Plague of Angels (27 page)

In the room below, Persephone and Nyx changed into their own, naked forms.

“Nicely done,” said Persephone. “How was it, wearing the robes again?”

“Odd,” said Nyx. “Not sure I like them any more.”

“Get an overwhelming urge to sing “Hosanna, Alleluia?”

“No,” said Nyx, smiling. “But it feels like cheating, somehow.”

“Why did you turn him away from Marozia?” asked Persephone.

“Mainly to annoy Ishtar,” said Nyx. “She pushed me.”

“She’ll keep pushing you,” said Persephone. “It’s her favorite thing after torturing people for fun.”

“True.” Nyx sighed. “Wonder what she’ll arrange next.”

911 A.D.

Marozia, wearing her best outfit, knelt before Pope Sergius III in his private chambers.

“My child, there is no need for that,” said the pope, who was wondering how, exactly, the young woman had managed to enter his chambers after explicit instructions to keep her out. “Not here.”

“I kneel in disgrace,” said Marozia. “I must be in disgrace, for you have not consented me to be in your presence these last two years.”

“Now, that is not true,” said the pope. “You and your husband have been in our presence many times.”

“I and my husband have,” said Marozia. “
I
have not.” She rose to her feet. “Is there something about me that you find less than desirable?”

“Of course not.”

“And yet, you continue to see my mother.”

“It is a matter of age,” pleaded the pope. “I am old, now, Marozia, and my desires are not what they were.”

“Not according the reports I’ve been getting,” said Marozia. “In fact, the reports I have been receiving indicate that your desires have been increasing as of late. My mother, several of your maids, and I have even heard rumors of a particularly plump choir boy who received your attentions, but I’m sure that is not true.”

“The sin of the sodomite is not among my vices,” said Sergius, angrily.

“Oh, but it is,” said Marozia, walking past him to one of the couches in his apartment. With her back to him she raised her skirts, showing off her still-firm backside. She leaned over the couch and wiggled at him. “You just prefer it with girls.”

Sergius felt himself growing erect at the sight of her, but protested anyway. “My dear lady,” he said. “This cannot be.”

“Why not?” Marozia demanded, straightening and dropping her skirt. “It was fine before. It was fine when I was pregnant with your child! Have I turned so hideous that you prefer my crone mother to me?”

“That is not it at all,” said Sergius, using the most placating tone he could. “It is merely that I have other responsibilities now…”

“Or perhaps it is my plans that you find you no longer agree with,” she said, advancing on him. “Perhaps it is my politics, or the ambitions of my husband. Perhaps I no longer suit your needs. Is that it?”

“Dear lady…”

“I am the wife of Alberic!” she hissed. “I am the reason you are on the throne!”

“Your mother and father are the reason I am on the papal seat,” said Sergius, his voice firm. “It is because of them I rule.”

“It is because they gave me as wife to Alberic! No other reason!”

“My dear…”

“You aren’t with me anymore, Sergius, and that means that you are against me. And those who are against me, I destroy.” She strode past him and out into the hallway where Ishtar, looking like an older version of the girl she was when they first met, was waiting. Marozia stomped up to her. “Rid me of him,” she hissed. “Let him be gone and we will put a far, far better pope in his place. One that will do as
you
bid, not as that bitch my mother desires.” She knelt before Ishtar. “Please, I beg of you.”

Sergius put the new maid on her hands and knees on the bed and shoved himself into her backside, ignoring the girl’s cries of pain. He thrust harder, cursing Marozia with every one.
How dare she speak to me like that? How dare she threaten me?
He grabbed the girl’s hair and pulled on it, arching her back. “Who does she think she is?” he demanded. “Huh? Who is she to tell me what I should and should not do?”

“She is Marozia,” said the girl, surprising him enough that he stopped thrusting.

“You dare speak to me, you…”

The girl turned her head, and kept turning it and turning it, until she was staring him full in the face, though the rest of her body had not moved. In horror, Sergius tried to pull out of her and away from her, but her anus clamped down on his cock, and her hair tangled his hand so tightly that he could not move it. She grinned at him, and her mouth was full of razor-sharp, jagged-edged teeth.

“I dare,” said Ishtar, and her body spun, twisting Sergius’s penis and making him scream. “I dare so much more than you will ever know.”

“The news?” asked Nyx.

“They’re saying his heart gave out,” said Persephone. “Apparently he was engaged in a tryst with a sweet young thing, and died in the midst of it.”

“Did you get a look at the sweet young thing in question?”

“No. She vanished.”

“Convenient.”

Persephone’s head cocked to one side. “You think Ishtar?”

“On behalf of Marozia, on a guess,” said Nyx. “Not that it matters.”

913 A.D.

Nyx stood outside the chambers of Anastasius III, disguised as a guard, listening as Marozia serviced him.
Whatever else can be said of the woman,
thought Nyx,
She learned her lessons well.

Anastasius had become Marozia’s creature almost at once, and while that would not have mattered had he come into Nyx’s presence to receive instruction, he steadfastly refused to follow Persephone. Instead, he hid under the covers and prayed to God to preserve him from ghosts and demons. It was very tiresome and had Nyx not been busy in the East for most of the last two years, she would have dealt with it sooner.

“It is very simple,” Marozia was saying, and Nyx could hear Anastasius groaning in denied ecstasy. “All you have to do is grant the lands of the Abbey that sits near the Theophylact estates to my husband, Alberic. Surely you can do that?” Anastasius’s protest came out nearly unintelligible through the chamber door. Marozia’s reply was the very soul of patience. “I do understand, my dear, but surely you can explain to Theophylact that to give the lands over to him would mean an imbalance of power in the city. And we would not want the city to be imbalanced, would we?”

Anastasius’s answering groan must have been in the affirmative, because the next sounds he made were of intense pleasure and release. A few minutes later, Marozia left his chambers, delicately wiping her mouth with a kerchief.

Nyx waited a moment longer, then entered his chambers. Anastasius was seated on one of his couches, eyes closed and robes in disarray. Nyx changed appearance into the robes of a cardinal, and closed the door behind her, making sure it was loud enough to wake the pope. Anastasius grunted and grumbled and sat up. “Yes, what is it?”

“You’re being very naughty,” said Nyx.

The pope sat up straighter. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, it is not mine you have to beg,” said Nyx. “It is God’s.”

The pope rose to his full, impressive height. “You dare speak to me that way?”

“I dare,” said Nyx. “Considering you still have that woman’s stench about you.”

The pope’s voice went cold. “I do not recognize you, Cardinal…?”

“Oh, I’m not a cardinal,” said Nyx.

She changed forms in the blink of an eye, becoming the ten-foot tall red demon with the saw-tooth scales that had tortured Judas, complete with claws, horns, razor-sharp fangs and massive, scaled, erect penis. The room shook as she roared, “
I AM THE RULER OF HELL!!!”

Anastasius III stumbled back against the couch, clutching his chest. His eyes were wide and his mouth made gasping noises. Then he fell face down on the ground, dead.

Nyx reverted to her own form and looked down at the man. “Well, dammit.” She watched his soul leave his body and start sinking into the earth. She shook a finger at him. “You weren’t supposed to do that.”

The soul looked offended as it sank down to Hell.

Nyx shrugged and headed for the balcony as the guards tried to knock down the door. The next pope would belong to Theodora, and she could get back to the business of preparing the West for the attack on Jerusalem.

Pope Lando was a simple man, without extravagant tastes or vices. He liked wine, but not to excess. He liked riding, but only occasionally. He liked women, but did not pursue them. He was, in most every way, boring, bland, and unimpressive, save that he was totally and unswervingly loyal to Theophylact. He voted as Theophylact wished him to vote, he supported Theophylact in all his decisions, and wasn’t even fucking Theophylact’s wife or daughter, like his immediate predecessors. He was very much the perfect pope for the time.

Which is why, one night, Ishtar flew into his room, punched into his chest, pulled his heart out, and flew away.

“Explain that one away,” she muttered, biting into the heart as she flew.

She finished eating it by the time she arrived at the palace Marozia had given her, and landed at the back door, not bothering to change forms before she entered. There were no servants here, and the ones waiting below already knew what she looked like. She stretched and thought a moment, then paused in the kitchen to pick up the largest of the pestles from the mortars in the kitchen on the way past. It was brass, as long as her forearm and as thick as baby’s head at the end. There was a new man in the basement, young and proud of how strong he was.

Five days with this up his ass should cure him of that,
Ishtar thought.
Then we’ll see how much he can really take.

The humans were gone from her dungeon, when she stepped inside. Instead, Nyx was sitting on her favorite chair, and Persephone was standing in the corner. Both had their swords in their hands.

“That’s twice,” said Nyx.

Ishtar forced herself not to reach for a weapon, forced herself to stay still. “My Queen…”

“What I want to know,” said Nyx, “was how, exactly, you thought it was permissible to kill either of them without asking me first.”