Plague of Angels

  “Did you hear him?” asked Persephone yearning in her voice. “Did He speak to you?”

  “Of course not!” raged Nyx, fire lighting in her eyes. Her flesh began heating with the power of her anger, and the frost began melting away from her skin. “He hasn’t spoken to me for an aeon. And now he doesn’t speak to anyone! And that’s when I realized why I couldn’t condemn them all out of hand.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have free will!” Nyx’s wings flexed back and forth, sending gusts of wind and snow through the air. “God made me their judge, remember? He made me Queen of Hell and he made me judge them all! So I can’t just condemn them. I have to judge each and every one of them, from the most evil bastard walking on the planet to the purest little virgin that ever lived. He made me like this!”

  Nyx stalked back and forth on the mountaintop. “So I started praying again. Only this time I prayed to Tribunal. And every time I pray to him, every time I say his name out loud, it gives me the strength to do what we need to do.”

  Persephone’s head titled to one side. “Then why are you still here?”

  “Because I needed to think,” said Nyx. “I need to find a way to take control of the church beyond these squabbling, petty little Romans.”

  “And did you figure it out?”

  “Yes,” said Nyx. “I did. But I’ll need your help. How are the Easterners?”

  Persephone shrugged. “The Arabs will keep them busy for a hundred years or so.”

  “Good.” Nyx walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. “We’ve been here too long,” she said. “Too long away from where we belong.”

  “You want to go back to Hell?” asked Persephone.

  “We don’t belong in Hell,” said Nyx. “We belong in Heaven. And since that bastard God won’t let us go back there, then I’ll damn well have His son bring me into Paradise.”

  Persephone nodded her agreement. “How can I help?”

  Nyx grinned and spread her wings. “Become a virgin, my dear. You’re about to serve an Angel.”

  Theodora slapped her screaming daughter. “Shut up, you little slut!”

  Marozia, in the midst of a contraction, couldn’t defend herself. Her mother slapped her again. She cried instead, long wails of agony that filled the room and the hallways beyond. Standing at the girl’s side, mopping her brow, Ishtar barely managed to suppress a laugh.

  “Do you think Alberic will have you now?” Theodora demanded. “Do you think he’ll want a little slut who lets herself get pregnant instead of saving herself for her husband?”

  The contraction receded, and Marozia’s eyes fixed on her mother. “A little slut who got pregnant from her mother’s lover, you mean,” she ground out. “A little slut who fucked the Pope!”

  “A little slut who should have used a pessary!” Theodora hit her again, just as another contraction hit. “Stupid whore! You should have just given him your ass and left your cunt for your husband!”

  Marozia groaned in pain and screamed, “I don’t have a husband!”

  “And you never will, now!”

  “Yes,” said Nyx, stepping into the room. “She will.”

  Theodora spun around and saw Nyx as the matron she had met before. “What in the name of God are you doing here?”

  “What is necessary,” said Nyx looking at Ishtar. She crossed the room and took Marozia’s face in her hand. “Is the child Sergius’s?”

  “Yes,” gasped Marozia. “It is!”

  “Then we now have even more leverage over him,” said Nyx. She touched Marozia’s forehead and her pain diminished to next to nothing. “Push, child. Have your infant. We will ensure you still have a husband.” Her gaze shifted to Ishtar. “Won’t we?”

  In Speleto, Ishtar sat at Alberic’s table, disguised as a courtier. “It is a simple matter, my Lord Duke,” she said. “Raise the girl’s son as your own.”

  “What?” Alberic looked shocked. “You think I would let the bastard of that slut and that old man into my house?”

  “That slut,” said Ishtar, “controls the pope. And her son is proof of the pope’s broken vows. Keep them both alive and well, and you’ll be able to control the pope yourself.”

  Alberic I, Duke of Speleto, leaned back in his chair and thought about it.

  “Besides,” said Ishtar. “Now you know the girl is fertile, and can bear you sons. Surely that is worth the inconvenience of a bastard running around. And of course, there is the other thing…”

  Alberic’s eyes narrowed. “And what is the other thing?”

  “Theophylact,” said Ishtar. “And Theodora. They’ll both hate it immensely.”

  Alberic, Duke of Speleto, grinned.

  906 A.D.

  Pope Sergius III rose in the middle of the night, and wondered why. His bed was empty, for a change, and he’d wanted nothing more that night than to sleep until morning came. It had been a long, trying day. Alberic of Speleto and Aldabart of Tuscany had blocked Berengar I from coming to him and receiving the crown of the Emperor. It was all about politics, of course, but it made no sense. The West needed a strong leader to bring back the Holy Empire. Berengar was perfect, save that Alberic and Aldabart didn’t like him and wanted the crown for themselves, even though they had nowhere near the power it needed.

  He sighed and thought of Marozia. She had grown into the same beauty her mother had, and when the two woman came to him together…. A shudder went through Sergius, and he thought of summoning a maid to relax him when he saw a small candle burning in an alcove on the far wall of his room.

  There was no alcove there, Sergius thought. There’s never been an alcove there.

  Yet, there was one there now, and a candle was burning in it, in the hands of a woman dressed in white. Sergius rolled to his feet, looking around the room. There was no one there, save himself and the young woman. Cautiously, he advanced on her. “Who are you?”

  “I am one that has waited for you,” said Persephone, her voice ethereal and gentle. The long white robe covered her body, and the wimple covered her hair, making her look almost like a novice of any of the holy orders, save that the robe was just tight enough to give hints of the young, pretty body that she wore underneath it. She saw Sergius notice and tried not to smile. “I am the one who serves. And I have come for you.”

  “For me?” Sergius was confused. “For what?”

  Persephone turned and the wall behind her slid open to show a small spiral staircase.

  “This wasn’t here before,” said Sergius. “None of it.”

  “Of course it was,” said Persephone. “God was just not ready for you to see it. Now, follow.”

  Sergius was scared. And he would have stayed in his room, had not Persephone looked over her shoulder and said in the voice of an Angel, “Come.”

  Persephone descended the staircase, wiggling just enough on each step to keep his attention locked on her body. Sergius, unable to do anything else, followed. The staircase wound down far below the Papal Palace, to a large, empty chamber that could not exist. It was huge and vaulted with thick, fluted white pillars that rose to support the ceiling. In the middle of the room, rising up three steps high, was a large, round white marble dais. In the middle of the dais sat a square block, three feet high and ten feet to a side, with a single white marble chair, cut in the ancient Roman style set in the middle of it.

  “What… what is this place,” said Sergius. “Why have you brought me here?”

  The girl didn’t answer. She stepped up onto the dais and stood beside the chair. Sergius took two tentative steps up onto the dais, but did not go all the way. The girl smiled, then looked up.

  From above, shining from a bright light within, a black-winged Angel in white robes floated slowly down to the chair and sat. She smiled at Sergius. “Welcome, Pope Sergius III.”

  Sergius’s eyes went wide. “You… are you… can you be…?”

  “I am an Angel of God,” said Nyx. Descended, but you don’t need to k
now that. “I have been sent here by our Lord and Savior, to guide the leaders of his most holy Roman church forward as they spread his word.” Sergius knelt and in an instant, Nyx was there to raise him up. “I am not God, Sergius, you have no need to kneel before me. I am an advisor. Sent here to help you when times become difficult. And to guide you forward on the path of righteousness.” Her smile turned sad. “It is a path from which you have most grievously strayed, Sergius.”

  Sergius hung his head. “I know. I am a weak man, with a weak man’s failings of the flesh.”

  “You are indeed,” said Nyx. “And worse, you have allowed your failings to bring you under the sway of one who holds the church as neither holy nor divine, but only a tool to use to gain wealth and privilege for her family. And despite her young age, she is working against our divine plan, unlike her mother.”

  “I will… I will break off my relations with her,” said Sergius. “At once.”

  “Very good,” said Nyx. “Know that God forgives us of our failings, if we balance them with good works in his name. And that is why I have summoned you here. It is time for the Roman Catholic Church to assert its authority over the churches of the East and the West. The Nicene Creed must be defended against their apostate beliefs.” Not that either of you are right. The holy spirit doesn’t even exist. “I charge you, Sergius to defend that belief, and further, to work ceaselessly to bring together Christians under one banner, no matter what the leaders of the church of the East may say. It is time for the true Christians, the Christians of the North, to lead Christianity forward.”

  “Yes, my lady…”

  “I am not your lady,” she said. “I am Nyx, messenger of God. And if you ever have need of my guidance, call and I will answer.”

  “Yes, my… Yes, Nyx.”

  “Go back to your rest, Sergius, and know that I will be here, when I am needed.”

  Sergius, not sure what to do, bowed. Persephone handed him the candle, and he made his slow way up the steps to his room in the papal palace. When he stepped into it, the door in the back of the alcove closed behind him, and he knew that it would only open again when he was summoned.

  In the room below, Persephone and Nyx changed into their own, naked forms.

  “Nicely done,” said Persephone. “How was it, wearing the robes again?”

  “Odd,” said Nyx. “Not sure I like them any more.”

  “Get an overwhelming urge to sing “Hosanna, Alleluia?”

  “No,” said Nyx, smiling. “But it feels like cheating, somehow.”

  “Why did you turn him away from Marozia?” asked Persephone.

  “Mainly to annoy Ishtar,” said Nyx. “She pushed me.”

  “She’ll keep pushing you,” said Persephone. “It’s her favorite thing after torturing people for fun.”

  “True.” Nyx sighed. “Wonder what she’ll arrange next.”

  911 A.D.

  Marozia, wearing her best outfit, knelt before Pope Sergius III in his private chambers.

  “My child, there is no need for that,” said the pope, who was wondering how, exactly, the young woman had managed to enter his chambers after explicit instructions to keep her out. “Not here.”

  “I kneel in disgrace,” said Marozia. “I must be in disgrace, for you have not consented me to be in your presence these last two years.”

  “Now, that is not true,” said the pope. “You and your husband have been in our presence many times.”

  “I and my husband have,” said Marozia. “I have not.” She rose to her feet. “Is there something about me that you find less than desirable?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And yet, you continue to see my mother.”

  “It is a matter of age,” pleaded the pope. “I am old, now, Marozia, and my desires are not what they were.”

  “Not according the reports I’ve been getting,” said Marozia. “In fact, the reports I have been receiving indicate that your desires have been increasing as of late. My mother, several of your maids, and I have even heard rumors of a particularly plump choir boy who received your attentions, but I’m sure that is not true.”

  “The sin of the sodomite is not among my vices,” said Sergius, angrily.

  “Oh, but it is,” said Marozia, walking past him to one of the couches in his apartment. With her back to him she raised her skirts, showing off her still-firm backside. She leaned over the couch and wiggled at him. “You just prefer it with girls.”

  Sergius felt himself growing erect at the sight of her, but protested anyway. “My dear lady,” he said. “This cannot be.”

  “Why not?” Marozia demanded, straightening and dropping her skirt. “It was fine before. It was fine when I was pregnant with your child! Have I turned so hideous that you prefer my crone mother to me?”

  “That is not it at all,” said Sergius, using the most placating tone he could. “It is merely that I have other responsibilities now…”

  “Or perhaps it is my plans that you find you no longer agree with,” she said, advancing on him. “Perhaps it is my politics, or the ambitions of my husband. Perhaps I no longer suit your needs. Is that it?”

  “Dear lady…”

  “I am the wife of Alberic!” she hissed. “I am the reason you are on the throne!”

  “Your mother and father are the reason I am on the papal seat,” said Sergius, his voice firm. “It is because of them I rule.”

  “It is because they gave me as wife to Alberic! No other reason!”

  “My dear…”

  “You aren’t with me anymore, Sergius, and that means that you are against me. And those who are against me, I destroy.” She strode past him and out into the hallway where Ishtar, looking like an older version of the girl she was when they first met, was waiting. Marozia stomped up to her. “Rid me of him,” she hissed. “Let him be gone and we will put a far, far better pope in his place. One that will do as you bid, not as that bitch my mother desires.” She knelt before Ishtar. “Please, I beg of you.”

  Sergius put the new maid on her hands and knees on the bed and shoved himself into her backside, ignoring the girl’s cries of pain. He thrust harder, cursing Marozia with every one. How dare she speak to me like that? How dare she threaten me? He grabbed the girl’s hair and pulled on it, arching her back. “Who does she think she is?” he demanded. “Huh? Who is she to tell me what I should and should not do?”

  “She is Marozia,” said the girl, surprising him enough that he stopped thrusting.

  “You dare speak to me, you…”

  The girl turned her head, and kept turning it and turning it, until she was staring him full in the face, though the rest of her body had not moved. In horror, Sergius tried to pull out of her and away from her, but her anus clamped down on his cock, and her hair tangled his hand so tightly that he could not move it. She grinned at him, and her mouth was full of razor-sharp, jagged-edged teeth.

  “I dare,” said Ishtar, and her body spun, twisting Sergius’s penis and making him scream. “I dare so much more than you will ever know.”

  “The news?” asked Nyx.

  “They’re saying his heart gave out,” said Persephone. “Apparently he was engaged in a tryst with a sweet young thing, and died in the midst of it.”

  “Did you get a look at the sweet young thing in question?”

  “No. She vanished.”

  “Convenient.”

  Persephone’s head cocked to one side. “You think Ishtar?”

  “On behalf of Marozia, on a guess,” said Nyx. “Not that it matters.”

  913 A.D.

  Nyx stood outside the chambers of Anastasius III, disguised as a guard, listening as Marozia serviced him. Whatever else can be said of the woman, thought Nyx, She learned her lessons well.

  Anastasius had become Marozia’s creature almost at once, and while that would not have mattered had he come into Nyx’s presence to receive instruction, he steadfastly refused to follow Persephone. Instead, he hid under the cover
s and prayed to God to preserve him from ghosts and demons. It was very tiresome and had Nyx not been busy in the East for most of the last two years, she would have dealt with it sooner.

  “It is very simple,” Marozia was saying, and Nyx could hear Anastasius groaning in denied ecstasy. “All you have to do is grant the lands of the Abbey that sits near the Theophylact estates to my husband, Alberic. Surely you can do that?” Anastasius’s protest came out nearly unintelligible through the chamber door. Marozia’s reply was the very soul of patience. “I do understand, my dear, but surely you can explain to Theophylact that to give the lands over to him would mean an imbalance of power in the city. And we would not want the city to be imbalanced, would we?”

  Anastasius’s answering groan must have been in the affirmative, because the next sounds he made were of intense pleasure and release. A few minutes later, Marozia left his chambers, delicately wiping her mouth with a kerchief.

  Nyx waited a moment longer, then entered his chambers. Anastasius was seated on one of his couches, eyes closed and robes in disarray. Nyx changed appearance into the robes of a cardinal, and closed the door behind her, making sure it was loud enough to wake the pope. Anastasius grunted and grumbled and sat up. “Yes, what is it?”

  “You’re being very naughty,” said Nyx.

  The pope sat up straighter. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, it is not mine you have to beg,” said Nyx. “It is God’s.”

  The pope rose to his full, impressive height. “You dare speak to me that way?”

  “I dare,” said Nyx. “Considering you still have that woman’s stench about you.”

  The pope’s voice went cold. “I do not recognize you, Cardinal…?”

  “Oh, I’m not a cardinal,” said Nyx.

  She changed forms in the blink of an eye, becoming the ten-foot tall red demon with the saw-tooth scales that had tortured Judas, complete with claws, horns, razor-sharp fangs and massive, scaled, erect penis. The room shook as she roared, “I AM THE RULER OF HELL!!!”