The Mammoth Book of Angels & Demons (63 page)

“Hey,” the girl says. She’s a looker, but her voice is a little nasal. Mike doesn’t mind that too much when they’ve got good legs. He probably shouldn’t be thinking that on a day like today, but he does.

“Hey,” Mike says. Elvis stands there, running fingers through his lank hair. The girl flicks him a quick look and a nervous smile.

“Hey,” Elvis says. “Did you see the angel on the roof? He’s a beauty, yeah?”

“Sure,” the girl says. “I guess. I didn’t pay much attention.”

She pulls a pack of Life Savers from the stand by the counter and adds them to her pile.

“I don’t really believe in angels,” she says.

Mike rings up the Life Savers and her hot dog. Elvis blinks a couple of times. The girl starts dredging the bottom of her purse for spare change. It’s a silver purse, metallic and shiny. It hurts Mike’s eyes.

“You’re kidding, right?” Elvis says. “About not believing in angels? I mean, they’re right there.”

“No,” the girl says. “There’s something there, but I don’t have to believe it’s an angel.”

Elvis looks at Mike. Mike focuses on the cash register. It beeps obligingly as he scans the bottle of Coke.

“So, what, are you – stupid?” Elvis says. “What about the purging?”

The girl shrugs.

“Haven’t got me yet,” she says. She pushes a fistful of change across the counter and picks up her hot dog. She gives Mike a wink. Mike doesn’t want any trouble with a crazy woman, not even a hot one.

“Why?” Mike says.

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you believe in angels?” Mike says.

The hot girl flashes Mike a smile, just a quick one. She loops the purse on her forearm and picks up the Life Savers and the Coke.

“Bumper stickers,” she says. Elvis shakes his head. The girl waves to her friends in the aisles and points outside.

“Have a nice night,” Mike says, and the girl walks outside and flops onto the bench beside the bus stop. She’s just inside the light that spills out from the sliding doors of the Nite Owl. She puts her Coke on the concrete and starts eating the hot dog. Elvis stares at her through the glass door.

“Wow,” he says.

“Yeah,” Mike says.

“She was hot,” Elvis says.

“Yeah,” Mike says. The other club-girls finish up at the microwave. Elvis has the good sense to shut the hell up while they pay for their food. When they go outside they cluster around the bus stop. There is eating and laughing. Someone points at the angel. They’re all wearing big, chunky, dangly earrings.

“What do you reckon her name is?” Elvis says.

“Candice,” Mike says. “She seems like the type.”

“You think?” Elvis says. “I dunno. I was thinking something a little more traditional. Mary-Anne? Annabelle? Something Anne-ish.”

“What about Anne?” Mike says.

“No,” Elvis says. He fishes one of the Coke cans out of his bag and opens it. The fizz sparks the air for a few seconds. “She’s Anne-ish, but she’s not an Anne.”

Mike watches the girl through the window. She’s a redhead, but he doubts the color is natural.

“No, I guess not,” he says.

The angel on the roof shifts its weight again, and this time it flaps its wings. Mike and Elvis hold their breath, listening to the soft
whap-whap-whap
of the black feathers. It’s too slow for the angel to be taking off, so they start breathing again. Outside, the girls are caught in the thick breeze of the angel’s wings. The girl who is probably-not-an-Anne is smoothing her bottle green skirt. The other girls struggle to fix their mussed hair.

“I reckon she’s probably a philosophy student,” Elvis says, “one of those brainy, existential types in disguise. That’s why she doesn’t believe in angels.”

“Philosophy’s dead, remember?” Mike says. He tries not to sound bitter, but it doesn’t work. He wishes someone would dim the fucking florescent lights. He wishes the angels smelled like something nicer, like fresh bread or lavender.

“Not altogether dead,” Elvis says. “I saw this thing on
Today Tonight
about these rogue classes that still exist, reading Nietzsche and Sartre in secret. Probably a little Camus on the side.”

“You think?” Mike says. He’s never liked Nietzsche readers, even before the angels. He starts tapping his fingers on the counter, drumming out the chorus to some Adam Ant song on the radio. He checks his watch. Seven hours to go. He can take a break at three. The caustic angel-smell gets stronger, thick and heavy like the angel has started sweating. Mike blinks back tears as the smell works its way towards the back of his throat. He contemplates getting a bottle of water out of the fridge.

“I reckon she’s probably a hairdresser,” Mike says. “She’s got the look.”

“You think?” Elvis says. He swills the last few drops of Coke out of the can.

“It’s the hair,” Mike says. “She’s got one of those flick-things going at the end. No one has those at this time of night, not unless they know what they’re doing during the set up.”

Elvis rubs his chin and watches the girl who’s probably-notan-Anne.

“I dunno,” he says. “She might just have some really good product. They sell product that good.”

Elvis pats his pockets, looking for a lighter. One of the girls outside makes a joke and not-Anne laughs. Her laughter is high and tinkly, like tapping a wine glass.

“I dunno,” Elvis says. “A hairdresser. You really reckon?”

“I reckon,” Mike says. He yawns without bothering to cover his mouth. The girls have lost interest in their hot dogs by now, but that’s okay. No one can really eat an entire Nite Owl hot dog. Not even when they’re drunk. It’s a sign of sanity.

“So do you reckon the angel-thing would have worked?” Elvis says. “As a pickup, I mean. If she’d believed in angels.”

“No,” Mike says.

“No?”

“There’s nowhere to go,” Mike says. “What do you say after that? Hope we’re safe here? Ever seen them purge? When was the last time you went for an absolution?”

“We could talk about the Arrival,” Elvis says. “What we were doing, where we were; all that kind of stuff?”

“Downer,” Mike says. “Remember the first purge? You really want to start comparing notes, working out who lost who?”

“We could talk about what constitutes a sin,” Elvis says. “I mean, that’s supposed to be flirty, right? If you can get them talking about something naughty? Anything that gets them thinking in the right direction?”

Mike shakes his head. It’s too late to be putting up with Elvis.

“I don’t think it works that way,” Mike says. “And she wouldn’t have done you regardless. She’s hot.”

“And I’m not?”

Mike rolls his eyes and Elvis grins. An angel would have purged Elvis years ago if the world was a fair place.

“It used to be easier,” Elvis says. “Fuck it. It used to be so much easier.”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “I guess it did.”

The laundry powder angel-smell rolls through the Nite Owl, so strong that both of them have tears in their eyes. They both gag and cough, trying not to breathe. The angel starts to move again. This time the wings are thumping hard and fast, the angel is taking to the air. The entire store creaks. Mike puts both hands on the counter, holding himself steady.

“Shit,” Elvis says. “Look at that.”

He points a finger through the glass door, towards the bus stop and the club-girls and the angel shadow that falls over them as wings block out the street lights. The bandaged feet drop down through the frame of the glass doors, cracking the concrete as the angel settles onto the ground. It spreads its black feather wings. It points at the girl who is probably-notan-Anne. Mike checks his watch, twelve thirty-two. Technically right, but somehow it seems like cheating. Sundays don’t really start until you wake up and the church bells are ringing.

“Shit,” Elvis says. “She was hot.”

The club-girls are screaming. One of them is begging, but not not-Anne. She’s just whimpering quietly, tears on her cheeks. The angel hugs her close and the wings start flapping. Lazy flaps, just enough to slowly get back to the roof. There are still a couple of hours ’til dawn, and that means the angel’s got to wait. The building creaks again and a little dust falls from the ceiling.

“Told you,” Elvis says. “Philosophy student.”

He pops the top of his second can of Coke and unwraps a Violet Crumble. Mike closes his eyes and pretends he can’t hear not-Anne whimpering on the roof. He pretends that flutter in his stomach isn’t relief. Not-Anne’s friends are buzzing outside, all bleating cries and desperate mobile calls. Like the cops give a damn when divine retribution is involved.

The angel will be carrying not-Anne into the sunrise and no one will do a goddamn thing. That’s how purging works. The angel carries you away and no one knows what happens after that, but Mike’s willing to bet it’s not good. The angels look sad when they’re carrying people away, and that’s never a good sign.

Six hours and forty-two minutes until Mike can go home. Another three hours and twelve minutes until he gets his break. The angel is back on the roof with the hot girl held in his arms, waiting for the sunrise so he can take off and no one will see not-Anne again. Elvis finishes his Violet Crumble and pulls the plastic wrapper off his pack of Winfields.

“Outside,” Mike says.

“Come on,” Elvis says. He has a cigarette between his lips and a lighter in his hand.

“Seriously,” Mike says. “Out.”

He jerks his thumb towards the sliding door and the hysterical girls. He wishes he could go out and smoke with Elvis. The angel smell in the Nite Owl is so thick Mike wants to spit it out, again and again and again.

Lammas Night

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Although very little can be solidly confirmed about Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, it is highly likely he was Giuseppe Balsamo (2 June 1743–26 August 1795). A skilled forger and gifted con artist, Cagliostro claimed he possessed occult powers. And, as Chelsea Quinn Yarbro once pointed out, he was “one of the most famous, most sloppy of the eighteenth century self-proclaimed magi”. He could not even get his calendar right: the events portrayed in this story take place on Beltane Eve not Lammas. Beltane – the solar opposite of All Hallow’s Eve/Samhain – celebrates fertility and the advent of the season of growth on 1 May. Lammas takes place on 1 August in the northern hemisphere. But, as Yarbro discovered, Cagliostro once claimed in a letter that Lammas was in April. The author was happy to accurately convey this example of his typically slipshod mysticism while granting him the possibility of some true dark powers
.

Inside the circle that held the pentagram the air shimmered and, in the dark, cold room, Giuseppe felt he was staring into great distances.

The shimmer broadened, and now it was time to speak the final summons. Giuseppe cleared his throat and took a firmer grip on the sword he carried, though he knew it was useless against the forces he called. “
Io te commando . . .
” he began in his Sicilian-accented Italian. “I command thee. I, Count Alessandro Cagliostro . . .” There was a sudden popping sound, like the breaking of glass or a burst keg and the air was still once more.

Giuseppe flung down his sword in disgust. He should have known better. He could not use any but his real name, and although his title was self-awarded and therefore, he felt, certainly as valid as the unpretentious name his parents had given him, he knew that the demon would not respond to anything but plain Giuseppe Balsamo.

Of course he couldn’t do that. No one in Paris knew he was not a nobleman, and he could not admit it now, particularly with the threat of prosecution for fraud hanging over him. He had already had trouble in England. He could not afford to fail here in France. He had promised to raise a demon, and he would have to do it.

The demon would not come to any name but his baptismal one.

Giuseppe sank onto the cold floor, the stones pressing uncompromisingly against his naked buttocks. The sweat, which had run off him so freely, grew clammy and smelled sour. He touched the old ceremonial sword he had picked up in Egypt six years before. The old sorcerer had guaranteed that sword, and Giuseppe knew now that the mad old man had not spoken idly.

One of the candles set at the point of the pentagram guttered and the hot wax ran through the edge of the chalked circle. In spite of himself, Giuseppe flinched. If the demon had still been there, the circle would not have bound it any longer. If that had occurred when the ceremony was under way, no one would have been safe. A shudder gripped him that had little to do with the cold.

In three days it would be Lammas Night, and it would be then that the jaded aristocrats expected him to give them the thrill of seeing a demon. Cynically Giuseppe considered handing out mirrors and taking his chances in a coach with a team of fast horses. But he could not risk it. There was too much at stake. For one thing he needed money. For another there were few places he could run. England was out of the question – he did not want to be sent to prison for fraud. He had to be very cautious if he returned home to Sicily, for the Inquisition took a dim view of self-confessed devil-raisers. Spain was even worse, for the Holy Office was stronger there than elsewhere. Germany would not welcome him, besides the question of debt. He could flee to the New World, but that took money unless he wanted to be stranded in New Orleans without contacts or possibilities. He could go east, but what little he had seen of the Ottoman Empire convinced him that it would be safer with an unbound demon than he would be in Istanbul.

Reluctantly he pulled himself to his feet. He was in a lot of trouble, and he would have to deal with it immediately. There really were no alternatives.

The salon glowed in the light of four hundred candles in six huge crystal chandeliers. One wall was mirrored and it reflected back the brilliant light and the grand ladies and gentlemen who crowded about the long gambling tables. The rustle of fine stiff silks combined with the susurrus of talk and the clink of glasses of wine and piles of gold louis.