Blind Shrike

FIFTY SIX Stars

Spyder rose on wobbly legs and set his head back on his shoulders.

“You know those days when you just can’t do anything right? You’re having one of them,” he said to the head Clerk.

“This is some trick of yours, Lucifer?”

“It’s all me,” said Spyder. His throat felt full of pins and needles as he spoke.

“No matter? Alive or dead, you are lost, locked in Hell forever. So is the woman.”

“Not necessarily. You did us a favor, brainiac. Shrike makes these little blood sacrifices when she does small magic. All this golem’s blood and mine should be good for one big favor, don’t you think?”

“What are you doing?” asked Lucifer.

“I’m sorry, man. You’re my friend, but Shrike and I can’t spend forever down here.”

Lucifer looked stricken. “You don’t want to do that, Spyder.”

“Sorry.”

The book was already sucking down the blood Spyder and the golem had spilled on the floor. Spyder laid his hands on the metal cover and whispered strange words that seemed to flow into his mind. He was speaking a language he didn’t understand, a tongue so guttural and inhuman that it would have been agony even if his throat hadn’t been freshly slit.

The runes etched into the book cover glowed and the remaining blood began to boil. Spyder pulled his hands back as the golem’s lifeless body, along with the last dregs of blood, were absorbed into the book.

Far across Hell there was a sound like thunder, only it came from beneath the ground, as if the foundation of the underworld itself had cracked.

“Do you know how insane this is?” asked Lucifer.

“I’m the fool, remember? I do shit you sensible guys wouldn’t dream of.”

Quivering green light, like a fluorescent bulb shining from the bottom of the ocean, blasted through cracks in the ancient unfinished wall Spyder had seen while walking to Pandemonium with Ashbliss. The colossal iron reinforcing beams began to bend and buckle as some fantastic new weight pressed against the bricks from the other side.

“Glorious! Glorious! They are here!” cried the head Clerk.

“Not for you.”

“It is accomplished! We believed the Butcher Bird would free the Dominions, as revenge when you and the slut died. But you have done her job for her. The universe is ours.”

“You’re talking to a guy who just cut off his own head. You don’t get to tell me what’s yours and mine,” said Spyder. He grabbed the head Clerk and ripped away the stolen skin that covered his face. In shock, both Clerks retreated a pace or two. The head Clerk touched his fleshless face, feeling for the missing meat, his eyes wide and locked on Spyder’s.

“For your information, that cold knot in your belly is what we talking meat call fear,” Spyder said. He then spoke a single word and the Clerks tumbled to their knees. They grew smaller and softer, as if their bones were turning to warm butter, until they were nothing but pale puddles on the stone floor.

Spyder looked back across Hell as the ancient wall began to crumble. Hands clawed at the gigantic bricks from the other side. Strange howls filled the air. Spyder became aware that both Xero and Lucifer’s armies had grown considerably smaller since the Dominions had made their presence known. Deserters continued to sprint out the front of the palace.

Lucifer limped to Spyder and stood next to him, watching the ancient wall crumble. “You may have beaten the Clerks so cleverly that you’ve killed us all,” he said.

Xero came slowly down the stairs. “What did he do?”

“He’s released the Dominions,” said Lucifer.

“Why?” asked Lulu.

Before Spyder could say anything, Xero charged down the stairs to where Shrike was cradling her father in her arms. He grabbed her by the hair and held a knife to her throat. “Come to me, old ones! Give me the power to defeat my enemies! I make this blood sacrifice to you.”

Lucifer let loose an animal howl and charged, his body morphing as he went. His cheeks split as misshapen rows of rotten shark’s teeth sprouted from his jaws. Fire jetted from his eyes. As he leapt, his arms and legs twisted into the mad animal forms Spyder had seen in medieval woodcuts of the Devil.

Shrike fought Xero’s hand from her throat. The man was concentrating on Lucifer. Spyder realized that Xero was reciting a spell.

“Look out!” Spyder screamed.

A blur of silver shot from the great book and into Lucifer’s spine, as Apollyon’s knife flew across the room and embedded itself into his back. The prince of Hell collapsed at Shrike’s feet. She swung her sword backwards over her head and buried it in Xero’s skull. The general just laughed.

“When I’ve bled you dry, I’ll bring you back here and make you my concubine. I’ll rape you in Hell forever.”

Lucifer, back in his more presentable angelic form, staggered to his feet. “Alizarin,” he said and reached out his hand. Shrike grabbed Lucifer and pulled him toward her, hard, throwing herself onto the floor.

Spyder ran to them, covering Shrike’s body with his own. Xero screamed. Spyder turned and saw the general pushing madly at Lucifer’s body. The tip of Apollyon’s blade, which was protruding from Lucifer’s belly, had buried itself in Xero’s mid-section when Shrike had pulled Lucifer down. The general shrieked as the blade cooked him. Lucifer grabbed the man, bearhugging him, driving the knife in deeper. Their bodies glowed red. Xero’s blackened lips curled back like burning paper.

The general was suddenly very still. Lucifer pushed free and backhanded Xero across the face. The fried mortal soul crumbled, a burned-out husk.

Spyder went to Lucifer and pulled the blade from his back.

“I thought that knife killed demons,” he said.

“You’re not any fool and I’m not any demon,” said Lucifer, falling back against the railing.

Spyder snatched the tunic from Xero’s corpse and went to Shrike. Holding her upright, Spyder pressed the cloth over the wound in her chest. Lulu, exhausted, collapsed near Lucifer. Across Hell, the wall finally came down and the Dominions poured through. They were so alien and so massed together, shouldering their way from their exile in chaos, that, later, no one there, mortal or angel, could describe what exactly came into this universe through the ancient breech in time and space. There were shaggy heads and arms that were lined with eyes, reptile wings, tentacles, cocks with teeth, legs like a bird’s and legs like machines. Emerald flesh, exposed bones, metal talons, fire, wind and ice.

The Dominions circled the roof of Hell once, twice and on the third pass, shot up together, blasting through and out into the night sky. Gazing up through the glass dome atop Lucifer’s palace, Spyder saw familiar constellations. Orion. The Big Dipper. It was Earth. It was home.