Blind Shrike

FIFTY TWO Waiting for the End of the World

The entrance to Lucifer’s palace was covered in flowers.

Bloody roses snaked, on unnaturally long stalks, around the main entrance, a wide portico which let onto an immense reception hall. Inside, the roses were joined by clusters of white lilies and fleshy pink and tiger-striped orchids. The white marble floor was covered with a rich, purple carpet, trimmed in gold. On one wall were exquisitely detailed anatomy charts of humans, demons and every kind of animals Spyder had ever seen. On the opposite wall hung a huge tapestry, a rendering of William Blake’s “Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun.” Along the back wall was what Spyder took to be Lucifer’s trophy gallery.

Victorian-style curiosity cabinets were laid out neatly around the gently curved walls. The first cabinet held a kind of black knotted lump floating in air behind leaded glass. The little plaque at the bottom of the case read, John the Baptist’s Heart. Next to it was a set of battle armor, blackened, the metal ripped and melted by some monstrous blast. “That’s mine. From the old days,” Lucifer told Spyder. Nearby was a silver trumpet. “Gabriel’s. I nicked it on the way out the door.” The next cabinet held a crown of thorns. “No explanation needed there, I suppose.” Rare plants and animals were lying in bell jars and pinned in display cases. They were all alive, but trapped. Two cases side-by-side held an assortment of Fabergé eggs and different kinds of puzzle boxes. Lucifer shrugged and said, “I just like them.” Another glass case contained a kind of black, swirling nothingness that seemed to suck light into itself. It was labeled, Chaos. At the end of the row was a cage and in it lay the book. It was as tall as Spyder and the covers were riveted plates of solid steel, with runes etched into the surface. When Spyder saw it, he thought, This is not a human’s book.

“I feel sick,” said Shrike. She clutched her chest.

“Is it the key?” Spyder asked. “We’re near the book. It’s probably trying to get out.”

“I’m not sure. This doesn’t feel right.” She took deep, painful breaths.

Behind the cage that housed the book, the flowers began to die. The wave of death spread around the room. The flowers all turned black, shedding their petals before falling to the floor in dry heaps. Spyder’s gaze followed the trail of rot around the room. The trail of dying flowers ended at a long staircase where Xero stood, with Shrike’s father at his feet. Xero kicked the old man and he rolled down the stone steps, landing in a heap at the bottom.

“Father!” screamed Shrike, and she stumbled to him. Spyder and the others followed, Spyder with the black blade out and Lulu with her shotgun pointed at Xero. As Shrike reached her father, demons dropped down from the ceiling and dragged her up the stairs. Spyder started after them, but Lucifer grabbed his shoulder and held him.

“Don’t move,” Lucifer said. Spyder turned and watched as Xero’s troops quietly streamed in through the front entrance, filling the front of the hall.

“‘And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer,’” Lucifer said to Xero. “You have more gall than brains coming into my capital and especially my home.”

“You have a million idle threats, angel. What you don’t seem to have is an army.”

“You aren’t looking hard enough.”

Lucifer closed his eyes. The Blake tapestry on the wall exploded into light and demons poured from it, armed with barbed spears and vicious swords. The opposing troops snarled and growled, showing each other their teeth, beating their weapons against their shields. Neither side attacked, but waited for a signal from their masters.

“Get the key!” shouted Xero. One of the demons holding Shrike pulled a knife from his belt and cut into Shrike’s chest. She screamed. Lucifer pulled Spyder back from the stairs before he could do anything.

“Lulu!” Spyder screamed. She opened up at the demons with the four-ten. They fell back as the shots tore up the stairs around them. One demon collapsed with a shot in the chest, and another went down with a head wound. The other demons scrambled up the stairs to cower at Xero’s feet.

Lucifer pulled both Spyder and Lulu back across the room to the curiosity cabinets. Spyder shook himself free.

“I thought you were a warrior. What’s wrong with you?” he yelled.

Lucifer spoke evenly. “Timing is everything, boy. Never let your temper lead you. Both of you, stay here.”

Lucifer went to the center of the room, between the two snarling armies, and looked up at Xero. He looked relaxed. Even happy, thought Spyder.

“You’ve done very well for yourself,” Lucifer said. “You’re not the first to ever challenge my position, but you’re the first to get this far.”

“Save your congratulations. I’m not done yet.”

“Why should you be? You’ve come so far with so little. We’re alike in that. When we angels first came to this place, there was nothing. Now look at all we’ve built. You were just another lost soul when you arrived and look at what you’ve accomplished. I admire that. I don’t like to annihilate talent. How would you like your own principality? You’ve killed off a few of my less competent generals. Would you like their lands for yourself and your men?”

Xero grinned a wolf’s grin. “No thank you. I think I’ll take everything.”

“You won’t,” said Lucifer.

Xero kicked the demons cowering at his feet. “Go back and get the key!” Reluctantly, the demons crawled down the stairs to Shrike. She lay quietly, her hand over her bloody wound, watching Lucifer. Spyder tried to catch her eye, but she looked as if she were in shock.

“You won’t take my kingdom because you aren’t equipped to. Winning a few battles is nothing. Even taking this palace is a pointless gesture.”

“Then why don’t you just surrender it and leave?” said Xero, and his troops laughed.

“You’re a good tactician—for a mortal. And that will be your downfall. Your wars last weeks, months, perhaps a few years. It’s easy to plan, to keep your armies together, to believe in yourself. But how long can you do it, mortal? The last war I fought lasted ten thousand years.”

“And you lost.”

“That was to God. Do you think you’re God, little man?” said Lucifer. “I can wait, you see. You can win a thousand victories and I can wait. Time itself can burn out and the universe can collapse in on itself, and I can still wait. And in the last second at the last moment of existence, when even gods and angels must perish, I will find you and slit your throat. And the last thing you’ll see before the nothingness takes you will be my face smiling in victory.”

Shrike saw the demons coming for her down the stairs. She screamed at them. When they tried to grab her, she hacked to them with her sword, but she was too badly injured to crawl away.

“What a silver tongue you have. But none of it will happen if I kill you first,” said Xero. He raised his arms and waves of black lightning blasted down at Lucifer, along the way vaporizing the demons he’d sent for Shrike, just as one triumphantly held up the key he’d pried from her side. The key went skittering across the floor, leaving a tracery of blood, and came to rest at Lucifer’s feet. Lucifer placed his right foot on top of the key. Xero bellowed in anger.

Shrike ducked and pressed herself beneath the bolts. Lucifer didn’t move. He appeared to know when something was coming and simply raised his right hand, letting the lightning flow into him and out his left hand, right back at Xero. The stairs exploded around the general, but he kept throwing the bolts, pushing Lucifer back, only to be pushed back himself.

It was too much, Spyder thought. Xero couldn’t be bribed. Maybe Lucifer could wait for the end of time, but Shrike couldn’t. Fuck this dime store Heaven and Xero. Fuck Madame Cinders.

Spyder grabbed Lulu and pulled her over to the book. “Help me,” he said.

“How?”

“We’re going to push the book into that case of chaos. Let it swallow the damned thing. Maybe we’ll die, too, but we’ll take these demonic fucks with us.”

In the center of the room, Lucifer and Xero’s battle continued. Shrike slowly, painfully, crawled down the stairs toward her father. The two armies shrieked, growing more agitated by the second. When their taunts and roars reached a mad pitch, someone threw an axe. That’s all it took, both armies rushed each other with weapons, claws and teeth.

Lulu came around to Spyder’s side of the book cage and pressed her back against it. Spyder grabbed the bars and put his shoulder into them. He felt a funny click and stepped back. The front of the cage fell open.

The battle quieted, then stopped all together. The demons stared at Spyder, as did Xero and Lucifer. Shrike lay by her father and looked at him, dazed.

“He has the key!” screamed Xero.

“No, he doesn’t, you idiot,” snapped Lucifer. He looked at Spyder. “You haven’t been holding out on me, have you little brother? No secret sainthood or magic in your past?”

Spyder shrugged, shook his head.

“That cage doesn’t pop open for just anyone.”

“Get the book!” screamed Xero to his troops.

“It’s not yours?” came a quiet voice by the portico. “The book belongs to us.”

Spyder turned too look, but he already knew what was there. The Black Clerks, ledger in hand, were walking into the palace straight through the demon armies. The demons fell back, afraid to touch them. Only Lucifer stood in the Clerks’ way. For the first time, he seemed truly enraged.

“Out of my kingdom, crawling filth!” he screamed.

The head Clerk stepped forward. He cocked his head to one side. Then he raised a finger. Lucifer was thrown, loose-limbed and helpless, across the room. He landed hard on the stairs above Shrike, stone splintering as he crashed on the marble.

The Clerks turned to Spyder. “Come to us?” the head Clerk told him.

“Fuck you,” Spyder said.

The Clerk flicked a finger. The scar Spyder had received earlier from the Clerks began to burn. His vision clouded. He saw things. He saw himself through their eyes. He saw himself looking at himself looking back at himself in infinite regression.

“Not dead yet?” the Clerk said.

“Shit,” said Spyder, sorting through the pictures in his head. Dizzy, he grabbed Lulu. “It wasn’t you they were looking through,” he said. “In the desert. It was me. I helped them follow us the whole way.”

“Strong,” said one of the other Clerks.

“What do you want with the book?” asked Spyder.

“It’s ours,” said the head Clerk.

“I don’t believe you.” Spyder leaned on the book for support.

“No matter,” said the head Clerk, and in a fraction of a second, he’d pulled the little knife from his belt and flung it into Spyder’s chest.

“Spyder!” screamed Shrike.

He fell back against the cage. The Clerks walked silently toward him. Trying to stand, Spyder grabbed the book with his bloody hands.

“That’s not permitted,” said the Clerk.

An icy white shock ripped through Spyder’s body and he fell to the floor.