora.
Paimon ignored the one-way street signs and ran the van up on the sidewalk in front of Powell’s Books. He grabbed his plants and abandoned the van. He stepped up to the bookstore and fiddled with a side door to get inside. He walked into darkened aisles of books. The store was empty, closed for the night. Flashes of white and gold from upstairs caught his attention. He leapt between levels and found Furcas on the floor unconscious, scooter nowhere in sight.
The Chulyin hovered over him and looked up when he heard Paimon. “He was like this when I found him. I cannot rouse him.”
Paimon moved the raven out of the way. Furcas glowed intermittently, sending bursts of light in all directions. Paimon held his face in his hands. He lifted his eyelid. Furcas’ eye rolled back into his head. Paimon slapped him across the face. “Wake up!”
Furcas shuddered. His eye rolled down. “Paimon? Dahlia’s been taken. The Solomon Soldiers have her.”
Paimon sank to the floor. “Where?”
Furcas closed his eye. “I can’t see!”
Paimon touched Furcas’ forehead. His skin burned. Paimon grabbed his potted Panacea plant and tore leaves off. He stuffed them in Furcas’ mouth. “Swallow.”
“I can’t.”
Paimon glared at him. “Furcas, swallow!”
Furcas did. His fever went down and a little healthy color returned to his cheeks. He grabbed on to Paimon’s hand. “I cannot see where she is. I can’t think straight. I get close and it slides away.”
Paimon rubbed his palm. “Just breathe for right now all right? She’s still alive, you’d know otherwise. You need to get better so you can focus and find her.”
“I know.” Furcas leaned on Paimon.
Paimon spotted a streak of white hair that ran from behind Furcas’ ear to the top of his head. “Fuck! What happened to you?”
Furcas shuddered. “I was there.”
“Where?”
He clung to Paimon’s shirt. “In her nightmare. The memory.”
Paimon gaped. “How?”
Furcas looked up, his gaze haunted. “I tried to link with her when she went unconscious, so that I could stay and find out where she was. She started to dream.” He looked into something that was not there, his voice barely a whisper, “I couldn’t let her experience that place alone, so I stayed with her. I joined the dream. I experienced it, every moment. She was so alone and despairing. I tried to call to her. The pain, you can’t imagine it! Worse than when our wings were taken, but it was unending torture! The wounds never healed. Paimon, it didn’t stop!”
Paimon rocked him. “But it’s over now.”
“No.” Furcas shook his head. “It isn’t. It won’t be.” He blinked and kept his eye open. “It’s there in the darkness, in the shadows. Every time I close my eye it comes back.”
Paimon held him. “It’s just because she’s still asleep, but it will stop.”
Furcas grabbed on to Paimon. “It will come again and again, it will never stop. Paimon, you cannot let her remember it, she can’t. Our Dahlia will be destroyed. You cannot let her remember the prison!”
Paimon frowned. “I don’t know how to do that, Furcas.”
Furcas wound his fingers into Paimon’s tattered shirt. “She’s our little girl, figure it out!”
“Okay, I will!” Paimon rocked Furcas until he slipped back into a dazed sleep. He breathed into Furcas’ hair and stared at the wall until he realized he was shaking. He took a deep breath to regain calm. He smelled blood.
Paimon unbuttoned Furcas’ shirt and carefully slipped it off; he bit the inside of his cheek when he saw the bloody bandages. He unraveled them and took a closer look. Furcas woke up and looked down. Paimon met his gaze. “You’ve torn your wound open.”
Furcas shrugged weakly. “I don’t feel it anymore.”
Paimon frowned. “What do you mean you don’t feel it anymore? Nothing?”
Furcas shook his head. “I can’t feel anything below my neck.”
Paimon snapped at the Chulyin. “Find me gauze, surgical equipment to sew him up, and a lot more alcohol.” The raven nodded and flew out of the store.
Paimon wrapped his arms around Furcas to move him. Furcas’ back was sticky and hot. Paimon pulled his blood-covered hands away. He rolled Furcas to his side and stared at his back. His wing scars wept blood. Paimon went white. “What the—what the fuck happened to you!”
Furcas leaned on the wall. “What’s wrong?”
“Your scars are torn open.”
Furcas did not feel concerned, he felt weak. “Oh.”
Paimon shook his head. “I can’t fix this.”
“You can fix anything.”
“I can’t fix this, Furcas! I don’t know what’s wrong with you. If this were a regular wound the plant would have healed it.” He touched the scars gently. He squinted and pulled a burnished sliver out. He held it out in front of Furcas’ face. They stared at the shiny, bloody feather in silence.
Furcas couldn’t take his eye off it. “What color is it under the blood?”
Paimon put it in Furcas�
�� hand. He uncorked his bottle of vodka and dumped it over the feather. Blood drained off. The feather was red. Paimon poked it. The feather sparked and burst into flames. Both Fallen leaned back.
Paimon drank out of the vodka bottle. “Okay.” He nodded to himself. “Right, I have no idea what that means.”
Furcas shook his head. “Ditto.”
Paimon moved Furcas and lay on the ground beside him. He stared into Furcas’ eye and grabbed his hand. “You’ll be okay.”
Furcas tried to smile. “Which one of us are you trying to convince?”
“Myself.” Paimon’s temper flared up. “You shouldn’t have gone in against Michael alone! If you die—”
“Not this again.”
Paimon squeezed his eyes shut. “You will not leave me all alone here!”
Furcas coughed up blood. “Who knows, maybe I die and come back an angel or a ghost. Then I can haunt you.” He laughed and cringed.
“That is not funny.”
Furcas smiled. “I’ll get some chains and rattle them around old school style.”
“I said that’s not funny!”
“I’ll bemoan my lost life.”
Paimon grabbed his chin. “Shut up! You’re not allowed to bemoan anything!”
Furcas sighed dramatically. “All the things I didn’t get to do.”
“What haven’t we done that you’ve wanted to do!” Paimon looked feverish. “Tell me!”
Furcas looked away. “You take the fun out of this.”
“This isn’t fun, this is serious!”
Furcas shook his head. “There’s nothing, I’m fine.”
“You are a piece of shit liar and a bastard! You’re selfish, vain, proud, and you keep secrets from everyone!” Paimon’s eyes blurred with tears. “You’re also a stupid, self-sacrificing idiot sometimes! Just tell me!”
“So it is to be me.” Furcas bit Paimon’s hand. “Let go, you’re pulling on my stitches.”
Paimon dropped his hand to Furcas’ neck and rested it there. “Why won’t you tell me?”
Furcas grimaced. “There’s a difference between wanting something that you can have and wanting something impossible. What’s the point of discussing the latter?”