I smile. Shannon’s toasts are sonnets of legend, and I already told you about his sincerity:
To Hell’s balls and Heaven’s ass
To darker things than me mustache
The Eternities to come and them what’s past
To your grandmothers gums on me bonny’s ass
To whores what’s slow and them that’s fast
To grease me guts I tip me glass
To forgotten friends … home at last.
By the time he’s finished, I almost have a tear in my eye, and Shannon’s little shadow-flitter has refilled his cup to overflowing as well this time. It doesn’t seem to bother Shannon, and my friend downs the entire bursting dam of it in another long, greedy guzzle.
I marvel at him—a Protection MARR assault vehicle can’t suck petro that fast. I take a quick swig from my flask, tasting it first, and … he’s right, I’ll never be able to go back to the State’s swill after this. And I take another drink … to be polite, of course.
He smiles a big bear-lipped grin at me. “How ’bout that then?” he says.
“Delicious,” I say to him, because it is. “Sinful … but delicious.”
He laughs—nothing but genuine delight. “He didn’t whip the wit from ya, then,” he says. “I warned him of that.” And then he gets a knowing look on his face and I can sense what’s coming. “And what of them other sins you been sneakin’ about with?” he asks. “How’s they comin’?”
“They are just—”
But I realize he wasn’t asking, or more likely he already knows. And he looks toward the shadow that his little servant’s hiding in. “Make sure Benito gets a gallon before he goes back to his godding then, will ya?” I don’t think that’s a question either, and I can tell Shannon’s drink is starting to take effect. When he looks back at me, he seems far away. “I told Aax… Father D shoulda fed that to all you little faithful fucks—cured you off cunt for sure, that would. Blasted better than his belt, the sadistic sack.” He pauses for a moment and frowns. Then he says, “Why do ya think she’d be wanting all you monkeys to be celibate then? Never understood that one. Then they go and surround ya with all them Sisters?” He motions his cup toward the blazing fire in front us both. “Your soul in the light of Heaven, brother. Your will be wickeder than mine.”
Considering how Father … how his friend’s soul got to Heaven … or Hell, Shannon’s always been remarkably hospitable to me.
— CLXXXIII —
LUCIFER HAD SUCCEEDED in not only convincing the ten conspirators that his cause was just, but that the calamity that would befall all the eternities was inevitable if they did not undertake it. Neither Heaven nor Hell would have to fall as part of his deception, but left to Life they both surely would. He had the lies and he had the spies. There was but one tithe left to collect.
Uzza took no convincing at all and lopped his littlest one off without thought or hesitation. Then he dipped the little black-bleeding stump into the fiery lake and it cauterized to a sizzling scab.
Aax took barely more to convince, but a little coin went a long way and his joined Uzza’s in Lucifer’s pouch.
“There then,” Lucifer said, “no feather has burst into flames nor angel died in front of eyes.” He looked to each of the remaining eight. Rsoni would be the most difficult.
Aax and Uzza grabbed Dorak by his wings and held him down to the ground amidst screeching and curses that would make hellhounds humble and whores blush.
Uzza said nothing, just held onto the arrogant dog, Dorak, by his wing and waited.
Aax was not quite as silent. “You got another one, don’t you?” he said, struggling to hold onto Dorak, turned hellhound snarling beast in front of them all.
Dorak’s fangs gnashed and his claws scratched the rock floor of the pit, and he barked viciously, but Aax and Uzza held him firm. The trouble was that it took both their hands to make sure that the dog didn’t bite them, so someone else would have to do the dirty work.
“Raum,” Aax shouted at the godling, “lend us wing and will. We struggle to bring hound to heel. This dog’s vanity is about to get the best of us both.” He yelled down at the beast, “Stuff a bone in angry jaws, heathenous hound, or I’ll break your beak with my fist.”
Raum walked over to the writhing trio of treacherous snakes from Lucifer’s own burning garden. He looked down at Dorak, flailing and wailing on the ground. He squatted down next to him. “Dogs,” he said calmly, through spitting barks and snarls, “Sooner than later, they must be put down.” And he plucked out one of his ballistic feathers, and then he blew on it and heated the tip up to a white hot glow—it would seal off the wound. And then he pinned down Dorak’s paw and took by force what Aax and Uzza had taken from themselves.
Dorak howled in agony and Uzza and Aax let go of him. When they did, he raced at Raum, snarling and snapping at the air as he did. He leapt through the air at Raum’s back.
Raum’s hand shot behind him and grabbed the filthy beast by the neck, and Dorak yelped and yiped and whimpered.
“Do not think me an easy meal, mutt,” said Raum, “for I have smote a hundred thousand of your ilk and lived to pick my teeth with your bones. I only spare demon angel’s putrid pelt now to save eternity from itself. When task is accomplished, if your fangs and feathers still thirst for it, I shall give your hearts cause to rejoice”—and he threw Dorak to the ground—“as they taste spilled blood. Proceed wisely from here, hound. I give warning but once.”
Dorak whimpered and then howled on the ground. And he barked and he snarled and snapped, but he did not rush to attack Raum again.
“Very well, dog,” Raum said, “we are of one mind.” He held out his hand, revealing Dorak’s lost appendage. “I shall hold this until the end, so you will know where to fetch favored finger.”
Zarzi cringed and tried not to cry out. Lilith and Lucifia held her wings as Raum heated up one of his feathers.
“Wait!” Zarzi shouted. “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh … nor print or tattoo any marks upon you. This is the Word.”
“They are her words!” shouted Lucifer. “Rantings of mad mother of misery. No more valuable than the empty air they travel through.” He could smell the lust for blood building inside him, and seeing the severed flesh and hearing the screams reminded him that Hell had hearts to sorrow and souls to steal. They needed to hurry. He looked at Raum, busy doing the bidding of his new master. “Get to task then, she’ll not escape fate.”
“Tiny toe!” shouted Zarzi.
And everyone beside the lake paused. A toe… None had even given thought to location. A token of faith was required—tithe that they could each agree upon to seal the dastardly deal. But none had questioned Lucifer’s decree of location as mere suggestion. And now that it had been … questioned, Dorak howled loudly, “Take it from her, now! I have given and so will she. And so shall you all or I shall—”
“You shall what?” said Raum, patting his waist feathers.
“Please,” said Zarzi, “a token of toe to task of deception. Lucifer, you speak of sedition in secrecy. She shall never give regard to toe over digit. It is simply more prudent position.”
Raum lived in the past, where females were fairer and males more ferocious, but he tended matters with prudence as well. He pondered Zarzi’s words. Clearly they were desperate, and yet at the same time they were remarkably practical.
Lucifer could see that Raum was mulling the answer. It would be best if the decision came from one of Zarzi’s own kind. There would be no resentment and it would also mean that she and Raum would be much more entwined with him. For once they had all broken her covenants, Life would never take them back into the angry folds of her wings. “What say you, Raum?” he asked. “Shall it be digit … or dactyl?”
Raum thought for only a moment before he spoke. “Man-monkeys,” he said, “are remarkably vain and arrogant creatures, and physical attractiveness will most surely be challenge for some”—he turned and looked at
Dorak for a second—“and some of us shall slither among them … more easily than others. Yet in mating pursuits their females are only slightly more vain than the males, however fact still holds”—he reached back and ran his hand down the length of his long jet black ponytail—he knew he would have to cut it off as well—“I have yet to observe Man-monkey woo wayward waif who did not harbor heat for tall tales of war wounds. In this regard … Lilith, Lucifia, and Zarzi … shall turn toe and the rest shall sacrifice digit.”
Shax spoke out loud this time, addressing both friend and previous foe. “It’s a right fine decision, godling,” he said. “It be no dog dance to wrastle me from me piglets.” He looked at the rest of the strong ones. “Not worried about me angel-ass either.” And he held up the first two fingers and the last on his left hand. “The sun on me days of skewerin’ two sodomite Sisters at once have … sadly set, they have.”
Aax chuckled at his friend. “Eh, you’ve gone soft in the sack, my friend. Soft indeed.”
Lucifia—still lightly holding one of Zarzi’s wings—chuckled at Shax and Aax—the fierce and fiercer of her feathered friends in Hell. “Terrible twosome,” she said, and then she smiled at them. “I prefer it the other way around.” Then she looked down at Zarzi. “Can we take to task then? Your whining has melted my mood for mischief.”
“Plump pigs in Purgatory,” said Shax said to his partner in Purgatory, “propositioned us, I think she just has.”
Dorak growled at the pair.
“Quiet down then, dog,” Shax said to him. Then he looked at Lucifia.
“It may not be wise,” said Aax. “Think of the smell, brother.”
Shax smiled an evil and wily grin at Lucifia. Then he said, “Be it proposi—”
Zarzi’s screech broke their exchange and Lucifia took a wild wing to the face and Lilith flung backward as Zarzi’s wings flapped wildly. And Raum flapped backward to get out of her way.
When Zarzi stopped shaking her wings, she looked at all of them with the wild eyes of a cornered cougar, and she snarled and roared and then spoke harshly, “I am Zarzi, daughter of Zarena, and I will stand with you blaspheming brethren for fauna and fate of eternities. And I have given limb, and if trumpet come I shall heed its warning—stand with you until the sword takes my life. Yet if you… If your hand fail free will where it is so clear that your mouths do not, your blood shall be on your own head … at the tip of my wing.” If smoke could have billowed from her ears, Zarzi’s speech would not have carried more warning.
Surprisingly before, yet a little less so after her outburst and warning, Zarzi pinned first Lilith’s and then Lucifia’s toe to the hard rocky ground and whipped her wing across their bases with the precision and steadiness of a surgeon. And barely a droplet of blood escaped, as their wounds healed from the heat of the speed.
Raum took his own without incident or impishness, giving more credence to his resolve than his words had.
As soon as he did, Rsoni walked to his side, looked at Raum’s detached digit, and then he said, “You harbor no heart beneath breast to return to Life then?” His own two hearts had traded opinion with each other during the entire gathering.
Raum tucked his own digit into his waistfeathers with Dorak’s. Then he put his sloth-toed hand on Rsoni’s golden shoulder and patted him. “She has proven undeserving of heart, brother,” he said. Then he whispered, for it was clear that Rsoni was hiding his own demons in plain view of five of Hell’s, “And what of your own hearts? I know that you have visited the Man-monkeys many times. And I also know that you harbor great affection for some. Your silence and stealth may not betray your feelings to them, brother”—he glanced at all the others, in varying stages of either mourning loss of limb or preparing to do the same—“but I am neither fledgling nor fawn—you are going with us. Maybe not for reasons of treason, but you are going … because that is where she is.”
“I’ve a particular attachment to me parts,” said Shax. Unable to take his own, he simply stared at it as if it had already gone missing. He wiggled his pinky finger a little. “I … I do lots of living with this one, I do. I mean, how am I gonna reach me bogies? None of me other ones fit in me nostrils.” He turned his hand over and back, surveying every line on his little finger.
Uzza chuckled a little, but caught himself. Then he looked at Lucifer, busy paying no attention to him at all, satisfied that everything was going according to his plot.
Over the grumbling of Dorak, Lucifia walked over and stood in front of the huge archangel demon, Shax. She leaned into him and then twisted the tip of his mustache between her fingers. “So angel is correct then?” she said.
Shax looked down at her. “About what, love?”
She reached down and gave Shax a preview. “Maybe you are getting soft in the sack.”
“Me member?” said Shax. “Don’t you worry none about that, love. Me snake takes care of himself, he does.” He looked back at his hand. “But me little finger… Well, he relies on me to keep him safe, ya see. He’s kinda attached to me hand, he is. And his three partners in”— he wiggled all his fingers at Lucifia—“pleasure.”
Lucifia stared up into Shax’s eyes and stroked the feathers below his waist as his snake stirred beneath them at her touch. “I can perform task on angel’s behalf,” she said. “It will be painless to point of shadow. You may even enjoy it.”
Shax chuckled. “Eh, ya miserable minx,” he said. “I’m just kneading ya knickers.” And he held his little finger in front of Lucifia’s face. “Go ahead then, bite it off for me, love. No sense wasting a perfectly good feather on it.” He looked over at his partner, Aax. “Pitch me that muffin-topped grog bottle of yours then, will ya?”
Aax pulled a large leather, jewel-covered, fat-bottomed brown bottle from his waist, and then he threw it through the air at Shax.
Lucifia growled and Shax winced. And by the time Shax caught the bottle with all the fingers of his good hand, the little finger on his other one was gone. “Whew!” he shouted. “That’ll wake you up in the morning, won’t it then.” And he hastily bit the cork off the top of the bottle, splashed a godly amount of it on his severed digit’s bleeding little stump, and then he spit out the top and guzzled the remainder of the liquor in one long pull.
And Lucifia lowered her head—a trickle of blood escaped her lips—and she slowly spit Shax’s little finger into her hand. “Eyes see what heart feels,” she said. “The tiniest of torment.” Her tongue swirled out and lapped up the blood around the edges of her mouth. “Terrible angel’s blood tastes … sweeter than his deeds.”
Shax smiled at her. “That’s me molasses,” he said. “Me snake’s the bitter one. Nothing to worry about there—after that, ya won’t be meetin’ face to pretty little face, will ya then.”
Lucifia smiled and taunted him a little. Smirking and smothering Shax with her dirtiest of looks. “It’s a small matter,” she said, “as angel’s back is prettier still.” She turned and headed back toward Dorak, busy fuming at the entire incident, but whipped enough to be content to growl.
“Blazing assholes, Aax,” Shax said, “his descendants are dirtier than him, they are.” He turned back and looked at Lucifia. “Come on then, me finger, if you don’t mind.”
“Aw,” she said, “can I not keep it as precious memory until angel’s eyes gaze upon my back?”
Shax raised his eyebrows. “No you may not,” he said slowly. He shook his head and smiled at her. “Keep you right close, I’ll hafta. Murderin’ mistress, you are.”
Lucifia tossed Shax’s finger to him, and then blew him a kiss. “Your hand misses angel’s teeth all ready.”
Rsoni took his own finger with only a slight glance up at Raum before he sliced one of his flight feathers cleanly through the base of his digit, and then he seared and burned the little stump until it smoked from charred flesh.
Shortly thereafter, it took three of them to hold down Zepar. But Rsoni finally separated him from a little tiny sliver of his arrogance
and vanity. The screaming spoke to them of a soldier who would crack in the crucifix of combat.
“Success!” Lucifer said at the last of it. “Conspiracy is sealed in secrecy and separation of sin from sinner.” He turned and walked toward the portal to the dungeons above. “I had small doubt”—he stopped and turned back to face them—“I never hoped to believe that each would agree. And I recount that some displayed rather differently than I expected. However, secret is sealed and here angels stand—powerful allies in purpose, solidified with token and cloaked as enemies in name alone.” He turned back toward the portal and walked. “I shall inform you of our next meet—”
“Not all,” said Rsoni.
Lucifer stopped, turned around again, and then he glanced at the ten of them, counting and cataloguing digits and dactyls in his head. “And the lovely ladies,” he said. “Yes, a trust of ten. Splendid.”
Uzza’s deep voice made Lucifer pause. “You lose count,” he said.
“Eleven,” said Zarzi. Even she was steeled to the fact that it had to be done.
Lucifer stared back at them. Stoic and steady faces to a single angel stared back. “Utipa knows nothing of plot,” he said. “I made certain of this. Angels needn’t concern themselves with her.”
Even Dorak—dog that he was—growled. Yet it was easier for a hound to growl, surrounded by the safety of his own pack.
“Oh, Grandfather,” Lucifia said to him, almost giddy at the prospect of it, “how … embarrassing. Can you not smell it?”
Lucifer could smell … something on them. Yet his own arrogance would not fathom to let the truth of the scent through.
All ten conspirators took a few steps toward the great devil. They formed a line in front of him and they all stiffened.
Zepar outright laughed. “Can you believe it?” he asked no one in particular, too excited to do battle with the legendary Lucifer. Surrounded by nine other seriously powerful allies, it was easy to find courage. “It shall be … historic.”
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