Angel of Death: A Love Story (Omnibus Edition)

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

And when the king of Moab

Saw that the battle was too sore for him …

He took his eldest son

That should have reigned in his stead,

And offered him for a burnt offering…

.

2 Kings 3:26-27

.

Carthage: 310 BC

.

“Elissar will love you.”

Azrael talked to his little sister’s cast-off doll as he flew under the cover of pre-dawn murkiness. It was the simplest doll his mother had been able to scrounge up, one Gazardiel had become bored with because it didn’t walk, talk, eat, or wear fashionable clothing. It was more elaborate than any human doll, but it could be explained using current technology. If anyone pulled it apart, they might notice a delicate wire shaped the doll's wings. Steel. Not yet in use in iron-age Earth, but giving it to Elissar would only bend the Emperor’s prohibition against interference, not break it. It was, after all, only a toy.

“My thesis is complete—” Azrael recited the goodbye speech he was about to give Elissar. “The Emperor has recalled me back to Haven to present my theory to the Council of Thrones.”

The doll, of course, did not answer. Its soft cloth wings fluttered in the breeze, as though it were flying, too. He felt good. He felt like an adult! He'd just collected a year's worth of data about the wars humans perpetually waged and come up with credible theories about how their warlike tendencies might be tamed; research which had been helped, in no small part, by a precocious nine-year-old with unusual silver eyes. He would miss Elissar terribly, but he'd begun to think of fascinating future studies to get the Eternal Emperor to grant him another tour of duty here.

He became aware of it slowly; a strange, lingering smoke which overhung the city, offending his nostrils with the scent of overcooked meat. Alongside the Mediterranean Sea, a bonfire raged, along with the beat of drums, human cheers, and singing.

A strange uneasiness clenched at Azrael's gut. It was most likely just a party which had lasted through the night. As he circled Elissar's house to land, her tutor ran out and fell upon his knees.

“Oh … please!” Hezekiah reached imploringly towards the roof. “Thank the gods you’ve come, Private Thanatos! Elissar said you would come for her, and you have!”

Azrael peeked over the rooftop. A sweet, copper scent tickled his olfactory senses—not quite human, but nonetheless—blood? The old tutor clutched at his gut. A bloom of red spread upon his simple brown linen robe.

“How do you know who I am?" Azrael asked.

“Elissar told me,” Hezekiah said. “Please! There’s no time for questions! She’s been taken!”

“Taken?” Azrael's heart leaped into his throat. “By whom?” He’d only been on Ceres station a few days!

“Agathocles circumvented the blockade and invaded Megalopolis,” Hezekiah wailed. “His troops are on their way here!”

“Where’s Elissar?” Panic gripped Azrael's heart. As the daughter of the de facto ruler of Carthage, Elissar was a high-value target. “We can get her out of the city so the Sicilian king can’t get her!”

“You don’t understand,” Hezekiah shrieked in anguish. “THEY took her! The priests! Of Moloch!"

"The priests?"

"Yes! Bormilcar murdered her father and claimed Moloch is displeased the nobles sacrifice slave children instead of their own. The mob has seized the youngest child of every noble in the city! Three hundred of them! They’re sacrificing them to Moloch as we speak!”

“Sacrifice?” Bile rose in Azrael's throat. “Is she…?”

“Not yet! They began the sacrifices last night, but her mother hid her from them. They just found her! I called for backup, but they won’t be here for hours! You might be able to save her!”

Hezekiah held out an ancient communications device, Alliance by design, but of a type Azrael had only ever seen in history books, thousands of years old. It was the source of the energy signature which had brought him here in the first place.

The tutor reached for his eyes and pulled out contact lenses, revealing he possessed the gold-green eyes of a serpent, and unfurled his tail from beneath his robe. Hezekiah possessed Sata’anic eyes like his friend Ensign Zarif had back on Ceres Station? And a tail? Only Hezekiah was … human? Half-human? Nobody had told him anything about human-Sata’anic hybrids numbering amongst the Fallen! What in Hades was going on?

Screw non-interference! Azrael pulled out his comms unit and called back to base. “Papa Bear, Papa Bear, this is Baby Doll calling with a Code-1 emergency. Over.”

“Baby Doll … this is Papa Bear. What’s your emergency?”

“These nutcases are sacrificing 300 children to Moloch!” Azrael called. “Request backup.”

Azrael had learned one thing from being forced to commingle with the ‘warrior class.’ Even the Sata’anic lizards loved giving a good tail-kicking when it came to protecting hatchlings … um … kids.

“Baby Doll, this is the C.O.,” a gruff voice came on. “You know the policy for that planet. No interference. Repeat. No interference. You are not to interfere.”

“They’re killing children!!!” Azrael screamed into the radio. “To Moloch!!! Three hundred of them. The Emperor will make an exception!”

“You are not to interfere. I don’t like it, but you know the Emperor’s policies. Non-interference is his highest law.”

“The evil bastard is searching for a new host body so he can escape!” Azrael shouted. “This kid is a direct descendant of Lucifer! She just might be the one!”

There was silence at the other end of the radio. The C.O. pushed the push-to-talk button, pausing as he thought on his feet. In the background, Azrael could hear the other soldiers shouting they drew the line of noninterference at letting innocent children get murdered. The C.O. was about to have a riot on his hands.

“Baby Doll, Baby Doll, this is Papa Bear. Stand by and await further orders while I clear this with the Emperor. I repeat. You are to stand by. You got that?”

“She’ll be dead by then!"

“Private Thanatos, you are to stand by until…”

Azrael dropped the microphone and took to the air, streaking towards the malevolent bonfire where humans murdered their own children and cheered.

Through the billowing smoke, a statue rose of the bull-like god which dominated every house in the city; half-human, with the head of a bull; thirty feet tall and clad entirely in bronze. Built on top of an enormous platform, at its center was a brazier for lighting a bonfire. Suspended over the bonfire, a pair of moveable arms operated with chains could be manipulated by the priests to make it appear the statue had come to life.

In most cultures, sacrifices were ceremonial. Humanoids would slaughter an animal humanely, and then feast upon the meal in honor of their god the way they would any other cooked meat. The Priests of Moloch, however, usually placed live animals upon the statue's hands and cooked the poor creatures alive. It was a gruesome way to die, one designed to cause the victim horrific pain.

But this was the first time he'd seen them sacrifice children…

He spied Elissar being led up the steps along with the other child-victims to stare up at the Devourer of Children. It was not to Hashem that he prayed, the immortal Emperor he knew could not hear him, but a much older goddess. One legend said had stripped Moloch of his ability to recreate his own physical body and rendered him a disembodied wraith. One who might sympathize with a lowly Angelic’s prayer?

“Ki," he prayed. "She’s just a child! Please?”

Moloch's priests beat enormous drums to rile up the citizens of Carthage into a mindless religious fervor. All their lives, the people had been trained it was perfectly normal to watch their own children get murdered. Their god had sent an invasion. This is what the priests said must be done to appease him. The crowd sang hymns to drown out the screams of a little boy who’d just been placed upon Moloch's outstretched hands.

"Mommy!" the boy screamed.

The mother sang with joyous ecstasy as the mechanical arms slid down, casting her hapless child into the flames below. The boy screamed horrific, sharp, high cries. Azrael's wings pounded the air, his heart pumping so fast he feared it would burst, but he was too far away to save the boy who burned alive.

“Elissar!!!” he cried out.

As he flew closer, he saw the priests no longer held onto the chains, but the statue's arms somehow moved. The statue's red eyes sprang to life as its mouth moved into a satisfied sneer. The head tilted downwards to look at Elissar who had been led by priests to stand before it.

There was real intelligence in those eyes...

Somehow the priests were feeding the ancient evil. The sacrifices were a power source, giving the Devourer of Children strength. Bits and fragments of legends he had researched sprang to mind. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

The tutor possessing unauthorized technology. Passing along secret knowledge to the direct descendent of Moloch’s last unwitting host, Lucifer. Preparing her with knowledge about how to resist Moloch. Knowledge she might need to one day lead her people as the new Morning Star should Moloch ever escape...

“Let me go!” Elissar screamed. She stomped on the priest's foot and bit him as he placed her upon Moloch's outstretched hands.

The statue's eyes flared with malevolent glee. The mouth moved, not just chains manipulating a bronze statue's fake jaws, but a mouth which possessed a moveable tongue and fangs. It was more than just a statue! It was a golem, a robotic prosthesis which could be animated to speak to Moloch's followers.

“Quaerebamus inter nost est." This is the one we've been looking for. Moloch spoke in a horrible, deep voice that made the stones shudder. “Ego devorabit vitae industria et capere corpus meum." I shall devour her life energy and seize her body for my host.

The mob cheered. The priests beat their drums to drown out Elissar’s terrified screams. Azrael realized Elissar was about to be consumed, not by a fire lit beneath a statue of an ancient malignant god, but by Moloch himself. Whatever Elissar had, Moloch needed it to escape.

An enormous metal hand closed around Elissar's body.

“Let me go!” she fought against the metal fingers, but she was too young to defend herself!

"They –have- to be young—" a voice spoke in Azrael’s mind. "Otherwise their spirit develops enough to resist possession. Moloch keeps himself alive by feeding upon the life energy of others. Lucifer was taken when he was fifteen years old. Elissar is only nine!”

Death was the least of Elissar’s worries. There were worse fates than death…

…and Azrael realized these thoughts were not his own.

“I understand,” he said, thankful the goddess had heard him. Ki asked something of him, offered him a choice.

The statue's hands dropped Elissar into the brazier.

A dark-winged blur streaked down from the sky.

The fire turned putrid green. A vortex of flames spun upwards, opening a dimensional portal straight into Gehenna.

Elissar reached up.

“Azrael!!!” she screamed.

Her small hand reached up towards his as her body slid into the flames.

For so long as he existed, never would he forget the look of terror on Elissar's face as she disappeared beneath a sea of molten fire.

Without hesitation, Azrael sped in behind her.

It hurt! It hurt!

His feathers caught fire as he pressed his wings against his back. He grabbed Elissar's hand and pulled her body against his, wrapping his arms and wings around her to protect her from the flames.

“I’ve got you," he said.

He wrapped his very soul around her, refusing to let her go as they sank into the fires of Gehenna to die together, every nerve fiber screaming with agonizing pain. Let Moloch deal with his stubborn soul! Not that of a nine-year-old child!

The most powerful energy source in the universe was not fission or fusion, matter against anti-matter, or even the clash of gravitons, but the energy cast off by the life-spark the gods called 'consciousness' and human legend called the soul. Ascended beings were merely soul-sparks which had grown powerful enough over the course of many lifetimes to use their own energy to manipulate matter. It was a source of power more potent than a hundred million suns, especially, like an atom, at the moment a life-spark transformed from one type of matter into another.

The flames parted.

Moloch towered above them, an enormous, muscular creature whose hand was so large he could fit the both of them into a single palm. His snout had a bovine flare and he had horns and ears like a bull, but no ruminant had ever had such sharp teeth or snorted fire the way that Moloch did.

“Heac mea est!” Moloch clutched at Azrael’s body with fiery claws. “Da-te ei mihi!" Give her to me! The hell dimension shook as Moloch tried to force Azrael to release her.

“Go to hell!” Azrael hissed as flames incinerated his face.

In his arms, Elissar shuddered and died. But her spirit still clung to his, intertwining with it so Moloch could not take her from him, his young friend who he loved more than his own existence. Together, they were a larger morsel than Moloch could digest. The Evil One tried to tear them apart, but Azrael clung to her.

Above the noise of the flames, Azrael heard a beautiful song. Not originating from Moloch, but the song which underlay the thoughts which had urged him to cast himself into the fire to save Elissar from a fate worse than death. It was the song which underlay All-That-Is.

The Song of Creation…

Every monster interred within Gehenna stopped and tilted their head as a ray of purest white shone down from the portal.

"Give her to me," Ki whispered. "You will see her again. This, I swear."

The bull-god reached towards the white light and shrieked. It couldn't quite reach them, but Azrael could see how the remnants of slaughtered children gravitated towards the light like broken glitter and millions of pieces of glass.

He pushed his young friend into the welcoming arms which reached down from the highest realms. Although her mortal shell had expired, her spirit was still intact. It was the only thing that mattered. That … and making sure Moloch didn’t have enough left of him to use his body as his next mortal vessel.

The portal snapped shut, abandoning him to deepest hell.

'Trust…' Ki drew his eyes to the fire.

With his dying breath, Azrael flapped what was left of his wings to dodge Moloch's fiery claws and cast himself into the unearthly fires of uncreation where even Moloch couldn't follow him. His body turned to ash as pain stripped his spirit of the ability to recreate his own mortal shell.

The faint melody of the Song of Creation rang like a lone cello, filling his soul with joy even as it was being destroyed.

So beautiful.