“Canceled?” Montagin protested. “Aszrus was a leading general of the Heavenly legions here to assess the situation brought on by the reemergence of the threat of Lucifer Morningstar. His responsibilities cannot just be canceled.”
Remy’s eyes darted around the hallway, making sure that no one was around before he spoke. “Well, guess what? They’re going to have to be, unless our friend in there is going to show up at one of his meetings sporting a lovely hole where his heart used to be.”
They glared at each other, the immensity of the situation weighing on them both.
“Perhaps it wouldn’t unfold like we think,” Montagin suggested. “Maybe if we stress your belief that the Morningstar wouldn’t—”
“You know as well as I do that’s exactly how it would unfold,” Remy interrupted. “War would be declared as soon as they saw the body—and since when would any of the Heavenly host have anything to do with what I have to say? They can’t fucking stand me.”
“True,” Montagin agreed. “But I don’t know how I’m going to keep this secret for very long.”
Remy looked at the doors. “First, we have to seal this up,” he said.
“Seal it up?”
“Nothing gets in there,” Remy explained. “We’re better off if no one knows he’s dead.”
“A locked door will not keep a being of Heaven from getting inside,” Montagin informed him.
“True, if we’re going the traditional route,” Remy said.
Montagin stared, unsure of where this was going. “Go on.”
“Magick,” Remy said. “We’ll find a magick user strong enough to weave a spell around the study, to keep anybody from getting in. Hopefully that will buy me enough time to come up with something to keep the dogs of war on their leashes.”
“And how do you suggest we locate this magick user?” Montagin questioned. “Should I look him up in the phone book, or use one of those computing devices and find him on the interweb?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Remy said. “I think I know enough to find somebody that should be able to handle the job. The payment might be steep, but considering the alternative . . .”
Montagin laughed—one of those freezing-cold displays of emotion popular with these creatures of the divine.
“Did I say something funny?” Remy asked him.
“All this effort, and we’re not even sure if it’s true or not,” the angel said, shaking his head.
“If what is true?”
“That Lucifer isn’t somehow responsible for this,” Montagin said. “Responsible for what’s gone on in there.” He pointed briefly to the closed doors, the horrible secret on the other side just pushing to get out and explode upon the world.
“That’s something I’m just going to have to find out,” Remy said. “That, and a magick user to put the granddaddy of all padlocks on that door.”
Simeon vaguely recalled the sound of the heavy metal bolt in the door being slid back, and the creak of rusty hinges, before being taken by unconsciousness again.
It was the intense pain of claws scratching across his lower body that drew him up from the pool of oblivion.
Simeon screamed.
He opened bleary eyes to gaze upon a foul sight: a demonic creature of pale gray flesh with a humped back and a circular, tooth-ringed mouth like that of a leech. It had dug its long, filthy claws into his belly and was digging bloody rivulets into his fragile flesh.
His screams echoed mournfully throughout the dungeon.
“How do you do this?” asked a voice from somewhere within the room of torture.
Simeon could see that it was not the beast who spoke, its ringed mouth not likely made for speaking. With great effort he lifted his head from where he hung naked, chained by the wrists and ankles, and squinted bloodshot eyes to see what addressed him.
Something tugged excruciatingly from below, and his eyes dropped to see that the demon had torn a hole in his belly. It had withdrawn a rope of his innards and was now feeding it into its circular maw.
Simeon felt himself on the verge of tumbling back down into the black of the abyss when the voice spoke again.
“Every bone broken—mended in a matter of days,” the voice said. “Stabbed, flayed, and now disemboweled and eaten while still alive.”
The darkness crept closer around his eyes, threatening to claim him once more, when the figure that was speaking stepped into the faint light thrown by a smoldering brazier. Earlier it had heated instruments of torture that had been used upon his flesh.
Ignatius Hallow stood before him, clad in heavy robes, a skullcap of glistening copper atop his head.
“I ask you again, what manner of thing are you?”
Simeon answered before he could again be pulled down into temporary death. “I . . . I am . . . I am a man.”
He vomited a stream of blood on the demon squatting below him. The hellish beast didn’t seem to mind, its gray skin now speckled with color.
Hallow laughed.
“Oh yes. Of course you are.”
As the demon excitedly tugged more length from the coiled intestines inside his belly, Simeon briefly died.
Briefly.
When he came round once more, he was no longer chained to a wall, but had been strapped to a wooden table, the tall figure of Ignatius Hallow hovering over him.
“Ah, you’re with us again,” the necromancer stated.
“Yes,” Simeon croaked, doubting he would be for very long.
And he was right.
Hallow lifted a blade and brought it down with all his might into Simeon’s chest, causing his heart to explode as the metal blade perforated it.
Simeon died again in a white-hot flash of agony, before the coolness of the dark dragged him below.
“The Nazarene,” said a voice that pulled him up from the depths of nothing.
Simeon opened his eyes, and found himself gazing at his own reflection in a blood-flecked mirror. As his eyes slowly began to focus, he could see the form of Hallow looming behind him, hard at work, delicate metal instruments probing the bloody insides of his head. The top of his skull had been cut away, his neck and head strapped tightly to the back of a chair.
“How do you know of him?” Simeon asked weakly.
“The brain is a most magnificent organ,” the necromancer stated, putting down one of his surgical tools only to have another placed within his bloody hand by a demonic assistant. “If one were to look closely enough, I feel that one could find the secrets of all existence. . . .”
Hallow jabbed the point of his metal tool into a specific spot of the soft, gray matter of Simeon’s organ of thought.
“Or at least yours,” Hallow finished as stars erupted before Simeon’s eyes; he could not help but laugh hysterically, though he did not know the reason.
He laughed and laughed until he could no longer breathe, and another bout of death came round to see if this time would be the last.
It wasn’t.
When next he lived, Simeon opened his eyes to the sight of Hallow sitting upon an enormous throne of intricately carved wood, directly across from him, goblet of wine in hand, staring intensely.
