Plague of Angels

  The Emperor’s eyes closed and his body shuddered. The woman before him gagged and choked, then gasped. He pushed her back and frowned. “That is very disappointing,” he said. “You were doing so well. Guard.”

  One of Caligula’s Germanic guards stepped forward.

  “Take her down to the gladiators,” Caligula said. “Any man who survives today must have a turn in her mouth before he cleans himself. She may come to me tomorrow and display how her practice improved her.” He looked at the senator, whose face had gone purple. “Is that acceptable, Senator?”

  “Of course,” the senator’s voice came out strangled. “It is your will, my Caesar.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Caligula. “You’d best go down with her and watch, to make sure she does it all correctly. I’ll expect you to report her successes and failures to me by the end of the day.” He shooed the senator away with his hand. “Go on, now.”

  The senator followed the guard down out of the Emperor’s box. Caligula waved, then turned his attention back to the men on the floor of the Coliseum. Lions were circling them, and the condemned held out their pathetic wooden swords as if they would give them a chance.

  “Come on!” shouted Caligula. “Eat them, you stupid beasts!” He turned to Nyx. “Those damn lions haven’t eaten in a week. You think they’d be more eager.” He sat back in his chair and sighed. “Well, then, let us do something more interesting. Guard! Bring him!”

  A moment later three guards appeared, dragging in Herod Antipas, the man who had crucified Nyx’s beloved Tribunal. He had been old, then, and was older now—well into his sixties. He had chains around his wrists and ankles and had been beaten and tortured. His body was covered in bruises and blood, and his fingers were bent at the wrong angles. Nyx smiled at the pain the man was in, and how he tried to bow to his emperor without wincing.

  “So, Herod,” said Caligula. “Conspiracy against the Empire.” Caligula waved a finger at him. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  “My Caesar,” began Herod, “I would never…”

  “Yes, you would,” said Caligula. “You all would. And I keep catching you and executing you, but you all keep trying nonetheless. Oh, look!” He caught Herod’s shoulder and turned him to face the arena. “They’ve started!”

  A man screamed as the first lion pounced, its claws gouging through flesh and sending blood spraying before the lion’s jaws clamped around the man’s neck. The man’s screams ended as blood spurted. Caligula cheered and clapped Herod on the back. The other lions moved in. The men on the ground screamed and ran, or tried to fight, or stood still waiting to die. Soon the sand was covered in blood and severed limbs as the lions took down their prey and ripped them into manageable pieces. Caligula chortled gleefully and pointed to where one man, his legs ripped off and gnawed on by a young lion, lay screaming in agony as the lioness gorged itself on his intestines.

  “Excellent! Excellent!” Caligula shouted. “Well done, lions!”

  The crowd cheered with him, and Caligula retired to his chair. “Agrippa!” he shouted. “Come here and bring Herodias with you, would you?”

  Herod Agrippa, nephew to Antipas, came out with Herod Antipas’ wife, Herodias, leaning on his arm. She was twenty years younger than he, and a handsome woman. Caligula looked her up and down and smiled. He turned his attention back to Herod Antipas. “Your nephew here gave me the evidence,” he said. “Stockpiling arms for 70,000 men? Dear, dear.”

  “Those arms are to defend Jerusalem,” said Herod. “To defend all of Galilee and Perea against…”

  “Against my legions,” said Caligula. “Against your rightful Emperor? Is that it?”

  “No, my Caesar!”

  “You are guilty of conspiracy,” said Caligula. “Your lands are forfeit and your nephew Agrippa here will take over. The question now is, what punishment should I give?” He propped his hand on his chin. “Crucifixion might do, but it is bad form to crucify a king. Leaves the other kings worried. No… I think it will have to be poison. Or strangulation. Strangulation is always good. A bit painful, but over quickly enough.”

  “Please, my Caesar,” begged Herod Antipas. “Please. I have not conspired against you. I am loyal to you.”

  “Not loyal enough.” He turned to Herod Antipas’ wife. “Strangulation, do you think?”

  “Please, Caesar,” Herodias knelt before him, her hands on his feet in supplication. “Please, my Lord, he has done nothing against you.”

  “He has,” said Caligula. “They all have. He’s just one of the ones I could catch. Still, the punishment need not be death…”

  Herod Antipas looked up. “My Caesar?”

  “There are alternatives,” Caligula said, still looking at Herodias. “If I was properly persuaded of his loyalty… and yours… I might see fit to declare exile instead.”

  “What must we do to persuade you?” asked Herodias.

  “For a start?” Caligula smiled and ran a finger down the side of her face. “Turn around and raise your dress, my dear. That last senator’s wife did well enough, but I am in need again, and you will suit me perfectly.”

  “My Caesar,” protested Herod. “She is my wife.”

  “I am your Emperor!” screamed Caligula, shoving himself to his feet. “I am your ruler and you betrayed me! I should have you flogged and the wounds cauterized with molten copper! I should have you skinned alive and thrown to the rats! I should have you bent over and have a dozen dogs take their pleasure on you before I feed you to them!” He stopped screaming abruptly, and knelt behind Herodias, shoving her forward so she was on her hands and knees. “Instead, I will take your wife’s ass. And when I am done, you will be banished to Gaul.” He pushed Herodias’ skirt up over her back. “And if she pleases me enough, I will even allow her to stay in Rome. I have need of more prostitutes.”

  Herodias spoke through gritted teeth, her voice angry and fearful. “I will stay with my husband,” she said. “Come what may.”

  “As you wish,” said Caligula.

  Nyx watched Herod Antipas’ face collapse as the Emperor savagely entered his wife’s dry, unwilling flesh.

  Around them, the crowds of the Arena were watching and cheering. I wonder what the Gauls do to their captives, she thought, as the Emperor grunted and thrust and Herodias clamped her teeth together, not making a sound. For Herod Antipas surely deserves the worst end we can give him.

  She promised herself to send word to Persephone and Ishtar, then stood back and watched. This Emperor will do very well indeed.

  41 A.D. – Rome

  Nyx, Persephone, and Ishtar, clad in their true forms, looked down from where they floated in the sky as Caligula’s Germanic Guard charged through the city, hacking and slashing almost at random as they pursued Caligula’s assassins. The conspirators had murdered the king in the tunnels beneath the imperial palace. His guard, unable to stop them, seemed determined to do as much damage as possible to all those unlucky enough to be on the streets, and to Rome itself. Women and children lay gutted and moaning on the ground. Men died with limbs and heads hacked off. Senators, whose only crime had been to be at the Senate during the assassination, were chased down and stabbed a dozen times each before they were allowed to die. The assassins, desperate to keep control, were slaughtering as well. They had already visited Caligula’s home, stabbing his wife to death and dashing his young daughter’s brains out against the wall.

  “So,” said Ishtar, looking at the chaos. “First Emperor of Rome to be assassinated. Impressive.”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to make his horse a Consul,” said Persephone. “I think that’s what did it.”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t have tried fucking the wives of every senator and noble Roman in the city,” said Ishtar. “Or making them his prostitutes.”

  “Well, he was short of money,” said Persephone.

  Nyx’s whip lashed out twice, raising welts on each Angel’s backsides. Both yelped as the Hellfire whip cut their flesh, but neither, Nyx was ce
rtain, was at all sorry. This is what comes of letting them play goddesses, she thought. They grow too high and mighty for their own good.

  “At least my temples have spread throughout the city,” she said. “Next step is to spread them through the empire.”

  “That’s good,” said Ishtar, “Because the Christians are already spreading.”

  “What?” Nyx was shocked. “I thought they were being suppressed!”

  “Not successfully,” said Persephone. “The governors don’t care, so long as they don’t advocate violence.”

  Nyx hissed, and her eyes flared red. “How far have they spread?”

  “Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Tessalonica, Cypus, Crete, and of course, here in Rome.”

  Rage built inside Nyx, and her teeth ground together as she stared at the mess below. Damn God for blocking our way to them! We could have snuffed them out in less than a day. “Go back to Jerusalem,” said Nyx. “Get the governor to start killing them.”

  “I will,” said Persephone.

  “Say,” said Ishtar. “Isn’t that your temple they’re going into?”

  Nyx looked. Ten of the Germanic guards had entered her Temple. “Yes,” she said. Nyx’s lips pulled back in a violent, ugly grin. Her teeth had become fangs, and she was eager to use them. “Yes, it is.”

  Her wings flapped with a noise like thunder and she hurled herself at the soldiers. Let them desecrate every other temple in the city if they liked. They would not desecrate hers, and all Rome would know it.

  A.D. 64 – Rome

  Nyx hid in the back of the alley and glared.

  She had disguised herself with black skin, black hair, and black robes, and blended in perfectly with the alley around her. She stood outside the window of a small paper shop, listening.

  It was a hot night. The air was still and the heat was enough to send most men to bed, sweating, or to the baths, in search of cool water. Inside the shop, which must have been crowded, stuffy and stinking, a dozen men had gathered to listen to two foreigners talk of Jesus. They spoke of the crucifixion, of sacrifice and a new savior and of Heaven to come. It all left a foul taste in Nyx’s mouth.

  Tribunal would have hated all of this, she thought. He would have laughed at it and destroyed them all, given His choice. And then we could have a new Paradise…

  For twenty-three years she had been working against the Christians, and it seemed at every turn she had been stymied. They continued to spread like lice on the head of the empire. She had some successes, but not many. Her own temples had grown and spread throughout the empire, and she had thousands of worshippers. But all of this was doing little to stem the tide of Christians.

  They shouldn’t even exist. The One they worship doesn’t want them, she fumed. Fine. Let’s see what happens when we do this…

  Paper was expensive in Rome, and rare. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant and took a careful process to make. Once the stalks had been cut, mashed, and laid out, they had to be carefully dried and polished before they were ready to be used.

  It only took a thought from Nyx to push over one of the candles in the room, and another to set it rolling to a pile of papyrus, just dried, on the table. The people in the room were so engrossed, they did not realize anything was amiss at first.

  A gust of wind, like a flapping of wings, sent the burning paper into the air. Another sent some out the window, where it caught the next house on fire.

  “Fire!” screamed one of the men inside. “Fire! Fire!”

  They tried to fight it at first, but the stock of paper in the room caught too quickly as gusts of wind sent flaming scraps everywhere. They were forced from the room and ran into the street, screaming.

  Nyx bathed in the heat of the flames, and watched as one building after another caught fire. She changed her shape again, becoming a young Roman woman, fetchingly dressed in a disarrayed toga that left one breast exposed. She smeared some of the soot from the building on her face, then caught a piece of the paper and let it burn her hair and the edges of her clothes. She wished she could see herself, but suspected it would be fine.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the street, screaming, “Fire! Fire! The Christians have lit the city on fire!”

  Five days later, in the garden of Nero’s palace, the emperor Nero stood before a pair of crucified Christians. The men had been nailed up and piles of wood had been placed around the base of their crosses and doused in oil. A line of thirty other men knelt, chained, before the crosses.

  “These!” Nero said to a crowd of senators, “Are two of the ones responsible for the deaths of so many Romans. They have confessed their actions, as have their co-conspirators.” He waved at the men before the crosses. Most bore marks of torture. “And since they have thought to bring our great city down with fire, we will punish them with fire! And use them as a beacon to show that Rome still shines, and that Rome will rise again!”

  He raised a hand, and at his signal two centurions put torches to the pyres beneath the crosses. The wood caught at once and the fire spread quickly.

  “Every night, until our city is rebuilt, we shall burn one of these ‘Christians!’ One of these superstitious followers of a dead criminal!” shouted Nero. “And let it be known that any Christians found in our city, indeed in our Empire, will share this or a worse fate! We will feed them to the Arena dogs! We will torture and crucify them! We will root out this rot that threatens to destroy our empire, and we will rise, stronger than ever!”

  The first flames licked the feet of the men on the crosses, and they began screaming.

  Standing in the shadows, her black armor making her near invisible in the darkness, Nyx smiled. At last, things were going better.

  70 A.D. – Eleusis

  In the fire-lit darkness, the teenage maiden cowered upon a huge stone bed. Her flimsy silk robe reached only to the top of her thighs, and the parts of her it covered could be seen through the sheer fabric. She gazed wildly around, eyes wide, the whites shining.

  From nearby came the boom… boom… boom of footsteps too heavy to be human. The girl pushed herself against the wall, as if trying to crawl inside it, tears streaming down her lovely face. The noise came closer, and closer, and then Dispater stepped out into the light of the torches. He was easily nine feet tall, his red, scaled flesh flickering in the firelight. The curved, pointed horns on his head gleamed black, matching the glittering black of his eyes. He sniffed the air, his head swiveling on his neck as he caught the sweet scent of his prey.

  Gasps of horror came from five hundred throats. Dispater ignored them. His eyes found his prey, and a leer formed on his face. His breathing deepened, and between his legs, his huge penis began to grow, eliciting more gasps from those watching.

  The maiden slid off the bed, and started to run, but Dispater was too quick. In a flash he had grabbed her. In another he had torn the robe from her shivering body, the scrap of cloth ripped into rags.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please don’t. Please! Don’t!”

  Dispater growled his reply and threw the girl on her back, holding her legs wide so all those watching could see.

  “Jerusalem has fallen!” said Nyx in Persephone’s mind. “The Romans have breached the wall and the Jews’ temple is burning!”

  Slowly, the beast drove its length into the girl’s writhing form. She screamed, long and loud.

  “The governors have continued that coward, Nero’s, work,” Nyx continued as she began pumping rhythmically in and out of Persephone’s mortal body, the slap of her demon-shaped flesh against Persephone’s thighs accompanied by Persephone’s screams. “Christians are being burned, tortured, and thrown to the dogs all over the empire.”

  “You’re ruining the mood here,” said Persephone in Nyx’s mind, bringing a grin to Nyx’s demon face. “This is the big ritual. They need a show.”

  “Then let’s give them one.” Nyx grabbed Persephone by the hair with one enormous hand, and threw her onto her stomach with the o
ther. She pulled her head back so the five hundred worshippers of Persephone could see their version of their goddess cry and scream as she enacted her wedding night with Dispater. “Vespasian has come to power,” continued Nyx. “He has promised to raise temples to me in exchange for his victory. Soon, my cult will be larger than even Mithras.”

  “Be careful with that,” Persephone said in Nyx’s mind, as she writhed and cried for the pleasure of the crowd. “Mitthras is the god of the legions and is not to be trifled with.”

  “I’m not trifling with him,” said Nyx. “Besides, he’s not here, is he?” She increased the pace of her thrusts. “And all I need do is outnumber the Christians, anyway.”

  “Wait… ” Persephone’s screams changed pitch, and her body shuddered with orgasm, though her followers didn’t know it. When the shuddering subsided, she let herself go limp—the perfect image of a ravaged innocent, torn open by a beast of a husband. “The key isn’t outnumbering them now,” she said in Nyx’s mind. “The key is outnumbering them a thousand years from now, remember?”

  “I know that!” Nyx thrust harder in her irritation. “As long as Rome stands, we will outnumber them!”

  “Then you… better hope it… stands for a… thousand years,” Persephone said.

  “Rome is immortal.”

  “That’s what the Kerma said.” Persephone began shuddering again. “Remember them?”

  “No.”

  “Neither does anyone else,” said Persephone. “Now… hurry up and… finish so… we can do the pomegranate bit… I want to thank you… properly… Oh, my Queen!”

  Persephone’s screams echoed through the cave, and her followers watched in awe.

  84 A.D. – Rome

  Domitian, Emperor of Rome, rose late one night, his mind whirling from dreams of destruction. His niece—a fine young woman and one whom he hoped could give him the child his banished wife had failed to provide—slept undisturbed, still bathed in the sweat of their congress. Domitian knelt before the shrine of Minerva and bowed his head. “Oh, great goddess. Guide your servant. Guide me, who has helped you rise in prominence again, and who has brought back the proper worship of our true Roman gods… ”