“Come take a look,” said Arne, and beckoned Larry nearer.
I’m afraid, thought Larry. I can’t look.
But he approached the coffin and he looked. And he stood looking for almost a whole minute, electrified, terrified, at the figure which lay shrouded in blinding light.
Belial was almost twice the height of a normal man; but proportionately he was perfect. His long white hair was drawn back tightly by a thin band. His face was exquisitely proportioned; so beautiful for a man that it was disturbing. His nose was finely boned, his lips full, his chin strong. He was dressed in a white cowled robe of strange fabric that seemed to melt to the touch, like snow.
His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be sleeping; although Larry could detect his lips faintly moving.
It suddenly occurred to Larry that he was in the presence of a real angel; one of the mythical messengers of God. It was one of these creatures who had visited Mary; it was one of these creatures that the shepherds had seen in the skies over Bethlehem. The feeling of cold was numbing; the high-pitched screaming was numbing. But this thing was real, and it was beautiful beyond all understanding, and he had found it. He felt like sinking on to his knees, and praying.
But now Mandrax was dragging Edna-Mae forward—the huge, churning Edna-Mae. He guided her over the coffin, and then forced her head down toward the angel’s face.
“What the hell are you doing?” Larry demanded, but Arne lifted his hand and said, “Sh, Larry. Let’s not interfere with things we don’t understand.”
“I understand it, for Christ’s sake. It’s homicide!”
But nothing could stop Edna-Mae from pressing her sheet-shielded face over the angel’s cowl. Larry couldn’t see anything but shimmering white sheets as the two appeared to kiss.
“What the hell are you doing?” he repeated. His voice sounded choked and strained.
At that instant, however, he heard a gut-wrenching sound. It was thick and turgid, like something being dragged out of a swamp. But then there was a sudden snap, and a muffled scream, two muffled screams, two women shrieking together, and Edna-Mae’s sheet struggled and boiled and tossed as if somebody were trying to butcher a dog underneath it. It frothed with blood. So much blood that a fine scarlet spray rose in the air, and speckled Belial’s robes, and drifted across the rubbled floor. There was a last frantic fight, with blood staining the sheet wider and wider. Then the sheet was flung from the coffin, and Belial was again revealed.
This time Belial’s eyes were open, and they were staring at Larry with such intensity that he felt as if he had already done something wrong. They were yellow—strong concentrated yellow, the color of rapeseed flowers, almost too yellow to exist.
Larry slowly knelt down beside the bloody, thrown-away sheet and hesitantly lifted it up. Underneath lay the remains of Edna-Mae Lickerman. She had become no more than a transparent sack of very thin skin, the same color and texture as chicken skin, inside of which were jumbled all of her internal organs, but completely dry. A dry, flat stomach like a leather water-bottle, a dark-red dried-out heart, a hard brown liver. Intestines, coiled like macaroni that had been boiled and then left to lie on the plate for too long. He could see the fragile holes in the skin where her eyes and nostrils and mouth had once been. Men had kissed that mouth. Men had looked into those eyes. People had said to Edna-Mae Lickerman, “I love you,” and now what was she?
Mandrax said, “It’s time for our prayer. Then the time to feed has come at last.”
He stood at the head of the coffin, next to Arne, and closed his eyes. Belial’s eyes, however, remained wide open, and yellow, and didn’t move once from Larry’s face. Dogmeat started to sob and say something about the good old days, the good old days. He looked to Larry as if he had been beaten almost to the point of death.
“O great Beli Ya’al, whose time has now come. O great Beli Ya’al, whose return was written in pages of dust, yet whose name lived on, when every other name was taken by the wind…
“Arise, Beli Ya’al, to feed at last, and to give these your servants their just rewards!”
Instantly, there was a dazzling flash of light; and the wooden chamber began to thunder and shake. Huge chunks of rubble dropped from the ceiling, and burst on the floor below. In the intermittent flashes of light, Larry saw Beli Ya’al begin to rise from his open coffin, his eyes staring, his beautiful face taut with concentration. He rose, and his light spread even more brilliantly all around, and the sound of his falling grew to a shrieking crescendo, until Larry was unable to hear anything but that high-pitched screaming that rubbed his nerves together and made his ears ache.
Soon Beli Ya’al was standing beside his coffin, impossibly tall, in robes that gleamed and stirred in quite different winds from the drafts which blew through his underground prison. He turned his head slowly from side to side, taking in his surroundings.
“Great Beli Ya’al!” cried out Mandrax, dropping on to his knees in front of him, and clenching both fists in hysterical delight. “Great Beli Ya’al!”
Beli Ya’al said nothing. His eyes were wide and peculiarly wild. When he turned to stare in Larry’s direction, Larry was suddenly terribly afraid of him, and took two or three steps back toward the open doorway. He was so frightened, in fact, that he stumbled twice, and grazed his knee.
The ceiling thundered yet again, and a vast vertical beam groaned and dropped two or three feet, dislodging more loose soil and slurry. Beli Ya’al turned his head and the air positively crackled all around him.
“Dogmeat!” yelled Larry. “Get the hell out!”
Dogmeat lurched to his feet, and tried to escape across the rubble. But Arne must have beaten his legs so badly that he could scarcely manage more than a hobble.
“Dogmeat!”
But with one flowing step, Beli Ya’al had reached him. Dogmeat turned, twisted his ankle, dragged himself up again. Beli Ya’al was almost smiling. He reached out his hand and laid it on Dogmeat’s angular white shoulder. Almost gently, as if he were patting him, like a pet.
For one instant, Larry thought: Thank God, everything’s going to be all right. He’s not going to hurt him.
But then Beli Ya’al grasped both of Dogmeat’s upper arms, and held them cruelly tight. Dogmeat stared up at him in awe and fearful anticipation.
“Listen, man. I never did nothing to nobody, never. Don’t hurt me, s’il vous plait. I’ll do anything you want. You do crack? Ice? Snow? I can get you nose candy that’ll make this son et lumière look like—”
There were two quick, nasty squeaks, followed in quick succession by pistol-sharp cracks, and Beli Ya’al had circled both of Dogmeat’s arms around the wrong way, popping them out of their sockets and then bursting them out of their skin. Beli Ya’al swung both arms up into the air, spraying a criss-cross of blood across the rubble, while Dogmeat stood for an instant stupefied, with no arms, and blood pumping out of each shoulder. Then he collapsed.
But Beli Ya’al hadn’t finished with him yet. Back stretched those perfect bow-shaped lips, baring white glistening gums, and rows of teeth as ragged and as crowded as a wolf. Beli Ya’al lifted up Dogmeat’s thin, bloody body, and without any hesitation forced his head into his mouth, with the relentless orgasmic thrusts of a snake swallowing a sheep. Dogmeat, still alive, woke up from the trauma of losing both of his arms, and found his head inside a wet, stretched mouth, and viciously sharp teeth biting at his neck.
He screamed; but Beli Ya’al crunched, and tore, and it didn’t take long before Dogmeat’s screaming gargled, and filled up with blood, and stopped altogether. Beli Ya’al; stood silent and concentrated in the middle of the chamber, with static electricity creeping and trickling all around him, forcing huge lumps of bloody flesh and bone and hair down his throat. His yellow eyes betrayed nothing.
Mandrax had been watching Beli Ya’al devour Dogmeat in awe and fascination. Beli Ya’al crunched and swallowed the last of Dogmeat’s bony joints, and then Mandrax cautiously approached him. B
eli Ya’al turned his head to look at him, his chin bloody, his white robes splattered with blood and quivering strings of tissue.
“What do you want of me?” Beli Ya’al asked. His voice was like the reverberation of a tuning-fork, heard but unheard. Larry could feel it in his bones more than his ears. He recognized it, though. It was the same voice that had spoken from his hand.
Mandrax bowed and said, “Beli Ya’al, you are the greatest of all creation. We welcome you, and we worship you.”
Beli Ya’al said nothing, but looked around the wooden chamber with congested eyes.
Mandrax got down on to his knees. “I was the one who rescued you, Beli Ya’al. I was the one who found you.”
“Didn’t I always promise you that you would have your reward?” said Beli Ya’al. “You shall, when I have devoured the thousand that were promised me.”
Larry retreated further to the entrance. He didn’t have any idea how he was going to escape; or what he could do to stop Beli Ya’al from slaughtering a thousand innocent people. His chest was too filled up with panic, and he could hardly breathe.
Beli Ya’al appeared to be thinking, or dreaming. Then suddenly, just as Larry made a last scramble down the slope of gravel and clay, his whole body shuddered bright gold, out of focus. There seemed to be three or four Beli Ya’als, standing side by side, in a shimmering chorus. Larry scrabbled for the low, rotting door; but as he did so he heard a sound like a rapid-transit train arriving, a rush of warm wind, and Beli Ya’al was standing right beside him, by the door, bloodied and shining and horribly calm.
“You are the one with my eyes on your hand,” said Beli Ya’al. He was so close that his voice vibrated all the way down Larry’s spinal cord, and made his pelvis ache.
“What do you want?” Larry challenged him, gasping for breath. “Haven’t you done enough?”
Beli Ya’al’s eyelids glutinously closed and then opened again, the sticky eyes of a creature who has slept for innumerable centuries.
“I have watched the world through windows; I have watched the world through mirrors; I have watched the world through water and pictures and the shiny reflection in children’s eyes.”
The angel slowly licked his lips, and a thin thread of Dogmeat’s intestine was dragged across his teeth. “I have watched your world, little servant of mine.”
Larry swallowed anxiously, and glanced across at Mandrax and Arne. Mandrax was grinning like a trick-or-treat mask, but Arne looked pale and deadly serious.
“I have come here to feed now,” said Beli Ya’al. “I have come to dine on the banquet which was spread for me by my greatest foe. But there is nothing so sweet as the banquet that is freely offered.”
“I don’t understand you,” Larry choked. He couldn’t stand those yellow basilisk eyes. They unnerved him more than anything. He prayed to God that he could be someplace else, anyplace else; but he realized with a strong taste of bitterness that he had been fated to come here ever since his father had asked Dan Burroughs to bail him out of his bankruptcy. There was no escape. There never had been.
If only his father had known what his house and his champagne and his Lincoln Town Car would eventually cost.
Beli Ya’al said, “I struck down your father’s benefactor. Your father promised me everything. Everything, including you, and yours. Not that I wish to have you, of course. Not that I wish to taste your family’s flesh. What does an aged beast like me want with firm young bodies and sweet young souls—even when they are freely given, you understand, offered in sacrifice, offered with adoration? What does a timeworn creature like me want with such morsels?”
Mandrax called, “Larry!”
Larry stared at him, wide-eyed.
“You know what he’s asking, Larry!”
“Damn you to hell, Mandrax!”
“Oh, come on, Larry, this is your moment. You give him your family, you can have everything! You’re a young man, you can have some more kids! He wants your family, Larry! Freely given, so that he can look up at God and say You may have cast me down but these people adore me. I rule in Your creation, I feed on the people You made in Your own image, and You can’t do anything about it, because You gave them freedom of choice, and what they want is power, and wealth, and damn your sanctimonious heaven!”
Beli Ya’al began slowly to grin, baring tooth after tooth. But Larry didn’t wait for any more. He pushed his way through the doorway, splashing into the blackened ship’s hold, and started to run in cascades of water across the rotting deck.
As he did so, he saw the golden light shimmer again; and the next thing he knew, Beli Ya’al had materialized right in front of him, shining and triumphant. His broken reflection danced in the water beneath his feet, so that he looked like two angels suspended in darkness, one upright, one inverted.
“Your father swore an oath” he said; and his voice sang in Larry’s ears like a just-struck church-bell. “Perhaps he regretted that oath, especially when he sank in the Bay. But an oath is an oath. A promise is a promise. Not that I want you to fulfil your father’s promise. Not that I want to feed on your family’s flesh. I have all of this city to feed on! The very last thing I want is to feed on your family’s flesh.”
“Larry!” Mandrax panted, catching up with him, his feet sloshing in the eel-infested water. “You know what he wants, Larry! It’s the only way! It’s the whole reason I brought you here!”
“Fuck you!” yelled Larry.
Beli Ya’al turned to Mandrax and said, “Your ranting is doing no good. Quiet.”
“But if he doesn’t give you his family—”
“QUIET” said Beli Ya’al, in a pitch that was almost beyond human hearing. He reached out and seized Mandrax by the wrist, then twisted his arm behind him and lifted him halfway out of the water. Mandrax kicked and struggled, one foot splashing. “What’s the matter with you? I was the one who saved you! I was the one who performed all the sacrifices for you!”
“Of course you did,” Beli Ya’al told him. “You were my most devoted acolyte. You were my only acolyte. Why do you think I kept you alive for so many years? Why do you think I cared for you, and promised you so much?”
“Then let me down,” gasped Mandrax. “Let me tell you this… my face is made of his ectoplasm. If you so much as touch me, his face is ruined, and believe me, you won’t get much out of him if you do that.”
Beli Ya’al looked back at Larry. “There is nothing so distasteful to me as a whining and conniving servant,” he said. “Hold out your hand. You know which hand. Raise it, let me see it.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Larry. “You’re not going to—”
“HOLD OUT YOUR HAND.” It was a command as powerful as a nuclear explosion. In spite of himself, Larry raised his left hand, and held it toward Beli Ya’al.
Mandrax fought and thrashed. “You can’t—you can’t do this! Beli Ya’al! You can’t do this!”
“I can do whatever I wish,” said Beli Ya’al. And almost at once, a change began to take place on Mandrax’s face. It began to distort, and melt, and twist around. His features disappeared in a fog of light; and like a shining scarf, the ectoplasm unwound itself from around his head, and coiled up into the air. The real face of Mandrax was exposed: hideously burned, with a cavity for a nose, and stretched-back eyelids, and a sloping mouth with snarling, exposed teeth.
The ectoplasm poured back into Larry’s upraised palm. He felt a warm, abrasive sensation, as if the inside of his arm were being dragged with a nylon pot-scourer. Then the ectoplasm vanished, and he closed the palm of his hand, and he was complete again. He felt heavier, as if he had just finished a huge Italian meal; but his sense of wholeness was extraordinary.
Mandrax roared and screamed. “Traitor! Liar! I fought for years to bring you back! I gave up everything to bring you back!”
He kicked out at Beli Ya’al and the angel dropped him into the water. Mandrax scrambled to his feet, slipped, scrambled up again, and started to run toward the
tunnel that would take him to the underground parking-lot.
With a terrible shining smoothness, Beli Ya’al spread his arms and dived into the shallow water. He vanished into it as if it were ten feet deep. Larry saw him shimmering beneath the surface, as fast as a hammerhead shark, swimming right beneath Mandrax’s splashing feet. Mandrax saw him, too, and screamed a ghastly distorted scream.
Then Beli Ya’al dimmed and disappeared; and the ship’s hold was pitch black, punctuated by the splash of Mandrax’s feet, and his terrified panting.
Larry stayed where he was, petrified. He thought he could hear something else, apart from Mandrax’s panicky escape. Something like a wave coming, on the shoreline. A deep, huge rushing of water.
Just as Mandrax reached the far wall, Beli Ya’al came crashing out of the water in a fountain of sparkling spray, right in front of him. Mandrax roared in terror, tripped, slid, and tried to wriggle himself away. But Beli Ya’al’s mouth stretched open and seized his leg, and blood gushed across the water, alive with bloodied eels.
“Oh, no!” screamed Mandrax. “Oh, no! Oh, Christ! Oh, no!”
There was nothing that Larry could do but stare in horror as Beli Ya’al tore Mandrax’s legs into strings and shreds, and ripped into his buttocks and his belly with the ferocity of a buzzsaw. He had never seen any creature with such greed and power. Mandrax was still screaming and begging and splashing his arms in the water as Beli Ya’al buried his muzzle into his chest cavity, crushing his ribs and dragging out his heart. Larry saw his heart pump just once, as Beli Ya’al bit into it, and burst it. Within minutes, the fallen angel arose from the water, his exquisite face a mask of blood, and there was nothing left of Mandrax but a gradually widening stain on the water.
“Now,” whispered Beli Ya’al. “You wouldn’t have anything to offer me, would you?”
Arne came into the hold, and stood by the doorway. “Mandrax?” he said, uncertainly.
“Mandrax disagreed with something that ate him,” said Larry, with undisguised bitterness.
Black Angel Page 34