Chapter 13 #2
Elsewhere — a pink-haired demon woman was sitting leg-crossed at the other end of a coffee table in a crowded café.
She was holding a smoking cigarette, shortened to about half its full length between her fingers, and her bright red lips were pursed in annoyance beneath hefty sunglasses.
“There’s not much I can do. Even if he doesn’t have me dragged back to Hell, he has more than enough power to have me take the fall for all his crimes here on Earth.
That’s why he has me be his accomplice, I think — not because he really needs me to bring him weapons or anything, but to make sure that if I ever step out of line, he can have me thrown in human prison.
” When the demon on the other side of the table snorted, Gemory, the demon woman, sighed and insisted: “You don’t know how good he is at framing people. ”
“I’m well-aware,” said the demon duke Asmodeus, “of how excellent he is at blaming others for his own actions, actually.” He was dressed in a gray wool coat, sleek pants, leather dress shoes, a golden ring, a silver watch, and a black face mask over the end of his nose to his chin.
For the last two or three centuries, Asmodeus’ onyx-colored hair had been trimmed short to create messy bangs at the front whereas the back was sweeping a few finger-widths past the nape of his neck.
As for the infernal horns the great demon used to carry, they were not what they used to be — they had both been broken long ago, then sawed flat closer to his skull, almost entirely hidden in his dark hair.
“But you shouldn’t feel guilty, Gemory. I owe you plenty for trying to keep this… quiet.”
Gemory breathed in slow, then tapped the end of her cigarette out on the ashtray on the table.
Typically, she’d be more careful with how she moved, how loudly she spoke in their demonic language, but there was no better place to hide a devil than in a crowd.
“I warned you,” she said lowly, “that you couldn’t keep this up long. Were you really only here for fun?”
Months ago, the demon duke of lust had rolled over in bed, settled his mouth over the half-asleep fallen angel of fruit.
He’d drunk his gasp, then reached to play with Rosier’s necklace as he kissed him some more.
Whispering, Asmodeus had said they should go to Earth.
Rosier, softly, had asked, ‘Have you asked Satan? Or Baal?’ But Asmodeus had said their approval didn’t matter.
If Satan had the audacity to care so much, then he should be here to stop them.
Then, he’d kissed at Rosier’s cheek, then his neck, and said, ‘Let’s leave, darling.
’ Wrapping an arm around him and squeezing firmly.
‘I’ll marry you again. There are some places left on Earth where we haven’t wed, and I don’t want to stop marrying you until every grain of dirt has known that I love you.
’ Rosier, such a soft demon, surrendered to this, of course.
Asmodeus said, “I told you. It was business.” That wasn’t a lie.
“The clubs do well enough without me being here to manage them, but there are always legal issues, journalists to get rid of.” There was always someone who looked too deep into the scars that certain clubbers would leave the building with; contrary to popular belief, organ harvesting didn’t often kill the victim, and their victimhood itself wasn’t an easy thing to argue for.
They would sign papers, they would receive a decent payment, and they would leave in some pain but happy to afford another meal.
Asmodeus never considered himself so evil; it was the humans who bought, and it was the humans who sold.
All he got out of the exchange was a cut of money and some new body parts.
He wasn’t so monstrous anymore, hadn’t been for many, many centuries now; on the outside, that is; he couldn’t speak for what existed beneath his skin. “Hell is also miserable.”
Gemory abandoned her stubbed cigarette and crossed her arms. “Worse than it was last time I was back home?” She said ‘home’ slow, bitterly.
“Well, right before we left, Baal whipped Moloch for trying to free some demons from the prison.” Asmodeus chuckled over the other demon’s sigh.
“He’s not very bright — that Baal. Satan would be smarter than that.
He would have created division between Moloch and his friends.
Divide and conquer, the humans call it. For as much of a bitch and bastard that Satan is — he was good at ruling Hell.
” ‘And so why haven’t you been in Hell anymore, Lucifer?
’ he wondered. ‘What won’t you tell us?’
“Hello, hello,” came a kind voice nearby just as Asmodeus smiled and Gemory rolled her eyes.
“Forgive me for the wait. The line was longer than I thought it’d be.
” With both hands, the demon Rosier held a pastry — a horn-shaped bread with a drizzle of chocolate — on a simple, small plate.
Like Asmodeus, he had a wedding band, but he also had a deceptively simple engagement ring that must’ve cost the price of a city home or two.
“What’s happening?” He wore a sweater, a scarf, and a close-fitting knit cap.
Long ago, he too had his horns sawed close to his head, and though he hadn’t cut his obsidian-colored hair any shorter, he now tied back some strands of it.
“The devil isn’t happy,” Gemory muttered.
“He never is…” Rosier finally set the plate down on the table, between Asmodeus and him, then settled on the chair beside his husband’s.
“But, I suppose, we’ll have to return then?
” As he spoke, the duke reached and took one of his hands, running his thumb over Rosier’s knuckles.
When Gemory noticed it, she remembered how terribly she’d craved Asmodeus’s gentle touch once, and it was both tragic and wonderful not to crave it anymore.
Sometimes the birth of desire can only be bested in joy by the death of desire.
Asmodeus said, “We should go willingly.”
Rosier looked over at him, blinking twice. “Are you sure?”
It had been a wonderful few months; it really had been.
“I don’t think it’d be a good idea to bring Satan’s wrath down upon us, not right now.
” While Asmodeus would often go to his clubs, Rosier had never enjoyed it.
He’d say, ‘No, no — I’ll stay home,’ one of Asmodeus’ many expensive condos across the globe, high on a tower with a perfect view of the skyline.
Though Rosier hadn’t liked Earth as much in the past century, he’d found it very nice at times to walk in the dark; many times, Asmodeus would join him.
Though, there had been difficult days between them, as well. Many of them.
The duke felt Gemory’s pitiful gaze; though her sunglasses hid it. Asmodeus said, “I don’t want you to get hurt.” He nodded forward. “And I can’t ask Gemory to risk her life for us anymore.” At that, she laughed.
“I did it for you, Asmodeus. You’re my friend,” she replied.
“I would really like to think that we can be friends, anyway.” Gemory paused, then looked at Rosier, who parted his lips, then disentangled his hand from Asmodeus’ to reach for the croissant.
“And I wouldn’t wish Satan on my worst enemy.
” Rosier tore a third of the pastry off, then he extended it to Gemory, wordlessly, with nothing more than a nervously sweet shine in his faux hazel eyes, but she shook her head solemnly.
“You have it. Who knows when you’ll get to have another human pastry? ”
The demon of fruit hesitated, and he wished he could have said something, but he didn’t know what would suffice to convey what he wasn’t sure he felt.
In Tadeo’s home, the anti-Christ had just returned.
He came in through the doorway, shut it with all the locks behind, then grabbed the hat off his head and set it down on the nearest table.
For once, he’d traversed the town without a firearm, figured it wouldn’t be necessary for the short trip he was making to the hospital, a mere ten-minute walk away.
‘How,’ Tadeo had asked, ‘is he doing?’ The doctor in his office had sighed, glanced over at his secretary-nurse past the open door into the waiting area, then told Tadeo quietly that Dante’s hand was beyond repair, and that the soldier was still in an urgent care room on the first floor, not speaking to anyone.
‘I’m sorry for making you do this,’ Tadeo had wanted to say, unsure now if he’d even said it.
With a sigh, he stepped into the living room, where Joana was watching the television with his mother beside her, as usual.
“So is he dead?” Joana asked simply, not looking at him.
Tadeo swallowed, then moved across the room, headed for a door near the bathroom, where he was sharing a room with the angel. “Are my grandparents home?”
“I asked you a question,” Joana said, but her voice wasn’t strict as she stood, then rolled her shoulders, stretched her arms over her head, and trailed behind Tadeo. “Is he dead? Did he die of blood loss?”
Through gritted teeth — “They have to amputate his hand.” Joana whistled. “I’m not proud about it. I didn’t mean to take it that far. I got mad at him. It’s his fault for making jokes.”
Joana finally said, “Your grandparents are at mass.” They reached the door to the bedroom, and she moved to lean on the wall against it, staring at Tadeo gravely. “And so the soldier — how does he feel about the fact that you’ve made him lose a whole ass hand?”
Tadeo took a deep breath, wishing now that he’d just come in through a window to avoid discussing this with her.
“He’s not talking, but he hasn’t tried to run away.
I’m not worried. Who would believe him? I mean, he doesn’t believe it much either.
He especially doesn’t think that God is the one who did this to me or that I have an angel in my house.
” He hesitated, then added, “But there’s not a lot of cars out there except for the trucks passing through to the border, and they’re getting really angry about all the people trying to hitchhike across town on them, so maybe he’s going to have to stick around anyway.
Has the TV said anything about the gasoline? ”
“They’re blaming the criminals,” Joana replied with a shrug. “The story is that they fucked up a pipeline while trying to steal from it during a confrontation, and that, for now, the state is going to hand out gasoline at a few stations. Should’ve started today, actually.”
Tadeo nodded his head again, then finally knocked a fist against the door. “Dina,” he called.
“He’s still in there,” Joana said as if that weren’t obvious. “He still hasn’t left the room.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Tadeo grumbled, “what did you do to him?”
Joana laughed and raised her hands. “I told you. I just handed him a beer or two after we came back from checking the gas stations. How was I supposed to know angels can’t hold down a little alcohol?”
“Dina,” Tadeo called again. “It’s Joana and I.
Can I talk to you? I need to know something.
” He took the doorknob, saying the angel’s name again, began turning it before he felt the handle yanked away from him.
The door swiveled open to reveal the tall angel looking flushed, hair in a tangled web around his head, his entire body wrapped in the bedsheets like he was trying to hide within it.
“I’m sorry,” Dina said quickly. “I was asleep. What is happening?”
Tadeo blinked, turning his head a little to see into his room — the twin beds, the Mary of Guadalupe figurine in a small wooden table between them, the peeling wallpaper; this had been his mother and her siblings’ childhood bedroom once.
“Nothing right now. I wanted to talk to you. Can we go to the living room or the kitchen—?”
“We can talk here,” said Dina, wrapping his arms around the bedsheets tighter but scooting forward. He reached behind him, shut the door, then echoed himself. “We can talk here…”
Hesitating, Tadeo glanced back at Joana, then at the angel. “You told me the world is going to end.” Dina blinked, then nodded. “Does that mean we’re in the apocalypse? The biblical one?”
“Yes,” said Dina, firmer. “It’s the biblical apocalypse.”
“Everything that that Revelation says will happen,” the anti-Christ answered, “will happen? There will be plagues and rivers of blood, and a star will fall into the Earth, and Jesus will return and take a few with him, and the rest of us will burn forever?”
“Yes,” the angel said again.
“How can we stop it?”
Dina stared, and he tried to remember what he’d read when he’d first realized who Tadeo was, why he mattered to the end times that he wanted to prevent.
‘He really doesn’t know,’ Dina thought, ‘what he is meant to do.’ Apsinthos had already told him that, but it was difficult to stare at the genuine, wide-eyed, pleading expression of the young man before him, knowing what he was, what he was born to do — to kill the ones he loved, to destroy what he was fighting so hard to protect.
‘Don’t pity him,’ urged the star, or perhaps it was Dina himself.
‘To fulfill Revelation,’ said Apsinthos now, ‘we will need demons and those angels bound beneath the Earth.’ Dina almost gasped.
‘Those whose anger and rage has been carefully nurtured in their bindings, so that they kill a third of mankind.’
“Hello?” Joana impatiently called.
The angel, eyes hazed as if he were asleep, whispered: “The Watchers. We must release the Watchers.”