Angels on Fire (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

The sky was blue and clear that morning, the air crisp and brisk as it blew in off Puget Sound. All in all, it was an exquisite day for a double funeral.

Handel’s
Water Music
was playing over the sound system as the mourners made their way down the center aisle and took their places in the pews. The immediate family sat in the front, along with the closest friends. Members of the press—easily identifiable by their Line-Of-Sight camera-headgear— jockeyed as politely as possible amongst themselves for prime coverage.

There were no caskets on display—but then, there were no bodies to place inside them. As was the custom with those whose physical remains could not be recovered, be it due to deaths via orbital re-entry or at sea, two life-sized holographic icons of the dearly departed revolved before the assembled mourners.

On the right was a projection of Lucille Bender, possibly the most influential and renowned artist of the early Twenty-First century. As her image rotated, her features shifted from that of a silver-haired eighty-year- old grandmother to that of a fifty-year-old woman with laugh-lines and steel-gray temples, then to a thirty-five-year-old mother holding her children in her arms, to a twenty-year-old wearing ragged, paint-spattered jeans and T- shirt and a mischievous grin, then back to the eighty-year old grandmother. To the left revolved the holographic image of Joth Angelin, Lucille’s husband of fifty years. As Joth’s image aged and rejuvenated alongside that of his wife’s, it was obvious that he had remained a vigorous man, even well into old age. Looking at the octogenarian’s broad shoulders and strong back, it was easy to understand why the couple had thought they could undertake such a hazardous voyage without any help onboard.

Once everyone was seated, the music trailed off and a middle-aged man wearing the collar of a Unitarian pastor and a wireless broadcast mike stepped into the pulpit. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to honor the memories of two people who not only meant a great deal to us as friends and family members, but also influenced the world itself, as artists and teachers. Lucille Bender was one of the most famous and well-respected artists of the new millennium. Whether it was her early photographic work, her groundbreaking computer-generated light sculpture
‘City of Angels,
’ or her brilliant lecture series on the nature of creativity, Lucy’s name has become as familiar to our generation as that of O’Keefe, Avedon, and Wyeth. She lived a full life, right up to the end—one filled with adventure, creativity, and, most importantly, love. A love she shared for five decades with her adoring husband, Joth, whom she proudly called her personal Muse.

“Theirs was a unique and loving bond; one strong enough to weather both good times and bad, such as the loss of their young son, Ezra. In the twenty years I knew them as friends and neighbors here in Seattle, I can’t think of a single day when they were ever apart. When I saw that the Coast Guards had found what was left of their yacht on the NewsFeed last month, I was saddened by the loss of two wonderful, caring human beings. Yet, I was given some solace in knowing that, whatever may have happened, they at least died as they had lived—together.”

Towards the very back of the chapel, seated in the pew closest to the door, were three mourners. The first was an older man with long white hair pulled back into a ponytail and eyes as golden as a cat’s. Despite the somberness of the occasion, the bright colors of a Hawaiian shirt could be glimpsed beneath his suit jacket.

The second mourner was somewhat younger than the first, with hair the color of flame and eyes as black as a beetle’s back. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored business suit and expensive shoes.

The third member of the group was a young man with broad shoulders and a smooth chin. His blond hair spilled down the middle of his back and his eyes were identical to those of his older companion.

“Heard enough?” Ezrael whispered.

Joth nodded that he had.

As the pastor began to introduce the first of the eulogists, the trio rose and left the chapel as discreetly as possible. As soon as they got outside, Meresin immediately prestidigitated a smoldering cigarette from thin air and took a long drag.

“You’re still chain-smoking those things?” snorted Ezrael. “They’re fifty dollars a pack now!”

“Yes—I know,” sighed the daemon. “It’s a filthy habit. I really do mean to quit.” The sephirah turned his black gaze on Joth. “So—do you come to your funerals often?”

Joth shook his head with a melancholy smile. “This is my first one.” He now looked a good fifty years younger than the holographic image on display inside. “But I didn’t come here for me.”

Meresin dropped his cigarette and stamped it out with a cloven hoof. “Do not take this wrongly, for these things are difficult for one such as myself to fully grasp—but do you still miss her—?”

Joth gave a small laugh that bordered on a sob, then sniffed and coughed into his fist before answering. “I understand what you’re trying to say, Meresin. I take no offense. But to answer your question—yes, I
still
miss her. I shall miss her for the rest of my life—for however long that might be.”

“Whoever composed that holo-icon of Lucy did a tremendous job,” Ezrael said. “It really captured something of what made her special.”

“Yes, it
was
particularly good work,” agreed Meresin. “Perhaps I should track the editor down and offer him a job working for Terry Spanner, Jr.— his next series is “The Space Wheel After Hours.” Zero-Gee Transvestite Sex and that sort of thing, you know.”

“Meresin—
please!”
Ezrael chided.

“Sorry,” the daemon replied. “I didn’t mean to drag work into this.”

“The shipwreck was her idea, you know,” Joth said softly. “The doctors had given her another three or four months—six at the most—before the cancer finally claimed her. I’d been artificially aging myself for decades, but we both knew that once she was gone, it would be impossible for me to continue without her. So she decided that we’d die together—or at least appear to. The girls didn’t want us going out on the water by ourselves, but Lucy told them we were old enough to do as we liked one last time. We hated deceiving them like that, but there was no other way around it—not even my children know about me. We decided it was better that way. Lucy died in my arms the second day out. We were sitting on the deck, watching the sun set when it happened. She went easy—with no pain and no regrets. I wrapped her in one of the sails and weighted the shroud with the anchor from the dinghy.”

Joth fell silent for a moment, replaying in his mind’s eye the last glimpse of his wife’s body as it disappeared forever beneath the blue waters of the Pacific.

“Once her body sank beneath the waves, I summoned Ezrael, who was waiting on the shore, and he picked me up in his own boat. We then used our combined magick to summon up a storm strong enough to swamp the yacht. The rest you know.”

The sephirah nodded in the direction of the chapel. “What about your family—your children and grandchildren? Haven’t you felt the desire to go to them? To see them?”

“Meresin!”
Ezrael said loudly.

“Forgive me,” the daemon said with a bow of his head. “Tempting is the only thing I know.”

“Yes, I
was
tempted, at first,” Joth admitted. “When you lose someone as close as Lucy was to me, the natural instinct is to find solace amongst one’s family. But I knew I could not do that without endangering everything Lucy and I worked so hard to create. In the month since our deaths were reported, I’ve come to realize my presence amongst my children and their families would be far more troubling to them than joyous. Their parents are dead—it is better they stay that way.”

Ezrael glanced in the direction of the chapel. “Sounds like the service is letting out—we better make ourselves scarce, just in case some of your old friends have better eyesight than you realize.”

Joth nodded in agreement and the three non-humans moved to the park across the way from the chapel, where they could watch the mourners file out of the building without being seen.

Ezrael glanced uneasily at his friend. “Are you sure you want to put yourself through this, Joth?”

“I just want to see them one last time, Ez,” Joth replied, his jaw set. “To make sure they’re going to be okay--for Lucy’s sake.”

In the fifty years they had had together, Joth and Lucy had made between them three children. The first, Ezra, had died as a child during the bird flu outbreak that forced them to flee New York City once and for all, over forty years ago. Now Joth stood and watched as his surviving children exited the chapel and stood in a small cluster, shaking hands and exchanging farewells with the other mourners and well-wishers who had attended the service.

Their oldest, Clio, was forty-one and had hair the color of a daffodil. Her eyes burned blue and clear, like sapphires held before a fire. Clio was standing beside her husband of ten years, Daniel. In between them was their son, Dorian. Joth felt a sharp pang as he spotted his first-born grandchild. Dorian’s hair was the same vibrant blonde as his mother’s—and his grandfather’s.

At thirty-eight, Thalia was the baby of the family—and the very image of her mother. The resemblance was so strong Joth had to blink back the mist from his eyes. Thalia was with her wife, Candace. And, judging from the swell of Candy’s belly, their
in vitro
clone was coming along nicely. Joth regretted that he would not be there to share in the birth of his newest grandchild, but he had no fear for the baby’s future. Lucy had seen to it that their children, and their children’s children, would be well provided for.

As he continued to watch from afar, Joth spotted familiar faces among the crowd, as well as those he’d barely known. Friends, acquaintances, students and faculty from the local university where Lucy gave her lectures, all paused to pass along their condolences to the family. Joth noticed that Lucy’s cousin Beth, hunched over her robo-walker, had taken the bullet-train up from Arkansas for the service. Suddenly Penny Uxbridge appeared in the crowd. While her taffy-apple colored hair was now liberally laced with gray, there was no mistaking the halo that sparkled over her head. Joth was almost as proud of Penny as he was of Lucy. She had blossomed into an immensely talented artist in her own right—as evidenced by the clutch of reporters vying among themselves for a curbside interview.

After a few more minutes, the assembled mourners climbed inside their electric cars and buzzed off to their various destinations, leaving the street in front of the chapel deserted. Joth took a deep breath and turned his back on the empty street as well. He would miss them—and never stop loving them—but the time had come for him to leave them to their own worlds and lives—and for him to begin anew.

“Lucy was a formidable woman—I envied you her, my friend,” Meresin said with sad smile.

“What
you
need, Meresin, is someone to lure you away from the Machine,” Joth said with a crooked smile.

The daemon shook his head ruefully. “I’ve had more sex partners than I’ve got hairs on my ass, but I’ve never had a lover. It’s one of the Undivided Twin’s little jokes that the Infernals, who are sworn to destruction, were given generative organs, while the Celestials, who toil in the belly of Creation, are without. Big laugh, right? Besides, those who are attracted to daemons are more interested in what we
are,
not what we
might
be. Only angels seem capable of inspiring such wishful thinking in humans.”

“Some might call it hope,” Ezrael replied.

“Indeed they might,” conceded the daemon. “Now I fear I must bid you fond
adieu,
my friends. I have much business to attend to in Hollywood.” With that Meresin cast off his human form and spread wide his bat-like wings, taking to the air with a single beat of powerful pinions.

Ezrael tilted back his head, shading his eyes to watch the daemon’s flight. He suddenly nudged his companion and gestured skyward. Joth looked to where the older Muse was pointing and saw the gleam of what looked like hummingbird feathers pushing their way past the scales of the sephirah’s wings.

Joth laughed until his eyes brimmed with tears; eyes that burned as brightly as angels on fire.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nancy A. Collins
has authored more than 20 novels, numerous short stories, as well as served as a writer for DC Comics’
Swamp Thing
. She is a recipient of the HWA’s Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Society Award, and has been nominated for the Eisner, John Campbell Memorial, World Fantasy & International Horror Guild Awards. Best known for her ground-breaking vampire character, Sonja Blue, her works include
Sunglasses After Dark
, the Southern Gothic collection
Knuckles And Tales, &
the
Vamps
series for Young Adults. Her most recent novel is
Left Hand Magic
, the second installment in the critically-acclaimed Golgotham urban fantasy series. She currently resides in the Cape Fear area of North Carolina with her fiancé, Tommy, their Boston terrier, Chopper, and a number of cats, only two of which she claims to own. Check out Nancy’s website @
www.golgothamonline.com

ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

Sean Hartter
is an artist from Massachusetts. His work as appeared everywhere from the
LA Times
and movie posters to comics and books. His style is heavily influenced by design ethics from years past, and he strives to incorporate those tropes into his own style. He is married with two almost-grown sons and two cats, Beatrix and Elle.

Check out Sean’s website @
http://hartter.blogspot.com

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1998 by Nancy A. Collins

ISBN 978-1-4976-3801-3

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com