I knew he had been visiting practitioners of the darker arts, looking for a way to remove the mark from the inside of his right thigh. It was the grandest joke of all, placing it there. We propagate, too, but not in the way of flesh. We take, and sometimes make, children of the . . . you could call it the heart, the spirit. Even soul, though that is murderously imprecise.
He told me what he wanted, and I gave him just enough information to be helpful, but not enough to solve the tangle for him. He would have been suspicious if it were too easy.
She drank the shot of vodka my not-blind barkeep poured. On the house, as always, for my darlings. My hunters. I knew that if I just waited long enough, one of Jack Karma's children--for hunters make them as we do sometimes, to transmit their battle-weariness from old shoulders to new--would possess the requisite temperament.
Patience will bring a male, even one of my kind, everything he needs.
She followed Mikhail Tolstoy as he turned away, heading for the door.
"Oh, won't you introduce us?" I called after them, in English. "An exchange of names and honorifics? I am Pericles, my dear, and I look forward to your acquaintance."
Mikhail turned on one heel, and he would have drawn then, and perhaps sent a bullet through my head. The silver on it would sting, but it wouldn't kill me. I didn't want to show too much of myself, and my restraint was rewarded.
Because she turned, too, and that mismatched gaze met mine with a pleasurable shiver. "Jill," she said flatly, the word cutting through a thick silence as the singers onstage finished their last, tremulous harmony. "Jill Kismet, hellbreed. Remember it."
I let them go that night. Then I went upstairs to the white-draped room I used as my sanctum and opened a flat rosewood case.
The knives inside were loaded with silver, and I could have another iron frame made to cradle me. The game was not over yet. Sending my dear almost-father back to our home was merely the prelude. The simulacrum of breathing, of flesh itself, was not enough. I wanted power, too. All of his, to add to my own. She was the one who would deliver it to me, if I was patient enough.
I was already planning where I would kiss her.
THE NAUGHTIEST CHERUB
KEVIN HEARNE
In the Iron Druid series, supernatural creatures such as witches, vampires, and werewolves--in addition to the various gods and goddesses of various mythologies--fill the world. The series is typically told from the vantage of Atticus O'Sullivan, a Druid who owns and runs an occult bookshop, and who gets embroiled in the day-to-day happenings of supernatural creatures. This story, narrated by Loki, takes place after Staked, book eight of the series.
The road to hell is not, as they say, paved with good intentions. Mostly it's crumbling stone, some rank weeds, and the occasional pile of dog shit. At least the one I am following is; there are many roads to perdition, but this one is in Kansas, for some reason. And I will note for the record that there is a significant difference between going to Hel and going to hell.
My daughter's realm, for all that it is cold and dim and cheerless with a constant cover of damp clouds, is at least somewhat consistent in its conception and manifestation.
The hell of monotheists, by contrast, is a hot, shifting, poisonous plane with air so foul that it feels as bad on my skin as it smells--that is, polluted with all manner of evils. As soon as I step through a portal created by an obliging demon, my armpits begin to sweat goat cheese and my balls feel like they're marinating in pepper sauce. Blasted by hot dry winds and chapped by sulfurous fumes one moment, in the next I'm buffeted by a moist effluvium shat from some manky demon's ass upwind.
Or perhaps the source of the miasma is not that far away at all, but rather my hellspawn escort, guiding me to a meeting with Lucifer.
"What am I looking at, here?" I ask it--and I use it because I cannot be sure that it has a gender, or even a functioning set of reproductive organs. It's a four-legged doglike thing, except that its legs are designed like those of an insect, originating underneath the beast and splayed out to the sides. It's colored like an insect, too, all green and teal. "Is this the hell of Milton, Dante, or Hieronymus Bosch, perhaps? Scenes out of a Dore etching?"
"You've done your research. It is all those and more," it replies, in a voice that sounds like it's chewing on rock salt yet somehow finds it sour. "There are circles of hell. There are realms of darkness. There is a lake of fire. There are dukes of hell, and imps, and hellhounds, and most anything collectively imagined by humans."
"And the being I will be visiting shortly? How does he appear?" I ask my escort, who is decidedly from the Bosch lineup of hellions.
"However he wishes. I have seen him take many forms."
"Interesting."
"Do you not take many forms? I have heard you have the power to do so."
"I do. I do, indeed. But they are forms that I imagine, rather than forms that have been imagined by others. They are not my natural manifestation, merely suits of clothes, so to speak, that I wear for short periods of time."
The landscape--or hellscape--wobbles in front of me as if I have drunk too much mead before snapping back together with an audible pop, looking as sharp and threatening as the tip of Odin's spear.
"What just happened?" I ask the thing.
"Hell constantly readjusts itself according to the fevered imaginations of mortals."
"Does this happen in heaven, too?"
"I'm sure I wouldn't know. Maybe the clouds move around or something. I suspect it is not so richly imagined as hell."
When I am finally brought before Lucifer as arranged, he does not appear in any form close to popular conception. No horns on his head, with a pointy mustache and soul patch. No forked tail or trident or any weapon at all. No goat hooves or ram's head. (Damn it--I was rather hoping to see that one.) No suave good looks, and certainly no leathery bat wings. There are wings, however--four massive ones, which take turns flapping and hiding his spherical body from view, keeping most of his bulk shielded from sight as he slowly rotates in place only five feet above the ground. What's he hiding under there? Tiny dinosaur arms? An embarrassing angelic erection? A series of mouths and other orifices? Mostly all I see are eyes. Many eyes, black and winking at me with jeweled eyelids, always three or more trained on me as he spins and flaps and waits.
As I watch them, the wings are not merely attractive, they are glorious. Shiny, shimmering, and rippling with a spectrum of colors, prismatic coyness that defies simple description. It is, no doubt, why humans took to describing him as having more beast-like qualities. Cherubs are beautiful and difficult to imagine as agents of evil. And Lucifer was--and remains--the most powerful and beautiful of the cherubim.
Such sublime magnificence is far more intimidating than any bestial appearance he could have taken, and as soon as I think it, I know that is why he chose to appear this way to me.
"Lucifer, I bring Loki of the AEsir, who seeks audience," the demon says. I am surprised and pleased that he keeps the introductions so short. We do not need a long list of titles and ego fluffing. We know who we are.
~What do you wish to ask me? Lucifer says. The words do not come from him so much as the air around my ears, a chorus of deep musical voices rather than a single one.
"Your aid, as you no doubt have surmised. The Norns are dead, killed by a lucky Druid, and I am no longer doomed to suffer defeat in Ragnarok. Fate no longer applies to me, and I, along with many others, may choose my own."
~So?
"So we who desire to play a different role than what we've been assigned may seize this opportunity to sweep aside the current world order and forge a better one. I have already secured the assurances of many others who will act when Ragnarok begins, and your help will ensure our collective victory."
~Oh, yes. I know of your machinations. These eyes see much. But I am not one to indulge in collective victories. I am not what humans would call a "team player." I am the adversary.
The blanket statement disturbs me.
"Surely not my adversary?"
~Not yet.
That's not reassuring. "Does that mean you may become my adversary later?"
~It remains to be seen. As you said, a significant aspect of fate has been unchained. What will happen cannot be told.
"If I begin Ragnarok, then, what should I expect from you?"
~You may not expect my aid, Loki Firestarter. It may come should it amuse me at the time, but do not count on it.
"May I at least hope you will not interfere?"
~You may not. I may also find interference amusing. At this point I am primarily interested in amusement. The world is going to hell largely without my involvement, and that has been most entertaining to watch. The chaos increased significantly after the deaths of David Bowie and Prince in 2016.
"Who?"
~Bah! Mediocre. I am revising what I said earlier: You may not expect my aid at all. I have no interest in your dreams of power. Whether you win or lose, I shall remain as I am: Puissant. Sexy. The naughtiest cherub.
My mouth gapes at his words and something flies in, diving down my throat. It's hot and squirming and tickles, and I begin to hack desperately to get it out. Something eventually gets ejected--a many-legged winged creature with a tiny human head, teal and green and still alive. It hacks and coughs, too, suffers through some high-pitched wheezing, and then it shakes itself free of phlegm and saliva and giggles. At the same time, Lucifer's wings shudder, and he wobbles slightly in the air.
~Hurr hurr.
He laughs. At my expense. Because he probably set the whole thing up. Say something shocking to make my jaw drop, and a minor demon dives in to make me choke. Very well.
"Apologies for taking up so much of your time, Lucifer. I will not waste any more of it."
~Nonsense. I was amused. But do be careful upon your exit. Some of hell's creatures are jealous and have been known to attack those who have spoken to me personally.
I nod, not trusting myself to say anything diplomatic, and turn to exit the way I entered.
"Not that way," the dog-insect says. "That road's closed now. You never leave the same way you came in. Follow me."
My muscles tense but I follow, seeing little other choice. Perhaps it is an ambush he leads me to. Perhaps I will have a chance to pay someone back for the humiliation I just suffered. Once out of sight of Lucifer, I change myself to the shape of a true fire giant and set my skin aflame. I pull out two weapons I hid before: a tremendous bastard sword, which I also set alight, and an unusual ice knife crafted by the yetis that I stole from the young Druid Granuaile MacTiernan. Even in the blistering furnace of hell it remains frozen and unmelting.
Satisfied that I look nothing like my usual self and quite a bit more intimidating, I keep scanning my surroundings for possible threats and follow the Bosch nightmare.
It's fine, honestly, that Lucifer will not be joining us. If he stays out of Ragnarok, chances are his opposite will stay out of it, too. It's simply not the Christian pantheon's fight. But I think he's wrong to assume that he'll remain the same afterward. There will be significantly fewer believers of his particular faith afterward and his power will necessarily wane.
Something moves in my peripheral vision, and I look up and to my right. There's a creature much larger than the green and teal thing descending from above. He has bat wings and a humanoid body with a giant dangly snake between his legs and eyes that glow pale yellow. When he sees that I've spotted him, hellfire blooms from his outstretched hand. I point my sword at him and send a gout to block his incoming one. Neither of us will be burned, but there is a certain kinetic force behind such attacks, and I'd rather he be off balance than me when it comes to a melee. He has no weapons except for some wicked claws and probably twice the brute strength I possess. Those wings will no doubt cause some trouble, too. Another muscle-bound bully like Thor.
I keep the sword raised and pointed at him just in case he's stupid enough to fly onto it, but he turns off the fire, folds those wings in, and veers to my left. More difficult for me to guard against that way, with the sword in my right hand. I have seen this before in fighting against some of the Fae: there is a claw on the tip of his wing, and as he sails past on the left, he will open those wings and try to cut me with it. He's going to be about at neck level, aiming for my throat, so I take a knee and thrust up with that ice knife as the wing shoots out and over my head. It pierces the leathery membrane, and I hold it there as his own momentum forces it to tear through his wing.
I expect a cry of rage and a ferocious counterattack on foot afterward, but instead I get a startled squawk, and the damned thing crashes to the sandblasted ground, dead.
The demon dog is agog, and he's not the only one.
"How did you do that?" it asks.
"I don't know. I just sliced his wing."
"With what? He's died the final death. Look, already he shrivels."
It's true: The creature was a tomato-red steroidal horror straight out of the nightmares of medieval humans, but now it is dissolving and bubbling into a puddle of black tar. I look down at the ice knife and see that it is different: colder, giving off steam while still remaining frozen solid, and the thin crimson glow along the top of the blade extends all the way to the point and pulses with energy.
"I think this knife may have drunk its soul. Do demons have souls?"
"Some do. He certainly did. Where did you get that knife?"
"Never mind that," I snap at it. "Just get me out of here before something else comes along."
"Of course."
I did not pay close enough attention to this weapon when I stole it. How did the yetis learn such magic? And why, if they possess such secrets, did they share them with Granuaile MacTiernan, the gullible Druid? I must admit I underestimated her. She managed to put an axe in my back and stole the white horse of Swietowit from me, giving him to some witches in Poland with very strong wards around their property. My shoulder still aches as a reminder of how arrogant I was. These Druids are dangerous if given a chance to act, and deserve more respect than I've given them to this point. Perhaps the yetis know better than I. Perhaps I should persuade the yetis to make more of these knives before Ragnarok begins. But I have found the lost arrows of Vayu, which never miss their target. I have this soul-drinking blade. And I have many allies and surprises besides. The world is bigger than when the Norns first prophesied Ragnarok. Happily, my plans have grown to meet this new world, and I think we are ready. Or at least as ready as we will ever be. Assessing where Lucifer stands was the last errand to run.
"How much farther do we have to go?" I ask my guide.
"Some distance, unfortunately. At least an hour of subjective time."
It was not an hour's walk to reach Lucifer. "You're trying to make sure I never leave, aren't you?"
"No! I am positive Lucifer wishes you to remain alive. He is interested in your project, even if he doesn't wish to participate."
"My project? You are calling Ragnarok a mere project?"
"Please forgive my poor choice of words. I have no proper appreciation for the scale of things and do not even know what Ragnarok is. In any case, regarding the greater demon you just slew, you did precisely as you should have. Let us continue and remain vigilant."
"Where will this put me on Earth?"
"This particular maw of hell we are using will empty into what the humans call New Jersey."
"Hmm. I have heard of it. By all reports, more hellish than other places on the human plane. But a significant distance from Kansas, if I am not mistaken." I have been studying maps of the modern world in recent days. "More than a mere hour's walk."
"The space here is fluid, as you have no doubt seen."
Yes, I've seen that. Even as the demon dog speaks, the horizon melts and wobbles in my vision and resolves into a slightly different hellscape with red peaks shifted and plumes of ash and lava billowing elsewhere than they did mere seconds ago, yet the path we follow remains. I maintain my giant form but add spid
er eyes to my head, which always gives me a headache from interpreting so much visual information, but as it will provide me with views of the sky and my trail, I cannot afford to remain limited by human vision.
Lucifer let me go far too easily, and this demon escort is far too placating: I am being set up for slaughter. Probably being led into a trap--it's not paranoia, because someone really did try to kill me. And there will be more attempts, I have no doubt. Lucifer has absolved himself of responsibility by claiming that they are rogues, but it is beyond belief that visiting gods in his realm can be attacked without his approval. If he were truly concerned for my welfare, he would escort me out himself.
Off to my right, in a hollow between low mesas baked to a blood-orange crisp, a shadow flickers, then moves. It is in fact many shadows, cast by a boiling army of imps lurching in my direction. These cannot all be silly homicidal rogues out to cause some mischief in my general area. Someone ordered them to froth and foam my way. And I will need more than two arms to defeat them. More than two weapons, in fact. And thank the giants of Muspellheim for teaching me to always have them on hand. Or, rather, have them stowed safely.
A fantastic benefit of being able to change one's shape is the ability to repurpose one's orifices for weapon storage. My flesh is both mutable and elastic, and thus my colon contains all kinds of shit. Actual shit, of course, but also other things that I can pull out of there when needed. And I need everything if I am going to meet a small army of hellions by myself. I also need a shape that can handle it.
While spending time with Jormungandr, the world serpent, I learned of many creatures of the sea one can combine to form powerful chimeras. I shifted only above the waist to a mantis shrimp--not really a mantis or a shrimp at all, but it looks similar to both--except that I grow tentacles out to the sides to brandish all the weapons I pull out of my nether regions. Including the two I already had, I now set myself up with four blades total, and these fascinating chitinous limbs that work on a locking-latch principle that delivers tremendous kinetic force when released. I can punch anything, basically, that gets close to my face, shattering it without harming myself in the process. My hope is that nothing will get that near.