Black Angel

by Graham Masterton

  “Oh God,” said Arne.

  “What will you do now?” asked Beli Ya’al, with a grisly smile. “I don’t wish to kill you, but perhaps you leave me no choice.”

  “Still lying,” said Arne. “He’d love to kill us.”

  “Wait,” Larry told him. “Let’s give ourselves some time to think.”

  “God, what a liar,” said Arne. “God, if only I’d known.”

  Larry looked at Arne in disgust. “If only you’d known. What kind of an excuse is that?”

  Arne held his eye for a moment, then turned away. “You don’t know what he promised me, Larry.”

  “Whatever it was, I hope you think it was worth it. And to think I used to call you Jolly.”

  “Shit, Larry,” Arne raged. “What are we going to do?”

  Larry turned to Beli Ya’al and said, as boldly as he could, “You’ll have to give me time to talk to my family.”

  The yellow eyes closed, then opened again. “Why should I do that?” asked Beli Ya’al.

  “Because at the very least I want them to know why they have to be sacrificed. They deserve that much. Better still, I want them to be happy about it. Wouldn’t that make them even sweeter?”

  “I have no particular desire for your family,” said Beli Ya’al, flatly. “Of course, if they wish to be sacrificed…”

  The lack of interest in his voice was belied by the greed in his yellow eyes. Larry thought: I’ve won some time, thank God. All I have to do now is find out how to send this creature back to the coma he came from. Somebody did it, centuries ago. Somebody trapped him in that coffin. If they could do it in Sumerian times, we must be able to do it now.

  Beli Ya’al swirled the water with his blood-soaked robes. “You have an hour. Then, raise your hand, and summon me, and I shall come.”

  Can I trust him? thought Larry. No. If Tara Gordon was right, everything he says is a lie. I’ll have to think quick. But some time is better than no time at all.

  Arne said, “What about me?”

  “You will wait here, to keep me company,” said Beli Ya’al.

  “For God’s sake, Larry,” Arne begged.

  Larry shook his head. “You didn’t think of my family when you dropped out of this investigation. You didn’t think of Joe Berry’s family. Whatever you get, Arne, it can’t be any more than you deserve.”

  “Larry!”

  Larry ignored him, and waded through the water to the tunnel. The last thing he saw as he crouched down and started back to the underground parking-lot was Arne standing white-faced staring at Beli Ya’al, and Beli Ya’al still swirling his robes in the water. Then he took a deep breath and hunched his way back.

  His car was still there; and the lights were still bright, so the battery hadn’t run flat. He splashed across to it and climbed in, and for a moment he sat with his eyes closed, trying to pull himself back together.

  Who would know if there was any way to beat Beli Ya’al? Dan Burroughs possibly; Dan Burroughs had obviously been dealing with him for years. But he couldn’t trust Dan, not now. If he had murdered his father for the power that Beli Ya’al could bestow, then he was just as likely to try to murder him.

  No, his only chance was Tara Gordon.

  He started the engine, backed the car up, and headed for the tight spiral ramp. As he did so, however, he saw lights coming down the ramp, toward him. They flashed and sparkled in the water, and the next thing he knew, a bronze Caprice came splashing down to the lower level, and drew up beside him. The window hummed down. It was Dan Burroughs, with a cigarette hanging between his lips—and surprise, surprise, Fay Kuhn.

  “What’s happening, Larry?” Dan asked him. “We got your call, came here as quick as we could.”

  “You know damn well what’s happening,” said Larry, his voice shaking. “Your precious angel has risen again, that’s what.”

  Dan peered with smoke-slitted eyes toward the cavity behind the broken furniture. A few thin shafts of golden light shone through it, and played on the scummy surface of the water. “So that’s where the bastard was hidden,” Dan breathed. “After all these years. That’s where the bastard was hidden.”

  “You want to go talk to him, you’re welcome,” said Larry. “How about you, Fay? Where do you fit into all of this?”

  Fay looked at him straight. “Do you think I wanted to be a newspaper reporter all my life?”

  “Et tu, Ms Brute,” said Larry. “Thanks for all of your warnings about Dan playing a double game.”

  “Oh, don’t blame her,” put in Dan, coughing. “That was all my idea… thought it would put some salt on your tail, get you moving.”

  “He’s really risen?” asked Fay, her face pale with excitement.

  Larry nodded. “I wouldn’t open the Dom Perignon just yet, though. He’s in kind of a fractious mood. Dogmeat’s dead; so’s Mandrax. Arne’s still with us, the last I saw, but I wouldn’t count on him lasting much longer.”

  “Arne?” said Dan, perplexed.

  “That’s right, Arne. Go ask him for yourself.”

  “Arne, what a double-crossing bastard,” Dan spat.

  “Takes one to know one, Dan,” said Larry. He thrust the Le Sabre into 2, and roared off up the ramp, his bumper scraping against the concrete all the way up, in a spectacular shower of sparks.

  He reached the second level, skidded sideways on the wet concrete, then jarred-bounced up to the ramp which took him to the street. The Le Sabre cannonballed across the sidewalk and crashed down into the middle of Green Street, barking the side of a Federal Express truck, and setting up a protesting barrage of car horns.

  Larry drove southward on Battery at nearly 60, swerving between vans and cars, running red lights with his horn blaring and his popcorn light flashing and his headlights on full. He caught the edge of a Cadillac as he sped over Pine Street, causing it to slew in a circle; but he kept his foot flat on the gas pedal until he approached Market.

  He reached the “Waxing Moon” and screeched to a stop, his front wheel mounting the sidewalk.

  Tara Gordon was walking across the store as he pushed open the door, spraying the air with musk. She was dressed in a tight black dress, with scores of silver bangles.

  “Lieutenant!” she said, in surprise. “You look awful! You haven’t come to arrest me for using CFCs, have you?”

  Larry pressed both his hands flat on the glass-topped counter and took a huge breath. “They’ve done it,” he said. “They’ve brought him back to life.”

  Slowly, she put down her aerosol. “You’re kidding me,” she said. “Come on, lieutenant, no jokes. This isn’t something to joke about.”

  “No jokes, they’ve done it. He’s down in a basement in Green Street.”

  “My God,” Tara Gordon whispered. “I never thought they’d do it. I never thought they could.”

  “He’s there. Ten foot tall, handsome as the devil, and greedy as a goddamned wolf. But they got a lot more than they bargained for. Dogmeat’s dead, so’s Mandrax.” He spoke in short, staccato bursts. He couldn’t seem to get his breath back, no matter what he did.

  “What’s happening now?” asked Tara Gordon. “How did you get away?”

  “He’s given me grace,” Larry gasped. “An hour’s grace. He wants my family, my wife and my sons. He’s given me an hour. I don’t know, maybe less, maybe more. Whatever he says, it’s a lie.”

  Tara Gordon laid her hand on his shoulder. “Relax,” she said. “Get your breath back. Give me a minute.” She left him, and walked across to her reference library, where she took down two books, and started to leaf noisily through both of them. After a while, breathing more easily, Larry came to join her.

  “Anything?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know. I think so. The trouble is, it’s all myth and legend, and you don’t know whether it’s reliable or not.”

  “Anything,” Larry begged her.

  “Well… it says here that no fallen angel can survive on earth without the approval
of the people amongst whom he lives. He needs a popular mandate, if you like, in order to defy God’s banishment. Look… ‘it takes only one voluntary sacrifice for one of the fallen to live out his life as a lord of the temporal sphere. But without that voluntary sacrifice, he must needs creep back to the bowels of the earth and await another summoning.’”

  “So he needs my approval,” said Larry. “That’s one point in my favor, at least.”

  “I don’t know. It says here that those who refuse to give sacrifices to fallen angels are often killed anyway, and suffer eternal agony and unrest.”

  “Shit,” said Larry. “What the hell am I going to do?”

  “Hold on,” Tara Gordon soothed him. “Whatever you do, don’t panic. This is all about Belial. First of the fallen angels, master of lies… Here, look. ‘Beli Ya’al can only be dismissed by causing him to utter a great and indisputable truth. Since the truth is anathema to him, he will be confounded.’”

  Larry read the book for himself. Then he looked at the leather-bound cover. “God almighty, Oxford University Press, 1871. How reliable do you think this is?”

  “Do you have any better ideas?” asked Tara Gordon.

  “I don’t know. He’s like a—well, Christ, he’s worse than a shark. He ate Mandrax and Dogmeat in front of my eyes. He just ripped them to pieces, and swallowed them.”

  “I don’t know how else to stop him,” said Tara Gordon. She didn’t sound very confident.

  Larry lowered the book. “How the hell do you make a congenital liar tell the truth?”

  “Maybe you do it the same way that I used to do it with my ex-husband. You lie better than they do. He used to say, ‘Keep the Porsche, I don’t want the Porsche,’ just to make me feel guilty because I wanted it. In the end I learned how to deal with somebody who comes on like that. I used to say, ‘You can have it, you’re welcome to it, so long as I know that you really want it.’”

  Larry shook his head. “It doesn’t seem much to go on, does it?”

  “You’re drowning, Larry. If nothing else, it’s a straw. Do you want me to come with you?”

  “I think I’d better go on my own. If this goes as badly as I think it’s going to go, I need somebody who knows what happened to survive.”

  Tara Gordon held his arm. “Lieutenant,” she said. “Good luck.”

  Larry, spontaneously, kissed her. Her lips were soft, cool, remote. Her eyes were very large, like a dream in themselves. “You can do it,” she told him. “I can feel it; you’re strong. You can do it.”

  He reached his house on Russian Hill and parked the battered Le Sabre against the curb. The house-lights were shining dimly through the fog; and the flowers in the garden looked as if they were draped in bridal veils. He opened the front door and went in, and immediately he knew that something was wrong.

  There was an unfamiliar smell in the house. Like spices, or incense. And nobody came running to greet him.

  Oh God, don’t tell me they’re dead already.

  He walked through to the living-room and his eyes were met by a golden glow. He lied, he’s here already. Beli Ya’al was standing in the far corner of the room, his cowled head almost touching the ceiling, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. His face was bearded with dried blood, and his robes looked like a butcher’s apron.

  Linda, Frankie and Mikey were huddled close together on the sofa, unharmed, but terrified. Linda looked up desperately as Larry took one cautious step into the room, and tugged the boys back as they tried to jump up. She said nothing; Beli Ya’al had obviously told her to stay quiet; but then she didn’t have to.

  “You came early,” Larry said to Beli Ya’al, trying to sound calm.

  “I came at the time we agreed.”

  Lying again.

  “Oh, yes,” said Larry. “I forgot.”

  Beli Ya’al didn’t respond to that, but glided forward, his bloodied robes whispering hideous secrets across the floor. “Of course, I couldn’t have allowed my hunger to get the better of me.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Larry—” said Linda. “What is this? Who is he? What is he?”

  “What is he, Daddy?” Frankie asked, his face drawn in terror. “He said he wasn’t going to hurt us.”

  “That’s right,” said Larry, trying to sound confident. “He’s not going to touch you, not at all. That’s true, isn’t it, o great one?”

  Beli Ya’al’s yellow eyes narrowed like sunflowers at night. “I wouldn’t harm any family so sweet,” he replied.

  He circled around the back of the sofa. He found it hard to take his eyes off Linda and the boys. He had the same fixed grin as those heroin addicts that Larry had interviewed, with a hypodermic full of methadone on the table in front of them. The same inability to keep his eyes off his fix.

  Larry said nothing, but stayed where he was, close to the door, and watched him circle and circle, like a shark in clear water. The tension in the living-room was huge. The floor almost creaked with it. And all the time Larry could hear that keen, high-pitched singing sound; that singing sound that was almost a scream.

  “Have you considered?” Beli Ya’al asked Larry, with closely curbed impatience.

  Larry nodded. “I’ve thought about it very carefully, as a matter of fact.”

  Linda said, “What? What have you thought about?”

  But Larry lifted his hand to quieten her. “You said that you didn’t want to touch such a young and sweet young family… and I respect your wishes completely. That was a very fine sentiment indeed.”

  Beli Ya’al frowned at him. “Of course, I did say that if such a family were offered voluntarily...”

  “You’d want them then?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you don’t want them?”

  “No.”

  Larry licked his lips. He was aware that this was only word-play; and that if Beli Ya’al grew tired of trying to persuade him willingly to give him Linda and the boys, he would tear them apart anyway; and they would suffer an after-life that was worse than all the ovens of hell.

  All the same, he could see how fiercely Beli Ya’al craved a voluntary sacrifice. It would make his saliva run that much sweeter; and win him a life on earth.

  “Okay…”he said at last. “You can have them.”

  Beli Ya’al slowly grinned. He reached back, and dropped his cowl, baring his radiant white hair. He was so beautiful he was terrifying. Beautiful as a statue. Beautiful as a nightmare.

  Larry said, “You can have them so long as I know you really want them.”

  Beli Ya’al, still grinning, opened his mouth to speak. Then he hesitated, and stared at Larry in suspicion. “As long as I really want them?” he said, in that reverberating, unearthly tone.

  “Well… just now, you said that you didn’t want them. I mean, there’s no point in my agreeing to your having them if you don’t want them, is there?”

  “I didn’t say that I didn’t want them,” Beli Ya’al lied.

  “Then you do want them?”

  Perplexed. “I didn’t say that, either.”

  “My friend,” said Larry, “you can have them, they’re yours. But all I have to know is that you really want them.”

  Sour gastric juices were coursing down Beli Ya’al’s chin and mingling in streaks with the blood of those he had already devoured. His eyes darted quickly from side to side. His greed was overwhelming. The family were here, within his grasp; sweet proffered flesh, sweet proffered souls. And a life on earth, too, where he could feed with mindless gluttony for eternity to come.

  “Do you want them?” asked Larry.

  Linda was staring at him in bewilderment and horror. She couldn’t understand what this creature was; or what Larry was doing. All she knew was that she and the boys were somehow being bartered. Frankie and Mikey hid their faces with their hands.

  “Do you want them?” Larry demanded. His hard-cop interrogation voice.

  “NO,” roared Beli Ya’al.
r />   Larry turned his back. He could hear Frankie and Mikey sobbing in fright, and he would have done anything to take them up in his arms and hug them close. But this wasn’t the moment. If he failed now, Beli Ya’al would have his teeth in them in seconds.

  “All right,” said Larry, quietly. “If that’s the way you want it. You can’t say that I didn’t offer.”

  “Wait,” said Beli Ya’al. A different voice, cajoling.

  “You’ve changed your mind?”

  “No.”

  “You do want them, after all?”

  “No!”

  “You can change your mind. Everybody’s entitled to change their mind. Do you want them?”

  “No! No! No! A hundred thousand times over, no!”

  “Damn it to hell, Beli Ya’al!” screamed Larry. “They’re here! They’re yours! Just tell me that you want them and you can have them now!”

  “No!” shrieked Linda.

  “YES,” roared Beli Ya’al. “YES I WANT THEM.”

  Larry stood stock still. Yellow eyes stared into brown eyes.

  “What did you say?” Larry asked him.

  For one long, long moment he was terrified that it wouldn’t work; that Tara Gordon’s book was all nonsense. Beli Ya’al stood in front of him as tall and as grisly as before, his face contorted with anger and greed.

  But the silence went on; and on. And gradually, Beli Ya’al lowered his head.

  “You told the truth,” said Larry.

  Beli Ya’al remained silent.

  “You told the truth,” Larry repeated.

  “No,” whispered Beli Ya’al.

  “You told the truth! You told the truth!”

  “NOOO,” bellowed Beli Ya’al. He lifted his head and his eyes were ablaze with dazzling light. He looked as if he were on fire; only brighter than fire; brighter than suns.

  His image shuddered and divided, as if they were looking at him through a hall of mirrors. His yellow eyes roared with yellow flame.

  NOOOOOO became a wave of noise, rather than a scream, and the whole house began to vibrate. A vase toppled off the table behind the couch and shattered on the floor. Pictures dropped one by one from the walls. With a squeak, splintering noise, the patio window cracked from one corner to the other.