by Ira Robinson
How much more dangerous for Lisa if the beast was crushed? Would her cancer return then? Or would she be set free of the terrible geas on her, the cord between herself and the devil cut with his destruction?
More, how would he even kill the demon, to begin with? If, as Indris claimed, it had been he who consumed those in Trading Circle, reaping slaughter on not only humans who knew magic, but demons and the golems, as well, how could Carver compete against that?
He shook his head. So many questions, so much risk, and he was caught without any answers.
He sighed, the breath coming out heavily shaking the bits of shirt overhanging his mouth.
He crossed the wide distance between the pews and the altar, the days of his youth when his grandmother would drag him to church flashing through his mind. That little space was for the supplicants, come to kneel before the altar and the preacher to beg the forgiveness of the unseen for sins they regretted, sure the presence of God was there and His hand upon their shoulders as they wept in adoration.
That holy spirit was not there now. Nothing but flies and rot remained in this place.
Carver mounted the few short steps to the top of the dais, the hanging cross staring down at him numbly, the only help given to him silent judgment, nothing more.
The pulpit was empty but for a few long and thin wooden matches with a striker, and a small piece of square paper. The Bible that might have once occupied this space, its pages wide open, feeding the fire and brimstone shouting from the dais, was gone.
Carver didn't know how much Malachi still believed, his relationship with the church arduous and bitter, but that didn't mean he did not yet hold some affection for God Himself. Maybe the Bible was a reminder of that past he did not want to face, or was important enough to him he kept it somewhere safer than in an old, decrepit part of the parish.
Carver picked up the piece of paper and held it to the light coming in from the windows. It was blank except for a small red dot near the corner.
He drew it close to his eyes, squinting at it, his vision drawn to the speck. Was it blood?
He slipped it into his jacket pocket, keeping it secure until he could look at it in a better light.
He pulled one of the matches from its holder and slid it across the striker. It flickered to life, yellow and orange glow cast on the pulpit as he turned toward the candles.
"For Malachi," he said, remembering how in movies someone would go to a church and light a taper for the dead. "Keep him safe."
He pressed the match to the wick.
A jet of flame flared, its brightness overwhelming his vision as it shot up, hovering two feet high above the wax. He coughed as the gum choked him, going down the wrong pipe in his shock, before sliding down into his stomach.
Out of a flame, a voice spoke words unintelligible, the resonance so deep the gout fluttered with it.
Then it disappeared, leaving the candle unlit.
Carver stomped on the carpet, the match falling out of his hand and bouncing on the floor. A tiny lick extinguished with his foot.
"What the hell?" His voice echoed in the emptiness as he stared at the candle, the white wax seemingly like any other.
The match stick cracked in half as he stepped away from it and bent closer to the candle, ready to leap back if it exploded up again. No smoke wafted up, no heat, the wax still intact. He reached his fingers out, touching it gingerly, but it did nothing. If anything, it had the cool of the rest of the room.
His lips sucked in, confusion wracking him.
He grabbed another and lit it, bringing the taper to the wick once more.
Again, it flared high, the resonance booming through the chamber.
This time, unlike the last, the words came through a little clearer. Carver caught a hint of Malachi's voice to it, but it was like a tape that had been jammed or covered in gunk, vibrating in a strange sine wave with a chorus of voices not his own.
"... God's children... confusion and demonic influences... joy of the Lord..."
The flame guttered out, and the cry faded into nothingness, the absence of the brilliance it shed taking a few moments to recover from as he paced backward.
His eyes twisted toward the tarp and his friend beneath. Malachi, what the hell did you do?
The words were familiar to Carver, but he could not place where. Somehow, whether through his magic or some sort of device, Malachi left a message in flames. The power he at his disposal was beyond Carver's understanding, but if the man had felt it necessary enough to hear the words that he embedded it in fire, there must be something to it.
Jessup padded behind him, his feet silent on the carpet as they crossed out of the church into the manse Malachi called home.
Carver breathed much easier with the door closed, cutting off the small stirring of air that brought the scent of the body into the home. He lowered the shirt, the bottom part of his face sweating profusely. He wiped it away as he entered the study.
He flipped on the lamps. Nothing had been disturbed from the last time he had been there, and he found the leather-bound book easily.
He put it on the desk and sees the prayer he remembered as he dragged the pages to the bookmark.
He reread them a couple of times before closing the book again and rested his back against the chair.
Why had Malachi left this appeal as an imprint? Why did he feel it was so important?
Had he even meant it as a message, to begin with, or was something else to blame? Maybe the words had been caught as Malachi read them, a property of the candles, themselves, to keep the last things said around them like some magic recording device.
He raised his brows, pulling the note he found on the pulpit from his pocket. He put it on the desk under the light and screwed his eyes half closed to see the red dot the best he could.
He ran the tip of his finger across the spot, the minor elevation of it meaning whatever it was, it was not part of the paper itself, some sort of dye.
He scraped a nail against it gently. It broke into fragments, coming apart as a kind of dust.
Blood. Carver was sure of it now. Was it Malachi's, though? Or someone else?
Indentations caught his attention, reflecting as he brought his finger away. Not many, just little strokes along the top center of the sheet.
He flipped it over but the other part, too, was blank, as it had been when he picked it up in the sanctuary.
The dried dot of blood caught his glance again as he returned the paper to the other side. How had it gotten there? Did Malachi mark it intentionally, or was it merely something that had flown across the room to the pulpit and landed when he was murdered and left on the floor? There was so much blood in the church; it was possible.
To have only an individual drop, though? That's what seemed so strange to Carver. If there was more, it might make sense it was some splatter, but a single dot in the corner it would likely be held with didn't seem right.
Carver opened the top drawer of the desk, the bits and bobbles of a bachelor who was an obsessive collector of everything odd gathered within its shadowed interior. He rifled through old papers, a collection of bills that were probably Lisa's age, paper clips and bangles.
Finally finding something he could use, he dragged the safety pin away from the drawer and closed it, the smooth bearings carrying it back to its rightful place nearly silent.
He pulled the paper closer and pried open the clasp.
A small amount of dried blood, dark and thin, kept its place at the end of the pin, its sharpened point obscured with it.
Carver nodded, instincts on track. Malachi had marked the paper for a reason.
Did he know Carver would find it? His friend connected in ways to the afterlife Carver could not fathom. Had he been given warning his death was to come and used his abilities to get something important to Carver, after all?
If blood was what locked the information, could it also be the key to unlock it?
Carver slid as much of
the remnants of blood off of the point of the needle as he could before he plunged it into the tip of his finger.
Tiny flickers welled through the wound.
He brought his finger toward the note, careful to aim it on the dried dot there. He pulled it away and wiped it off on his shirt as the drop crossed through the paper rapidly, sucking into it like a wick but leaving it pure white and unstained.
Then the dark red began to shift across the marks he spotted, the lines becoming words created out of the blood.
Two blazed into reality before the red then flowed everywhere, coating the whole of the sheet in the color and wiping away the traces of what had been there.
Barachiel
Biel
Only there for a few moments, long enough for him to take in before they were gone.
The thick growl behind him dragged his attention from the paper, spinning in the chair to face the door.
Jessup backed into Carver, sliding his body across his leg.
The being he had not seen for more than three years stood in the doorway, arms resting against the sill casually.
Behind him, two huge hounds, fur dark, burnt ash, mixed with magma maroon, glared at Jessup with black veined eyes.
Biel flashed a smirk toward him as the chair slid backward.
Chapter 25
The hounds drooled long strands of spittle and hatred, each drop hitting the carpet, singing it, puffs of smoke wafting up around their claws scraping across the floor. Rumbling growls emitted from between the jutting teeth, tongues waggling in and out like a serpent.
Carver leaped from the chair and backed into the desk, his hand reaching for the hilt of the sword at his waist. The scabbard pulled on his leg, the straps wrapped over his thigh straining as he gained his footing.
Biel's hands dropped from the doorsill, the smoke on his face diminishing as his eyes flicked to what Carver was doing.
"Now, now," he tutted, taking a step into the office. The hounds remained, but Jessup bounded in front of Carver. Biel's feet stopped, and a deep red glow burned. Jessup cowed away, but only a little at the sight.
"What the hell?" Carver asked. Biel showing up now out of nowhere was the last thing he expected.
"Exactly that." Biel lifted a fist, one finger pointing up. "Hell."
"Why are you here, Biel? Why now?"
Biel said nothing for a moment, the scent of sulfur and singed fabric wafting through the dust and murk of the room, as the hounds behind him rustled, their bodies so substantial their backs scraped against the wall on the far side of the hallway.
The finger pointed to the sword Carver still held on to. "I'm not your enemy, Carver. Keep that to yourself."
Carver's grip remained in place, his body wary and ready to move. Three years ago, in an act of desperation, he trusted this being, his life spinning out of control since. That he was back in person disturbed Carver's spirit.
"I'm your ally, Carver," the demon continued. "I'm maybe the only real friend you've ever had."
"Then tell me what is really going on," Carver demanded, his voice rising. Jessup, barely in check, sidled toward the side of the room, his eyes roving between the monster and the hounds. Carver ignored him and the dogs, keeping his locked on Biel's own ember orbs, searching for deception.
"Your daughter is in danger," Biel said, his face passive.
"You don't think I know that?" Carver inched ahead, his hand coming away from the hilt of the sword and stretching for Biel's jacket. The demon backpedaled, but Carver shouted, "Where is she?"
"Azazel has her."
The words stopped Carver cold, his lips falling as his anger slipped.
"Azazel..." The word came out more as a choke than a vocalization, his throat tied and tongue twisting. His skin ran pale as the word echoed in his head.
Azazel was a name spoken by few and feared by all those who did. He was among the original, the highest of Princes in the pantheon of Hell, set in place by Lucifer, himself because he was the first to join in the Fall.
He was responsible for more human misery than most any other demon could claim, and if he had Lisa...
Why would a Prince of Hell want his little girl? Why had he gotten involved at all?
Biel noticed his difficulty and nodded, an almost sympathetic look coming to his face.
"Why, Biel? Why did he take her?"
"That should be obvious," Biel answered, his steps leading him to within inches of Carver's slowly sinking shoulders. "He wants to stop you from completing your mission."
Carver raised his head. "Which is?"
Biel's hand touched his shoulder, the heat breaking through the fabric of his jacket and shirt. "To be the completion of my task."
The hand dropped aside, and Biel turned, his movements oozing as he sauntered across the room. His hands splayed open, the fingers spread wide as he whirled back around to face Carver. "You will grant me the ability to save humanity."
Carver's heart pounded in his chest. "What? How am I supposed to do that?"
"By eliminating the competition." A haggard smile appeared on his lips as the words broke out, glimmering white teeth flashing in the light from the lamps.
Carver finally let his fist fall from the hilt of the sword and raised an eyebrow. "You told me I was destroying the ones out of control."
"There's that, too, yes," Biel shot back as he neared the doorway again. "But don't you understand? I have pity for humans, unlike the other denizens of Hell. They regard them as a means to an end, but I see them as having the potential for much greater." He whirled, pointing the finger at Carver again. "By my hand, they shall be saved, and you, my friend, are that hand."
"I don't understand," Carver said, the warmth of the room increasing. "What's really going on? Why are you doing all of this?"
"Do you crave your Lisa?" The hand dropped away, falling back to his side. Biel crinkled his nose and cut the half-grin, his face darkening into something else entirely.
"She's all I want!" Carver moved, his arms flailing in frustration, the dark jacket whirling with him.
"Then go," Biel answered, nodding. The redness in his eyes intensified, enlarged veins twisting and writhing like moving snakes. "She is in Azazel's hands, and those hands are not tender."
The glow deepened further, and a jolt shot from his orbs, striking Carver's own. His head rammed backward, jerked by the brightness as the sight of the room washed in an instant, the red overtaking everything.
He uttered a speechless cry as his body rocked back, the desk behind him catching him before he could fall. His hands reached instinctively, grabbing the edges of the wood for support.
The red faded, the vision in his eyes changing from that of the place he had been in to see a large warehouse, surrounded by a dingy street.
It lasted only a few seconds before it, too, weakened, the room becoming real again.
As Carver shook, the breath in him coming under control while his vision pulsed with the hard beating of his chest, Biel said an address.
"Hurry, Hallow," as his hand raised. "There's not much time."
He snapped his fingers and vanished, the hounds behind him gone with a vaporizing howl as Carver bolted forward.
"Damn it!" he shouted into the empty hallway, his heart collapsing with dread.
Chapter 26
The miles tore beneath him as he sailed across the countryside, the truck a black steed carrying a nervous knight through the bruised evening light. The sun setting on the horizon ahead laughed as it faded, sending tendrils of rays to spark the clouds above, tinging them with all the colors of the rainbow but hope.
Jessup slept beside him, still recovering, perhaps, from the efforts of the past days, and Carver wished he could lay his own head down and allow himself to be subsumed into unconsciousness. His weariness settled with every movement, every turn of the wheel as he steered the vehicle toward its final destination and the confrontation he would have to face.
If Biel was truthful and Li
sa really was in the hands of Azazel, this was going to be something entirely different from anything he encountered before. Determination drove him, but dread followed his wake as the truck ate the miles, its big tires cutting the country highway a new swath.
Azazel was no mere lieutenant of hell, a sycophant to the higher masters drooling and fretting. No, he was something horrifying, and Carver was honest with himself to know there might be no coming out of this alive.
Carver heard the legends, the whispers about the great demon, below only Lucifer, himself, in the ranking of Hell. Even angels trembled at his name and cowed to his authority.