Angel of Death 1.29 All Our Knowledge

(Hello everyone! Sorry for the long absence. That was the result, first and foremost, of schoolwork. However, that won't be a factor again until the end of the year.

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            Reidel dropped his fork into the bowl in front of him.  He stared across the table at Steven, wide-eyed.  He saw Steven’s eyes sink downward.  Reidel could remember now.  They had gathered around the table when the ground shook, and a fissure opened up in Lester’s floor, right under Allen.  A golden cylinder rose out of it and surrounded him, molded itself into a sarcophagus with Allen’s face and sank down.  All of this, while Allen screamed.

            He’d remembered it the whole time, Reidel realized… he’d just also believed, like he knew it for a fact, that the school librarian had broken into the house and killed Allen.  Reidel’s eyebrow furled.  What the fuck was wrong with him?  The thought of Bavandersloth’s smug face forced itself on his mind, and made him seethe.

            “So you remember too?” Steven said, his voice scared.

            Reidel took a deep breath.  “Yes,” he said.  He reached out for Steven’s hand, which rested on the table limply.  He held it.

*****

            Violet Fox sat at her news desk, reading from her teleprompter.  “Breaking News,” she said.  The next line flashed across the screen.  How the hell do you say that on the air? she thought.  “As you yourself may well have noticed, what scientists,” she held back laughter, “are calling a complex global memory phenomenon has afflicted the globe.  Persons around the world are noticing what appears to be the sudden abandonment of beliefs which, on reflection, are found to have been held with unfounded dogmatism.  It has been noted that all of the beliefs in question pertain to the Angel phenomenon.  We bring you now to Neurobiologist Carlos Palmer.”

            Violet took a deep breath and leaned back as the broadcast cut to another newsperson interviewing the scientist.  Damn the twenty-four hour news cycle.  She was still trying to process what had happened for herself.  From her memory, it seemed to her like every… “fact” she could recall believing was something she’d heard from Light-rook while she interviewed him.  She had tried to think of an exception, but she couldn’t.  He’d said that the motorcyclists had been fighting Orichalcum over an evil book.  He’d reassured her that the book was evil.  He’d said everything about that other dimension.  He’d explained what had happened in North Korea to her.  She couldn’t think of anything else in any other area of her life that seemed to be part of--

            Her thoughts were interrupted by the teleprompter flashing back on.  “Thank you Carlos,” she said.  “Investigations into the source of this effect, including possible relationships to the angel phenomenon, are ongoing.  In the meantime, government officials emphasize the need to remain calm and proceed as normal.”

            Violet ripped off her headset as soon as the camera cut away from her.

*****

            Cody lay back in the worn out velvet seats of Bavandersloth’s plane.  All was well, after a fashion.  Cody glanced several rows up at Justin, who had finished crying, but was still not in the mood to talk.  He refocused his mind.  With Bavandersloth gone, he had another problem.  Everyone will have had their minds unaltered.

            The public would know that they had been lied to.  They would realize that their minds had been tampered with.  This would probably turn them pretty strongly against Angels.  To a large extent, that was good.  It might, however, lead to just a speck of public unrest and the occasional riot.  How much exactly would they realize? Cody thought.  They would notice that all of the lies had had to do with Angels.  They would notice all of those lies had painted Angels positively.  They would remember the book.  Cody placed his hand on his copy, which sat in the seat next to him.  They would probably assume that what they were told about it was false.

            Someone’ll want a copy, Cody realized.  But should they have it?  Would they be better off knowing about the devoured souls?  Would that just cause more unrest?  Cody thought hard.  On one hand, the real truth was upsetting.  But would not knowing be worse?  Would they fear the worst?  Which way would they be less likely to lash out at an innocent party?

            If I were them, Cody thought, which would make me feel worse?  When he thought about it that way, it was obvious.  They shouldn’t know.  He remembered how he’d reacted when he first learned.  Surely adding all of the information they still lacked, that the world had just nearly been taken over by soul eating monsters, would only make things worse.  It may leave them less prepared for the next time, but Cody already had plans to exterminate the community, and Valthakar’s ritual would prevent any new liches from being created.  There wouldn’t be a next time.

*****

            “There has already been a death tentatively connected with the incident, sir,” one of the DIAPP agents said.  The Grey man took a deep breath.  “Alright men, the question we need to answer is this: how do we prevent more public unrest?”

            “Should we try to spin this?” an agent suggested.  “Perhaps, just maybe, we could spin the devourers everyone saw as the result of some kind of genetic experimentat--”

            “That’s stupid,” the Gray man said.

            “But most of the public won’t know that,” the agent said.

            “Well we don’t need to calm down most of the public.  Any cover story we came up with would have to fool experts who have a deep understanding of whatever we blamed, and given what all the public has seen, that’s likely impossible.”

            “Perhaps there’s nothing we can do,” another agent said.  “We could try to leave the whole incident shrouded in mystery.”

            The grey man took a sip of coffee.  He seemed to think for a moment.  “That’s a bad idea,” he said.  “We’ve got to come up with some kind of story, something less upsetting than the truth, but believable in light of everything the public has seen.  We need to tell them something that will make them think they should keep living in the same world they were before.  So, pursuant to that - ideas?”

            No one spoke for a moment.  The Gray man looked around the room.  “C’mon, people.  What is the least disturbing thing they could be?”

            “Aliens?” another agent suggested.

            The Gray man thought for a second.  “No,” he said.  “Most of the devourers are specific people, people with friends, even families for some of them.  Body snatchers are scarier than what we really have.”

            “What if we say that they’re those people,” another agent said, “but we say that they made some kind of deal with an evil spirit, or alien or something.”

            “That’s not too far from the truth,” an agent pointed out.

            “That’s a point in its favor,” the Gray man said.

            The first agent nodded.  “Perhaps we could stage some kind of battle with whatever it was, make it seem gone, and give everyone on earth a sense of victory.”

            “Isn’t that a little silly?” someone else asked.

            “Actually, I don’t think so,” the Gray man said.  “The public will doubtless feel betrayed and defeated after being lied to for so long, and it’s that feeling which will most likely lead them to anger.  That’s what we need to prevent.”  He took another sip.  “We’ll set it up.  We’ll acquire some monstrosity and then film ourselves killing it. Then we’ll tell everyone that we’ve been after it the whole time.”  The man shifted in his chair.  “That leaves us with a lot of details to work out, but that can be done.”

            The DIAPP agents went on to discuss those details.

*****

            Violet lay across a couch in the break room, drinking coffee, wishing it was more than coffee.  Her mind was on the Angel story.  She was sure that everything, all of the beliefs that had been altered, had been things she’d heard while interviewing Light-rook.  Not even Orichalcum.  Just Light-rook.

            And everything that the public was forced to believe, they heard from my interviews.

            Violet stood up to get another cup of coffee.  You’ve already had three, a voice in her head told her.  Fuck you, she said back.  I can have as much coffee as I damn well please.

            She picked her mug up from the table and walked across the room.  She grabbed the pot and poured into her mug.  “You’re a real Journalist!!” the mug said.  She’d gotten it when she got her first job.  It was here, she realized, though she’d worked elsewhere for part of her career.

            The pot emptied, and the mug was still half-empty.  She started to summon one of the interns to make more, but she didn’t.  Instead, she filled the empty space with creamer and sat back down.

            As she sipped the cold, sweet, milky beverage she had created, she was finally able to get her mind off of the angels for a moment.  Instead, she remembered buying this mug.  She’d gotten it online.  It would have been… 2000, maybe?

            She’d had it specially made from a website that allowed one to create a customized t-shirt or mug.  You could design any image you wanted to put on it.  She’d written this message in paint or something, and sent it to them.

            She looked at the mug.  She laughed.  It looked silly, now that she examined it.  It looked like, well, like it was made in paint.  The letters were blocky and zig-zagged, and bright green on a pink background.  It looked childish.

            She took another sip.  Perhaps it was childish, how she’d felt.  She was so overjoyed when she got that job.  It felt so… so validating, to finally have a real job in the industry, if only as a staff researcher.  No matter what anyone said, she was unquestionably a real journalist.  She was doing really, real journalism.  It was what she’d wanted to do since she was a child.  She liked researching, discovering, and piecing together, and she loved the presentation of it all even more.  That hadn’t changed about her since she was, what, ten?

            She took one more sip of the coffee, and set it down on the table in front of her.  She looked at the design again.  “You’re a real Journalist!!”  She picked the cup back up.  She had been around the angel story more than anyone she knew.  She was going to get to the bottom of it.

*****

            “Help!” the girl shouted.  Cody rushed toward her.  Her fear was pungent in the air around her, its pleasant odor tainted by the smoke of the burning car.

            The fear’s odor grew stronger for a split second when she first saw Cody, but then it relaxed.  Cody smiled.  He dashed right over to the back of the car, and placed his hand on it.  He willed the car to crumble into dust, and it did, rust forming and consuming the car with an eerie swiftness.  The car, and with it the fire, disappeared before they had the chance to kill the girl.

            The girl now sat on the ground, shaking.  Cody looked down at her as she sat in a fetal position.  Her injuries were not as bad as they could have been, though that would not have remained the case for much longer had he not intervened.  Still, he reached into a pocket he’d stitched to his true form’s raggy robe and pulled out a cell phone.  He dialed 911.

            I’ll need to figure out what happened to her parents once I finish this call, he thought, and once he’d told the dispatcher of the nature and location of the emergency, he crouched down and looked the girl in her eyes.  She held her nose, but didn’t crawl away.  “Where is your mommy or daddy?” he asked, as he placed his hand on her and tagged her burns.

            The girl looked back up at him, her voice nasally.  “My daddy… He… ran off to get help,” she said, her voice seeming to shake more from pain than fear.

            Out of the blue, the scent of another fear, no, many fears, hit Cody like a flowery truck.  His eyes widened.  For a fear that strong, something horrible must be happening.  “Don’t move away from here unless it’s for the ambulance I called or your parents,” he said, faster than he’d been speaking before, “I need to go help other people.”  He stood up and ran off before she responded.

            Cody heard shouting as he approached the source of the fear.  It was a booming mess of screams, pleas, and angered snarls.  When Cody realized he was near the news station, he formed a guess as to what was going on.  When he reached the station, he saw that he was right.

            It was surrounded by a crowd of rabid, shouting, people, numbering in the dozens, perhaps as many as a hundred.  The front door of the station was locked, but the people were gathered around the door, working to bash it in.  SLAM, Cody heard.  He dashed over, and as soon as the crowd saw him, they turned.  “Fuck, that’s one of them right there,” someone said, and most of the crowd descended upon him.

            Cody activated his shield straight away as the people ran at him from all sides.  The people were armed with baseball bats, crowbars and axes.  They were no threat to Cody’s shield.  The pungent scent of fear had not vanished, and Cody looked above the people surrounding him to the door.  There were still several people trying to break through it.  Cody didn’t want to lower his shield  While the baseball bats wouldn’t affect him, a lucky strike with an ax could deprive him of a limb.  Still, time seemed limited enough that there was no other choice but to risk it.  Blasting them from this close a range would be more hazardous, and would likely kill them, as would a magical beam.

            Cody lowered his shield.  Immediately, the humans who has been bashing against his shield ran into his cloud.  Cody grabbed one’s arm and inflicted a knock-out injury on him.  As the man fell, another tripped over him in the dark.  Cody ignored him for a split second, paralyzing three more, before returning to the one who had tripped.  Once a pile of humans had formed, Cody leapt on top of it, and, with the extra height, was able to jump over the crowd.

            The door broke open.

            Cody’s eyes widened.  A human from the crowd got into his cloud and punched him.  Luckily, that was enough contact for a paralysis, and Cody promptly administered one.

            From there, a number of humans, about half of the crowd, ran toward the door.  Cody thought.  They’re probably going in there to hurt someone… or kill them.  They’d been screaming enough about this place broadcasting lies for Cody to be sure of their malicious intent.  Keeping mobile to dodge the portion of the crowd chasing him, Cody fired a thin magical beam at the ankles of the humans running into the building.

            Cody heard screams as the humans’ feet and ankles were burnt.  Cody had held back his beam to avoid severing them.  As the humans fell on top of each other, Cody heard a crack from somewhere in the crowd.

            A few members of the crowd who could still walk limped away.  Another few hobbled toward him, a few of them moaning as they came his way.  Cody paralyzed a few convenient targets in his cloud and then ran back toward the entrance.  He planned his path poorly, and he heard another snap as one of the humans following him stepped on one of the people he’d incapacitated.  Cody arrived in the entrance, standing to block it.  Only one human had made it inside, and a quick beam had him on the floor wailing like the others.  Cody turned to the crowd and shot a weak magical blast just in front of him, where it would harm no one, but where it would seem like it was going to.

            A portion of the crowd stopped.  “You’re not getting in here,” Cody declared; his voice deep and booming.  A few more stopped, but some of them kept coming.  Cody clenched his fist.  Fine.  If they make me.  He crouched down and fired another magical beam, making it sweep across the crowd’s feet and legs.  Many of them fell, but not quite all.

            Cody gritted his teeth, and fixed that with a few more sweeps.  The crowd now lay in a screaming, immobile pile on the pavement.  Cody looked around.  He’d accidentally gotten one of the ones he’d scared away in one of his beams.  Fuck.  He ran up to the crowd he’d just knocked down.  He started knocking out the humans therein to spare them having to feel the painful burns.

            By the time police arrived in riot gear, they had little to do but call ambulances.  Cody tagged the humans’ injuries as he knocked them out.  He found the broken femur that’d been the source of the crack he’d heard.  It’d take him a while to work through all of these with humans he ate.

            As efficient as Cody had gotten with disease transfer, the sheer number of injuries and illnesses he had tagged at any given time was now enough to ensure that there was a waiting list.

            Cody was able to get all of the rioters tagged before any ambulances arrived.  He ran off.

*****

            Jonah awoke to a pain in his stomach like he’d never felt before.  It was hunger, he realized, but more intense than he’d previously imagined hunger could be.  He stood up, already in his true form.  He was in a dull grey room with concrete walls.  Lit dimly by a flickering lightbulb were rows of unconscious humans.

            Jonah salivated.  He pounced on the first bed, manifesting his scythe to consume its inhabitant.  He didn’t take any time.  He gorged himself, obeying a need deep within himself to satisfy his aching belly.

            It took him only a few minutes to devour the souls.  None of them woke up.  They’d been knocked out by someone else, he realized, and it was only then that he remembered having his form destroyed.

            Jonah felt less hungry now, but the urge to feed had not subsided.  He looked around.  The walls were featureless.  There was a door at the top of one wall.  There were no stairs leading up to the door, but it was opening.

            Jonah stepped back to get a better look as it opened, revealing Larngulal.  “He--” Jonah began, but was cut off when he felt two magical beams pass over his arms and legs, severing the ends off of all four limbs.  He fell backward.

            “Hey, what the hell was that for?” he shouted.

            “To prevent you from rampaging,” Larngulal said.  “That’s the last thing I need to deal with right now.  We’ll talk in a few hours when you’re well.”  She walked away.

            “Hey!” Jonah shouted.  He wiggled his arms, flopping on the floor.  He spent the next several hours struggling to get up, with no success.

*****

            Violet had poured through her interviews.  There were fewer than one would think.  That this had all happened in a mere seven months was so incomprehensible to Violet that it made her uncomfortable to contemplate it.  It did, however, allow her to search through all of them relatively quickly.  October 23^th, 2013, the Angel of Death, not Light-rook, comes into the news station and asks to give an interview.  October 26^th, 2013, the Angel of Death gives the interview.  It was interesting.  The Angel of Death and Light-rook had the same voice.  She’d not noticed that at the time, but having compared the recordings over and over again, the two of them sounded exactly the same, but different from Orichalcum, and the other angels who’d given interviews around the world, and recorded 911 calls supposedly by the Angel of Death.

            December 28^th 2013.  The first devourer attack.  Even at the time, the possibility that the devourer had been Light-rook had occurred to Violet.  Even now, though, it didn’t make sense.  Why?  Why go through so much to craft a positive public image; then jeopardize it?  Perhaps they wanted to be seen to have a villain to stop?  Why not make it seem more different from them?  Perhaps they couldn’t?  Why not use the canine creature that had been seen aiding the Angel of Death?

            Alternately, what if Light-rook rampaged around the city for another reason, and invented an imaginary species to blame it on?  There was no mention of devourers from anyone until just after Light-rook’s body was destroyed for the first time.  Orichalcum introduced the term during his first interview.  If it was a lie, it must have been something they came up with in anticipation of the rampage.  That meant that they knew that the rampage was going to happen.  Indeed, even in the cell phone footage of Light-rook being killed, he started to ask the agents if they thought he was something.  When Violet listened closely, it sounded like he had started to say “devourer.”

            Violet sighed and fell back on her bed, her legs still hanging off the edge.  On some level, it felt like it made sense to just assume that the angels were the devourers.  They were obviously evil if they’d mind-controlled every human on the planet for months at a time.  But that wasn’t good enough.  Violet wanted to be sure.  She wanted to be able to prove she’d found the truth.

            On January 6^th, 2014, the whole business with the book had happened.  Motorcyclists in glowing rainbow armor, matching that of the government agents seen elsewhere, were riding, their path consistent with them being headed toward the station.  A man shot them, as well as several standers by, and took the book from them.

            Light-rook had said that the book was full of lies and slander regarding them.  That was what an evil being would say… when those words passed through her internal monologue, Violet had to stop and process the fact that they had.  She sat up in her bed.  Every surface in her room was scattered with documents.  That was as it should be.  She closed her eyes and pictured the mug at her office.  This world was going insane.  She was mostly sure she wasn’t in a padded cell somewhere.  If someone was that far gone, Violet supposed they’d not know that they were.  They may well think that they were in their bed, documents scattered about, a laptop glowing with thirty tabs open, when they were in fact in a strait jacket, banging their head against the pads that lined the walls of their cell.

            If I’m that far gone, there’s no harm in continuing.  An evil being would lie and claim that a book exposing their plans was full of lies.  Somehow, that felt like an obvious conclusion to jump to.  Knowing that the angels had used some sort of mind controlling magic…

            …mind controlling magic on everyone, made them seem evil.  Light-rook had said the book’s principle lie was that angels and devourers were the same creatures.  If that was what it said, it seemed, by the obvious line of reasoning, that they were.

            It was right after he’d said that that the strangest thing had happened.  Violet had brought up the angels’ critics.  Light-rook’s response had been peculiar.  “I gained a new power last night.  The power of any one of us is constantly growing by drips and drops.  One of my powers requires me to be with someone face to face, or at least it did, until last night.”  Violet had asked what he meant.  “Oh, simply that the various fears based on the facts that I just mentioned are false.  You should think nothing of them.”

            A power… a mind control power that he’d gained.

            On February 8^th, Light-rook made his last public appearance.  Violet was pretty sure none of her beliefs came from after that date.

            On February 10^th, a pair of apparent devourers had perpetrated the Central Square Massacre.  This was the one that gave the game away.  Most of the way through the massacre, one of the devourers stood over the body of one of the victims for quite a long time.

            Violet had wondered why that might be.  Hoping to figure it out, she did some research into who the victim was.  He was a teenager named Lester Green.  His parents had died with him in the massacre, but he had a sister who was alive.

            Violet intended to speak to her.  Violet had taken inspiration from Det. Leon Williams, the police officer who had first investigated the Angel of Death murders.  He had first determined that a human was responsible for them by observing the extra time the black cloud had seemed to spend in Cherie Lambert’s hospital room.  He had died in a fire which had initially been ruled arson, but regarding which the police had dropped all investigation.

            He had arrested a suspect, a teenager named Cody Giles, Lambert’s boyfriend, in the case.  On a hunch, Violet had checked, and Giles and Green went to the same school.

            If Violet was right, the devourer had been Giles, and he had reacted unusually to the realization that he had killed someone he knew.  Perhaps he hadn’t done so up until that point.  He’d originally been cleared of suspicion by the fact that another angel had healed a woman while he was in jail, but there were at least two angels capable of that.

            Violet had met Williams when he was alive.  He was brilliant, and throughout all the time she’d covered news around Goldfalls, he’d never proven to be wrong.  If he had suspected Giles was the Angel of Death, it was probably true.

            If the Angel of Death were Cody Giles, and the devourer who had stood over Green’s corpse was Cody Giles, that meant that this devourer was the Angel of Death, meaning Angels and devourers were the same creatures, seemingly engaged in a conspiracy to take over the world.

*****

            As Justin waited for the DIAPP agent to arrive, a drop of water fell onto him from one of the leaky pipes above.  He and Cody were in their true forms, with no darkness around them.  Even though no one was around, this was the most public place Justin had ever been without the cloud, which made Justin feel naked.  The boy stepped aside, out from under the leak.

            The walls and floor of the room were covered in impressive looking occult symbols, the crown jewel of which was the giant pentagram in which the liches stood.

            Justin heard the door open, and saw the DIAPP agent enter.  The man smelled just the tiniest bit scared.  He was in an exterminator’s usual suit.  The thing was turned off right now, though soon it would begin to play its horrible music and flash in a million ugly colors.  In his hand, the agent held a large, ornate dagger, with a blade which looked like a single sharpened ruby.  The handle was golden, and studded with a mix of blue and purple jewels.  At the back of the handle was a small golden skull.

            “Hello,” Cody said, as the man entered the room.  His fear-scent grew a tad stronger.

            “Hello,” the man said.  He stared at the two for a moment.  “Any reason not to start?”

            “I can’t think of one,” Cody said.  “Justin, are you ready?”

            “Yeah,” Justin said after a moment.

            The agent activated his suit.  Justin came close to covering his ears as the music played.  The agent turned to the left, and shot a clear liquid at the wall next to them.  The stuff bubbled as soon as it hit the wall, releasing a thin smoke.  At the same time, Cody charged at a washing machine in the basement, smashing it.  Justin fired a beam of green energy at the wall, tracing a sweeping path from one wall to the other.  All of this was for the purpose of making it appear that a fight had started here.

            They continued like this for about thirty seconds, until the basement was sufficiently destroyed, and the DIAPP agent ran upstairs.  Cody fired a magical beam up through the open door as he left.  Justin ran up the stairs after him, Cody following shortly behind.  The man ran out the open door, into broad daylight outside, eliciting stares from bystanders.

            Gasps followed as the liches chased him outside.  Many of the people around ran away.  The DIAPP agent jumped at Justin, who grabbed his arm.  He could have made the suit decay away at this point.  Given the noxious sound it was producing, he was tempted to.  However, he held back, and did nothing more than flip the agent over, so that he landed on the ground face-first.  That was too fast, he realized.  Cody said I needed to fight badly enough that people would believe he beat me later.

            The agent tripped Justin from the ground.  The boy hit the sidewalk hard.  He heard a magical blast land behind him.  He stood up, spitting out a grey-brown tooth.  As he did, he saw what DIAPP had hoped would occur.  Some stupid, suicidal human was filming them.  Even after central square…  Justin turned around to see the DIAPP agent running down the street.  He followed, firing a magical blast on the road beside the agent.

            The three ran, the human slowly enough that Justin had no problem catching up, until they were out of the neighborhood they’d been in, and near a bunch of businesses, and a larger crowd.  It was then that Cody closed in for melee.  Summoning his scythe, he swung it at the DIAPP agent, allowing him to parry it with the bejeweled dagger.  Justin ran into the fray and did the same.  They fought, with their scythes and the dagger, like Justin had done many times before with his friends, using toy light-sabers.

            We’re two monsters from another realm, was the lie which DIAPP would release to give context to this show.  The only two, a pair, one in a black hood, the other white robes.  DIAPP hoped the color thing would help people believe that they were the only two, but that having two there rather than one would provide an out if more were to surface somehow.

            Justin heard a whoosh, and felt something pierce his heart.  He looked down.  The agent had gotten him.  Justin stumbled backward as the agent pulled the dagger out of him, grunting.  Cody stared, feigning shock.  Justin fell onto his back, moving his head to look out onto the stupid humans, whom he supposed were willing to have their souls devoured if it meant getting to post footage of the fight on the internet.

            Justin was facing the wrong way to see the fight behind him, and he couldn’t turn to look now.  If I move, they’ll know I’m not dead.  So he listened to the clack of magical scythe on pretend magical dagger, until he heard a squish, and the smack of Cody falling against the pavement.  The DIAPP agent hit the ground right afterward, heaving, out of breath.  The crowd still looked on.  After a moment, a cheer began.  The man stood up behind Justin, and stepped toward the crowd.

            Then the crowd looked up at the sky, some pointing dumbly, screaming.  Justin heard the loudest thunder he’d ever heard before as a bright light engulfed his vision.

*****

            Tracie Green wore green.  Her demeanor was not as bright as her clothing, though perhaps it had been at some point in the past.  It felt cruel, speaking to this girl, no older than twelve, about her dead brother.  Had the story been any less important, Violet wouldn’t have done it.

            The two sat in the grass, next to a cute little garden the girl had planted.  Though spring wouldn’t begin until later that week, some of the flowers had already bloomed.

            “Did your brother know a boy named Cody?” Violet asked the girl.

            “Oh, him?  Yeah.  They were best friends.  He was over all the time.”

            “This was Cody Giles?  The boy who was arrested in October on suspicion of being the Angel of Death.”

            “Yeah.”  Tracie gave Violet a look.  “Is that what this is about?”

            “Yes,” Violet said.  She didn’t explain why.

            “Oh,” the girl said.

            “They were quite close, though?” Violet pressed.

            “Well, yeah, I guess,” Tracie said.

            The interview continued for a while, but that had been what Violet needed to know.  Violet’s suspicions had been confirmed.  She would present her research to her managers, and then say it on air, and post it online, no matter what they said about it.

*****

            The giant bird flew into Justin’s field of view.  It was black and white, with a feathery crested head and a long, thin beak.  Blue arcs of lightning crackled all across its body.  The creature dove straight for the crowd, and the idiots finally scattered.  Perhaps this would teach them common sense, Justin thought, as he stood up and shot a magical beam at the bird, his aim true.

            The creature let out a thunderous squawk, its head turning to gaze at Justin.  The boy stepped back.  That probably should have done more damage, he thought, gazing at the bird as he heard another crash of thunder, and light overtook his vision once again.  He could see past the light.  He could no more be denied his sight by the overabundance of light than he could by the lack of it.  He saw a thick, blue bolt erupt from the bird’s beak and strike him, knocking him backward.  Beside him, he could now see the crisp-black legs the DIAPP agent.  It seemed his upper half was elsewhere.

            Cody had already stood, and was firing at the bird.  He raised his shield immediately after he fired on the creature.  Seeing the logic in this, Justin raised his shield as he stood up.  The creature opened its beak, and shot a lightning bolt at Cody.  The sound was again deafening.  Despite his shield, Cody was thrown backward by the blast.  Justin turned to see him fly back and slide against the pavement.  After just one blast, his shield was faint.  Crap, Justin thought.

            Justin turned his attention back to the creature.  He jumped to the side, lowered his shield, fired a blast, and raised his shield again.  He turned around and ran away from the creature in zig-zags.  He saw Cody stand up and run back toward the creature, firing a beam.  After a moment, Justin turned around and fired again at the creature.  Just as he lifted his shield back up, another bolt hit him, throwing him back and to the ground.  As he stood, he realized his shield was already at half strength.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cody waving his arms inside his shield as he jumped about to avoid the bird’s fire.  Once he saw he had Justin’s attention, Cody made a gesture, sticking out his thumb and pinky to make a telephone shape and putting it to his head like he was speaking into it.  They had agreed a while back that that signal meant for Justin to lower his shield so they could talk.

            Justin rolled to the side, by luck, actually dodging away from a bolt, and lowered his shield for a moment.  Cody lowered his as well.  “I know what that is,” Cody shouted.  “It has to be set on fire.  Nothing else will hurt it.”  Justin nodded and raised his shield back up.  He turned to look for the flamethrower on the exterminator’s back.  He found it, along with the exterminator’s head and shoulders.  What remained of the metal tank was well and truly exploded.  Being struck by lightning must have ignited its fuel.

            Justin looked around.  He saw Cody running toward a gas station.  Justin moved in the same direction, keeping his eyes on the monster, jumping around like Cody had been doing.  He was apparently doing it worse, however, because the creature managed to strike him mid-air, throwing him toward the gas station and popping his shield.  Crap.

            Justin stood back up.  He saw that Cody was inside the gas station’s building, waving his hand, motioning for Justin to move to Cody’s right.  Justin moved that way.  He stopped, but Cody’s waving only got more frantic.  Justin ran.  As he did, another bolt of lightning knocked him forward and onto his face.

            Justin heard his left arm skitter away as he hit the ground.  Using his other arm, he forced himself up, only to see the bird directly under the gas station’s hood.  Across the street, a human was cowering in the bushes with a cell phone camera pointed at the creature.  It stepped slowly toward Justin on its giant, thin, stick legs.

            As it did, Cody ran out of the gas station and, without missing a beat, grabbed one of the gas pumps and sprayed the gasoline at the creature.  The sparks moving throughout its feathers seemed to be all that was needed to ignite it.

            Cody dropped the pump after only a second and dashed away from it.  Justin followed him.  He heard frantic, pained squawks behind him.  After a few dozen feet, he turned around to see the bird flailing around, flapping its wings in an attempt to put the fire out, but it seemed to have no success.  After a couple hundred feet, the two stopped.  They turned around, and watched the bird, now fully engulfed; flail around for another minute or so before collapsing to the ground.

            “Well, that ruined everything,” Justin commented after a moment.

            “It did,” Cody said.  He turned around and walked off.  Justin looked over his shoulder.  The human was still in the bushes.  Justin nearly aimed an energy beam just above the moron’s head, just to scare him, but he held back.  He turned and went off with Cody.

*****

            The Grey Man sat, whispering the phrase “Damn it to hell” periodically.  His computer was open to a cell phone video of the devourers who had agreed they’d pretend to be dead.  They were pretending to be heroes instead.

            The Grey Man heard a click, and then a voice.  “Sir, something requires your attention.”

            The man pressed a button.  “What is it?”

            “According to our source at the Channel 4 news station in Goldfalls, one of the anchors there, Violet Fox, intends to report on an investigation she carried out into the Angel of Death case.”  The voice paused.  “She’s come to a lot of correct conclusions, sir.”

            The Grey Man sighed.  He leaned back in his chair.  There’s no lying to the world after this, he thought.  Someone is going to figure things out sooner or later.

            “Let her do what she wants.”

            “Sir?”

            “Don’t give me that.  I said to let her do what she wants and I meant it.”

            There was a short pause.  “Very well, sir.”

            The Grey Man turned off his computer.  He stood up and left.  (He was off work in ten minutes anyway.)  He’d be stopping to buy a drink on the way home.

*****

            “We’re on in sixty!” Violet heard.  Nervously, she fiddled with the papers she held.  Her palms felt disgustingly sweaty.

            “On in five, four, three, two.”

            “Good evening, I’m Violet Fox.  This is channel 4 news at 6:00,” she said.  “Our top story tonight continues to be the angel saga, as well as new information, gathered by this reporter personally, which may shed new light on the events.”

            That sounded okay so far, Violet thought.  From there, she went on to lay out her theory.  Cody Giles was the Angel of Death.  Devourers are angels in disguise, or perhaps the other way around.  They just tried to take over the world.

            It left a lot of unanswered questions, not the least of which being why whatever mental control Light-rook had been using had stopped working.  No one had heard anything out of him for over a month, since the same day a mansion in the Northern part of town had exploded.  Perhaps he had died in that explosion?

            This would be Violet’s last broadcast here.  She’d be going into hiding for a while.  Between the riot on Wednesday and her announcing that a bunch of monsters had been planning to take over the world, monsters that might come after her for revenge, she didn’t feel safe in Goldfalls.  She’d said goodbyes to her family and friends.  She’d be leaving as soon as this broadcast was over.

            She might end up regretting this; if she found a devourer standing over her, having tracked her down to avenge their plans.  No, that wasn’t right; most of them could turn invisible.  She wouldn’t be able to regret anything before they’d already killed her.

            Still, even if she somehow would regret this, she knew that she shouldn’t.  That was what mattered.  She’d done the right thing.  The camera stopped, and she took a long, deep drink from her mug before getting up to leave for the airport.

*****

            The world reacted poorly to Violet Fox’s broadcast at first.  It seemed, for a month or two, as though she had made a terrible mistake.

            But the human species was more invested in its own status quo than some might have predicted.  In the end, when the worst of the riots were over, the humans had to eat.  To do this, the bulk of them had to perform labor for the higher classes.  As a result of this labor’s necessity, it continued.  As the labor continued, so did the human’s schedules.  With these, the normal state of human societies went on.

            The angel incident had far reaching implications, of course.  Human existence would never be precisely the same as it had been before magical beings had tried to take over the world.  Scientists and philosophers were immensely concerned with the issue, and amateur organizations popped up alleging to assist in the fight against the remaining devourers, whom DIAPP would have to track down, even as the monsters became ever more desperate.

            Still, Valthakar’s spell went perfectly with the materials I sent, and it seems, in the end, their world shall continue as it always did.

Angel of Death 1.18 You Should Think Nothing of Them

            Adeyemi hummed as he sat in his office.  The phone rang.  He picked it up.  “Hello?”

            “This is Bavandersloth,” he heard.  “The shipment you asked for should be there any minute now.  I had to get some friends of mine to drive the trucks.  You’ll need to be downstairs in order to receive it.  They won’t trust a group of zombies.”

            Adeyemi smiled.  “Ah, I see.  Thank you very much for bailing us out like this.”

“You’re welcome.”  Bavandersloth hung up.

Adeyemi stood up, put some nose plugs in, and went downstairs.  A few minutes later, a group of trucks arrived, driven by Adeyemi’s own men.  Adeyemi raised an eyebrow.  Bavandersloth had just said he’d sent his own people to drive the shipment in.  It wasn’t like him to misremember something like that.  Was this not the shipment?  One of the men coughed as he exited the truck.

            “Damn, boss.  Why do you have to keep all of these… things around?”

            “They’re our workers.”

            “They’re from hell is what they are.”  The man coughed a few more times.  He looked down and sighed.  “Whatever.  I have the shipment here.”

            “I see that you do.  If I may ask, though, did something come up at the last minute?  I was on the phone with Bavandersloth just now and he told me that some of his own men were bringing it in.”

            The man tilted his head.  “I don’t know how that happened.  Some of his men gave me this thing maybe half an hour ago.”

            Adeyemi squinted.  “Strange.  You don’t happen to know if--”

*****

            Johnathan’s eyes widened as a bright light flashed in front of him and he was forced out of the body he’d been controlling.  He looked around.  He was inside a fireball.  Though it caused him no pain, he still felt the urge to fly above it, along with all of the other souls around.  When he did, he looked down.  His eyes widened.  Several buildings were gone.  A few others were on fire.  John flew back to his master.

*****

            Bavandersloth looked up as several of his souls entered his mansion.  He smiled.  It was done, then.

            “Master,” one of the souls said, “there was a--”

            “An explosion, I know.  Be assured that nothing I am not okay with has happened.  In groups of two, go to some of the souls monitoring DIAPP agents and follow their assignments around until they bring you to agents who aren’t being monitored yet.  At that point, one of you should start following them, and another one of you come tell me about it.  I’ll send a third soul your way.”

            The souls nodded and flew off.  Bavandersloth put aside his book and picked a phone.  He called a leader of a different organization.

            “Hello?” the man on the other line said.

            “It’s done,” Bavandersloth said.  “Their facilities in the area should be beyond use.  You’re free to set up shop if you want.”

            “Excellent.  Will you be supplying us with workers?”

            “Possibly at a later date.  I’m using every spare familiar on something else right now, but if that threat is ever resolved, I’ll contact you.”

            “Oh.  Disappointing.  I suppose we can make due, though.”

            “I trust that you can.”

            Bavandersloth hung up.  He dialed another number.

            “Hello?”

            “Yes, hello, this is Bavandersloth.  I’ve just learned that the shipment I sent you has been hijacked by the Okoro family and filled with explosives.  They’re going to blow up your facilities when the shipment arrives.  You’ll want to stop the shipment as soon as possible.  It might already be too late.  I wish I could have told you any sooner, but I only just now learned.”

            There was a pause on the other end.  “Understood.”  The phone was hung up.  Bavandersloth smiled.

*****

            Bavandersloth sat across from Violet Fox in the studio.  His interviews here had become so regular that they may as well have been a nightly segment on the ten o’clock news.  There was even talk of Bavandersloth getting his own show.

            In the other room, an anchorman spoke.  “Our top story tonight, Last Night, a rebel faction, has forcefully removed the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un from power.  The United Brotherhood, a group previously unknown to intelligence officials and experts, has violently, but without any human fatalities, get this, single-handedly taken down the regime overnight, and it appears that the strangest detail in the case may give us a hint as to how that’s possible.”

            The broadcast, displayed for Bavandersloth by a screen on the wall in front of him, cut to footage of the green light from Valthakar’s wish-granting.  The light had arced across the Pacific Ocean, widening as it went from the size of a pinhead to the size and shape of the affected area: North Korea.  In addition to the area it enveloped, the light had been seen from Alaska, Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan.

            “This light,” the newscaster continued, “whose color, I’m sure you notice, resembles that of force fields used by Angels on camera in the past, was seen throughout the area.  The Light enveloped the whole of North Korea, seeming to have traveled from an arc originating right here in Goldfalls.  Sitting in the studio with my co-anchor Violet Fox to comment on the issue is the Angel Light-rook.”

            “Thank you, Dave.  Light-rook, do you know what happened here?”

            “Why yes.  First, I want to state outright that this was indeed our doing.  It was Orichalcum, actually.  He took advantage of a special opportunity to cast a very powerful spell.  There’s no safe way to induce it to happen on command, but in this case we were able to see it coming and capitalize on it.”

            “Can you elaborate on the nature of this spell?”

            Bavandersloth sighed.  “Well, I’ll try I suppose.  It’s to do with a buildup of magic in our home dimension, but not just anywhere there, in a specific area, a place where magic can more easily leak from that realm to this one.  Magic moves through that realm randomly.  Build-ups like this can happen at any time.  I’ve seen days when five of them occur and I’ve seen stretches of fifty years where none do, and sometimes they go away before you get a chance to use them.”  Bavandersloth smiled.  “What I’m trying to say is don’t get your hopes up too high for it to happen again soon.  Still, this time, things worked out well, and North Korea was the first thing that occurred to us.”

            “Is your influence the reason for the lack of casualties?”

            “Yes.”

            “And how did you make sure of that?”

            “We were able to specify it in the spell.”

            “And why did rebels end up overthrowing the government because of your spell?  Why didn’t the regime just vanish?”

            “I can’t say for sure.  We think that with events like this, whatever we specify happens by the most likely scenario available.  In this case, a new rebellion was formed and they overthrew the government, damaging only property.”

            “I see.  So what about…”

            The interview continued nearly until the end of the newscast.  Bavandersloth felt sorry for the political analyst they’d gotten on to speak on the implications of the spell.  He only got to speak for a few minutes.

*****

            Agent Lambert turned off the TV.  He turned to one of his fellow agents.  “This has gone too far,” he said.

            “The North Korea or the…”

            “All of this.”  Agent Lambert put his head down and took a deep breath.  He looked back at his fellow agent.  “I think…” Agent Lambert sighed, “I think it might be time for us to tell the public everything.”

            The other Agent’s eyes widened.  “You can’t be serious.”

            Agent Lambert nodded.  “I am.”

            “But that’s against the highest of our protocols.  If everyone knew how those things worked, some people, the wrong people, would want to be like them, and that book always appears for anyone who knows everything and still wants to be one of them.  Besides, how would the public react if they knew about liches?  Bad as real liches are, the rumors and suspicions about innocent people would give McCarthy nightmares.”

            “I know.”  Agent Lambert sighed.  “But that’s better than letting Bavandersloth take over the world.  If we don’t tell the world everything soon, Bavandersloth will win.  It’s the only strategy left.”

            “And what if we spur the community of liches into an all-out attack?”

            “What could they possibly do that’s worse than what Bavandersloth has in mind?”  Agent Lambert clinched his fist.  “No.  If we can unite humanity together against them, we’d be able to stamp them out.”  He looked down.  “This has become a different type of threat than we usually deal with.  We can’t beat Bavandersloth in our usual way.”  Lambert gritted his teeth.  “We can’t afford to care about the consequences.  There’s nothing we could ever do that’s not preferable to the least horrific of Bavandersloth’s possible endgames.”

            The other agent sighed.  “If that’s the case, we’d better speak to the Grey Man right away.  Bavandersloth’s souls are probably already on their way back to him.”

            “They’re already there,” Agent Lambert said, standing up.

*****

            Bavandersloth put down his book and looked up at the soul who’d approached him.  He raised an eyebrow.  “Yes?”

            “Agent Lambert is speaking about revealing the truth about your diet to the press.”

            Bavandersloth’s eyes widened.  “What?  Didn’t that go against their--”

            “They say they’re desperate enough.  Agent Lambert plans to speak with the Grey Man soon.”

            Bavandersloth stood up.  “Alright then,” he said.  “Keep a close eye on Agent Lambert.”

            The soul nodded.  “Yes, master.”  It flew away.

*****

            That night, Agent Lambert entered a video conference with the Grey Man.  “Thank you for agreeing to speak to me this soon, sir.”

            “I had little other choice.  The fact that an agent of your competence thinks that what I hear you’re planning is necessary is all the proof I need that the matter is more urgent than anything I had planned.”

            Agent Lambert nodded.  “Let us begin, then.  I’ve put some thought into it, and I think I know how to convince the public of the nature of Bavandersloth’s plan.”

            “I’m listening.”

            “We’ll show them one of our copies of On Soulless Ones.”

            “And how will we do that?  If we try to get to any news station, any publisher, any radio station, or any person whatsoever with the book, they’ll cut us off, and Bavandersloth will be able to come up with an excuse as to why that happened.  The public is in love with him right now.  They’ll believe anything he tells them.”

            “Surely a group of exterminators could get it there?”

            The Grey Man sat back.  He thought.  “Perhaps enough of them might be able to do it.”  The Grey Man looked up at the camera.  “How many do you want?”

            “How many can you send?”

            “As many as you need.  For this, I’d send them all.”

            Agent Lambert took a deep breath.  “I think any more than fifteen would be overkill.”

            “Then I ought to send twenty-one.  This is a big deal.  If you succeed,” the Gray Man sighed, “a lot of things will happen then.”

            Agent Lambert smiled.  “Twenty-five then.”

            “Got it.  Thirty-two agents will be sent to Goldfalls.”

            “No.  Not here.  That’s too obvious.  Send them to New York.”

            The Grey Man raised an eyebrow.  “New York?”

            “We’re not sending this to Channel 4.”

            The Grey Man sat back.  “Alright then.  New York it is.  I’ll also send five your way, as I understand you don’t have any stationed there right now.”

            Lambert nodded.  “Thank you, sir.”

            “Very good.  Is there anything else to discuss?”

            “Not with you.”

            The Grey Man raised an eyebrow.  “Excuse me?”

            “With all due respect, sir, I don’t want to announce the details of my plan in front of the souls watching us.”

            The Grey Man sighed.  “Very well.  Go on then.  You have my permission to break the Highest Protocol.”  The Grey man looked down.  “I trust you.”

            Agent Lambert nodded.  “Thank you, sir.”

            Agent Lambert turned off the communication.  He sat down and sighed.  That part had gone well.  Now for the next part of his plan.  He reached into his pocket, got out a cell phone, and called the biggest news Agency that came to mind.

            He got an automated message.  “Hello, you have reached the Galactic, America’s #1 News source.  Thank you for calling.  If you’re calling to report an error in a recent publication by the Galactic, press 1.  If you’re calling to report a lead--”

            Lambert pressed 2.

            “Thank you.  Please hold.”  Music played.

            Lambert grumbled.  He needed this not to take long.

*****

            “Thank you,” Bavandersloth told the soul who’d come to him.  “Go back and observe.”

            “Yes, Master,” the soul said.  It flew away.  Bavandersloth thought.  There was only one reason Agent Lambert would contact the Galactic in advance, to tell them the book was coming.  If he got his side of the story out fast enough, he’d be able to prevent any attempt to keep the book away from that station.  Bavandersloth had to stop this call.

            After a moment, Bavandersloth smiled.  He picked up his own phone.  He called Larngulal.

            She answered.  “Hello?”

            “Hello.  This is Bavandersloth.  Our plan is about to fail.  Goldfalls’ chapter of DIAPP is contacting the Galactic to promise to send them a copy of the book.  If that phone call goes through, we may have no realistic way of recovering.  I need you to do whatever it takes to prevent them from receiving that phone call.  You have until Agent Lambert comes off of hold.”

            “Could you have possibly told me this any earlier?”

            “No.  Please, hurry.”

            Larngulal sighed.  “Alright.  I’ll send a friend after it.  He’s near there, I think.”

            “Good.  Thank you.”

            She sighed again.  “No problem.”

            Bavandersloth sat back.  Assuming she succeeded, that would only put off the inevitable.  The Galactic would be able to take calls again within a few days no matter what, and there were more locations than that one to call.  Bavandersloth slammed his fist on the table.  How had this happened?  He couldn’t stop DIAPP for long.  They’d call another paper.  They… wait.  No.  He was going about this all wrong.  He picked up the phone and called Larngulal again.

            “What now?” she asked.

            “Change of plans.  I have a better strategy.”

*****

            Hold ended.  Agent Lambert reached the receptionist.  “Hello, thank you for calling the Galactic.  You have a tip for us?”

            “Yes.  It’s about the Angels.  I’m from the Agency that’s been opposing them recently.  I need you to publish the fact that in a few days, perhaps tomorrow, we are going to bring a book to your offices.”

            “A book?”

            “Yes.  It’s a magical book.  It contains information on the Angels that is vital to the public interest.  I’m calling you because it’s inevitable that the Angels will try to stop you from receiving this book.”

            “Yes.  I see.  And how will this book come to us?”

            “The soldiers in the special armor you’ve seen. We’re getting thirty-two of them to escort the book to you.  The Angels will try to attack them on their way, especially if you don’t publish this.”

            “I see.  Well, your tip has been noted.  Thank you for calling.”

“You’re going to publish it right?”

“Sir, we receive hundreds of these sorts of tips.  We cannot write stories on them all.  If your claims are true, we will be sure to inform the public of your call.”

“Wait.  Listen to me.  I need you to--”

The phone buzzed.  She’d hung up.  Lambert clinched his fist.  He sighed.  Please, let thirty-two be enough.

*****

            “Okay, what’s your plan?” Larngulal asked.

            “I need you to stop any planes from landing nearby tonight.”

            “Well that’s much easier said than done.”

            “I know, but I have an idea for how you’re going to do it.”

            “What?”

            “Do what I did with Tkoralkiarch.  Find a human willing to become one of us, and make sure they come out with the power to manipulate the weather, more specifically to cause fog.”

            There was a pause.  “Ok.  Oh.  Yes, that just might work.”

            “Do you think you can do it?”

            “Of course I can do it.”

            Bavandersloth smiled.  “Good, then.  Get going.”

            Larngulal hung up.  Bavandersloth sat back.  He was on top of this.

*****

A few hours later, Larngulal snuck, invisible, into a federal Prison.  Souls around her kept watch for guards as she walked through the facility, looking for a specific criminal.

She stopped outside of his cell.  She smiled.  That was him.  Fifteen years ago, that man had terrorized this city by killing over forty people.

Larngulal placed her hands on the bars of the cell and made small parts of them rust away.  She took the rest of the bars away from the cell and set them down.  This way, it might look like they’d been destroyed gradually over time, perhaps with something as simple as dental floss and sand.  She entered the cell.  Her target, Jonah Harrison, was on the top bunk.  She climbed the ladder and shook him awake.

He opened his eyes.  Larngulal pulled her hands away.  Jonah sat up in bed.  “Huh?” he said.

“Hello,” she said.

Jonah looked around.  “Who’s there?”

“I’m on the ladder,” Larngulal said.

Jonah looked.  “I don’t see any… wai--”

“Don’t scream.  I’m not here to kill you.”

Jonah stared for a second.  Eventually, he smiled.  “Alright then, what are you here for?”

“I need help,” Larngulal said.  “And you’re perfect for the job I need done.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’ll tell you everything after I take you out of here.”

Jonah’s eyes widened.  “You’ll get me out of here?”

“I believe that’s what I just said, now come on.”

“Well you don’t have to ask me twice.”

Larngulal smiled.  She helped Jonah out of bed and then walked with him out of the prison.  Whenever one of her souls warned her of a guard, she’d leave Jonah behind, go to them and give them injuries similar to the one’s they’d get from being punched out, removing a bit of their memory in the process.  It wasn’t too long before they’d left the prison.  Larngulal put Jonah in the back of her truck and drove off.

*****

            Bavandersloth grabbed the criminal as his next meal stood over the man it’d been assaulting.  The mortal struggled.  Bavandersloth grunted as it tried to wriggle away before he finally managed to pin the human to the ground.  He scythed the man’s soul and ate it.  The victim tried to stand up.  Bavandersloth turned to him.  “Don’t,” he said.

            The victim looked up at him.  “Huh?”

            “You’re too injured to safely move.  I’m sorry to say I’m not one of the healers.  Do you have a cell phone?”

            The man pointed nearby.  Bavandersloth walked over to the device.  It was on the floor, cracked, and damaged to the point of uselessness.  He sighed.  “Hold on a moment.”  Bavandersloth stepped away, took his human form, reached into his pocket, grabbed a phone, and changed back into his true form.  He went back into the room.  “Here,” he said.  “Call an ambulance.  Your injuries need to be treated.”

            The man on the ground nodded and dialed the phone as Bavandersloth ran off.  He smiled.  That last soul had put him over a threshold he’d been looking forward to crossing for a century.  The DIAPP issue ought to be sorted out by tomorrow and he’d be ready to deploy phase two of his plan.

*****

            Larngulal led Jonah to her headquarters, a large house in a wealthy New York suburb.   She pulled into the garage before helping Jonah out of the trunk.

            Jonah coughed.  “Damn it’s hot in there.”  He took deep breaths.

            Larngulal ignored him and pointed to a plastic bag hanging off of the garage door.  “There are street clothes in that,” she said.  “I’ll go on inside.  Come in when you’re dressed, and bring your prison uniform so I can destroy it.”

            Jonah nodded.  Larngulal went inside and walked into one of the other rooms in her home.  She grabbed her copy of On Soulless Ones and walked back to the kitchen.  A few minutes later, Jonah stepped in.  “Come on in,” Larngulal said.  “Sit down.”

            Jonah smiled and obeyed.  “Wowzers,” he said.  “Who knew an Angel would look so… Angelic.”

            Larngulal took the book from her side and placed it on the table.  Jonah’s eyes widened.  “Woah.  Are those gems… real?”

            “Yes.” Larngulal said.  “But they are of no value at all compared to what is inside this book.”

            “Meh, books have never been my thing.”

            “Oh, I imagine this one will be.”  Larngulal smiled.  “You see, we Angels need another one of us.”  She opened the book to Chapter Two.  “The community of Angels is currently suffering through a less-than-small problem, and the only way to solve it would be to have one of us use weather controlling powers to bring a thick blanket of fog upon a large area surrounding New York City.”  Larngulal frowned.  “Sadly, there doesn’t happen to be an Angel capable of doing that.”  She looked Jonah in the eye.  “But you can become one.”

            Jonah beamed.  “Sign me up.”

            “I was hoping you would say that.”  Jonah reached for the book.  Larngulal closed it.  Jonah looked up.  “First, though, there are a few rules that need to be established.”

            “What?”

            “First, you need to know a secret.  We Angels, we eat human souls.”

            Jonah raised his head.  He paused.  “Interesting,” he said after a moment.  “So… that’s why you kill criminals?”

            Larngulal nodded.  “One every night.  And if you become one of us, you’re free to do that too.  You’ll have to find criminals to do it with, but if you want, you can paralyze them, bring them back here, and do whatever you want to them before you eat them, so l--”

            “Just skip to how I do it already.”

            Larngulal opened the book back up again, this time to the end of Chapter Two.  “You need to select an object, pick something hard to destroy, and put it on here, then read the incantation here.”  Larngulal pointed to the text on the opposite page.  “That will transfer your soul into the object you choose.”  Jonah got up.  Larngulal looked over at him.  “Don’t forget, will yourself to get weather controlling powers, strong ones, strong enough to allow you to bring down that blanket of fog right away.”  Demanding something that powerful and specific would make him weaker in other areas, but Larngulal wasn’t going to mention that.

            It wasn’t long before Jonah came back with a small metal statue of a chicken.  He placed it on the book, looked down, and squinted.  “I call upon the power of the underworld to cast my soul into this object, so that I may become a being of death, disease, and decay.”

            Larngulal sat, her hands folded.  Jonah became dizzy, and stumbled a few steps forward.  He couged.  He had a few dry heaves, and then vomited out his soul.  It flew toward and made contact with the statue.  A few seconds later, Jonah opened his eyes and stood up.  He took a few breaths.

            Larngulal smiled.  “Good job.”  Jonah looked at the statue.  He walked to it and picked it up.  “Now,” Larngulal continued, “cast the fog.”

            Jonah smiled.  He looked over at her and nodded.  He closed his eyes and whispered for a thick fog to come down.  Larngulal looked out the window.  She could already see it.  It wasn’t quite thick enough yet, but it was getting thicker by the second.  She got up.

            “Where are you going?” Jonah asked.

            “To call a friend of mine.  There are some papers on the table.  Grab one from each stack.  They’ll explain the rules you’ll be expected to abide by.”

            Jonah frowned and then sighed.  He stepped over to the table as Larngulal went into the other room, picked up the phone, and dialed Bavandersloth’s number.

*****

            “In other news,” a reporter in New York said, “a sudden, thick fog has caused flight delays all across New York.  Our meteorologist Ned Jackson is here to comment.”

            “Thank you Jennifer, the fog came suddenly just a few hours ago and blanketed a large portion of the New York metropolitan area.  All incoming flights to New York have been delayed…”

*****

            Agent Lambert slammed the phone into the receiver.  “Damn it!” he screamed.  He seethed.  Another agent looked at him.  Lambert looked down and took a deep breath, putting his face in his hands.  He looked up.  “I think I might have another idea.”

            The agent raised an eyebrow.  “What, sir?”

            “It’d be better if I don’t tell you.  I don’t want to give Bavandersloth any time to react.”

*****

            Cody stepped onto Cherie’s porch, carrying a bag with his copy of On Soulless Ones inside.  He knocked on the door.  After a few seconds, Cherie opened it.  “Hey,” she said.

            Cody smiled.  “Hey,” he said.  “You said we needed to talk, and to bring the book?”

            Cherie nodded.  “Yeah.”

            Cody tilted his head.  “Is this a…”

            “Well, yeah.  I’m getting information from this.  Didn’t you suspect that coming here?”

            “No.  That’s not it.  You…”  Cody looked around.  She was lying.  This was a trap, but what kind?  DIAPP didn’t need his book, or any information they’d learn out of it, or any information he could tell them about it.  They had several copies of their own.  What else could it be?  He’d left the cube at home.  Cody’s eyes widened.  He’d left the cube at home.  Cody put down the book and ran away.

            “Cody, wait,” Cherie shouted.

            Cody ran off, ignoring her.

*****

            Thomas stayed hidden behind the bushes until the devourer was far enough away and Cherie was inside.  Eventually, he ran out, grabbed the book, and rushed onto his motorcycle.  Four other exterminators followed him.

*****

            Bavandersloth poured his wine from his glass, keeping an eye on Justin, who was outside on a swing.  A few of Valthakar’s souls came up to him.

            “Bavandersloth,” one said.

            Bavandersloth looked up.  “What is it?”

            “A group of exterminators have taken Odelarch’s book.  They’re on their way to the news station right now.”

            Bavandersloth’s eyes widened.  “What?”  He turned around and dashed into the other room.  Valthakar sat, reading from On the Underworld.  “Stand up and hurry, Valthakar.”  Valthakar looked up.  “Exterminators are rushing toward the news station with Odelarch’s copy of On Soulless Ones.  Run over there right now and stop them.”

            Valthakar nodded.  He got up and ran toward the door.  “Wait,” Bavandersloth said.

            Valthakar turned around.  “What?”

            “Go downstairs and get some of the weapons.”

            “I think magic ought to be sufficient.”

            “And it will also make it clear that we did this.  Run over there in your true form, but make yourself look like a human criminal and use conventional weapons to defeat them.  Go for heavier ones.  Those should get through the exterminator’s light bullet-proof vests.  Don’t pay any mind to collateral damage.”  Bavandersloth thought.  “On second thought, do.  Given how I’ll spin this later, I’d prefer there to be as much as possible.”

            Valthakar nodded and ran downstairs to grab some guns.  Bavandersloth clenched his fist.

*****

            Valthakar rushed through town on a course that should allow him to intercept the exterminators if they were on their way to the news station.

            After about twenty minutes, Valthakar saw the exterminators.  He smiled.  Bystanders were looking on, so Valthakar found a hiding place, took his human form, and stepped out bearing a machine gun.  He aimed and fired at one of the exterminators; hitting him and making him slouch over.  People around screamed and ran away.

            “Tom?” a woman’s voice screamed from another bike.  Valthakar fired a few more shots at him, making his blood spatter onto the road and causing his bike to fall over.  Valthakar aimed upward at the others.  He hit two more before they rode out of sight.

            Valthakar looked down and saw that none of the ones he’d hit was carrying the book.  He sighed.  He got on one of the motorcycles and rode after the other two.

            He saw them again within a few minutes.  He raised his gun and opened fire, managing to hit one.

            The other one turned around when she saw her partner hit.  She gasped.  Valthakar looked.  She was carrying the book.  The exterminator turned and drove into an alley.  Valthakar pulled back harder on his motorcycle’s handle and followed.

            When he emerged on the other side of the alley, Valthakar looked both ways and saw the exterminator riding off to the left.  His eyes widened.  The News Station was close.  Valthakar sped that way, firing, but the exterminator swerved.  She was probably keeping an eye on him through her motor-cycle’s rear-view mirror.  Valthakar retook his aim, but with the same result.

            The exterminator accelerated ahead.  Valthakar tried to do the same, but was already going as fast as he could.  He gritted his teeth, reloaded, and took aim again.  He saw a turn coming up ahead.  Valthakar smiled.  He waited for the exterminator to slow down for the turn and fired.  He hit.  The woman fell off of her motorcycle and rolled away.  A car slammed on its breaks to avoid hitting her.  Valthakar abandoned his own bike and ran toward the woman.  She tried to stand up, but Valthakar shot her, forcing her back down.  She shouted for help, but Valthakar fired again, killing her.

            Everyone around was screaming and running away.  Valthakar turned around and fired on them.  When no one was left in the vicinity, Valthakar walked to the exterminator.  He reached down and grabbed the book.  He picked it up, ducked into an alley, took his true form and became invisible.  He ran back to Bavandersloth’s Mansion.

*****

            Agent Lambert picked up his phone.  “Yes, hello.  Did they…”  The agent on the other end sighed.  Agent Lambert’s eyes widened.  “What…”

            “I’m sorry, sir.  The devourers got the book back and all of our exterminators are dead.”

            Agent Lambert gasped.  He shed a tear.  He clinched his teeth.  He threw the phone against the wall.  “God damn it.”  Several of the agents around backed away.  Lambert punched the couch he was on repeatedly, tears streaming down his face.  “Why?  Why?  Why?  Why?  Why?”

*****

            Cody knocked back on Cherie’s door.  Cherie opened it.  “What?” she asked.

            “What was that?”

            Cherie sighed.  “It was a DIAPP thing.”

            “Well I worked that out.”

            Cherie sighed.  “Come in.”

            Cody followed Cherie downstairs.  They sat on the couch.  “Alright,” Cody said.  “What was that?  You acted like you were going to kill me.”

            “That’s what you were supposed to think.”  Cherie looked down.  “That’s what dad said.  He didn’t say anything more.”

            Cody looked down and sighed.  “When he does, mind informing me?”

            Cherie nodded.

*****

            That night, Bavandersloth sat in his usual spot for his nightly interview with Violet Fox.  The subject of the tragedy that had just occurred downtown was being discussed.

            “…The motorcyclists there were in the standard armor of the government agency that you’ve interacted with.  Do you know anything at all about that incident?”

            Bavandersloth smiled.  “Well, I don’t know the exact story of how the conflict between them and the perpetrator came about to start with, I’m sorry to say.  I do, however, know what they were fighting over.”

            Violet’s eyes widened a bit.  “What?”

            “It was a book.”  Bavandersloth sighed.  “A terrible, terrible book.  That tome is nothing short of pure evil.  It comes from our home dimension, and its magical nature reveals itself upon casual examination.”

            Violet leaned forward.  “How?”

            “Well, for one thing, the tome is totally indestructible.  I’ve experimented with copies myself and I’ve never managed, nor known of anyone to manage, to inflict the slightest damage on it.  Water falls right off of its pages, fire abhors it, and no weight ever supplied has managed to crush it.”  Violet started to speak, but Bavandersloth interrupted.  “That, though, is far from its strangest property.  If you open the book to any page while having nothing in particular in mind as to which of its passages you want to see, you will see a table of contents.  If you open it to any page having something in mind, it will display whatever you willed to see.”

            Violet’s mouth was wide.  “And you said it was evil?”

            Bavandersloth paused.  “In the worst possible way,” he finally said.  “The sort of magic it contains is not the normal kind that I use, but what is considered Dark Magic.”  Bavandersloth audibly gulped.  “When that book makes a statement of fact about anything but a spell, it cannot be trusted.  Its pages contain an elaborate history and cosmology, the whole of which is utterly fabricated.  The one respect in which it is truthful is in its spells.  It contains the instructions by which one could use magic to do truly heinous things.”

“Can you give an example?”

“Not with a clear conscience.  Believe me; you do not want to know.”

“So where is the book now?”

“There are numerous copies.  Many of them are buried.  A few are safeguarded by some of us; as I said, the book can be trusted to tell the truth about its own spells, and sometimes it yields information useful to combat wicked men who have discovered it.  I believe the government agency has at least one copy as well, probably several.  The one over which the battle today was fought, though, is now in much more dangerous hands.”

Violet’s eyes widened.  “Who has it?”

“The man who collected it, and who is responsible for every death in that incident, was a member of a criminal organization.  In those hands, it could be used to cause untold destruction.”

“Wait; do you know which organization has it?”

“No.”  Violet looked down.  Bavandersloth continued.  “We have some idea.  We know a few it can’t be, and a few dozen it’s most likely to be, but that’s it.  I’m afraid I can’t say much more.”

“Are you going to contact the police about this?”

Bavandersloth nodded.  “We already did, but we’ve not heard back.”  Bavandersloth stood up.  “In fact, that’s part of the reason I came here tonight.  I’ve already contacted law enforcement asking for their cooperation, though not long enough ago that I’d expect to have received a response by now.  Just to be sure, though, I wanted to say this publically:  I intend to visit the police personally tomorrow.  For a while now, the police have been doing little to combat us, and I appreciate that, but in light of these events, I feel I must ask for more.  I think it’s time that the community of Angels and police around the world begin officially cooperating.  I believe that we can do much more together than apart.  Our community has done much to combat crime both in America and around the world, and with official support; I believe we could do much more.”

There were a few gasps in the studio, though not as many as Bavandersloth had expected.  Some of the people around might have suspected this would happen soon.  Bavandersloth sat down.

Violet Fox took a moment to respond.  “I see,” she said.  Bavandersloth smiled.

*****

            Agent Lambert seethed when he saw Bavandersloth’s speech on the television.  He tried to force himself to calm down.  Bavandersloth was winning.  Lambert took a few deep breaths.  He called another agent: an expert in criminal justice.  He waited a minute before she picked up the phone.

“Hello, sir,” she said.

“Are you watching this?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lambert sighed.  “In your opinion, Agent Reynolds, how likely is it that the police will go along with them?”

Agent Reynolds paused.  “It’s hard to say.  I’m not sure how likely it is that the police will be willing to go along with a group known to kill people.  Then again, after North Korea…”

Agent Lambert looked down.  He shed a tear and slammed the phone against the receiver.

*****

            The interview continued.  “So who made this book anyway?  Where did it come from?”

            “Our dimension.  The exact details are lost, but we believe it was created by a devourer intent on sewing mistrust against us.  I’ve read the book myself.  Its chief purpose, other than giving humans access to powerful magic, is to make us seem synonymous with them.  This might be why this government agency thought that was the case at first, and might still think so now.  As I said earlier, they no doubt have several copies of the thing.”

            Violet looked down.  She looked back up.  “I see.”

            “I don’t blame them.  It’s natural to trust something that seems to come from a magical source, especially when it’s the first side of the story one hears.  I’d happily extend my offer for cooperation to that organization as well, if they’re interested.  Indeed, it might take all three of us to combat these criminals.”

            Violet nodded.  “I see.”  She sat back.

Bavandersloth raised an eyebrow.  “Is something wrong?”

Violet pressed her lips together.  She looked down, and then back up.  “How do we know the book is dishonest?  How do we know you’re not lying right now?  A lot of people out there distrust you, and a lot of them make seemingly good points.”

            Bavandersloth paused for a moment, and then chuckled softly.  He sighed.  “That’s a good question,” he said.  “Truth be told, I can’t think of a way to prove it.  You have, I suppose, never seen any Angel and their devourer in the same place at the same time.  It is odd that a benevolent race like us would hide ourselves for so long and that just shortly after our unveiling that these other forces would suddenly emerge.  Truth be told, I can’t think of any proof I have that our community is trustworthy.  However, there is one thing I can say.”

            Violet’s eyes widened.  “What?”

            Bavandersloth smiled.  “I gained a new power last night.  The power of any one of us is constantly growing by drips and drops.  One of my powers requires me to be with someone face to face, or at least it did, until last night.”

*****

            Lambert’s eyes widened.  He grabbed his remote and turned off his TV.  He picked up a microphone and turned on the intercom.  “Everyone, TV’s off now.  Cover your ears.  Close your eyes.  Look away.”  Lambert paused.  “Cut power to the facility just to be safe.”

*****

            “What are you saying?” Violet asked.

            Bavandersloth closed his eyes.  “Oh, simply that the various fears based on the facts that I just mentioned are false.”  Bavandersloth used his power to induce false belief on all who were watching.  “You should think nothing of them.”

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