The poet slowly shook his head. “Years later I had finally moved on, had learned to live with my blindness and had renewed my devotion to God and the gift he had given me. My poetry. I had long wanted to write an epic, but I thought, what if I could write one that not only celebrated God’s grace-a prayer of contrition, you might say-but examined the corruption of man. A corruption I knew all too well.
“I asked God to assist me, but I never received an answer. I made claims of a divine muse, but the truth was that no such muse came to me until the very last chapter of my epic was long finished.
“Late one night, I was visited in my sleep. Despite my blindness, I could suddenly see, and before I knew it, I had several sheets of paper in front of me, my finger etching itself into them as if controlled by another being, and I knew in my heart that these were the very pages I had destroyed. They had taken on a life of their own, insisting to be seen.
“Then the angel Michael came to me and told me that I was to be the first guardian of the pages. That I had proven myself trustworthy when I had attempted to destroy them, and now I must hide them away, so that they never fall into the wrong hands. Until the time came that they could be used to serve God.
“The original copy of my epic still lay on my writing table. A final transcription had already been prepared and sent to the publisher, and though I was blind, the manuscript still had sentimental value to me. So the following morning, I gathered up these new pages, added them to the bottom of the stack-my own personal Book Eleven, you might say-and asked my daughter to summon a bookbinder. I stood there with him in the room as he bound all the pages together, then I locked it away in my personal vault.
“It stayed there for nearly ten years. And as Michael continued his long search for the sacred traveler, he asked others to join me in protecting her secret.”
The poet lowered his head, as if exhausted by the story, and Batty said, “But the pages were removed after you died. Who removed them?”
“One of the new guardians, of course.”
“And where were they taken?”
“To where I could continue to watch over them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me show you,” the poet said, then waved a hand in front of Batty’s face.
Suddenly the world went dark again and Batty found himself at the center of a swirling tornado, its walls closing in on him. Then, with startling abruptness, the whirlwind came to a stop and he was floating-floating above an open wooden coffin, looking down on the poet’s body as those milky, sightless eyes stared up at him.
“They are with me,” the poet rasped.
Then, with equal abruptness, Batty awoke. He was sitting in the chair in the all-night bookstore, his palm pressed against the binding of the manuscript as Callahan eyed him with grave concern. He slumped back, feeling as if every bit of energy had been sucked out of his body.
He was barely able to move his lips.
“You were right,” he gasped. “We need to get to London. Now.”
BOOK X
Orgy of Disorder
Why else this double object in our sight
Of flight pursu’d in th’ Air and ore the ground
One way the self-same hour?
-Paradise Lost, 1667 ed., X:201-03
41
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
He didn’t find the house as easily as he would have liked.
Remembering what Zack had told Jenna that first night, that he and his friends were “crashing at a place up in Burbank,” Michael had stolen a Buick convertible and hit the freeway.
Unfortunately, Burbank, a sprawling suburb in the San Fernando Valley, boasted a population of more than a hundred thousand, and traveling from one neighborhood to the next playing a potentially fruitless game of Where’s Jenna was a time-consuming process.
He supposed he could have used another means of travel-a means he and his brethren were accustomed to-but his first attempt since he’d acquired this skin had been an unqualified failure, and he knew that for the time being it was best to stick to the laws of this world for fear he might weaken himself unnecessarily.
His skills would return in time.
Finding the house was a thankless task, but Michael had not prevailed against Belial and her friends these last several centuries by giving up easily. His one advantage was that Jenna’s song still hummed faintly in his chest, fading in and out like distant radio signal, and his only solution was to keep moving block to block, house to house, in hopes that he’d eventually find her again.
He worked slowly and methodically through the night-a game of hot and cold-backtracking when necessary. And by early the next morning he found a run-down house on the outskirts of the city and instinctively knew that it was the right place.
There was no sign of the battered Chevy Malibu in the driveway, however. And the house itself-an abandoned rental with an overgrown yard-looked empty.
They’d been here and gone.
Disheartened, Michael found the back door unlocked and went inside. The kitchen was a disaster that smelled of rancid milk. The living room was filthy and devoid of furniture. Crude graffiti was spray-painted on the walls. The stained carpet was littered with pizza boxes and burger bags, and there were several ratty blankets on the floor, along with enough discarded needles and drug paraphernalia to stock a small medical clinic.
The thought that Jenna had slept in such squalor (if she’d slept at all) deepened Michael’s depression. He had a hard time believing that such an innocent girl could be so easily seduced by Zack’s oily charm. But maybe that innocence had been a figment of his imagination. Maybe he’d been romanticizing the girl because of who she was and what she meant to him. Maybe she was no different from the countless other runaways who had found their way to this sadly corrupted town.
Her song had grown weaker than ever now, only its residue remaining, and he had no idea why the signal was dying.
But he couldn’t give up. Not now. Not ever.
Taking a last look around, he was about to head outside when he heard a soft moan, coming from the down the hall.
Jenna?
Feeling his heart kick up, he crashed through the hallway, moving from bedroom to bedroom. In the corner of the master was an open bathroom door.
He stepped inside and froze.
There was a petite teenage girl lying faceup in the tub, her head canted, a string of vomit running down her chin, a syringe still stuck in her bruised, needle-marked arm.
Not Jenna, but her girlfriend from the cafe.
Michael quickly moved to her and sat her upright, slapping her face to wake her up. But she didn’t respond. He felt for a pulse, but it was barely there and he knew it was too late. The girl would be dead before he could get help.
Something sour churned in his gut, and all he could think was that this could easily have been Jenna.
Placing his palm against her forehead, he blessed her and sent up a silent prayer. It was a formality more than anything else, but he hoped it meant something to someone out there and that this poor girl’s soul would do well in the otherworld.
As her pulse finally came to a stop, he glanced down at her hand and noticed a mark on the back of it, just above the crook of her thumb.
A faded stamp of some kind.
Lifting the hand, he tilted it toward the light from the doorway and took a closer look:
An orange flame. The numbers 904 below it.
He recognized it: an underground dance club named 904, near La Brea and Wilshire, that had derived its name from the local police code for fire. It was rumored to be owned by a media mogul named Jonathan Beel.
Beel, of course, was just a skin. A shell. Occupied by Michael’s old friend and nemesis-brother to Lucifer, and sometime lover of Belial.
Beelzebub.
Michael had never been to the club, had never had the desire to walk right into the lion’s den. But he knew now that he had no choice.
He
was certain he’d find Jenna there.
42
What’re you gonna do to her?” Zack asked.
Jonathan Beelzebub Beel flicked his gaze toward the annoying little insect, his voice weary with contempt. “Are you still here?”
“I’m just curious, is all.”
“I’m beginning to think Belial didn’t do a thorough enough job when she turned you. Or are all of her drudges so nettlesome?”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind,” Beelzebub said, and waved a hand at him dismissively. “Just sit the girl on the bed, then go wait in the hall.”
Beelzebub had been living above the club for several months now. He had a house in Bel Air and a penthouse in Century City, but he preferred the atmosphere of 904. He particularly enjoyed the feel of the relentless beat that seeped up through the floor all day and night. It made him feel alive.
“I had to give her a little taste,” Zack told him. “She didn’t want to at first, but she finally-”
“Didn’t I just tell you to go?”
“Okay, okay.” The insect took the girl by the shoulders and led her to the bed. She was indeed high. A little too high. And Beelzebub wished he’d simply handled the matter himself.
But he was a busy man. He had been using his network of media outlets to help fan the flames of insurrection around the world (humans believed anything they saw on TV) and the task was often difficult and time-consuming. He had people to help him, of course, but he’d always been a hands-on kind of guy.
Now he wished he’d been a bit more hands-on with young Jenna.
Zack sat the girl down and she teetered slightly, but caught herself before she fell. Despite the drugs, she was a lovely little thing. Beelzebub had always been attracted to older women himself-like the reporter he’d met the other night-but this one was something special. She was at that point in her life where her face and body had not yet betrayed her, and the smooth tautness of her young flesh was quite captivating.
If it turned out that Belial had been wrong about her, he might consider putting her on the market.
As the insect headed for the door, Beelzebub said, “You did as I instructed, right? With the other girl?”
Zack nodded. “We left her in the bathtub.”
“And the stamp?”
“Just like you told us.”
“Excellent,” Beelzebub said, then waved him away.
Michael found the battered blue Malibu parked in the lot behind the building.
The building itself was made of crumbling red brick, an old garment factory with boarded-up windows. The rear door looked like something out of a medieval torture chamber, and he assumed this was his old friend’s decorative addition to the place. During the Middle Ages, Beelzebub had spent many years in the skin of a lieutenant at the Tower of London, the proud inventor of a racklike device that would compress a subject’s body until blood ran out of his ears and nose.
The door was unlocked and Michael stepped inside. With the windows boarded up, the only light filtered in through the cracks and seams. The place was huge and musty and mostly vacant, except for the row of old sewing machines on one side of the room, covered with cobwebs, most of them still carrying giant spools of thread. Several bolts of faded fabric were stacked in a nearby corner.
On the other side of the room was a pile of old plumbing pipes, and at the far end was another door. Michael moved to it and pushed it open, and the moment he did, he heard the steady thump thump thump of a dance beat.
A set of steps led downward into darkness, black graffiti and shallow gouge marks covering the walls on either side-signs and symbols that were very familiar to Michael, including Beelzebub’s sigil, buried beneath a string of profanity.
Somebody obviously knew him quite well.
Moving down the steps, he followed a dingy hallway to another door, where a drudge about the size of a Winnebago stood guard, staring at him as if he were an invader from Mars.
Michael tried to push past him, but the guy put a hand on his shoulder. “Who’s your sig?”
“The man himself,” Michael said.
The Winnebago gave him a snort. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
But then he stepped aside anyway, letting Michael into another hallway with graffiti-scarred walls. As Michael moved toward the far end, he listened carefully for Jenna.
Her song was still weak, but he had no doubt that she was here somewhere.
Beelzebub crouched next to the girl. “How are you feeling, my angel?”
Jenna wobbled slightly, tried to focus on him. “Kinda weird… Who’re you?”
“My name is Jonathan. I’m a friend of Zack’s. He said you weren’t feeling well and asked if he could bring you up here for a while.”
She looked around the room. Blinked. “… I don’t like it here. Where’s Zack?”
“Dancing. Do you like to dance?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so…”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. As soon as I get the phone call I’m waiting for, I’ll have Zack take you downstairs so you can have some fun. Okay?”
“…I still feel weird…”
“Don’t worry. That’ll wear off in a few minutes and you’ll be fine. Would you like to lay down?”
“Yeah … ,” she murmured. “I think I better.”
She carefully pulled her legs onto the bed and lay on her side, closing her eyes. Beelzebub studied her, admiring her delicate features, the pale white throat. Too bad Belial wasn’t here. She’d so enjoy this.
He reached over and smoothed her hair. “Zack tells me you’ve had some bad things happen to you, Jenna. Is that true?”
She stirred. “…What kinda things?”
“He says you ran away from home because of your stepfather.”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Does it give you pain, Jenna? Thinking about what he did to you?”
“Yes … Stop.”
“What if I could make all that pain go away, my angel? Would you like me to help you take away the pain?”
She opened her eyes. There was a trace of tears in them. “…Who are you? Why are you asking me this stuff?”
“Because I want to help you, Jenna. There may come a time when you’ll have to make a choice. And I want to help you make the right one. Will you let me do that?”
The phone rang before she could answer.
He reluctantly got to his feet, went to his desk, and hit the intercom. “Yes?”
“Guy just came in. Could be him.”
“What did he look like?”
“Solid. Gray hair. Beard. Maybe sixty or so. But not somebody you’d wanna go one-on-one with.”
The same description the insect had given him. Assuming the idiot knew what he was talking about.
“All right,” Beelzebub said. “Call me back when it’s done.”
He clicked off, glanced at the girl, then went to the door to get Zack.
Michael pushed through a set of swinging doors into a room the size of a warehouse. The place was packed shoulder to shoulder with gyrating bodies, the music loud enough to break the sound barrier.
Strobe lights flashed red and yellow and white, in perfect time to the beat, and Michael didn’t think he’d ever seen so many people jammed into one place. He saw dark leather and jeans and short skirts and fishnet stockings and half-naked women throwing their heads back in laughter as men-and other women-pressed up against them, bodies grinding, hands roaming.
He started circling the crowd, peering into it as he concentrated on Jenna’s song. But it was too dark, and there were too many people out there. And if Jenna had been brought here by force, he doubted she’d be tearing up the dance floor.
So where would she be? A holding room of some kind? An office?
Michael scanned the periphery of the club, looking for stairs or an elevator. He looked back the way he came and saw a cluster of sofas and chairs, where exhausted dancers rested their f
eet and drank exotic beers. To the right of that were the swinging doors he’d just come in through.
And farther to the right was an elevator.
Michael moved. Headed straight for his target. A couple of dancers got in his way, but he didn’t slow down, shoving them aside. He was still several yards away when a light above it flashed and the doors slid open.
And there inside were Zack and Jenna.
Zack had her by the hand, and when he pulled her out of the elevator, she stumbled slightly. Drugged. They looked for a moment as if they were about to step onto the dance floor, then Zack made an abrupt left turn and pushed through the swinging doors, dragging Jenna behind him.
They were headed outside. Fast.
Michael ran, barreling through the doors into the hallway. No sign of them. He picked up speed, slammed through the next door, and still didn’t see them. He flew down that hallway and up the graffiti-covered stairwell, then burst through to the room with the sewing machines-
– and stopped.
Froze in his tracks.
Zack and Jenna stood in the middle of room, facing him, Zack wearing a wide, shit-eating grin on his face.
“What’s your hurry, Mikey? You don’t like to dance?”
There were four more drudges with him. Two on each flank. Three men, one woman. And one of them was the Winnebago. They spread out to block Michael’s path.
“Yeah,” the woman said. “Come dance with us.”
She was covered with tattoos and piercings and looked as if she were completely willing to rip out your throat and feed it back to you without even the slightest hint of remorse. There was a swastika on the side of her neck, and her hair was black and spiky.
The other three didn’t have as many tattoos or as much metal sticking out of their faces, but they had enough muscles between them to start a gladiator show.
He’d been set up. The stamp on that dead girl’s hand had been deliberately put there to see how he’d react. And his presence here had proven to Beelzebub that Jenna was someone special. The someone they’d all been looking for.
The Paradise Prophecy Page 29