Infernal Angel (36 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
“I don’t understand.”
“Choose. Now.”
Walter looked absurdly at the two massive demons. “I can’t fight these guys. And even if I could, there’s a hundred more of them in front of me and behind me.”
“Choose,” No-name said. “Now.”
“Send this soothsayer’s spirit into the body of a worm,” the first demon ordered. The second demon began to raise the mallet over No-name’s head.
“Leave her alone!” Walter shouted.
The demon exploded. It sounded like a howitzer going off. In a split second, the demon flew away in black bits, in a tornado-like rise. Even the mallet exploded.
The same thing happened to the other demon, the instant it lunged and tried to throw the net over Walter. The street shook in another cannon-like bang.
What the hell?
Walter thought. His knees wobbled, and his cars hurt from the sound. No-name, below, smiled up at him.
Walter thought. His knees wobbled, and his cars hurt from the sound. No-name, below, smiled up at him.
“Get ready,” she whispered.
“Seize him!” a black voice barked, then a wave of rallying shouts rose. Walter peed in his pants when he saw both regiments of demons charge at him.
“Walter,” No-name said. “They think
they’re
bad? Show them what bad really is.”
they’re
bad? Show them what bad really is.”
Walter put his hands over his eyes, and his voice cracked like a boy entering puberty when he shrieked. “Fuckin’ DIE!”
Both ends of the street exploded in encroaching stages, as if carpet-bombed. The concussion knocked Walter down, and the buildings on either side trembled. The street broke apart into great chunks, like an instantaneous earthquake. The demons were engulfed by the rubble and ground up to pulp. Arms, legs, and heads, boots, helmets, and breast-plates, flew up into the air and then rained back down, along with a torrent of demonic blood.
Then: total silence.
The only part of the street that hadn’t been destroyed was the immediate area of space that Walter and No-name’s head occupied. Walter sat huddled over the head, teeth chattering, shell-shocked.
“You can get up now, Walter,” No-name said.
Walter did so, shakily. Both sides of the street were now a massive pile of rubble and gore.
“Did I do that?” he peeped.
“Yes.”
“Did I pass the test?”
“Like every other test you’ve ever taken in your life, Walter—you got a hundred. Congratulations. You’re a walking meat-grinder.”
He peered at the mounds of wreckage and carnage. Body parts twitched, while corpses lay crushed. Steam rose off the piles of rubble.
That’s the secret,
he wondered. The secret to unlocking his Ethereal Powers.
Confidence.
In that last fragment of a second, he’d released his fears and terrors and believed in himself.
That’s the secret,
he wondered. The secret to unlocking his Ethereal Powers.
Confidence.
In that last fragment of a second, he’d released his fears and terrors and believed in himself.
Walter, stupefied as he gazed at the destruction, considered this. “I could do some serious damage down here.”
“Yes, you could. But is that really your destiny?”
“I guess not, since you put it that way.”
“Destiny is like fate, Walter,” No-name informed him next. “You don’t have to go searching for it. It finds you.”
Embrace your destiny,
the words kept ringing in his head. With No-name safely tucked under his arm, Walter began to climb over the heaps of rubble and bodies, back toward the main road. From the windows of the surrounding buildings, citizens of Hell leaned out, hooting, whistling, applauding. “God be with you, Etherean!” a voice trumpeted.
the words kept ringing in his head. With No-name safely tucked under his arm, Walter began to climb over the heaps of rubble and bodies, back toward the main road. From the windows of the surrounding buildings, citizens of Hell leaned out, hooting, whistling, applauding. “God be with you, Etherean!” a voice trumpeted.
Walter looked up, awed at the demons and Humans waving at him, wishing him well.
“Look at that, Walter,” the head said. “You’re a star.”
Yeah
... He waved back at them, then continued climbing over the rubble. “So I guess I don’t even have to ask you where we’re going next, huh?”
Yeah
... He waved back at them, then continued climbing over the rubble. “So I guess I don’t even have to ask you where we’re going next, huh?”
“Wherever it is we’re supposed to go, it’ll find us,” No-name replied.
Chapter Thirteen
(I)“They’re hybrid Armilus,” Angelese said. They’d closed the Nectoport, and were hiding behind the barbican a block away from the windowless limestone castle known as the Infernal Archives. The structure loomed, hundreds of feet tall, and occupied most of the largest block of Nero Square. Cassie and the angel were staking the place out.
“Hybrid ...
what?”
Cassie squinted around the rampart edge.
what?”
Cassie squinted around the rampart edge.
“Armilus. Hybrid offspring of Lucifer, sort of like a genetic mutation where the base subject was one of Lucifer’s sons. There’s only two of them here, but they’re very powerful. They guard the entrance to the Archives.”
Cassie looked at the atrocious things, thinking of the most overdeveloped body-builders. Bulbs of muscles growing over more muscles, tree-trunk-stout legs bowed and tensed from all the muscle mass they had to bear. Veins like ropes beat beneath mottled caramel-brown skin that shined as if oiled. When they walked, their flat feet and the huge balls of their heels thumped on the brick pavement. Their bald, horned heads were divided by still more muscles, and their eyes, too, were barely visible through their facial bulges.
“You’d think that there’d be more of them,” Cassie ventured. “If the Infernal Archives is such an important, sensitive place—how come there’s only two of them?”
“They’re so strong they can punch through stone walls,” Angelese warned, “they can break iron bars and kick though iron plate. They can lift several hundred times their own weight, and they’re impervious to fire. They don’t need more than two of them to guard the Archives, because they’re very, very powerful.”
Cassie frowned at them, then shouted “Rigor Mortis!”
The two things jerked their attention toward Cassie. They began to thump forward but only for a few steps before their flexing unwieldy muscles began to spasm. Cassie’s Etheric command caused the creatures’ muscle fibers to expend all of their myofibrillar proteins at once.
Two great
THUMPS!
resounded when both Armilus flopped over onto the pavement. They convulsed a moment, then went stiff as statutes.
THUMPS!
resounded when both Armilus flopped over onto the pavement. They convulsed a moment, then went stiff as statutes.
“They’re not
that
powerful,” Cassie complained.
that
powerful,” Cassie complained.
Angelese smiled at Cassie’s creativity. “Don’t get overconfident. When you use too much of your energy too fast, you can deplete yourself.”
Cassie remembered what had happened at the clinic. Her last command had caused her to lose consciousness, and the angel had had to carry her out. “I’ll be careful,” she tried to assure.
“Good, because you’ll need a little more in a minute once we’re in the Archives.”
Cassie didn’t understand. “But you just told me there were only two Armilus guarding the place.”
“Guarding the
outside
of the place.”
outside
of the place.”
Cassie didn’t feel particularly challenged by more Armilus. “You mean there’s more inside?”
“No,” the angel said. “Inside there’s something worse.”
Hmm,
Cassie thought.
We’ll see.
Cassie thought.
We’ll see.
They approached the front steps of the Archives, the pair of Armilus frozen on their meaty backs. Ahead, the Archives stood strangely as if in wait for them, like a citadel, a medieval fortress with garrets, turrets, and unscalable flat outer walls. “So this is like Hell’s library?” Cassie asked.
“That’s exactly what it is. And there’s only one person inside running it. She’s known as the Maémaè.”
Cassie wasn’t fearful.
How tough can a librarian be?
How tough can a librarian be?
“But to find her, we have to go through the Labyrinth. It’s the only way to get to the Main Document Repository, and the Labyrinth is inhabited by two Necrotiks. They’re already dead, so they can’t be killed.”
Cassie’s confidence waned a bit. She didn’t even like the name:
Necrotiks.
It sounded ... disconcerting.
Necrotiks.
It sounded ... disconcerting.
She thought of Greek mythology’s Theseus and the Minotaur when they entered the Labyrinth: a series of narrow passageways. Irradiated moonstones were all that lit the corridors—Cassie could barely see at certain points, and it was around one such very dark corner that she bumped into something.
“What the—”
A hand that stank and felt skeletal opened over her face.
“Get back get back get back!” she shrieked. She and Angelese retreated.
“What was it?”
“Something...” was all Cassie got out.
“Did it stink? Like a rotten corpse?”
“Yes!”
Angelese took one of the moonstones down from its sconce and shined it forward like a flashlight.
“Jesus Christ!” Cassie complained.
A stick figure stood before them at the corner. A skeleton with a patchwork of corpse-skin grafted over its bones. No internal organs, no muscles or tendons, just buttermilk-white skin stretched over bone. The empty eye sockets were looking right at them,
seeing
them.
seeing
them.
It just stood there, holding up one bony hand like a cop directing traffic.
“That’s really bizarre,” the angel observed.
“Yeah, a friggin’ skeleton covered with dead skin? Bizarre is right!”
“No, I mean its actions. Necrotiks are animated by Enchantment Spells and are motivated by Satanic vengeance. It should be attacking us by now. Instead it’s just standing there, blocking our way.”
Fragments of language cracked from the rotten hole that was its mouth. It said, “Do not attempt to pass. Retrace your steps and leave. Please.”
Cassie grabbed Angelese’s arm. “Maybe we should do that. I mean, come on, it said please.”
“We can‘t, Cassie. We’re here for a reason. We have to find out what your mother refused to tell us. If we don’t, we fail.” Angelese peered queerly at her. “What happened to all that Etheric confidence? You act like you’re afraid of the dark.”
“I am!” Cassie exclaimed.
Up ahead, the second Necrotik appeared, standing at the other’s side. It, too, held up its skin-tattered hand.
“I don’t understand this,” the angel went on. “They’re acting like they’re afraid, but they’re not capable of feeling fear, just wrath. They’re unkillable, and we’re just two chicks. What the hell are they afraid of?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. This place creeps me out. There’s gotta be another way in.”
“There isn’t.”
“Let’s go around to the other side of the building. I’ll knock down a wall with a mental projection—we can get in that way.”
“The walls are all protected by Indemnity Hexes. Not even the strongest Etheric thought can crack them. But I think I know what the Necrotiks are afraid of.”
“What?”
“You. You’re an entity of innocence in a place where no innocence exists. In their eternal death, they sense your living spirit. They’ve never seen anything like you before; you’re not what they’re used to.”
Cassie winced. “Am I supposed to be, like,
encouraged
by that? I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”
encouraged
by that? I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”
“Try something,” Angelese threw out. “Project something at them.”
All right,
Cassie thought.
Think. If I were
a
reanimated corpse, what would I be afraid of? Her thoughts paused. I know ...
Cassie thought.
Think. If I were
a
reanimated corpse, what would I be afraid of? Her thoughts paused. I know ...
“Cremate!” she yelled down the corridor.
The verb turned into a wedge of hissing flame—white-blue hot—that bulled down the passageway and collided with the two figures. It hovered there, engulfing them, hissing, the heat so intense that a reactive wave swept back and burned Cassie’s face. On either side of the passage, the black stone walls turned red like burners on a stove.
When the fire died, Cassie said, “Shit.”
The Necrotiks remained unaffected, unscorched, their hands still upraised.
“Shit is right,” Angelese said.
It worked before, maybe it’ll work again,
Cassie thought next, and yelled, “Boneless!”
Christ, that’s practically all they
are is bones. She repeated it: “Boneless, boneless, boneless!”
Cassie thought next, and yelled, “Boneless!”
Christ, that’s practically all they
are is bones. She repeated it: “Boneless, boneless, boneless!”
Nothing happened.
“Armless! Legless! Now!”
No effect.
“You’re trying to take away from them,” Angelese suggested. “They’re fleshless corpses; symbolically there’s nothing you can take away ...”
When the angel said that, the pair of Necrotiks rushed forward, howling like nails across slate.
You can’t take away from them,
Cassie thought, steeling herself,
so try adding TO them ...
Cassie thought, steeling herself,
so try adding TO them ...
“Obese! Fat! Adipose tissue!”
Their howls fluttered as their movements forward ground to a halt. When Cassie looked at them again, they were immobile in fat, the patchworks of dead skin stretched to such an extreme they appeared fit to burst. Hundreds of pounds of fatty tissue now filled the space between their skin and bones. The things could do nothing now but churn face-down on the stone floor, like quivering balloons.
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