VGiselleH, Syndicate327, thank you for your kind reviews! As always, they are appreciated!
It's the early 1850s, and one lone angel stands in the American Territories.
BEELZEBUB, PRINCE OF HELL
An empty prairie stretched out before Gabriel. Above, lightning shattered across the sky, followed by ominous rolls of thunder promising rain that wouldn't come. The long grasses stood perfectly still, not swayed by the brewing storm. No birds sang, no crickets buzzed, and nothing moved. There was only a ripple in the air above the grass, the shimmer of rising heat despite the heavy clouds. The stench of sulfur was thick in the air, and when Gabriel closed his eyes, he could see the blood red drips of the molten mineral streaked across his memories.
Hell was opening up in this abandoned stretch of the American territories.
"Like my handiwork?"
Gabriel turned his head slightly at the nasally voice, turned his head but not his eyes, still staring over the expanse of the prairie. There was now a demon standing just over a hundred yards to his left, his rotting soul competing with the sulfur for 'worst smell in the air.'
"Took a long time to put it all together, but it's coming along mighty fine." The demon strode forward into Gabriel's line of sight, dry prairie grass crunching beneath his boots. He was well dressed in a suit of black, a wide-brimmed hat keeping the sun off his face. His meatsuit had a drooping mustache and a goatee, only partially covering a ruddy face and saggy jowls. He stopped when Gabriel was staring through him, hooking his thumbs in his belt and looking around with unconcealed pride. "Mighty fine, if I do say so myself." A bolt of lightning arced from the ground between them, and Gabriel grit his teeth, reminding himself that this was not Raphael's work. This type of storm grew in the presence of a powerful, careless demon.
"It'll never work." Gabriel didn't even blink to try to clear his eyes of the after-image of the lightning strike. He'd rather see the phantom light than the dripping sulfur.
"Don't much matter what you think." The demon held out his hands over the grasses as if warming them by a fire. "Feel that? That's Hell. That's the eternal fires burning below our feet. Worlds are lining up. Hell, Earth, Heaven, and everything in between." He lifted one hand, pointing four fingers straight up to the sky above him, the other hand pointing straight down below. "Don't much matter what you do. Just need one creature, right here, right time, and these gates'll pop right free. Lilith will walk the earth again, and she will make it pay for her imprisonment. Her humiliation."
"It'll never work," Gabriel repeated. The wind ruffled his hair, but it didn't touch the grass below. The demon grinned at him, reaching up to stroke his goatee, the gesture accompanied by another three strikes of lightning, all in a row.
"You think you can stop it? Little god like you?"
"I am Loki," Gabriel said, tipping his head to the side and letting his eyes glow with Loki's power. "I am the Lie-Smith, the Sky Walker, the King of the Tricksters. I bound Lilith and destroyed the five gates of Hell." He took a step toward the demon, sending a wave of Loki's power crackling across the prairie toward the twisted creature. "I am no 'little god,' and you would do well to address me with some respect."
The demon flicked his hand, slicing cleanly through the wave of power, diverting it to either side without it so much as ruffling his hair, and then he smirked at Gabriel. "And I am Beelzebub, greatest of the Knights of Hell. I was once an angel, Loki. No god can kill me. It would be impossible."
Gabriel's expression didn't flicker as the demon revealed his name. Beelzebub, one of only two surviving Knights of Hell, once a second-class Seraph of Lucifer's. The Knights of Hell could be killed, but it wasn't easy. "I try to do three impossible things before breakfast each day."
"Well then. Perhaps I should fear you." Beelzebub's smile was mocking, and there was laughter in his words. "You still can't stop this, puny god. It's gone too far for that. Doesn't have to be me. Any demon stands here at the right time, says the right words… psheeeew" Beelzebub brought his closed fists together in front of him and exploded them out, and a rumble of thunder helpfully punctuated the mimed explosion. "Gate's straining on its hinges, Loki. It's going to pop. Maybe even on its own. Maybe you can stop me, but you can't stop it."
"I can try." Gabriel couldn't risk folding this close to the former angel, so he had to snap his fingers and warp reality Loki's way, appearing behind Beelzebub. Unfortunately, the snap was enough warning for the demon, who twisted and blocked Gabriel's attack (of a simple enchanted knife hastily pulled from Loki's magic, not his identifiable sword). The demon hissed in Gabriel's face, his breath a poisonous mess of brimstone and rot that Gabriel breathed in automatically, coughing and retching at the smell. Beelzebub's foot slammed into Gabriel's wrist, breaking bone, and he plucked the knife easily from Gabriel's fingers and plunged it into Loki's heart. The angel gasped in shock, his eyes wide, as he fell to his knees. Beelzebub laughed, taking a step back and surveying his kill.
"Long live the Trickster King."
Gabriel toppled to the ground, staring blankly ahead, as his body stopped. His fingers twitched once, but then he was as still and silent as the grasses around him. Still laughing, Beelzebub vanished.
The angel waited five minutes before spreading his wings and following suit. He took off across the planet, back to Essen, to the pair of rooms he shared with Jane. As soon as he landed, she was on her feet, rushing to his side. "Papa! You're hurt!"
"It's nothing." Gabriel hissed as he pulled the knife out of his chest, tossing it aside. That had actually hurt for a second! The blade had been a hasty design, but it was meant to be strong enough to kill demons. Couldn't do any real damage to him (the hole in his chest was already closed over, his skin pink and healthy without even a scar), but still stung like a bitch. "I'm fine, Jane. Really, I'm fine." He caught her hands as she fussed at the healed injury, lifting them to his lips to press a kiss against her fingers. "Miss anything exciting here?"
"You ruined your shirt," Jane countered, gesturing to the blood left on the white cotton. "If we get it washed-"
Gabriel interrupted her by snapping his fingers and erasing both the blood and the hole. She sighed and rolled her eyes as he smirked at her.
"Right. God."
"I can't believe you still forget that." Gabriel flung himself onto the bed, sprawling across the thick mattress (not the original provided by their landlady) with an easy grace. "How many centuries have you been alive? Have you ever washed a shirt?"
"I was a laundress for five years in Vienna," Jane reminded him. "Without magic."
"With magic!" Gabriel protested, pointing a finger at her. "I kept your hands nice and soft!"
"Without magic on the clothes." Jane sat at the foot of the bed, tucking one leg beneath her, the other dangling over the side. "I take it you found what you were looking for?"
"You take it from a knife in my heart that I was successful?"
"From your own knife, yes." Jane shrugged. "You got distracted, or you would have had a doppelganger take the blow for you. Sloppy, sloppy, Papa. Sloppiness can kill. Even you."
"Sloppiness and the right weapon," Gabriel reminded his daughter. "I haven't drawn my sword in over a century and a half. No one's going to kill me without that."
"Except Michael or Raphael. Or Lucifer. Yours isn't the only Archangel sword."
"It's the only one on Earth and therefore the only one that matters." Gabriel crossed his arms and closed his eyes, sulking back against the pillows.
"It was everything you feared," Jane murmured from the foot of the bed.
"You're not allowed to read me," Gabriel grumbled.
"You're broadcasting." Jane's hand rested lightly against his ankle, and Gabriel opened his eyes to look at her. "How bad?"
The prairie was roasted with the heat of Hell pressing so close. No animal dared enter the poisonous zone. A Knight of Hell had escaped through the maze of living roots and chains that kept the demons in check. The last surviving Hell Gate was bulging open, and its progress had been so silent that it slipped Gabriel's notice until now, when it was very nearly too late. Gabriel looked solemnly at his daughter, his angel, the only young woman he would give up his life defending, and summarized it into one word.
"Bad."
