The Sword of Michael - eARC (21 page)

The demi-demon clopped forward. His erect phallus bobbed slightly, well over our heads. The axe was held at port arms across it’s chest. No firearms, but then, he was after all a demi-demon on his home turf, so firearms seemed, well superfluous.

“Marius!” it said. The voice, it seemed like a “his” voice, was rough and gruff like the hair on his chinny chin chin, hearty like a demented frat boy’s at the end of a long drunken night. “So glad you could make it. I’ve been wanting to meet you for oh such a long time…”

“You have my name,” I said. “Who are you?”

It grinned. Huge teeth and then an obscenely long tongue appeared and licked its lips, like a Rolling Stone poster sprung to life.

“I have a name, human, but I won’t give it to you.” He tapped the enormous phallus with his ax. “This will tell you…”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Big Dick? Enormous Prick? Or just This Way To The Asshole?”

“SILENCE!” the demi-demon bellowed.

We all laughed.

“Definitely a big dick,” I said.

“I am LUST incarnate! I am Asmo…” it began.

I cut it off. His speech, I mean. With a blast from the Sword. Asmo-Big Dick took two steps back and fell on his big ass.

Much to the astonishment of his minions, my allies and companions, Big Dick His Ownself, and…yes, me.

“Anything you can imagine, visualize and will into existence,” Tigre said. “Be careful what you wish for…”

“I can wish for a little more of that,” I said.

Asmo-Big Dick stood up. While it hadn’t affected his erection any, a little bit of stuffing had been knocked out of him, and he was less sure…and that uncertainty radiated out to his followers, who held their fire.

And a little bit of stuffing was knocked out of me, too. Like I’ve said before, it’s not me…it’s That which moves through me. And having the Archangel Michael’s Sword (or one of them) is a pretty heady thing on any day; knocking a demi-demon down with focused intent and the wave of the Sword is pretty heady on any day as well, only doubled (okay, maybe tripled) my pleasure.

That’s the danger.

Pride is the great danger, the deadliest of the sins, the rock upon which we will founder. The practitioner that starts taking credit for the Work the Creator does *through* him or her is a practitioner that may find himself sans power and allies when he needs it and them the most—humility is the most necessary attribute, and that is like Wisdom: it comes from Experience, which comes from making Mistakes.

I had to rein myself in, manage the Power, manage the *experience* of the Power, and not mistake that Power that moved through me like music through a piano for being me—the beat up old saloon piano.

“Time for less smack talk and more smackdown, Demon,” I said. “Move aside. We are here on Business for the Light.”

Ol’ Asmo didn’t like that.

I held the Sword up and said, “Not my will, but yours, Creator. Strike in accordance with your plan, not mine.”

As they used to say on
The Sopranos
, bada boom, bada bing, ain’t no big thing.

Just a bolt of blue lightning punching a smoking hole all the way *through* one hellishly endowed demi-Demon, and torched about a third of his shaft on the way through. Not that he seemed to notice it as he toppled.

His followers scattered, nary a shot in our direction.

Tigre rumbled with satisfaction beneath us; the purr of a contented elephant-sized tiger is an astonishing thing when you are seated upon it.

“Not as difficult as I expected,” Otto said.

“He is only the first,” First In Front said. “There are seven. He is the first, and the least among them. This was only the beginning of the Test.”

I turned to face him. “This you’ve been shown?”

“Not my first time at the rodeo, white man,” he said. “You’ve got a long road ahead of you yet. And then the return.”

“Let’s not put the cart before the horse,” Burt said.

Tigre rumbled. And began to descend, leaving the scattered bodies of the goat-soldiers, every swinging dick of them, behind us.

“Do you see what is coming next?” I asked First In Front.

“Much the same as you were shown, Marius. There is a sequence, each Guardian progressively more difficult, and along the way, there will be at least one that resonates with some deeper aspect of yourself,” he said.

“This was Asmodeus, the Demi-Demon of Lust,” Otto said.

“That would explain his, um, equipment,” I said.

“Common with Dark Siders,” Otto observed. “If the Seven Guardians are aligned with the tradition, we should encounter next Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and finally Pride. That gets us to the Throne Level.”

“That’s where she is?” I said.

“What were you shown?” Tigre said.

It’s strange, being in the Other Realms in the flesh, with my spirit allies and guides in the flesh as well. The knowledge that they conveyed to me through themselves was, well, just available to me. Like you know that apples are red and crunchy, the sky is blue, and grass is green—without even thinking about it. You just know.

“Yes,” I said. “She’ll be there. We will have to fight one of the Champions.”

“Which one?” Otto said.

“Not clear,” I said. “Who do you think?”

“One of the Fallen, I fear,” Otto said. “Those are the Dark Sides Champions. And you are a Sword Bearer…”

“You have known others?” I said.

“Yes,” Otto said. “Those that were taken up, and those that fell.”

“I’ll add that to the list of stories we’ll tell some day soon,” I said. “Anything I need to know right now?”

“Nothing you don’t already know,” Otto said. “There is a weakness in the Seven Great Sins that you will resonate with, more than one…the Power that moves through the Sword magnifies all things and repels the Dark, but you can fall prey regardless…if you allow yourself.”

“Wasn’t Lust,” I said.

Tigre laughed, a deep throaty womanly laugh that chilled me—in a good way.

“You love women, and Woman, Marius,” she said. “Your sexuality is channeled in a healthy fashion with a woman you love. You…*appreciate* women, but you don’t fall prey to lusting after them and pursuing the wrong types. At least, not any more.”

Spirit guides. No hiding the truth from them. Especially those representatives of the Divine Feminine.

“So who’s up next?” I said. “We looking for Gluttony? Who would that be?”

“Starts with a B and ends with a bub,” Burt said. “No lightweight, either.

* * *

The path wound round and round. The alcoves for the soul-lights were stacked high and packed deep; each one a container for a tortured being, each one alone and cycling through the emotions that had captured them there. The ones on the level of Lust were, well inventive at best, sad and sickened at worst. I tried not to look at them.

“There but for God go you and I” Otto had said.

Too true.

“Well here we go,” Burt said. He was above us with a flock of ravens, acting as our own personal Predator and Raven coverage. “Told you he’s no lightweight.”

Starts with a B and ends in a bub, as in Beelzebub, Demon of Gluttony. I’d say Lord of Gluttony, but that might be a bit too grandiose.

As in big.

But maybe not.

Beelzebub: ever see the carved happy Buddhas? The one with the jovial fat-faced Buddha and a huge round belly atop pillarlike legs? Okay, take that image, put a greasy face with yellow eyes and fangs protruding over wrinkled lips, the head the size of a President’s on Mt. Rushmore, or on Election Day, stack it atop fold upon fold of greasy yellow brown meat stacked high like the Michelin Man after he’d been locked in a truck full of Twinkies for three months, a spare tire that would end world hunger if rendered down for fat, and with a gigantic much-gnawed limb of some kind of gigantic creature as a club. Swarming around him were foot soldiers, bulbous things with enormous bellies and huge gaping maws for mouths, all sprouting teeth and long tongues, clubs the weapons of choice…

…from time to time Mr. B the Unhappy Buddha would drop his club on a mass of his own minions, reducing them to mash, and the rest would swarm the mash like cockroaches on a donut at lights-out.

Which gave me an insight into our fate should we stumble at this particular threshold.

Tigre slowed to a trot.

“Best not to take this one lightly,” she said. “He is more than he seems and contains much power for the Dark.”

As we approached the next landing, the landing of Gluttony, BiggityBub’s minions formed lines, five deep, in front of us. They were Super-Sized but no Happy Meal—the heights varied but averaged at least twelve feet, and probably close to half a ton of meat on the hoof. No cutting implements, only the cudgels and clubs for rendering meat into mash…and those oversized maws sprouting teeth.

I felt as though I’d fallen into a Pieter Brueghel painting crossed with a screenshot from the Fellowship in Moria.

Except instead of a flaming Balrog, I had an obese demon swinging his meat.

Tigre stopped short. Her breath was like a billows.

The other sounds took a while to sort out. There was a steady grinding which issued from the mouths of the lesser demons; a wet sound, of sweaty meat-flesh rubbing against each other, the occasional explosion (literally) of a foul fart.

They didn’t say much, but then, they didn’t need to.

Beelzebub spoke. His voice was huge, but not what I’d expected. He had a sweet, almost simpering quality to his voice that was at serious odds with his appearance. But then, demons are known for that, yes?

“Marius Winter, Marius Winter,” Beelzebub said. “And in such fine, fine company. How tasty! We have your Tiger, your Raven, your Lakota War Chief and you brought along Otto Skorzeny! Hello, Otto, so nice to have you here. Perhaps we’ll have you to dinner.”

The massive maw split in a semblance of humor.

“Or for dinner, haw haw haw!”

“HAW HAW HAW!” echoed the ranks of his minions.

“We require you to make way,” I said. “We must pass.”

“I’m aware of that,” Beelzebub said. “Your desire. Tell me something, Marius…”

The voice was rich and sweet, cloying really, like an unskilled baker’s attempt at a fine pastry, too much sugar and a poor quality flour baked unevenly.

“…have you ever considered just *asking* to pass? It’s so very very rude to tell me, here in my home and place of employment, that you *require* me to make way. I’m very busy, you know. Lots of mouths to feed and all that.”

The huge belly rippled with laughter.

“Not that there’s much here to feed my hungry children,” it went on. “Not more than a few mouthfuls, except for that pretty little tiger of yours. I might make a nice centerpiece out of her.”

We considered each other.

“Hunger, Marius. Have you known hunger? Of course you have. At least, appetite. Hunger of the senses, too…that’s what this is all about, yes? Your hunger for your woman, your sweet Jolene…not lust, no that’s too *nasty* for you, you’re too *good* for lust…but hunger? Sure you hunger for her…else you wouldn’t risk your soul and the souls of your companions for her. Because that’s what’s on my table tonight…”

“Not quite yet,” I said.

Belly laughter. Ripples of fat like waves in a stagnant pond, and the odor that was released each time was near to unbearable.

“Oh, certainly, not quite yet. Of course. So you are like viands on the shelf?” Beelzebub’s laughter grew.

“It would please me to taste you, Marius. A soul like yours, so many experiences, so many lives, so many different flavors of experience. Tasty. It’s not just the meat of your body which you so foolishly brought with you here—and that of your friends—but that which ensouls the body, that very tasty substance. You’re like fine aged meat to a human…and I enjoy the taste of human,” it said.

While it talked, it’s minions inched forward. If it was distraction, it was poorly executed. Tigre flexed her paws and the huge claws slid out, scored the rocky path.

Beelzebub smiled even wider.

“Not your first visit, I understand,” it said to her.

“No,” she said. “It is not.”

“Our first meeting.”

“It is.”

“The White Tiger,” it said. “Quite famous, in some circles.”

“We require you to make way,” I said. I raised the Sword.

Beelzebub appeared unimpressed. “Oh, yes. That.”

It raised it’s club. So did all his minions.

The Sword rained blue lightning on the ranks of Gluttony’s soldiers. The smell of seared meat rose above them. More appeared, excreted as though from Beelzebub’s very pores like grains of meat or pus from a wound. The lightning rained all around Beelzebub, and his meaty club seemed to draw the lightning, smoked it down to ashy bone, but still it was like a lightning rod…

…instead of bounding into the fight, Tigre bounded *over* the minions, landing lightly after sailing over the milling ranks, without us firing as much as a shot. She landed and faked right, went left, then leaped over the club of Beelzebub that came whizzing past us, then under us, and we sprang for the path beyond when suddenly Beelzebub appeared as though transported from where he’d been, right in front of us and we ran right into the belly and bounced backwards, all of us tumbling even though Tigre turned midair and landed on her feet, then reared up onto her hind legs and swiped at the impossibly fast form of the Lord of Gluttony, who was almost dainty in his blinding speed, like the dancing hippo from that Disney movie.

Otto tumbled end over end, but with skill, judo or jiu-jitsu type training, and came up with his MP5K aimed at the milling herd of Gluttonous minions who just now were realizing we were behind them, significantly so, and engaging their boss—

—but it told me something that First In Front sprang in front of me, pushed me back just as Beelzebub swiped with that impossibly fast club, and Tigre was lunging and swiping at him, that just maybe this fat gourmand of human flesh and soul was more than he seemed—

“You think?” Burt said as he swarmed past with his fellow ravens, swirling around Beelzebub’s eyes to rob it of it’s vision—

I thought of Jolene.

Yes, I hungered for her, but not of flesh alone. I was here as more than a man in search of his woman, I was no Orpheus in search of his Eurydice, I was here as…a Sword of Michael.