by RJ Blain
“This way,” Director Hammel ordered, and he gestured towards the nearby building that served as the main utility building for the cemetery.
Did he not see the fog, the lights, or the big, black shape coming closer? My mouth dropped open, I spluttered, and at an utter loss, I followed, keeping an eye on the beast lurking within the fog.
I’d heard legends of the black dog of death, something that spanned several cultures and mythologies. If I recalled correctly, the Maya had one in the form of Xolotl. I’d found that tidbit of history class interesting.
The Maya had a lot of interesting gods—nasty gods, gods capable of raining destruction on the Earth. The British had one, too. Their black dog of death had been born out of superstition. Did Anubis count as a black dog of death?
“As a matter of fact, yes,” the devil announced from behind me.
I screamed, and Director Hammel spun around.
The devil placed a flaming blue hand on my shoulder. “Shh. You know he doesn’t like the screaming.”
“Jesus Christ in a bucket!”
“Why would you put Jesus in a bucket?” Lucy asked, his tone a mixture of amused and curious. “You’ve taught your companion bad habits, and he made demands of me, and I found this so entertaining I decided to comply—and to prevent the foolish from doing foolish things. Might I borrow that for a moment?”
That?
The devil lifted his hand from my shoulder and gestured to the book I carried.
I offered the book to the devil.
“What are you doing?” Director Hammel demanded.
“Giving the devil the book, because only a fucking moron pisses off the devil,” I replied.
Unlike at the mall, the devil appeared with his skin darker than the night, and the blue fire cloaked his entire body. I couldn’t tell if he wore clothes beneath the flames. He traced his clawed fingers over the black leather before opening it and gently turning each page. He spoke, and the ground beneath my feet trembled at the sound of his voice.
The dark shape emerged from the fog, and I realized it was the same dog that had taken to guarding my front step. Behind him, Gordon stalked through the cemetery.
Well, that would make my night interesting—and spare me from having to return to the catacombs for long.
The devil spoke, and the ground trembled again.
“Stop that,” Director Hammel ordered.
“I’m only giving you what you wanted,” the devil replied, and when he smiled, a chill stabbed through me. He spoke again, and I realized he invoked names from the book.
He spoke a fourth time, and a blue glow erupted from the entrance to the catacombs and bathed the cemetery in pure light.
I could scream, hold my breath until I fainted, run, or crawl under the dog and wait for the storm to finish blowing through.
“You don’t want to do any of those things, my dear,” the devil said, and he patted my shoulder again. “Just stay there and don’t worry your pretty little head over a thing. You’ve served your purpose this night, and the wheels of fate will continue to turn no matter what you do for now.”
“I did what?”
The devil gestured towards the catacomb’s entrance, and the glow intensified.
The skeletal angel emerged from its tomb, and the sole feather left burned brighter than the sun and transformed night to day. I turned my head and squinted, raising my hand to shield my eyes. A second spot of sun-bright light coalesced near the angel’s shoulders, and a new feather uncoiled from bone. Another joined it, and the angel spread its pure white wings. Beginning with its feet, skin stretched over bone and filled out with muscle and blood.
“We have a vampiric guest this night,” the devil said, his tone gentle. “Dim your light, my brother, and mind your face. We are on the mortal coil.”
The angel’s jaw opened in a skeletal grin before a shimmering shroud encapsulated it and the skull vanished, leaving the angel as I expected, a headless being of the purest light.
My dog trotted to me, sat on my feet, and growled at Director Hammel.
“Are you all right, Anwen?” Gordon asked, and he approached although he kept a wary eye on the manifesting angel.
“I got a bump on the back of my head and a headache to go with it, but I’m all right.”
Flesh knit over the angel’s bone, and it stretched its hands and gave its wings a shake. “Why have I been woken from my slumber? Lucifer? Is this your doing? It does not feel as though the end of all things has begun yet. This is not my time.”
“Eh, I got bored, and you know how I get when I get bored.”
“Heaven help us all,” the angel muttered, and I determined it was probably a he. “Could you not have waited a few more years before bothering me with your nonsense?”
I couldn’t tell if the angel liked the devil or not.
“He loves me,” the devil answered with a laugh. “He’s just grumpy when he first gets out of bed. It is my pleasure to be the first to introduce Azrael to this era. All facets of death have been restored to this world.”
“Restored?” Azrael demanded.
“All facets of death now exist, and they’re all awake. Some naughty devils sought to circumvent death and almost began the End of Days. The start of their scheming planted the final seed of death for this world. While my daughter stopped that nonsense before it reached an unfortunate conclusion, all of the conditions for the true end are now in place. All is as the universe intended from the beginning. Don’t tell my daughter I said this, but I’m quite proud of her.”
The angel’s chuckle carried a sharp edge to it, and the hairs on my arms rose. “Coerced a daughter out of Him, did you?”
“I tricked her into accepting being adopted into the family, and I received the blessing of her worldly father. All conditions were met. She still gets so delightfully upset over it at times. She loves having a family, but being my heir is so troublesome. For her. She’s a personification, and you’ll find her to be a delight. One day, I expect her worldly father will make his introductions, and she’ll find she has more parents and family than she can readily handle. I’ll love it. She won’t. She’s a sphinx, but she’s a rather terrible one. Her curses are quite potent, but she needs help from her beloved to inflict them. A good enough thing, else we’d have a cursed mortal coil, for she is as short of temper as she is long of leg.”
“You disgust me,” Azrael muttered. “And the rest of our brothers?”
“They’re here and there. I’m sure they’ll come over to say hello in a few days, after you’re a little less murderous. You know you get pretty murderous first thing in the morning.”
I must have hit my head harder than I thought—or I’d taken a trip straight to hell in a hand basket.
“What is it with you mortals, my hells, and hand baskets? You wouldn’t even fit in one. If you want to take a trip to hell, I can take you, but I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept teleportation, as I’m far too lazy to do it in any of the other ways, with or without a hand basket.”
I considered returning to the catacombs, as things seemed a lot saner in the catacombs.
The devil patted my shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”
“You woke me with a purpose. What would you have me do?”
The devil gestured to Director Hammel, and he snapped his fingers. Black, smoking tendrils surrounded the man, who screamed before he was gagged. “There. Stay put for a while, you pathetic mortal. This will give us a moment to discuss this. Azrael, that mortal seeks to break the universal laws. You’re the only facet of death who can give him a taste of what will happen should those laws be broken and still satisfy the magic blooming because of his actions. Teach this mortal the error of his beliefs. An hour should do. That will make room for the rest of this to fall into place without turning this town into a gateway to my hells. I do hate unauthorized gateways to my hells. I don’t want to deal with a new gateway right now. I’ve a wife to get home to, and if I’m really good, she’ll
put on her fur coat and purr for me.”
“You are even more insufferable than you were when you first fell.” Azrael heaved a sigh. “You know how I hate having to work right after I’ve awoken.”
“I know, I know. Just don’t kill him. The time for that has not yet come. See how far he can run in an hour, though. It will be entertaining. While you do that, I will set the rest of this into motion.” The devil smirked at me. “Isn’t this fun, Anwen?”
“No.”
He handed me the book. “Do put that back where it belongs, please. Some things are best left buried—and cared for properly. You were always disgustingly considerate even in the worst of circumstances.”
“But what is this?”
The devil laughed. “It’s the Book of Life, of course.”
My eyes widened. “The one mentioned in the Bible?”
“You’re delightfully well-educated for a heathen.”
“I’m agnostic.”
“Agnostic, heathen—same difference. I love heathens. You change everything because you don’t believe in the set courses the various religions set for the world. You follow a truly neutral path.”
“I wanted to show the book to Eoghan. I wanted to know if it was in his language.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if it explored the mortal coil for a while.”
I pointed at the entrance. “But it was in there the whole time.”
“That’s not part of the mortal coil. It is a gateway to the land of the dead. The Book of Life is a registry of all those who have passed on from this world to the next, and it contains the names of all who have died, who will die, and those who are dead. Few names escape record. Each room of those catacombs is representative of a different era of this world.”
Crap. “I could have been looking at my own death, then? Just flipping through the pages?”
“No. It doesn’t work that way.”
Well, that was something. “Should I just put it back now?”
“No. It can wait. Now, it’s time for you to bear witness to why the universal laws are as they are. Azrael?”
“Release the mortal, and I shall begin. The book, please.”
I held out the Book of Life to the angel, who took it and flung it into the air. The covers fell open, the pages spread, and when they finally settled, the writing on the pages glowed in the same gold and green light that had suffused the cemetery.
The devil snapped his fingers, and the bindings around Director Hammel released.
“What are you doing?” the director demanded, his voice shrill.
There was something malevolent about the angel’s laughter. “I am giving you what you wished, mortal. Bear witness to the fruit of awakening sleeping gods and standing in the presence of death. Behold.”
Like the devil, the angel read from the book, and every name shook the ground. Something shivered beneath my feet, and I realized I stood upon a grave.
The soil shifted under my feet, and I bolted for the questionable safety of the catacomb’s entrance.
The dead rose from the niches within, and the skeletons strode towards the entrance. Unlike the movies I’d seen, they moved with grace and dignity, marching with their grave goods clutched in their bony hands.
“I would make way for them, Anwen,” the devil said. He pointed to an unmarked grave. “No one rests there, and it should be safe enough there.”
I relocated to that spot in the hopes I might escape without touching any more corpses for the rest of the night.
The devil laughed at me.
“You suck,” I told him.
“You’re almost as delightful as my daughter. Also, your plan to invoke my name in creative ways to piss me off, summon me, and set me loose on that fool? That’s almost as good as my daughter wanting to misspell my name in glitter to make me show up at her whim. It would have worked. This is better. It sets the wheels of fate in motion, and it defines some futures that were, until now, uncertain. Watch closely, Anwen. Humans never learn.”
When the first of the corpses clawed free of the ground and the skeletons poured from the catacombs, I understood why Eoghan disliked screams.
Director Hammel’s took on a rather shrill quality. None of the dead bothered to hurry, although they didn’t shamble like so many movies claimed. They walked with a purpose, shedding dirt, decaying flesh, and rotten clothes as they went. They remained silent while the director continued to waste precious air with his screams.
The devil stood with me, and as though bored with the whole thing, my dog wandered off.
I wasn’t brave enough to dodge through the horde of the dead to follow him. Gordon shrugged and trailed after the animal.
The dead avoided both, opting to focus their attention on their prey.
Azrael sat on a nearby tombstone and patted it. “This is the grave of the woman he desires. I peeked.”
Like the other graves, the soil was disturbed. “I guess it’s a good thing he won’t really be able to tell which one she is, isn’t it?”
“It would serve him right, but you are right. There is no way for him to know which corpse is hers.”
Director Hammel fled from the undead, and Azrael lifted his perfect hand and snapped his fingers. A shimmering dome of green and gold snapped into place over the cemetery. “There. That’ll keep things contained until his very soul remembers why he should leave the dead to their rest. It wouldn’t do to wake all the humans for this nonsense.”
“I don’t know, those assholes all knew Old Man McGregor’s wife killed him, and they don’t even care,” I grumbled.
The devil stretched his wings, rolled his shoulders, and after a few moments, he shrugged. “Your call, Azrael.”
“This matter is best kept contained. The souls I called upon are mischievous in nature.”
“And the woman’s soul?” the devil asked.
“You could look for yourself.”
“It’s best if Anwen hears it from you, who is a facet of death. I will peek into her future if you gaze upon her current fate.”
Azrael relaxed. “You already looked upon her soul, haven’t you?”
“I am a most curious being.”
I shook my head at the devil’s antics.
“The woman has been reborn to a new body. She is but a child now, and she lives in a happy home. Her mother reads to her while she is safely tucked into her warm bed. Her father will read to her next until she finally sleeps. She has a cold, which heals, but she is having trouble sleeping right now.”
I smiled at that. “That sounds sweet.”
“She will be rewarded in her new life, for the universe has ways of repaying its debts,” the devil said. “He will not disturb her again—nor will he cross paths with her in any of her futures.” With a rather malevolent grin, he added, “I will be making certain of that. I plan to have great fun with him when it is time for him to make his appearance at my gates.”
“What will become of him?”
“You’ll see,” the devil promised. “For now, have a seat and watch. I’d say you won’t get to see something like this ever again, but you do live in Sunset, Alabama. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
The dead played a game of chase with Director Hammel, who scrambled to keep away from them. He stopped screaming, figuring out he needed to spare his breath if he wanted to avoid capture. Every time he tripped over a hole in the ground or stumbled into a gravestone, the dead toyed with him.
They loved scuffing his shoes.
I laughed so hard my head hurt and I cried, but I couldn’t stop myself.
The dead really loved scuffing the bastard’s shoes or tugging on his clothes to trick him into believing his end was nigh.
Azrael yawned; while I could no longer see his head, I could hear him inhale, and he made no effort to mask his boredom. “Are you sure I can’t just remove the shroud, Lucifer? This is tedious.”
“You’re supposed to be a compassionate being.”
“I haven’t
had breakfast yet.”
“You haven’t had breakfast in a few thousand years. You’ll survive for another few hours without having to annihilate any innocent mortals who happen to come by.”
“I see why He kicked you from the heavens. You’re insufferable. It’s just a few mortals.”
“I don’t want extra work sorting mortals today.”
“They’re just a few mortals.”
The devil sighed and shook his head. “They’re a few mortals you would have to shepherd due to your involvement in their deaths.”
The angel grunted. “It might be worth it.”
“There was a carving in the catacombs depicting angels, but he couldn’t see them. Why couldn’t he see it and I could?”
That caught their attention, and I could feel the angel’s gaze fall on me. “Had he seen that image, he would have been erased from that world and all others. It is not meant for human eyes.”
“But I’m a human.”
“Are you?”
I blinked, and my brows furrowed. “Well, the DNA tests say I am.”
“But are you, really?” The angel chuckled, and his laughter reminded me of a wind chime disturbed by a restless breeze. “If you were human, those carvings would have erased you from that world and all others. What you are is best left for you to discover. The journey is as important as the destination. The destination itself is of no importance. Everything you are is about what you do to get where you are going. Where you go is nothing more than a place to rest before you begin your next journey. You would do well to remember that. All journeys end, but all you need to do to begin a new journey is to take a single step forward. Death is but the conclusion of one journey and the beginning of the other, as is the End of Days. That end is also another beginning and the first step of a new journey.”
“But he seemed pretty concerned about the End of Days,” I said, pointing at Lucy.
“That is because the End of Days is a great deal of work and little play for him. It’s a war as much as it is a conclusion of all things for this world before the next begins. His journey neither begins nor ends there, for he will be among the first born in the new beginning. It will be nothing more than the blinking of an eye for him, and that annoys him. He is a true immortal, little one. When the End of Days reaches its ultimate conclusion, it will be very much like a first step into that new journey for him. Rest is not his for the taking, and while the other seeds of life slumber and wait for their new beginnings, his will be a restless spirit.”