by Vox Day
Kaym inclined his head for a moment, and magically exchanged his cloak and robes for an expensive black suit of Italian design and a dark, patterned tie that seemed to hold all the stars of the galaxy in its hypnotic weave.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling this inexorable compulsion to appear before my dread summoners.” He grinned sardonically and slipped on a pair of designer sunglasses as his form began to shimmer, and Melusine knew the Lord of the Star Wheel was mocking the boys’ feeble attempt at a conjuration. “Alas, but I must once more tread upon this mortal coil….”
Chapter 19
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Disaster! An unheard-of disaster is coming. The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. It has come!
—Ezekiel 7:5-6
The flames in the stone fire pit were crackling hotly as they consumed the wooden bowl and its contents. Brien could see that the wine, its purity adulterated with Derek and Brien’s blood, was bubbling already. Another small bead of blood swelled from the small wound on his wrist, and he licked at his thumb and rubbed at the wound, smearing the blood in a half-hearted attempt to make the bleeding stop. He would have preferred for Derek to cut his finger instead, but Derek had insisted on slashing their wrists. Fortunately, the cuts weren’t deep.
Derek was on his knees chanting the spell now, and Brien watched his friend reach out carefully for the knife which was precariously balanced between one of the stones of the pit and a burning piece of wood. The fire was burning fairly high, and he wondered if the rubber blade might start to melt.
“ONIL DIAV OLOM!” Derek shouted skyward at the last, disappearing vestiges of the sun, and he withdrew the heated blade from the fire then stabbed it violently into the ground before him. At just that very moment, the bottom of the sacrificial bowl burned through, and there was a loud hissing sound as the boiling wine inside it flowed down onto the heart of the fire. Steam mingled with smoke, and to Brien’s surprise, the fire abruptly went out. The wine had completely doused the flames somehow, and not a single glowing cinder remained alight.
“What happened?” he asked Derek.
“Son of a bitch! That handle was hot! I should have worn gloves.”
“The fire went out,” Brien pointed out. “We didn’t put that much wine in the bowl, did we? Did we?”
Derek ignored him, and looked around the backyard.
“I guess it didn’t work,” he said, sounding disappointed.
“Why would you say that?” someone said from the direction of the swimming pool.
Brien whipped his head around, then stepped backwards in surprise when he saw a tall man dressed in an elegant black suit, standing in the middle of the swimming pool. He was standing there doing nothing more than looking casually imperious, but he was standing on top of the water! Brien shook his head and looked more closely to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. He wasn’t. The guy’s fancy leather dress shoes were firmly planted on the smooth, glassy surface as if the water was asphalt instead of highly chlorinated H2O.
“Are you Shalmaneser or what?” he heard Derek ask disbelievingly.
The man grinned, and exposed a perfect set of teeth. He looked like a movie star, as in the rising moonlight his white skin, teeth, and shirt stood out from his black hair, suit, and tie to create a coolly monochromatic image. He looked reasonably normal, except for his good looks and lame sunglasses-at-night deal. Well, there was also the walk-on-water thing too, that wasn’t all that normal either, come to think of it.
Brien didn’t think the guy was Shalmaneser, though, unless the Encyclopedia Brittanica’s pictorial conception of Assyrian dress was seriously off base. He steeled himself and fought the urge to run as the man walked towards them, stepping off the water onto the surrounding tile without seeming to notice any difference between the two surfaces.
“No, I’m not the son of Assur-natsir-pal,” he said, in a friendly voice that sounded surprisingly normal. “He was a good servant of mine, in his day. Your exploits, I fear, will not live on through the ages as his have done, but I shall cherish them all the same.”
“Who are you?” Brien demanded fearfully, as Derek took offense at the man-who-wasn’t-Shalmaneser’s words.
“Our exploits? What exploits? And who gives a damn if you cherish them? Who the fuck are you? What are you?”
“Derek,” Brien elbowed his idiot friend in the side. Hard. “Shut the hell up!”
This was a new situation, but Brien was pretty sure that if it was stupid to mouth off to the jocks, then you’d have to be a complete fucking moron to get in this dude’s face.
The man in the black suit nodded politely towards him. There was something strange about his tie, which was black with tiny white dots. But the pattern had a certain depth to it, it was almost three-dimensional.
“My name does not matter in the least,” he told them. “You will never see me again, nor, when I am finished here, will you remember me. But you are sealed to me, now and forever, consecrated with the blood.”
Brien and Derek looked at each other, and each of them saw dawning fear and horror in the other’s eyes. This wasn’t a virus, obviously, but it sure felt a lot like failing the stupid test.
But then the man laughed cheerfully, and he smiled in an amused manner that seemed to suggest he’d just been messing with their heads.
“There’s no need to be afraid,” he said soothingly. “Don’t fear me. I’m not going to harm you in the least. In fact, I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to keep both of you from harm. You are my warriors, and what I once did for Shalmaneser, I shall do for you. I will give you what you most desire—power, raw power, and freedom from the chains of those you hate! No one shall restrain you, and you shall walk like gods over the lifeless bodies of your enemies!”
Derek nodded, impressed, but Brien was just confused. This wasn’t making any sense to him.
“What are you talking about? I don’t get it.”
The tall man shook his head, and his thin lips twisted to the left.
“Whether you understand me or not doesn’t matter in the least, Brien Martin. What must be, will be. Life is life. I have chosen you, and you have called me, and I am here. That is enough, not one iota of the Law has been broken.”
Brien started when the man mentioned life. Life, and power, and lifeless bodies. That reminded him of that freaky dream-vision he had when they were tripping a few weeks ago. But this tall man, radiating self-confidence and power, looked nothing like the scrawny Nazi dude with the eyes of fire. Unless, of course, they were hidden behind the dark glasses.
“Show me your wounds,” the man ordered them unexpectedly.
Wounds? Brien didn’t get it at first, but then he saw Derek, seemingly mesmerized, was extending his arm, palm-upwards. Oh, the knife cuts. But Brien decided he didn’t want to go along with the program and folded his arms instead.
“Take your shades off first,” he insisted. “Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
The man slowly raised his right hand, and Brien saw he had either a tattoo or a bad scar marking the back of it. He watched, holding his breath, as the man’s fingers closed around the plastic frame of the sunglasses and gracefully drew them away from his face, revealing a perfectly ordinary pair of blue eyes. They were a little on the cold side, perhaps, and proud, but otherwise ordinary. Brien didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed. Either way, the man’s eyes were unreadable, and told him nothing more than had the dark glasses that hid them.
“All right then,” he said, and he held out his left wrist for the man to examine.
He was taken aback when the man then leaned forward and placed his lips against the little scratch, kissing it lightly, as if he was European or something and Brien’s wrist was a lady’s hand. Brien jerked his arm away, alarmed, but the man didn’t seem to care and he gently kissed Derek’s wrist as well.
“What are you, some kind of faggot?”
De
rek looked disgusted, and Brien could understand why. Maybe the guy was a fairy, in more ways than one.
The man ignored them though, and he raised his hands above his head. He held them in a strange position, not straight up, but almost as if he was using his hands to hold up the sky.
“Come, lords of the sky wheel, come gods of light and night. Come Lion, come Crab, I call thee hence, enter these, the vessels which I have prepared for thee!”
Then, without warning, his hands reached out for them again. Brien leaped backwards as soon as he realized the man was going to grab him, but he didn’t move fast enough. The man caught his arm and held him fast. He pried at the long, white fingers, trying to escape, but the man’s grip was unbreakable.
“Let me go!” Brien screamed, panic-stricken “Let me go!”
Above him, in front of him, the stars were glowing red, and he could feel something hot burning his wrist, as if the scratch had somehow caught fire. He felt, rather than saw, the presence of a second man appearing behind the man holding his arm, and then the stars began to spiral in front of him. His stomach dropped sickeningly away as they rushed towards him, and he fainted.
Melusine was vaguely intrigued by Kaym’s vengeful plans, but she didn’t find watching Mahalidael and Rahdar taking possession of the two boys to be very interesting as a spectator sport. It made her wonder, though, what in the world Lord Kaym was thinking to be using Zodiac Lords for such a simple task. Surely the boys’ Tempters would have sufficed; after all, they’d clearly done an excellent job in the eighteen years leading up to this point.
Kaym winked at her from the ground, and a moment later, was standing next to her on the rooftop. He seemed pleased with himself, and was in an unusually talkative mood.
“Not the most interesting show tonight, my dear, but it was necessary, and I promise you, the headline attraction will be well worth it. Think of this as the casting call, perhaps.”
Melusine stared evenly at the angel lord. She had serious doubts about his enterprise, and although she would have been happy to keep them to herself, she knew he would see them anyhow if he took the trouble to look.
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Lord Kaym, but if you remember, you chose Christopher to take part in your schemes three months ago and he was much like these two when you took him. And when he returned, only two hours later, he was already lost—sixteen years wasted! Are you sure that won’t happen again?”
“I will not permit that to happen.” Kaym waved away her concerns. “We are in a different time, in a different place, under the rule of a different King. The two situations do not bear comparison. And remember, I demanded a great deal of Christopher, much more than I require of these two. I gave him too much power, and it went to his head. Perhaps he’s truly serious about serving the Enemy, or perhaps he isn’t; it may well be that he is simply trying to use the Enemy as a way to protect himself from me. He surely knows I’m coming for him sooner or later.”
Melusine shook her head, irritated. Kaym hadn’t been around Christopher lately, and she had. He simply didn’t understand the situation, she was sure. Christopher wasn’t concerned about his former mentor, indeed, on the few occasions he did think of Kaym, there was almost a regretful, wistful tone to his thoughts. Whatever his true motivations might be, hatred or fear of Kaym didn’t appear to be among them.
“I think he’s serious, Lord Kaym. He believes, he has true faith. I see his thoughts, I watch his dreams, and he’s one of them now.”
The angel lord shrugged indifferently.
“That is unfortunate. A sad loss. But that’s also why I chose the two Archons to take the place of the Tempters you might have used in my place. They are strong, and they can withstand scores, even centuries of lesser Divine.”
That was true, although Melusine didn’t see why they would need to. The Divine weren’t going to start a major war over two young good-for-nothings who were already in the palm of the Prince.
“It just seems like a waste to me, to use Archons in this way. They are strong, but are they skilled in the art of temptation? Tempting is a skill, you know, it takes time. And practice.”
“I didn’t expect professional jealousy from you!”Kaym smiled faintly. “But perhaps you’ll be relieved to know I’ve given both of them strict orders not to do any tempting at all. They are simply to watch and wait, until the proper time. Then, they will be needed protect my intrepid warriors from the inevitable Divine interference.”
Melusine had always been attracted to Kaym’s great power, and he did have a certain distant charm, but she was starting to think that his casual contempt for all of his lessers might be a weakness. Perhaps it was even one of the factors that had caused Christopher to switch sides on her. The Enemy was hard and inflexible, but he at least made a pretense of caring for what he called his sheep.
“Oh, I do care, my dear. But not that much.”
The angel lord reached out and took her hand. Just as he’d done with the boys, he raised it to his lips, and she felt an electric surge of power rush through her body as he kissed her fingertips. It was delicious, but it reminded her that while she might be a favorite of Kaym’s, she was not his equal.
She lowered her eyes in penitence. It was not her place to question a Great Lord, and she was fortunate he had not simply blotted her from existence for daring to do so. Familiarity is a trap, she reminded herself. There is no friendship among the Fallen, she knew that. How could she have forgotten that, even for a moment?
Melusine bowed as humbly as she could.
“Forgive me, Great Lord. It is not my place to question you, and I look forward to witnessing the full revelation of your will.”
Kaym laughed and she shivered. In his voice she could hear the pride of the fallen angel, the surety of the demon lord, and the hungry anticipation of the god of blood and fire. One thing she knew. Whatever Kaym intended was going to create a literally ungodly mess.
Chapter 20
The Dog That Gets Beat
I'm the dog that gets beat
Shove my nose in shit
—Alice In Chains, (“Man in the Box”)
Monday mornings always sucked, Brien thought, and groaned as he saw a hand shoot up in the second row of his fourth-hour history class. He used to like history all right, but listening to Mr. Olson’s meandering lectures was a massively boring waste of time. The only thing worse than Olson’s pointless droning was having to stomach the stupid, self-serving questions of the honor rollers, who were either angling for extra-credit or were harboring a desperate craving for attention. Getting an A for them wasn’t so much about intelligence or study habits; it was the sign of a psychological problem.
The hand waving so urgently belonged to Amy Bellows. She was one of the worst of the bedwetters, as Derek had contemptuously labled the more conspicuous members of the A Honor Roll.
“Bedwetters?” Brien asked him once. “Why do you call them that?”
“Because that’s what those sorry fuckers do when they have their recurring nightmares about waking up and finding out their name isn’t listed in the local rag with the other shit-for-brains suck-ups. They wet the fucking bed!”
And sure enough, Amy managed to come up with a question that was outrageously stupid, even by her usual moronic standards.
“Since we’re talking about atomic bombs and stuff, Mr. Olson, well, I was reading the New York Times this morning, and they said that NASA is going to put nuclear waste on the next space shuttle. So my question is, if it exploded, you know, the nuclear waste, wouldn’t that be bad, and how big would the explosion be compared to, like, the one in Hiroshima?”
Brien smiled derisively as the teacher stared at the brainless wonder with a carefully blank look on his face. The poor dude didn’t even know where to start with that one! Amy was really firing on all three cylinders today. He wondered if he’d get kicked out of class if he stood up and applauded. Probably. Olson wasn’t all that big on public sarcasm.
; “Well, let’s just say it would be best if we didn’t ever find out, Amy.” The brown-bearded teacher adroitly managed to avoid addressing the lame question. “But does anyone know how many casualties were avoided by President Truman’s….”
Let’s just say it’s nuclear waste, not a nuclear bomb, bitch! Brien directed a savage telepathic message in Amy’s direction. It clearly didn’t get through, though, because the valedictorian candidate sat there just as smug and proper and as clueless as ever. Brien shook his head. It was amazing how so many people managed to mistake rote memorization for brains. At least he only had to suffer through a few more months of this, Madison, he felt sure, would be different.
He rubbed at the tattoo he’d gotten two days ago with Derek. It was still a little sore. He’d gone over to the Wallace house after his triumphant almost-a-date with Tessa at the mall, and for some reason that wasn’t quite clear to him now but had seemed vitally important at the time, they’d wound up cruising Grand Avenue in search of a needle shop. Brien stared admiringly at the lion on his wrist. It was kind of medieval-looking, raising up on its two hind legs and exposing its claws while at the same time baring a nasty set of fangs.
Don’t fuck with me, you could almost hear it say. It was cool, and totally appropriate too, since Brien was a Leo. He’d wanted to get something he wouldn’t regret when he got older, and the tattoo guy had suggested their names, but Brien thought that was ridiculous. It just made you look like you were too stupid to remember your own name. Then Derek thought of using their birth signs, and Tattoo Guy redeemed himself in Brien’s eyes by producing the designs for this wicked cool lion and the most vicious-looking crab he’d ever seen. Just having the tattoo made him feel tougher, and more ready to stand up for himself.
At long last, the bell released him from the purgatory that was Modern American History, and after dropping off his books at his locker, he headed down to the cafeteria to meet Derek. They’d arranged their schedules in such a way that they both had fifth and sixth hour free, allowing them a full hour-and-a-half for lunch. Sometimes they’d drive off campus and eat at McDonalds, other times they’d skip eating altogether and spend the whole time playing Magic in the library.