Gods of Death

8 : Chaos and Calm

Chamuel began to stand. Victor watched in awe as bone regrew rapidly, knitting together on the back of the Archangel's head as he staggered to his knees.

"Victor!" screamed Emma, "Kill him!"

Emotions and logic warred inside Victor's mind, throwing his decision-making around his confused skull like a squash ball speeding around a court. It bounced off this wall and that, ricocheting from the floor into the glass of the back screen with a resounding echoing bong. He raised the sword and brought it slamming down at the root of one of Chamuel's wings.

The feathered appendage severed from the Archangel's body cleanly. It fell to the floor and immediately the wing disintegrated and turned to dust. Chamuel cried out in pain and fear. He looked up, still crouching, and his eyes locked on to Victor's own.

A sharp sting across his neck brought Victor out of the moment's connection and he closed his eyes tight, shutting out the image of the Archangel, his halo, his cascading golden curls. Victor swung the sword again, this time with deliberate purpose. The blade met flesh and the remaining wing separated to instantly decay and be gone.

Victor stood blindly above his foe. Everything was lost. The squash ball rebounded once more and flew in straight trajectory to the centre of his mind. He mustn't let Chamuel speak; he must not let him forgive.

"Victor!" Chamuel gasped.

Victor decapitated him.

The room silent, Victor opened his eyes. He looked down at the headless corpse of the Archangel. Already skin was blackening and falling away. Chamuel's hands broke to pieces and the lifeless body, previously held in an all-fours position, lurched forward off-balance. Armour clattered to the floor before it dissolved. It took less than a minute before all that was left was a few wisps of greying dust.

The other imp, the one that wasn't Emma, began to clap slowly.

"Simon!" Emma admonished and immediately the second imp began his spell. His weaving through the air was rapid and both him and the woman were gone before Victor could form a word.

"We have to go too," said Emma, "grab the scabbard."

She was already performing the ritual that would open the portal back to Hell. Victor walked stunned to the table. His coffee was still there, half-full, warm. Chamuel had finished his before he died.

Victor picked up the cup and put it to his lips. "Understanding," he muttered to himself as he gulped down the remaining liquid. Despite everything it still tasted wonderful.

A shimmering light from his left told him Emma's magic was completed and he sheathed his sword, already clean from the mysterious magic that suffused it.

"Ready?" she asked.

Victor nodded and followed her through.

"What the f**k happened to you in there?" Emma screamed as soon as Victor's head was fully through the gateway. "Simple task, Victor, simple f*****g task. You take the sword and you cut the f*****g angel in half!"

"I don't want to talk about it," Victor said, his voice low.

"Don't want to talk about it! We're both on the f*****g line here, Victor, old chum; this isn't just some f*****g mini-quest for you to get back to the land of the living, there's stuff going on. Stuff! Do you understand me? More than you, more than me, actual f*****g complicated stuff."

"Emma, shut up." Victor sat on the ground. Already the heat from the lava rivers was reaching him and making his arms tingle. From the cold of Swedish snow to this.

"I'm not going to shut up. And since when did you start giving me orders?"

Victor put his hand to his cheek, there was a thin line of blood that still oozed where Emma had whipped him with her tail. Another crossed his other cheek and a third wrapped around his neck. "You have to stop this," he said, indicating the slashes.

"Oh f**k off, Victor, f**k off. I had to go get Simon and whatever-her-name-is, the b****y Polish psychopath. I had to grovel before him, ask him for help, because I was going to lose you to b****y Chamuel and his charm."

Chamuel. Victor felt himself choke. He sucked in a long breath through his nose and composed his mind.

"Who are they?"

"What? You think it's just you and me? You think there's no one else involved in this little experiment? It's a f*****g war, Victor, there are a lot of players."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"It's all the answer you are f*****g getting." Emma landed on a windowsill and folded her wings tight. For a moment she looked like nothing more than a tiny pretty girl, like a doll.

"I'm sorry, Emma," Victor said suddenly. "I hadn't considered your situation, thought about your feelings."

"Oh." Emma visually calmed down. "It's OK, I suppose, but we have to do better next time."

"We can do better," Victor agreed.

"So what did happen anyway?" Emma asked, her voice inquisitive rather than annoyed.

"He invited me in. We had coffee. We chatted."

Emma laughed, a warm human-like chortle rather than her traditional cackle.

"He was..." Victor searched for the word, "nice."

"He would be, he was a f*****g Archangel!"

"Yes." Victor's voice was sad and Emma looked at him sympathetically.

"It's them or us, Victor, we don't have a choice."

Victor nodded.

"And it's not like they haven't lived a long and fulfilling life! Maybe it's time for a revolution."

"Is that what this is, a revolution?"

"I dunno. Yes, no, maybe?"

"Emma, what is going on?"

Emma jumped to her feet and launched into the air, her wings coming out with a snap!

"Shh," she hissed, "they're coming."

Victor stood up and looked out of the doorway. Three was in the lead, jogging in front of his two peers. They were talking to each other, but he couldn't hear the words.

"Look at them," he said quietly, "acting like they f*****g rule the world."

Emma beat a triple whump whump whump by his ear. "They act like they f*****g rule the world because they do," she said. "Now be a good boy and listen to what they have to say, and whatever you do, don't mention how you had breakfast with a f*****g Archangel."

"It wasn't breakfast," said Victor, "it was just coffee."

The three Gods of Death approached.