Page 56 of The Morning Star
“Yeah, and get shot out of the sky? I’d hoped for a more stealthy arrival.”
His eyebrows went up. “And a SWAT van is stealthy?”
I nodded. “To demons a SWAT van is far more stealthy than me flying in with my big, feathery angel-wings. Now let’s go before this guy decides the mansions in Beverly Hills are more his style than expensive stores and nightclubs.”
The SWAT team declined to drive me down Sunset Boulevard right into the heart of West Hollywood, instead dropping my ass off at an In-N-Out Burger just past Highland with some flimsy excuse about having to deal with some issue at the wax museum. There was no one at the In-N-Out Burger to prepare me a snack, but I grabbed a large fountain drink anyway and hoofed it to the club where Samael was most likely to be setting up court—The Snake Room.
The building used to house a gangster-frequented nightclub, but like all retail spaces, it had changed hands more than a few times since I’d hung out in the city. There were a few things that put this club on the top of my list. One, it was in West Hollywood. Two, famous people hung out here and famous bands played here. Three, it was painted solid black on the outside. Yeah, the whole snake theme and history of heavy drug use by patrons was another plus, as was the sweet collection of pricey whiskies said to be stashed in a back room for the big spenders, but the main draw was that it was dark with the whole vibe that humans associated with demons and their ilk. We dug that. It made us feel special, like we had worshipers or at the very least admirers. The fact that these admirers were the pet project of the angels appealed even more.
I encountered a few demons on the way from the In-N-Out Burger. They ignored me, but as I got within a few blocks of The Snake Room, I noticed a whole lot more bear-lions and beetle-bunnies hanging around and these demons were eyeing me with some interest. I made no attempt to hide my wings, and transferred my giant cup of soda to my left hand, freeing my right one for the sword.
It appeared promptly, shiny and bright and humming with energy. Color me shocked.
The Snake Room looked pretty much like it had in that entertainment magazine I’d read a few years back. Black. Industrial. Plain white letters on the dome over the entrance and a big-ass ugly sign propped on top announcing the acts for the week. Some demon had rearranged the letters so the sign proclaimed that Die Ratbirds was the band.
Actually, maybe a demon hadn’t done that. I could totally see humans forming a band and calling it Die Ratbirds.
A demon with the top half of a rooster and the bottom half of a tiger stepped forward and swung his barbed scaled tail at me. I held up the sword and the guy had enough sense to pull the tail back, out of reach of my blade.
“I need to see Samael,” I told him.
He eyed the sword with unblinking, chicken eyes. “You that angel demon I heard about?”
Moron. “I’m the Iblis. An Angel of Chaos.”
One of his eyes shifted to my wings, giving him a truly psychotic expression. “How come your wings aren’t falling apart?”
“’Cause I’m not even a thousand years old and up until a year or so ago, I was an imp. Are you going to let me in to see Samael, or keep me out here talking until my wings really do rot and fall apart?”
“How’d an imp get to be the Iblis?”
Seems he was going to keep me here until my wings fell apart. “This.” I jabbed the sword through the eye staring at my wings. He screamed and jumped back, but not before my weapon had turned his one eye into a smoking crater. With paws flailing he attempted to recreate the eye and failed.
Interesting. I knew the sword could cut through a physical form and do damage to a being’s spirit-self. I knew it could choose to kill or choose to maim, or choose to do nothing at all, but this was the first time it had done exactly what I’d wanted it to do.
“Samael. Now,” I told the demon in my most calm, bored voice. “Or I’ll take out your other eye.”
It wouldn’t be as horrible as it sounded. He was a demon. He could still “see” even without eyes. And if he wanted he could always form additional eyes somewhere other than the burned-out sockets. But this guy didn’t seem smart enough to figure that out, so he danced backward a few steps, still pawing and trying to recreate the damaged eye as he waved me in.
Just as on the outside, it was hard telling what on the inside was original and what had been an addition or embellishment by the current owner/occupiers. The hallway entrance was full of lewd graffiti and symbols on a chipped concrete wall. Everything was black and red lights and neon, looking as through the club had recently hosted a party that involved swinging sledgehammers and shooting off flamethrowers. Huge Marshall amplifiers had been thrown into the glass shelves behind the bar and across the floor. I had to climb over one to get into the main club area.
The place was filled with demons, some of them fucking on the leather bench seats, some playing the band instruments on the stage and shouting out songs in a guttural roar, some swilling the bottles of booze that hadn’t been smashed by thrown amplifiers. I felt a sudden stab of nostalgia and longing to join them. They were having fun, just like demons should be doing. Just like I used to back before I had the sword and these wings.
I hid my wings, more to keep them safe from painful injury than any desire to go incognito, and pushed my way through the demons, occasionally using the sword to clear my path. As I reached the stage it became clear that Samael wasn’t here.
Actually he was here, just not in this room. I could feel his energy—that clear, cold, bright energy that Doriel had described to me. It was unlike anything I’d ever sensed before, and surprisingly it seemed untouched by nearly three million years in Hel. I’d expected there to be some heat around the edges, a whole lot of tarnish to the brightness. Doriel had said that Samael’s spirit-being was horribly scarred from the wars and his near-death injury by his brother. Why wasn’t his energy signature different? It was too clear. Too…perfect. Was that his weakness? Was Samael trying hard to recreate the angel he was before the fall? He’d kept to that beautiful physical humanlike form. Had he somehow forced his energy signature to remain bright and clean and sharp? There wasn’t anything he could do about his spirit-being and the scars it bore, but everything else hinted at an angel who longed to recreate, to stay in the past.
Why hadn’t he gone to Aaru with Remiel if that were the case? Maybe that was more fuel to the fire of his anger and hate. He couldn’t take back his past—he’d never be able to reclaim Aaru for the Ancients like he’d originally wanted to in the war. All that was left was revenge and destruction.
Destruction, not transformation. I’d always believed the two were interchangeable concepts, but with the End Times looming before me, I began to wonder if this destruction Samael had planned would be a final one. If he turned the world to ash, would anything new bloom from the ruins? If I devoured all of creation, would something fresh burst from my being? These were questions I hoped we’d never know the answer to.
I made my way through the crowd of demons unmolested, in part due to the sword I was carrying. The first few doors I tried led to offices and narrow hallways backstage. Finally, I found the right door and headed down the stairs into the room where the big-money drinkers came to get their party on.
The noise downstairs was deafening. It took me twenty minutes to shimmy my way around all the demons, even using the sword to force my way through. I didn’t want to burn or slice anyone with the weapon, because that would start a fight and it wouldn’t do me any good to have to chop my way through fifty or sixty demons before arriving at Samael’s feet, most likely injured and already exhausted. Plus, I didn’t want to announce my arrival too early. I wasn’t afraid he’d flee—this Ancient was far too arrogant for that. I was more concerned that he’d make me fight every demon in the place to get to him.
So I wormed my way through with lots of “get the fuck out of my way” and “let me through you stupid fuck.” Finally, I reached a clearing. Samael was in the center of a fifteen-foot empty space sitting on what looked like a chopped-up portion of one of the leather couches. It had been raised up on a huge table, elevating him enough to give him a view of the room, without him being so high up that I could see him until I’d reached the edge of the crowd. I could see now why all the demons were wedged in so tight. The room wasn’t all that big, and Samael with his circle of personal space took up most of it.
His eyes met mine, then traveled downward taking in my human form as well as my sword. He raised a hand and the room suddenly went silent.
