Angels to Ashes Read online

  The Ravager looked her up and down with bestial slyness.

  Kalyndriel grasped her lance tightly and readied herself for its assault, extending her rear leg behind her. Vast, shining wings spread wide to her sides. Filth grated beneath the tread of Angelic greaves that had stood atop countless corpses. Her gaze was serene, waiting.

  The Ravager let out a massive bellow, the corded muscles of its neck straining in fury. It smashed the maul at its feet, scattering debris from the ceiling and causing the building to tremble. The creature had given itself over to its primal Demonic urges — an unholy wild beast.

  That did not explain, however, why Kaly still could not sense its presence. A Ravager should give off a Demonic signature that could be felt miles away, but that one radiated nothing. She was considering the anomaly when the Demon launched itself toward her in an explosion of howling muscle.

  The brute was fast: far faster than she had expected, and far faster than any Ravager had a right to be. The Demon’s thick legs propelled it across the cracked floor in an infernal blur. It covered the ground between them in an instant, bringing the massive maul to bear directly toward her head with an enraged roar that shook the foundation of the entire street.

  It was a murderous blow that would have slain nearly any Angel.

  Kalyndriel was no common Angel, however. She had fought at the right hand of the Archangels when they battled Lucifer, the Morning Star. She was an Avenging Angel, her divine veins sang with the fire of holy justice, and her lance was an inevitable reckoning.

  She was not about to let some peasant Ravager take off her head.

  Kaly beat her wings mightily once. They sang with crackling flame, sundering the air like a thunderbolt, and she propelled herself backward onto her rear foot. The maul whipped through the air where her head had previously been.

  The fierce Angel twisted her wings sideways, pirouetting on her heel, and the lance of her soul roared out. The divine instrument scored the Demon’s right arm with celestial flame. The Ravager leapt back and bellowed, spittle flying from its cavernous gullet.

  The monster circled Kaly slowly, now recognizing she must not be underestimated. The maul trailing at its side scored deep grooves into the floor. Kaly also let the tip of her lance brush the ground, the concrete sizzling and bubbling beneath its kiss.

  She was considering her next move when the Demon surged forward without warning, bringing the maul down in a fierce overhand swing.

  Kalyndriel dug the point of the lance into the ground, leveraging its length to fling herself sideways an instant before the maul crashed into the floor. The impact left a craterous, gaping hole where she had stood.

  How is this damned thing so fast? she wondered with incredulity. It’s nearly as fast as a Fallen Angel!

  Kaly realized she needed to end the fight before the Demon revealed any more unwelcome surprises. The Demon was still struggling to raise its maul from the shattered floor when her lance snapped out like a glowing adder, piercing its barrel chest with a searing steam of Angelic fire.

  The Ravager howled and released the maul, swinging its deadly claws toward her in an attempt to ensnare her in a massive bear hug.

  She ducked its grasp and wrenched the lance from the Demon’s midsection with a pestilent spray of black bile. She stepped backward and crouched low, wings extended. The Ravager groaned and staggered unevenly toward her, claws grasping and teeth gnashing.

  It knew its doom approached.

  Kalyndriel flared her powerful wings and surged upward like an ascending falcon, her radiant lance extended. It tore through the Demon’s chin, driving toward the heavens, and exited the back of its massive skull in an explosion of foul ichor.

  The Ravager exhaled a sputtering death rattle, its eyes wide in surprise, and it collapsed to its scaly knees. Kalyndriel pressed her foot on the brute’s chest and ripped her lance free, sending the Demon toppling to the ground. The infernal brute stilled.

  Kalyndriel breathed deeply. Ravagers were fearsome, she knew, but that one was uncommonly fierce. She examined her lance thoughtfully as the last traces of Demonic essence burned off it with wisps of black smoke.

  Then, much to her dismay, she felt a massive Demonic presence blossom behind her.

  “Hello, tiny Angel.”

  The words were harsh and rasping, filled with inhuman cruelty and deviant glee. They issued from jaws made to tear the flesh of prey, not to speak. The greeting emerged simultaneously from two jagged throats in a sickening chorus.

  Kalyndriel slowly turned. Unfortunately, she knew exactly which Demon it was.

  Makariel. The Bloody Wind. The Hunter of the Weak. The Champion of War. The looming form behind Kalyndriel was a vision from man’s most primal nightmares, the face of the beast that devours everything sacred. He was terror and bloodlust incarnate.

  When ancient man fled from packs of wolves in the night, it was Makariel who watched from the predators’ eyes, laughing. When men lay dying on the battlefield, their blood draining beneath war-torn skies, it was Makariel’s name the shattered earth sang. His chapel was the abattoir and his hymns were the screams ripped from the throats of the dying.

  There was no one worse.

  Twin jackal heads, tongues lolling happily between cruel fangs, looked down at Kalyndriel atop a tall and lean frame. Makariel’s four savage eyes glared at her with terrible good cheer, shining with a hunter’s joy. Grizzled black fur covered his powerful, striated muscles. Four midnight wings curved from his broad back, and a quartet of arms each held a wickedly curved blade.

  Makariel had not come alone, either. Ravagers flanked him on each side and, even worse, a hulking Doombringer stood to his rear, its mountainous shoulders hunched beneath the fifteen-foot ceilings. Doombringers were the Hellish equivalent of a living siege engine, their power matched only by their stubborn stupidity. They were frequently too dim-witted to die.

  “Makariel,” Kalyndriel acknowledged cautiously, readying her lance. She would fight, but she knew she had no chance of victory. The Bloody Wind was beyond her.

  There were three castes of Demons. The first were Demons who had formerly been humans, but they were seldom truly dangerous. The second type, and most numerous, were the Demons spawned after the fall of the Morning Star, born in the maelstrom of humanity’s sin. Those Demons were vile and wicked, to be sure, but they merely behaved according to their nature.

  Finally, however, there were the Fallen Angels, the treacherous and vicious souls that joined in Lucifer’s rebellion. They were undoubtedly the worst of a bad lot, and although they were few in number, they were the effective rulers of Hell. Fallen Angels were the true agents of the apocalypse.

  Demons like Makariel.

  Makariel was the standard-bearer of Heaven’s armies, one of its mightiest warriors, but he had chosen to follow his master, Apollyon, during Lucifer’s revolt in Heaven. Apollyon had once been a majestic Seraph, the highest of the high, but he cast his lot with the Betrayer when he turned his back on his God.

  Apollyon had served as one of the two Angels of Death along with his twin, Samael. When Apollyon fell, however, Samael remained true. He still served faithfully, and now governed the 5th Choir, the choir of Powers and heavenly soldiers. He was an Angel of exceptional nobility and compassion, and he was Kalyndriel’s own liege.

  Apollyon, however, was now Hell’s Director of War. He was the Reaper of the World, the instrument of Armageddon, the blackest of villains. Makariel now bore the standard of Hell, serving as the executor of Apollyon’s will.

  Twin canine mouths grinned at Kalyndriel, and Makariel guttered a harsh, barking laugh. Steam flowed from his throats like a poisonous caldera.

  “Relax, little firefly. I’m not hunting you … this time.”

  “I find that surprising,” Kaly replied skeptically, remaining poised for battle.

  He shook his shaggy heads, still smiling with ravenous good humor. “Truth, slave. I came to see to my errant brother, here.”

/>   His four arms gestured at the corpse of the Ravager that Kaly had slain. Kaly allowed herself to relax her posture slightly, but she remained a coiled spring within. Makariel was as unpredictable as he was mad.

  “I did not know the Directorate of War took disciplinary infractions so seriously,” she said. She cautiously eyed Makariel’s war-band, which was far too large to be warranted by a rogue Demon.

  “There is much you don’t know, I’d wager,” he growled. Makariel turned from Kaly, ignoring her. He examined the fallen Ravager’s disintegrating corpse.

  The Doombringer continued to stare at Kaly with dim, bovine eyes. It appeared to be debating whether she was edible.

  Kaly considered the situation; the day was becoming ever stranger. Although Hell officially discouraged Demons from going off the grid and violating the Wager, she had never heard of such a party being dispatched to deal with it. The matter was beneath Makariel, one of the most powerful Demons in Hell.

  “I could have saved you a trip,” she suggested. “He is dead.”

  Makariel stared at the corpse for a few moments, and then turned back to her, shaking his heads slowly. “Obviously,” he sneered softly. He turned to his escorts. “I think we’re done here.”

  Kaly cocked her head in puzzlement. “Is that it, then?”

  Makariel spun to face her, his four eyes wide with incredulity. “Is there something else I can help you with, little Angel?” his twin voices rasped, slaver dripping from his jagged teeth.

  The Doombringer flexed its outrageous muscles and cracked its gargantuan neck. It sounded like a tree snapping. A deep, rumbling chuckle issued from the two Ravagers. Kaly said nothing and glared at Makariel wordlessly. She would not ask for mercy. She readied her lance.

  Makariel sighed with what seemed to be regret. “No, today is not the day I end you. Perhaps next time.”

  The Bloody Wind stalked back to his escort, moving with graceful power. His every movement dripped barely-contained lethality. He turned to regard her once more, his bestial jaws grinning.

  “I’ll be seeing you, little firefly.” He winked slyly. The party dematerialized into the ether.

  Kalyndriel exhaled deeply, and grimaced. “Undoubtedly.”

  “Report,” ordered Apollyon the Destroyer, Reaper of the World. His voice was the sonorous growl of grinding tectonic plates.

  Makariel stood proudly before Apollyon’s monolithic form, a form so terribly vast it towered in the inky darkness of the Pit. Even Makariel’s destructiveness seemed dwarfed before the Reaper.

  “It was as you suspected: the Ravager was feral,” Makariel rasped.

  “Was it tainted?” the Destroyer rumbled.

  Makariel nodded silently.

  “So, you destroyed it?”

  “An Avenging Angel arrived first,” Makariel said simply. “Kalyndriel.”

  There was an ominous pause. There were few Demons or Angels who better personified their domains than did the Director of War. He was a monument to annihilation on a global scale, a mind-shattering obscenity of brutality. His power was so overwhelming that it could not be fully released until the day of Armageddon.

  “You managed to restrain yourself?” the Destroyer finally asked, his growl dangerously soft. Apollyon flexed six obsidian wings large enough to blot out the sky. The chains wound around his enormous torso screamed with metallic song.

  Makariel’s mouths twisted in a sneer. “Yes. This time.”

  Apollyon nodded his horned head, a visage as grand as the Colossus of Rhodes. “As always, you serve the Directorate well, Hunter.”

  The Bloody Wind grinned, mollified.

  “Go now, Makariel. You know your business. Our time is short, and events unravel as anticipated.”

  The Champion of War stalked from his master’s cyclopean lair, and his hearts sang with anticipation.

  Chapter 4

  Walter

  Walter Grey, formerly of Cambridge, Massachusetts, slowly opened his eyes. The world was gray and unfocused, pierced by distant flashes of sickly light. The air was hot and saturated with humidity. Screams echoed in a cavernous emptiness. Walt crouched down on his heels and rubbed the palms of his hands against his bruised face.

  What happened? He had been walking down by the lake at Lewiston Park, as he often did, and then — what? There had been someone, some … thing, hadn’t there? Something terrible.

  No, I mustn’t think about it, Walter told himself, shuddering. He opened his eyes once more and took in the panorama that swam into terrible resolution.

  Walt stood on an ashen, pockmarked plain that stretched from horizon to horizon. The sky was black, but it was pierced by roiling, noxious clouds of obscene color, a glimpse into the mind of some mad artist. Each breath of air seemed thick with a cloying weight, struggling to force its steaming way down his throat. It was a dreamscape from an unholy nightmare.

  He was not alone.

  Countless thousands, perhaps millions, of people surrounded the erstwhile professor. They were arranged in orderly lines stretching infinitely across the scarred plain, and Walter was, himself, in one such line. He felt the weight of their numbers press painfully, maddeningly, upon his psyche.

  Walt closed his eyes once more, shaking his head. This couldn’t be happening, this wasn’t possible; this had to be a dream.

  He ordered himself to wake up. He tried to imagine himself far away from that cursed place, a place that could not exist. He struggled to force himself awake, to leave this realm behind.

  His situation did not improve. He gazed with horror at the looming mass of humanity that surrounded him, stretching as far as the eye could see, swallowing him in a fetid embrace. He was submerged beneath an ocean of lives, unable to breath.

  Men and women of all ages and races stared silently at the ground. They faced front-to-back, as though standing in line at the world’s longest DMV. None spoke save the occasional sob or despairing groan. They appeared … washed out. As if the color and vibrancy was bleached from them, their vitality drained.

  He looked down at himself and saw that he, too, was rendered in muted shades.

  Walt struggled to find his voice, to cry out for answers. The words didn’t come. It felt as though he were trying to draw a bucket of water up from an impossibly deep well, and the line kept snapping. His heart raced madly and he forced himself to take deep breaths. He tried to calm his skittering nerves.

  Pull it together, Walt.

  He inhaled deeply and steeled himself. “Um, excuse me,” he called out in a tremulous voice to the woman directly in front of him. His voice was an echo in the dark amphitheater.

  The woman turned slowly. She was little more than a girl, really … young and pretty, but her stare was haunted.

  “What’s going on here?” Walter pleaded.

  The girl’s eyes widened in alarm, and she shook her head desperately. Walter heard a sizzling crackle in the air behind him. He spun around.

  “No talking in line!” the nightmare bellowed.

  It towered over him, a snarling leonine head atop a massive frame of black muscle that seemed carved of onyx. Its eyes shone with hellish light and its maw foamed with slather. Enormous black wings, the canopy of a vulture, spread from its broad back.

  The monster lashed out with its burning whip.

  The lash scourged Walter’s chest with an explosion of agony. He howled in anguish and fell to his knees. He didn’t feel the searing pain in his body; he felt it in the core of his being. He felt it in his soul. It flayed the skin of his mind’s eye, exposing the naked kernel of his existence.

  It was so exquisite it was almost divine. Walter collapsed in the fetal position, eyes rolling back in his head.

  “Welcome to Hell,” the Demon growled intimately. Walter slipped gratefully into the temporary peace of oblivion.

  ~

  Time passed, although Walter had no concept of time. A few days, weeks, years? The line moved forward at a glacial pace, perhaps a shuffling step
forward every few weeks. Walter learned his lesson and never spoke again, although from time to time he heard the howling scream of someone that had spoken out of turn.

  Am I truly dead? Was this actually Hell, then? Had I been so wrong in life?

  He searched the annals of his memory repeatedly, but he could find no evidence of a crime deserving of … this. Sure, he did not go to church, but he had held himself to higher moral standards than most religious zealots.

  Didn’t that count for anything?

  Walter’s mind spun in a muddy track of denial while the queue inched slowly forward across the abyssal plain. He stared dejectedly at the back of the woman in front him as he searched inwardly for answers. He could not find any.

  This must be a mistake.

  One day, if there was such a thing in Hell, he was startled to notice that the woman in front of him was gone. He was at the front of the line. A massive particleboard desk stood before him, its flimsy edges stretching from horizon to horizon. A neon sign flickered in front of him, reading ‘Now Serving #409,338,127.’ The number ticked up one.

  “Next in line,” a voice grunted.

  Walt stared in confusion. Him? Was he supposed to go now? He gesticulated helplessly.

  “Yes, you. Step forward,” the voice snarled in irritation.

  Walter found himself in front of the monumental desk. Seated behind it was a grotesque mound of flesh that seemed stitched together from the worst parts of a boar and a hippopotamus. Porcine eyes glared out at him from beneath an enormous beehive hairstyle. Fingers as fat as bratwursts tapped plastic press-on nails in impatience.

  “Full name?” the beast asked, utterly bored. Its nametag read ‘Gortimer.’

  Walter gaped wordlessly. “Um, yes,” he finally stuttered, and it was all he could muster. He grinned and laughed nervously, hands jittering.

  Gortimer was not amused. Its fanged hippopotamus mouth curled in a moue of disappointment. “Full name, or you go to the back of the line,” it proclaimed severely.