Knight in Charlotte

  “The Estate of Heaven,” Velos intoned, “withdraws the sin of murder on Camille.”

  “Doesn’t get Camille off the suicide,” Screwtape said, pinching his chin between clawed fingers. “Sin of despair, you know.”

  “Exemption,” Velos said. “She was not in her right mind.”

  “On what proof?” Screwtape demanded. The minotaurs behind him snorted and pawed. He raised a hand to quell them.

  “I am the proof,” Joan said. “How can you say she was in her right mind when I was in there in place of her? When my task was done, I was dispelled and poor Camille was left to face the wrack I had made of her life.” Tears rolled down Joan’s face and her voice quivered. “I left her alone, with no support. Oh, that I did not want, but I was swept away by the violence and emotion. By the time I could find my way back to her…” Sobs overtook Joan and she covered her face with her hands.

  Camille looked on, made a tentative motion toward Joan, then stopped.

  “Not a bad argument, Legate. Maybe I could even see it your way on Camille, but you will leave Joan in Hell.”

  “She is not real,” Velos said. “A tormented girl made up an imaginary friend, a heroine and protector to give hope to her terrible world. Yet Joan is a fragment, a splinter of Camille’s soul. You cannot hold part of a soul in Hell. For Camille to go free, that part of her which is Joan must accompany her to be reintegrated. The soul is whole and indivisible –”

  “Yeah with liberty and justice for all. Sorry, no sale, Velos. Souls are my specialty. I can smell them, hell I can practically taste them. However she started, however she came to be, Joan is no longer Camille. That,” he pointed at Joan, “is a separate and unique soul now. You can take Camille but you’ll leave Joan to her damnation. She killed the father and drove Camille to suicide.”

  A feeling of unreality gripped Jeremy. Had they come so far to fail now? No. Almost without volition the bloodsword whispered into his hands. The gem winked balefully, disturbing and roiling the atmosphere, causing Screwtape to flinch.

  “Lady Joan,” Jeremy said. “You will not be abandoned.”

  “You’re over your head, Kid,” Screwtape said.

  “Jeremy, put up your blade,” Velos said, his face heavy in defeat. “We have won all we can.”

  Shadowheart screamed, a shocking sound that rent the very air. But it was not a cry of frustration of defeat, rather the war cry of bird of prey. She shook herself violently and great red and black wings burst from her back. She stood straight as the clothes of the succubus melted off her body, her hair flowed long and black and the black armor covered her breasts where a moment before a bustier had been. She leveled the tined pitchfork as she stood tall then taller. She shot past her normal seven feet in height until she towered thirty feet into the sky, the great wings spreading over them like a canopy. The minotaurs and demons shuffled back in horror, confronted by an angry archangel. Some fled outright.

  Screwtape and Velos looked up at her with identical expressions of horror.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Screwtape shouted. “Are you trying to start an Apocalypse?”

  “Shadowheart, you know the powers here,” Velos pled. “You can destroy a legion of minotaurs, but you know what will happen when your fallen brethren come. Even if you could defeat them, HE will come. You’re not Michael. Even he could not stand against that force in contravention of the law, in its own place!”

  Deep rolling bongs sounded as if from the depths of the sea.

  “Hell Bells,” Screwtape gasped. “Oh no. Velos, we gotta do something.”

  “We have not endured Hell,” Shadowheart’s voice rolled out, “to be stopped now.”

  “We will not leave Joan,” Jeremy shouted, raising his sword over his head. The magic gem in its hilt flamed brighter.

  Joan grabbed his arm. “No, Jeremy, you must take Camille and leave. I am not worth it. My sister is all that matters.”

  Suddenly Camille was between them throwing her arms around Joan. “No. I won’t leave you. I was weak before, because I had you to fight for me. I was wrong. I love you, Joan. I won’t abandon you. We’ll face Hell together.”

  The bells droned louder. The sky grew dark as the wind began to whip at them alternately with stinging sand and freezing sleet.

  “Release them both,” Shadowheart glared down at Screwtape.

  “I can’t,” Screwtape said. “There’s provision in the treaties. The Powers will never accept it.”

  “Wait,” Velos said. “If it wasn’t pure self-defense, Joan still killed to protect an innocent. She was in Camille’s body, protecting it from violation.”

  Hope dawned on the demon’s face. “Wait, you said she wasn’t real, not a born human anyway.”

  “That’s Heaven’s position.”

  “Maybe we can deal with her under the law for animal spirits.”

  “She’s not a man-eating tiger!”

  “Work with me, Velos, or the universe ends today,” Screwtape howled. “Legate for Hell stipulates that Joan is non-human but sentient, incapable of moral guilt as she acted as she was made to act, without free will.”

  “Heaven agrees,” Velos shouted over the rising wind and hellish bells.

  “Camille goes heavenward, degree to be determined by the Estate of Heaven,” Screwtape shouted. “Joan will be assigned to the Grey Messenger service, twenty-year service with a probationary review at the end.”

  The light began to fade. On the horizon, something the size of a mountain could barely be seen unfurling vast wings. The wind whipped like flails; Screwtape's followers broke and fled in disorder. Camille and Joan sank to their knees holding each other, Joan’s shield raised over Camille. Jeremy shielded his eyes, the gem was now the only light, a pool of sanctuary moderating the wind and showing Shadowheart above them, her telephone pole sized pitchfork leveled at the horizon where eyes red and large as volcanoes turned a soul-destroying gaze their way.

  “Lady Joan?” Jeremy shouted above the din.

  “We agree,” Camille and Joan screamed in unison.

  “You are all deported,” Velos and Screwtape shouted, running toward each other and clapping hands on the bargain. Both spun toward Shadowheart, their hands glowing white for Velos and red for Screwtape. “Get the hell out of here,” they shouted.

  Over Shadowheart’s head, a golden circle appeared, its light warm and beneficent in the hellish scene. Shadowheart flung the pitchfork away, stooped down and gathered Jeremy in one hand and the girls in the other. She vaulted into the sky, through the golden ring and away from the universal nightmare stretching out its mighty hand toward them.

  A golden glow surrounded them, calmed them, soothing their cuts and abrasions from the whipping wind. Green grass appeared underfoot, stretching out to an infinite horizon of low rolling hills. The golden glow became the sun of a cool spring day. The sky turned a cornflower blue with rags of white cloud generously painted on it.

  They stood in a circle, facing each other. Shadowheart was again the blond teen of her usual appearance, scarcely older than Joan and Camille.

  “We’re out,” Camille said in wonder.

  “You are out, my sister,” Joan said, “which is all that matters to me.”

  “I’m sorry that I could not take you back,” Camille said shyly. “I would never learn to be strong if you were within me. I knew that I would fade eventually and you would end up in me alone. And the memories… I could not endure those.”

  “I understand, my sister. Do not let it grieve you. For me too there was no turning back. I wish to know and be and to become… Joan.”

  “You will have duties in the Overworld,” Shadowheart said. “The Grey Messengers are sent many places in the worlds of the dead. Some are dangerous.”

  Joan lifted her head in a defiant gesture. “I am Joan and I fear no man, beast or demon while Camille is safe.”

  “Will Joan and I meet again?” Camille asked, holding her imaginary friend’s hand.

 
“I cannot say,” Shadowheart replied. “I am a disobedient and reckless angel not much in heaven’s favor at the moment. Yet I cannot imagine that two such sisters would be forever sundered.”

  “Camille is bound for heaven?” Jeremy demanded.

  “She goes on the path upward. How far is for others to say and they will not speak to those who cannot follow.”

  The two girls followed Shadowheart’s gaze. At the top of a low hillock to the west stood an angel in white, its face indistinct. Shadowheart pointed the other way and they saw a messenger in a grey cloak and blue hat standing on another hill, staff in hand.

  “Time for you girls to go,” Shadowheart said softly.

  Jeremy realized that he still held his sword in hand. He sheathed it in the black leather duster as Camille and Joan embraced and wept.

  “You must be brave for us both,” Joan said, separating from Camille. “We shall meet again beloved sister. I, Joan, Maid of Orleans, swear this.” She turned to Shadowheart and bowed deeply, then to Jeremy. A mischievous smile broke over her face and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him quickly. “Au revoir, mes amie.”

  “Bon voyage, milady. I will remember you.”

  Joan strode toward the messenger, head high, back straight, without looking back.

  Camille came up to Shadowheart, impulsively embraced her. The angel whispered something in the girl’s ear. Camille turned to Jeremy. She too kissed him, but on the cheek, a fleeting touch like a butterfly’s wing. Then she ran to the waiting angel.

  Shadowheart and Jeremy were alone in the endless dell.

  “Can we get back?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she said as she walked over and stretched out on a mossy stone half-buried in the ground. “However, I suspect it would be appreciated in the Realms of Heaven, Earth and Hell if you and I bided for a time in this place between the Realms, out of sight and perhaps out of mind. Don’t worry, not much time will pass in the Realm of Earth and in this place you will neither hunger nor thirst.”

  She gazed up at him, her eyes direct and untroubled. She stretched out arms over her head. The denim jacket and white shirt she wore rode up showing her flat stomach.

  “Look, I think we have to talk about what happened,” he said, awkward and tense. “I mean when we… when you and I…”

  She looked at him, clear blues eyes over a snub nose. “Why?”

  “Because we have to and… I can’t have this conversation when you look like you’re sixteen.”

  Suddenly Shadowheart lay there in her succubus mode: long red hair, stockings and garters, her waist cinched in a corset. “Jeremy,” she said, her ruby eyes lighting on him. “What happens in Hell… stays in Hell.”

  The End

  Edward McKeown

  http://www.amazon.com/Edward-McKeown/

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  Available on Amazon

  Was Once a Hero in print – foreword written by Janet Morris

  Fearful Symmetry in print- foreword written by Claudia Christian

  Points of Departure in print

  Hidden Stars- the first of the Shasti Rainhell series coming in 2014

  On the Case – the Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess Files, coming soon

  In 2014 and beyond, comes the Maauro and Wrik Trigardt series from Copper Dog Publishing. Set sixty years later in the same future as Robert Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell, a new duo challenges the powers ruling the stars, a 50,000 year old combat android and a disgraced rebel pilot.

  My Outcast State

  Against that Time

  The Lost

  All the Difference

  Legacies

  If you liked this book send me an email at [email protected] and I will send you a free PDF copy of the short story prequel to the series, Regrets and Requiems I’ll also let you know of new work. Cheers Ed