Butcher Bird

"Back in San Francisco, there was a fat fucker with a monster mouth right in the middle of his chest. He wanted to eat me. You telling me that wasn't a demon?"

"He was no more a demon than Primo. Primo is Gytrash. Simply another humanoid race. A different kind of human animal. A more interesting and durable species than you ordinary humans, and probably a bit scary to you First Sphere bumpkins."

"So, what was Mister Mouth?"

"He sounds like a Bendith," said Primo. "They're a particularly ugly sort of troll and aren't averse to human flesh."

"A Bendith or possibly a Nagumwasuck," said Count Non. "You boring one-headed, two-eyed humans are scattered through all the Spheres. Take our Butcher Bird. Like you, she's an ordinary human, but clearly she didn't grow up in some First Sphere backwater. She's lived with other intelligent races and understands the infinite varieties of life, the magical possibilities, that spring from the conjunction of different living species."

"I was right there with you, Count. Up until the bestiality stuff right at the end," said Lulu.

"Humans and animal entities have been mating and producing offspring since the world began, little sister. It's still quite common in regions of the Second and Third Sphere."

"Okay, Shrike, Lulu and me are white trash, Primo is a Second Sphere Ubermensch and you're some incredibly old rich kid slumming from Upper Coolsville," Spyder said. "What the hell is a demon?"

"A fallen angel," said Count Non. "Demons are from Hell. They serve Lucifer, command his armies, run his cities and, when called upon, torment the souls that have been consigned to the underworld. True demons travel throughout all the Spheres and while they can seduce and despoil almost any creature that catches their fancy, they can't produce offspring. The demons that exist now are the same ones expelled from Heaven long, long ago. Give or take a few."

"What happened to the demons that aren't around anymore?"

"The prophets tell us that a few managed to beg and cajole their way back into Heaven. Others are dead. Demons can be moody company and while a human exorcist can, for instance, expel them from a possessed body, they can't kill them. Only God or another angel can kill an angel, fallen or otherwise."

"Or an angel's weapon," said Spyder, pulling Apollyon's knife from his belt. "This was made by a demon to kill demons."

"The weapon is ready, but are you? You will have to get very close to use that. You've never even seen a true demon. Will you be able to walk up to your worst nightmare and stick that toothpick in its gut, little brother?"

"The babe to my left is the killer. I'm just here to hump gear and look pretty."

"You're doing a fine job," said Shrike.

"Thank you. Where'd you get all this Trivial Pursuit data, Count?"

"I study life. It's what my people do. We are infinitely curious about the forms that life takes, from insects to angels. We know them and treasure them all."

"You're like an anthropologist or something?"

"Both really. That's the best way of putting it."

"An anthropologist with a big goddammed sword," said Lulu.

"'God will put his angels in charge of you to protect you wherever you go. You will trample down lions and snakes, fierce lions and poisonous snakes,'" recited the Count. "Self-preservation is no vice. If a black widow spider tried to bite Charles Darwin, I doubt he would have had much guilt about crushing it under his boot. Loving life doesn't mean being soft."

"Amen to that," said Shrike.

When the sun was almost directly overhead and the sky was unbearably bright, they rested in the belly of a ruined metal storage tank in a scattering of industrial ruins. The night and first part of the day had been rough. Now, they drank water and ate dried meat and what little bread hadn't been lost in the fight the night before. Things buzzed gently in the ground beneath them. If he weren't so tired, Spyder imagined that he might have found this alarming.

Later, Shrike lay down beside Spyder. "Thousand fingers massage," he said.

"What?"

"The buzzing downstairs. It doesn't feel so bad."

"Mmm," Shrike said, and was asleep against him. Spyder closed his eyes and in a few moments, he, too, was asleep.