Evenstar (30 page)

The man went red faced.
 
“It’s a sin!”

“I
am
sin.”

No one else volunteered any gods.
 
Belial sighed.
 
“Okay I’m challenging Yahweh, Brahma, Ahura Mazda, and Confucius!
 
Four against one!”

Jacob shook his head.
 
“Confucius isn’t a god.”

“Shut up!”
 
Belial smiled as nothing happened.
 
She jumped up and down.
 
“More wins for me!
 
All right, I challenge Jehovah, Siva, and the Kool-Aid guy, god of neon beverages!”

“
Oh yeah
!”  Tracy burst out in hysterical laughter.

Jacob glanced over at his friend.  “What about Odin?  Can’t forget the Norse gods.”

 
Belial didn’t spare them a look.
 
“He’s busy in the City I’m sure.”

“Uh-huh.”
 
Jacob rolled his eyes.
 
“Why don’t you just challenge Jesus and get it over with.”

Belial stuck her tongue out.
 
“Say that in front of Tokala,
please
, I want to see what happens.”

A little red dot appeared on Belial’s chest.
 
She smiled.
 
The Chulyin squawked, but she waved him away.
 
The sniper fired.
 
The bullet tore through her chest.
 
A few people in the audience cheered.
 
The wound healed.
 

Belial laughed.
 
“More?”

Five red dots appeared and five bullets followed.
 
The bullets hit her ribcage and passed through her skin and bone.
 
She did not even flinch; she healed and smiled.
 
Another bullet hit her skirt, tearing a hole in the fabric.
 
Belial frowned.
 
“Okay, that’s enough of ruining my new outfit.”
 

The Chulyin dove and took out the police snipers.

Dozens of Solomon Soldiers gathered up in the stands, massing from the crowd.
 
They stepped out on the third baseline.
 
Belial recognized a few from outside; they no longer carried their signs of plastic and cardboard.
 
She grinned.
 

“Here we go.”
 
She snapped.
 
Tracy and Jacob stepped in close.
 
Celeste ran out to join them, her clothes torn and bloody, a smile on her face.
 
Tokala followed on her heels, bounding along happily.
 

Belial let her voice drop as they all drew near, “Look
confidant
.
 
No fear or they’ll start shooting early.”

The men wore armor of iron and carried an assortment of old fashioned and modern weaponry.
 
Tokala retreated behind Belial, moving towards first base.
 
The Solomon Soldiers stopped at home plate and looked Belial up and down.
 
“Your last stand?
 
Could not escape with the others?”

Belial laughed.
 
“Why would I escape when I have so many more of you to kill?”

The man smirked in response.
 
“Four or five against us?
 
All of these people?
 
You will never make it out alive.”

Belial grinned, feral.
 
“What do you think I am?”

“The Lilliam princess, but even she can be killed.
 
We have iron bullets.”

“You think
I’m
Apple?”
 
Belial doubled over laughing.
 
The man shot her in the shoulder.
 
Belial ripped out the iron bullet and threw it to the ground.
 
The wound healed.
 
She lost her smile, her voice loud so that all could hear, “I am the fallen Archangel
Belial
.
 
I represent Lucifer Morningstar and Ladriam Evenstar.”
 
She bowed to the audience.
 
“On behalf of the aforementioned I am here to usher in a new age,
their
new age.”

The crowd was rapt, looking between the two forces.
 
The leader of the Solomon Soldiers pointed his gun at her.
 
“You work for Satan!
 
You are damned!”
 
He gestured to the crowd.
 
“Anyone who falls in line with the Fallen are damned!
 
You will know only
Hell
!”
 
He looked to the crowd.
 
“Revelations is upon us!
 
Lucifer returns for the final war, his plan to kill you all!”

Belial grinned.
 
“You bet he is, you are usurpers, this is
his
home!
 
This place does not belong to you; it is by our leave that you live at all.
 
You have misused our resources and killed the true children.
 
Your existence is an illness!
 
This wrong will be righted, starting
now
, with
you
.”

Veins stood out on the man’s neck.
 
“You will be annihilated.”
 
He raised his ring.

Belial threw a knife.
 
The man’s severed finger fell to the ground.
 
She screamed before he could move to retrieve it.  The sound hit them like a physical blow, knocking the Solomon Soldiers to the ground.
 
They held their heads as pain ripped through their skulls, but the sound did not stop.
 

Belial’s eyes turned luminous.
 
Her skin flickered with a spectral light, and her blonde hair turned ice white.
 
She rose off the ground, energy throbbing around her.
 
Her scream shattered windows and burst human eardrums.
 
She called the sound forth from another plane.
 
The noise came from everywhere at once.
 
The sound was angelic singing perverted, grace turned to frenzy, ecstasy to anger.
 

The sound hit the humans in the stadium like a wave; it invaded their senses and destroyed the vital parts of the brain that ruled over impulse control.
 
Her scream attacked the same parts of the brain that the Solomon Soldiers did.
 
It warped the design the angels created and distorted the message.
 
Her shriek activated their base instinct to self-destruct.
 

The scream passed through the audience like fire, awakening their minds to a craving for destruction and the wild abandon to make it so.
 
Their eyes became red, their skin slick with sweat.
 
They panted.
 
The humans slumped in their seats, awash in sensations of the flesh.

The scream died; her mouth closed and she shifted back.
 
She retook her normal appearance.
 
She grinned at the tens of thousands of humans in thrall, in the spell of her madness.
 
She pointed towards the exits.
 
“
Destroy this city!
 
Take it to pieces, burn it to ashes.
 
Embrace your true selves!
 
Do this and bring ruin to everything you touch!
”

Celeste grabbed her arm.
 
“But not the kids.”

Belial blinked.
 
“What?”

“Children, tell them to leave the children out of it.”

Belial rolled her eyes.
 
“But
not the children.
 
Leave them alone
!”
 
She turned to Celeste.
 
“Pansy.”

Released, the humans smiled, euphoric.
 
They swarmed over seats; some ran out of the stadium, others ran towards the field.
 
People ripped at chairs and rent their clothes.
 
They gnawed on plastic and steel, breaking their teeth on the material.
 
They pounded at concrete with bare fists and stadium souvenirs.
 
Fires started in the food stands and jumped from place to place.
 
People ran, clothes on fire, laughing as they spread flames and madness.

The lunacy oozed out of stadium like a plague.
 
Fans flipped cars,
r
ammed them into traffic, and set them on fire.
 
Men and women tore at fences, ripped up signs, and punched in glass windows.
 
Insanity travelled with them, infecting other humans, spreading the radius of destruction further.
 
Sane people ran ahead of the riots, escaping before lunacy subsumed them.

Belial looked from her raving minions to the Solomon Soldiers.
 
They stood similarly spellbound.
 
She dismissed them, “
If you have killed Lilliam, kill yourselves.
 
If you have not, go out and destroy humanity
.”
 
The men did not hesitate.
 
They turned their weapons on themselves, not a one stayed standing.
 

Belial smiled at the automated cameras that trained on her; she snapped at the closest camera.
 
“Look at that,
still
no smiting.”
 
She smirked and glanced over at her Lilliam trio, they were unaffected.

Celeste stared at the violence around her, her heart thumping to the beat of it.
 
“What did you do?”

“Just gave them a dose of good old fashioned madness.”

“Can the others do that?”

Belial pointed her thumb at her chest.
 
“Nope, that’s
my
gift.”
 

“Why didn’t you do it back at the house?”

A clap of thunder rumbled in the skies.
 
Belial smiled and looked up.
 
The clouds parted.
 
Lightning raced along the sky.
 
She cracked her knuckles.
 
“Because that would have called the angels in.
 
Time for the real show kids.”

“That wasn’t the real show?”

Belial smiled.
 
“Fuck no, boys and girls.
 
I just made myself visible to Heaven.
 
Shoo now.”
 
She stared up at the sky as an armored angel broke the sound barrier.
 
She laughed.
 
“Uriel!
 
I see you!
 
Oh, you brought me a big, sharp sword!
 
But still with the pendant, don’t you want to play with me?”

Uriel unsheathed his long sword and hovered in the air above the stadium, pendant around his neck.
 
He was impermeable.
 
He smiled, anticipation making his body hum with energy.
 
His voice roared across the stadium, “I want to play and we will, together.
 
I will enjoy this, Belial.”

Belial swept her bladed hair back.
 
“Then come and get it.”

***

Paimon sipped on coffee.
 
He reclined on a couch in the café of Powell’s Books, sober and alert.
 
He watched the windows warily.
 
Human patrons walked around oblivious to him.
 
He kept his eyes moving, darting from one entrance to the next.
 
He spared Furcas a glance.

Furcas lay face up on Paimon’s chest, passed out from pain and alcohol.
 
Paimon had one arm around him to keep him from sliding to the floor.
 
He leaned up and checked the stitches on Furcas’ chest.
 
He ran his hands over sutured flesh, a sickly pale color.
 
He hugged Furcas a little tighter.
 

Furcas mumbled in his sleep.
 
He flashed white and gold.
 
Paimon shifted Furcas and tapped his cheek.
 
Furcas turned away, caught in a nightmare of images.
 
His skin burned.
 
Paimon flicked his hand towards the Chulyin.
 
“More ice.”

The Chulyin hopped over the café counter and grabbed ice behind a barista.
 
He jumped the counter and ran to the couch with ice in hand.
 

Paimon slipped out from under Furcas and took the ice.
 
He wrapped it in Furcas’ discarded shirt.
 
He kneeled at the edge of the couch.
 
“Furcas?”

He set the ice on Furcas’ chest; the ice melted before it touched him.
 
The shirt steamed, leaving no water behind.
 
Furcas glowed.
 
Paimon swore.
 
“He is getting hotter, sicker.
 
We need to get moving.”

The Chulyin nodded.
 
“There is a Road entrance nearby.”

Paimon shook his head.
 
“He will not last the length of the Old Road.”
 
He wiped Furcas’ forehead.
 
“Furcas, wake up.”