Chapter 5 - pp 44-50

Famine did not live far from Santalmo, which was a good thing because Finsternis was too distracted to pay much mind to driving. He followed Famine’s car, too lost in thought to be angry that Famine stayed exactly one mile under the speed limit the entire trip.

None of the previous nephalim had fought Finsternis on killing the Horsemen. Lucia was unique in that. If she had not been so, they would have guaranteed the End of Days the moment they killed Zachary Grant. Finsternis could hardly breathe thinking of what would have happened had Lucia not restrained him.

Why had she?

Rejected and abused by humans her entire life for reasons she could not have understood, why did Lucia care what happened to one human? One human fated to kill billions, no less.

And why did she have pointed ears?

Lucia was right. Lucifer did not have pointed ears. No archangel nor any angel did. Neither did any demon- any living demon.

Finsternis had never seen an archdemon. No demon alive had, not even those on the Counsel, finally long-lived enough to show some age. Every demon had, however, seen the statues erected in honor of the archdemons and their sacrifice. Those statues had pointed ears.

Finsternis shook his head. The Bloodlines of the Archdemons was an old story. A story likely dreamed up by the Morningstar himself. Finsternis would not put it past Lucifer to give his daughter pointed ears solely for the purpose of causing Finsternis to doubt the honor of the archdemons. Finsternis and Lucifer had that kind of history.

“Hey! We’re there!” Lucia pointed at Famine’s car, pulling into a driveway. Finsternis whipped the car into the driveway in a tire screeching turn, parking next to Famine’s car.

“Nice house,” said Lucia as she got out of the car.

“Thanks,” replied Famine.

Finsternis had no idea what made a house nice or not. Demons lived in sprawling castles grown from the living substance of Hell. They were dark and shadow-filled and changed shape as they wished, such that no two trips through a Keep were ever quite the same. Famine’s house was . . . symmetrical.

Finsternis studied the sky as they approached the front door. He did not like this pairing of Hell’s champion and a Horseman. To Finsternis’ eye, Famine’s aura, the brackish yellow of rotting things, had a scarlet and gold tinge at the edges. Finsternis had no idea why Lucia’s aura was overtaking Famine’s, or what was happening to Lucia’s aura. If he could see the peculiar interaction between Famine and Lucia, could the angels sense it, and if so, from how far away? Finsternis did not like it.

He did not like any of this. How could he win a game if he did not know what game he was playing? Could he count on Lucia instinctively knowing every winning move? Whose game was it, anyway?

Finsternis shook his head. Speculation was useless, he needed to focus on the task at hand.

They were greeted just inside the door by a plump older woman, her pleasant face a mix of confusion and fear. Her aura was all calm blues and soothing greens overlaid with the greenish grey of chronic illness. Famine was right to be concerned about her.

“Zack? I-“

Famine put up a hand to forestall his wife’s question. “I’ll explain later, Sherry, go pack a bag for each of us. When I’m done here, we’re picking up Matt at school and taking a trip.”

She gaped at him. “But, but why? School’s not out for three more weeks, and the tomatoes need planting . . . where are we going?”

Famine looked at Lucia. She shrugged. “I’d suggest somewhere with a lax interpretation of ‘extradition’”, she said.

“Extradition?” Sherry put a hand to her chest, her face a study in fear. Famine looked ready to sick up.

Lucia caught Finsternis’ eye and winked. She moved to Sherry, put a hand on her arm and said, “Ma’am, this is Special Agent Dereck Finsternis,” she gestured at Finsternis, “and I am Lucia Stanton. We are from an agency-“

“An agency?” interrupted Sherry. 

“A government agency,” said Lucia in an officious but kindly tone. The change in Lucia was remarkable. Her accent had changed from Southern to the crisp accentless tones of a news anchor. Her posture, facial expressions and body language had all changed to match. She was a government agent, she had answers, she knew what to do. Famine’s wife was already under her spell.

“Agent Finsternis, please assist Fa- Dr. Grant. We do need to be on our way soon,” said Lucia.

“Of course, Agent Stanton. Come along, Dr. Grant. You have a job to do. For an agency.” He winked and Lucia stifled a laugh.

As Lucia wove a tale that had Famine as the hero, uncovering terrorists at Santalmo, Finsternis told Famine, “Get to work, Horseman. We need to be gone before the agents of Heaven get here. Billions dying, spitting your name with their last breath is Heaven’s plan. They will not abandon it if they can help it.” He pulled his lips back, displaying every fang.

“Uh, yes, sure.” Famine walked to a desk in the adjoining room, sat down, placed his finger on a small square device next to the keyboard. “See, no agent of anything could get in.” He began to work frantically, chewing at his lip.

Finsternis did not bother to tell him that angels and demons both were proof against biometric security devices. Machines were as easy to fool as the humans who built them.

Famine worked quietly, the only sound the clicking of the keys under his fingers. Lucia’s ramblings, filtering from the second floor of the house, were louder. The windows were open, letting in the sounds of birds and lawnmowers and passing cars. To a human, this would probably be pleasant, comforting even, but Finsternis was getting more and more tense with each passing second. Part of it was simply being on Earth, in the company of Famine, rather than at home in Hell with other demons, but something else-

“Finsternis!” Something thumped at the bottom of the stairs.

Famine looked up. 

“Keep working!” Finsternis ran to the stairs as Lucia came thundering down them, a suitcase in either hand, Sherry right behind her, clutching at her chest. A third suitcase already sat at the bottom of the stairs, right where Lucia had thrown it. Finsternis opened his mouth to ask Lucia what she was doing when he felt it.

Terror and pain gripped him, squeezed his heart, filled his lungs, beat at his mind. Angels. Four, maybe five. Lucia squealed as something heavy crashed into the roof, through the roof. Famine and his wife looked up, wide eyed and shaking, afraid but not enough.

Finsternis looked at Famine. He was Famine no more. His aura was all warm browns and greens, not a trace of brackish yellow left. He had finished his task and he was a Horseman no longer. Good.

Finsternis grabbed Dr. Grant by the arm, pulled him close. “Take your wife and get out of here. Do not take the bags, do not look back, no matter what happens. Get to an airport and take the first plane out.”

“Uh, okay.” More crashing from the attic drew his eyes up. 

“Now!” Finsternis put command in his voice. He could not persuade as nephalim could, but he had led armies of demons before this man’s ancestors had ever colonized the continent.

“Sherry, let’s go.” Dr. Grant reached out to his wife. “Now, honey, we need to go now.” 

She looked at him as if she had no idea who he was or what he was saying. The attic went ominously silent. 

Lucia put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and said, “Go with your husband, Sherry. Right fucking now. Goodbye, Sherry, Dr. Grant.” Sherry’s aura went equally scarlet and gold for a moment reflecting Lucia’s persuasion. That was a good deal more gold than had been in Lucia’s aura just a few hours ago.

“Wait, what about you?” asked Dr. Grant.

“I was planning on giving you cover to escape, but if you don’t leave, that’s not going to work!” replied Lucia. 

The humans left, running out the front door as fast as they could. Finsternis and Lucia watched the stairwell. Finsternis had no intentions of helping Dr. Grant escape. It was of little concern to Finsternis whether the former Horseman lived or died. Finsternis was simply picking the most advantageous place for him to fight: inside where the angels’ swords would be hampered, where there were shadows, where he could put himself between Lucia and a wall. Outside, in the sunshine, with nothing between the ground and the sky, would be disastrous for them both.

“What’s up there?” whispered Lucia. Her accent had reverted to Southern.

“Angels. Four, maybe five. No archangel.”

“Oh, good.” Finsternis idly considered attempting to teach her demonspeak. In demonspeak, there was a word for things that were good only in comparison to the worst possible outcome, it perfectly described their situation. Unfortunately, demonspeak required the ability to produce a minimum of five tones at once, something nephalim vocal chords were not capable of.

The first angel burst through the ceiling over the landing at the top of the stairwell to land lightly on his feet. Like every angel Finsternis had ever seen, he was tall, broad shouldered, slim hipped, and well muscled with pale gold skin, pale gold hair cropped short and pure white eyes. His tunic and loose trousers were an unblemished white, a perfect contrast to his rough leather sandals and belt.

“Wow,” said Lucia. Finsternis was annoyed at her for being impressed until she continued. “You’d think they would’ve updated their look at some point in the last two thousand years.”

Finsternis laughed and when the angel cocked his head in confusion, he let it turn into a howl of challenge. The angel moved forward, down one stair, then the next, with the silent, deliberate movements of a tiger stalking prey. Another angel, a perfect twin of the first, dropped onto the landing.

“Um, Finsternis?” Lucia moved behind him, pressed her forehead against the middle of his back for a moment.

“Yes?”

“Shouldn’t we have weapons?”

Finsternis pulled Hell’s Inferno into himself, felt his muscles loosen as the pain of being so close to angels receded into the glory of the Eternal Flame. He held the Inferno, let it roar through his veins and up inside his skull, let it burn away every thought and feeling, then sent it back out into his hands, brilliant violet flames casting unnatural shadows about the room.

“I have all the weapons I need right here,” Finsternis finally replied, his voice echoing in a way natural in Hell and impossible on Earth.

“What about me?” asked Lucia.

“What about me?” mocked the first angel in the clarion tones of all angels. He flicked his wrist, drawing a greatsword of pure, white light.

“Oh, fuck you,” said Lucia.

“I am not fallen,” sneered the first angel and took another step in perfect unison with the angel behind him.

Finsternis realized that there were at least two more angels not coming down from the ceiling above the landing. In one movement, he snuffed the flames of one hand, used it to grab Lucia and throw her behind him while sending a torrent of violet fire at the angels on the stairs.

The first angel screamed, a beautiful sound really, as flames tore at his golden flesh, melted his perfect face. He dropped, rolled down the stairs, screaming and burning, his greatsword gone. The second angel ducked up the staircase out of the way of the flames. He made no move to help his brother.

Lucia landed in the fireplace of Dr. Grant’s office with a muffled curse. Finsternis pulled in every shadow from the foyer, staircase and office, leaving corners and spaces under furniture impossibly bright and took a step back. He wrapped himself in darkness and took another step back. Flames poured out of both of his hands, holding the second angel at bay. The first angel had stopped screaming, lay gasping and twitching at the bottom of the stairs. Finsternis took another step back.

Two more steps to Lucia and the remaining two angels burst through the ceiling, landing between himself and her. She froze, wide-eyed. Finsternis sent flames at them, but these angels were more experienced then the first two angels, or better trained. They pulled out wings before swords, the feathers of pure white light providing them protection against the Eternal Flame.

Where were the demons? Groups of demons on Earth created a resonance angels could feel. Two in the same place for any period of time could be sensed by an archangel. Otherwise, Finsternis would have had a full legion escorting Lucia on her quest. But that was demons together. There should have been demons carefully spaced all around the area ready to respond to any draw on the Inferno. Where were they?

One angel swung his sword at Finsternis in a slow, graceful arc while the other swung at Lucia, frozen in terror on the floor. Finsternis abandoned flames to draw shadows from further into the house, bound them tightly around himself and wondered why the angel was trying to kill Lucia with a sword made of Heaven’s Light when simply stomping her with one thick sandal would do the job. Nephalim were practically immune to the forces of Heaven and Hell, a fact proven by the greatsword passing through her harmlessly to lodge in the floor.

The other sword hit Finsternis’ shadows, showering purple and white sparks with a sound like an enormous cracked gong being hit with a lead hammer. Finsternis staggered backwards as did the angel, graceful even in that.

The sound seemed to free Lucia from her fear. She gasped, shook her head and scrabbled to her feet. Swaying, she ran to the huge picture window dominating the far wall. The angel closest to her abandoned his sword and grinned, displaying straight, white teeth.

Lucia reached the window and Finsternis, fearing she meant to escape into the sunshine yelled, “No, don’t-“ stopping when she grabbed the thick blue curtains and pulled them shut, plunging the room into shadow. She turned to Finsternis, smiling triumphantly and barely avoided an angel’s fist to the head, her sudden twist out of the way sending her to the floor again. This time, the angel did the sensible thing and raised his foot over her head.

“NO!” Finsternis roared, the sound of a demon in full rage rattling the floorboards and sending pictures and knickknacks crashing to the floor while Lucia crawled out of the way. He leapt onto the angel and dug his fingers into pale gold flesh, sending indigo fire into the angel’s veins before they even hit the floor. The angel’s shriek of agony as Hell’s Inferno invaded his body was quite lovely indeed.

Two angels out of the way, but Finsternis had put too much power and rage into killing the second and had lost his protective shadows. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see a sword of light raised over him. Finsternis rolled out of the way, too slow, too slow—

Lucia moved into view, swinging a fireplace poker like a baseball bat. She stepped into the swing, putting all 100 pounds of her behind the blow. The black metal bar hit the angel square across his wings, exploding the Light, sending Lucia into the far wall and causing the angel’s sword to wink out of existence just before it hit Finsternis, who sent a great gout of hissing violet fire into the now defenseless angel. He had no time to scream before he fell to the floor, smoldering.

“Well done, Little Light,” said Finsternis. He was impressed. Iron was the only possible weapon she had against an angel, though he had no idea how she knew that.

Lucia extricated herself from the wall and sat down heavily next to the smoldering corpse, looked at it with horrified fascination. “I always wondered why iron chariots would be a problem for God, then I realized it must have been angels.” She shrugged.

A curious faint honking noise drew Finsternis’ attention back to the stairs. There stood the last angel, brilliant white wings wrapped around him, holding a shofar up to his lips, attempting to sound the note that would summon an archangel.

A think line of verdant fire tore between Finsternis and the angel, knocking the shofar from the angel’s hands. It clattered on the hardwood as the angel stared at it, too surprised to move. Clearly, the angel was under the impression that the shofar itself contained the power of Heaven, rather than simply being a focus device for an angel’s natural abilities.

“Niran, good to see you. Finally,” said Finsternis acerbically.

“You seem to have everything in hand.” Niran pushed tangled green hair out of green eyes now surrounded by bruises. His already broad nose was flattened and the skin of his hands and arms was scorched. His shirt was in tatters and a tear in his pants displayed a gash on his left thigh still oozing brilliant red blood that smelled of sulfur.

The angel rounded on them with a snarl. Finsternis casually flicked a fireball at the angel, taking off his face before he could open his mouth.

“That explains much,” said Finsternis, nudging the shofar with the toe of his boot.

“Oh?” Niran edged away from it as a human would from a venomous snake.

“Yes, they were ill-prepared, untrained, stupid, in fact,” said Finsternis. “These were new angels. They were doubtless ordered to summon an archangel if they happened upon us, not to engage us.”

Niran chuckled. “They decided to earn their first glory against a purple? How foolish.”

Finsternis started to ask Niran what had kept the demons away and why he looked like he had attempted to cuddle a razor wolf when he noticed that Lucia had not moved. He walked over to her, knelt down and tried to catch her eye. She did not seem to notice him. Her eyes were heavy lidded, her face was even paler than usual and her expression had an alarming slackness to it. She continued to stare fixedly at nothing even as he called her name. “Lucia? Little Light?”

Niran moved to her other side. “Is she injured?”

Finsternis could neither see nor smell iron based blood, but he would not be able to smell internal bleeding, either. “Lucia?” He put a finger under her chin, tilted her face up.

“Oh, dear,” said Niran.

Lucia’s eyes were red from lid to lid, scarlet tinged with gold. The pleasure and triumph of the battle drained out of Finsternis to be replaced by cold dread. He had seen this before- when it had killed Osiris. Lucia had been caught between Hell’s Inferno and Heaven’s Light. The fight had triggered the part of her that was archangel and it was consuming the human in her.

Finsternis had not expected this, not yet. Until Lucifer had awakened her, Lucia had been fully human. They archangel in her should not have been a danger so soon, nor should any but an archangel have been able to trigger it.

“Then all is lost,” said Niran with quiet despair.

“Niran, go,” Finsternis ordered. He stood up, pulling Lucia up with him.

“But—“

“Do not argue! All is not lost. Wait for me on the shore of the Sea of Shadowed Souls. If I do not appear in one hour, Lucia is well and we are off to find War.”

Niran shook his head sadly, but pulled the shadows for travel to Hell.

“Niran?”

“Yes?”

“Do not speak of this to the Grand General,” said Finsternis.

“I can take no such order from you,” replied Niran neutrally, face carefully blank.

Finsternis sighed. “You can take such an order from the Dark Prince, can you not?”

Niran bowed deeply. “Yes, I would have to.” He drew verdant fire into the shadows and faded from view.

Finsternis considered Lucia. She had begun to shake. The archangel within was ripping through her faster than Finsternis had expected. For millennia after Osiris had died a protracted, horrible death, Finsternis had wrestled with whether or not Osiris could have been saved. Finsternis had come to the conclusion that it should be possible to quiet a triggered archangel by passing Hell’s Inferno through the nephalim being consumed. However, simply blasting Lucia with fire would not suffice. She was virtually immune to it. Finsternis did know another way to use the flame, though he doubted Lucia would like him for it. 

Discarding the question of why he should care of the Morningstar’s daughter liked him or not, Finsternis put his hands on either side of Lucia’s face and kissed her. He kissed her as he would another demon, allowing the fire that burned within him to pass through his lips into her.

Chapter 4: pp 37-43

Getting into Santalmo was ludicrously easy. Lucia told the guard to fucking let her in and he did. She told a man in a lab coat to fucking give her his keycard and he did. It was all rather anticlimactic.

The entryway and front offices were filled with enough natural light to make Finsternis twitch and were tastefully decorated in warm wood tones and lush greens, accented with blues that invoked summer days and tropical beaches. Everywhere were huge pictures of growing things: seas of corn, rippling wheat fields, close ups of ripe apples, succulent peaches, glistening pears.

Lucia’s stomach rumbled. “I don’t suppose we could visit the cafeteria?”

Finsternis shook his head, hair a brilliant purple halo under the skylights.

People bustled about, as attractive as the decorations, women in dark, sharply tailored suits and stiletto heels, every glossy strand of hair in place, men in dark, sharply tailored pinstriped suits and colorful ties.

Lucia looked at her own dress and for once didn’t feel shabby and out of place. She couldn’t be sure what anyone saw when they looked at her, but more than a few men gave her appraising glances and several of the women lingered on her sandals. All of which would have delighted Lucia if this weren’t the one time she wanted to pass unnoticed. Despite that, no one denounced the pair as inhuman or attempted to stop them as the progressed farther into the building.

Back in the labs, behind massive metal doors with guards on both sides, the decorating ceded to practicality: white walls, tile floors, chrome and locked doors. Conversations were hushed, shoes were flat, clothes were comfortable and covered by white lab coats.

“Um, Finsternis? Do you realize we don’t have any idea how to find Famine? We don’t even know his real name.” Lucia kept walking anyway, cork wedges silent on the tile, the only sound the quiet jangle of her big, dangly earrings. Finsternis, as always, made no sound at all, though it seemed his heavy combat boots ought to have.

“Yet you have not slowed down one whit since we entered this place,” he replied.

As soon as Finsternis spoke, Lucia felt it, an inexorable pull forward. Had God himself appeared in front of them, Lucia didn’t think she could have stopped. It was an effort not to attempt to walk straight through the walls to get to-

She smacked face first into a windowless metal door. Frantically, Lucia waved her stolen keycard in front of the reader. A tiny red light blinked once. Of course. Not every employee of Santalmo would have access to every lab.

Lucia turned to Finsternis. “What do we do now?” she asked frantically. She needed, more than anything, to get through that door.

“Do not worry, Famine can feel it, too,” he replied calmly.

As soon as he was done speaking, the door opened. A man poked his head around cautiously, eyes widening at what he saw. Before he could duck behind the door, Lucia smiled as widely as she could, and chirped, “Hi! Nice to meet you! We have so much to talk about!” as Finsternis grabbed the door and held it open.

Lucia walked forward, forcing the man to back up out of her way. Behind her, Finsternis stepped into the lab and closed the door behind him. Lucia stopped, allowing the man to put some space between them. Despite his slack-jawed terror, Famine seemed like a perfectly nice man in his late 50s to early 60s, overweight, most of it around his middle, round faced and double chinned. Greying brown hair in need of a trim faded into a fully grey beard, also in need of a trim. Rimless glasses sat on a pug nose, enlarging brown eyes. A crisp white lab coat covered a worn yellow dress shirt and charcoal slacks.

“What . . . what . . .” he stammered.

“I’m Lucia, daughter of Satan.” Lucia gestured at Finsternis. “This is Finsternis. He’s a demon. From Hell.” She looked at Finsternis, who was displaying every fang in a look that could only be called bloodthirsty. “Stop that, Finsternis.” He glared at her, but closed his mouth.

“I . . . um . . . security?” Famine offered.

“You know, I think you should sit down. You don’t look well at all.” Lucia led Famine to a chair behind a desk covered in graphs and printouts. She turned to Finsternis. “Find him something to drink before he passes out.” Finsternis growled, but obeyed, picking up a bottled water on a nearby shelf and handing it to Lucia. “Here, drink this.”

Famine drank the water, closed his eyes, then opened them. “You’re still here.”

“Well, yes,” said Lucia.

“You have elf ears,” noted Famine weakly.

“Yeah, not really sure what that’s all about. Satan doesn’t have them,” replied Lucia.

She happened to glance over at Finsternis, mostly to make sure he wasn’t silently threatening Famine again. Finsternis’ face was caught in a look somewhere between surprise and revelation.

“Um, why are you here?” asked Famine, recapturing her attention.

“Oh, well, as it turns out, the Apocalypse is upon us,” began Lucia.

“Like in the Bible?” asked Famine.

“Yes, just like that. And, well, as it turns out,” Lucia paused. Famine was a nice, middle-aged man. He needed a haircut and some new clothes and likely took cholesterol lowering medication. If he had any hobbies at all, they were probably the same sort of geeky things Lucia herself enjoyed. He probably knew the exact number of redshirt deaths in every Star Trek series. And she was about to ruin his life. She sighed. “As it turns out, you are the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, Famine.”

Famine blinked at her, took off his glasses, examined them for smudges, put them back on. “What?”

Finsternis lunged, grabbed Famine by his neck and hoisted him out of the chair one-handed. Finsternis’ eyes were amethyst fire, his voice a chilling, multi-toned howl. “You are Famine, first Horseman of the Apocalypse and if we do not kill you, you will bring starvation and death to billions.”

“Kill me?” Famine struggled weakly, unable to dislodge Finsternis’ hand.

“Put him down, Finsternis,” Lucia said tiredly. “Please.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” he hissed, the sound of every poisonous snake that ever killed because it could, and threw Famine into the opposite wall, sending bookcases full of printouts, books, magazines and knickknacks flying. A picture landed face up on the floor in front of Lucia, the glass broken. A smiling Famine with brown in his beard held an infant in his arms. Lucia picked up the picture, handed it to Finsternis.

“Is this your child or your grandchild?” asked Lucia softly as Famine sat up, rubbing at the back of his head. Finsternis looked at the picture and his face softened, eyes dimmed.

“My son. He’s 8 now. My wife . . . we tried for so long and nothing, and then she thought it was menopause. She cried and cried and then,” Famine smiled. “We had a son. His name is Matthew.”

“ ‘Gift of God,’” whispered Finsternis.

“See, Finsternis? It’s not just demons who have children they’d like to save,” said Lucia.

Finsternis snarled, but his eyes stayed on the picture.

Famine struggled to his feet. “I’m Zachary Grant. I don’t understand. Are you here to kill me or not?”

“Nice to meet you, Zachary,” said Lucia automatically. “Finsternis is right. If you aren’t stopped, you are going to do something that leads to billions of people starving to death. He thinks the only way to stop that is to kill you. I’m hoping there’s another way.”

Lucia expected Famine- she couldn’t think of him any other way- to be surprised or offended, to deny what she said at the least. He didn’t. He looked thoughtful. “This doesn’t surprise you?” Lucia asked.

“Not really,” said Famine. He stood up, then glanced nervously at Finsternis, who was carefully placing the picture on Famine’s desk. One of Famine’s shirt tails had come untucked and his glasses were askew. Lucia wanted to pat him on the head and tell him everything would be okay.

“Why doesn’t this surprise you?” asked Lucia.

“Here, let me show you.” Famine pointed to his desk, but made no move towards it.

“Finsternis guard the door,” said Lucia.

“What was that, Lucia?” he asked threateningly, eyes flashing fire, fangs on display.

“You scared Famine for no reason, so you can go have a time out while the adults talk,” said Lucia pleasantly. Demon or no, he was going to learn some manners.

“I don’t think you should-“ Famine’s warning ended in a squeak. Lucia didn’t blame him, Finsternis looked like he was ready to erupt, which in his case tended to be spectacular. She pointed at the ceiling.

Fortunately, Finsternis took her meaning. He walked to the door and said darkly, “We are going to have a very long conversation about this later, Little Light.”

“Oh, yes, we are,” promised Lucia. She turned to Famine and gestured at the desk.

“Yes, so,” he sat in front of the computer, logged in, started up a program Lucia didn’t recognize. “It’ll take a few minutes for all the data sets to load up.”

He studied her curiously. “So, what are you? A nephalim. Nephal?”

“You know, that’s been bothering me, too.” She looked at Finsternis. “ ‘Nephalim’ is plural. Wouldn’t I be a ‘nephal’ or something?”

“Are we speaking Hebrew?” asked Finsternis.

“I guess not.” Lucia looked back at Famine. “You were raised religious, too?”

He shook his head. “We were holly-lilly Catholics growing up- attended Mass only at Easter and Christmas. You ever see those movies, the ones with Christopher Walken about the war in Heaven?”

“Prophecy? I love those movies!” exclaimed Lucia. Finsternis rolled his eyes. “Hey, Christopher Walken was a great Gabriel. Very bitter and disillusioned, filled with ennui. It was great,” said Lucia.

“The real Gabriel is an arrogant monster who longs for the day he can decorate Heaven with the heads of all Hell’s children on pikes,” spat Finsternis.

“Well, that’s just not right,” said Famine. “What did children ever do to him?”

“They exist,” answered Finsternis.

“I don’t know what’s worse, finding out that angels really do exist, or finding out that they’re a bunch of racist assholes,” said Famine.

“I know just how you feel,” agreed Lucia. She pointed to the screen, now displaying strings of numbers. “What’s that?”

“Genetically modified K. Planticola, or, as they call it around here, K. Granticola,” replied Famine.

Lucia laughed. “What is it?”

“K. Planticola is a bacteria that is found in the root system of every plant on Earth. It aids in decomposing dead plant matter,” Famine explained. “The problem is, it doesn’t work very fast, so farmers take the leftover debris from the previous growing season and burn it to get it out of the way.”

“I bet that’s not good for the environment,” said Lucia.

“Or for the farmers’ lungs,” replied Famine. “In order to solve those problems, I spliced K. Planticola together with a bacterium that digests plant matter to produce alcohol.”

“What would that accomplish?” asked Finsternis.

“The K. Granticola is aggressive, efficient. Put the waste plant material in a container with the K. Granticola and in a very short period of time you have alcohol to sell. What farmer is going to burn material he could turn into money?”

“It sounds great, so what’s the problem?” asked Lucia.

Famine sighed. “Look, I used to teach and do research at Boston University. My wife was an assistant professor of sociology at couple of local community colleges. We weren’t rich, but we were comfortable. But, she was fifty when she had Matt. There was a lot of strain on her heart by the end of the pregnancy. They had to deliver Matt early. She just couldn’t work after that, and between her health problems and Matt’s stay in the NICU, we had to tap into our retirement.”

Famine looked at Lucia with pleading eyes, begging her to understand his choices. Lucia nodded, she understood the desperation he must have felt.

“So you understand that when Santalmo saw my work, just a preliminary paper exploring the possibility of turning pollution into income for subsistence farmers, and they offered me a job . . . it was five times what I made at BU,” he finished with a whisper. Lucia would have confronted the rationalization, but Famine clearly didn’t accept it himself.

Finsternis was not so understanding. “Get to the part where your work starves one-third of the planet, Horseman,” ordered Finsternis, “We do not have all day.”

“Yes, that. Really it could be everyone on the planet, depending on how far it spreads,” said Famine sadly.

“Everyone?” asked Lucia and Finsternis at once.

Famine waved a hand at the monitor. “The tests we do around here are always under perfectly controlled conditions with sterile soil, but K. Granticola won’t be used in a lab, it will be used in the real world, where the soil isn’t sterile and conditions aren’t perfect. I . . .” he looked around, lowered his voice, “I stole some. Took it home. Used it on the herbs my wife keeps in pots on the back deck . . .” he looked ready to vomit.

“Why would you use it on living plants?” asked Lucia.

“B- b- because K. Planticola is, quite literally, everywhere. There is no plant on Earth that doesn’t have K. Planticola living in its root system. Not one. K. Planticola is not a danger to living plants. K. Granticola is. Modeling here in the lab shows that K. Granticola doesn’t spread. It consumes the dead plant material and then dies when it runs out of food,” Famine stopped, his face that of a man reliving every mistake leading up to his last, unable to stop his forward progress despite what he knows is coming.

“K. Planticola and K. Granticola can and will interbreed. K. Granticola will spread. I put the herbs in the sunroom, put the K. Granticola  in one pot and by the end of two weeks, every plant in every pot was dead.”

“What are the projections on spread if it’s used on a farm?” asked Lucia. She felt cold. Two weeks. It took K. Granticola two weeks to spread from one pot to another. How fast would it move if it didn’t have to cross the gulf of tile or hardwood?

“The executives put too much money into this. They’re losing money on the whole organic food fad, and they keep saying that they’ll make sure people use K. Granticola in closed containers. There will be warning labels, you see. They wouldn’t even let me use company computers to do the projections. They don’t want proof if . . . I did the projections at home, on my personal computer,” said Famine. He took off his glasses and scrubbed his hands over his beard.

Finsternis flew across the room so fast all Lucia saw was a purple blur. He had Famine bent backwards over his chair, straining against the metal to get away from the enraged demon bearing down on him. “How long?”

“Ah, ah, four to six weeks to wipe out everything in North and South America. There’s a possibility they could keep it off the other continents with sufficiently stringent quarantine . . .” Famine trailed off.

“So, what, you were just going to let Santalmo sell the end of the world and not say a word?” snarled Finsternis, a sound like a hundred wolves chasing prey. For once, Lucia didn’t try to stop him. Sick wife and kid or no, what was Famine thinking?

Famine sagged as if all his bones had melted. “You should kill me,” he said. “I deserve it.”

“No!” Lucia didn’t give Finsternis a chance to consider it. “Killing you wouldn’t help now. They already have K. Granticola. They don’t need you to kill the world.”

“Then what must we do?” asked Finsternis.

“The data!” She shoved Finsternis out of the way, grabbed Famine by the lapels of his lab coat and forced him upright. “You have proof, right? You’re a good scientist, you kept a record, right?”

“Of course I did!” replied Famine.

“And?” rumbled Finsternis. Famine started shaking.

“We take the data and put it on the net. We send it to CNN and MSNBC, post it to 4chan and every conspiracy message board we can find, email it to every university we can.”

“You think that will help?” asked Famine.

“Oh, I think it’ll shut Santalmo down,” replied Lucia. “Look at what happened to Obama’s health care plan. That crap about death panels had absolutely no basis in reality, but it killed a program that could have helped tens of millions of people anyway. We get your data out and K. Granticola is done. And we-“ she looked at Finsternis, “move on to Pestilence.”

“War,” Finsternis corrected. “Revelation has the order wrong for some reason.”

“Whatever. Let’s go.”

Chapter 4, pp 34-37

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.”

He exited the car and came around to open Lucia’s door. “All right. Let’s do this,” she said.