Ian Tregillis - Something More Than Night Page 18

  Uriel had already passed from the Thrones’ Magisterium and was striding through the between-spaces of the Pleroma. I hurried to catch up. She had quite a pair of pipe stems on her. I waited until we’d put some distance from the hoosegow before saying anything.

  “Thanks,” I told her. “I always said you flaming sword types were the real cream.”

  “No doubt.”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  “I’ve been around the block a few times, Bayliss.” She paused, frowned, looked me over. “Why ‘Bayliss’?”

  “Why Bayliss what?”

  “What sort of name is that?” It’s like I said: we in the Choir are big on proper names.

  “It’s a swell name. And besides,” I said, “all the best ones were taken.”

  The sun belched. The Earth’s magnetic field lines fluttered like gauzy curtains in an ocean-side bungalow. They cast rippling boreal light across Uriel’s ox muzzle and shone on eyes the color of lukewarm magma. But the glimmer of her wings put that grubby mortal light show to shame. Maybe I stared too hard, maybe she reminded me too much of Gabby, maybe she didn’t like me any more than the Thrones did. When she caught me staring, she flipped the lion pan in my direction and gave a little growl. I backed off; magnetic reconnection sent a stream of high-energy particles tumbling down the Earth’s polar well. Add a random smattering of skin cancer cases to my list of guilty burdens.

  “Come on,” she said, “I’ll give you a lift.”

  “Generous of you.”

  I hadn’t told her where I was going, but she didn’t ask. And it seemed rude to refuse the lady. Before I could give her the address she enfolded us in her wings, packed us into a six-dimensional sphere (one for each wing; three temporal, three spatial) and before I could say “boo” we stood on the doorstep of my Magisterial apartment. But I’d had my heart set on a visit to Flo.

  Not too ungratefully, I suggested the diner. “I could warm my tonsils with a cup of joe. Getting beaten with a phone book takes it out of a guy.” Uriel didn’t go for it, so I poured on the honey. “I know the owner. I can talk a plate of bacon out of him, no charge.”

  Uriel stretched, straightened her wings; dewy cobwebs everywhere sighed and wished for better starlight. Her eagle face yawned, clacked its beak. Its breath smelled musty, like it had been catching rabbits from forgotten corners of the universe. “I’m not keen to get grease stains on my pinfeathers,” she said.

  I said, “No kidding. I’ll bet your dry-cleaning bills are murder.” But I gave up and made for the apartment all the same.

  Somebody had paid a visit while I was out: the hair I’d hidden in the door frame had been dislodged. Whoever let themselves into my digs, they hadn’t noticed it. I tried not to let the satisfaction show, and wondered what sort of dope overlooks the oldest trick in the book.

  Maybe they were too busy kicking down the door. The hinges were severed and scorched. Their sheared edges still glowed a dull nuclear orange, as though somebody had cut through them with something sharp and fiery.

  “After you.” Uriel ushered me ahead with her sword.

  I figured to find the place tossed, as the Cherubim had done to Molly’s digs. Imagine my relief, then, when all I found out of place was the chessboard by the window. Somebody had moved a piece. Even my pipe still smoldered in the ashtray where I’d left it.

  She—I mean they, whoever they were—hadn’t come to toss the place. They’d come to drag me from my bed in the middle of the night. Only I wasn’t there; I was down at the station house with the Bobbsey Twins. Guess it ruined a good show when the Thrones put the arm on me.

  “Looks like you had it lined up tight,” I said. “But the bulls scotched your performance when they jugged me.”

  Uriel kicked a chair at me. Her lion visage growled again. “Take a seat, wise guy.”

  Again, not a direct translation. But sometimes you just can’t translate poetry.

  “Nuts to you,” I said. “I’m having that coffee one way or another.” I went to the kitchen, feeling none too comfortable about turning my back on a Seraph. But I played it cool. “Flap your jaw at me while I minister to the percolator.”

  She didn’t. Instead, she perused my bookshelf while I scooped grounds and ran the contraption under the tap. I dragged it out as long as I could, to buy myself a little time. I had the itch that told me I wasn’t going to like what she had to say. Or maybe it was the door that clued me in. I have a knack for deductive reasoning.

  I watched her while the percolator gurgled. Uriel never put down her heater. She plucked the books from my shelf one-handed, the other always on the hilt of the blazing sword canted over her shoulder like a poacher’s rifle. She turned the pages by fanning them with her wings. Guess you can get pretty delicate when you’ve got six of the things. I always figured the Seraphim could do a swell turn of business selling pillows during molting season. She spawned a trio of Indian Ocean typhoons in the course of investigating my shelves. Whether that was a commentary on my reading choices, probably. Too modern. The high rollers have champagne tastes, but old-fashioned ones. I doubted Uriel had been to Earth since the time they painted her portrait in the Hagia Sofia but mistakenly called her a Cherub. You’ve never seen an angel pitch a fit like that.

  Her own fault, though. As I said, it gets complicated when the high rollers visit Earth. Better they don’t.

  The hot remnants of my door hinges had cooled from gammas to X-rays by the time the percolator stopped making a show and I ran out of excuses to stall. I poured a cup for myself then fortified it with a dash from my flask. I didn’t offer anything to the Seraph in my living room. Didn’t want her sword igniting the fumes. And anyway, she could take a long walk off a very short pier. Don’t tell her I said that.

  “All right,” I said, “say your peace.”

  I took a sip. Maybe it was a slurp. A flick of her wrist sent the tip of her blade through my cup. It cleaved the oils into fragments of biological molecules, rendered an invigorating jolt of joe into a nauseating hydrocarbon stew. The scent of fresh coffee became the toxic stench of burnt plastic. I sighed, dumped the contents into the sink, and sat in the chair she’d kicked out.

  Her eagle pan said, “I came to give you a warning.”

  I looked again to the scorched door lying in the middle of my apartment. Bet there were some red faces around the water cooler when they realized she’d put on the big show only to find I wasn’t home. I said so.

  “If you want to play smartass with the Thrones,” she said, “knock yourself out. But you’re dragging our late lamented friend through the mud with your antics. No more.”

  “What’s the harm? So I took an interest in Gabby’s—”

  Her wings flared. They seared X-ray–colored afterimages inside my eyelids. I’d forgotten how bright the Seraphim could be when they lifted the dampers.

  “His name,” she said, “was Gabriel.”

  I fished out a handkerchief to clean the bloody tears from my face. “Point taken. Still don’t see the harm.”

  “You’re an ignorant, clumsy lout. You have all the subtlety of METATRON but without its grace. You make a mess everywhere you go. And you’re annoying.”

  “You forgot my dashing movie-star looks.”

  Uriel didn’t agree. That hurt my feelings. She said, “We’re handling Gabriel’s murder ourselves. We don’t need you raising questions. The Choir is watching you, and you’re broadcasting the wrong impression. That will stop now. You will fail to find what you seek, and Gabriel’s memory will persist unsullied. As it ought.”

  “Sister, has the entire Choir gone screwy? Can’t you tell I just want my nice quiet little life back?”

  “We doubt it.”

  I said, “Who is ‘we’?” But it was a wasted breath. Who else? A tight little clique, those Seraphim. Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Raguel … Inseparable. Insufferable.

  “We’re handling it.”

  “Yeah? You finger the trigger man yet? You
even know how those heels scratched him?”

  Nice thing about the Seraphim: that human face packs a lot of emotion. Never been too accomplished at reading the emotions of eagles and lions, but I’d been on Earth long enough to recognize when some lollipop is trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

  That look came over her human face now when she said, “We have it under control.”

  “You’re full of sizzle but no steak. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “Focus on keeping that monkey girlfriend of yours on a tighter leash. And see that she’s housebroken. If she pisses in the pool again you’ll both regret it.”

  “Yesterday’s news, toots. And anyway, she’s one of us now. She can do as she pleases.”

  “One of us? She’s nothing but a monkey with airs. And if she doesn’t fall into line soon we’ll teach her what you can’t.”

  I reached for my pipe. Emptying and refilling it, I said, “What gives with all the swagger these days? Seems a guy can’t walk down the street without getting beaten and threatened. I remember when the Pleroma was a swell place to settle down and raise kids.” I held the bowl of my pipe under her sword until the flames took. “Those were the days.” I puffed until the smoke filled my mouth with the taste of cherries, or would have, had I a mouth at that moment. It brought me back to a time and place where cherry trees grew on terraced hillsides, and the trees were picked by friendly maidens, and the maidens were very friendly indeed. I sighed. “At the end of the day the threats are meaningless. Your punishments can’t go too far or you’ll rouse METATRON. So stuff a sock in the bluster, buster.”

  She gave me a look that should have left me two inches shorter. “Don’t overestimate your charm, Bayliss.”

  “I don’t. I’m too busy wondering what you meant when you said Gabb—I mean, Gabriel’s—memory would persist unsullied. That implies there’s room for sullying. So what’s the dirt? It must be thick if you had to send the Thrones out to grease their axles.”

  Next thing I knew, my chair had gone over backward and I was doing my best impression of Damocles. “You’ll stop asking questions about Gabriel. And your monkey will play nice from now on.”

  I tried not to go cross-eyed, but it was hard not to goggle at the tip of that thing hovering a femtometer from my noggin. She was fixing to pierce me in the third eye; I wondered if the Archangels would take on a charity case like me. Up close, that pig-sticker looked sharp enough to shear the red from a rainbow.

  “Thing of it is, sister, every dopey Cherub and Throne and Virtue and Power will be gunning for her until somebody finally turns up the Trumpet. Half the damn Choir thinks she has it, or knows where to find it. And as long as they’re gunning for her, they’re aiming at me. You want us to pipe down? Put things back in order.”

  She pinned me to the floor by planting a hoof on my chest. It probably gave me a good look at her shapely faun legs, but I was too preoccupied to notice because her touch burned like an iron. Something sizzled and stank of burnt rose petals. I wondered if she intended to hold that pose until she burned straight through me and ruined the carpet. I’d hate to lose the security deposit.

  Uriel knelt over me. “We’ll have things in order in due time. Your smartass bumbling is making it difficult. Walk away.” Her breath sparkled with Čerenkov light. “The monkey’s problems aren’t your problems. A smart angel would leave her to her own devices. A smart angel would get some distance from her. Sooner than later.”

  “You Seraphim are thick as thieves. What are you hiding from the bulls? When you thought I might have learned enough about Gabriel to tip them to your play, you swooped in and sent them packing.” I couldn’t push too far or I’d tip her to the fact I knew he’d been lamping Molly before he died. But did that sword waver, just the tiniest bit? While her eagle aspect shrieked at me and the human face frowned, I pressed my opening: “Enough with the sharp elbows. What did the priest know?”

  Uriel stood, took her hoof from my chest. Sheer poetry in the way she moved, even the way she decided not to torture me any further. Generous souls, those Seraphim. She exhaled another cloud of superluminal fireflies, saying, “I’ve delivered my message. Take it or leave it.”

  On the way out, she added, “I’d get that door fixed if I were you. I hear this is a tough neighborhood.”

  I barely heard her, because I had a flash of insight just then. Or maybe it was a hallucination caused from the pain. I called after her. “Santorelli was on the pad, wasn’t he?”

  But Uriel was gone. She didn’t bother to close the door.

  * * *

  I dusted myself off, finally had that cup of joe, took a shower, fixed the door, slathered ointment across the blistered hoofprint on my chest, rolled into bed, scraped my face, and let myself sleep in. Not necessarily in that order. Then I decided it was time to go for a drive. It had been a while since I’d taken the scenic route through the Pleroma. And from the sound of it, things had gone downhill since then. What a shame. There had been a time when it was nothing but orange groves as far as the eye could see. The world was simpler back then.

  Knock it off, Bayliss, you sentimental sap.

  I figured nobody could get sore at me if I took a gander at the Nephilim. It wasn’t poking my nose into Gabby’s business, and as long as flametop kept a low profile on Earth, we were overdue for some smooth angles. Plus, if I knew the Choir, I wouldn’t be alone in rubbernecking the newcomers. This was headline news, after all. And on that count, at least, I was right. I expected a few gawkers; I didn’t expect a milling throng with Thrones and Dominions working crowd control. What can I say? Eternity can get dull. You take your kicks where you can find them.

  The first sighting had occurred in the ontological boondocks. I parked on a cliff overlooking the shoreline where the churning surf of quantum information paradoxes boomed against the shoals of nonisotropic dimensionality. The ceaseless breeze is cooler here than it is on the California coast, and rather than the tang of salt and death it carries the scents of desiccated wonder and threadbare possibility. Waxy tufts of alternate causalities cover the hillsides here like ice plant. They crunched underfoot.

  Foot traffic from the rubberneckers had eroded a path in the thin dusty soil that sprinkled the ontological bedrock here. Somebody had cobbled together a fence from slats of lightning and chicken wire of braided starlight; it bordered the path and kept latecomers like me from wandering over hill and dale. Maybe the Powers were still tramping around with their magnifying glasses, seeking cigarette butts and shoe prints. Or maybe there were things they didn’t want the rank and file to see. Too bad; I can’t stand a secret.

  I tried but couldn’t hop the fence. It was taller and less rickety than it looked. So many of my brethren had come to goggle this particular Nephil that our overlapping conceptions of reality had melded into a bland and unremarkable bubble. It was like a mini-MOC right there in the Pleroma. Couldn’t tell you the last time that had happened. Apparently the gang had agreed to an ontological substrate where we played nice and respected the boundaries represented by the fence. What a bunch of suckers. But I couldn’t throw the kind of weight it would take to raise a pimple on that nice smooth sphere of consensus, so I made like a tourist and joined the conga line with the rest of the saps jostling for a good look at the interloper.

  An enterprising soul could have made a pretty penny selling sandwiches and lemonade to the yokels. I wondered how much wax paper cost in the Pleroma these days. Maybe after all was said and done I could get a small business license, become a respectable pillar of the Choir community. I made a mental note to propose a partnership with Flo; a few slices of her banana cream would knock this crowd out of its socks.

  The trail switchbacked past the hermit cave where the lowly angel had been doing its meditations prior to stumbling over the Nephil. Poor kid probably had to abandon its hobby and find new digs after the gawkers started queuing up. The switchback relaxed into a wide knoll built from alternating sedimentary layers of hidden-vari
able theories. The rubbernecks took their time along the edge, gaping and gazing and snapping blurry holiday pics. It took finesse to weave through the crowd. I didn’t have it. I trod on the trailing edge of a Dominion’s leathery bat wing and got an earful for it. I backed off, making my apologies, and barely dodged a swift kick with a diamond greave. I tried not to take it personally; they weren’t so bad, the Dominions, but Gustave Doré gave them a bum rap and they’d been sulky ever since.

  Naturally, the high rollers had claimed the front-row seats. I had to content myself with taking in the view through the transparent wings of a Cherub. The knoll overlooked a narrow sound formed by multidimensional breakwaters of quantum indeterminacy. Slow ripples of mathematical entropy lapped at the shoreline, eroding the non-Abelian symmetry groups along the water’s edge into towering pillars of salt. Not much to see at a casual glance, unless one happened to notice the minuscule refraction of time shadows where formless ontology met the subtlest hint of teleology. I was staring at a dormant topological defect in the Pleroma. So were we all.

  Easy thing to overlook. Probably would have missed it altogether had I been camped out here all by my lonesome. It didn’t move; it exerted no weight on the Pleroma at all. I caught a slight whiff of sterile neutrinos, but couldn’t be sure it came from the Nephil. The crowd hubbub made it impossible for me to tell if it made any noise. Archangels sang; Principalities clanged their brass-bell wings; Virtues murmured time-symmetric palindromes to themselves; Thrones rolled up and down the hill, snapping at anybody who stumbled too close to the edge; Dominions clanked and jingled in their golden breastplates. Meanwhile a pair of Seraphim circled in the hazy sky beyond the safety fence. It appeared they were gearing up for something, so I lit a pill and watched the show.

  I wondered if the Voice of God was out there somewhere, watching over our shoulders. Maybe it was.

  They spiraled up into the lofty reaches of the Pleroma. At an altitude of several light-years, they tucked their wings and rolled over. Gaining speed, they extended their sword arms and swirled with perfect synchrony into a two-pronged superluminal corkscrew. Those muggs meant business; I hadn’t heard of them pulling out the big guns like this since the first days after METATRON revealed itself. I wasn’t the only angel to step back. Like I said, the Seraphim draw a lot of water, and there’s a reason for it.