The Angel of the Abyss

by Hank Schwaeble

  Movement in the shallow tunnel. A head emerged, a length of narrow body followed. Dull, light-gray scales.

  “The Black Mamba is considered the most deadly snake in the world. Do you know why? Not because it is the most venomous – there are species with venom even more potent. It is the most deadly because it combines a neurotoxin – concentrated enough in one bite to kill anywhere from a dozen to two dozen adults – with incredible speed and aggression, much more than you find in other snakes. It has been known to strike ten to twelve times in a row, rapid-fire.”

  Jonah cleared his throat. His lower lip stretched down against a clenched jaw until he tightened his mouth into a grimace.

  The snake's head rose slowly as its tongue tested the air. It moved forward, then pulled its neck back into an S shape, the combination of scent and heat exciting its instincts, an eager cast to its motions. The tension in its muscles caused it to tremble slightly, like a coiled spring. The kitten mewled even louder, sensing something it didn't like. It pulled back warily, butting up against the side of the tank.

  “The serpent is cursed. But so is man.”

  The snake launched itself, its head ballistic, its body spearing faster than the naked eye could see. Micah's hand shot down at the exact same moment, snaring the serpent's skull just behind the jaw and lifting it out of the tank. The snake hissed, its mouth wide, body writhing. It worked its head from side to side, but was pinched in Micah's fingers too tightly to move.

  “It's called a Black Mamba because of the color of its mouth,” Micah said. “And it's feared more than any other because of its speed.”

  He reached his other hand into the tank and retrieved the kitten. He held both up for his brother to see. “Tell me, Jonah.” Micah raised the snake up. Its tail whipped and it coiled and uncoiled itself around his arm. “Can this creature help what it is? Should I blame it for trying to kill me, even after I rescued it from being a neglected conversation piece in that reptile mill, removed all those ticks from its scales and cured its infections?”

  “No, Micah. I suppose not.”

  “Don't suppose when you know the answer. And since it cannot help what it is, why do we think it kind to deprive it of food? Kindness without balance is always cruelty at some other point in the scale. If I were to feed it this kitten, most would think me a monster. But this kitten is mere months away from being a cat, and a cat is just as much a predator as this snake. Both would feed as hungrily on one of those harmless rats over there. The cat, in fact, would be just as likely to kill it for its own amusement as anything else. Not so the snake.”

  Jonah looked across at the cage of rats. The rat cage had a small light shining into it, clipped to a corner. Clumps of fur huddled together, twitching and trembling in what looked to be a social way. A few sat on haunches, sniffing. Some were white, some gray, some multicolored. They all had fleshy tails and large front teeth.

  “Do you know what separates the two? The nature of the curse.”

  The snake's body twitched and spun. Micah lowered it into the cage and nodded to his brother, then released it. Jonah put the screen back over the top. The mamba twisted itself flat and then slipped smoothly into the log, head-body-tail snapping out of view.

  “The same way the nature of the curse separates me from the rest of humanity. I have to know why.”

  “I don't like it when you talk that way. Like you're not a person.”

  “I know you're not comprehending me, but that's okay. It all comes down to speed, Jonah. Think of it as an expression of how something moves through time. We are all cursed to move through time differently. My particular curse is simply more pronounced. There has to be a reason.”

  “And the people who keep showing up?”

  The man shrugged. “The difference between me and them, between me and you, is not limited to simple kinesthetics. Think of a bullet. It travels extremely fast through time. But it must use that speed to hit a target, or all that energy will simply evaporate, and it will in the blink of an eye fall somewhere, like a pebble, useless.”

  “I just don't understand why you have to get your answers from a... a...”

  “Demon? You can say the word, Jonah.”

  “Yes, a demon. I don't like it. I've told you that.”

  “When they asked Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, do you know what he said? Because that's where the money is.” Micah paused. “I'm frightening you. That is not my intention.”

  “I'm sorry, it's just... it's like every month or two, I realize I don't know you. I can't keep up. So much changes so fast.”

  “You are still my brother, Jonah. Nothing will ever change that.”

  “I know. It doesn't always feel that way, is what I'm saying.”

  “I am only doing what I must. You have to trust me. I not only move faster, react faster. Everything about me is faster. That means I think faster. You, of all people, should know this. You need to have faith in what I'm doing. If you don't, the others will sense it. They've come here for a reason. I have to find out what that reason is. For their sake. For mine. You're young, I know it's unfair. But I need you to be sturdy beyond your years. Mature.”

  Jonah stiffened. He locked his gaze on his brother for a moment, eyes narrowing, then caught himself and looked away.

  “It's obvious what you're thinking,” Micah continued. “What you're often thinking. I would have hoped by now you'd understand. It's my fault for not sitting you down and spelling it out for you. Making sure you grasped things fully.”

  “I do.”

  “I'm not so sure. But I can't expect you to, since it's been so long since we talked about it, the ever-present elephant in the room. How old do I look to you?”

  Jonah shook his head. “I don't know. Thirty? Thirty-five?”

  “This proves my point. I'm at least ten years older than that.”

  Jonah said nothing.

  Micah bent down and placed the kitten in a cardboard box, gently setting it on a blanket. He walked across the cavern floor to the rat cage. He opened one of them, stuck his hand in and retrieved a rat. It was plump and curious and did not seem to mind being handled. Micah stroked it the same way he had the kitten, kissing it gently. He crossed back toward Jonah and stood there, petting it for a moment. Another kiss, what looked like a whisper into its ear, then he lifted the lid to the snake tank and dropped it in. He replaced the screen as it worked its nose and whiskers and swiveled its head to sniff its surroundings. The shadow in the log stirred.

  “The rat is just as entitled to life as the kitten, and just as unlikely, even more so, to hurt anyone. But the kitten is cuter, so it gets the sympathy. Even though it would certainly eat you if big enough. Nature is not fair. It cannot function without sacrifice. That means some of us don't get to live long happy lives. Some of us have to grow up quickly. Some of us don't get to grow up at all.”

  Micah leveled his gaze at Jonah and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Getting back to what I was saying earlier, to answer that thought, no, Jonah. While I am still your brother and always will be, I am definitely not your younger brother. And I haven't been since you were about thirteen.”

  Chapter 5

  The waiting area for Sahara Doyle's production company was set in the corner of the fifth floor, with tinted carpet-to-ceiling windows that offered a view of the Strip a mile away as it baked in the afternoon sun. The six-floor Plaza Square complex seemed new and efficient, and Hatcher guessed the air conditioning made it forty degrees cooler inside than it was on the street.

  “I still think we should have made an appointment,” Amy said. She was sitting in a canvas chair, thumbing the pages of a glossy magazine. Photos of television personalities, snippets of gossip about stars and starlets, promo puff pieces about upcoming movies and TV shows, probably not a word of copy that wasn't bought and paid for by the entertainment industry. Hatcher had already flipped
through it while Amy had read another one just like it.

  Hatcher leaned against the glass, the famous row of casinos to the west of them looking like giant amusement park attractions. Which, it occurred to him, they sort of were. Disney World with gambling and sex and drinking. “The less time she has to prepare, the more likely it is we'll get some honest answers.”

  “I'm surprised we've gotten this far.”

  Hatcher said nothing. He looked back toward the reception counter where a young blonde with pimply skin was staring at a monitor, occasionally speaking into the mike of her headset as she routed calls. She was out of earshot, and even if she'd been closer she didn't seem to show an interest, merely smiling when he told her he was there to see her boss. Amy was right to be surprised. He'd been expecting some difficulty gaining access, had a pretext ready to go, a story about a job interview on the third floor. But security had asked for their IDs, punched in some keystrokes then just handed them visitor badges. No scrutiny, no metal detector. No one asked the purpose of the visit. He'd expected more.

  An athletic-looking brunette in a tight-fitting skirt-suit walked through a set of glass double doors with an etched logo of an S and a D forming a human eye and stood on her high heels at the edge of the waiting area. “Mr Hatcher? Ms Doyle will see you now.”

  Amy put down the magazine and rose from the chair.

  “I'm sorry,” the woman said. Her frown was overly sympathetic, like a cartoon expression. “But I was told just Mr Hatcher. She was quite specific.”

  Amy looked at Hatcher and shrugged. She stopped him as he moved past, leaning in close and shooting a glance at the brunette. “Just make sure that one keeps her clothes on, okay?”

  “I'll do my best.”

  Hatcher followed the woman through the doors. There were offices to his right, cubicles to his left. There was a low-level hum of work. People were talking on phones, tapping on keyboards. He wondered if the place had been engineered to dampen noise. Despite the activity, he could still hear his own footsteps on the carpet. It reminded him of a forest.

  Sahara Doyle's office was on the far opposite corner of the building, and took up at least as much space as the waiting and reception area. It was sealed off by another set of glass doors with the same logo, this set requiring magnetic key entry, swiped by his escort from a card on a retractable cord attached to her belt, and had its own private secretarial suite and waiting area. Hatcher expected to be told to have a seat on the couch or one of the chairs, but the woman kept moving forward, knocking once on a large set of wooden doors before opening them and gesturing for him to follow her through.

  He was barely through the doorway when he stopped. However he'd imagined a psychic's office to look, it was nothing like this.

  The interior walls ran with water, sheets of it gently cascading over uneven pieces of slate, pooling in a moat that formed a circuit around the oversized space, interrupted only by the doorway. The floor-to-ceiling windows were a stained glass of some sort, colorful but muted, with vines growing over the scenes depicted, obscuring most of the details. In the center of the room was a circle of Greek columns, or maybe Roman. Or from Atlantis, for all he knew. Heavy shafts of grooved stone, rough surfaces a shade of fallow like wet sand, chipped and pitted. In the middle of the circle were curved marble benches surrounding a fire. A conical vent hood sat above it, suspended from duct work that extended from the ceiling.

  The brunette retrieved a large white robe from one of the benches. She walked over to the far wall and held it up by the shoulders, letting it drape. Another woman appeared, stepping out through the water, her body blocked from view – not accidentally – by the curtain of robe. She paused to tip her head back and let the flow splash over her. The water rolled down her face as she looked Hatcher in the eye from across the room. She turned around and slipped her arms into the sleeves, cinching it in front with her hand, then padded over to the fire.

  “You may go now, Jenny. Thank you.”

  The brunette left.

  The woman circled the fire until her back was to Hatcher. She spread open the robe and stood like that for several long moments before closing it again and tying it off with the attached belt.

  “They're Egyptian,” she said.

  Hatcher tried to understand the comment, couldn't. “Excuse me?”

  “The columns. You were speculating about the architecture and provenance. They're genuine. Dating from around 200 BC. You can tell by the lotus motifs on the capitals.”

  She was a black woman, maybe fifty years old, smooth skin the shade of chocolate milk. Her hair was a thick bonnet of bronze with the kinks teased out. Her voice was almost musical, like she was singing the words.

  “Am I supposed to believe you read my mind? By assuming I noticed large objects in the middle of the room?”

  “You have trust issues with women,” she said, still facing the flames. “Even the one you love, you fail to reward that love with faith. Too worried about her fate to allow her to make her own informed decisions.”

  “I'm going to guess you could throw a rock and say that about any man it hit.”

  “That doesn't make it any less true.”

  “But it does make it less psychic.”

  She fixed her gaze on him, studied him with curious eyes. “Is that what you think I'm making? Simple observations? You still doubt. At least that should answer the question of why it was necessary for me to go to such lengths to bring you here, another question burning in your mind.”

  “And here I thought it was an honest referral. From a peer.”

  “That is very funny, Mr Hatcher. Your wit is something you wield quite deftly. The white male's manifestation of anger at the gradual loss of privilege, camouflaged with humor. I'm sure it serves you well, keeping others off balance, frustrating them, getting them to respond in a way you control. But I think you would agree that the fate of Vivian Fall's soul is no laughing matter.”

  Hatcher said nothing for a long moment. He heard a popping sound, realized it was his knuckles cracking. He unballed his fist.

  “And it's also not something you should use to toy with me.”

  “Oh, please be assured... toying with you is the farthest thing from my mind.”

  It had better be, he almost said, but didn't. “You set that whole thing up in Kentucky. Why?”

  “Because if I had sent word through normal channels I wished to meet with you, you would have researched me, seen I was a high-profile personality, and found cause to dismiss me. Had I mentioned Ms Fall, you would have come in here with a chip on your shoulder bigger than the one you're carrying now, assuming I was trying to garner publicity of some sort, and even that would have happened only after days of investigating me or watching me. Time that could not be wasted. No, you needed proof. A demonstration. And I thought it best for you to seek me out, to arrive here with the proper frame of mind to accept my help.”

  “And breaking into my house, hiding cryptic messages in fruit for me to find, that's supposed to put me in the proper frame of mind?”

  She shook her head. “Come now, Mr Hatcher. You know full well I didn't break into your house. The fact you cling to such notions should be all the explanation you need as to why I thought it necessary to go about things the way I did.”

  “Sorry, I'm not buying it.”

  “You still don't believe I used a demon to deliver you here?”

  “I don't believe you did it for the reasons you're telling me. If all that really was your doing, I can't imagine it was that easy. My experience with that kind of thing is, it always comes at a price. Nobody would do it just to make a point.”

  “And your experience would be correct. But that price has dropped drastically over the last two years. Twenty-one months, to be precise. Thanks to you.”

  Hatcher said nothing.

  “Don't look so surprised. You had
to know there were consequences to your actions, consequences beyond the fate of one poor soul.”

  “You say that like I went looking for trouble.”

  She regarded him with a look of forced patience. “People who prepare for trouble, who think about it, plan for it, train for it, those people have a habit of finding it, or it finding them, regardless of whether they seek it out. Funny how that works, isn't it? The laws of attraction.”

  “I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're not a member of the NRA.”

  “Do you know what the rarest occurrence in the world is, Mr Hatcher? Something truly random. Think about that. About what that means.”

  “Whatever it is you brought me here to tell me, I'm assuming it's not that.”

  “Regardless of your intentions, you caused the chasm between this plane and the underworld to shrink. The shockwave created by your actions has sent ripples through the very fiber of what we know as reality. You're here because you witnessed but one result of that just yesterday. Demons could not directly walk this Earth for more than two millennia, until you allowed Solomon's ring to cross over.”

  “Well, I wasn't exactly presented with an attractive option. And you'll have to forgive me if I didn't have my instruction book handy.”

  “I'm merely stating a fact, Mr Hatcher, not fixing blame. I was able to summon an Earl of Hell, a commander of thirty-six legions of demons, with a simple binding spell. I bound him to stay in this plane for over a minute and deliver my name to you like a messenger boy. That would have been unthinkable hardly more than the blink of an eye ago.”

  “Speaking of that, do I have to worry about mumbling that name again in my sleep? He didn't seem to like me too much.”

  “Glasyalabolas?” She smiled. “No, Mr Hatcher. You would need blood. An underground ritual. A summoning spell to conjure a demon. All those things to make the name something more than a collection of sounds. And, angry as he likely is, I have more reason to worry about that kind of thing than you. I was the one that bound him, and I'm sure he is none too pleased with that. It is considered a major affront. Like kidnapping. Not something an entity of his status and power is accustomed to.”