Angels on Fire (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Nevin stood and stared out the picture window that overlooked Gramercy Park, a glass of champagne in one hand, and reflected on how Life Was Good. No—not just Good. It was Fucking Great.

Tonight had proved to be a major milestone. After years of struggle and toil, he finally had it made in the shade. No more tuna fish, ramen noodles and cheap ass beer for him. From here on in it was filet mignon, truffles and champagne!

Not only had he managed to sell all his pieces in the show, but he also landed a rep who already had a couple of high-rollers lined up for him. To celebrate, the rep took both him and Gwenda to a couple of
very
exclusive nightclubs—the kind where the super-rich and the ultra-famous hung out. Hell, if he had known things were going to turn out
this
plush, he wouldn’t have bothered proposing to Gwenda.

Still, it paid to be judicious. Gwenda’s money and family connections would be very handy for a young self-made postmodern art genius such as himself. That’s how his rep said he’d be pitching him to the press. The ‘self-made’ part was certainly true enough.

No one on the Manhattan art scene had any idea that he was actually the son of a garage mechanic and a Wal-Mart cashier who lived in a rundown trailer in upstate New York. Of course, he’d told Gwenda that before their untimely deaths on a jet that crashed off the shore of Long Island, his parents had been an investment banker and a podiatrist. One thing was certain though—he would have to dump Lucy once and for all in the next day or two. She had been fun for a while, and handy for even longer, but now it was time to cut her loose. He’d squeezed her for all she was good for, and now it was time to throw away the used-up rind.

Still, he had to admit he’d miss the sex, if not Lucy herself. No matter how much of a doormat she tried to turn herself into, she somehow managed to still make him feel inadequate as an artist. Gwenda, on the other hand, posed no such threat. It was only matter of time before he could open a studio and sit around all day coming up with ideas for art. All he’d have to do was hire struggling young artists to actually do the physical work of painting, sculpting, photographing and drawing while he signed his name at the bottom of canvasses and checks. Who knows—he might even offer Lucy a job working for him, once she finally got rid of that weirdo Joth.

“Nevin—are you coming to bed sweetie?” Gwenda called after him from the bedroom. “I’m
waiting!”

“I’ll be right there directly, honey,” he replied, turning from the window. “I just want to finish my champagne.”

“Why don’t you bring it into the bedroom with you, silly?”

Nevin sighed and rolled his eyes like a boy being called inside to do his homework. “Okay, sweetheart—as you wish!” As he reached for the silver wine bucket, Nevin thought he heard the thrumming of wings just outside the window. No doubt the neighborhood cats had disrupted the covey of pigeons nesting under the eaves again…

Suddenly there was a deafening crash as the window exploded inward in a shower of glass and splintered wood. Nevin was stunned to see a man, naked save for a pair of tattered jeans, crouched in the middle of the Oriental carpet covering the floor. The intruder rose with the grace and deliberation of a ballet dancer, shaking fragments of glass from his shoulder-length mane. Nevin recognized Joth instantly.

“What the
fuck
do you think you’re
doing
here!?!” he yelled. “Are you out of your fuckin’ mind, you fuckin’
mook!
Did Lucy put you up to rappelling down the side of the fuckin’ building like Bruce Willis?”

Joth fixed him with a stare that caused the artist to freeze in his tracks. The angel shot forward with the speed of a leopard going for a blooded gazelle, striking Nevin squarely in the chest with its open hands. The artist flew backwards as if struck with a sledgehammer, flipping over a chair and landing hard on the floor.

Joth swooped down after him, grabbing Nevin and lifting him bodily off the floor with one hand before hurling him headlong across the room. Nevin smashed into the wall with enough force to knock a Keith Haring original off its picture-hook.

“Nevin—what the hell is all this
noise
—?” Gwenda snapped as she strode angrily out of the bedroom, dressed only in a black lace chemise and panties. She screamed at the sight of the strange half-naked man standing in the middle of her living room. She gave a second, smaller scream as Nevin staggered to his feet, blood pouring from his nose like an open tap.

“Call the cops!” he barked.

Joth glanced indifferently over its shoulder at Gwenda, then resumed its attack, grabbing the artist’s left arm and twisting it sharply in its socket.

“Don’t just stand there staring at me, you stupid bitch!”
Nevin shrieked at the top of his lungs. “
Call 911!”

As purple and black spots exploded behind his eyes, it seemed to Nevin as if Joth’s face twisted and blurred, sprouting horns and fangs and eyes that glowed like St. Elmo ’s fire. He could even make out huge, black wings growing out of his attacker’s shoulders.

“Get away from him, you bastard!” Gwenda yelled, throwing herself at the stranger.

Joth snarled and batted Gwenda with one of its pinions hard enough to put her on the floor and keep her there. It then returned its attention to its prey. Nevin’s face was pinched so tightly the creases in his features looked like they had been carved by a knife.

“W-why?”
Nevin gasped through his pain. “Why are you
doing
this to me?”

“You made her cry,” Joth said, as if this explained everything.

A taxi screamed up to the curb in front of Gwenda’s co-op and fishtailed to a stop. Ezrael and Lucy quickly piled out, pausing only long enough to hurl a twenty at the cabbie.

“Oh my god! Ez! Look!” Lucy shouted, pointing over their heads at what remained of the apartment building’s upper story. It looked like someone had catapulted a boulder through Gwenda’s living room window.

As they entered the lobby, a man outfitted in a navy blazer stepped out from behind a desk to block their way. He frowned as he held up his hands.

“I’m sorry, miss,” the doorman said, addressing himself to Lucy. “But I have explicit orders from Ms. Latrobe
not
to allow you entrance to this building. I’m afraid you and your companion will have to leave.”

“We don’t have time for this bullshit,” Ezrael announced flatly, pressing his forefinger firmly between the doorman’s brows. The other man’s jaw went slack and his eyes rolled back in their sockets, but he did not collapse. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry—he’ll snap out of it in ninety seconds! No time for the elevator—we better take the stairs!”

For someone who was close to a thousand years old and hadn’t gotten much sleep lately, Ezrael seemed in pretty good shape. The Muse zipped past Lucy as she gasped for breath on the final landing.

“Which apartment is it?”

“Apartment D!” she managed between wheezes.

Ezrael didn’t even bother knocking. The Muse eyed the door, backed up and slammed his shoulder against it. The door shook, but the locks held. On his third charge the door flew open with a loud smash. Lucy glanced up and saw an old man in bathrobe and slippers standing outside the apartment opposite Gwenda’s, scowling at her over his bifocals. When he realized she was looking at him, the neighbor quickly retreated, locking the door behind him.

The apartment was in shambles: furniture lay overturned, pictures were knocked from the walls, and the floor was littered with smashed knickknacks. A near-naked Gwenda lay sprawled on the floor in a pool of spilled wine.

Joth was standing in front of the shattered window, holding a feebly struggling Nevin aloft by the throat as easily as it would a doll. The dark angel’s toes had fused together and re-divided themselves, so that its foot resembled that of an ostrich. Its wings glittered as black as a scarab, and small horns—like those of a young goat—grew out of its forehead.

“Joth!”
Lucy screamed.
“No!”

The dark angel turned, allowing Nevin to drop to the floor. The artist lay there gasping like a landed fish, his face almost purple and his throat badly bruised.

“That psycho tried to
kill
me!” Nevin wheezed, pointing a trembling finger at the transmuted angel.

“You made her cry,” Joth replied matter-of-factly. “I told you I would do something I have never done before if you made her cry.”

“H-he’s fucking crazy!”
Nevin sputtered.

“He’s a
lot
more than that,” Lucy whispered under her breath. “Ez— check to see if Gwenda’s okay,” she said, motioning to where her rival lay sprawled on the floor.

“She’s alive—but it looks like her nose is broken,” Ezrael reported. As the Muse rolled Gwenda onto her back, she groaned and opened eyes that were already beginning to swell and purple.

As Lucy moved aside to help Ezrael, Joth once more reached for Nevin. Lucy quickly jumped back in between her ex-boyfriend and the half-angel.

“Stop it—
please!
Joth, don’t
hurt
him anymore!”

Joth frowned, tilting its head. “You do not want me to destroy the deathling called Nevin—? Why?”

“Because I’m afraid of what will happen.”

“You are afraid for the deathling called Nevin?”

Lucy shook her head. “I’m afraid for
you!
If you destroy Nevin, you’ll damn yourself forever. And if you do that,
that
will make me cry, too. But
you’ll
be the one who makes me cry then, Joth—
not
Nevin.”

The dark angel stared down at her for a long moment, then closed its eyes. The horns sprouting from its head retracted themselves, like those of a snail. “Don’t cry, Lucy,” the angel pleaded. “I
never
want you to cry, Lucy.
Never”

Lucy blushed and flashed a smile as shy as a schoolgirl’s. “That’s sweet of you, Joth—but crying is part of being human. I wouldn’t
be
human if I didn’t cry now and again.”

“Yes, it
is
a vale of tears you mortals dwell within, is it not?” Meresin said snidely as he picked his way through the splintered ruins of the front door. “Tears are part of the woof and weave of human existence—as is sorrow, pain, loneliness and abject misery.
All
these things would be yours as well, friend elohim. I ask you—is it worth it? Are you willing to surrender the uniformity of the Clockwork, the constancy of the Machine, to partake of the unleavened bread of mortality?”

“What are
you
doing here?” snapped Lucy.

“Just stopping by to speak with my newest client regarding a point of business, my dear, that’s all! It seems I forgot to get him to sign a couple of documents earlier,” the sephirah smiled slyly, patting his breast pocket. “I’m a
stickler
for paperwork.”

“You’ve done enough damage as it is, daemon,” Ezrael replied. “Joth doesn’t need you tickling its ear with your serpent’s tongue.”

“The sojourner will be mine, whether it falls or fails,” Meresin said with a shrug. “Indeed, it seems to be already more Infernal than Celestial by the looks of it. I simply do not see how encouraging this poor creature to pass itself through the eye of the needle is worth all this fuss! It’s plain to see that the elohim’s fate is sealed.”

“Hold on—what’s going on here?” rasped Nevin as he massaged his throat. “You
know
these assholes, Meresin?”

“Ah—Nevin!” the daemon smiled, patting him on the shoulder. “I am pleased to see you still amongst the living, although it would have been worth sacrificing a pawn such as yourself in order to capture a knight.”

“Is
everybody
around here a friggin’ nutcase? What are you babbling about?” Nevin scowled.

“Do not bother your lonely brain cell about it, you talentless cat’s paw!” Meresin snapped..

“Hey
—
!”
Nevin replied angrily. “You’re supposed to be my
agent!
Where do you get off calling me talentless—?”

“Do as I say
—
!”
snarled Meresin, allowing his mask of humanity to drop long enough to flash the artist a glimpse of the true face underneath. “Go tend to your tedious yoke-mate and stay out of this! Come the dawn, neither of you will have any clue as to what happened here—save for the window, of course.” Nevin turned the color of oatmeal and scuttled over across the room to help the dazed Gwenda sit up. Meresin sighed and turned back to Lucy and Ezrael. “Now where were we—? Ah, yes! As for yourselves, I recommend that you take this time to take the sojourner and go, before the police arrive.”

“Meresin’s right,” Ezrael said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Lucy turned to look at the angel. “Joth—please come home.”

Joth glanced over at Nevin, who was kneeling beside Gwenda. The artist cringed and tried to position his fiancée between himself and the angel.

“I am ready to go home,” Joth replied.

Meresin waved a final farewell as the trio fled the apartment, before turning to glare dispassionately at Nevin and Gwenda.

“What the
fuck
was all that about?!?” Nevin spat, regaining some of his bravado now that the others were gone. “And what’s with you taking up for that bitch and her wacko friends, telling them to beat it before the cops show up? That fuckin’ lunatic jumped through the window and tried to
kill
me!”

“Actually, it was trying to
destroy
you,” Meresin corrected. “Daemons do not kill or murder—that is purely a mortal sport. We
destroy.
Granted, it may seem a matter of semantics to the person involved. However, you should be more generous in regard to Ms. Bender. You owe her your life--what there is of it.”

Meresin frowned, studying Gwenda as one would a particularly distasteful bug. “Frankly, I do not see why you chose to discard her for such a creature as this. And to think your kind possess free will! Astounding. Usually I have to go out of my way to ensure such disastrous pairings, but you seem to have taken the bull by the horns! Ah, dear, deluded Nevin—that all of us should be so lucky as to have someone willing to save us from ourselves!”