To an individual angel, they looked at him intently. For Raum was known to only speak truth.
Once satisfied, Raum continued, “As I spoke, Man-monkeys … are confused and confounded creatures, lacking all logic, forethought, and most distressing of all, faith.
“Yet, despite their lack of belief, they cling desperately to coin, killing, and as their ten-billion tally grows dangerously near, their women have proven to love no breath more deeply and pointlessly … than a blathering babe, who cannot be quelled, save gnawing its greedy gums around the tip of its mother’s bare-naked teat.”
Uzza had been content to listen and ponder the mission as Lucifer outlined it, however this was—“Disgusting,” he muttered.
“So,” said Shax, “it be a pig hunt just the same. I’ll be mending me member for months.”
“I’ll not bathe my breasts in any creature’s bilious breath,” said Lilith, “Man-monkeys or mutton”—she pointed her wing at Aax and then Shax—“or moron, before the pair of you move to abandon your swine.”
Shax smiled. “What’s that then?” he said. “Morons? No one said nothing ’bout no morons. If we’re being set to morons, paid double for that, I am.”
Lucifer looked at Lilith, confusion in his eyes. “You did realize that was crop you would harvest … had Adam not cast you from the Garden?”
“Man-monkeys is one thing,” said Lilith, “but babes? They’re filthy.”
Zarzi smiled at the thought of little Man-monkeys. She waited for a break in the banter to speak. “You mistake miniature monkey for rotten meat,” she said. “Babes are pleasing to the ears, warm to the heart, and sweet to the eye. And they are better smelling than present feathered flock of lost souls, I assure you.”
Shax almost laughed out loud at her. “You be right sure to remind us of that, love”—he was wide-eyed and nodding—“when one of the little buggers is busy munchin’ on your mammaries.”
“Grandfather,” Lucifia interrupted, “and I suffer saying words, however, Shax is correct. You cannot expect angry angel… I eat babes, I do not—”
And Lucifer laughed a loud bellowing cry at the entire group of them. And then he spread his wings wide and lit them ablaze and the orange flames shot above his head and black smoke wafted above them. By the time the searing and the soot subsided, everyone had turned back to focused and silent. “Listen to warriors whine and wail,” he said. “Avenging archangels and destructive demons, all brought to heal by babbling babies. Michael would be proud.”
The silence was deafening at that statement.
Lucifer addressed his own followers, “They should replace the crucifix with an infant idol to repel this feeble flock.” And then he spoke at Heaven’s own halos of light. “And you … this is your own God’s creation.” He looked right into Lilith’s eyes. “ ‘In pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband. And he shall rule over you.’ I’ll wager at real reasoning for hasty retreat from Eden’s Garden. Poor Eve—never knew what bit her. And now here stands slighted angel, crying at return of lost prize. Fitting.”
“Staying away from that bet, I am.” Shax mumbled to himself.
Lucifia looked at her grandfather. “I’ll not—”
“Oh, but you shall,” said Lucifer, pointing at her chest, “for you grow as weary as I of judging Man-monkeys in the arena. The begging, the blindly faithful with disbelief’s own eyes as they are delivered from religious delusions. Constant training and trickery of evil purgatories?”
Lucifia had been responsible for training the fledgling angels once they were condemned to Hell, and she longed for a replacement for the vile duty to be found. Soon after the center of the arena on Judgment night, Lucifia became inundated with the pee-pissing smells and the pigeon-shitting cries of the little purgatories, always hopping and bobbing in and out of her path and between her legs. It was maddening. “Very well,” she said, “I cannot promise bile-ridden babe shall survive angel’s appetite.”
Lucifer pointed behind him at Lilith and Zarzi. “Which was reasoning for inviting compatriots.”
Zarzi smiled at Lucifer’s back—she’d always dreamt of being a mother. Mothering the firmament of the Garden was simply a poor substitute for nurturing flesh and bone beings.
Lucifer lowered his hand and turned slowly in the center of the group. He stopped at the only angel who hadn’t offered resistance or reasoning one direction or another. “Rsoni,” he said, “what of your heart? You are potent and powerful in these matters, are you not?”
Among the many heavenly duties that Rsoni was responsible for, one of his least favorites was wielding the power of pleasure over all women and girls of the Garden. Yet listening to the whining and wailing of dark and light angels while he pondered the melancholy and malaise that the Man-monkeys had created in Heaven’s beautiful garden, he knew Lucifer’s plan was the only way. Life had to be dethroned—God would never step down willingly. He had witnessed that for himself. “Swine would have been less difficult,” he said.
— CLXXV —
AFTER I WAS burned at the pulpit in front of my seminary brothers in the courtyard, I woke up, staring down at a rock floor—no idea where I was. It was warm, though, and quickly enough, I was reminded of why I was there. “Aaaah!” I screamed out, because the pain was excruciating. And I was rewarded with a fresh bolt of lightning, searing its way through my back.
“Shh,” a voice above and behind me said, “try not to move. I told you, didn’t I?” It was Barbara. “Weren’t you listening?”
I felt her touch my back and put something on it, and a cooling sensation spread over the lower part, but as soon as I tried to turn and look at her, fresh misery spiked through my spine. And I cried out again, “Aaaah! God!”
“He’s not gonna help you if you keep doing that,” said Barbara. “You sure don’t listen well. I don’t know why I’m—you better not make me regret this.”
I tried to relax as much as I could, but the pain made that next to impossible.
“How did you do that anyways?” she asked. “I know what I do, but the switch still hurts and I can’t stop from flinching. Don’t do no good to cry, though. If you listened to me, you woulda known that.”
“What do you—?” I tried to say, but then I braced myself as I felt her touch my back again. When the wave of pain left, I asked, “What is that stuff?”
She ignored me. “I thought you was—playin’ possum like that. I told ya you was gonna come and see me. Now look at you.”
“I can’t remember,” I said. “I just—I heard Father Dominic talking about fire.”
“Huh,” Barbara made a little noise. “Damn—darned right he was talking about fire! All over your back by the time they was done with you. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And you was screaming and yelling and that whole courtyard—they probably heard you in Wenatchee. What the heck language is that, anyways?” she asked.
“Wait,” I said, “how did you hear me? There’s no sisters—”
“Are you kidding?” Barbara said. “We all watch from the windows at the top of the Sisters’ dormitory. Every day, waiting for one a you… You’re all so stupid, even when one of us does try to help you. Boys—never listen.”
I could feel another application of whatever was making my back feel better, slather between my shoulder blades.
“And when you ain’t talking,” Barbara continued her lecture as she applied the cooling … whatever it was, “you’re talking in your heads.”
She walked around in front of me and then knelt down so she could look at my face. I couldn’t lift my head—I’d already tried and my back had punished me for it. So she tilted her head to the side, looked me in the eyes, and smiled. “You’re a cutie without them glasses, though.” She stood up and walked back behind me. “You might wanna get that fixed. It’ll sure help you out when they give you your own church. I bet you lose them things all the time.”
I hadn’t noticed it, but Barbara had a weird way of
talking to people, especially me. And for a Sister who was supposed to be helping… Maybe I had thought it was just how girls were—having never heard many of them—but she sounded kinda … mean.
“My eyes got stuffed into…” I started to say, but then something in me stopped me from telling her, “I don’t want to talk about it.” I winced again. “I can’t talk.”
“Well then,” Barbara said, “since you asked, this ointment is cow urine … boiled down to a grease and then mixed with holy water that the priests bless each night.”
“What?” I said. “Get that—that’s just gross. I don’t want that on me!” My anger made me forget, but my back quickly reminded me not to get too excited. “Aaah!”
Barbara giggled a little bit. “You are so—it’s antibiotic ointment, idiot. What, you think the Clergy is gonna go around collecting cow pee? That is gross. They got the best med-kits outside the State Med-mart. How else you think all those boys show back up for formation the next morning after they get all broke up? … You’re funny. Cute and funny, but so dumb.”
“What language?” I asked her. I needed something to keep my mind occupied, and her making fun of me wasn’t helping.
“Huh?”
“You said I spoke a different language,” I said, “I only know English.”
“Well, I only know English, too,” she said, “and that wasn’t it. If I didn’t know better, I’d a said you was possessed. And the more you talked the more fire they put on you and then you just stopped … everything. I thought you was dead, we all did.”
“All who?”
“All us Sisters,” Barbara said, “and every person in that formation. Bet none of them twitch an eye tomorrow morning. Smiling,” she scoffed at me. “You’re just a idiot.”
I remembered the other three times. “How long?” I asked her, knowing the answer already.
“How long, what?”
“How long was I playing dead?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Wasn’t like I was counting. The PI’s just left you there while Father D kept on preaching about fire. I think he knew you were faking.”
“Thirty-three minutes,” I said to her.
“What?”
“That’s how long,” I said.
“That sounds about right,” Barbara said. “I had to wait long enough in here for them to bring you in. Thirty—you counted?”
“It’s always thirty-three.”
— CLXXVI —
GETTING BACK OUT of the Fifty—the huge brick and iron sanatorium downtown—proves harder than trading blows with three Protection lapdogs in one of its concrete interrogation cells. There are a few sideways glances from the Protection sentries at the end of the hall, but no one does anything more than stare at me. One of the nurses even waves at me as I pass the reception counter and exit the building. It’s not my first visit, and she probably has no idea that I just left three Protection agents unconscious in one of her rooms. I hope she doesn’t have to help get them cleaned up.
My first time here as a prisoner, I think, as the big doors close behind me. Then the ever-present Seattle mist blankets me back to damp. I wipe my glasses—one thing I absolutely hate about my decision not to get the State’s laser-surge done to my eyes.
I’m sure I have a few bruises and I hold one of my arms against my side to help with the pain as I pick up my pace down the sidewalk.
The mirror-covered scrapers downtown tower their way straight up from the street until they are engulfed by the thick blanket of fog that feels like it has permanently replaced the sun. The buildings look like huge glass bullies, hovering over the much shorter, brown brick and iron exterior of the old sanatorium. The outsides of them are twice as tall as the Fifty, as far as I can see. And that’s before the fog takes their tops. The insides are just as shrouded in gray. Believe me, I know.
Businessmen or the benevolent? At this point in my life, I still wonder which is more dangerous … or evil.
Drone strikes and explosions rock the street behind me as I walk, telling me that Protection knows about the dead angel on the floor of my church. He’s about the only thing I can think of that would warrant breaking the “no-fly” that State has for drones in the urban zones. After all, some of the State agents—all of the Protection ones—live downtown. I’m sure their concu-wives complain about the crashed crystal after a drone bombing.
Now my inner voice is getting sarcastic. “Focus, Benito,” I mutter to myself. My Shandian mind usually reprimands me for my lack of focus, and it’s been a constant struggle ever since … her.
I try to shake the distraction—even her memory has a way of getting my guard down. Always did. And I’ve been—Stop it! I really have to.
My angel… If I don’t get back to my church by the end of the day, all of this will be for nothing. I walk faster, careful not to draw any more unwanted attention.
I know the way back, though I’m normally driving. Well, that’s not entirely true—all Clergy have chauffeurs. Mine is thankfully on one of her few weeks off. If she came in today… I’m thankful she’s not.
It’s fifteen dark, dangerous and damp blocks back to the Black Market where I started this day. I set my mind on the path and pull out my flask—I could use a swig to wash the blood out of my mouth. That’s the excuse I use to keep the little voice in my head appeased.
I unscrew the tin top, and tip it all the way back. I get a few drops. Empty? When I see the homeless vet, digging through the dumpster in the garbage alley as I pass, I remember why.
He needed it more than you do.
I screw the lid back on and slide the flask back in my pocket. I pat my pocket with my hand—it’s a habit. Protection agents call it a “tell.” I mutter down at my pants, “We’ll fill you up at the Mike, my friend.”
Through sirens and explosions—the symphony of the sinners of the State—I walk briskly, scanning each alley I come to for threats and occasionally glancing back over my shoulder to protect my rear.
Most of the alleys house at least one wayward warrior vet, mind and soul ripped apart by too many bloody and dangerous tours to the desert. Now they just camp out like they did during the last sane days they had—in a cardboard habitat, cleaning up after the sins of more sophisticated citizens. On soup Sunday, my beautiful church is filled with them. I shake my head as I pass—there’s not much I can do for them today.
It’ll take me thirty more minutes before I can barter the molasses that may just save all their souls. Mine, too.
— CLXXVII —
“EXCELLENT!” LUCIFER SHOUTED happily at Rsoni’s confidence that pigs would have been a prettier prize than the want and lust of female Man-monkeys. “Angels have agreed on accord then.”
Shax chuckled and looked at Lucifia. Once she noticed his gaze, he turned his head a little, raised his eyebrows, and then he asked Lucifer, “So, you’ll be assignin’ us bunkmates then, will ya?”
Dorak caught his fellow Hellmate’s stare. He cawed a little bit before he said, “Trade her for angel’s precious pig.”
“Hah, a fair exchange you say,” said Shax. “Me pig would fetch twice the coin as that one”—he smiled—“and me sow’s less than half the trouble.”
Dorak looked back at Lucifia, glaring back at him. He shrugged his shoulders. “What?” he said. “It is still fair angel in this angel’s own eye. You should remain more”—he scrunched his face and frowned at her—“everything is fine. Relax. I simply negotiate terms … of surrender.”
Lucifia just rolled her eyes. Then her head nodded up and down quickly and she screeched at them before she said, “I’ll slit you both from slithering snake to angry anus.” Then she flashed her razor sharp teeth at them.
Aax leaned toward Raum. “She’s a biter?” he said. “Baby eater as well. Hate to see her offspring. Poor little bastard.”
“More than likely,” crowed Raum, “he will find he must eat his way free of angel’s wicked womb.”
Lucifer would let the
banter continue a while longer. For as soldiers in war, thus would be their task. And exactly as soldiers in war, they would have to rely on each other if his plan were to come to any satisfactory fruition.
There was no better way to band brothers together, or sisters for that matter, than to meld their steel to each other in combat. Yet he knew that complaining, cajoling and cluckery had equal effect.
The cawing and “clawing” continued, the lines between Heaven and Hell—the righteous and the raunchy—blurring as it did.
Zepar looked at Lucifer. “These are winged warriors I am to battle beside for godly Word?” he asked. “And regarding same, would not simply killing them be easier? Less mess, to be certain. And quicker if you—”
“Were she an imbecile,” said Rsoni, shaking his head and frowning at his fellow golden godling, “wiping out nigh ten billion of her most cherished creations might pass undetected … in some eternity populated by limp-winged archangels, having rat excrement for brains and teats for talons. Yet … unbeknownst to the rest of us, save for the dawn of this day, and certainly passed unnoticed by you, Heaven seems to have only one of those.”
“Rsoni!” said Zarzi. Her orange hair glowed brighter. “You are beyond yourself. Zepar has equal right to rage beside us. Eternities of spring and summer turn to dust, brother”—she shook her head at him and scowled—“in higher position of righteousness I held you.”
Rsoni closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. His feathers softened. Were it any other in attendance that day, he might have pondered ripping out their throats, but to be reprimanded by Zarzi was to have one’s own mother offer disappointment as praise.
“What about it then?” Shax said, never missing an opportunity to chide and chisel at a wound before it could scab over. “Will you be snuggled under her wings for the entire trip, or just whence it’s time to wet your willie?”
Lilith cawed and laughed, delighted to see the arrogant young guardian face real demons. Ones not safely tucked behind iron gates and godly seals in the dungeons. A golden guardian could get too sure of him or herself, hopping the dark tunnels of the too-tight-for-flight Dungeons of the Damned.
TF- C - 00.00 - THE FALLEN Dark Fantasy Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy (Books 1 - 3) Page 67