Shetqa b'Ashmaya
8865 Vine St. Cincinnati, OH 45201. 23:15 on Saturday, 30th of August, 2009.
Eris Nightclub.
A concrete slab dropped in the midst of old townhouses. What once was a dim warehouse
now throbs in the night with neon lights and heavy basslines. At this hour of this day there’s always a crowd
of patrons lined up for entry, moving steadily as the bouncer up front checks their IDs and waves them
through.
Not far from the line’s front, among the scanty dresses, popped collars, and half-drunk attitudes, a woman stands in poised contrast. She’s tall– taller even than most men in the crowd. Her shoulders occupy a strange width between male and female; they don’t seem to belong to either sex, yet remain a distinctive combination of both. Her garb is put together to match her demeanor, dressed in a classic blazer over her torso and a pleated skirt stopping just below the knees. There’d be an air of professionality about her, were it not for the keffiyeh shrouding her visage. Suspicion-cast looks are thrown her way, but her posture remains stiff and static.
As if to test her, a much shorter girl in a leopard-print dress comes along and cuts in front of her. The tall woman scoffs, not shy of her annoyance, but the girl just adjusts her skirt as if she’d done nothing out of the ordinary. Not that her bad etiquette makes much of a difference, as only one more person is before them in line. A single man waits in front of them, shifting from side to side as the bouncer scrutinizes his ID. The bouncer looks up from the plastic, returns it to the man, and waves him through. The short girl steps up, but the bouncer stops her and points to the tall one.
“You come up first,” he says.
The girl sneers, doing her best to put on a display of silent outrage, but is ignored completely.
“Gotta take your mask off,” the bouncer says.
“Mask off?” the lady asks. Her voice is coated in what seems to be some vague Italian accent.
“The, uh…” the bouncer points at his face and circles his finger around it, “…the headscarf. I need to make sure it’s you on your ID.”
“Oh,” she says.
But instead of reaching to unwrap her head, her hand slips into her blazer. It comes back out with an easy motion, casually pointing a pistol-like gun at the doorman’s face. He barely has time to recognize it before a deafening rattle erupts from the tool, splitting his head wide open. Bullets throw him back, a red fountain gushing from his skull as it falls and slams into the concrete below.
The short girl squeals, at first looking in shock at the man’s open head. It doesn’t take long for her to wise up and start running, but she only has time to turn around before another rattle tears through her chest. A blot of crimson spreads out from her back, soaking her dress as her body goes limp and topples to the floor. Panic breaks out across the line behind her, would-be patrons scattering to save their own lives. Cries for help barrel through their throats, echoing across the brick buildings around them.
But the shooter pays them no mind. As though no-one else was there, she releases her MP7’s magazine to check how many rounds she’d just spent. With a good amount of bullets left over, she re-inserts the mag, flips the foregrip open, and pulls out the stock. It’s only now that she strides through the entrance of Eris Nightclub.
A neon-bathed tunnel lies just beyond the front doors, giving more theatrical pause to the upcoming carnage. And as she passes through the rainbow of lights strewn about the hall, the shooter can’t help but let her mind wander to a deceptively simple question.
How different would this play out, she wonders, if they could see my wings and halo?
It’s not a new thought for her. In fact, it’s as old as Christ Himself.
This woman – or rather, this valkyrie – has spent two millennia on Earth gutting evildoers. And for each one, the idea of being seen for what she is had always been in the back of her mind. Would the wicked stand still and accept their fate, or would they fight harder in hopes to reject it? Would they fall to their knees and beg for mercy, or would they curse and scorn her for dispensing just punishment?
“Eh,” she sighs to herself, “Not important.”
She comes to a glowing magenta sign above a pair of doors, its text reading Come inside me… Just push a little further! Not one to deny the sinful of their wishes, the valkyrie balls her fist and shoves the door. It flies open, exposing her to a crowd of partygoers huddled by a bar. Bartenders flit from one side of the bar to the other, keeping up with the constant flow of orders. A brick wall stands behind to separate them from the dance floor, which itself is accessible through two arches on either side of the wall.
The patrons themselves have all gathered in their own groups, oblivious to the wails and shouts outside. Without a doubt, the high-paced slam of a bass kick drowned out the bursts of earlier gunfire while the ongoing melody covered up the screaming. Everyone remains in their own world; some drinking, some nodding to the beat, and some more carrying conversation through deafening music. None of them think to turn their heads and see the giantess with a gun in her arms, a fact which the valkyrie wastes no time to take advantage of. She picks out a man on the right side of the bar, raises her weapon, and squeezes down on its trigger.
The victim’s head flicks to one side like a light switch, his body crumbling below. Confusion doesn’t have time to set in before the valkyrie sweeps her gun leftward, peppering bullets at the crowd. Another man standing beside the first victim gasps, his shirt wetting itself with two pools of red. To his left, a woman squeals and tries to grasp her bleeding forearm, but a spurt of blood from her neck turns wailing into gargling. The valkyrie continues her sweep, each member of her audience dropping down one by one. Whether they’re hit or are ducking for cover, the valkyrie makes no distinction. She simply sprays the crowd until, within seconds, they all lie on the floor. Only a few are dead, which she knows full well. The rest are either dying, stunned, or have found the instinct to play dead.
Without a thought, the valkyrie drops her empty magazine and reaches into her blazer again. She draws another magazine, and right as she slides it into her gun, a man appears in one of the arches and freezes. Terror creeps into his eyes, pushing them wide and sticking his feet in place while the valkyrie chambers her next round. Only when she aims does he find the strength to run and be met by a burst of bullets sent his way. His carcass dives facefirst to the floor, slapping the concrete and building a sanguine bed to rest on.
The music is cut short.
“Get out!” the DJ yells through the speakers, “Get out! There’s a fire escape right there, right there! Go!”
“Heroic,” the valkyrie mutters.
And it is. This act alone might favor points with Saint Peter, although it won’t save a great deal of lives. She hastens to the dance floor and comes across a crowd rushing through colored spotlights and disappearing under a red EXIT sign. Again she fires, hitting an unfortunate young woman in the back. She lets out a yelp, causing someone in front of her to turn around and look down.
“No! No!” she sobs, reaching down to help her friend to her feet. Only now does the valkyrie feel a familiar twinge in her heart. Guilt slows her trigger finger, but doesn’t stop it from sending more rounds into the woman’s head.
Before she can linger on the sight of two women bleeding out side-by-side, the valkyrie points her gun at the shrinking blob of escapees. She looks to the floor, letting bullets wail out until an empty chamber halts the cacophony. When she looks back up, she catches a glimpse of someone limping through the fire escape. Whoever it is, that person manages to be the last moving body at the club. Whether anyone left on the floor is still breathing, she doesn’t care. All that matters is that none of them move while in her light of sight.
She lowers her gun, making a show of scanning the room for stragglers. From the bar room she overhears a whisper about escaping, followed by the sound of shuffling feet. The valkyrie sighs, turns around, and faces two people dragging a bleeding man to the same door she came in through. One of them – a frail man with a mop of curly hair – whimpers right when he makes eye contact with her. His face shows no panic, instead displaying a wince of defeat.
“Shit. Fuck!” says the woman beside him. She drops the bleeding man and makes a dash for the exit, slipping through as the valkyrie points her gun at the curly-haired man.
An empty click is heard.
“Oh, right,” the valkyrie says.
She turns her attention to her gun, again releasing its magazine. She takes her sweet time in fishing more ammo from her blazer, feeling around in a farce of finding that third mag. Her hand even lingers as if to decide whether or not it wants to reload, eventually committing to pulling out the magazine and putting it up to the magazine well. She fumbles with the hole, missing it once before casually inserting the rest of her ammo. She chambers a round, raises her head, and sees that the boy and his bleeder have disappeared.
“Don’t give them too many chances, Drusa,” a sarcastic voice says from behind.
The valkyrie turns to the dance floor again, now facing an angel with massive wings splayed out behind it. Its dull robe and tall scythe are unmistakable from those of any other archangel, and by now the valkyrie is well familiar with the figure. Practically friends with it, even.
“I take it you’ve just made me invisible?” asks the valkyrie.
“Yes,” says Samael, gesturing to the room, “Well, to them.”
“Naturally.”
She stows her weapon back into her blazer, trading it for a sickle she’d been keeping beside the spare magazines. Its wooden handle is barely visible beneath layers and layers of twine holding its splinters together, meanwhile the blade has been so worn down that it’s practically serrated. Remarkably, despite two thousand years of wear and tear, not a speck of rust is on the metal.
“All right,” says Drusa, “Which ones are mine?”
“In the bar room,” Samael folds his wings and walks past, “The guy with khaki pants and a navy polo, he’s the rapist I told you about. The other one’s on the dance floor, and somewhere else in there is the cop killer.”
Drusa scans the mess of bodies, trying her best to pick them apart from each other. She grumbles, folding her hands in front of her.
“Which one?” she asks.
“The navy po-” Death stops, realizing there are a good three people who match the outfit description.
“That one,” he points to the one closest to Drusa.
Right as he does so, the body releases a gentle glow. An ever-familiar cacophony begins to wail from the essence, begging for the greatest mercy of mercies.
Nothing she hasn’t heard before.
Drusa’s actions are automatic, done with practically no thought or premeditation. She kneels down, ignores the screams, and grips the soul by its tether. With a swipe of her blade, she almost forgets the spirit was there in the first place. She turns to ask Samael about her other two targets, but he’s busy muttering an Aramaic prayer while standing above another poor body. Its soul, too, is pulled out as he chants. But contrary to how it would react to Drusa, the essence simply stands up straight and holds its own cord taut for the Archangel. Its core pushes upward, silently begging to be released as Samael brings his scythe to the side.
“Amiyn,” he finishes. And with that, a grand sweep of his blade cuts the soul’s tether.
“Before you get carried away,” Drusa interrupts, “Would you care to show me the other two I need to reap?”
“In a moment,” Samael replies, “This room comes first, and I’m pressed for time here.”
As if on cue, sirens begin to holler out from beyond. Drusa sighs, walks over to the bar counter, and rests her sickle on it. She reaches into her blazer again – this time opposite to where she’d stowed her magazines and sickle – and pulls out a long churchwarden pipe. She sticks it in her mouth, opens her breast pocket, and takes a pouch of shredded tobacco. Samael continues his process, finding another corpse to stand over before conjuring its soul, whispering a prayer, and cutting its cord. All the while, Drusa packs tobacco into her pipe, fishes a match from her blazer, and torches the pipe. She takes a few drags to get the smoke moving, collects it all in her mouth, and lets the smoke settle in. Her tongue soaks up the fumes, letting them spill over to the rest of her mouth before parting her lips and letting it all float away from her.
“This is taking too long,” she tells Samael as he gets to another corpse. Despite her words, there isn’t an ounce of complaint in her voice. It’s simply stated as a matter of fact.
Samael doesn’t respond, but the flow of time does. The approaching sirens slow in pace, their pitch lowering in turn until the sound fades. The neon lights bouncing from the dance floor behind them grind to a halt, setting the air in the bar to a warm stasis. Drusa puffs again on her pipe while Samael finally gets to his last soul, hums a prayer, and at last frees the spirit from the mortal surface.
“You don’t think this operation is a bit high-profile?” Drusa asks him.
“It’s just an error in filing,” Samael says, leading the way back to the dance floor, “The guy who was supposed to do the shooting here is someone we already purged not too long ago. I figured we could purge a few more as long as you’re filling in for him.”
“Violence upon violence upon violence,” Drusa sighs.
“Well,” Samael’s hooded face turns to Drusa, “‘Hanun dansab saype, b’saype nmuthun.’”
“‘Those who take up swords will die by swords,’” Drusa translates, “A lesson you never let me forget.”
“I’d apologize if it meant anything to you,” says Samael. He points to a man dressed in an unbuttoned Hawai’ian shirt. The man, lying face-up in a growing bed of crimson, seeps an aural glow like the ones before him.
Drusa clamps her teeth on her pipe, kneeling to hold the soul’s link taut and sever it before Death points to the next target. It, too, begins to glow while Drusa makes her way over, straightens the emerging soul, and liberates it. She stands back up, again sucking smoke while Samael prays and reaps. Prays and reaps. Prays and reaps…
Eventually, his scythe makes a final swing and time crawls back into motion. The sirens let out a low grumble; one which crescendoes into an ever-approaching screech. Death saunters over to Drusa, reaching into his robe to bring out a pipe of his own. It’s nowhere near as long as the churchwarden reaching into Drusa’s mouth, but the chipped and faded wood makes it certainly more antiquated.
Drusa takes out her pouch of tobacco and hands it to Death, who nods before opening it and packing the shreds into his bowl. The sirens still grow in volume and pitch, until one by one they cut themselves short. Within seconds, Drusa and Samael find themselves smoking amidst a soundless room. Spotlights of pink and yellow dance before them, running up walls and falling back down to wander across the floor. Bootsteps rumble beyond the bar room, and right when Samael snaps his fingers to light his pipe, a not-too-quiet voice commands the pile of boots.
“Split the stack on this door,” it says. The boots comply.
“Not every day that you get to see this,” Samael comments.
“Mm-hm,” Drusa responds.
Thud!
The doors to the club burst open, followed by a commanding shout.
“CPD!” an officer yells, “Get down on the floor slowly!”
Drusa sighs, letting a plume of smoke loose, “Suddenly, I don’t care.”
“That’s fine,” says Death, “I did have something I wanted to talk to you about anyways.”
“Is it about the shetqa b’Ashmaya?” Drusa asks.
“No! No, no, no,” Samael shakes his head, “Not at all about the ‘silence in Heaven.’ Although, peace be with him, Gabriel’s been handling it much worse than usual lately. He’s on his fifth existential crisis this week just waiting to hear something – anything – from our almighty Father on what to do next.”
“All right, all right,” Drusa says before Samael can get carried away, “What did you want to talk to me about, then?”
“Right,” Samael mutters an apology, pausing for a puff on his pipe. He and Drusa lay lazy eyes on the SWAT team moving in, watching their gun-mounted flashlights duel with the colorful spotlights around them.
“There’s a kid who lives near here,” the Archangel finally says, “He’s been possessed.”
“Oh?” says Drusa.
“Nothing too out of the ordinary,” Samael says, “Just another demon who rebuked his guardian angel, then disguised itself to take the angel’s place.”
“And Michael hasn’t done anything about it?” asks Drusa.
Death sighs, “I hate to say so. Archangel Michael – peace be with him – has been insisting that angels have to hold their own ground. I think he expects our Father to break the silence soon.”
“Again?” Drusa scoffs, “How many times has he been through this phase?”
“More than enough,” says Death, “But again, this isn’t about the shetqa b’Ashmaya. This is about what we should do.”
“I’m getting the feeling that it’s about what I should do.”
“Mm-hm,” Samael nods, “Let’s suppose you took a trip to 3301 Delshire Road, Apartment 202.”
“Let’s suppose I did,” Drusa echoes.
“Not much of what this kid ever did in life was really him. Almost every act on his part was in compliance with what this supposed ‘angel’ ordered of him. It was benevolence at first; helping his family and friends, being there for them when they wanted him to be, and helping out when they needed it. Real goody-two-shoes stuff.”
“At the orders of this demon?” Drusa clarifies.
“At the orders of this demon,” Samael nods, “You see where this is going?”
“Unfortunately,” says Drusa. She and Samael take a pause in their conversation as police lower their weapons and call out that the area is clear. A couple of officers sling their guns around their shoulders, remove satchels marked MEDIC from their backs, and kneel by a pool of bodies to start taking pulses.
“Once this kid had full trust in the demon,” Samael continues, “He slipped fully into depravity. Stealing from family, manipulating friends, et cetera. There was even interference with his love life.”
“Wonderful.”
“Quite. He was pointed towards this girl who was never right for him at all. The lustful, manipulative kind. The kind to go behind his back–”
“–and make a cuckold out of him,” Drusa nods.
“Again, nothing too out of the ordinary,” Samael says, “And of course this demon was insistent on her being the ‘perfect soulmate’ despite how many times she’d betray her partner’s trust.”
“Tragic as this is,” Drusa interrupts, “I’d like to know why you want him purged.”
Samael hums, nods, and sips from his pipe.
“His name is Isaac,” he says, “And he has a double-barrel that his dad gave him. It was just a trophy, something to keep over the mantle. Isaac keeps it in a closet; he can’t stand looking at or thinking about it.”
“The demon, on the other hand…” Drusa mutters, once again keen on where this is going.
“…loves that boomstick,” Samael finishes, “it brings up that thing every chance it can. ‘This shall be the instrument of justice,’ it keeps telling him. But since Isaac hates having the gun around, he never had ammo for it until recently.”
“How’d he get his hands on it?”
“The demon took command of his mind while he was at his dad’s,” Death shrugs, “Rummaged through some drawers until it found a few shells, then pocketed them. I suspect it’s only a matter of days before it gets the better of him and paints a few walls red.”
Drusa crosses her arms, pipe in hand as paramedics drag stretchers onto the scene. She observes their hands moving across the corpse’s necks and waving lights in front of their eyes.
“Schizophrenia,” she says off-handedly, “What an interesting word for possession.”
“What’s more interesting is how valium keeps the demons out,” Samael replies, “Not something I expected Mankind to pull off.”
“Me neither,” Drusa shakes her head, “All this fussing over trepanning, blessings, and holy water when all we needed the whole time were chemicals.”
“Our Father built this world in mysterious ways that even I can’t fathom,” says Death. He then slips his pipe into his robe and turns away from the crowd.
“All right,” he continues, “I have matters to attend to. Our most recent recruit, Dana, has his first-week review later on.”
“Should I fill in for you while you meet?” asks Drusa.
“No need,” Samael answers, “Dana’s a man of brevity.”
“A ‘man,’ you say–”
“We’re not having this discussion,” Samael raises a finger, “And I said I have matters to attend to.”
“Right, right,” says Drusa, “3301 Delshire Road, Apartment 202. I’ll be off, then.”
The wall before Samael begins to morph as he prepares to cross the interstice. But before he does, Death turns his head for a quick farewell.
“You’re the best, Drusa.”
“I know.”
