13
S imone and Michael arrived in the empty, dust-filled cavern of European Hell. There was a bright light, like a searchlight, some distance away. It was probably Hades.
Simone felt the energy drain start again, and Michael went rigid with his eyes unseeing. She took his hand in hers and helped him to moderate the drain so that it was reduced to a trickle, but again she couldn’t stop it completely. She concentrated and did it for herself.
‘That’s what you were talking about?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘That’s it. Look.’ She leaned closer to speak to him. ‘If the drain becomes life-threatening, get yourself out of here. The old-fashioned Immortal-In-Trouble way if you have to.’ He opened his mouth to speak, and she raised her hand to stop him. ‘No. Don’t worry about me, I have better control. But you do not —’ She spoke with emphasis. ‘—let yourself die down here, okay? Because it may be soul destruction, and you’ll be gone.’
He nodded back. ‘I understand.’
‘Don’t make me worry about you,’ she growled. ‘We have enough to deal with. Okay?’
He smiled and it struck her like a beacon of warmth. ‘Okay. Trust me.’
She turned towards the glow in the distance. ‘Let’s go.’
They both lifted and flew towards the light, the dust disappearing as they travelled, being replaced by a wide, green lawn with the occasional scraggly tree. The cavern’s ceiling brightened until it seemed that they were in warm daylight. The transformation had an obvious source, and they followed its direction for a kilometre to find the Shen sitting on the stone throne Simone had located previously, his elbows on his knees.
The entire area glowed with life, even more than when it had taken Simone’s soul—the wall fresco behind the throne glittered with brilliant colours and golden highlights, reflecting the sun-like glow from above. The floor was mirror-polished black tiles. Hades looked exactly as he had when he was alive, in his mid-sixties, short, plain, overweight and balding in a blue polyester suit.
Simone and Michael landed in front of him, but he didn’t seem to see them.
‘Sometimes I don’t meet her,’ he said, watching three demons as they approached and fell to their backward knees in front of him. ‘Sometimes, I spend a whole lifetime without her. I’ll think that I’ve fallen in love with other women, I marry—but sometimes, I run into her during my life, and ...’ He looked up at them, his gaze full of pain. ‘Everything else fades away and it’s just me and her.’
‘She is your Queen, Lord,’ one of the demons said.
‘Persephone,’ Simone breathed.
‘We have her contact information,’ Michael said. ‘You will never be parted again. We can help you.’
The Shen waved one hand in the direction of the temple containing the scroll. ‘I drink from the River Lethe and cleanse my memories before I leave. It hurts too much to remember what I’ve lost, and staying in this prison is torture.’
‘What name do you prefer?’ Simone asked.
The Shen laughed softly. ‘So many. So many that my story has been told and retold until I hardly recognise myself. Ithas, Hades, Pluto, Lucifer, Satan ...’ He glanced up at them. ‘One of my first names was Prometheus, the strategist. I gave humanity fire. I gave them light. I gave them knowledge, and ...’ His hand swept around at the landscape as their surroundings reconstructed themselves. ‘Received this gift in return. I was cast out for treating humanity with kindness and respect, and when my brothers and sisters departed, they left me here to suffer alongside the humans I adored.’ He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t go with those bastards anyway. What they did was wrong. Their ridiculous lies about eternal reward and punishment—of course it didn’t make humanity better, it just made them give up. And then those Eastern demons came in and they’ve used our region— my region—as a staging ground for the enslavement of all humanity.’
‘Can you enter Heaven?’ Simone asked him.
He laughed bitterly. ‘No. Cast out a long time ago.’ He rose and brushed the dust off his pants. ‘It’s been lovely talking to you, but there’s nothing here for me, and if you don’t mind, I’ll just drink the water and go searching for her again.’
‘We can bring her here. Alive. You can be together—’ Michael began.
Persephone appeared next to Simone and ran to Prometheus. She looked slightly younger, in her mid-forties, but it was the same woman—generously proportioned with large breasts and wide hips. The empty planters around them filled with shrubs that immediately bloomed into brilliantly glowing crimson and purple flowers.
‘Lightbringer!’
He stepped down from the throne, took her in his arms and smiled sadly down at her. ‘Lifegiver. You shouldn’t have done that, but ...’
She finished it in unison with him. ‘I do it every time.’ She turned to see Simone and Michael, still in her lover’s arms. ‘Who are you, and why are you here? You look different.’
‘We’re from the East,’ Simone said. She bowed to them old-fashioned Chinese-style, with hands clasped in front of her. ‘I am Princess Xuan Si Min Simone, only human daughter of the Dark Lord of the Northern Heavens, that he bore with a human woman of Celtic serpent extraction. This is—’
‘Michael MacLaren,’ Michael said. ‘That’s it.’
‘That’s one of the Celtic Serpent names,’ Persephone said.
Michael bowed slightly to her.
‘But you’re a big cat.’
Michael bowed again. ‘My father is the Chinese God of the West, the White Tiger.’
‘There are Chinese gods?’ Prometheus asked, intrigued.
‘A whole pantheon of them,’ Simone said. ‘Maybe even more than you lot.’
‘Are they still around?’ Persephone asked, equally intrigued.
Simone nodded. ‘My father is one of the biggest. We’ve been attempting to contact the Shen ... gods of other regions so that we can co-ordinate our response to the demon threat. The demons are way ahead of us when it comes to infiltration and conquest across regions.’
‘The war,’ Prometheus said. He shook his head. ‘Humans. Always at war. I thought it was my ugly nephew who caused this constant strife, but it seems to be intrinsic to humans and Ares was a symptom, not the cause.’
‘The presence of the demons in the Heavens is making it exponentially worse,’ Simone said. ‘My father drove all of our demons into our Hell, and we’ve had centuries of peace since then.’
‘I would like to meet him,’ Prometheus said.
‘Will you help us?’ Michael asked. ‘The demons are in your Heavens. Again. Their presence is wreaking havoc all through your region. We are powerful enough to stop them, but we can’t get in. The demons have closed all the gateways.’
‘Not my Heavens,’ Prometheus said. He turned and sat back on the throne, waved one hand and made an identical throne next to his own for Persephone, who went to it and sat. Her grubby pants and puffer jacket transformed to an emerald-green flowing silk gown in modern style with a tie at the waist.
Prometheus now looked in his mid-thirties, with short black hair, coppery Southern-European skin and strikingly blue eyes. He had grown in size and muscular bulk, and the suit shifted to one of a better fit in finer black cloth. He put his elbow on the arm of the throne and his chin in his hand as he spoke to Simone. ‘You are part-demon. Why do you want to enter our Heavens and clear your own kind from them? Do you want to take over yourself?’ He turned to Michael. ‘You are pure God. Why are you with this demon?’
‘She absorbed the essence of a Demon King when she selflessly destroyed it,’ Michael said. ‘She thought it would kill her. Instead, she’s ended up like this—and she’s still a kind, generous, loving person who deserves much better.’
‘Your assistance to clear this demon essence from me would be most appreciated,’ Simone said.
‘The Food of Heaven may fix it,’ Persephone said to Prometheus, musing. She also appeared much younger, in her early thirties, and her hair was a red-gold thick braid to her waist. She was still shorter than average and generously proportioned. ‘But anyone sitting on the Throne of Heaven can do it easily.’
Simone felt a bolt of hope. ‘Can you help us enter Heaven? All the gateways are closed.’
‘What do you think, Penny?’ he asked.
‘Stopping the war and clearing the Heavens would be good. If they can achieve that, we can even do something about the environmental degradation. We should help them.’ She turned to Simone and Michael. ‘I can’t go up to Heaven myself until Spring, but we may have a way to assist you.’
Prometheus spoke to the demons, still on their knees in front of him. ‘Tell Baal to get his ugly ass here right—’
The demon that Simone had met at the temple appeared in front of the throne with a pop, still in the form of a middle-aged man in a tailored suit. He clasped his hands and bowed to Prometheus. ‘Boss.’ He grinned at Persephone. ‘Boss Lady. Nice to see you both together again.’ He saw Simone and Michael, and lit up. ‘The Princess who visited! You could use the scroll!’
Prometheus shot Simone a swift, calculating look. ‘You’ve been here before?’
‘My stepmother died in this part of the world, and I came to ensure that she wasn’t stuck here and to get her out if she was,’ Simone said.
‘Honourable,’ Persephone said.
‘What are your plans once you enter the Heavens?’ Prometheus asked.
‘Our main goal is to clear out the demons,’ Michael said. ‘We will find Semias, who is still around somewhere, and then set things up for someone—hopefully neither of us—to take over, re-open the Heavens, and severely limit the demons’ activities in this part of the world.’
‘Semias is still around?’ Persephone asked. ‘What of his city? Does it still stand?’
‘Typical,’ Prometheus said with scorn. ‘Kill themselves and leave the spirit of one city alone up there as a caretaker.’
‘Semias will slowly go mad without a population to serve,’ Persephone said. ‘What cruelty !’
‘Baal,’ Prometheus said.
‘How can I help?’ Baal spread his hands. ‘Look at your dominion, springing to life at your touch.’
‘Yeah, fuck that,’ Persephone said. ‘This place sucks . I’d rather be a lonely, mindless human than here.’ She glanced at Prometheus. ‘Sorry, my love.’
‘I agree with you, it’s why both of us lived as lonely, mindless humans,’ he said. He turned to Baal. ‘You’re the Secretary of Hell, so you have all the contracts we agreed to since the beginning of this whole shitshow. If Penny got these kids into our Heavens, they cleared out the demons and then one of them sat on the Throne of Light ...’ He took a quick breath. ‘Could they open the way for me to take the throne before they went home?’
‘Oh shit,’ Michael said under his breath. ‘Lucifer on the Heavenly Throne.’
Prometheus shot Michael a quick grin. ‘Precisely.’
‘All the documentation with regard to the Throne of Light is up there, not down here, my Lord,’ Baal said, still jolly. ‘All I have here is the terms of your responsibilities to this realm and the agreements on procedures for dealing with the souls of the departed.’
‘The residents of Heaven can do whatever they want, and we have to put up with it,’ Persephone said.
‘That’s always been the gist of it, my Lady,’ Baal said.
‘My mother never got over me running off with you,’ Persephone said wistfully. Her voice hardened. ‘The fact that I was happy with you made her even worse.’ She spoke to Simone and Michael. ‘I know of a few gateways, I worked near one during my life just past. I cannot follow you in until Spring Equinox, but by then you should have a good idea of the layout and a plan of attack.’ She glanced at Prometheus, who nodded support, and turned back to Simone and Michael. ‘I am not a fighter, I am a life giver, and if they catch me, the demons will kill me on sight, and I will be back here again. But I can support you with whatever logistics you need as soon as I am able to join you. If we can get darling Hades up there, he’ll run them out in no time. He’s the mightiest demon fighter of us all, and they locked him up down here because in a fair fight he’d beat his brothers easily.’
‘I never wanted to fight them,’ Prometheus moaned. ‘Insecure assholes. My therapist would have been set for life dealing with their neuroses.’
‘Should we wait until Spring so she can come in with us and show us around?’ Michael asked Simone.
‘No, we need to do this now,’ Simone said. ‘Our presence in the Heavens will weaken the demons’ effect on the Earthly just by our being there, so we should move.’
‘Good point, and we can start looking for a way to clear you—find this Food of Heaven—immediately.’ Michael turned to speak to Prometheus. ‘A couple of years ago, I was kidnapped by the demons and held in Semias’s city in the Heavens. If I can go back there and find him, then hopefully he can be our ground support.’
‘He can help you until I have access,’ Persephone said. ‘It’s a solid plan.’
‘Please show us the gateways, and we’ll see if we can go in,’ Simone said.
‘Sure,’ Persephone said, and changed her appearance back to the sixty-ish year old woman in the battered puffer jacket. ‘Follow me.’
‘Adorable,’ Prometheus said with genuine affection. ‘Return soon, my love, we have plans to make.’
She grinned at him. ‘Put the pavilion back together, there’s a few things we need to do first.’
He smiled back. ‘Never change.’
*
P ersephone took them to an open-air area outside the city, on a windy, cold plain. There was a car park bounded by tall shrubs next to a metal shed the size of one of the largest supermarket warehouses Simone had ever seen. At first Simone thought it was a logistics centre for a delivery service, but a cheer went up inside it as a loud radio-announcer voice echoed from a public address system, and Simone realised that it was an indoor arena. The area in front of them was surrounded by a chain-link fence, covered with tattered canvas to hide whatever was inside.
Persephone conjured three big bunches of pink and red silk roses and handed a bunch each to Simone and Michael. She led them to a boom gate staffed by a bored-looking uniformed security guard.
‘Already? It only seems like last week you were putting them in the Alice garden,’ the guard said in French.
‘The tourists take them faster than I can shove them in the bushes,’ Persephone replied in the same language. ‘My nephew and his girlfriend will help me this time.’
‘Go on through, Madam Bernard.’ The guard smiled at Simone and Michael. ‘Make sure she gets home before midnight this time, eh?’
‘We will,’ Simone said as she followed Persephone around the boom gate and into the screened yard at the back of the arena.
The yard was stacked with random shipping containers, parts of scaffolding, traffic control signs, and piles of gravel. Another big cheer went up inside the stadium. Simone turned back and recognised the distinctive fairy tale castle on the small hill.
‘Euro Disney?’ she asked.
‘I was their forensic gardener,’ Persephone said. ‘They wanted to create a French cottage garden on this windswept mudhole. Nothing survived, it’s too cold and windy, and the soil is rocky and barren. They saw some topiary I did for a private contract, and called me in, and offered me more than I was making as a designer to bring their gardens to life.’ She led them past more piles of construction debris to a small shed with flowerpots piled in front of it and a portable greenhouse. ‘Of course, it wasn’t the great deal I thought it was—this is a big American conglomerate after all. So much unpaid overtime with no recognition. So many arguments about how to keep the plants alive—I wanted to provide windbreaks and thick mulch, and they said it “wouldn’t fit the aesthetic”. They wanted roses—roses!—blooming all year round, and when I said that was impossible, they made me shove these ...’ She raised the silk flowers. ‘Into the azalea bushes. They paid me well, but I was at the bottom of their hierarchy of sleek architectural designers, and because I’m old and fat and ugly they didn’t want to be seen with me. They’d just call me in when things needed to be fixed.’ She took the roses from them and threw them onto the ground next to the shed’s entrance. ‘Of course, my touch was the only thing keeping it all going, and now that I’m gone, they’ll struggle to keep the plants alive. They’ll go back to digging them up and replacing them when they constantly die.’ She opened the shed door to show rows of seedlings on shelves against the walls.
‘I never knew why I asked to be put here,’ Persephone said. ‘Now I do. Step back.’
Simone and Michael did as she asked. She stood in the doorway, raised one hand, and opened a glowing portal to Heaven inside the greenhouse with a sound like steel over ice.
‘Can you go in, Simone?’ Michael asked.
Simone opened her mouth to say ‘of course’ and then closed it again. She couldn’t go into the Asian Heavens because of her demon nature. She carefully stretched one arm towards the portal and felt nothing as her hand entered it. She pushed her whole arm in, then stepped through.
‘Too many demons up here,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to keep an eye on myself, though, if the Heavens are cleared, I may be at risk.’
‘Take care, there will be no way of contacting me to let you out. You’re stuck for thirty-three days in there,’ Persephone said.
‘I’ll make sure you’re out before that happens,’ Michael said to Simone, and turned to Persephone. ‘Thank you. We have it from here. We’ll see you at Spring Equinox.’
‘Stay alive, kids, if you can give my darling Promy the throne, we can make things around here much better. Go with my hopes.’
‘Take my phone anyway, it’s special and may be able to contact Simone’s,’ Michael said, and handed Persephone his mobile phone. He nodded to Simone. ‘Want to go back and get our stuff and some support—like Katie—and return?’
‘No, we have to go now, because as soon as they sense the gateway’s presence they’ll close it,’ Simone said. ‘Semias can provide for us if we find our way into his city.’
Michael nodded and stepped through onto the wide, grassy plain under a star-filled night sky to join her. ‘Let’s go find Semias.’
‘Good luck, children,’ Persephone said, and closed the portal behind them.
‘I hope we didn’t just make a huge mistake,’ Michael said. ‘Any signal on your phone?’
Simone checked it. ‘No, but we’re Immortal. We’ll be fine.’
Michael turned on the spot. ‘Similar to the Heavens back home—zillions of stars, fresh clean air—it’s lovely.’
Simone breathed deeply, appreciating the fresh scent of the air. She looked up to see multitudes of stars blazing in the sky, free from light pollution and with the clarity of the higher plane. It had been ages since she’d been on the Heavenly Plane, and her eyes stung with tears—she’d really missed it.
Michael’s head shot up. ‘Demons coming. Fight or hide?’
She felt it as well—big demons heading their way, moving incredibly fast.
‘Hide,’ she said, looking for cover, and finding none. They were in the middle of the broad plain occupied by the outskirts of Paris and the Disney Park on the Earthly plane. ‘I can’t make us invisible—’
‘I can’t either.’ Michael held his hand out as the thumping roar approached. ‘Shit, I can’t pull my weapon to me here. What about you?’
She concentrated and her swords didn’t come. ‘Me neither.’ A helicopter appeared in the sky to the south, rushing towards them. Simone grabbed Michael’s hand and he whooped with surprise as she shot straight up into the air—to double the altitude that the helicopter was flying at—and hovered above the portal to watch. He released her hand and hovered next to her.
The demons in the helicopter didn’t seem to notice Simone and Michael floating above them. The helicopter landed, making the grass ripple, and five demons stepped out. Three were big Western ones like those they’d encountered in Western Hell; black and spiked with bat-like wings and horned heads with many misshapen teeth. Two were smaller and appeared human, looking like White British skinheads, but their demon nature was obvious to Simone.
One of the bat-like demons pushed the two human-types towards where the portal had been, and one of them moaned with terror.
Can you see what’s happening ? Michael asked telepathically.
Five demons, standing and looking at where the portal was , Simone said. They don’t seem to have noticed us . She watched the demons as they walked around the location of the portal, discussing it. The bat-like ones had an animated argument, waving their arms, while the two human-types cowered.
That’s right, it’s not worth closing and locking , Simone said to Michael. It was a mistake.
Can you share your vision of them? Michael asked. I can’t see much from this high up.
Simone hesitated, not wanting that sort of intimate connection with Michael as it would probably reveal more of her feelings for him than she was comfortable with. Sorry, no.
Okay. Tell me what’s happening?
Sure.
One of the demons obviously made a decision, grabbed one of the human-types, carried it to the location of the portal and smashed its head between his hands, then spread them, covered in red goo. The portal opened and the other demons stared at it, then shared a grin.
They killed one of their own—a human-type—and its essence was red, not black.
Like those weird copies my dad found in the West?
Yes. The sacrifice opened the portal.
Ew.
Simone agreed with him. The other human-type fell to its knees, obviously pleading for its life, but the big ones ignored it. The big ones had an animated discussion, gesturing angrily at each other, and Simone guessed that a few of them wanted to go through and cause some havoc, but probably had orders to stay and guard. One of the big ones strode to the kneeling human one, grabbed it and smashed its head in the way the first one had been destroyed. The portal closed again.
They locked it back down the same way , Simone said. With a sacrifice of red demon essence. I really don’t want to do that to leave here ...
Semias was able to open a portal to help Emma escape , Michael said. Or we can wait for Persephone. No need to kill what appears to be human.
The demons slapped each other on the back, obviously delighted at a job well done, and returned to the helicopter. It took off and Simone waited for it to disappear over the horizon before letting herself and Michael drift back down to the ground. She concentrated on the portal location and shook her head. ‘Yeah. It’s gone.’ She turned to Michael. ‘ Do you remember where Semias’s city was?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘About five hundred clicks north-west, where the Netherlands is on the Earthly. Can you teleport closer? Something’s blocking me.’
She concentrated a moment, then shook her head. ‘Same. We have to fly. You good?’
He nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
They flew together over wide meadows and thick, tall forests, all completely empty. Simone slowed when they approached a village and flew lower to see it.
There were ten generously sized houses with whitewashed walls and high, pitched thatched roofs that had fallen in. The grass was waist-height around the houses and the fences behind them had fallen over. The roads had disappeared beneath the greenery.
‘This must have been delightful when they were here,’ Simone said, hovering over a shattered fountain in the town square. A fallen sign next to one building suggested that it was an inn. ‘I wonder what happened to the humans who lived here when the Shen decided to kill themselves?’
‘Probably ended up on the Earthly, confused and disoriented and a hundred years after their own time because of the time differential,’ Michael said. He cocked his head. ‘Aren’t there folk tales about that?’
‘The small number of tales suggests that these Shen were selective about having humans in their dominion,’ Simone said. ‘Only the best and brightest?’
‘Or prettiest,’ Michael said. ‘I think Hades might be an asshole, but he’s the least asshole-y of them.’
‘Persephone seems all right, though,’ Simone said.
‘I don’t trust either of them, something’s off about them, particularly Hades,’ Michael said grimly.
‘Yeah,’ Simone said, and looked around. ‘Which way?’
Michael pointed. ‘There.’ He turned to her. ‘You okay? Not feeling the stress of the demon nature against the Heavenly nature?’
‘No, I feel right at home,’ Simone said, and lifted herself further. ‘Let’s go.’
After two hours of flying through the clear, bitterly cold night in companiable silence, they arrived at the city. It was completely dark and the soaring stained-glass towers—which Michael had previously visited and described in a report that Simone had read with interest—were just slender shapes against the star-filled sky. Apart from about fifty demons that she sensed were gathered at the centre of the city, it was heart-wrenchingly deserted, gloomy and lifeless.
Simone felt the cold of the loneliness again and tried to push it away. The last time she had broken into these Heavens, she had found them completely deserted and for an hour of terrifying panic, thought she would be stuck on that continent completely alone for the rest of her life. But Michael was here with her now, and she could feel his warm, reassuring presence next to her.
She flew up to enter over the wall but hit an invisible barrier above it. She ran her hand over the barrier—it was an energy shield. She’d never seen anything like it before.
‘Down here,’ Michael said, and she landed next to him in front of the city’s wall. It was twice as tall as them and made of rippling glass joined by shining silvery metal that framed the massive glossy pieces.
‘My heart should be broken to be here,’ Michael said bitterly. ‘The Demon King had copies of my wife and mother—both of them!—alive and claiming to be the real Rhonda and Clarissa, kept here as captives.’
‘You never mentioned demon copies in the report,’ Simone said, running her hand over the slick glass wall. The starlight had drained it of colour, and it appeared plain grey.
‘It hurt too much to mention,’ he said. ‘I did something really stupid and destroyed them by accident.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Mind-bogglingly stupid. I didn’t think at all. What’s worse, is that I should be glad that they weren’t the real women, because it would have killed them.’ He shook his head. ‘So stupid.’
He waited for Simone to ask him, but she didn’t, not wanting to open this wound further.
Michael turned back to the wall and raised his voice. ‘Semias, I hope you can hear us. I’m Michael, I’m back, and we’re here from the East to clear the demons from your Heavens and install Hades as replacement ruler. Can you respond through the city?’
The wall vibrated beneath Simone’s hand, and she jerked it back, then realised what it was doing and put her hand on again.
‘Isle of the City,’ the wall said. ‘Help. Michael? He ...’ The voice trailed off
‘Isle of the City?’ Simone asked, then understood. ‘?le de la Cité. That’s the centre of Paris, close to where we started.’ She glanced at Michael. ‘Twenty yuan says it’s a city chock-full of demons.’
‘Stealth, then,’ he said. ‘Follow me, let’s see if we can get into this glass city before we head back there. We may be able to find useful supplies and rest.’
‘No,’ Simone said. ‘There are fifty demons in the middle of this city, and they may ambush us if we sleep in there. I don’t need that much rest. Let’s go now, and hopefully be at Semias’s location before dawn to do a night stealth raid.’ She studied him. ‘Unless you need to rest?’
‘Good point, but at the speed we’ve been flying, we’ll get there just on dawn and have to decide then what to do,’ he said, then nodded to her. ‘I’m fine. Let’s go.’