As they filled up the trunk of the car with three thousand dollars worth of Ann Taylor dresses, sandals, undergarments and accessories, a man approached the car. Once he got close enough, Lucia could see hair the color of mature pine needles and eyes the color of newly sprouted grass. No one else seemed to notice. He was dressed identically to Finsternis, only his black button down shirt had both sleeves intact. Lucia had come to think of Finsternis’ sharp-boned, sly attractiveness as typical of demons, but this one had the round, open features of a native Hawaiian.
He bowed deeply to Finsternis and said, “My-“ only to be immediately cut off by Finsternis’ hissed demonspeak. “Friend. Um.” He turned away from Finsternis in confusion and considered Lucia intently.
Since Finsternis showed no signs of introducing them, she stuck out her hand. “Lucia.”
The green demon took her hand and kissed it gently. “Niran.” Niran turned to Finsternis. “This one could pass for a demon, Finsternis.” There was a pause before “Finsternis” that made Lucia wonder what title he was omitting and why Finsternis insisted on it.
“Couldn’t she just,” replied Finsternis caustically.
Lucia decided to ignore Finsternis. Apparently, he just couldn’t get along with anyone. She demon-smiled at Niran, gestured at her jersey faux wrap dress in Empress Teal and bronze chain wedge sandals and asked, “But do demons shop at Ann Taylor?”
Niran chuckled. “Demons wear shadows, Child of the Grand General, surely not a practical choice for this plane.” He turned to Finsternis. “I cannot say I expected a female, but she is certainly more fun than the rest of Satan’s get.”
“In fairness to them, coming home from work to discover Satan is your father and by the way, you have to stop God from destroying the world does tend to suck the fun out of things,” said Lucia.
“In Hell, it is all the War with Heaven, all the time. As for Satan, the only time he stops ranting about the Apocalypse is to rant about Gabriel daring to take his place,” Niran replied. “We must take our fun where and when we find it.”
Finsternis pointed to Niran’s shirt, began unbuttoning his own. The two demons were of a size, though Finsternis was broader across the shoulders and trimmer in the waist and hips. Fortunately, demon fashion tended toward loose clothing. They traded shirts and Niran turned to go without even buttoning Finsternis' one-armed shirt.
“Wait,” ordered Finsternis. Niran stopped. “You have been in Hell within the last day?”
“Yes, until you let off that flare earlier. Not many of us were on Earth before that.”
Finsternis paused in putting on Niran’s shirt, frowned murderously. “You were supposed to arrive on Earth shortly after I did, not half a day later! That was the plan. Who ordered it changed?”
Niran curled into himself like a dog anticipating a swat to the nose. “Who else? The Counsel.”
“You received your new orders directly from the Counsel?” asked Finsternis.
“Of course not. We received them from the Grand General, as always,” said Niran.
“How is the Morningstar?”
“Ranting and raving. Wearing wings in public. He even pulled his sword in front of the Counsel, or so I heard.” Niran shrugged. “It is a new Apocalypse. The Grand General always gets a bit . . . overzealous at the beginning.” He paused again, opened his mouth, closed it.
“What is it?” asked Finsternis.
“I was just going to say . . .” Niran shook his head, ran his hand down his now exposed arm. “He came to me earlier, before I left Hell, and asked me about my time in the Shadow Guard.”
Finsternis looked intently at Niran. “When you were in the Shadow Guard, your time was spent with the Morningstar. Why would he need to ask you about it?”
“I have no idea. He also asked me about the, um, bloodlines of the archdemons.” Niran looked like a person forced to repeat vile obscenities he had heard someone else say.
Finsternis’s eyes narrowed, he tilted his head to the side and muttered to himself in demonspeak. The sound of demonspeak alone, like an out of tune Stradivarius being played by a drunk frog while being sent through a shredder, had Lucia on edge, but Niran looked ready to jump out of his skin, which made Lucia all the more nervous. Finally, Finsternis looked at Niran and said, “Keep watch on the Grand General, Niran. And if you hear any more mention of the . . . other matter, let me know.”
Niran assented gratefully and turned to Lucia. “Do well, Lucia. All Hell and Earth depend upon your success.” With that, he turned and walked away.
“Yeah, no pressure. Just save everybody everywhere, and oh, yeah, Hell, too,” muttered Lucia.
As they left the shopping center, Lucia asked, “What are the bloodlines of the archdemons and why would Satan be asking about them?”
Lucia had expected something of an explosion, perhaps akin to Finsternis’ behavior in the old Star Factory, but she was simply too curious about it not to ask. Besides, a screaming match with a demon might distract her from what lay ahead at Santalmo. Maybe. What she did not expect was Finsternis giving her a level look and replying, quite calmly, “It is a rumor, a myth, nothing more.”
“Oh, I love mythology! Why don’t you tell me about it?” Lucia prodded.
Finsternis sighed, but surprisingly, he did answer. “There were archdemons, as many as there were archangels. They were destroyed defending Hell at the end of the open warfare between Heaven and Hell. Their sacrifice led to the truce that leaves the Apocalypse as the only danger to Hell.”
“What about the bloodlines?” asked Lucia.
“There is one bloodline and only one bloodline: all purple demons are direct descendents of the archdemons,” said Finsternis firmly.
“That’s not what Niran was talking about.” Lucia was not letting his go. This was ancient mythology, demon mythology, mythology no other human had ever heard. She had been truthful, she did love mythology. Once she had come to terms with the fact that the Bible was not the literal Word of God, she had dived headfirst into studying every scrap of mythology she could find, from Europe to the Americas to Asia to the original peoples of Australia, she consumed it all voraciously. At first she had hoped to find the true Word of God, then just truth, but at some point she had simply fallen in love with all the ways people find to explain loss and love and pain and life. There was no way she was going to simply ignore the mythology of Hell.
Finsternis sighed, clearly irritated. Lucia realized he was keeping his temper under careful control. He couldn’t let himself get angry enough to pull fire from Hell because then the angels could find him. Well, Lucia wasn’t above taking advantage of that.
“There are rumors, rumors of rumors, really, certainly started by the angels, that-“ He looked her, “You have to understand. I do not think you, or your existence, is wrong, but demons find the practice of angels mating with humans to be . . . distasteful at best.” He paused, clearly waiting for her reaction. Lucia carefully had none. She wanted to hear the rest of the story.
“Well, there were rumors after the flooding of the Levant that Yhwh had not done it in order to kill the nephalim, but in order to kill the half human children of the archdemons. There were no such children. We did look, just to be sure, but we never found anything.” He paused and the car stopped. Lucia looked around and realized they were in the Santalmo parking lot. She hadn’t even noticed where they were.
Finsternis looked at her, very seriously. “The rumors persist, though. I have long suspected the angels encourage them, though perhaps it is merely that the demonry yearn for the return of the archdemons, for heroes to arise and save us all. I do not know. No demon nor angel would mention that particular story to a purple such as I. And you will never speak of it again.”
Counsel (an advisor) or Council (a group)?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she's part demon???