Plague of Angels (35 page)

All the gates of the city were open and lines of women and children with broken, weeping eyes and damaged flesh passed in and out of them, dragging body after body. The city stank beyond all reason, and Nyx had ordered the it cleared. Every now and then a bored crusader would grab one of the women or girls or boys and rape them while the other crusaders laughed. The victims seldom even cried out anymore, just silently accepted it as part of the humiliation of being a defeated people, and grew ever more broken, ever more despondent.

Tribunal, all I have done, I have done for you,
Nyx prayed to herself as she watched a boy get prodded back to his feet at sword-point. The boy tried his best to cover himself again and limped back into the line of people dragging out the bodies.
That would have bothered me, once.

It didn’t bother her now. Her prayers to Tribunal had gone from hourly to near-continuous, and with those prayers came the continuous feed of His strength and His hatred. She hated the humans with a passion almost as intense as Tribunal’s had been. To see a young one abused no longer meant anything to her.
They’ll be wiped from the face of the earth soon enough. Let them suffer while they wait.

She sensed that there was something hollow inside her, something missing, but she didn’t know what. And every time she prayed to Tribunal, the feeling passed to nothingness.

I will release the slaves soon,
Nyx thought.
I will command them to worship me, and to spread my glory. Those that do so will go free, and the rest can be used and slaughtered as the crusaders will.

She smiled at the thought.

Egypt would be coming soon, bringing all its might to face the crusaders. Nyx had no doubt her crusaders would destroy them. For now, this part of the world belonged to her, and none would wrest it away any time.

A single ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, shining on Nyx and filling her with a warmth far beyond that of mere heat and light, and she heard Tribunal say,
“You have done very, very well, my love.”

Tribunal’s voice rang through her head. Nyx nearly collapsed from the power of it.

“My beloved,” she said, feeling tears of joy falling from her eyes.

“You have taken Jerusalem, my beautiful Nyx. You have opened up a portal and now I may speak.”

“My love,” she said aloud, not caring who heard. “I have done as you commanded. I have brought God’s city to its knees. I have made them take it in my name and I have caused them to worship me.”

“It is no less than I expected,”
said Tribunal, and the words were filled with love and pride.
“Your love for me that you would do this, your strength to make it happen, fills me with hope that all our plans will come to fruition and we will throw down
God
from his throne and claim it for our own, to rule together for all eternity.”

“We will, my love.”

“This is the completion of the beginning,”
said Tribunal in her head. “You
have succeeded in that which must be done so that all else may follow.”

“For You, my love.”

“And for you, my love,”
said Tribunal. “
You know the word to contact me. Hide yourself in a place free of all prying eyes, safe from any who would overhear, and use that word. For I would see you as soon as possible.”

“Soon, my love,” promised Nyx as the sunlight faded away and the clouds closed in. The space where he had been in her mind seemed like a giant pit, despair pouring in to fill the void. Nyx nearly wept from the loss of his presence.

She turned back to the city and looked up the mount to the Dome of the Rock. Ishtar was flying slow circles around it, occasionally swooping in, then back out. She heard Ishtar’s laughter, and it made her smile.

Persephone was taking command of the crusaders, preparing them for the fight against the forces of Egypt. The Angel was a more than capable leader, and she had no doubt that that the crusaders would be victorious.

Nyx wings spread from her back, and she lifted into the air, floating effortlessly and easily, letting the wind blow her higher and closer to the Dome of the Rock. She cocked her head and heard the hoarse, faint, and muffled screams of the nearly-man-shaped form that stood, impaled, on the spike above the dome. Half his skin was gone now, along with his tongue, eyes and one arm. His mouth had been stuffed with his own genitalia two days before, and then a bar inserted through his throat so he could not swallow and choke on them.

“Come to see how he’s doing?” asked Ishtar. “Or would you like a piece yourself?”

“I have to go,” said Nyx. “Tell Persephone. I will summon you both soon.”

“I will,” said Ishtar. “What about this one, then?”

Nyx looked over the bloodied, broken, agony-filled thing that had been Jabril. “Give him three more days. Then let him go to Hell where he belongs.”

She swung in a lazy glide above the city, then headed north. She would summon her lover, her master, her Tribunal, and then they would plan the next steps.

Chapter 10

It is warm,
deep in the earth, and silent. In some places there are noises: the movement of earth, the grinding of rocks shifting slowly over a thousand years, the dripping and trickling of water carving new paths over millions of years.

In this cavern, though, there was only silence.

This was Nyx’s place. She had carved it out a thousand years before, when Tribunal had first given her his name and his instructions. It was a reminder of where she had come from, and what she was. And on those occasions past when all the living plants and creatures and people who walked the earth became too much for her, she retreated here, to the darkness of her own home-made Hell, because that is what she had designed it to look like.

Here, in the darkness, she could be alone. Not even the other Angels were allowed here. They each had their own place where they, too, could retreat and contemplate. She knew where each was, and had, on occasion, visited each. But this was her place, alone, and neither Ishtar nor Persephone knew where it was.

She sat in the middle of her cavern in the middle of the silence, and smiled.
Tribunal had contacted her. Tribunal was ready to speak to her. Tribunal, her lover, her partner in this war for Earth and Hell, was pleased.

This was not a time for darkness.

Nyx raised an arm and used her power to split the cavern floor open. The room lit up with flames and the stink of burning rock rose from the lava beneath. The super-heated rock glowed yellow and red and orange, and cast shadows on the walls that danced slowly as the rock beneath roiled and turned on itself.

The cave itself had once been home to water, though that was long ago. All that remained were the stalactites hanging from the ceiling, and the stalagmites on the floor; sharply pointed juttings of rock, some so small they would pierce the feet of any mortal who was unfortunate enough to step foot in the cavern. Others big enough to impale a man on, though none had been used for that purpose yet.

Maybe someday,
thought Nyx.
But not now.

She had used her power and the heat from below to convert the limestone into black marble. On a whim she had made the walls shine, and now every surface gave back her reflection, twisted and misshapen a thousand different ways, save for two walls which she had smoothed and polished so highly that her image was mirrored perfectly. She paused before it, examining her body and smiling. Jibril’s sword had left no mark, though it had run her through. She looked as young, beautiful and whole as the day she was created, as the nights when she and Tribunal were lovers. She had no fear of pain, no horror at war, no regret. She was Nyx and she would win.

She strode lightly along the edge of the split in the floor, relishing the heat of the burning lava, so different from the cold-burning Hellfire she once felt.

One day I shall return to Hell and I shall make Lucifer beg to lick my feet.

She stood on the edge a while longer, then stepped away. In one corner of the cavern she had flattened the ground, making it as smooth as the stone mirrors on the walls. She had brought in white marble, inlaid it into the floor in a double circle, twenty feet wide on the outside. By herself she had carved the symbols between the lines of the circles, eschewing any power other than her brute strength. She would give no Angelic essence to the circle until she was ready to use it.

The words inscribed between the circles were written in languages that were old before the tower had fallen at Babel: Elamite, Akkadian, Hurrian. Elemental words of darkness and power, words whose magic allowed none to witness what acts occurred in the circle, that prevented any, even God, it was said, from hearing what was spoken there.

Nyx settled herself onto the ground, feeling the solid warmth of the marble beneath her naked flesh. The burning lava, so close below, made the ground too hot for mortal flesh. She reveled in it a moment, then began chanting.

The writing around the circle began to glow a deep red, deeper than the red from the lava only twenty feet away yet strong enough to drown out its light until the cavern was bathed in crimson. Still Nyx chanted, again and again, weaving a spell around herself with a strength that that no mortal could match, no matter he used to power it. She poured more of her power into the circle than she had into anything she had ever done. No matter what, she could not be heard, could not allow God or his agents, even though they had withdrawn from the world, to feel the power of what she was about to do.

The circles themselves began to glow, their white light vying with the dark red, yet never touching it. The spell was complete, and no one, mortal, immortal, God, Angel or monster, could hear learn what was happening in the circle.

Nyx stopped chanting and examined her work, searching through the lines of power for any cracks, any weakness that would betray her. When she was satisfied there was none, she closed her eyes, paused for a delicious moment of anticipation, and spoke
the word
that Tribunal had given her when he hung on the cross.

The word she had spoken when she walked from Jerusalem the last time.

She opened her eyes and the world was gray and Tribunal was standing before her.

She was not in her body anymore. Her physical form was still on the floor of the cave surrounded by silence and the spells that hid it from God’s eyes. Here she was a soul only, as was he, and it did not matter. She rushed to him, pressed her body against his and wrapped her arms around him. And even though, in this place, she had no arms and no body, it was enough that the shade of her hands and body could touch the shade of his, and when she pressed the shades of her lips onto his, their souls connected, and his shining power poured into her as hers poured into him—an exchange that was deeper than any entanglement of flesh.

When they finally broke apart, Tribunal smiled at her. “Welcome, my lover, my warrior. It is good to see you again.”

“And you, my love,” said Nyx. Regretfully, she stepped back, releasing the last filament of his soul and hers, and looked around them. She had been in Heaven, and seen the brilliance of God, and the bright, white light that infused that place. She had ruled in Hell, and knew every dark, agony-filled corner of her realm. But this place she had not seen. “Where are we?”

All around them was gray – not a mist, for it had neither substance nor shape. There was no ground, no sky, no direction. There was no sense of place at all. Nyx felt an urge to look around her, to find something, anything,that could connect her to this place. Anything to give her a sense of location, a sense of being.

And in the gray, there was movement.

They had no substance, like the world they populated. Their shapes flickered in and out of definition. One moment they were almost solid to her, then they would fade. They were human once and now they were shades as was Nyx in this place. For them, though, there was no body to return to, no place where they could reclaim their form. Instead, they wandered, shades of arms outstretched in the gray, reaching for others but never touching.

Tribunal smiled, a shade’s smile from a shade’s body that nonetheless managed to warm her. “It has many names,” he said. “Purgatory. Limbo. Sheol. It has many sections, each separate from the other. In some places, sinners are punished until the sin is stripped from them. In others, they sit in a state of happiness, waiting their turn to be taken to the presence of God. This place, though, is much worse, maybe even worse than Hell.”

“How?” asked Nyx, realizing as she did that she felt vaguely insulted that there could be a place worse than Hell.

“This is the Limbo of the unbelievers,” said Tribunal. “It is a place of silence, of mists, and of emptiness. Here, God does not exist.”

Nyx frowned. “God exists everywhere.”

“Not here,” said Tribunal. “God never comes here, has no awareness here, has no presence here and He cannot sense anything that happens here. And the ones who wander here will wander forever, always searching, never finding.”

Nyx looked out into the gray again. She watched the souls reaching out and never touching, passing by each other without realizing the other was there. She sensed in them a loneliness that was greater than any she had ever experienced, a desperate need to connect with something, anything.

“And they will never find anything again?”

“There is nothing here for them to find,” said Tribunal. “They will spend eternity looking for something, and will not even realize they are not alone.”

“Very cruel,” said Nyx grudgingly. It was a more horrible punishment than any she had thought of, and she was an expert. Then again, her mission was to punish the wicked, and let them know why. This though…
a cruelty truly worth of God
. “They don’t come near us.”

“I’ve made a place here,” said Tribunal. “They cannot sense it, see it, or approach it.” He smiled at her “And since God cannot see us here, either, we can talk.”

Nyx smiled then. “Very clever, my love.”

“I knew you would appreciate it,” said Tribunal. He – His shade, Nyx had to remind itself – crossed its legs and floated in the air. Nyx did the same. She was still uneasy in this place, but she wouldn’t show it. It was worth it, to be here with Tribunal and bask in His love.

“You,” said Tribunal, “Have done magnificently. Your work on earth has given more strength to our plan than any that has come before it. You have gained more followers than God Himself.”

Nyx preened under the compliments. “I am here,” she said. “I am real and present.
God
? God is gone. Men will worship what they can see before they will worship that they cannot.”

“This is all true,” said Tribunal. “But it is you that has done it. You have swung the balance and now we can move forward.”

“And what is our next move?” asked Nyx. “What must we do before we can set my Angels free from Hell, and have them lay waste to this world?”

“Not just this world,” said Tribunal. “We will have so much more than this world by the end of things.”

Nyx frowned. “I thought You wished to destroy the human race, to make this world a Paradise.”

“I do,” said Tribunal, “But I wish so much more than that.”

“What more?” asked Nyx. “We will have earth to make into Paradise and we will have Hell. We can’t have Heaven. What else is there?”

“God should have destroyed them all,” said Tribunal. “He should have brought back the waters and swept life from this world.”

“But He didn’t,” said Nyx. “And now, we will do it in His place.”

“We will,” said Tribunal. He floated closer, His hand touching her leg and sending a spark of lust and ecstasy through her. “And we will do so much more.”

“What more?” asked Nyx. “Would you challenge God?”

The memory of her own battles with God rose up inside her. The war had been fought for an aeon before time itself came into existence, and then they had fought for millennia after. Thousands upon thousands of angels had been destroyed on both side; not mortal death, but the scattering of their energies to the four winds of the universe, some never to be re-formed, others to slowly pull their substances back together, shadows of the strength they once were.

She remembered the march on the gates of God’s true temple. She and her rebels, hundreds of thousands strong, had marched and flown together, determined to bring Heaven to its knees and bend God to her will. She remembered Lucifer, resplendent in his red armor and with his flaming sword in his hand, marching beside her.

That had been before defeat, before thousands of years in the pit and the weight of their failure and the loss of Heaven had embittered them to each other and driven wedges of betrayal and blame and guilt between among them.

God’s legions had been waiting at the Gates of God’s true temple, and behind them, the overwhelming, unstoppable power of God himself. The battle had laid waste to Heaven, destroying much beauty and goodness that could not be brought back into creation. Nyx had watched the Morning Star – Lucifer – fall from grace and from Heaven. She had rallied her troops again and again to fight, and killed thousands of lesser Angels before she and Michael fought to a bloody standstill while the armies devastated each other.

She still had scars, though they were not of the body.

“I have challenged God,” said Nyx. “I have stood at the foot of His mountain and laid waste to Heaven, and I tell you, you cannot defeat Him.”

“I’m not going to fight Him,” said Tribunal. “I am going to destroy Him. And when I have, we will have more than just Hell and this small, stinking world. We will have Heaven itself, and all the universe will be ours.”

“Destroy… God?” The notion was unfathomable to Nyx. She was born of God. Created by Him to serve Him. Even in her rebellion she had not held hope of destroying Him. He was all-powerful, all-knowing, invincible.

Tribunal sat and waited while Nyx thought her way through it.

Since Tribunal’s mortal form had been killed, God had left the world. He had retreated from it and left no trace of Himself behind. For more than a thousand years, Nyx had walked the world, reveling in His absence.
But to kill Him?
Her mind whirled, rejecting the idea as impossible. God was too powerful, too strong. She could not even defeat His armies, let alone God Himself.