Angels on Fire (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Nisroc’s mane burned bright blue as it fixed its lambent gaze on the sojourner that stood before it. “Joth of the Lesser Elohim, I put to you the Question one final time: shall you return to the Clockwork, or shall you remain on this mortal plane? Which shall it be?”

The angel shifted uneasily, casting Lucy a beseeching look. Despite herself, she mouthed the word: ‘stay.’ Joth nodded and returned its gaze to the seraph.”I shall remain here.”

There was a sadness in the greater angel’s eyes as it folded its brass-shod talons across its breast. “So be it.”

Joth instantly burst into flame. The elohim screamed as its divinity was stripped away like a layer of old paint, revealing the gleaming skin of a lizard underneath. The burning angel clutched its forehead as wildly corkscrewing horns burst through its temples and its blond tresses crackled like cellophane held over a gas burner, becoming a hideous fright wig. The black feathers that covered its wings fell away, exposing the leathery vanes of a dragon’s pinions. From between Joth’s thighs unrolled a segmented coil of flesh that resembled a scorpion’s tail, complete with stinger housed in the urethra. Its fused toes curled in on themselves and calcified, transforming themselves into hooves.

Lucy turned to Ezrael, who was watching Joth’s transformation with open grief. “
Why
is this happening? He said he wanted to
stay!”

The Muse turned on her, his tone cruelly accusatory. “Because the decision wasn’t made of Joth’s free will!
You
made it for him! This is
your
fault, Lucy!
You
did this to him!”

The creature that had once been Joth bellowed like a bull and grabbed the Muse by the throat. As Lucy watched, frozen in terror, the newborn daemon opened wide its jaws and bit off Ezrael’s head as easily as it would that of a chocolate Easter bunny.

“NO!”
she screamed. “I didn’t
mean
for any of this to happen!”

“Wake up, Lucy! You’re having a bad dream!”

Lucy jumped as if she’d been given an electric shock. Her heart was thumping like she had just charged up a flight of stairs. It took her a second to recognize her surroundings as that of her own living room.

“Thanks for shaking me out of that,” she groaned as she sat up. “That one was a
real
lulu of a nightmare!”

“Here, I made you some java,” Ezrael said, offering her a steaming mug of fresh coffee.

“Thanks—I need it,” she sighed, sipping at the bitter brew. “Where’s Joth?”

“Right where you left it,” Ezrael replied.

The angel as crouched on the floor of the living room, busily assembling a ten-thousand-piece puzzle of the
Mona Lisa.
By her count, this had to be the third time it had assembled that one particular jigsaw in the last five hours.

Upon arriving back at her apartment, Ezrael and Lucy had been desperate to find some way to keep Joth preoccupied. Then Lucy had a brainstorm and dragged her mother’s jigsaw puzzle collection out of the hall closet and dumped them on the floor. Joth immediately fell to its hands and knees and began sorting the thousands upon thousands of individual pieces.

“That was a great idea—whatever made you think of it?” Ezrael had asked, impressed by her ingenuity.

“It was Joth who gave me the idea, really,” she replied with a shrug. “I had a chance to see how
he
perceives the world—like a gigantic puzzle that is constantly being put together and torn apart. So I figured it was worth a chance.”

Now she sat on the couch, still groggy from her doze, and sipped hot coffee while watching Joth turn from the Mona
Lisa
and begin putting together a five-thousand-piece puzzle depicting Michelangelo’s
The Creation of Man.
The angel’s nimble hands sorted through the pile of pieces rapidly, without fumbling or pause. It did not look up from its task nor say anything as it worked. It had already assembled a two-thousand-piece New England landscape, a three-thousand-piece red covered bridge, a ten-thousand-piece Monet painting of water lilies, and a five-thousand-piece black-and-white Escher staircase.

Lucy sighed and glanced at her watch. “We’re going to need a
lot
more coffee before this is through. I’m going to make a quick trip to the store, if it’s okay with you, Ez.”

“Sure,” the muse replied. “I think I can handle things until you get back.”

After changing into a fresh pair of jeans and T-shirt, Lucy headed for the supermarket on Avenue A. It was early and the East Village’s more disreputable denizens were finally staggering home, glowering at the morning sun like vampires being chased back into their sepulchers.

The store was less crowded than she’d ever seen it; then again, she rarely did her shopping before three in the afternoon. As she pushed her cart through the narrow aisles in search of coffee, raw sugar, bagels and toilet paper, she collided solidly with the cart of another early bird shopper. She backed up without looking, automatically mumbling an apology.

“Good morning, Ms. Bender. I see you’re looking well this morning,” smiled Meresin.

“You
bastard!”
Lucy blurted loudly enough to make the butcher stocking the meat case look in her direction. “What do
you want? Are you following me?”

“Heaven forbid!” Meresin said, feigning dismay. “I am merely tending to my shopping—much as you are.” To illustrate his point, the daemon picked up a can of baby octopus and tossed it in his otherwise empty cart.

“That’s
bullshit
and you know it!’ she replied hotly. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish harassing me—”

Meresin held up a hand. “Please, my dear! You wound me to the quick! But speaking of motivations—have you
truly
given any thought to your
own
incentives regarding this matter? Ask yourself, Lucy—is what you feel for Joth anchored in reality? After all, you thought what you had with Nevin was built on a solid foundation, am I right? Will you still feel the same for Joth once it sheds its wings? And what if Joth turns out to be a she, not a ‘he,’ as you insist on calling it?”

“Shut up!”
Lucy said angrily. “I
know
what you’re trying to do! But it’s not going to work!” She clamped her hands over her ears and screwed her eyes shut. “I’m not listening to you! See? I’m
not
listening!” She wagged her head back and forth, chanting stridently:
“La-La-La! I’m not listening! La-La-La!”
Two seconds later she opened her eyes and looked around to find Meresin gone, although the guy stocking the meat-case was now looking at her as if she was

certifiable. Blushing bright red, Lucy hurried to the register with her purchases.

Later, as she walked back to her apartment building, she couldn’t help but reflect upon what Meresin had said. She really
hadn’t
given why she was doing so much to help Joth too much thought. Granted, she didn’t really have any precedents for what to do in situations involving daemons and angels popping in and out of her living room, but one thing was for certain: she had done more to help and protect Joth than she had for anyone else in her life, including her own mother.

She had repeatedly placed her physical and spiritual well-being on the line for someone—some
thing,
really—she had known for less than a week. And she had done so even though Joth had been instrumental in costing her a job, a shot at the big time art world, and, once the super got a gander at what was left of the bedroom window, her lease as well. And for what? It was not as if she and Joth had spent long afternoons over wine and picnic lunches, getting to know one another. So what exactly
did
she feel for Joth? She was still mulling these things over in her mind as she walked through the door of her apartment.

Ezrael looked up as she returned. “That was quick.”

“Not many shoppers out before noon in this neighborhood,” she grunted in reply as she escorted the groceries into the kitchen.

Ezrael walked in behind her and watched as she busied herself with putting away the groceries. “You didn’t run into anyone while you were out, did you?” he asked pointedly.

She paused for a second, deliberating on whether she should tell him about Meresin, then shook her head. “No,” she replied, a little more sharply than she meant to. “Like I said— it’s too early for anyone I know to be up and about.”

“Just asking, that’s all.”

“Sorry I snapped at you, Ez. I’m just kind of—you know—
stressed
right now.” She turned to give the muse a worried look.”Ez—do you think Joth will stay?”

The Muse shrugged. “It’s impossible to say. But from what I’ve seen—I’d say it’s very likely.”

“But—it has to be
Joth’s
idea to stay, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. It can’t be coerced or threatened or told what to do in any way. It has to make the decision to become mortal on its own.”

Lucy bit her lip. “Ez—how likely is it Joth will end up being, uh, male—?”

Ezrael sighed and smoothed back his white hair. “I’d say fifty-fifty—just like most children before they’re born. Lucy, there is a
reason
I always refer to Joth as an ‘it.’ That is so I do not prejudice myself—or
you
—as to what it might finally become. The fewer presumptions either of us make, the easier it is to accept what ultimately happens. Still, I suppose it’s only human nature to assign a gender to something. You have persistently thought of and referred to Joth as ‘he’ from the very beginning, but that may turn out to not be the case. I told you what happened to me— Miletus believed me to be a female, but when I became a mortal, my gender came as a great shock to him—one that took a great deal of soul-searching on his part before he could accept me for what I truly was. Lucy—are
you
prepared to accept Joth should it prove to be of the same sex as yourself?”

“I—I don’t
know,”
she admitted, staring at her feet. “I’ve tried not to think about that—I keep telling myself it’s like having a baby. I don’t care what sex it is, as long as it’s healthy. But I can’t deny the fact that it
does
matter to me.”

Ezrael smiled sympathetically and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I cannot speak for you, Lucy. Only
you
can look into your heart and see what is there. But I beg you—if you find that you cannot accept Joth, come what may, do
not
interfere when the time comes for it to make its decision. The dangers are twofold—first, it might take anything you say or do as a command and act on it, and not rely on its own thoughts and feelings. The result would be the same as if it Meresin claimed it. The second danger is that there is
nothing
worse than to be born into a world without comfort. Muses who are abandoned at birth can be easily corrupted. Not all become like the abbot who was so kind to me in my time of need. Some become devils in their own right—their souls twisted by the cruelty of being cast upon the cold and lonely shore of mortal existence without guidance or succor. All I ask you is not to be like Dr. Frankenstein, and turn your back on a creature you helped create, simply because its ultimate appearance is not to your liking.”

“Look, that’s a
lot
of responsibility you’re laying on me!” she protested.

“Joth isn’t a stray puppy you picked up off the street!” Ezrael said sternly. “Should its Fall render it mortal, it will enter into the world with the body and appearance of a grown adult, but in many ways it will be as helpless as a baby. Once severed from the Clockwork, its ties to all of Creation will be no more. It will know only one language and be ignorant of the mechanics of eating and drinking—even wiping its ass! It will fall to you to school it in the finer points of being human—to know love and fear and hate.”

“I don’t know if I’m
capable
of handling something like that! I mean, I don’t even have a
cat!”
Lucy protested, trying hard to control the panic blossoming in her guts. “Hell, every potted plant I’ve ever owned died because I forgot to water it! And how am I supposed to clothe and house and feed him—I mean, ‘it’—? I don’t even have a job!”

“As I said—there is much you need to think about before the time comes. I don’t mean to frighten or upset you—I just want you to understand that a decision such as this can
not
be made lightly! But while you contemplate these things, you also must ask yourself: do you wish to see Joth lost to the Machine?”

“No! Of
course
not!” she replied indignantly. “It’s just that I don’t know if I can handle the responsibility of taking care of him! I—I wasn’t even willing to take care of my own
mother,
for the love of God! Maybe it
would
be better if Joth went back with Nisroc?”

“Perhaps. But that is Joth’s decision to make, not yours.”

She glanced at where the angel sat cross-legged on the floor, still preoccupied with her mother’s jigsaws. She realized then, that for all its peculiarities, there was a gentleness and innate sweetness to the angel’s nature that touched her on some basic level that went beyond words and reason..

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she sighed.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ezrael was once more crashed out on the sofa, snoring lightly as Lucy stood at the windowsill, nursing a cup of coffee. At her feet, Joth was busily reassembling the Monet jigsaw for the fifth time.

As soon as the angel completed one puzzle and moved onto the next, Lucy would quickly disassemble the one it had just finished. Joth did not seem upset to discover all its hard work had been ruined, it did not complain or swear or give her a dirty look when she broke apart the pictures and scrambled the pieces around. It simply resumed putting the puzzle back together again. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so creepy—kind of like a cross between watching a Charlie Chaplin film and an autistic child at play.

She glanced at her watch. It would be dark soon. Midnight was four hours away. Which meant she had another four hours of watching Joth assemble and reassemble jigsaws, blithely unaware that its fate was looming before it. She wondered if this was what was meant by the phrase ‘happy as a clam.’ In a way, she envied Joth its ability to exist only in the Now. God knows worrying about the immediate future—not to mention a near-constant flow of strong coffee—was tying her stomach into knots.

The sunlight fell across the curve of the angel’s back as it bent over its work, illuminating the web of muscle and flesh that joined wing to shoulder blade. She watched the muscles and tendons bunch and relax as Joth worked, unaware of her gaze. She was suddenly overcome with love for this creature—this being not truly angel, not yet devil. She realized, perhaps for the first time, that the affection she felt was not for the thing itself, but the potential human held within it like a seed.

“Joth—?”

The angel looked up from what it was doing. Even with its darkened eyes, there was a disarming openness to its gaze. She could tell it wasn’t simply listening to what she was saying, it was focusing every atom of its attention on her and her alone.

Go ahead, tell him to stay,
her brain whispered.
He’ll do exactly what you tell him to do. You’ve been looking your whole life for someone who adores you, inspires you, excites you, and needs you. You can’t lose him now that you’ve found him. Tell him to stay.

Joth continued to look up at her with a patient expression on its face, waiting for her to speak. It would be so easy for her to sway the angel to her will, because it had none of its own. It was a heady feeling, knowing that she could tell Joth to do anything, and it would obey her without question. But what right did she have to do such a thing? Joth wasn’t a dog that she could treat as chattel. Yet neither was it a free thing—it was powered by instinct and reacted to stimuli, like a hound tracking a fox through the woods. It knew all things, yet it was not wise. It did not possess a distinct personality of its own—at least not in the way Ezrael or even Meresin did—yet Joth trusted her, believed in her, and cared for her as best it understood the concept.

She smiled and shook her head. “Never mind; go back to what you were doing, Joth.”

“Who wants Chinese food?” Ezrael asked. “My treat!”

Lucy was seated on the sofa, a pad of paper propped against her knee, staring intensely at Joth while she sketched with a piece of charcoal.

Ezrael cleared his throat. “Lucy? Did you hear what I said?”

She started as if woken from a daydream. “Hm? Oh—no thanks, Ez. I’m not hungry.”

“Lucy—you really
must
eat,” he chided gently. “You need to keep up your strength! Nisroc will be here soon—you’ll need a clear head once it arrives.”

“I’m really not hungry, Ez.”

“I’m ordering you pork dumplings, anyway.”

Lucy grunted and returned to her sketching. She didn’t mean to be rude to Ezrael. The Muse had been a good friend—better than any she had known since arriving in New York—but this was the only way she knew how to deal with the stress she was experiencing. She was under so much pressure it felt like she was on the bottom of the ocean. Anxiety wasn’t the only thing fueling her desire to sketch the angel kneeling before her. Her biggest fear, out of all those jostling for control, was that, in the end, she would eventually forget everything that had happened.

Ezrael had warned her that if Joth returned to the Clockwork with Nisroc or fell to the Machine, the angel’s existence on earth would be erased from the minds of anyone who had met it. That meant she could simply go to sleep and wake up without any memory of what had happened over the last few days. All the miracles, and all the horrors, she had witnessed would be swept away, like a sidewalk chalk drawing after a hard rain. The thought of losing the most amazing experiences of her life scared her even more than the prospect of Joth turning into a daemon. But maybe, just maybe, if she tried to capture the angel’s likeness on paper, something could be salvaged.

It had been a while since she she’d last sketched anyone. Time was money in New York, and, like cash, was often scarce in her household. That was why she’d started to focus on photography—it took a lot less time to snap a picture than it did to sketch and paint a subject. But a camera was too impersonal for what she needed. She didn’t want merely to capture the angel’s outward physical appearance, but its inner self as well.

It seemed so horribly unfair: to walk and leave no footsteps; to enter people’s lives, yet register no memories. Even the lowliest of single-celled creatures, in time, were immortalized in fossil beds. Why not angels?

Forty-five minutes later, there came a knock on the door. “Ez! Your food’s here!” Lucy shouted from her place on the sofa.

“Could you get that for me—?” he yelled back, his voice muffled. “I’m in the john!”

Lucy put aside her sketch pad and got up to open the door without first checking the spy-hole. Instead of the usual delivery man from the Five Happiness, she found Meresin standing in the hallway, holding a large paper sack.

“I ran into the delivery boy in the lobby,” he smiled by way of explanation. “You owe me thirteen-fifty plus tip.”

Ezrael emerged from the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel. “How much does the bill come to—?” The Muse froze at the sight of the Machinist standing at the door. “What’s
he
doing here?” he demanded angrily.

“You owe him thirteen-fifty plus tip,” Lucy replied.

Meresin held up his hands as he stepped into the apartment. “Please! I’m merely doing my job! Believe me when I tell you, my friend, I hold no animosity towards either you or Ms. Bender.”

“Stop calling me ‘friend’!” Ezrael spat. “You don’t fool me, daemon! You’re trying to ensure Joth’s fall to the Machine by manipulating the woman’s doubts!”

“No more than you are, my friend!”

“I
said
stop calling me that!” Ezrael shouted, diving at the sephirah.

The daemon and the Muse dropped to the floor, struggling like second graders in a schoolyard brawl. The combatants rolled out of the foyer and into the living room and past Joth, who was still seated on the floor, blithely assembling a picture of kittens in a wicker basket. The angel did not appear to notice them, even though their flailing about destroyed a just-finished New England landscape complete with covered bridge. Joth merely tilted its head to one side and began retrieving the scattered pieces.

Ezrael’s hands glowed with blue-white electricity as he clawed at Meresin’s face and throat. The daemon’s eyes flashed darkly, but did not abandon its human form as it struggled to break free of the Muse’s stranglehold. Meresin’s hands pulsed with black energy as he grabbed Ezrael by the throat. The Muse shrieked in agony, but did not loosen his own death grip on his foe.

“Let go, damn you!” growled Meresin. “This is madness! You’re no match for me, Muse!”

“I’ve been waiting for a thousand years to get my hands around your neck, daemon!” Ezrael replied between gritted teeth. “You took Miletus from me—and I’ll die before I let you take the elohim!”

Whatever reply the daemon might have made was cut short by a pail of cold water. The two combatants looked up, more stunned than angry, to see Lucy standing over them, holding a dripping mop bucket in her hands, a look of genuine outrage on her face.

“Stop it!”
she yelled. “Stop this insanity right this minute! This is
my
apartment, damn it! And I don’t care if you’re Batman and the fuckin’ Joker! While you’re in
my
house, you’re going to act like sane human beings—whether you
are
or not! Have I made myself
clear?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” stammered Meresin.

“That goes for you, too, Ez,” she warned, pointing a finger at the soaked muse. “How
stupid
do you think I am? So
what
if Meresin is trying to tempt me into telling Joth what to do? I
know
that’s what he wants me to do, so I’m
not
going to do it! But I’m not going to be influenced by
you,
either! You
want
Joth to stay. You might even want it
more
than I do. We
all
have reasons for trying to influence the outcome—but like you said, it’s all up to Joth.”

“I’m sorry, Lucy. You’re right—it was exceptionally rude of me to conduct myself in such a manner in your home,” Ezrael said contritely.

“Good. I’m glad we got that cleared up. Now, pay Rosemary’s Baby here his fuckin’ thirteen-fifty plus tax and tip and kick his forked butt outta my house!” Lucy suddenly froze as a breeze lifted her bangs. “Wait a minute—do you guys feel a draft—?”

Ezrael’s eyes widened in alarm as the smell of ozone grew heavy in the room and a wind from nowhere began to blow. “Lucy—what time is it?”

Lucy glanced at her wristwatch. “Straight up midnight,” she whispered.

The wind between the worlds increased, snatching up the jigsaw pieces scattered across the floor and swirling them about like a dust devil. Joth watched the puzzle pieces dance over its head, entranced by the patterns visible within the chaos.

Meresin seemed to dwindle within his suit, like a turtle trying to pull itself inside its shell—or a rattlesnake coiling to strike. The sephirah’s eyes jerked wildly in their orbits as the he tried to figure a way out of the trap it suddenly found itself in.

There was a flash of bright light and the wind from nowhere ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Nisroc of the seraphim, Lord Shepherd of the Sojourners, stood revealed in the middle of the room, its ever-present watcher, Preil, buzzing about its blazing shoulders. Upon catching sight of Meresin, Preil’s pupil dilated wide. Its optic tentacles snapped and writhed, sending out a shower of sparks.

“What manner of trickery is this?” snarled Nisroc, gesturing at the daemon. “You dare to lay a trap?! ?”

“N-no, that’s not what’s happening here!” Lucy stammered. “You don’t understand—”

“I shall not tolerate such an Abomination in my sight! Get thee hence, foul tempter!” The seraph gestured with one brass-shod claw, and a ball of fire miraculously appeared in its hand. Meresin shrieked like a frightened alley cat and turned to flee, but it was too slow. Nisroc hurled the fireball, striking the daemon between the shoulders, and covering him in fire. Meresin screamed and began frantically slapping at its arms and head as its human aspect melted away, revealing the Infernal at its core.

Although she knew Meresin for the daemon it was, Lucy couldn’t help but grimace in sympathy. She remembered all too well the agony of the seraph’s flame.
“Stop it!”
she shouted at Nisroc. “Leave him alone, you bully! He wasn’t here to ambush you!”

Ezrael grabbed her arm. “Lucy—! Don’t! You’ve got to stay
out
of this!”

“Screw that!” she retorted, yanking herself free of the Muse’s grip. “I’m not going to stand here and watch Meresin suffer—even if he
is
a monster!”

Nisroc jerked its head in her direction as she spoke, and the flames followed the seraph’s gaze, leaping from the daemon’s body onto Lucy. Meresin did not question its good luck, but instead promptly got to his hooves and clattered out of the apartment, closing the door behind him with his tail.

When she was a child, Reverend Cakebread had once warned Lucy that she would one day burn for her sins, but she never dreamt she would do so in the middle of her own living room. The heavenly fire was all over her, biting and tearing at her flesh like a swarm of red ants. It was by turns hot and cold, threatening to boil her brain and turn her marrow to ice at the same time. She hoped she would eventually pass out from the pain, but there was no place she could flee from the agony consuming her. It was then that she realized that this was the punishment of all who would raise their hand against the Clockwork: to burn eternally, with no release from pain..

As she collapsed onto the floor, clawing at herself in a desperate attempt to extinguish the fire that consumed but did not burn, she caught a glimpse of Joth crawling about on its hands and knees, methodically picking up and sorting the scattered pieces of the jigsaws, oblivious to its surroundings.

The elohim picked up one of the jigsaw pieces, turning it about with its fingers. It recognized the piece as being number one thousand and seventy-six of the thirty-five-hundred pieces that composed a reproduction of an oil painting of a nineteenth-century whaling vessel. The angel smiled as it carefully returned the piece to its respective pile.

“Joth!”

The angel lifted its head and stared up at the white-haired man standing over it. Joth recognized the old man as a friend of Lucy’s named Ezrael. He was also Joth’s friend, too. Ezrael seemed very frightened, judging by the color of his halo.

“Hello, Ezrael,” Joth said pleasantly. “Why are you scared?”

Ezrael turned and pointed to where Lucy lay on the floor, flopping about like a fish on a gig. “Nisroc is making Lucy cry.”

Joth’s smile disappeared. The jigsaw pieces spilled from its hands, instantly forgotten. And, without a single word, the angel got to its feet and stepped in between the seraph and Lucy.