by Drew Foote
I stared at him. What in the Hell were ten Powers doing traipsing about in battle gear in the 9th Ward? And they just wanted to have a friendly chat with me, of all Demons? Perhaps to sell me some magazine subscriptions to Angelic Weekly? Not fucking likely.
“Good evening,” I replied suspiciously.
“Pray tell, my friend, are you Barnabas?” The smile remained on his irritatingly smug face.
That was definitely bad. Nothing good could come from an Angelic lynch mob who knew my name. I tensed and prepared to take flight.
Cadmiel noticed. “Now now, Barnabas,” he continued smoothly. “We just want to speak with you. Come with us and no harm will befall you, I promise.”
Angelic promises were worth less than my discarded cigarette. The Power was lying, as surely as any Demon I had ever known; I had enough experience with lies to know when someone was trying to feed me one. I didn’t know what they wanted, but I knew it didn’t involve me surviving to tell the tale. It was time to go … immediately.
At just that moment, another surge of divine energy rippled through the street. It was, however, of a Hellish nature. Relieved, I turned. It seemed the cavalry had arrived.
On the street behind me there materialized a party of Demons. Not just any Demons, either: they were soldiers from the Directorate of War, the army of Hell. There stood four Ravagers, a Doombringer, a Banshee, and the war-band’s leader. I gasped in equal parts dismay and relief when I saw the terrifying visage of their commander. The monster’s two jackal heads surveyed the street with bestial joy, their breath steaming in the night air.
Things were about to get unspeakably awful.
It was Makariel, the Bloody Wind. He was a legend even among Fallen Angels, the stuff of Demonic bedtime stories. Hell’s standard-bearer was a sight that few witnessed and survived, Angel or Demon.
Cadmiel’s eyes widened as he recognized the new arrivals. “Seize him!” he cried, gesturing at me. Fear and dread, often unknown to Angels, was visible in their faces. Celestial weapons materialized in their hands. The nearest Powers dashed toward me.
The Angels were fast, but the Bloody Wind was faster. Makariel moved like nothing I had seen before, the liquid flow of a leaping sunspot; the words had barely left Cadmiel’s mouth before the Fallen Angel interposed his powerful form between the charging Angels and myself. His four arms wove a furious rhythm of scything steel, faster than the eye could see, holding the Angelic assault at bay.
The ground began to shake as Makariel’s fellow Demons moved to join the fray. The Doombringer bellowed like an enraged bull, and the weakened buildings nearby began to crumble beneath the sonic onslaught. Its hooves trampled the ground beneath its monstrous bulk as it charged
One of Makariel’s heads turned to look at me. In that moment, I don’t think I had ever seen a creature so perfectly happy.
“Run, little worm,” the jackal snarled with joy. His arms snaked with impossible, blistering speed. Makariel’s swords wove a tempo that boggled the imagination. The Angels surrounded him now, trying in vain to pierce his blinding ripostes.
Running sounded like an excellent idea. Discretion had always been one of my virtues. I bolted from the melee, heading toward a nearby alley.
I glanced behind to see two Powers in hot pursuit. With dismay, I realized there was no way I’d outrun them. I turned, put up my dukes, and prepared for an ultimately futile defense.
I had had a good run. I guess everything ends, when you get right down to it.
The charging Doombringer crashed into the Powers with the bone-crunching force of a Demonic avalanche. The brutal impact sent one of Angels careening through the air like a glowing ragdoll, and bowled the other onto the ground. The Doombringer seized the prostrate Angel in monstrous claws the size of a backhoe’s bucket.
The behemoth gave a furious bellow, shaking its bull’s head. Gripping the Angel in both hands, the Doombringer twisted in a herculean strain. The Angel shrieked in pain, and then tore apart like a children’s party favor, its radiant innards splattering across the street. Delighted, the Doombringer gave a rumbling laugh, and lumbered toward another group of Powers.
I gawked in disbelief. What the Hell had I gotten myself involved in? I turned and continued my escape. I felt another pulse of divine energy as an additional host of Angels materialized in the street to join in the fierce battle.
I reached the mouth of the alley, crowded with debris. I hunched behind the ruined wreck of a car and turned to survey the unfolding carnage. My instinct for self-preservation warred with my curiosity and awe for spectacle, and my curiosity won out. It was a fight unlike any in countless years.
Cadmiel and six Angels surrounded Makariel, hacking at him from all sides. I was aghast at the Bloody Wind’s brutal skill. His prowess was butchery elevated to artistry, movements efficient and blisteringly fast. He danced and dodged, arms weaving with unholy speed, his dual heads facing in opposite directions to see the surrounding attackers.
It was magnificent.
The four Ravagers and the Doombringer struggled with the Angelic reinforcements, each side howling with fury. There was another pulse of celestial energy, and two enormous constructs materialized in the street: heavenly Word-Bearers. They were immense marble statues animated and powered by glowing lines of Scripture carved onto their pearly surface. They were nearly as tall as the Doombringer, with power to match, and they grinded toward the Demons with a lumbering, mechanical gait.
At the rear of the street, the Banshee opened her mouth. Her lower jaw unhinged, mouth opening in a churning infernal maelstrom. Her decaying hair whipped backward as she howled a pestilent torrent of hellish energy at a Word-Bearer. I covered my ears at her shriek.
The energy struck one of the construct’s arms, blasting it off in a burst of marble dust. The lumbering Word-Bearer continued its march, undeterred. The Banshee opened her mouth to howl again, but she was silenced by a radiant arrow that sprouted from her throat, launched by an Angel perched atop a nearby roof. She collapsed into a pile of smoldering rot.
The Doombringer locked bovine eyes on the approaching Word-Bearers. It grinned idiotically, pawing at the ground with cloven hooves, and launched itself toward them in a surging mountain of muscle and horns. It hit the one-armed construct with a jarring impact that shook the ground and broke the Word-Bearer into pieces.
The Doombringer gave a bellowing laugh, pleased with its work, and was then struck in the side of the head with the full force of the second Word-Bearer. A marble fist hammered the Demon’s skull with the colossal weight of Heaven’s might. The Doombringer skidded across the street like a beached whale, its head battered and right horn pulverized.
Without the Doombringer’s assistance, the fight was turning against Hell’s Ravagers. Powers surrounded them on all sides, outnumbering them two-to-one. The Ravagers fought ferociously, managing to bring several Angels down, but their injuries were beginning to take their toll. One fell, and then another, and the Angels cheered with each victory.
I turned back to Makariel, and what I saw transfixed me with awe. He whirled faster and faster, twin heads howling with maniacal laughter. One Angel fell, cleaved in two from sternum to thigh. Another Angel’s head went flying, separated from its shoulders by a strike I couldn’t even see. I realized, with dawning horror, that the Bloody Wind had been holding back. He was toying with his prey.
Makariel’s tongues lolled wildly with pleasure. “Slaves!” his throats roared in unison. “Let me return you to your master!”
Cadmiel seemed to be on the verge of panic as he realized that he was the one now defending. The Angels fought desperately to hold back the surging whirlwind of Makariel, but they knew they were doomed.
The injured Doombringer struggled to raise itself from the ground as the lumbering Word-Bearer rumbled closer. It powered to its feet in time to lock hands with the construct, grunting with monumental effort. Blood poured from its ruined face. The two powerful titans struggled with each o
ther, each driving the other back in turn.
The Angels surrounding Makariel were now dropping like flies. The Bloody Wind’s furious strikes kept scything faster and faster, far more than any mere Angel could defend against. Makariel’s four blades sang an irresistible melody of massacre. I mentally cheered, hardly believing my eyes.
He was alone with Cadmiel, now. The Angel retreated backward before Makariel’s onslaught, parrying desperately. He could not stop the flood that swept toward him.
“Stop!” Cadmiel cried urgently. “You know not what you do!”
“Says the slave,” Makariel growled. Casually, almost languidly, the Demon batted Cadmiel’s shield aside and darted forward in a blur. Four hands drove four swords into the Power’s chest. Cadmiel looked down at the protruding blades in shock.
The Bloody Wind laughed, and wrenched his swords outward. Cadmiel quartered in an explosion of Angelic gore, the Angel’s death cry lingering in the air like a wordless hymn. The surviving Angels stared in dismay at their fallen leader, and Makariel licked his lips happily.
He turned and stalked toward the Powers, flinging glowing ichor off the ends of his blades.
“Retreat!” one of Angels cried, and the holy host flew into the sky in a hasty withdrawal. The Word-Bearer crumbled into inanimate rubble. The lone surviving Ravager and the Doombringer collapsed in exhaustion. Makariel surveyed the carnage with cheer, and he then turned to eye me hiding in the shadows.
This is slightly awkward.
I couldn’t have been expected to tangle with those fanatics, but I still felt somewhat embarrassed at my flight. I emerged from behind the wreckage and walked sheepishly toward my savior.
“Well, that was most impressive, sir!” I offered with forced bravado. “What was that all about?”
Makariel grinned at me with slavering fangs. Two heads winked in unison, and the Demonic party dematerialized.
Chapter 7
The Tower of Knowledge
“Thank you for seeing me, Lord Paimon,” the Fiend began.
Paimon nodded politely. He sat on his simple throne in the study at the top of the Tower. A fire crackled in the hearth, and scrolls and parchments filled the room. A vast window yawned behind him, looking out upon the blasted plains of the 4th Circle from an impossible height.
The Fiend stood before him, an emissary from one of the Directors. It bowed slightly. “So tell me,” Paimon asked carefully. “What brings you to the Tower?”
The Fiend grinned a sharp, unpleasant smile. “The Director asks a favor of you. There is a mortal soul under your care that he is very interested in: Walter Grey. He desires this soul.”
Paimon stared coolly at the Fiend, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I see. And what does the Director want with this soul?”
The fire cracked and popped in the hearth as the two Demons eyed one another. A forlorn wind gusted through the windows, causing the room’s tapestries to dance slightly. The Fiend gave a rumbling chuckle, shrugging its winged shoulders. It smiled with false self-deprecation.
“I’m afraid I don’t know, Lord Paimon. No one tells me anything.”
Paimon shook his head firmly. “I think not. This soul does not belong to me, and it is under my care. That is a trust I cannot violate.”
The Fiend stared at Paimon menacingly, its powerful jaws clenched in irritation. “That would be a mistake, Lord Paimon. You know my Master is not one to be denied. Give the soul to us, or suffer the consequences.”
Paimon rose from his throne, and murder danced across his gentle features. “You have the audacity to come into my home and threaten me?” he boomed. The stones of the Tower began to hum and vibrate. “I know your Master well, Fiend! I also know that my power is absolute in this place, and that he is welcome to pit his strength against mine.”
The vibration of the Tower grew in intensity, quaking with a resonance to match Paimon’s. The Fiend snarled, gnashing its teeth. “You deny him at your own peril, fool! You cannot stay in this tower forever! He will rend the stones of this place, brick by brick!”
The Fiend’s wings opened as it prepared to lunge at Paimon.
“That’s enough from you,” the Master of the Tower of Knowledge growled with finality. He raised a delicate finger, and flicked it toward the open window.
The Fiend was violently flung through the Tower’s window as though shot from a cannon. Paimon whispered a forgotten word, and bisecting lines of colorless light shredded the Fiend’s wings into useless confetti.
The Demon’s terrified wail trailed off into the distance as it plunged toward the barren ground.
~
“Good evening, my friend,” a kindly voice whispered in the darkness. The voice seemed far away: impossibly faint. Walter floated in a foggy murk of half-realized shapes and echoes. He drifted in an ocean of despair.
Walter’s frayed sense of self sought the voice like a life preserver floating atop a stormy sea, clinging desperately at its promise of salvation. Ghostly laughter cavorted in the depths of Walt’s dream, always behind him. He swam faster and faster, but he felt himself begin to sink.
Walt felt the ravenous emptiness that waited for him below, hungry and desperate. Its mouth opened and its face unraveled, its eyes weeping oblivion. It promised dissolution and relief … he just had to let go.
Walter felt firm hands grip his shoulders. They shook him. He screamed and his eyes flew open, surging back into consciousness. He gasped for air.
Paimon’s gaze was tender as he peered down at Walter. His face was soft and caring: the gentle face of an elderly scholar. A neatly trimmed white beard lined his jaw. He was dressed in a simple black robe of wool.
It might have been easy to forget it was the face of a Demon, had it not been for the slender white horns that curved from his brow. Paimon released Walter and stepped back. Walter’s vision swam into focus as he examined his surroundings with a feeling of vertigo.
The world began to take shape: an immense circular room filled with the warm, glowing light of thousands of candelabras. Towering bookshelves lined the walls and stretched high into the impenetrable darkness. Countless rows of shelves marched across the center of the room, an unimaginable quantity of leather-bound tomes.
Walt stared with wonder at the miraculous paradise of books. It was as though he had awoken within the legendary Library of Alexandria. He felt warm, and safe, and peaceful; he felt as though he had come home. He looked back to the Demon with awe.
The Demon returned Walter’s gaze, a thin smile on his wizened face. He gestured toward a small reading table. Walter rose, unsteadily, and walked toward the table. Upon reaching it, he collapsed in the comfortable chair. The human shook his head slowly in disbelief.
Paimon sat gracefully down in the opposite chair. He smiled. “There now, much better. Walter, is it?”
Walter nodded, still unable to find his voice. Paimon did not seem to mind. “As I said earlier,” the Demon continued. “I am Paimon the Cruel, the master of this place. You are in the Tower of Knowledge, and you are now under my tutelage.”
Walt stared at the Demon while he struggled for words. Paimon sat patiently. That face seemed to know everything.
“W … why?” Walter finally managed. His voice was hoarse and bruised from countless screams.
A look of sorrow flickered briefly across the Demon’s features. “You are here because you did something very foolish, Walter,” he finally answered. “And now you are to be punished. I am to be the instrument of your punishment.”
Fear welled in Walter’s heart. The Tower was so different from what he had experienced earlier … what torment now lay in store for him?
“Punishment? There’s more?” he asked in a small voice.
“I’m afraid so, yes. There is always more. This tower is a repository for all the knowledge in existence. Its libraries contain the wonders and mysteries of creation … and the horrors, as well. There are a great many of those. You are a philosopher, correct?”
/> Walter nodded slowly, unsure. Paimon smiled appreciatively. A seed of dread grew slowly in Walt’s stomach, spreading its black leaves within.
“Ah, I do so love philosophers,” the Demon sighed wistfully. “Philos Sophia; the love of wisdom. We are kindred spirits, you and I. We shall put that love to the test, my friend.”
Paimon rose wordlessly and walked toward one of the bookshelves. Again, Walter’s voice failed him. “I must educate you, dear Walter,” Paimon continued as he searched through the contents of the shelf. He found what he was looking for, pulling out an enormous work bound in red leather.
The Demon returned to the table and placed the heavy book in front of Walter’s frozen form. Paimon’s eyes were profoundly sad, a chasm that had been etched in the ages.
The tome sat ominously before Walter, its bloody binding ominous. The leather seemed to shift and crawl in the dancing candlelight, promising terrible insights. It was hungry.
“And to be properly educated, one must have a proper understanding of the basics,” Paimon whispered. “I contend there is nothing more basic to the human, or divine, condition, than War. It is here that we shall begin.”
The surface of the book hummed with malevolent energy.
“No!” Walter finally managed to gasp. “You don’t have to do this! You aren’t cruel! I don’t deserve this,” he pleaded with an urgent sob.
Paimon shook his head regretfully. He looked down. “What is crueler than knowledge, Walter? And we seldom get what we deserve,” he answered in a voice as soft as silk.
“Now, read.”
The book flew open, devouring Walter Grey.
~
Two surging masses of humanity collided with a sound to shatter the world. Swords and spears cut and stabbed with thick clangor. Wet. Two lines pressed against one another with mountainous weight. A symphony of steel and dying screams filled the gray air.