Plague of Angels

  Anastasius III stumbled back against the couch, clutching his chest. His eyes were wide and his mouth made gasping noises. Then he fell face down on the ground, dead.

  Nyx reverted to her own form and looked down at the man. “Well, dammit.” She watched his soul leave his body and start sinking into the earth. She shook a finger at him. “You weren’t supposed to do that.”

  The soul looked offended as it sank down to Hell.

  Nyx shrugged and headed for the balcony as the guards tried to knock down the door. The next pope would belong to Theodora, and she could get back to the business of preparing the West for the attack on Jerusalem.

  Pope Lando was a simple man, without extravagant tastes or vices. He liked wine, but not to excess. He liked riding, but only occasionally. He liked women, but did not pursue them. He was, in most every way, boring, bland, and unimpressive, save that he was totally and unswervingly loyal to Theophylact. He voted as Theophylact wished him to vote, he supported Theophylact in all his decisions, and wasn’t even fucking Theophylact’s wife or daughter, like his immediate predecessors. He was very much the perfect pope for the time.

  Which is why, one night, Ishtar flew into his room, punched into his chest, pulled his heart out, and flew away.

  “Explain that one away,” she muttered, biting into the heart as she flew.

  She finished eating it by the time she arrived at the palace Marozia had given her, and landed at the back door, not bothering to change forms before she entered. There were no servants here, and the ones waiting below already knew what she looked like. She stretched and thought a moment, then paused in the kitchen to pick up the largest of the pestles from the mortars in the kitchen on the way past. It was brass, as long as her forearm and as thick as baby’s head at the end. There was a new man in the basement, young and proud of how strong he was.

  Five days with this up his ass should cure him of that, Ishtar thought. Then we’ll see how much he can really take.

  The humans were gone from her dungeon, when she stepped inside. Instead, Nyx was sitting on her favorite chair, and Persephone was standing in the corner. Both had their swords in their hands.

  “That’s twice,” said Nyx.

  Ishtar forced herself not to reach for a weapon, forced herself to stay still. “My Queen…”

  “What I want to know,” said Nyx, “was how, exactly, you thought it was permissible to kill either of them without asking me first.”

  “Well…”

  Nyx moved faster than Ishtar had thought possible, her sword driving through Ishtar’s stomach and pinning her to the wall like a grotesque butterfly. She screamed and thrashed, and the pestle flew out of her hand. Nyx caught it before it hit the ground. She flipped it in her hands and looked up and down the length of it.

  “Nice,” Nyx said. Then she swung the pestle hard at Ishtar’s head.

  Ishtar’s world flashed white and went black.

  When she awoke, she was chained over a bed of spikes. Her arms, legs and wings had been spread wide with chains of iron, and the spikes had been laid out to push into every part of her. They were iron, not divine steel, and while they hurt, there would be no lasting damage from them.

  Nyx was standing beside her, waiting.

  Ishtar’s head was still aching from where Nyx had hit it. She shook it gently to make sure none of it was missing. “Where am I?”

  “Underneath Marozia’s mansion,” said Nyx. “Far, far underneath. Like it?”

  Ishtar looked around. The room was black, even to her hell-adjusted eyes. There was a single, large hole in the ceiling leading to a shaft that rose high out of sight. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Why are you against me, Ishtar?”

  “I’m not against you…”

  “But you are,” said Nyx. “I spent a great deal of time building an underground chamber below the papal palace. I built steps and an alcove up into their room and hid it all from their view while I was constructing it. Do you know how tiresome that was? And then, when it’s all done, when I have everything in place, you kill my popes!”

  “They aren’t your popes…”

  “They are mine! I have them convinced that I’m a messenger of God. I have them willing to do what I say and follow my advice and you kill them for Marozia. Without asking me first! Now do you want to tell me why?”

  “Because you don’t have it in you to do what needs to be done!” shouted Ishtar. “You’re supposed to be the Queen of Hell, but when it comes to killing humans you’ve grown weak and lazy! You don’t want the innocent hurt, you don’t want the children hurt. You don’t want to do what needs to be done to bring Tribunal back!”

  To Ishtar’s surprise, Nyx nodded. “That was true,” she said. “God changed me when he made me Queen of Hell. He made me crueler, and stronger and meaner, but he also made me into a judge. He made it so I couldn’t just kill them all without feeling it. He made me weak.” Nyx stepped out of Ishtar’s sight, though she could still hear. “But once I realized that, Ishtar. I started praying again, only this time to Tribunal. I made him my God, just like the mortals made me theirs. I pray to him every hour. And every time I pray, every time I say his name, it gives me the strength to do what must be done. So thank you for showing me my weakness.”

  “If you want to thank me,” said Ishtar, “You could fucking unchain me!”

  “Oh no,” said Nyx, walking back into Ishtar’s line of sight. “You see, my prayers to Tribunal have made me stronger, now. They’ve reminded me of who I am and they have reminded me that the Queen of Hell does not accept disobedience from her servants. It would lead to chaos, and then where would we be?”

  “Let me go!”

  “I will, said Nyx. “I need you, Ishtar. You’re my friend. You’re my lover. But before you can be either of those again, you need to be my trusted servant, and in order for that to happen, you need to be punished.”

  “So, you’re going to leave me here, chained in the dark?” said Ishtar. “You want me to thrash about in frustration and impale myself on the spikes?”

  “Oh, no,” said Nyx. “You’ll be able to break these chains in less than a year, and really, the spikes are hardly pushing in on you at all. No, I wanted you to have a lesson you’ll remember.”

  For the first time since they left Hell, Ishtar felt a shiver of fear, climbing its way up her spine. “What…what are you going…”

  Nyx rose out of sight, and Ishtar heard Nyx draw her sword, heard the sound of divine steel smashing onto rock, then felt the earth around her shiver.

  Then the roof fell onto her.

  There were hundreds of tons of stone, smashing down onto her body. The weight of it drove the spikes through her body, her arms and her wings, then crushed her flat. Her head was untouched, so she could see and feel it all. And because she was an Angel, she didn’t die, or stop feeling the pain, or go unconscious. Instead, she screamed, long, soundless screams because there was no way for her to draw breath.

  Nyx came into view again. She stabbed her blade up once more, moving it gently this time. A moment later, water began to drip down. A slow, steady drip that landed on Ishtar’s face every time.

  “There,” said Nyx. “That should do.”

  She flew out of the pit, leaving Ishtar still screaming soundlessly. And now, thought Nyx, To see that bitch Marozia.

  966 A.D.

  The water stopped dripping first.

  Slowly, stone by stone, the weight was lifted off of Ishtar’s chest. Then strong hands grabbed her and ripped her body from the spikes that impaled it. For the first time in 100 years, Ishtar drew breath and could scream in agony. She screamed all the way up the shaft and into sunlight so bright it hurt her eyes. Her body, desperate to heal itself, began working all at once, and Ishtar screamed in fresh agony as the pieces of herself slowly rebuilt.

  When the last of the pain ebbed away, she saw Persephone, sitting cross-legged on the grass beside her. Ishtar sat up and spat blood out of her mouth. “How
long?”

  “Sixty-six years,” said Persephone.

  “Felt longer,” said Ishtar. “Everything feels longer here. In Heaven and Hell you can lose track of the centuries but here you can feel every moment.” She swung her hand, slapping Persephone’s face so hard that her cheekbone shattered and she flew backwards. “How could you leave me there, you bitch?”

  Persephone pulled herself up from the ground, her cheekbone already healing. Ishtar had expected her to be angry. Instead, she shrugged. “How could you betray Nyx?”

  “I didn’t betray her! I was working for her I was going to get the fucking pope under our control!”

  “The pope was under our control. The popes have been under our control since before Nyx locked you up. And they’re still under our control now. And you would have known that had you asked, but you didn’t because you were too busy fucking us over!”

  “I wasn’t fucking you over!”

  “What do you call it?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Persephone…” Ishtar stood up, stretching her wings. “Nyx wasn’t doing the job, so I did it for her. All right?”

  “She was doing the job.”

  “She had doubts, Persephone.”

  “Everyone has doubts.”

  “I don’t!” said Ishtar. “I have none at all. I want my fucking Paradise, and I’ll be damned if Nyx’s weakness is going to slow me down.”

  Persephone shook her head. “Nyx isn’t weak. Not any more.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  Persephone nodded. “She told me to give you this.” She handed Ishtar a brocaded cushion.

  Ishtar held it at arm’s length. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Smother Marozia,” said Persephone.

  Ishtar’s eyebrows went up. “She’s still alive?”

  “She’s been in prison in Rome for 50 years. She’s to be shriven of all sins, then killed. You’re to be her executioner.”

  Ishtar shrugged and took the cushion. “Fine. I will.”

  “Once you’ve done that, you’re to report to Nyx at the whorehouse. It’s still standing and doing a very good business.”

  “Fine.” Ishtar took off, winging towards Rome.

  She arrived late in the evening, when the last light of the sun was fading, slipped into the prison unseen and made her way down to the depths of it. She disguised herself as a soldier and asked directions, then wandered through the prison until she found the room. It had a single, high window, and stank of filth and disease. She could see the rat-holes in the walls, though there were none in sight.

  There were only two people in the cell. An old, old woman and a priest. And as Ishtar watched, the priest nodded his head and began speaking. “Deus, Pater misericordiarum, qui per mortem et resurrectionem Fílii sui mundum sibi reconciliavit et Spiritum Sanctum effudit in remissionem peccatorum, per ministerium Ecclesiae indulgentiam tibi tribuat et pacem… Et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”

  “Thank you, Father,” said the old woman. “Am I to be released, now?”

  “Soon, my child,” said the priest, looking up at Ishtar. “Very soon.”

  The priest rose and left, and Ishtar stepped into the room. The old woman squinted at her. “Are you here to let me out?”

  There was nothing of beauty left in her. No traces of the young girl she had been when Ishtar first corrupted her, nor the woman she had become when she was ruling over the papacy. Instead there was only a frail, tired old creature, with the marks of years of privation overlaid over the scars of long-ago tortures.

  The old woman squinted closer. “Ah, I see.” She lay back in the bed. “How is it to be, then?”

  Ishtar said nothing, just knelt down beside the bed.

  “I wish…” said Marozia, her old voice broken and quivery… “I wish my Angel had come back to me, just once. It wasn’t the same when she left. The popes began listening to their own Angels, and when I tried to force them to listen to me, they put me in here.” She shook her head. “My own son, if you can believe it, was the first to turn against me. But that’s all right. I had other sons, and their children were popes, too. And now…” She sighed. “It would have been good to see her again.”

  Maybe if you hadn’t fucked everything up so badly, she would have come back,” said Ishtar. “Pity you did.”

  She shoved the cushion hard on the old woman’s face, and watched her weak struggles.

  “It must be hard,” said Ishtar, “knowing that you were a tool for the Devil, and that everything you have done in life will send your soul to Hell.” The old woman’s struggles became more and more feeble. “And when you get to Hell, when Lucifer sees you, you’ll wish more than anything to be back here on earth, getting ass-fucked by the pope.” The struggling stopped. Ishtar waited a bit longer, then stood. “Whore.”

  Marozia’s soul rose slowly from her body, and to Ishtar’s surprise, kept rising, vanishing through the roof of the prison.

  “That little bitch goes to Heaven?” Ishtar said. “No. No way.”

  “Yes,” said Nyx behind her. Ishtar spun. Nyx stepped into the room, and the pale light of the candle reflected in her shiny black-scaled armor. “That’s why I had her shriven, Under the rules, she goes to heaven. If you thought I was going to let her be your plaything once we’re done here, you were mistaken.”

  Ishtar stared at Nyx, waiting. When the other Angel didn’t say anything, Ishtar said, “Well? Now what?”

  “Open your mind to me, Ishtar,” said Nyx. “Now.”

  Ishtar seriously considered not doing it, just to be spiteful. But she knew that, at the end of things, Nyx would have her way one way of the other. Ishtar shrugged and opened her mind.

  Even as Nyx entered into her thoughts, Ishtar entered Nyx’s mind. She had been here before, many times, both in Heaven and in Hell, and she was surprised how much had changed. Before Nyx’s mind had been a whirlwind, ever spinning, ever moving, coming up with plot after plot, idea after idea, from the torture of the souls in Hell to keeping the demons and Angels too busy squabbling with one another to attempt to attack her. She had even been capable of laughter in Hell, hearing the latest stories from those Angels she allowed to go to Earth.

  Now, all that was gone. Her mind was full of plots again, but against the humans. In the years Ishtar had been buried beneath the Earth, Nyx had been busy. The Rus were nearly at full strength, and prepared to crush the Christians when they marched West. Behind them, the Mongols were gaining power north of China, preparing for their own invasions. In Europe, she had a hundred little lords and kings thinking about the world beyond their borders, about Jerusalem and the Holy Land. They were not ready to move yet, but the seed had been planted.

  Beyond those, laying its mark over all of Nyx’s thoughts and ideas, was the driving force of Tribunal’s personality, indelibly marked on Nyx’s psyche, driving her forward the way nothing else could. Nyx would destroy Jerusalem, she would bring back her Tribunal, and the humans would be destroyed, not matter what.

  For Nyx, the journey into Ishtar’s mind was simple. Ishtar was tired of waiting, tired of Earth, tired of not having the freedom to torture and kill and make love as she wished. She wanted – craved, really – the black pits of Hell with the unending delights of torture and pain that awaited her there. She wanted to be set loose on the Earth to cause chaos and pain and death so she could reap more souls to go to their eternal doom. She wanted battle, not for the sheer joy of victory and the fight like Persephone, but for the joy of watching men and women and children suffer.

  Ishtar was also terribly, terribly angry at Nyx.

  “And will you stay angry at me?” asked Nyx inside Ishtar’s mind.

  “I don’t know,” said Ishtar back, knowing there was no way to hide the truth when they spoke mind to mind. “It really hurt.”

  “What would you have done,” said Nyx. “If you were I?”

  Ishtar was silent, but
in her mind loomed an image of Nyx, in exactly the same position, crushed under the rocks, save that where Nyx had left water dripping on Ishtar’s face to drive her mad, in Ishtar’s mind there was acid dripping onto Nyx’s face, and the rocks were heated red-hot, so that Nyx would feel the pain of the burning even as she screamed from the crushing and the acid.

  Nyx laughed out loud. “Oh, very good. I’ll remember that for next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” said Ishtar.

  “Not for you, my dear,” said Nyx. “But there’s always a next time for someone.” For the first time in nearly a hundred years, Nyx lay a hand on Ishtar’s face, and the warmth of bare Angelic flesh touching Angelic flesh, made Ishtar’s knees tremble. “I promise you,” said Nyx out loud, sliding her consciousness gently out of Ishtar’s mind, “that in the years to come you will have battle beyond what you can imagine. You will have more souls than you can count at your mercy, and you will have the freedom of Paradise and Hell. All you need to do is follow me. Can you follow me, Ishtar?”

  Ishtar leaned into Nyx’s hand, feeling the warmth of her flesh. “Of course I can, Nyx.” She leaned close and kissed Nyx’s lips, and Nyx kissed her back hard.

  “Come,” said Nyx. “Let’s find Persephone and celebrate properly.”

  They slipped out of the dungeon and flew off, wings nearly touching.

  And as they flew, Ishtar thought, I can follow you, and I will. But I will never, ever forgive you.

  For the next hundred thirty years, the three of them worked together. Persephone and Ishtar served together as handmaids to the Angel Nyx who guided the popes of the Catholic church. With Nyx they worked on the Rus, making them fierce warriors second to none. They cruised through Europe a hundred times, serving king after king, Holy Roman Emperors and powerful bishops. They worked through the East, destabilizing the Eastern Church as best they could while convincing the followers of Islam to attack again and again and again, until Constantinople itself was threatened. And throughout it all they whispered into ear after ear, telling tales of the riches of Jerusalem, and its importance to the people of the West, and how it should be in the hands of true Christians. They presided over the East-West Schism of the church, and over the births and deaths of half a hundred principalities in Europe.