The Sloth of Heaven, page 19
part #2 of The Fallen Angels Series
But while it was all very enjoyable it was not the reason he was in Paris. He had come here to wait for and find her. His love, his other half, the one who he would surprisingly die for. He had killed for her and he would do so again in an instant. He owed her everything, even his own life.
“I thought I would find you here.” He spun around at that tantalising voice. She could make a Siren feel like they were braying. His eyes drank her in as she walked towards him in long strides. She still had six feathered wings, she was still an Angel even if she was Fallen, but they had changed, they were all red- blood red, rose red, with a dark iridescence that made them look like dried blood before turning black. It suited her passionate and sadistic nature. Her skin was darker than ever before, she had been as dark as a Nubian before, perhaps a hint to her father. He had no idea, she had never informed him of who his grandfather was. But now she was black as jet, yet with a subtle red sheen to her skin. She moved with that agile, predatory grace she always had. He had the same walk. Her hair was black and red, spiked up in the strange modern way. When did women start cutting their hair and putting it against gravity?
But Agrat’s eyes were the same as they had always been amber with a vertical slit like a cat’s eye. Those same eyes watched him with humour “Oh darling, we are going to have so much fun with that form.” She took the last step and kissed him, her strong, lean arms winding up around his neck as her body moulded against his. Like it always did, like it always would. They were perfect together.
They were meant to be together. Always.
Reports have continued to pour in of these alleged claimings. The difference, this time, is that there have been a variety of names. In the United States and Mexico, citizens heard the voice of a woman called Hera. Citizens in Iraq heard Ereshkigal claiming the lands of Mesopotamia. The Chinese and Japanese heard Izanami claim their ancestral lands. Around the Caspian Sea people heard a voice claiming Simurgh’s Lake, some believe that this might be a reference to the Caspian Sea. In Egypt, they were claimed by Isis and a collection of other Gods from antiquity. In Scandinavia, they were claimed by the Goddess Hel. In Canada, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka they heard the voice of Brigid, once again claiming vast tracts of lands.
No one is quite sure what any of this means. The religious group, the Brigidites, are using this as proof of her divine favour. Scientists are at a loss to explain though theories range from mass hallucinations to country-wide electronic hacking. Many religious groups around the world have taken a negative stance on these claimings.
Civil war is still raging in Pakistan, one of the earliest countries to be claimed by Brigid. Riots have broken out in Christian communities across the United States and Mexico. There is swelling civil unrest within what was once Iraq and much of the Middle East. Local religious authorities are claiming Demonic possessions. Israel and Jordan continue to be savaged by survivors of the eruption, seemingly driven crazy by the gases.
The claiming of the Caspian Sea follows the first rainfall in the region in decades, steady rain that is managing to raise its water level significantly. It is also not the only place to have inexplicably changed since being claimed. Canada is noting extensive thawing across its frozen wastelands and lost forests. A mere coincidence many would say but other countries ‘claimed’ by Brigid are seeing dramatic environmental change. South Africa is enjoying its first rains in fifty years. The barren wastelands of Australia are gradually returning to scrublands and forests. New Zealand has thawed, shaking off the bitter grips of a savage twenty-year winter and is starting to green. India is enjoying the return of monsoonal rains thirty years after they ceased, bringing extensive greenery back to the barren deserts. Singapore has reported schools of fish in their seas and harbour more than seventy years after the region grew too toxic. Both Singapore and Malaysia are enjoying their first steady rains in nearly fifteen years.
People are beginning to question whether this is really divine intervention. For the claimed countries things are looking up as their droughts and snows are easing up. But for the rest of the world, the environmental ruin remains ever the same. Who wouldn’t look at their claimed neighbours and hope for the same?
“Well today was certainly a busy day in the world” Kyle turned away from the TV to face his Mentor Ariadne. She was looking out of the window down across Manhattan.
“In the absence of the Angels, the Gods will claim as much as they can hold onto. It will weaken the Angels hold on the Earth and undermine the powers granted to them by faith. But they will not claim more than they can control. Which worries me that Brigid has claimed so much land. She must be fearfully powerful and I cannot fathom why. India is nowhere near being completely hers if it was it might help explain, but she is still trying to carve out a place in all the countries she has claimed. She has some trick up her sleeve and it worries me.
“We’re even less likely to discover Brigid’s secrets than Hera’s.”
She nodded absently “Gods will be Gods” and we are but pawns to them she thought silently.
“Tell me, Kyle, how fares the election?”
“With all the Daemons turning out in droves we are guaranteed to win, even with the huge swing against him because of his homosexuality. I tell you this country makes me feel like I’m living in the Dark Ages. I will be glad when Hera has steamrolled it into something decent.”
It was sad just how deluded this modern generation was. True America was a cesspool of bigotry of all kinds but it was technically the land of the free and it was meant to uphold the ideals of equality. Even if it didn’t follow through on them. People forgot that Hera came from an age where slavery had been the norm, to her everyone and anyone could be used for her own ends. When America crumbled what would rise to replace it would not be a free nation. Certainly the homosexuals would gain their full rights but only because the vast majority of mages and sorcerers were gay. If they weren’t who was to say she would bother about their plight. Then again before the rise of the Angels, homosexuality had just been another unmentioned aspect of life.
“What about the Angels’ religions?”
“The Fundamentalist Christians have been very effective against the Muslims. Hate crimes are at an all-time high. Burning down churches has been very successful though many have been rebuilt. But with religious tensions running very high the Angels’ people are taking care of each other without our intervention.” Catherine added from the table. Of all the things in the world, she was currently reading a Bible. She was trying to understand her prey’s mindset. She had been snickering away to herself all afternoon.
The Catholic Church has lost a great deal of its priests and nuns. The other churches have been luckier but still great numbers have also perished. It seemed in his final transformation Juan had lost the ability of physical speech, but he and the other Elites had adjusted easily to mental communication. It just made him even less Human, there was nothing left of his Humanity to even suggest at the boy he had been not so very long ago. He looked a lot like a Xenomorph from the Alien movies, except he had shadowy wings that were completely incorporeal. It was a creepy finish to an already unsettling visage.
Ariadne, Kyle and the Gorgons treated the Elites no differently from the other species but the other species were scared of them. They were a menace in the shadows, answerable only to Hera. News about these Monsters had flooded across the US and Mexico, the fact that they were exclusively selective of their prey had not gone unnoticed. It had taken a while but the public had realised that they targeted only paedophiles, now the public felt no pity for them.
It was true what he had said, many of the Clergy had been massacred. The various churches had been up in arms about the attacks on their members, crying loud for reparations and justice. That was until the public made the connection between the Demons of the Night and their paedophile victims. They had quieted down after the public backlash. It had been great publicity for driving people further away from Christianity.
Which was the perfect time to convince them of what Hera had to offer. Her priesthood had been making incredible headway among the rich and powerful. For them it was the latest thing, little did they know they wouldn’t have the option of changing their minds. From the Old Money, they had a great deal of numbers, mostly Maenads but also plenty of Lilin. They had done wonders in convincing their fellow rich Humans to convert, especially with the tax breaks and secret deals they had been offered. New Money was mostly a mix of Humans, Lilin and Sirens, most of which were being won over.
It had become abundantly clear to Ariadne that already an aristocratic class was forming even before the empire had been born. They would be joined by the various leaders of the Daemon races. The free world that Americans were so used to was going to dramatically change, the so called land of equal opportunities was going to disappear.
It was fortunate that everyone in the room would be in the topmost echelon. And she would sit above them all. In a position of safety and utter danger. There was no place more dangerous than under Hera’s eyes.
She would only be safe once she had regained her full Divinity, and perhaps not even then.
Chapter 14
Egypt was a hole. Cleopatra hated to admit it about her onetime kingdom but it was true. They spoke a different language now, worshipped a strange, degrading religion and had changed in so many other ways. Her attempts to climb to the top were proving very frustrating with all these stupid men. She had already seen a handful of women stoned to death for adultery. How stupid was that? Well, the whole Arabic world was crazy. All these women covered from head to toe. Why? Were Arabic women ugly? If they weren’t, then it made no sense to her.
It made her angry.
So angry that she had already killed a few powerful men. It had caused quite a stir, there had been a public uproar after General Hassam. She had been particularly brutal with him but he had deserved it. She had carved the Ankh into his forehead and chest. Egypt was learning to fear that sign.
While she was attempting to claw her way up through the ranks, the Gods had been very busy.
Isis had flooded the Nile, completely washing away the Aswan Dam and a good chunk of the cities that sat on the Nile. The Ankh had appeared all along the Nile, carved into monuments, burned onto buildings and roads, even cut out into puddles. The people of Egypt were afraid.
Yet Isis was not the only Egyptian God left, she had a small pantheon to assist her. And they had been doing exactly that. Anubis had already found a niche of unhappy citizens to convert and transform into Anubites. Each day his army grew a little more, soon it would actually resemble an army. The news was rife with reports of jackal men slinking along alleyways or whole groups of them seen raiding buildings. None of the reports had been substantiated beyond finding the raided buildings in the morning.
Whatever the government might be claiming they had put the whole country under martial law.
The government could do as it pleased, no amount of Human interference was going to stop the Gods. Osiris and Nephthys had repaired the pyramids and the sphinx. No Human had an explanation for why after hundreds of years of ever increasing erosion they were like new, shining blindingly white in the sunlight and crowned with a golden cap that glinted brightly. People stared in wonder to see the Sphinx’s unblemished face.
Once again the Ankh had been carved into them all.
Both Osiris and his sister had walked among the Humans that had turned up, converting them with words and glamour or seizing full control of their minds if that failed. A controlled mortal granted no faith, but it denied the Angels their faith, and they were still useful as pawns.
Thoth and his wife Ma’at had spent much of their time doing similar things all across Egypt, repairing decayed temples and monuments all along the Nile. They also whispered to the fearful and curious masses. To the Egyptians, it was a miracle to see their past blooming back into health. It was raising their national pride to a whole new level.
But for the Gods, it was all out war. No one knew when the Angels would recover from their broken Curse, but they would. And it was clear all the Gods were using their fateful boon of time. Because when the Angels returned, they would still hold the upper hand. While much of the world had been losing faith the Arabic world had remained firmly under the Angels’ influence.
The Gods had to be prepared.
They were fast tracking as much as they could. Using their magic in miraculous shows, letting themselves be seen glowing and speaking to the masses. And it was working for them well but there was still a great deal of resistance. The Angels had a stronghold in Egypt and the other Arabic countries, or what remained of most of them.
They all had grand designs for Egypt, to resurrect its former glory. It had lost so much, all that remained had been forgotten monuments of a past age. Now they were shining and new, but it was only a start. Once she had seized control of the Egyptian government and overthrown its dictator, she would finally have control back over her beloved Egypt. Unfortunately so far Cleopatra had had very little success climbing the social ladder enough to get anywhere close to power. But if there was one thing she was good at it was climbing her way to the top. She would control Egypt again, and this time, her power would be absolute. Nothing was going to stop her and once Egypt was hers no one was going to interfere. She would make certain of that.
Things were coming along swimmingly. The Angels remained indisposed within Heaven, and Ur was continuing to grow at a steady rate. She had claimed Mesopotamia when the Egyptians had reclaimed Egypt. It was very clear that the Gods and Goddesses around the world were drawing up their battle lines against the Angels. Everyone was preparing for war in their own way.
Her little settlement around the crumbling ruins of Ur had swelled. As she had predicted, people had come searching for their relatives and friends. She had claimed them all. She had Human slaves by the thousands now, very soon they would be by the tens of thousands. Since she had claimed the land, she had sent her undead legions out raiding the city-states that were all that remained of Iraq.
Then the Daemons and Demons had started coming to her. They sensed her power, they knew what she was and they knew what she intended to build. If they didn’t then the monolithic ziggurat that now dominated Ur told them exactly what was going to happen. She was carving out Mesopotamia as her own and no one was going to interfere with that.
Already the masses were falling into terrified line. Most of the living had an irrational fear of death and now under the control of a Death Goddess, they were being confronted with those fears. The dead now walked the growing streets of Ur and raided nearby city-states. Dressed in traditional garb and armed with swords they kept the living in line, or they violently made them join their numbers. The living had already learned that guns had very little effect against the dead who felt no pain.
It was a hard learned lesson to which she gave no respite. Serve her or die. They were the only two options for the people in her lands. Those that had any ounce of intelligence or self-preservation had already sworn themselves to her or fled the vicinity. But that was hardly safer. The whole Middle East, with few exceptions, had collapsed once the oil reserves had dried up. People had risen up against their corrupt governments only to replace it with ones that became just as corrupt. Old tribal differences flared up and prevented peace. Civil war had been raging in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Kuwait, they had all disintegrated from their internal conflicts, or in the case of Kuwait had crumbled under the assault of refugees, terrorists and fledging warlords. Those countries that hadn’t crumbled had turned into militaristic nations in order to survive. Saudi Arabia and Jordan had turned back into the fold of their powerful monarchies, the rest had become hard-line dictatorships or autocracies. Israel continued to survive as it always had, on the strength of its unity and isolation within the Arab world.
To be fair to the Middle East, much of the world had followed the same lines. Except South Africa, Egypt and Morocco the whole of Africa had completely disintegrated amid the continual fighting, drought, famine and disease. Much of Asia was caught either in militaristic dictatorships or had crumbled into city-states and war-torn wastelands. It was a similar situation in South America, Latin America, the Pacific Islands and nearly a quarter of Europe. They were stuck in cruel regimes or had crumbled until they were a country in name only. That handful of Eastern and Western powers that had remained also continued to struggle against the continual assault of droughts, bitter winters, extreme weather patterns, ever rising toxicity and the continual loss of arable land.
The world had been dying. But now pockets of life were returning and they had the whole world’s attention. Many people were desperate, desperate enough to throw their lot in with ‘self-proclaimed Gods’, as some of the media had deemed them. But it was reaping unexpected rewards in loyalty. She had underestimated just how much Humans and Daemons valued having enough food to eat. Since she had claimed Mesopotamia, Ur had been inundated with refugees looking for a new start around the now flowing, healthy Euphrates.
It was happening around the world as well. Refugees had begun flooding the banks of the Euphrates, Nile, Murray and Ganges, seeking the fresh flowing water and the crops that had begun growing on their banks. Every country that had been claimed was seeing a huge rise in immigration as people sought the lands that were no longer dying, and in some places were greening up at a remarkable rate. The only exception was Pakistan, embroiled in its bloody civil war it was chasing out refugees. Only the most devout fundamentalist Muslims were trying to enter Pakistan. Everyone else had either fled, been killed or were being hunted down.
