by James Somers
Red Howler monkeys whooped high up in the canopy. A jaguar had pounced upon a capybara beside a stream and was busy taking its fill of the large rodent. A hungry ocelot watched the jaguar feeding, coveting the kill but not daring to tangle with its larger cousin over its meal.
Golden Lion tamarins swung from branch to branch unconcerned at the moment. Dwelling in the upper canopy, they had little to fear from such predators. A three-toed sloth lumbered along a branch nearby at its snail’s pace, a single baby clinging to its mother’s mossy fur. The ocelot kept an eye peeled, hoping for a fortuitous fall.
Lucifer took all of these rich details in, gliding through the air. The animals may have sensed him, but none could see him at the moment. He did not wish to spook the people dwelling here in the Amazon.
Flying insects buzzed through the humid jungle. Snakes of numerous varieties slithered and slinked across the jungle floor, or through the branches of trees in search of prey. But none of these concerned the angel at all, though his movements seemed very much like them.
It did not take him long to find what he was looking for. A group of Indians were huddled together among the ground foliage, peering up into the canopy. Their red skin contrasted with the greenery, but with their meager garments and body paint the effect was diminished so that they blended well enough.
A howler had spotted them despite their camouflage. The simian lookout began to call out to his group, warning them of danger below. Lucifer watched as one of the Indians leaped into the air, soaring high into the canopy after the monkey.
The howler attempted to flee, but the lithe Indian took off after him, branch to branch, leaping and flying through the air. After a furious chase that lasted mere seconds the Indian proffered a crude knife. A moment later the monkey screeched out its last breath.
The body dropped from the tree where it had been killed, hitting the jungle floor about thirty yards from the huddled Indians. They moved quickly and quietly to get the beast before another predator came after it. The last thing they wanted to do was fight with a jaguar over their dinner.
The Indian who had made the kill floated gently down beside his fellows where they were gathered around the carcass. The bloody knife was put away as he touched down upon the ground again. None of his companions seemed to find anything unusual about the Indian’s ability to defy gravity in this way. Nothing could have been more normal to them.
Lucifer smiled, revealing himself to them. They were startled at first. Who wouldn’t be at having someone like Lucifer suddenly appearing before you? Especially when you had, only a moment ago, been under the impression that no one else was around.
Still, they did not attack. They knew better than that. He was known to them already, though not under the friendliest of terms. After all, knowing one of the Fallen did not mean you looked forward to their arrival at your door, or jungle, as the case happened to be presently.
He had appeared in the garb of a gentleman. By his polished dress, Lucifer might have been out to a fine restaurant in Paris, or a Broadway play. He seemed completely foreign to this environment, which was how he liked it. The better to make these folk uncomfortable in his presence. Set them ill at ease, off balance, through his unpredictability. When people became anxious they often made mistakes—blunders that he could then exploit.
Standing among the undergrowth in his black suit with the red cravat, he leaned slightly upon an ebony walking stick with a silver serpent’s head knob on top. The Indians never took their eyes off of him. They were tense, possibly expecting the worse. Lucifer might as easily kill you as look at you, and all with a smile upon his face.
He allowed them to linger in this uncertainty for a moment before addressing them. There was a noticeable shudder from the group when his lips parted to speak. He smiled in his easy way like a wolf among sheep.
“Take me to Luxana.”
Gladstone woke with a start. A terrible dream had overtaken him during the night. Though it was difficult to remember the details, he did feel that he had been running. In danger for his life somehow.
The house was cool during these early morning hours. Spring had come, but this day in April would apparently be overcast. Apart from the meager light from a dim gray cast sky, Gladstone’s large house in Highgate stood in relative darkness.
His heavy velvet curtains were drawn almost together across the high window. A single bar of light issued through across the polished wooden floor. The aging prime minister sat in his poster bed, breathing away the last vestiges of his night terror.
Noises of unknown origin came to him. Gladstone stopped breathing momentarily, listening intently. It did not sound like the bustling of his servants. In fact, even with his acute elf’s hearing, he could not find the voices he usually heard at this time each day.
Rothschild, his butler, would normally be on his way with breakfast by now. Yet, Gladstone could discern no sound emanating from his kitchen on the floor below. No footsteps resounded from the halls beyond his bedchamber door.
Yet, there was some sort of noise. It was hard to discern the nature of it. A thrum that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. No matter which way he turned his head, the sound was there.
Inquisitive, Gladstone scooted to the side of the bed. He called for Rothschild. No answer. Stepping down into his slippers beside the bed, he pulled his robe from a hook on the corner bedpost and put it on. The incessant thrum remained.
He crossed the room to his bedchamber door and opened it. Peering out around the door frame, Gladstone saw no one in the hall beyond. An ornately woven narrow hall carpet ran to either end before him. Every door along the corridor was closed. The thrum remained, though it seemed to have changed in pitch a little.
Gladstone called to Rothschild again. No answer. He repeated his call to anyone who might be within earshot. His voice boomed through the house unimpeded. No one replied.
Now, Gladstone was growing a bit angry. His anxiety level was only increasing, mostly because of how peculiar this all seemed following his night terror. Coincidence possibly. But, as an elf, he didn’t believe in coincidence much. He knew what things lurked in dark places, or beyond the veil of human sight.
Only the tick tock of the large grandfather clock standing in his dining room below cut through the steady and unidentified noise. Gladstone grumbled to himself and crossed the hall much like a soldier running from one safe place of cover to another. He peered down the curving stair toward the landing below. There was no one visible, no moving shadows.
He made his way down the stair, going gently, trying to remain as quiet as possible. When Gladstone came to the lower landing, standing now upon black and white tiles, he noticed that the noise had increased a little more in pitch and volume.
He turned toward the vestibule and the sound diminished slightly. Turning back toward the ballroom at the back of the house, the noise increased again twofold. Apparently, the source was there.
Gladstone found that he could not resist. He had to know if this was dream or reality. What was going on? Had everyone disappeared, or would a simple explanation present itself?
He stepped lightly, heading through the short corridor that bypassed the kitchen on his right and a formal dining room on his left. At the far end, the carved wooden doors to the ballroom stood open, as they usually did. Beyond, wall sconces on the octagonal wall of the chamber illuminated the ballroom in warm yellow light.
Every step closer brought a change in the noise he had been hearing. When he walked through the door, what had gradually begun to sound like a distant scream muffled beneath a feather pillow, erupted into a full blown howl and stopped.
Before everyone of the three large windows was hung one of his servants. The curtain cords had been wrapped around their necks. His portly female cook, Gladys, as well as her two teenage sons who worked on the property, dangled from the ropes like rag dolls.
Only Rothschild was missing. Could he have somehow perpetrated these heinous acts? It h
ardly seemed possible. The man was easily in his mid fifties.
However, as Gladstone stood in the center of the polished wood floor, gazing in horror upon his servant’s corpses, blood splattered lightly upon the ground at his feet. He looked down to see what it was first. Then he cast his eyes up toward the massive chandelier that dominated the room.
Rothschild’s battered and bloody body slid out of the chandelier arms, falling onto the floor before him. Gladstone leaped backward, screaming now. He suddenly realized he was in the house with a vicious killer. This did nothing for his screaming.
The ballroom doors suddenly slammed shut together behind him. No one was there. Laughter began to fill the room. Gladstone searched in every direction, but found no one there—at least, no one visible.
“Who are you?” he cried, wanting to back away, but not knowing which way to go. The voice cackled maniacally, mocking his fear.
And then someone tapped his shoulder.
Gladstone turned, instinctively firing off a plasm of energy from his fingertips. Southresh stood there in his Japanese host Toshima, waving the attack away as inconsequential.
“Guess who?” he cackled, seizing Gladstone by the throat.
This was it. His day had finally come. After all of these years, trying to serve faithfully as Britain’s Prime Minister, Gladstone was going to die at the hands of an abomination. But, while the angel had taken hold on him, he had not actually killed him yet. Gladstone’s eyes opened cautiously.
“It’s not quite time to die,” Southresh said, grinning. “Lucifer wants something from you. And if you don’t deliver, I’m to get creative in your demise. I have a very vivid imagination.”
Gladstone quivered in his grasp. “What do you require of me, my lord?” he asked, hoping his quick obedience might save his life. The last thing Gladstone wanted to experience was a creative death at the hands of the mad god.
Southresh smiled gleefully. “Lucifer wants you to surrender England, beginning with London.”
The request shocked Gladstone. “Surrender? You mean to Hitler?”
“Of course to Hitler,” Southresh said harshly. “Who else?”
Gladstone stammered, as though he might consider making some sort of protest. Southresh glared at him, waiting, probably hoping for the worst. The mad god was like a rabid dog on a chain—just itching to be set loose.
“What is your answer, Prime Minister?”
Gladstone swallowed with difficulty. His throat felt parched. Still, there was no use in delaying his answer. How could he possibly do anything else but what Lucifer had demanded? To refuse would mean death. And then Hitler would come to take what he had withheld anyway.
The aging Prime Minister nodded, swallowing again.
Southresh released the elf, straightening. “Pity,” he moaned softly. “We could have perpetrated the stuff of nightmares together.”
Gladstone couldn’t help but gulp audibly. He was sweating just thinking about what the mad god might have done to him. His torment would no doubt have lasted for days, or longer, the angel drawing out his agony with great care like a conductor leading an orchestra toward some magnificent crescendo.
Finally, he gathered his voice again. “How shall I do this?”
Southresh grinned. “Don’t worry, Gladstone. Lucifer will make it easy on you. The next bombing campaign against London will give you ample opportunity to give over control while saving political face. Hitler will probably even allow you to stay on as an administrator while he reshapes London society.”
Gladstone found this some small consolation, despite having to relinquish his long term in power. Essentially, he had reigned supreme for decades now uncontested. The second world war had only solidified his hold on power, the people fearing any uncertainty that might be caused by bringing in a new face.
Still, allowing Hitler and his Nazis to take control was a nauseating thought. Gladstone enjoyed living among the humans, enjoyed their society. He would rather have lived in London as anywhere else in the world. It suited him. But that would all change when Adolf came to rule here.
Overthrown
Lucifer realized spell casters must have accompanied Luxana and her sprites when they fled the ruined spiritual realm of Galidel. Magical barriers and wards had been erected which the sprites had no ability to conjure. These multilayered energy fields had the effect of shielding the sprites and their new city in the Amazon Jungle.
Passing through this barrier, Lucifer was not startled to see the glamour fall away from the sprites around him. He had been escorted to their village by a group of darkly tanned Indians wearing loin cloths and simple bowl style haircuts. However, their true appearance shown through now.
Beautiful diminutive creatures, with flowing white hair and gazes that could charm humans and Descendants alike, glided before him. Their feet never touched the ground. There was no paint on their skin, which was pale instead of deeply tanned. The Sprites had only assumed these disguises in order to look like the native tribes that dwelled in the Amazon. Actually, they were nothing like them.
The village was housed among the trees as had been the case in Galidel before its destruction during the overthrow by the three cherubim. The sprites had always felt safer off the ground. Of course, their unique ability to defy gravity made this sort of society easy to accomplish.
His escorts lifted from the Earth, rising toward the village proper. Lucifer had no trouble following in like manner. He didn’t even have to employ his wings which were invisible at the moment.
Unlike Wood Elves, who also built their villages and towns among the thick boughs of dense forests, the sprites did not employ any walkways or bridges between structures. Naturally, they had no need for them. And, in the event of an attack, their village would remain more secure.
Homes had been constructed around the trunks with tree branches radiating out through the walls that had been built around them. None of the structures were what he would consider lavish. But they were not sloppy in appearance either. A simple elegance, he thought.
Most of the sprites—there were exactly one thousand seven hundred and fifty three that he could either see or feel—were adorned in no more than wreaths of flowers and the occasional loin cloth. Clearly nothing had changed. This was exactly the way their simple communal society had functioned while in Galidel.
It seemed that all of the village citizens had come out to see. This was curiosity pure and simple. He could sense their fear also. Sprites enjoyed control, and usually they had it in totality within the minds of those who gazed upon them. But this overwhelming persuasion they held over others did not extend to angels. His gaze swept over the crowd, and it was the sprites who in fear looked away.
The crowd soon parted, making way for their queen. When Luxana emerged from her royal retinue, she was dressed in a shimmering gown. Her attire was sheer and not quite transparent, a garment so subtle yet striking that it might have been made from web and silver thread. A thin band of silver alighted upon her head with a single luminescent diamond shining at the center of her forehead.
“As radiant as ever,” Lucifer said, admiring her.
Luxana had aged, at least a little by appearance. However, the years had certainly not ravaged her fine features. She was still exquisitely beautiful. Only the sharp eyes of an angel would have noticed the subtle changes that time had wrought.
Luxana’s mouth remained a grim line on her face. She wasn’t accepting any of his flattery. Truth be told, he had only flattered her to enrage her in the first place.
Lucifer had come to this jungle in order to make a request of the Queen of the Sprites. He had come because of the request made by Adolf, however he knew that Luxana would not honor it. Her negative response would then give way to Adolf’s negative response, and this was the true reason he had come.
Luxana stared at Lucifer with a mixture of fear and loathing in her expression. She had still not replied, had not said a word. The entire village became quite sti
ll. Everyone except Lucifer. He was grinning, his eyes sparkling with amusement, waiting for her to speak.
When Luxana finally did, there was a slight tremor in her voice. “Why are you here?”
There. She had asked the obvious.
He smiled.
“I want to employ your services,” Lucifer began. “Sprites are the best mortals for influencing the minds of humans. I want you to persuade the leaders of our adversaries to kill their families, both women and children, and then take their own lives.”
It was an appalling request. Even had Luxana been the cold and calculated mercenary she once had been, it would have still been beyond her to cause men to kill their own children under her control. However, Lucifer happened to know that she was not at all the same sprite his son, Grayson Stone, had once employed. She had a conscience now.
She shuddered at his request, as he had expected. But she did not back down from him. So, she is both weak and foolish, he thought.
Her people looked from his face to hers, waiting for her reply.
“I will not,” she said. “Surely, you knew that already.”
He had.
“I felt I had to ask anyway,” Lucifer said gently, his eyes never leaving hers.
Luxana gave him a puzzled look. “You aren’t going to threaten me, or attempt to force the issue?”
Lucifer appeared a little taken aback. “Would that have helped?”
She mustered her resolve, lifting her chin in reply. “No, it would not.”
“And yet I had hoped,” he lied. “I wanted to spare you what was coming, you know, for old time’s sake.”
Luxana’s eyes darted around to the faces of her fellow sprites. She had noticed the collective gasp. A shiver of fear had run through them all. What was Lucifer referring to? What was coming?”
She returned her gaze to the angel standing before her, forcing herself to remain steady. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”