Plague of Angels (16 page)

Nyx looked. Ten of the Germanic guards had entered her Temple. “Yes,” she said. Nyx’s lips pulled back in a violent, ugly grin. Her teeth had become fangs, and she was eager to use them. “Yes, it is.”

Her wings flapped with a noise like thunder and she hurled herself at the soldiers. Let them desecrate every other temple in the city if they liked. They would not desecrate hers, and all Rome would know it.

A.D. 64 – Rome

Nyx hid in the back of the alley and glared.

She had disguised herself with black skin, black hair, and black robes, and blended in perfectly with the alley around her. She stood outside the window of a small paper shop, listening.

It was a hot night. The air was still and the heat was enough to send most men to bed, sweating, or to the baths, in search of cool water. Inside the shop, which must have been crowded, stuffy and stinking, a dozen men had gathered to listen to two foreigners talk of Jesus. They spoke of the crucifixion, of sacrifice and a new savior and of Heaven to come. It all left a foul taste in Nyx’s mouth.

Tribunal would have hated all of this,
she thought.
He would have laughed at it and destroyed them all, given His choice. And then we could have a new Paradise…

For twenty-three years she had been working against the Christians, and it seemed at every turn she had been stymied. They continued to spread like lice on the head of the empire. She had some successes, but not many. Her own temples had grown and spread throughout the empire, and she had thousands of worshippers. But all of this was doing little to stem the tide of Christians.

They shouldn’t even exist. The One they worship doesn’t want them,
she fumed.
Fine. Let’s see what happens when we do this…

Paper was expensive in Rome, and rare. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant and took a careful process to make. Once the stalks had been cut, mashed, and laid out, they had to be carefully dried and polished before they were ready to be used.

It only took a thought from Nyx to push over one of the candles in the room, and another to set it rolling to a pile of papyrus, just dried, on the table. The people in the room were so engrossed, they did not realize anything was amiss at first.

A gust of wind, like a flapping of wings, sent the burning paper into the air. Another sent some out the window, where it caught the next house on fire.

“Fire!” screamed one of the men inside. “Fire! Fire!”

They tried to fight it at first, but the stock of paper in the room caught too quickly as gusts of wind sent flaming scraps everywhere. They were forced from the room and ran into the street, screaming.

Nyx bathed in the heat of the flames, and watched as one building after another caught fire. She changed her shape again, becoming a young Roman woman, fetchingly dressed in a disarrayed toga that left one breast exposed. She smeared some of the soot from the building on her face, then caught a piece of the paper and let it burn her hair and the edges of her clothes. She wished she could see herself, but suspected it would be fine.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the street, screaming, “Fire! Fire! The Christians have lit the city on fire!”

Five days later, in the garden of Nero’s palace, the emperor Nero stood before a pair of crucified Christians. The men had been nailed up and piles of wood had been placed around the base of their crosses and doused in oil. A line of thirty other men knelt, chained, before the crosses.

“These!” Nero said to a crowd of senators, “Are two of the ones responsible for the deaths of so many Romans. They have confessed their actions, as have their co-conspirators.” He waved at the men before the crosses. Most bore marks of torture. “And since they have thought to bring our great city down with fire, we will punish them with fire! And use them as a beacon to show that Rome still shines, and that Rome will rise again!”

He raised a hand, and at his signal two centurions put torches to the pyres beneath the crosses. The wood caught at once and the fire spread quickly.

“Every night, until our city is rebuilt, we shall burn one of these ‘Christians!’ One of these superstitious followers of a dead criminal!” shouted Nero. “And let it be known that any Christians found in our city, indeed in our Empire, will share this or a worse fate! We will feed them to the Arena dogs! We will torture and crucify them! We will root out this rot that threatens to destroy our empire, and we will rise, stronger than ever!”

The first flames licked the feet of the men on the crosses, and they began screaming.

Standing in the shadows, her black armor making her near invisible in the darkness, Nyx smiled. At last, things were going better.

70 A.D. – Eleusis

In the fire-lit darkness, the teenage maiden cowered upon a huge stone bed. Her flimsy silk robe reached only to the top of her thighs, and the parts of her it covered could be seen through the sheer fabric. She gazed wildly around, eyes wide, the whites shining.

From nearby came the
boom
…
boom
…
boom
of footsteps too heavy to be human. The girl pushed herself against the wall, as if trying to crawl inside it, tears streaming down her lovely face. The noise came closer, and closer, and then Dispater stepped out into the light of the torches. He was easily nine feet tall, his red, scaled flesh flickering in the firelight. The curved, pointed horns on his head gleamed black, matching the glittering black of his eyes. He sniffed the air, his head swiveling on his neck as he caught the sweet scent of his prey.

Gasps of horror came from five hundred throats. Dispater ignored them. His eyes found his prey, and a leer formed on his face. His breathing deepened, and between his legs, his huge penis began to grow, eliciting more gasps from those watching.

The maiden slid off the bed, and started to run, but Dispater was too quick. In a flash he had grabbed her. In another he had torn the robe from her shivering body, the scrap of cloth ripped into rags.

“Please,” she begged. “Please don’t. Please! Don’t!”

Dispater growled his reply and threw the girl on her back, holding her legs wide so all those watching could see.

“Jerusalem has fallen!”
said Nyx in Persephone’s mind.
“The Romans have breached the wall and the Jews’ temple is burning!”

Slowly, the beast drove its length into the girl’s writhing form. She screamed, long and loud.

“The governors have continued that coward, Nero’s, work,”
Nyx continued as she began pumping rhythmically in and out of Persephone’s mortal body, the slap of her demon-shaped flesh against Persephone’s thighs accompanied by Persephone’s screams.
“Christians are being burned, tortured, and thrown to the dogs all over the empire.”

“You’re ruining the mood here,”
said Persephone in Nyx’s mind, bringing a grin to Nyx’s demon face.
“This is the big ritual. They need a show.”

“Then let’s give them one.”
Nyx grabbed Persephone by the hair with one enormous hand, and threw her onto her stomach with the other. She pulled her head back so the five hundred worshippers of Persephone could see their version of their goddess cry and scream as she enacted her wedding night with Dispater.
“Vespasian has come to power,”
continued Nyx.
“He has promised to raise temples to me in exchange for his victory. Soon, my cult will be larger than even Mithras.”

“Be careful with that,”
Persephone said in Nyx’s mind, as she writhed and cried for the pleasure of the crowd.
“Mitthras is the god of the legions and is not to be trifled with.”

“I’m not trifling with him,”
said Nyx.
“Besides, he’s not here, is he?”
She increased the pace of her thrusts.
“And all I need do is outnumber the Christians, anyway.”

“Wait… ”
Persephone’s screams changed pitch, and her body shuddered with orgasm, though her followers didn’t know it. When the shuddering subsided, she let herself go limp—the perfect image of a ravaged innocent, torn open by a beast of a husband.
“The key isn’t outnumbering them now,”
she said in Nyx’s mind.
“The key is outnumbering them a thousand years from now, remember?”

“I know that!”
Nyx thrust harder in her irritation.
“As long as Rome stands, we will outnumber them!”

“Then you… better hope it… stands for a… thousand years,”
Persephone said.

“Rome is immortal.”

“That’s what the Kerma said.”
Persephone began shuddering again.
“Remember them?”

“No.”

“Neither does anyone else,”
said Persephone.
“Now… hurry up and… finish so… we can do the pomegranate bit… I want to thank you… properly… Oh, my Queen!”

Persephone’s screams echoed through the cave, and her followers watched in awe.

84 A.D. – Rome

Domitian, Emperor of Rome, rose late one night, his mind whirling from dreams of destruction. His niece—a fine young woman and one whom he hoped could give him the child his banished wife had failed to provide—slept undisturbed, still bathed in the sweat of their congress. Domitian knelt before the shrine of Minerva and bowed his head. “Oh, great goddess. Guide your servant. Guide me, who has helped you rise in prominence again, and who has brought back the proper worship of our true Roman gods… ”

The butt end of the spear lashed out of nowhere, knocking him to the earth. He went sprawling, crying out in pain. The statue of Minerva in front of him changed from marble to flesh, clothed in a rich, white gown, her helmet gleaming bronze and her spear now wickedly pointed.

“You dare,” said Nyx, poking the point of the spear at him just hard enough to draw blood from his stomach.
Minerva would be so mad if she saw this,
Nyx thought, holding the spear tip near his face.
She never liked dramatic gestures.
“You dare claim to bring back the rule of the Gods of Rome when you threaten the temple of our sister Nyx?”

“But, but, but… ” Domitian was near-speechless. “This Nyx is no Goddess of Rome.”

“LIAR!” screamed Nyx, and this time the spear tip went deeper, gouging into his flesh. “She is the protector of Emperors, sent by Jupiter himself to Tiberius to destroy those who threaten Rome! And you would destroy her temple?”

“Forgive me, great Goddess!” begged Domitian. “Forgive me! I did not know!”

“Forgive you?” Minerva’s voice boomed loud. “You must earn your forgiveness!”

“How, Great Minerva?” begged Domitian. “What must I do?”

“Take yourself to Nyx’s temple!” commanded Nyx. “Take this slut with you and do not leave until you have topped her three times in the inner sanctum! Then call back your wife and do the same to her with your slut watching!”

“Yes, Minerva, my Goddess. I will!”

“Then it is time for you to go after the true enemies of Rome. Those whose silly superstition about a crucified carpenter threatens the fabric of the empire!”