Morning Star

by Nazri Noor

  Maharani tutted as she swatted at his hand. “This is no time for smoking. And those things are terrible for you, anyway. But I appreciate that you’ve thought ahead to cleaning up the scene. It means you are at least hopeful that we’ll survive this.”

  “We’d goddamn better,” Artemis brayed, poking her head into the conversation, physically shunting her body into the circle. “Hi, I’m Artemis, goddess of the hunt, mistress of the moon, etcetera. Can we just get this over with? Have any of you Lorica goons located a target? Point me at it. Show me Belphegor and I’ll put an arrow through his face. Done and done. Game over.”

  I wasn’t expecting Royce to look so flustered. He immediately put away his cigarettes when Artemis stared at him when he wouldn’t even listen to Maharani about them in the first place. “It’s – it’s not that simple,” he stammered. “We’ve got our Eyes working on it, scrying the scene, but we’re talking a demon prince here. One of the Seven. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”

  “Interesting, isn’t it, sister?” A hand snaked across Artemis’s shoulders, draping along her back with familiarity and just a hint of filth. The grin Loki offered us was sticky, sweet enough to make my skin crawl. “How much the humans bleat when one among us thinks to overstep their silly little laws.”

  Artemis took a half step away from Loki, unsheathing a dagger from her hip in one smooth motion, poising it at his throat. “I’m not your sister, you clown. And this city has seen enough of your tricks for one lifetime.”

  Loki ran one finger down the length of his cheek, pouting. “Oh, but you do wound me, Artemis. Are we not of the same breed, you and I? We may come from different corners of this loathsome planet, yet on earth we remain gods. Ancient, unyielding, and powerful.”

  Like an idiot, I slipped myself between them, forming a barrier between trickster and huntress, despite knowing that I was like a sheet of rice paper between two dueling gales.

  “The goddess is different, trickster.” This time it was Maharani who spoke, her tone cold, stiff. “She is willing to help the progeny of those who worshipped at her temples in days long passed. And you? You are content to sow chaos wherever you step.”

  Loki rolled his eyes and chuckled. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you seek out more and more exciting ventures.” He squatted down on his haunches, reaching out to pet Box, then recoiling hurriedly when he snapped at the god’s fingers with razor teeth. “The creation of life, perhaps, or as in the Prince of Sloth’s case, it seems, the snuffing out of it.” He got back up on his feet, pushing his hands into his hips and thrusting out his chest. “And what are you going to do about it anyway, Scion? Arrest me?”

  He said the word “Scion” with all the spitting satisfaction and violence of a curse. Maharani bared her teeth, but said nothing. Beside her, Royce glared daggers into Loki’s skin, but the god was right. On both a magical and mundane level, Loki was far, far too powerful, nigh untouchable.

  But not, as we had all assumed, entirely useless.

  “There,” he said, raising his head to the sky. “There is your demon prince.”

  I followed Loki’s finger where it pointed, high up to the tallest skyscraper in Central Square, in all of Valero: his own offices at Happy, Inc.

  “I’ll only ask once, Loki,” I said. “Will you help us in this fight?”

  He smirked at me, shook his head, then snapped his fingers, an ornate wooden seat appearing just behind him. “I think not. This is far too entertaining for me as it is.” He crossed his legs as he sat on his spectator’s chair, his eyes sweeping up and down my body as he gnawed on the edge of his thumb. “I prefer to watch, if you catch my drift.” Loki winked. My insides shuddered.

  “No point talking to him,” Maharani said. “He won’t help.” Royce mumbled something to the same effect. Artemis grumbled.

  “Oh, fine,” Loki said, pulling something that jingled out of his suit jacket, then tossing it at me. I caught it in both hands, a set of keys. “Take the elevator up to the rooftop gardens. That’s where you’ll find both Belphegor and your friend. I can feel it in my bones.”

  I looked down into my hands, scowling at the keys attached to a small, silver figurine of a wolf.

  “Of course,” Loki added, “you could always make it more interesting.” He folded his fingers together, resting his elbows in his lap, then his chin on the backs of his hands. “You’re practically an angel, are you not? Why don’t you just flap your wings and fly up there?”

  Fly? I looked at him, mouth parched, then up at the building.

  “Prove that you’re worthy of carrying your father’s name, nephilim.” Loki chuckled to himself, leaning back into his throne. “Prove that you are indeed the son of Samyaza.”

  24

  My throat was dry, and I knew exactly why. It was a stupid dare from a god known for his proclivity for deception, yet there I was, wondering if I could actually sprout wings and fly myself up to the gardens. It was the shortest way from point A to point B, and wasn’t it part of my birthright, after all?

  But the last time I took flight I ended up being sick for days, chucking up my guts and burning with fever. I clenched my teeth, as well as my fingers, the archangel’s sword still warm in my hands. Flying would be fast, but it’d also ruin my body again. How could Loki be so wrong and so right at the same time?

  Maharani closed her hand around the back of mine, leaning in to whisper. “Don’t listen to him. If misdirection was one of the deadly sins, Loki would become the prince of its hell instantly. Focus on the task at hand.” Then even more quietly, she added: “You – you have flown on your own before, haven’t you?”

  The god waved his hand lazily. “Yes, yes. On the task at hand, like the Scion says.” He seemed totally comfortable where he was, the legs of his chair already twined over with Sloth’s terrible red vines and blossoms. “Look at that, he really is on my rooftop garden. I was right.” He cupped his hands over his mouth like a megaphone. “Don’t trample the peonies, now, Belphegor.” Loki leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “Silly demon.”

  See, that’s how it worked with entities. Fickle, vapid, never caring, except when they did. Artemis had always been one of the good ones, lending a hand to humanity whenever true danger presented itself. It was her failing, the very reason the other gods of moon and night revoked their support of her and took away so much of her original pre-Paradise domicile.

  But some entities aren’t just fickle. Some are assholes, too.

  Loki was right, though. A familiar crimson glow was emanating from the peak of Happy, Inc. headquarters, the same color that marked Belphegor and his demon magics.

  “Nephilim,” said a familiar voice from on high. I couldn’t make out where Belphegor stood, exactly, but the crimson light of his power pulsed with every booming syllable. “Come and see. Use your wings and fight. Come and see.”

  My grip tightened even harder. “What the hell is up with these entities wanting me to fly so badly?” Not that it would have been a huge deal, apart from that little problem of me never having done it since the day I got airsick and puked my guts out.

  “Flying or no, doesn’t matter. You don’t need wings when you’ve got a Wing on hand.” Royce stretched his arms, his joints popping as he rolled his neck from side to side. “Everybody come close. It’s time to confront that crimson asshole.”

  I crowded closer to Royce with Maharani and Artemis, pursing my lips and tutting to call Box over. Loki twiddled his fingers at us in a silent, smirking goodbye. I glowered at him in a silent, scowling echo. We each grabbed a length of Royce’s coat – with Box bundled up at my feet, resting on top of my shoe – and he snapped his fingers.

  Suddenly Loki, Central Square, the massive carpets of crimson flowers were all gone, replaced by the bone-chilling air and sweet scents of the corporation’s rooftop garden. For whatever reason, none of Belphegor’s blooms were to be found up here, the ground instead a woven mat of horrible, slithering tendrils, very
much like the ones Florian and I had to ward off every time we visited Sloth’s hell. Speaking of Florian – speaking of Belphegor, for that matter – where were they?

  Artemis’s bowstring twanged tightly as she nocked her first arrow, surveying the rooftop with hawklike eyes. Royce signaled in silence, indicating that he would move around the left side of the gardens with Maharani, letting me and Artemis take the right.

  I paced as softly as I could, avoiding the undulating mass of blood-red tentacles along the ground, the whole time thinking that there was very little point to keeping a low profile. Belphegor knew we were coming. He’d summoned and taunted us, after all.

  The first sign was the petal that drifted down gently from above us.

  Artemis struck as quickly as a snake, loosing her arrow towards the sky, piercing the petal before it could even reach our heads. And the arrow kept on zinging in flight, heading towards the source of the little intrusion: Belphegor himself, suspended several feet in the air, his body pulsing with a crimson glow.

  I was so hoping that the arrow would take out an eye, pierce his heart, do something, anything – but instead Belphegor reached out lazily with one hand, catching the arrow as if it was a paper plane in mid-flight. Artemis grunted, disappointed that she had whiffed her shot, likely even more annoyed that she’d missed out on an opportunity to maim or kill someone.

  “And so the prodigal son arrives. I thought you would come alone, heir of Samyaza, but who are you without your friends? Just a boy, helpless, grounded, weak, and – ”

  Belphegor’s words were cut short by the whistling of another arrow, then a second, then a third, loosed by Artemis in such rapid succession that I barely saw her hands move. This time Belphegor held his hand out, red light gleaming in a translucent bubble around his body. The arrows pinged against his shield, three glassy, futile sounds as they were deflected and fell uselessly away. Again Artemis cursed under her breath.

  Belphegor stared at her hard, the wind shifting his hair so that it exposed his third eye. All three of them burned crimson as he took in the sight of our motley crew.

  “A half-baked nephilim, two hedge wizards, and a crippled goddess. Pitiful. Is that really all you’ve managed to muster against me? Unsurprising. Everyone always underestimates Sloth. The most harmless of the sins, the least of the Seven, yes.” Belphegor brushed his hair up and away from his face, his expression hard as he regarded the city below us. “They won’t say that any longer.”

  The prince’s body rocked gently with the wind as he levitated above us. Maharani tugged on my sleeve, her voice uncharacteristically wavering when she spoke.

  “Mason,” she murmured. “Look closer.”

  What I hadn’t immediately noticed were all the vein-like appendages trailing out of Belphegor’s limbs, pulsating and throbbing like arteries as they fed him power. I followed the tendrils to their natural endpoint, and my heart did a mournful tumble.

  Florian. He was half-buried in the earth, hands and fingers pressed into the soil, the holes in his forehead connecting his mind and his soul to Belphegor’s through those same veiny tentacles.

  “What the fuck are you doing to him?” My voice quaked and cracked as I screamed. “Let him go. You let him go now, Belphegor, or – ”

  Belphegor’s cruel laughter filled the air, rumbling across the gardens. “Or what, nephilim? What could you possibly do to stop me? Try to free your friend from my link and he dies. Harm me and he withers away, a mindless vegetable. Either way, his death will be slow, painful, as what’s left of his persona screams and suffers from the inside of his skull. Is that what you’ll risk to save your sweet Florian, Mason Albrecht? Is stopping me worth his demise?”

  My fist was balled so tightly that I felt my fingernails cut deep enough into my skin to draw blood. In my right hand, the archangel’s sword called to me in a wordless siren song, beseeching me to kill, to draw the demon prince’s blood instead. The consequences didn’t matter, the sword said. Only justice, only rebellion.

  Behind me, Maharani and Royce were strategizing in hushed tones. She couldn’t stop time around someone as powerful as one of the Seven. He couldn’t condone calling down the full fury of the Heart, a blast of fire from the sky itself, because it would destroy the building utterly and set off a massive chain of collateral damage. And now there was talk of reinforcements, of Royce calling on more Wings to transport mages to the rooftop so we could fight Belphegor on more even terms.

  And yet – and yet everything would end with Florian dying anyway.

  Talk. All talk and useless bluster, the sword said. My sword. Not an archangel’s. The Lorica could help if they ever came up with a plan, but what we needed were results. Quick, immediate results.

  “He doesn’t deserve this,” I cried out, understanding that I needed to buy the Lorica time, barely resisting the urge to murder, to smash and destroy. “Let him go. You have your stupid fucking flowers. Let him be.”

  Belphegor’s eyes burned with red fire as he acknowledged me, the same light emanating from his mouth when he scoffed. “And then what? How will I finish what needs to be done?”

  “This is hardly original,” I said, resorting to mockery. I watched with pride as Box ate endlessly away at the flowers, like he was trying to help prove my point. “Someone tried to overgrow the world before, choke it out with plants. Is that your plan? If so – it’s not a very good one.”

  Again Belphegor scoffed. “That’s where you’re wrong, nephilim. You can’t possibly believe that these plants are normal. My hags were very sure to see to that.”

  Wait. The hags.

  Where were the witches?

  25

  Maharani was the first to go down, tumbling in a swirl of silks and the first witch’s snow-white hair. The hag hissed and raked with her claws, and I would have rushed to help Rani if the second hag hadn’t burst out of the foliage and leapt directly for my throat.

  I rolled out of the way just in time, sword at the ready, though ready for what, I couldn’t be sure. Royce was helping Maharani up off the ground, his cheek welling with blood from three shallow scratches left there by talons. The hags were gone again, nowhere to be found, and I hadn’t even spotted the third one yet.

  Artemis pivoted on her hips, machine-like in her precision, yet ever fluid and graceful. She let an arrow fly towards what looked like a topiary sculpted in the shape of a large wolf. The air blurred as the arrow met its mark: a witch’s forehead. The hag’s eyes crossed as they focused on the arrow protruding from her brow. She collapsed to the ground, instantly dead.

  “What the hell are these things?” I hissed. “I thought he was the Prince of Sloth. Why are his minions like overgrown cheetahs? They shouldn’t be this fast.”

  Artemis shrugged as she nocked another arrow. “Hell if I know. It’s all the same to me. Next one that comes out here is dead, same as that one on the pavement.”

  Her bowstring twanged again, but this time by accident. She cried out, a red tendril seizing her by the wrist.

  “Artemis!”

  I slashed with my sword, severing the tendril in one blow, but not at all anticipating the seven that sprouted in its place. Like all the flowers, like a fucking hydra. Just what was Belphegor planning?

  The tendrils latched on to both of Artemis’s wrists, then her ankles, restraining tightly, like the plants knew that they had to neutralize the strongest member of our team posthaste.

  “Every time,” Artemis grunted, struggling against her restraints. “Every time we run into a demon prince I get tied up like this. The fuck is with your perverted kinks, you stupid demon – mmph!”

  A fifth tentacle had found its way to her mouth, wrapping across her lips and cutting off anything else she had to say. Belphegor laughed, his unseen hags echoing him with their cackles.

  “The goddess has a filthy mouth. Most uncouth. Unclean. Undeserving for the attention of one who will soon be the greatest among the Seven.”

  His eyes were still burni
ng with the same terrible light, his voice distant, as though his mind was a separate entity from his body. And was he talking different, too? A little too formal for his style. What the hell was happening?

  Royce lobbed a fireball up towards Belphegor, another futile attempt as the flames crashed, then snuffed out as they struck the prince’s force bubble. “The greatest? The hell are you talking about? That’s never going to happen, Sloth.”

  The greatest among the Seven. The words reverberated in my mind as I slashed again and again at the tendrils restraining Artemis, her eyes going wider and more manic as more and more of the sentient vines appeared with each one I destroyed. She shook her head desperately, her eyes dark with warning. Was I supposed to stop? What else was I supposed to do?

  Belphegor spoke again, his voice calmer, somehow, despite his words being filled with so much menace. “It is meant to be, Scion. A hedge wizard like you couldn’t possibly hope to comprehend. The alraune’s magic will let me fuel the growth of these flowers so that they spread across cities, states, over oceans as they reach their vines over this pitiful world.”

  “I knew it,” I yelled at him, because taunting and distracting him felt like the only thing I could do anymore. “That’s played out, Belphegor.”

  “Is it, nephilim? Is it ‘played out’ and ‘unoriginal’ for the flowers that my hags have worked so lovingly on to take root, mature within minutes, then release spores meant to paralyze every human that comes in contact with them?”

  My blood froze, my muscles still as I exchanged cautious glances with the Scions. Even Artemis stopped struggling, momentarily stunned by the revelation.

  “Paralyze,” I repeated dumbly.

  “You heard what I said, nephilim. Mass paralysis is the name of the game. What would those of the Seven do to corrupt a population that cannot sin, nor move, only breathe and stare in horror out of disobedient eyes gone wide in permanent terror? Sloth isn’t laziness, or luxury, or decay. True sloth is apathy, inertia, loss of momentum. It is nothingness. Take away man’s capacity to sin, freeze them all, and I will be left the most powerful among the Seven.”