The Lucifer Messiah (35 page)

To the three reptilian women wagering sexual favors over hands of five-card draw, he was a hunch-backed giant, clambering by like some Grimm Brothers ogre.

Two squid-headed men, one cooking his heroin on a spoon over a flame, the other tying off his flipper in preparation for the needle, saw him as a lovely young Asian girl, naked and prancing.

But neither was really looking.

In the girl's form, he skipped his way into a circle of dancers, cavorting and twirling to the throbbing beat of kettledrums. Spun about, his breasts fondled and his ass slapped, he just as quickly slipped away from the coterie.

Then he passed beneath a mesh tarp, slung from the low-hanging ventilation pipes in the rear corner of the warehouse. It was a bit quieter there, sheltered from the debauchery. Several figures were reclined on cushions, one on an antique couch. When he came to the only person sitting upright, a thing with shimmering silver skin and a head with two faces, he had sprouted pointy ears and shifted into an elf-like form.

The twin-countenanced man smiled with both mouths. He offered a pipe, and an empty set of cushions lay upon the floor. Sean nodded, placed his lips on the pipe and sucked in some of the warm opiate smoke. He pretended to inhale, then lazily reclined.

When he did, and he set his feminine head down, he noticed a figure walking by just outside of the tarp's shadow. There was nothing peculiar about him, plainly humanlike and non-threatening, but it was the way he walked that caught Sean's eye. He stepped slowly, turning his head in every direction as he did. He seemed to be looking for something, or someone.

Was it the Morrigan? Or merely one of the Maenads, uncloaked for the hunt?

Whoever it was, they were seeking him. Even he would not be able to hide forever.

Scylla, as yet unaware of her lover's capture, or the presence of Lucifer besides, rested where she had been for the past day. The wounded warrior was tended to in a sheltered chamber near the Keeper's dais, by some of the least unusual changelings, nearly human looking attendants who betrayed their true race only through slight physical anomalies.

Under their expert care she had recovered some, but was still weak, and required more rest before she would be able to molt again. When the Morrigan stepped into her abode, at the lead of six faceless Maenads, she sensed something was amiss.

The six-armed woman arose at the Keeper's entry. While the renowned slayer did not look to be entirely herself, limping as she stood and wearing a bandage over the wound in her midsection, she yet made a fearsome stand. She was naked, but for the bandage and a black leather belt around her waist. Twin scabbards hung from each side of her waist. Her skin was golden and gleaming, her eyes fierce and black as night.

“Master?” she said, twitching her fingers to reach for her swords, as yet uncertain if that would prove necessary.

“Scylla, my foolish child,” the Morrigan scolded. “I had hoped you were near to rejoining my side, with the sacrifice of Lycaon.”

As she spoke, the Maenads drew forth their curved scythes. Now there could be no question.

“Sacrifice?” Scylla asked.

Though heedless of the blades suddenly pointed at her, her heart sank at the realization that her plot had somehow been uncovered.

“Yes. My wolf-child is gone. Fallen in the pursuit of Lucifer, but thanks to you and your lover, his sacrifice was not in vain. In fact it was exactly what I had wished for. The prophecy has now come to affect us all, hasn't it?” her silky, melodious voice said.

“You sent Lycaon after Lucifer, knowing he could never subdue a trickster.”

“Of course, he was loyal to a fault, much as I once thought you to be. His absence will be lamented, but it was necessary. For the sake of our kind, I must endure, above all.

“You see, as bold as your plot against me was, your own actions doomed it to failure. When Lycaon rescued you, he did far more than save you. He captured your friend Arachne as well. She was reluctant to give up any information at first. I allowed her to molt, however, and after I had three or four of her legs removed and barbequed for my hungry servants, she became quite forthcoming.

“Once I knew where Argus was hiding, I let Lycaon rampage. He slaughtered those few who had remained loyal to the old one. He also, quite by accident, discovered that Mr. Vince Sicario rested within the cathedral. With the word from our contacts in the New York City Police Department, I suspected Lucifer had sought to deceive me by taking on his old friend's form. So I elected to answer deception with deception.”

Scylla snarled. It was the only gesture she could make without risking a blade in the back.

“And now Lucifer himself has been drawn into my realm, soon to join Charybdis as my prisoner. Tonight I have been given a rare opportunity. I will settle these affairs once and for all, and finally, mercifully, prove the Book of Nestor wrong.

“Perhaps you would like to watch?”

Scylla was marched out to the foot of the throne dais. Charybdis saw her and cursed. She echoed her lover's sentiment, even as the white-robed servants chained her up, shackling all six of her arms. The pit was now crowded full.

“How far we have fallen,” Scylla said, looking up at the platform with the seat of the Morrigan atop it.

“Fitting, though, that we shall meet our end where we had our beginning,” Charybdis replied, making a bitter, somewhat strange introduction between Maggie and Scylla.

“What will happen here?” Maggie asked.

“The Morrigan will solidify her power. She will exact her final judgment on the two of us,” Charybdis said.

“For aiding Sean?”

“No, our transgression dates much further back than this latest travail. Our history with the Morrigan far predates Lucifer's,” Scylla answered.

She left it at that, perhaps unwilling to tell more, perhaps not. Argus, however, broke the momentary still when
it became clear that neither Scylla nor Charybdis intended to continue.

“Why don't you tell this human your tale? It might help to reconcile you with the end, unburden your soul, one final time,” the ancient one suggested.

Ever the counselor, even while awaiting his own execution.

Charybdis shook her head. She looked over at Scylla, frowning. Each regarded the other for a long while, and finally, both smiled. Then they relented.

“1918 was the year of our disgrace. The last year in which we laid eyes upon one another, until these current days,” Scylla began.

“What happened?”

“Lucifer,” Charybdis replied.

“Sean? So he is responsible?”

Scylla looked certain, but Charybdis wavered, and it was she who continued.

“He was the impetus, but he is no more responsible for what happened than we were.”

“How, then?”

“He simply appeared,” the pale woman said. “Do you recall what he told you in the tunnels beneath the cathedral? About how he was drawn to St. Petersburg, to the underbelly of that deserted Tsarist palace?”

She nodded.

“Scylla and I were there as well, standing by the side of the Morrigan, as we had for three hundred years. We were once her most trusted aides, you see, her guardians against
harm. Deadly to all comers, and loyal to the death.”

“We were feared. Feared perhaps as greatly as the Morrigan herself,” Scylla boasted. “It was our most glorious time.”

“But as with all glory, it was not to last forever,” Argus added.

“True enough. When Lucifer entered the hall, he was unaware of who we were, or of who he was. The only reason he knew as much as he did was his experience on the battlefields of France. It left him, I'm afraid, with a somewhat
mistaken
impression.”

“One which cost us our place of honor, and nearly our sanity besides,” Scylla added.

“I still don't understand,” Maggie said.

“After several days spent observing us, silently, it came time for the initiation rite. All the new changelings were urged to come forward to shed their human identity and take on a name from the rolls of Nestor. Many did so, and Lucifer joined them.”

“But he didn't know our customs, and our prejudices. He expected that we were all like him,” Scylla said.

“It was a moment that I will never forget,” Argus said. “When he stepped up to the foot of the Keeper's chair, before all of us gathered, he greeted the Morrigan.”

“Greeted her by changing his form to mirror the Keeper,” Charybdis interrupted.

“I don't think anyone in the hall was spared a startle in that instant, the Morrigan first among us,” Argus said.

“She flew into a rage, accused us of betraying her and
immediately struck a blow to slay the youngster,” Charybdis stated.

“But why?”

“Because the Morrigan believed that a rival trickster had come to claim her throne, and that we had been complicit in the attempt,” Scylla answered.

“Lucifer was too quick, however. He escaped both the Morrigan and the palace itself. No one saw him again for several years, until I found him, wandering lost in Prague,” Argus said.

“Ultimately, the Morrigan realized what had happened. We were absolved of any suspicion, but her anger did not abate. She still blamed us for not protecting her,” Scylla noted.

“As our punishment, we were stripped of our status, banished from her side and sent away. Each of us was forbidden to have any contact with the other, until Lucifer was slain,” Charybdis said.

“Until our failure was rectified,” Scylla concluded, finishing her lover's thought.

“That is how Charybdis came into my service, in fact,” Argus said. “For I have long sought to cultivate relations with those who are disgruntled with the Morrigan's reign. It was as my aide that Charybdis came to know Lucifer, and to befriend him.”

“All in an effort to kill him, at first,” the pale woman considered, nodding. “But I waited, bided my time. Tricksters are resilient creatures, you see, very difficult to kill. In truth, they're almost invincible if they know you're coming. I
needed to find just the right combination of circumstances.”

“But she went soft on him instead,” Scylla joked.

“Under Argus's tutelage I grew to know him, and I grew to like him,” Charybdis smiled. “He was a wounded soul, very much like I was then. He too loved another that he could not be with. But he did not stay long, and even as I came to understand him, and his desire to be free from all of this, he left our Haven. And vanished for over twenty years.”

“When he came to our attention again, with the killings in Venice, and the trail he left that led back here, I knew that our chance had come. Together I had hoped that we might end the rule of the Morrigan, and free all of our kind,” Argus said.

“But we have now failed in that endeavor as well. And soon we will pay the final price,” Scylla said.

T
HE WAREHOUSE WAS COMPLETELY SEALED OFF FROM
the outside world. They had been chained up for hours, long enough for their weariness to overwhelm their fear.

A bath of crimson light washed over them like the hand of death, but only for an instant. Each of the five prisoners looked up to see the lovely, horrible sight of the Morrigan.

“The time for feasting has arrived,” the Keeper said.

A small horde had gathered before the face of the throne platform. They were clambering, alternating between shouting and humming in some peculiar pattern. Bodies pressed tightly against one another, strange flesh meeting scales, and fur, and naked skin.

They cheered when the Maenads led Vince and Maggie to the side of the throne, and they howled when Argus was led there from the pit. But the crush of revelers cried the loudest when Scylla and Charybdis emerged from the shelter, and marched up to the top of the platform inches ahead of pointed Maenad blades.

Their cries then became something other than fervor or cheer. In sight of the two who had once been the Morrigan's
aides, their voices fell into a rumble that was utterly different in its tone.