One misfire and the wrath of Heaven or Hell would be on him. Throughout the operation, he kept a loaded Taurus. 38 close at hand.
He had dropped Azokal’s check in a Level Two Branch of the First City Bank then caught a cab to the hotel. Felon usually demanded cash or valuables up front, but his reputation was growing and he knew the Demon feared his gifts too much to chance insufficient funds.
Felon knew that the old adage, “never deal with the Devil” was absolutely true. Fallen Angels claimed to be the wealthiest deities of Hell, but were an untrustworthy lot so the assassin took their boasting with a grain of salt. Typically, they were compulsively organized-like psychopathic lawyers inextricably bound to unfathomable laws of self-protection and a celestial legal system that ruled them.
Every deal was suspect the moment bloody quill was set to parchment. It was their nature to want to get the upper hand. They thought it was their right so Felon knew he could take nothing for granted. If something was missing from a contract, they knew it. Rarely, did any of them talk about bartering souls. If they had that power Felon had never seen evidence of it. Apparently, souls were a commodity that had depreciated over the last thousand years.
As Fallen they strove to emulate the Divine order in Heaven with a system of their own. Their hierarchy awarded advancement to those who won advantage over humans or over others of their own kind. Felon was never given a clear description of how it worked. And he didn’t care enough to pursue it.
He preferred dealing with Demons. They were more dangerous, but their contracts more lucrative. Almost indistinguishable from Fallen in human folklore and religion, Felon had learned that they were a completely different species. This had prompted him to make a study of each. Ignorance was lethal in his business.
Fallen had only contempt for Demons and their parallel Infernal system. Comparisons prompted indignation if not outrage. Demons were unimpressed by their own hierarchy-Felon learned it was a chaotic system of feudal anarchy. Instead the majority expended enormous wealth and power in the advancement of their own passions. Demons were ruled by revenge. They were prodigal with their riches, and most seemed willing to part with a fortune to entertain some petty personal vendetta. The money was good and the employment steady-though at times a messy and degenerate affair.
Demons hated goodness far more than their Fallen counterparts. Fallen viewed the human graces as weaknesses to be exploited. Otherwise, they worked with or around goodness, as an intrinsic matter of business. Without it, they would have no more purpose than the madness of the Demon horde.
The Demons who had contracted Felon over the years appeared to resent goodness. He chalked that up to a feeling of inadequacy born of being shut out of Fallen Hierarchy; and the envy that must have caused, combined with the precipitous drop their position took in relation to the Divine Ranks in Heaven. They hated the Angelic host just slightly more than they did Fallen.
But Demons paid handsomely and since they were often employed as minions by Fallen, they maintained a better relationship with their own servants. If the job was done well, they paid and got on about their business. Regardless, Demons were dangerous. They were a put upon species, and quick to see an insult whether intended or not.
Regarding Heaven, Hell and the Pit, Felon had never received a satisfactory answer. They existed, that was obvious. But such intricacies were lost to the assassin. He didn’t care if they came from Ohio or Denmark or Limbo, as long as they paid. Felon hated them all. They were a powerful and anarchic waste of power. He claimed no allegiance with any one. Playing the center served him best.
But Felon hated Angels most of all. He had worked for them only once before switching to more lucrative business partnerships. The Celestial Choir had wealth to share, but they were not generous with it. Their holier than thou attitude made it very easy for them to cheat at business, apparently adding an unwritten clause into every contract: “No payment necessary if said services can be considered to contain educational or redemptive value.”
Felon had experienced only one such arrangement. It had happened only months after his epiphany of pain, when an Angel approached him to whack an abusive father. The assassin’s new knowledge allowed him to believe the creature’s claim without proof. He could smell the Angel-cinnamon, sickly. The target was terrorizing his wife and child with sexual abuse and violence. Nathaniel was a Guardian Angel who appeared to Felon as a kindly old grandfather with twinkling eyes and round red nose. He was four feet tall dressed in wool sweater and slacks. A steady warm glow emanated from his halo. He wanted Felon to intervene on his behalf.
Much later, Felon learned that Angels came in all shapes and sizes. There were guardians, protectors, and messengers-though at the end of the Millennium most were regarded by humanity as little more than good luck charms. Guardians were given clients to look after without directly intervening. Intervention was the purview of God and no one else.
But Angels could bend the rules a little. They could insinuate, make helpful suggestions and minor protections. The Divine Compact kept them from doing anything else. It declared that Angels could not make themselves known to human eyes without the permission of God.
In this case, Nathaniel was at the end of his rope. The father of his client failed to learn from his mistakes, or see the light of truth through introspection. Nathaniel’s charge was a girl, 11 pre-Change years of age. She was taking the brunt of the abuse.
Nathaniel offered Felon a lost Reuben’s painting captured from a Japanese collector whose mansion had been located on the seashore near Hiroshima. The Angel picked it up moments before the atomic bomb dropped. Apparently in the seconds before a cataclysm of human wrought or natural origin the Cosmic rules were relaxed. Devils, Demons and Angels were drawn to such places by the impending doom and the screams of souls foretasting death. Angels and their fallen brethren arrived for the recovery of the works of man. Demons attended for Chaos and Hellfire.
Nathaniel offered Felon the Reuben’s work, worth a respectable fortune on the black market, since it was considered lost. He was suspicious about the transaction from the start since it was a lot of money for capping a nobody. Felon accepted and signed the contract. He shot the abusive father through the eyes two days later, removed his head and burned it.
When it came time to collect, Nathaniel balked. “Think you, that you had a hand on the pulse of God’s great plan-surely the wealth of that experience is found in your acceleration of the powers of good. Look inside, Felon,” the Angel had said in his grandfather’s voice, “and see there a light far brighter than the illusion of gold.” Felon remembered looking inside, and finding only a blaze of anger.
He had acted impetuously then. Gun flicking out, he shot the Angel four times in the face. The old man persona had melted away as the body evaporated, the flesh dissolved quickly to expose the alien skeleton beneath. Felon had only a moment to view the smoking bones, thinner and longer than human, with wings rapidly burning up in death. In a little under ten minutes an oily mark was all that remained. Felon had taken a huge chance, and he scolded himself for it later-the open face of hatred was too much like faith-too certain and self-assured. He had acted on an impulse that could have killed him.
His had been a life of simmering hatred where he was content to nurse ancient grudges-boil them like molten metal to form weapons. Only a controlled repugnance of all things gave him superiority. Such unfocused anger left him blind to the world. And he had not known at the time that Angels could be killed. Much later, he learned that Angels and Demons in physical form were vulnerable to all the ills, calamities and mortal injuries that humans were. Human beings didn’t know this, because few would offer them injury. They also had a degree of omniscience that made them impossible to surprise.
This first Angel kill made Felon aware of his gift. He was immune to their Divine perceptions. They couldn’t read his mind, so he could surprise them. He later learned he could surprise Fallen and Demons, which secured and endangered his relationships with those beings. He came to depend upon this ability. It was his livelihood and chief defense.
He drifted back from his reverie to finish oiling and assembling the. 44 magnum. He liked its weight. The assassin contemplated nothing. It was still early. A note at the front desk the night before told him he had an appointment with a Demon and former employer. They were to meet at noon. Killing the Cherubs had left the assassin restless. He needed sleep but had been too keen with adrenaline to get much the night before. He wouldn’t nap; instead Felon let his mind go numb until nothing flickered there. He was too old to drift through his memories. There was too much in his head for that.
