Angels on Fire (19 page)

When at last Page Uxbridge into its eyes, he saw that it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life—and the most horrible. But the worst of all was that the fact the angel wore his mother’s face.

The sound of running water woke her up.

Carla lifted her head from the pillow and squinted at her surroundings. She was home. In the bedroom. But she didn’t remember going to bed. She remembered arguing with Page, arguing with him about something—something about Penny—but what? She remembered him pouring her a drink, telling her to calm down, that she was getting upset over nothing—then the next thing she knew she was in bed fully clothed. Her head ached fiercely and her stomach was queasy. Page was nowhere to be seen. She swung her bare feet onto the floor, staggering slightly as she got up. The sound of running water was coming from the master bath. Perhaps Page was taking a bath.

As her head began to clear, she realized there was another sound underneath that of the splashing water. It sounded like sobbing. The first thought that came to her was:
Why is Penny crying?

Carla remembered the strange young man at the gallery. The one who had said those things about Page, the things that didn’t sound like lies, the things that he had no way of knowing—that no one knew, except for her and Page. It wasn’t until she pushed the bathroom door open that she realized that the person she’d heard sobbing was her husband.

Page Uxbridge was slumped over the rim of the bathroom sink, the faucets running full blast and pouring out over the basin and onto the tiles below, soaking the bath mat. Carla frowned groggily at the water pooled on the floor. Why was the water pink?

Uxbridge sobbed violently as he splashed cupped handfuls of water on his face, as if desperately trying to wash something out of his eyes. If he noticed Carla standing in the doorway, he gave no outward sign.

“Mea culpa...mea culpa...mea maxima culpa...”
he blubbered in between the splashes.

“Page—what’s wrong?”

Uxbridge jerked his head in the direction of her voice to reveal tears of blood rolling from eyes as white as those of a baked fish. The gallery owner made a pathetic hiccoughing noise—half laugh, half sob—then returned to dousing the fire in his corneas.

Carla staggered away from the gibbering blind thing that had once been her husband. She was suddenly more sober than she had been in years. Without really knowing why, she turned and fled towards her child’s room.

“Penny—!”

She found her daughter huddled against the headboard of her bed, crying softly. Carla gathered her child in her arms, hugging her tightly.

“Baby—are you all right?”

Penny sniffed back her tears and nodded. “I’m okay, Mommy.”

“Baby—did he
do
anything to you—did he
hurt
you?”

The little girl shook her head. “No—but he hurt Daddy.”

Carla frowned. “He
who?”

“Mr. Angel,” Penny explained, pointing in the direction of the window.

Carla’s scalp tightened at the sound of immense wings flapping behind her, but something told her she was better off not watching whatever it was leave. When she finally did turn around, all there was to see was an open window and curtains fluttering in the wind.

Part 4

In Heaven Everything Is Fine

But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, is wetter water, slimier slime!

And there (they trust) there swimmeth One Who swam ere rivers were begun,

Immense of fishy form and mind,

Squamous, omnipotent, and kind.

—Rupert Brooke,
Heaven

Chapter Eighteen

Lucy left the opening an hour before its posted closing time. As far as she was concerned, if someone wanted to buy her art, they’d buy it whether she was there to explain it to them or not. Joth was more important to her than selling a framed picture of her grandmother’s bottle-opener, no matter how much she might need the money.

She kept telling herself that when she and Ezrael got back to her place, she’d find Joth there waiting for them. But as she unlocked the front door, she knew the angel wasn’t there; she didn’t know
how
she knew, she just
did.
While she changed out of her good clothes, the Muse busied himself with trying to figure out where the angel could have gotten off to. Since his scrying egg was now out of commission following the event at the Seventh Circle, Ezrael was reduced to less exact forms of divination, such as throwing knucklebones and going up on the roof and twirling a bullroarer. These efforts revealed that Joth was still in Manhattan and that no daemons were involved in its disappearance, but little else. After spending a hour watching Ezrael cast runes and lay down tarot cards, the day finally started catching up with her. She was so tired she kicked off her shoes and lay across her bed fully dressed.

The sound of the window being eased open startled her from her doze. Her first thought was that it was a burglar, but then she saw the intruder’s winged outline and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Joth is back!” she called out, reaching for the overhead switch near the door.

“No lights,” the angel whispered, its voice uncharacteristically gravelly. The angel turned its head towards her. In the darkened bedroom its eyes seemed to glow like black-light bulbs. Lucy gasped and drew back as Ezrael opened the bedroom door, spilling light from the hallway into the room. Joth made a hissing noise and raised a pinion to shield its face. The feathers that still clung to the angel’s wings were the color of India ink.

“Lucy! Get back!” Ezrael said as he grabbed her arm, jerking her away from the elohim. The muse put himself between Lucy and the angel, hitting the light switch next to the door as he did so. Suddenly, it was as if there were two Joths standing in the same place, their images laid one atop the other. One was sexless with crystalline eyes, golden hair and jewel-colored wings—the other was a creature with glowing eyes, leathery pinions, cloven hooves, and, in a perverse parody of generation, a penis that dangled to its kneecap.

Ezrael produced a handful of colorless powder and blew it into Joth’s face. The angel/daemon snarled and dropped to the floor as if cold cocked, curling into a fetal position, pulling its wings around itself like a blanket, so that it was completely hidden from view.

Lucy stared in stunned disbelief at the thing that lay huddled on the floor at her feet. “What—what did you do to him?”

“I didn’t kill it, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Ezrael assured her. “I merely placed Joth into temporary suspended animation, that’s all. It won’t last long, though.”

“Did you see him—? My god, Ez—what
happened
to him?”

The old muse shook his head sadly. “I was afraid this would happen— that’s why I had the powder ready. The contamination at the Seventh Circle was too severe. It sped up Joth’s transmutation tenfold. As for what’s
happened
—it is trapped between the Natures. It is not quite angel, but neither is it a daemon. Such creatures are
extremely
dangerous, Lucy. Right now Joth is like decaying dynamite that is sweating nitroglycerin, or an unstable isotope— only the potential for destruction is far worse. Such ‘destroying angels’ have been responsible for entire cities—even civilizations—disappearing off the face of the earth! As for Joth itself—I’m afraid by the time Nisroc makes its third and final appearance, it will be too late. Joth will be lost to the Machine.”

“Isn’t there something we can do?”

Ezrael took a deep breath, as if deciding whether to answer or not, then finally nodded his head. “There
is
one thing—but it’s
very
risky, and there’s no guarantee it will work.”

“What is it?”

“Nisroc has to be petitioned into changing its time-table.”

Lucy frowned. “How do we do
that?”

“Nisroc must be approached by a mortal representing the interests of the sojourner angel.”

“All it takes is you asking a favor?”

“No, I was thinking more along the lines of
you,
actually.”

Lucy did a double-take. “Whoa! Hold on there! You want
me
to petition Nisroc on Joth’s behalf?”

“Exactly.”

“Why me?”

“Because you care about Joth. Is that not enough?”

Lucy glanced down at the angel wrapped within its blackened wings, then back at Ezrael. “Okay—I guess I’m too far into this scene to back out now. So how are we going to lure Nisroc back here—set out a big bowl of Meow Mix?”

Ezrael chuckled despite himself. “Oh, no. I’m afraid you’ve got it turned around. In order to plead Joth’s case,
you
have to go to Nisroc.”

Ezrael pursed his lips, stroking his chin. “Do you have any white chalk?”

Lucy glanced up, perplexed. “Huh—? Over there in my art supplies.” She gestured to the tackle box resting on the worktable in the living room.

“Good. Clear off the floor. When you’ve done that, draw a large circle with the chalk—one large enough for an adult to lay spread-eagled in.” Having said that, the muse promptly turned on his heel and disappeared into the kitchen.

As Lucy busied herself with pushing the furniture to one side of the room, she heard the kitchen cabinets being systematically opened and shut and her crockery being rattled. “What the hell are you looking for?” she asked as she drew the circle on the bare floorboards.

“Hell has little to do with this,” Ezrael grumbled, emerging from the tiny kitchen with an armload of groceries and a large glass mixing bowl, depositing the loot atop the knock-kneed worktable near the window.

He eyed the white chalk circle Lucy had drawn, his brows pushed together like albino caterpillars. He grunted, snatched up the chalk, and with surprising speed and agility for a man of his avowed age, dropped to his hands and knees and began inscribing runic script along the circle’s outer rim. He moved so hurriedly the chalk snapped in his grip more than once, causing him to snort in disgust and swiftly discard the broken portion.

As the former angel scrawled magical graffiti on her parlor floor, Lucy inspected the arcane collection of bottles, bags and packages harvested from her pantry: a bottle of purified drinking water; a pressed-cardboard container of eggs; and a bag of rice flour.

“There—that should do,” Ezrael announced as he got back to his feet, clapping his hands free of chalk-dust. He promptly turned his attention to the ingredients gathered on the table, dumping the rice flour into the glass mixing bowl and splashing half of the purified water atop it.

“What do I do now?” Lucy asked, still baffled.

“Strip.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You heard me. To the skin.”

Lucy’s face flushed bright red. “Now wait just a minute—!”

Ezrael scooped one of the eggs from the container and cracked it against the rim of the mixing bowl, deftly separating the white from the yolk while fixing her with his golden gaze. “Spinning Creation, woman! Do you have any idea how many females I’ve seen naked in my time? This is not an attempt at seduction—as if I was still prone to such foolishness! If you’re serious about saving Joth—drop your drawers! Pronto!”

She opened her mouth to argue further, then sighed and began unbuttoning her blouse. Ezrael ignored her disrobing completely, using the opportunity to retrieve his battered gym bag from the hall closet. After a few seconds of rummaging about, he produced a small silver bowl, a white horsehair flail, a fist-sized bundle of mistletoe, a three-foot-long bundle of white silk cord, a length of white ribbon, and a clear crayon.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the last item.

“It’s a wax pencil.”

“Like the ones you use to decorate Easter eggs?”

The muse nodded. “The same. Are you ready?”

Lucy glanced down at her body. She was naked except for a pair of French- cut panties. She took a deep breath and stepped out of her underwear, kicking them across the room with one foot. “As I’ll ever be, I guess.”

“Okay—let’s get started—” Ezrael handed her the length of white ribbon. “Use this to pull your hair up.”

As Lucy busied herself with her hair, Ezrael took the wax crayon and pressed its tip against her collarbone. The moment it made contact, Lucy felt an electric prickling that made the soft hair of her arms and legs rise.

“Don’t move unless I tell you to do so,” he warned her as he moved the wax pencil across her naked body, tracing symbols over her breasts, belly, thighs and back. When he finished with those parts of her body, he motioned for her to close her eyes so he could draw invisible runes atop their lids. After that, he stepped back and frowned, as if considering something, then dropped to his knees before her.

“Lift your right foot,” he said.

“What for?”

“So I can put a sigil on your sole.”

“Why?”

“So you’ll be properly protected! Now be silent—I need to be focused while doing this.”

Lucy bit her lower lip and tried her best to stifle a giggle as Ezrael traced something along her arch. Ezrael glanced up at her disapprovingly.

“Sorry. But it
tickles
—!” she explained.

“Then you’re going to
love
what comes next!” he snorted, dunking the horsehair flail into the rice flour, water and egg-white mixture. Using it like a paintbrush, Ezrael began coating her with the viscous white substance.

Lucy gave a tiny shriek of disgust.
“Augh!
God, that stuff feels
awful!”
Her face set itself into a grimace as the white goo trickled down her exposed skin. “
Yuck!
I feel like an elementary school papier-mâché project!”

“Hush!”
Ezrael hissed curtly. “Do not break my concentration! While it may seem silly to you, this ritual is important if you wish to remain alive and sane!”

The seriousness in his manner was enough to make Lucy swallow whatever smart-ass retort she might have made and submit to being whitewashed head-to-toe. She even held her tongue when Ezrael upended the bowl over her head and massaged the white paste into her hair.

Lucy couldn’t help but reflect on how, centuries ago, such ritual preparations were done to the music of flutes and drums played by vestal virgins and temple slaves. Now, however, the best they could come up with were the basso-profundo rumble of rap music issuing from a car stereo two blocks away.

Just as she was beginning to feel like she was trapped in some half-assed neo-pagan performance art piece, the symbols traced in wax on Lucy’s naked flesh began to pulse. Within seconds she felt like a Leyden jar, with lightning trapped deep within her, eager to escape.

After Ezrael returned the emptied mixing bowl to the table, she mustered up the nerve to whisper: “Am I ready?”

“Just about.” The Muse searched through the welter of pens, pencils, erasers, and other art implements Lucy kept in a collection of empty peanut-butter jars on the work table before plucking a largish paintbrush from their number. He looped the white silk cord around the brush, then stepped forward and knotted it about her waist. “You’ll need this.”

“Why?”

“You’ll understand once you’re there.”

“Once I’m where?”

“Before the Clockwork.”

“The Clockwork—?” Lucy’s mouth dropped open as if the muscles had been severed. “You mean you’re sending me to
Heaven?!?
How come that doesn’t sound very comforting?”

“Because knowledge is never comfortable—but it
is
powerful. You would do well to remember that, Lucy.”

“Any other tips, while you’re at it?”

“Don’t let them bully you. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are helpless before them. The Celestials spend eons tending the Clockwork, ensuring that the raw essence of Creation is continuous, yet they are incapable of creating anything themselves—something even the basest of mortal beasts is capable of! They are the servants of Creation, but you—
you
are an avatar of Creation itself! As a Woman, you are a Bringer of Life, and as an Artist, you are a Creator of Beauty. You wield both the scepter of Generatrix and Creatrix. You are as much a handmaiden of the Clockwork as the seraphim. Bear that in mind when you stand before Nisroc as Joth’s champion. That knowledge will be both your armor and your sword.”

Ezrael eyed her speculatively as she stood before him, stark naked except for the sticky layer of rice paste and the silken cord tied about her waist, her hair plastered to her skull. He clucked his tongue and pulled on the leather cord around his neck, dragging a greasy-looking suede pouch from the depths of his chest hair.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“My mojo bag. Every white wizard has one.” He pried open the pouch’s drawstrings and removed a Hello! Kitty change purse with a key ring attachment, and a tiny glass tube no bigger than a baby’s finger. There was a murky, pearly-white liquid suspended in the vial that, as Lucy watched, turned the color of new wine. Ezrael handed the Hello! Kitty change purse to Lucy. “Here. Take this with you. Affix it to the cord about your waist, opposite the paintbrush. You are only to use it under the most
extreme
circumstances. But should you have to use it—whatever you do,
don’t
look at it!”

Lucy gulped and did as she was told, clipping the keychain onto her right side. “Gotcha. No peeking.”

“Now, stick out your tongue.”

Lucy did so, warily eyeing the tiny vial. “Whad id dat tuff?” she asked. It was hard to talk with your tongue sticking out and not sound like an utter idiot.

“Ambrosia. It is what mortals must drink if they would commune with the gods,” he said, lightly daubing the tip of her tongue with it.