A Lower Deep

The locusts swarmed around us, their human faces on grasshopper bodies speaking in minuscule voices I couldn't understand. Self swatted and ate them by the dozens, and Hotfoot Johnson and the black owl Prickeare did the same, soaring between the Dragon's legs and over its shoulders. Imps jumped and bounced all over, feasting. Jamara dragged itself forward grabbing mouthfuls of the locusts and spitting out their brass breastplates.

I looked up at the Dragon. It's already dead.

Not quite.

Elijah 's not in there. He's abandoned that body. It's just a mindless hulk again. It's not the Beast of Revelation.

Perhaps it is. Or will be. We can't take any chances. We have to do these things even if they appear to be pointless.

His honesty stopped me and made me snap around to look at him. Why?

Self shrugged. You got me.

My father, Michael, and I hefted the sword together and drove it into the Dragon's gigantic ankle.

It was already a creature of stone, and as the fire from the sword moved up the Dragon's leg it seemed to absorb the crimson coloring and draw it from the beast. Once again the hybrid turned ashen, and fissures ran up the length of its marble hewn skin. Elijah's hatred animated it now, but his soul was on the loose. Boulder-sized chunks of its body began to break free and crumble around us. We ran for cover and I dragged my dad back toward the ruins. Michael's expression was one of confusion-even he didn't believe his war with the great Red Dragon could be won so easily as this. He shook his oversize head slowly, knowing that this was only a staged Armageddon of cardboard and smoke, and that he'd been betrayed and misused.

The archangel Michael, warrior hand of God and general of all heaven's armies, turned and glared at me with such intense malice, with the infinite and eternal hate so clear and bright in his eyes, that I trembled until I almost couldn't stand any longer. He sneered and pointed at my heart, and with his little wings flapping he flew off to the south, deranged and furious.

I knew he'd be back one day for his revenge.

He wanted this. Damn him.

Who?

Elijah.

Silver glow ebbing with the coming of evening, the coven began to awaken from Jebediah's spell. The two girls pregnant with Fuceas-spawn immediately dropped inside the magik circle and began to shriek and writhe as they miscarried the hellborn.

I sat in the center of Jebediah's majik circle for the greatest focus of astral energy, tasting the hint of his remnant incantations and charms. He was still smiling and the hexes bled even faster from his eyes. I tightly crossed my legs, feet pulled up so that they touched opposite thighs, spine straight and head back. Motes of black energy leaked from my mouth and wafted past, encircling my own eyes. My hands were at the center of my chest with fingers interlaced into specific placement. Pinkies, thumbs, and index fingers steepled, and these three steeples each pointing back at myself-thumbs aimed at the heart, pointers at my throat, pinkies toward the forehead.

I looked over and Marcus was doing the same, joining me in this invocation and on this journey, wherever it might lead.

Jebediah wasn't about to quit. He intensified his spell and the chanting of the coven grew louder. Even the girls aborting on the ground were still caught in the lace-work of his scheme. Their mouths spoke words while their bellies writhed and the bubbling pink yolk and eggs of the demon earl Fuceas ran out from between their legs.

I visualized his bitterness and I imagined his happiness, the same duality existing in him as in me. His chin leaked sparks and his scarred face lit with remorse, hopelessness, and the lonely intense wish for death and absolution. No wonder we had found each other. We were so much alike.

I saw his heart's desire and I would summon it. Jebediah felt my lengthy reach across the drawn veil, my will joined to Marcus's as we went beyond life and nature.

'What?' Jebediah said. 'What is happening? You're doing something!'

I finally knew in my heart that he had not asked me to the place of battles in order to take over the world or do God's will or instigate Armageddon.

He only wanted me to save him.

What time is it?

The ninth hour, of course, Self said. You know what you're doing?

It's a little too late to ask now, isn't it?

It's always been too late.

You said it, not me.

Jebediah's hold on the others loosened and they began to rouse from their stupor.

'What is this?' he yelled, terrified because the world had not yet ended. 'What are you doing!'

'I'm giving you what you want, Jebediah.'

It was easy to draw power from him as his psychic lusts and ghosts, needs and dreads seethed, churned, and fermented deep within. I caught pieces of desires that weren't my own, each ripping at me like teeth and talons. The edges of my vision turned black and red. My hair stood on end and sweat drenched every inch of me. Waves of violent force pounded and twined around all of us. I spoke the necessary ancient words clearly, my tongue wrapping around the uncomfortable sounds and spitting them out. Self urged me on, shivering and trapped in the backwash of our making.

'You don't know what I want!'

'I told you once. This isn't about Christ,' I said.

I summoned forth Peck in the Crown, purified and accepted into heaven.

Jebediah's familiar, his second self, dead as long as Danielle, slowly appeared before me in a maelstrom of eddying shadows and light. Dark jagged bolts of skipping energy erupted from the earth. He looked so much like Jebediah, and Self, and me, all of us there in his small dead face coming to life. He looked at me and smiled.

Peck in the Crown wandered free and looked toward Jebediah. Both of their mouths worked silently as they stumbled toward each other with open arms and embraced among us.

Marcus unwound from his position sucking air loudly and slumped onto his side, completely drained from aiding me. Dad shuffled over and peered at the stirring shadows. Something was wrong. Even though I'd ended it the spell of resurrection continued on its own.

There was another presence here, grabbing on to my will and forcing itself back onto the earth. For a moment I prayed it was Danielle, and then I was absolutely terrified that it might be her.

And from those swollen, swirling shadows of light and anguish came another.

He had eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet were of fine brass, his hair white as wool. He felt as empty and ethereal as the broken promises of heaven. I touched his hand, smooth and cold.

My mind throbbed with a rising scream that eventually made it to my mouth. Whoever had pulled the strings today-Jebediah, Elijah, Satan, or someone else-had not counted on the will of God. Now would begin the apocalypse. A third of humanity would immediately die, the oceans boiling and turning to blood, a plague of locusts loosed on mankind as starvation and war and pestilence ran through the nurseries and yards. As the stars fell from the night. sky the true Dragon would rise from the depths and begin a reign of torment, misery, and depravity that would last a thousand years.

I couldn't let it happen.

Betty's butcher knife still lay nearby in the dust. Self or I or Dad or all of us shrieked until our throats cracked.

I picked up the knife and stabbed forward into the light.

Sorrowful, sympathetic eyes gazed at me as hot blood sprayed across my hands. 'Forgive me!' I howled.

Blazing eyes, dying but not forgiving. It was done.