Thomas Sniegoski - A Hundred Words for Hate

Dragging them down into the murky depths.

Louisiana: 1932

Francis was totally smitten by Eliza Swan.

He had never felt anything like this before. Certainly he’d had his dalliances with human women over the numerous centuries he’d been on Earth cleaning up God’s messes, but none had ever managed to touch him so precisely . . . so deeply.

It was like magick.

He was at the Pelican Club again, listening to Eliza sing, and this time he knew that she sang to him.

Her voice made him feel more alive than he had in forever. It made him forget the dark days of war, when he slew his brothers in the name of a cause that he eventually came to realize was insane. She made him truly feel.

As if he were loved by God again.

But no matter how loved he was feeling, it didn’t change the fact that he’d been given an assignment, and the Thrones weren’t all that crazy about insubordination.

Eliza Swan was supposed to die, and he was the one who had to see to it she did. The Thrones wanted Eliza’s blood for whatever reason, and they would not be denied.

She was singing one of his personal favorites, a beautiful, melancholy tune called “Searching for Paradise,” and he let her sweet, sweet voice wash over him.

This one is something special , he thought, wondering why the Thrones would want her dead. Maybe it was the spell she seemed to have over anyone who heard her voice.

She finished her song to wild applause, and flashed Francis an amazing smile from the stage, leaving no doubt she’d sung that song for him.

There had to be a solution to this problem that didn’t involve killing her. Part of him argued to just do the job and move on—that nothing, and no one, was more important than being able to pass through the gates of Heaven again and bask in the glory of the Almighty.

He imagined that was the same part of his nature that had been beguiled by the words of the Morningstar. He shouldn’t have listened then, and he wasn’t going to now.

He picked up his drink, and it was about halfway to his mouth when he felt it, a strange tingling in his spine. He’d heard humans make reference to the sensation as someone walking over their grave, and he couldn’t have said it better himself. Although it was just the feeling he got when others of his kind were around.

Francis scanned the room. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, doubting he’d see the flaming, eye-covered orbs of the Thrones floating around the Pelican, but then again, he hadn’t followed through on his orders, and the Thrones were impatient sons of bitches.

But it wasn’t the Thrones. It was an angel, tall and dressed to the nines in a dark suit and tie. The angel’s human guise was a striking one, with hair and beard of glacial white. He looked like some sort of aristocrat who had decided to see how the simple folk lived.

He was headed directly for Francis, other patrons instinctively moving aside, allowing him to pass.

Francis casually set his jar of moonshine down, letting his arm brush against his coat pocket. The Enochian dagger was still there, resting . . . waiting . . . eager for another taste of angel blood.

But he would wait, see what the creature of the divine wanted first. Who knew, maybe he just stopped by for a drink, saw Francis, and was coming over to say hi.

And maybe pigs had suddenly learned to fly.

Eliza was wailing beautifully upon the stage, this time accompanied only by the fat man—Big James—on his guitar.

Francis watched her, but was totally aware of the angel now standing before him. “Can I help you with something?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the woman onstage.

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” the angel said, his voice oozing authority.

Francis glanced quickly at the angel and was surprised to see that he too was staring at Eliza.

“I believe we’ve both found what we’re looking for,” the angel said.

“Maybe you should start by telling me who you are and what you want,” Francis said, feeling what could only have been sharp pangs of jealousy.

The angel slowly turned his gaze to meet Francis’s.

“I am Malachi,” he said in a way that made Francis think it should have meant something to him.

“Am I supposed to know you?” he asked, retrieving his whiskey from where he’d placed it on the floor beside his stool. “Because I’m sorry to say I have no idea who you are . . . other than you’re obviously from that grand ballroom upstairs.”

“Grand ballroom?” Malachi questioned, before it eventually dawned on him. “I see, you make light of the Kingdom.” He nodded ever so slowly to show he understood, but Francis doubted that he really did. “You’re trying to be like them—the humans. I could never understand the need for this sense of humor. It was a trait I would have deemed worthless in the initial design, but the Allfather saw things differently.”

Malachi’s words were like a jab with a sharp stick. This talk of design and the Allfather piqued the former Guardian angel’s curiosity to the extreme.

“Now do you know who I am?” Malachi asked.

Francis knew of a powerful angel, one of the first to be created. It was he and the Morningstar who had stood by the Lord God’s side as He created the Heavens and the Earth below.

And yes, he had been called Malachi, but why would an angel of such power be here?

“You’re that Malachi?” Francis asked, hoping that he was mistaken.

“I am,” the angel said.

“But why are you here ?”

“I am here for the same reason you are,” Malachi said, staring at the stage where Eliza and her band were deciding what song they would do next.

Francis’s hand drifted down toward his pocket. “You’re here to kill her.”

“No.” Malachi looked at him. “To save her.”

Francis’s head was spinning, and he was about to ask the angel to step outside so they could talk freely when there came a horrible commotion—the sound of smashing glass and splintering wood, followed by the screams of the Pelican Club patrons.

Francis jumped from his stool, removing the deadly blade from his pocket. The screams intensified as the air became rank with the smell of burning flesh and something else.

Something divine.

The smell of angel.

The cries of the fearful and the dying replaced Eliza’s songs. Francis watched in growing horror as the club’s patrons, engulfed in fire, ran to escape, too terrified to realize that they were already dead as the hungry flames burned them to nothing.

A Cherubim emerged from the smoke with a discordant roar. It had been a very long time since Francis had last seen one of the more beastly of the Heavenly hosts. The Cherubim were the Lord’s guard dogs, and he briefly considered the fate of Leo and Cleo on the front porch of the establishment.

What is something like that doing here? Francis wanted to know.

He watched as Melvin stood bravely before the forbidding angel, grabbing hold of a chair and swinging it wildly at its multiple faces in an attempt to drive it back.

It was the face of the lion that decided the club owner’s fate, its ravenous jaws opening to ridiculous proportions, snatching the man up, and biting him in half.

Francis had seen enough.

He was moving toward the Cherubim, knife poised and ready. But something grabbed hold of his arm with a steely grip.

Francis spun around and looked into the face of the angel Malachi.

“You won’t do much damage with the likes of that,” the elder angel said, making reference to Francis’s Enochian blade.

The Cherubim lifted its trifaced head, and its multiple eyes locked upon the angels. He spread his wings, fanning the smokefilled air eagerly before he started to charge.