Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

From what he could see, every human vice was represented in some degree here. Remy had heard of angels becoming obsessed with the ways of the Earth; hell, even he had been accused of it, but he would never imagine an angel of Aszrus’ stature falling so hard.

“He loved this . . . stuff more than those who would give their lives for him,” Marley said. Lurching suddenly to one side, toward the small table beside the chair, she shoved the box of illicit drugs and the lamp to the floor. The room was again plunged into darkness. “And then not even this would do; he had to go even farther from us, outside the home to find whatever it was he was searching for.”

“Where outside the house?” Remy asked, taking advantage of a potential opportunity.

She was breathing heavily now, the fear of repercussions for her actions weighing upon her. It looked as though she was thinking that perhaps she’d gone too far.

“What was he doing outside the house?” Remy pressed.

Marley carefully squatted down, attempting to clean up after herself, her fingers carefully picking up the pieces of the shattered lamp.

“It got to be that he barely acknowledged our existence,” she said, quietly. “It was like we weren’t even there anymore, our presence invisible as the car pulled up in front of the house, and he left for the evening, not returning until the early morning hours.”

“He used a car?”

Marley slowly stood, broken lamp pieces carefully held in her hand. “It was another of his vices. . . . He loved cars and has an entire underground garage filled with them.”

“But you said a car came for him.”

“Yes, it would beep its horn once to let him know it had arrived.”

“So he had a driver,” Remy prodded.

“Yes,” Marley agreed.

“Does this driver live here with the other staff members?”

Marley shook her head, a broken piece of the lamp in her hand falling to the floor from the movement.

“No,” she said. “Normally he would drive his own cars.”

“But in some instances he chose not to drive himself to wherever it was he was going.”

Marley was quiet, her blind eyes staring into the darkness around them.

“Elite Limousine,” she said.

“That was the name of the service he used?”

“Yes,” she answered him. “I heard him through his office door once . . . and he asked for Neal to drive him.”

Now they were getting someplace.

“You’ve been very helpful, Marley,” Remy said gently. “Thank you.”

He went for the door, turning toward the young woman.

“Are you coming?” Remy asked her.

She shook her head. “I’d like to clean up.”

So he left here there, standing perfectly still in the darkness of the room, a darkness she had grown accustomed to.

Beleeze quickly left his master’s presence so as not to incur his wrath.

His master had the most unpredictable of natures, and sometimes, when things did not go as planned, he would display a vicious temper.

Images that had branded themselves in the demon’s mind flashed before his eyes, images of those that had brought their master news that he deemed . . . disappointing.

Beleeze still found disconcerting the memory of one of his kind being turned inside out, and yet still living. None who still served Master Simeon cared to put their own endurance to the test.

They had survived too much to suffer such an ignoble fate.

Beleeze and the other demons were of the species Demonicus, extracted from the darkness of oblivion by the necromancer, Ignatius Hallow, and enslaved by the power of Solomon’s ring. They had served the death wizard for nearly a century before their servitude was transferred to the one named Simeon.

But with that transference, came the birth of purpose.

The demon descended the refuse-strewn steps into the main lobby of the deserted office building to find the others waiting.

“Well, at least you’re still alive,” Dorian commented.

Is that actually concern in her dark eyes? Beleeze wondered.

“How did he take it?” Robert asked.

Beleeze had yet to get used to the demon’s change of names. Robert had been Tjernobog until a few centuries ago, when he’d changed it to fit in better with the world in which they existed.

Even though they were all working toward seeing it brought to ruin.

“Surprisingly well,” Beleeze replied.

“What did he say?” Dorian asked. She was standing closer to him now, the long, spidery fingers of her hand briefly touching the sleeve of his jacket.

Is it possible that after all this time, she finally realizes the feelings I have for her?

Beleeze slowly shook his head. “He didn’t say anything.”

Robert hissed. “That’s not good,” he said, and started to pace. “Not good at all. That’s the same thing that happened with Teloch.”

“Teloch?” Beleeze questioned. There had been so many more of them—so many that had met their fates at Simeon’s angry hand.

“Teloch!” Robert boomed, barely stopping his pacing. “Short, circular mouth ringed with teeth? Loved intestines and bone marrow?”

Beleeze remembered his demon brother, and his fate.

“He didn’t say anything to Teloch, either, and then . . .”

Images flashed through Beleeze’s memory—images of Teloch’s body suddenly swelling as if filling with fluid, and then exploding like a human child’s toy balloon.

Beleeze did not recall the news Teloch had brought their master that had garnered such a horrendous response, but as he dwelled upon it, he realized that it could have been nearly anything: an ingredient for a particularly complex spell not being readily available, the premature return of the Morningstar to his hellish domain, the weather in whatever corner of the world they were currently residing being too hot, too cold, or too rainy, or the ancient god Dagon meeting with an untimely demise.

It could have been something, or really nothing at all. It didn’t matter.

They were all quiet then, in the lobby of the dead building, thinking of Teloch and so many others that had met an ugly fate after delivering messages that did not please their master.

Would they be next?

It is possible, Beleeze thought worriedly. But what choice did they have? Master Simeon had the ring, and as long as he did, there was nothing else but for them to obey.

But despite the looming potential for death, the demons and their eternal master shared a common goal. They both hated God, the Almighty, the Lord of Lords, or whatever else the Being that brought forth the light to a universe that was once only darkness, was called.

Those who served and worshipped this heartless Deity believed that there was nothing until He made His illuminating declaration, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

There were things living in the sea of black that existed before He even became aware of His own existence; worlds and peoples thriving in the cold, endless void.

And so many met their end with the birth of this creation, their lives burned away with the utterance of four little words:

Let there be light.

Beleeze recalled the blinding flash and the screams of millions as they died, but somehow he, and others of his kind, had managed to survive, finding pools of shadow deep enough to hide themselves.

For where there is light, there must also be shadow.

Beleeze left his thoughts at the sound of footsteps.

“This is it,” Robert muttered with a gulp.

But Beleeze did not believe it. Though their master might sometimes be unpredictable in his wrath, Beleeze felt somewhere deep down in the pocket of shadow that churned at the center of his being that their mutual hate would spare him.