A Lower Deep - A Self Novel About 3300 wds

by Piccirilli, Tom

  The sun became as black as a sackcloth of hair and ashes. My new flesh burned once again, and at the same time I was freezing.

  Elijah's fury and love for Danielle swept over me so that my skin tingled and the center of my brain rang. If she hadn't loved me I would've become just as relentless and savage. A shadow blotted out the sky and fell across the entire width of the circle. Self tugged at my wrist. I slowly turned around.

  The mammoth Nephilim had mutated further. Elijah's influence and delusions had altered its colossal body into the Beast of Revelation. It no longer drooled down its massive silken neck, but instead walked grim-jawed and frowning in rage. His ire fueled the great beast with seven heads and seven horns and ten crowns. Elijah's pride had given us the Red Dragon.

  Man, Self said, that is just so nasty!

  The Nephilim's mouth still hung open in a centuries-old cry. If Elijah was still in there, then he too had mutated, and so had his hatred. Perhaps the hybrid's two hundred angelic fathers screamed in some hollow between heaven and limbo.

  The body of the Beast had matured, though it was no larger than before. I could see its heart stirring, that giant chest pulsing, though the Nephilim didn't breathe. Although it had no genitalia, or at least it hadn't before, Elijah knew shame and had covered the hybrid's groin with knotted sheets and blankets and woven rugs. Its digits had fully formed now, and those massive hands were partially clenched at the Beast's sides.

  The skin was no longer paler than my father's whiteface. Like my new flesh, when the Dragon climbed into the sunshine it had burned. Hills of salt adhered to its shoulders and head, powdering its face. It must have lain in the Dead Sea for some time before finally standing, one foot on land and one in the water on the lowest spot on earth, fulfilling all the prophecies Elijah intended to live out.

  I think we'd better run, Self urged.

  How the hell did it get here?

  I don't know. It must have other minions like Uriel who helped to carry out its plans.

  Uriel stared at the great Beast and didn't seem to know what it was any longer. Perhaps he'd always understood that the Nephilim would play some role at the hour of the apocalypse, but to see it standing before him in the guise of the Dragon made his tongue unfurl. His already fragile mind shattered further as he took the sword and lopped off his left arm at the elbow.

  Uriel held the spurting stump up to the Dragon Elijah. "Oh Lord," he begged, "free me from thy will."

  Yes, it would definitely be a good idea if we ran away now.

  "The locusts," Uriel whimpered, pointing the stump to the south. "The locusts have been set upon mankind."

  There shall be a hail of fire and blood, stars will darken and fall. The locusts shall be released to torment the faithless, wearing breastplates, with tails like scorpions and faces of men. A shimmering dark cloud wreathed the Nephilim's broad head, surging and alive and glittering. Thin, broad wings beat frantically and glints of metal flickered. The sound was an incredible whirring and buzzing. There were already thousands of grasshoppers gathering in force, and their eggs sifted through the air in lengthy fibers like webs. Soon millions of locusts would cover the JezreelValley and sweep out across all the kingdoms of the earth.

  Damn, those are ugly critters! Self said.

  I'd taken those passages in the Bible as a symbol of the Roman empire, soldiers who crushed the Middle East and destroyed everything in their path like locusts. But, God, how I'd been wrong.

  I realized that Jebediah didn't want to raise Christ for any human purpose or intent. He'd been power mad and hungry for revenge countless times in his life, but that was over with.

  Now he simply wanted to bring about the end of the world.

  The coven was still entranced by their communal link, and only Marcus looked as if he might be making an effort to break free. His jaws were clenched tight and the glow around his body pulsed erratically. He didn't feel me in the circle and it was me he wanted.

  Jebediah leered. He thought I was trapped with him, raising Christ or only dragging up hell, in league with him in bringing about the devastation of everything. I wanted to kill him so badly that my mouth watered. Self growled, and I growled.

  Uriel bled out quickly and fell. My father mouthed words to himself and glanced over at me as though he retained his mind. Dad reached for Uriel's sword but was too weak to wield it. The heavy point dragged in the sand as he dropped before it, on his knees, his cheek pressed to the sharp edge until his blood ran over the clown makeup.

  Self suddenly leaped for him with his claws outstretched, ready to disembowel my father. He took one wild swiping slash at Dad before I got in front and struggled with him.

  Stop!

  Listen—

  Back off!

  Trust me!

  And I heard something in Self's voice that I had never heard before.

  He was pleading with me.

  And with an overpowering clarity I knew then who had brought back Griffin to burn me down to the marrow so I might be reborn. Now I understood why Griffin had shouted, 'He loves you! He is your child, you are his child.'"

  We needed trust but we didn't have it. Instead we were inextricable and eternally bound. We didn't need trust—we only needed each other.

  I was his child. He was my child.

  I turned and looked at my father and saw the four deep scratches in his chest and the knife wound in his belly.

  I took hold of my father, who smiled as his tongue lolled. My hands began to flare—the black dazzling flash rising up my arms, the arcane flames heating the air until dust devils swept around us.

  I reached into the center of my father and kept reaching, and pulled hard. My fists were on fire, but the harlequin costume wouldn't burn.

  And from within my father came tiny fingers reaching out.

  I gritted my teeth, grabbed hard, and hauled. I caught hold of a chubby arm and kept pulling. I yanked until a huge head like a hydrocephalic child's finally crowned, watching it slowly slide free of the flesh. My father began laughing, giving birth to this. Then came the archangel's fat face, the smooth pale shoulders, and the coarse tiny wings. Michael shook himself off like a wet dog, sneering in the midst of all heaven's enemies. His eyes rolled, bottom lip drooping, silly little wings unfolding. His misshapen head bobbed left and right.

  Archangel Michael looked exhausted and stupid, or perhaps only insane.

  I couldn't stop wondering who had the power to have imprisoned this great warlike prince of Seraphim this way, stuffed down inside a dead clown.

  Gawain.

  He must've gotten the idea from the baby hidden in Eddie's chest. I didn't comprehend how or why he did it, but I knew that I trusted Gawain more than I did Abbott John or anybody else. I tried to shove Michael's misshapen head back inside my father's chest cavity. The angel gave me a startled angry look and pulled, twisted, and heaved, working his dwarfish body free.

  Self clambered up my back and screamed, What are you doing? Let him out! Let him out!

  Someone else was there helping. I glanced over and saw Marcus shoulder to shoulder with me. Fighting Jebediah's spell had taken its toll on him—his hair had been singed and the stink of ozone clung to him. His lips were white, and the knotted veins at his temples stood out thick and blue as night crawlers.

  His hands pressed against Michael's face and together we grunted as we grappled with the angel. Marcus reared back and started hammering Michael in his nubby nose as I tried to fold my father's separated flesh back over the small fists, but it didn't work. We were covered in blood and watery colored fluids. Dad kept giggling and wriggling as if he found this all to be ticklish.

  With a loud and nauseating sound of suction, like a shoe being pulled from a mud hole, the archangel Michael emerged covered in ropes of mucus and internal juices.

  His wings barely functioned well enough to carry his stunted cherubic body awkwardly over our heads. Dad clapped and made gestures urging him to fly. Michael grunted in frustration as
he tumbled through the air trying to gain control of himself. His erratic flight led him toward my father again, where the general of heaven's armies crashed into Dad and bowled him over. They both hit the ground.

  I grabbed Uriel's sword and found it incredibly heavy and unwieldy. My father hopped back up on his feet and grasped the handle with me. His slashed harlequin's suit lay wet and sticking all over his chest so that I didn't have to watch his naked pink lungs working like a bellows. Self yanked Michael up by the tip of one wing and forced him forward until he touched the sword.

  Instantly the metal ignited with a fire that didn't burn. Its energy made the inside of my head hum until my back teeth sang. I didn't see how Michael could possibly bring down the behemoth without us, so I gently pressured my dad in the direction of the swing and hoped we could pull it off. The Dragon had not moved at all except for its seven heads shifting in different poses, each one completely expressionless.

  Marcus squinted and covered his face. The fire and Elijah's hate were too much for him, standing this close. It blanketed the area like a radiation leak or a toxic waste spill. He was still too weak to fight this kind of venom. The locusts swarmed around us, their human faces on grasshopper bodies speaking in minuscule voices I couldn't understand. Self swatted and ate them by the dozens, and Hotfoot Johnson and the black owl Prickeare did the same, soaring between the Dragon's legs and over its shoulders. Imps jumped and bounced all over, feasting. Jamara dragged itself forward grabbing mouthfuls of the locusts and spitting out their brass breastplates.

  I looked up at the Dragon. It's already dead.

  Not quite.

  Elijah 's not in there. He's abandoned that body. It's just a mindless hulk again. It's not the Beast of Revelation.

  Perhaps it is. Or will be. We can't take any chances. We have to do these things even if they appear to be pointless.

  His honesty stopped me and made me snap around to look at him. Why?

  Self shrugged. You got me.

  My father, Michael, and I hefted the sword together and drove it into the Dragon's gigantic ankle.

  It was already a creature of stone, and as the fire from the sword moved up the Dragon's leg it seemed to absorb the crimson coloring and draw it from the beast. Once again the hybrid turned ashen, and fissures ran up the length of its marble hewn skin. Elijah's hatred animated it now, but his soul was on the loose. Boulder-sized chunks of its body began to break free and crumble around us. We ran for cover and I dragged my dad back toward the ruins. Michael's expression was one of confusion—even he didn't believe his war with the great Red Dragon could be won so easily as this. He shook his oversize head slowly, knowing that this was only a staged Armageddon of cardboard and smoke, and that he'd been betrayed and misused.

  The archangel Michael, warrior hand of God and general of all heaven's armies, turned and glared at me with such intense malice, with the infinite and eternal hate so clear and bright in his eyes, that I trembled until I almost couldn't stand any longer. He sneered and pointed at my heart, and with his little wings flapping he flew off to the south, deranged and furious.

  I knew he'd be back one day for his revenge.

  He wanted this. Damn him.

  Who?

  Elijah.

  Silver glow ebbing with the coming of evening, the coven began to awaken from Jebediah's spell. The two girls pregnant with Fuceas-spawn immediately dropped inside the magik circle and began to shriek and writhe as they miscarried the hellborn.

  I sat in the center of Jebediah's majik circle for the greatest focus of astral energy, tasting the hint of his remnant incantations and charms. He was still smiling and the hexes bled even faster from his eyes. I tightly crossed my legs, feet pulled up so that they touched opposite thighs, spine straight and head back. Motes of black energy leaked from my mouth and wafted past, encircling my own eyes. My hands were at the center of my chest with fingers interlaced into specific placement. Pinkies, thumbs, and index fingers steepled, and these three steeples each pointing back at myself—thumbs aimed at the heart, pointers at my throat, pinkies toward the forehead.

  I looked over and Marcus was doing the same, joining me in this invocation and on this journey, wherever it might lead.

  Jebediah wasn't about to quit. He intensified his spell and the chanting of the coven grew louder. Even the girls aborting on the ground were still caught in the lace-work of his scheme. Their mouths spoke words while their bellies writhed and the bubbling pink yolk and eggs of the demon earl Fuceas ran out from between their legs.

  I visualized his bitterness and I imagined his happiness, the same duality existing in him as in me. His chin leaked sparks and his scarred face lit with remorse, hopelessness, and the lonely intense wish for death and absolution. No wonder we had found each other. We were so much alike.

  I saw his heart's desire and I would summon it. Jebediah felt my lengthy reach across the drawn veil, my will joined to Marcus's as we went beyond life and nature.

  "What?" Jebediah said. "What is happening? You're doing something!"

  I finally knew in my heart that he had not asked me to the place of battles in order to take over the world or do God's will or instigate Armageddon.

  He only wanted me to save him.

  What time is it?

  The ninth hour, of course, Self said. You know what you're doing?

  It's a little too late to ask now, isn't it?

  It's always been too late.

  You said it, not me.

  Jebediah's hold on the others loosened and they began to rouse from their stupor.

  "What is this?" he yelled, terrified because the world had not yet ended. "What are you doing!"

  "I'm giving you what you want, Jebediah."

  It was easy to draw power from him as his psychic lusts and ghosts, needs and dreads seethed, churned, and fermented deep within. I caught pieces of desires that weren't my own, each ripping at me like teeth and talons. The edges of my vision turned black and red. My hair stood on end and sweat drenched every inch of me. Waves of violent force pounded and twined around all of us. I spoke the necessary ancient words clearly, my tongue wrapping around the uncomfortable sounds and spitting them out. Self urged me on, shivering and trapped in the backwash of our making.

  "You don't know what I want!"

  "I told you once. This isn't about Christ," I said.

  I summoned forth Peck in the Crown, purified and accepted into heaven.

  Jebediah's familiar, his second self, dead as long as Danielle, slowly appeared before me in a maelstrom of eddying shadows and light. Dark jagged bolts of skipping energy erupted from the earth. He looked so much like Jebediah, and Self, and me, all of us there in his small dead face coming to life. He looked at me and smiled.

  Peck in the Crown wandered free and looked toward Jebediah. Both of their mouths worked silently as they stumbled toward each other with open arms and embraced among us.

  Marcus unwound from his position sucking air loudly and slumped onto his side, completely drained from aiding me. Dad shuffled over and peered at the stirring shadows. Something was wrong. Even though I'd ended it the spell of resurrection continued on its own.

  There was another presence here, grabbing on to my will and forcing itself back onto the earth. For a moment I prayed it was Danielle, and then I was absolutely terrified that it might be her.

  And from those swollen, swirling shadows of light and anguish came another.

  He had eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet were of fine brass, his hair white as wool. He felt as empty and ethereal as the broken promises of heaven. I touched his hand, smooth and cold.

  My mind throbbed with a rising scream that eventually made it to my mouth. Whoever had pulled the strings today—Jebediah, Elijah, Satan, or someone else—had not counted on the will of God. Now would begin the apocalypse. A third of humanity would immediately die, the oceans boiling and turning to blood, a plague of locusts loosed on mankind as starvation and war and pestilence ran th
rough the nurseries and yards. As the stars fell from the night. sky the true Dragon would rise from the depths and begin a reign of torment, misery, and depravity that would last a thousand years.

  I couldn't let it happen.

  Betty's butcher knife still lay nearby in the dust. Self or I or Dad or all of us shrieked until our throats cracked.

  I picked up the knife and stabbed forward into the light.

  Sorrowful, sympathetic eyes gazed at me as hot blood sprayed across my hands. "Forgive me!" I howled.

  Blazing eyes, dying but not forgiving. It was done.

  Chapter Twenty

  The wind blew again, rising and falling.

  Jebediah wept and Peck in the Crown sobbed with him. He looked back at me over his shoulder, his face still wet with tears. "How can you be sure that what you've done is right?"

  "I'll be back for Danielle's body."

  "That doesn't matter now."

  "It's all that matters to me."

  He couldn't hide his shock. "What if this was to be the time of judgment, and your meddling has doomed the world? How can you be certain that God himself isn't seething at this? Raging and gathering all the wrath and forces of heaven to be turned against you now?"

  "You just remember what I said."

  Crushed and bitten-through grasshoppers lay strewn across the Plain of Esdraelon. The monolithic child of Armon now lay in broken pieces that looked no different from the rest of the ruins and sacrificial altars of Megiddo.

  No one else spoke to me. Jebediah and the rest of the coven simply walked off without a word. Marcus glanced at me as if he had a great deal to say, but in the end he trudged off without saying it.

  Self climbed my father's costume and worked on his chest. It took a lot of touching up but eventually he got Dad's torso back in good enough shape that nothing was hanging out.

  And the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?