by Mark Teppo
“No argument there,” I said. The Nuclear Clock had burned a whole team once before. I really didn’t want to be anywhere close by when Rudolph decided to turn it on again.
IX.
Blitzen explained the angelic hierarchy to me as we dodged across the first lattice of Purgatory. The little ones were cherubs, evidently the messengers and scouts of the order. The larger ones with the long streamers and the unformed faces were seraphim, the first order of angelic creatures that were based on the shape of man, or rather, the template which God used when he formed mankind. Next on the list were the thrones, the creatures of strength that were used to tear open mountains and hold back the seas.
After that would be dominations, was Blitzen’s theory. And he was right.
And they were bullet-proof.
Donner’s two missile solution had cleaned out the top room of the second lattice, leaving long gouges in the walls and floor. The rainbow-colored streaks on the ceiling were the only remnants of what must have been the corporeal shells of the angelic host which had been waiting for us. Evidently a pair of AGM-114F Hellfire missiles with anti-ship HE-blast warheads was all the emphasis one needed to make your point in Purgatory.
The angels kept their distance, massing in large blocks on either side of our path. The dominations were tall and thin and they shined like polished ceramic. The first time we encountered a foursome of them, Comet diverted from the group and let loose with both barrels. The room was filled with the spattering sound of ricocheting rounds as the tall angels stood firm and reflected all the metal being slung their way. They didn’t come any closer and Comet, not nearly as bullet-proof, opted to not waste any more rounds. They made their point: past the dominations was out-of-bounds.
We were being herded towards the first chamber where the host was going to be waiting for us again.
There were only three of them, tall and regal, with broad white wings that stretched to the ceiling. Their robes sparkled with light as if they had been spun from strands of diamonds and their eyes were filled with the visible spectrum. They had flaming swords and their expressions were resolute. They were taller and more beautiful than their coffee-shop personas, but I still managed to recognize the threesome.
Michael—Mike—held up his hand as the team dashed into the room and the reindeer slid and scampered to a halt. “You may not leave,” he said. “No one leaves Purgatory.”
“We’re on a tight schedule,” Rudolph said and he ducked his head at the flap of the satchel, catching the fabric in his teeth and tearing the bag open. A red radiance spilled out, followed by a narrow metal container. The cylinder had three bands of fading orange paint about its column and the top was surmounted by a pair of large switches. The device hit the ground with a clang and Rudolph kicked at the switches. “This is an express run. No stops, no services.”
The Clock engaged and everything froze for an instant. The air suddenly felt thick and heavy, almost as if I was suddenly breathing amniotic fluid rather than air. The red light spilling from the base of the cylinder took on a tactile weight, an ooze that leaked like blood across the floor of the room. The flames of the angels’ swords stopped flickering and became frozen streams of orange and yellow light.
“I don’t know how long it’ll run,” Rudolph said, his voice slipping and slurring. “But I’m not sticking around to find out.” He made a dash for the exit, past the trio of angels.
We were all slowed by the field generated by the Nuclear Clock, its bubble outside of Time was only partially effective here in Purgatory. We weren’t completely untethered from Time, but we were certainly operating at an angle to it, an angle much smaller than the one on which the angels approached. Their movements were even slower than ours.
They could obviously still think just as fast as we could because their movements went from completely clumsy to marginally accurate as they tried to stop us from getting past them. A flaming sword, all lined with frozen fire, cleanly missed Comet’s head, but Dasher had to duck to dodge the angel’s back swing. Santa caught an angelic blade on his pistol, the weapon slowly spinning away from his grip, and Donner went under the angel’s arm and drove his heavy shoulder against the figure, knocking him aside. The angel fell back in slow motion, his wings curling around his body like a flower closing at night.
Michael wasn’t at the top of the hierarchy because of his consummate skill at greeting folk at the door. He corrected quickly to the shift in Time and his aim was true. His hand came down on David Anderson as Vixen ran past and the man had only a moment to open his mouth in alarm before he was pulled off the reindeer. Vixen felt the man’s weight shift across his back and he tried to turn around, but the angel’s swift sword stroke brought him up short.
The other reindeer couldn’t fire their weapons for fear of hitting David Anderson as well and they faltered, unsure of how to proceed. David Anderson was trying to pull free of the angel’s grasp. Santa was shouting something from the hallway back to the café. Vixen was prancing about just beyond Michael’s reach with the sword.
Rudolph came back at a full gallop, his hooves barely touching the ground. He leaped, clearing Michael’s raised sword, his head nearly smacking into the ceiling. As he sailed over the angel’s head, he kicked back with his hooves, striking Michael hard between the wings. He landed on the far side of the trio of angels. “Go!” he shouted. “There isn’t any time. Go!” His face was flush in the light from the bleeding Nuclear Clock.
Vixen grabbed David Anderson while Comet and Dasher dropped crosshairs on Michael and opened up. Archangels were equally bullet-proof, but the force of the rounds was enough to keep him off balance. Long enough for the rest of us to get into the hallway.
The red glow faded as we ran and the reindeer stumbled as they left the Clock’s field, sound suddenly scaling upward from the bass-heavy ranges it had been stumbling about in. Santa slid off Donner as we reached the staging room and he held the door for us and the team wasted no time in leaving Purgatory.
It was chaos in the café, the patrons all scrambling for cover as Cupid put a RPG round through one of the big windows, clearing an easy egress for all of us. The reindeer bounced off chairs and tables, their hooves knocking against the wood and recklessly knocking aside cups and saucers.
I looked back as Blitzen jumped through the window. Comet and Dasher were right behind Santa. The white door was closed, but there was a red light shining through the slit at the base of the door. Santa dove through the window, tucking and rolling like he was an twelve-year old Olympic gymnast, as the back of the café suddenly exploded into a fountain of light.
“Move! Move! Move!” Santa shouted as he came to his feet, the security dongle from the sled in his hand. He auto-started the vehicle and shoved the staring Dasher towards the sled. “Don’t look back, you idiots. Don’t you read the stories?”
I hadn’t, or at least, I didn’t remember which stories Santa was referring to. I kept looking over my shoulder.
The fountain of light crackled and sparked as it ate at the restaurant. As I watched, the computer station vanished, followed soon thereafter by the bakery counter. The coruscating light snarled as it devoured everything it touched, like the sound of glass being ground beneath a steam roller, though magnified a few hundred times. The patrons of the café just stared at the light in wonderment as it rolled over them, dissolving them into its incandescent arc.
Santa shoved David Anderson up the steps of the sled, hollering at me at the same time. He didn’t have to bother; I was right behind him. He shoved the other man into the navigator’s seat on his way to the pilot’s chair and I hit the buttons to close the sled while grabbing the nearest protrusion to try to anchor myself. Santa yanked back on the sticks and the front end of the sled tilted upward and the heat surge from the engines darkened the grass under the sled. The roaring ball of light came after us, thrashing and glittering.
I felt the back end of the sled lurch suddenly and then we punched through the film s
urrounding Purgatory and were in the sky over the South Pole again, the white clouds beneath us, the black ceiling of night overhead. Just astern of the rapidly moving sled was a wound in the sky, a cascading stream of argent color. “Atmospheric phenomena,” Santa said to David Anderson who was still staring at the play of light behind the craft. Santa punched the coordinates for Troutdale into the navigation system and threw open the throttle. “It’s just a light show.”
I couldn’t look at it any more. I kept thinking about Rudolph.
X.
It had snowed in Troutdale last night, three inches of fluffy stuff covering the trees with a fine coating that looked like powdered sugar on french toast. The orange and red light from burning wreck of the Mark V sled pushed back the shadows fronting the houses along the road. Santa leaned heavily against the brickwork in the front yard of the Anderson house. He was cradling his right arm against his chest. I had torn a long strip from Mr. Anderson’s robe before shoving him towards the front door of his house.
Santa pushed me aside as David Anderson stood on his own porch and rang the bell. There was already a light on upstairs. Santa had plowed the Mark V into a parked truck, which made quite a lot of Christmas night racket.
We had made it to the 45th parallel before the engines had flamed out. Santa had managed to turn the last sixty miles into a long power glide. The sled had only bounced twice on the road before it had abruptly been stopped by the pick-up truck. There was enough electrical equipment in the nose of the sled that it hadn’t taken long for a stray spark to find the punctured gas tank of the half-ton truck. Luckily the reindeer had bailed earlier during the long glide and it had only been the three of us in the cabin when the sled came down.
Finally, the porch light of the house came on and the door cracked open. David said something and the door swung wide open. A small girl, her red hair all askew from sleep and her pajamas all twisted around her waist, stood on the step. She was still half-asleep, but as Mr. Anderson bent down and swept her up in his arms, she came fully awake, shrieking with delight.
Santa smiled. There were tears in his beard and I pressed the strip of white cloth against my face, forgetting that I had meant to offer it to Santa as a makeshift sling. The smoke from the fire was getting in my eyes.
Lights were coming on in the other houses too as people crawled out of bed to see who was making all the clatter. I lowered the cloth and looked at the snow-covered street. The reindeer gathered around the burning wreckage, looking towards the house. Santa, still streaked with soot and camouflage, his pistol holster empty, his hair wild about his bare head, was leaning against the house, completely enraptured by the reunion happening on the front porch.
I heard sirens in the distance. “Uh, Santa,” I said. “We need to go. We’re kind of making a scene.”
He sighed and winced as his arm moved. “It’s Christmas, Bernie. Don’t rush the miracle.”
PUBLICATION HISTORY
“De Orso Meo Ad Veneficum” first appeared in Electric Velocipede #19, 2009 under the byline of L. Michael Markham, because we believe that fictional characters should get a chance to speak their mind once in a while.
“Heart of the Rail” first appeared at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2012. [www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com]
“Hauntvine” first appeared in The Field Guild to Surreal Botany, Two Cranes Press, 2008. The additional journal entry is part of the expanded edition of The Potemkin Mosaic [as yet unreleased in a print edition].
“The One That Got Away” first appeared in Paper Cities, Senses Five Press, 2008.
“A Christmas Wish” first appeared in Buried Treasures, a Wordos Press anthology, 1996. The (redux) version appears here for the first time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Teppo is the author of The Potemkin Mosaic, Lightbreaker, Heartland, and Earth Thirst. His latest effort at subverting genre conventions is to build his own publishing company called RESURRECTION HOUSE. He is a synthesist, a trouble-shooter (and -maker), a cat herder, and an idea man. His favorite Tarot card is the Moon.