The Weapon - Oblivion  - part 12

By Diana the Valkyrie

A feather from a Fallen Angel, this would be an Unholy Feather. 

Update: 09/08/2003 to valkyrie05





David:



"Wendy, what are you giggling about?" "Him." "Yes, he was a bit of a dipstick,

wasn't he?" "No, that's not why I'm laughing. David, you'll never believe what

he's telling the newspapers."



I read about it next day. Apparently, some vicar in the middle of London had

had a vision in which he'd been told about the imminence of the Second Coming,

"Any day now," he said. And he had a Holy Feather, which was apparently

baffling science by its indestructability and resistance to any form of

analysis. And if you touched the feather, it drew blood. "Well, I didn't

think, did I?" said Wendy. "It's a fractally divided branching force field,

like a snowflake only more so. And when you get down to the end, the fibers

are really very fine, but still indestructible. Of course it would draw blood.

You can get a similar effect with sandpaper, but you wouldn't use it on your

fingers once you knew that. You'd think that people would have the sense not

to mess around with it after they'd discovered that, wouldn't you?"



"No." I said. I was learning the monosyllabic negative from Wendy.



She sighed. "Maybe I'm just an optimist. Still, it is funny, you must admit."



"Wendy, you realise that you might just have kicked off a whole new religion

here? I think in future, you'd better not show them the wings." "Oh, I like

the wings" "Yes, but they're too distracting. Once he saw the wings, he was

snging from a different hymn book, all by himself." "But the wings look so

impressive." "No to the wings." "How about a compromise?" "What?" Half size?"

I sighed. She really was very difficult to argue with. When she knew what she

wanted, she'd just dig in her heels, and no force on earth could move her.

"All right, half size."



I knew just as well as she did that half size wings were the same as full

size, since no-one had a real clear idea of how big an angel's wings ought to

be. But it gave me a face-saving line of retreat from a battle that I couldn't

win anyway. "So, tomorrow, we'll go visit the Grand Wizard, or whatever he

calls himself. Maybe he'll be a bit more sensible." Wendy grinned. "And if he

isn't, we'll recycle the sacrifice; chicken curry for dinner!"



Jim:



They walked into my office, the two of them. Wendy, I forget her other name,

and her friend whose name I don't think I actually caught last time they

visited, but he had a sinful weakness for chocolate biscuits. On the other

hand - don't we all?



"Oh Grand Wizard," he said, "she has a problem."



I took a look at her. She looked pretty good to me. Last time I saw her she

was full of fears and tears, mostly planted by that dimwit McPherson, who was

OK at swinging a club round the greens and jolly fine at the nineteenth hole,

but whoever put him in charge of a congregation needs a quick hassock check.

Now she looked cheerful and bright. I guessed she'd been getting her oats.



"What seems to be the problem?" I asked, my standard comeback in this

situation, since I've found that "OK, take off all your clothes" rarely works.



"She's Wendy McRae, by the way, and I'm David. At least, that's the name she

usually goes by. But you might have seen her when she gave her United Nations

speech, she also gets called the Guardian of Humanity."



Oh. Her. Wow. Here?



Why?



"You're the Guardian of Humanity? That one? With the angel wings?"



She stood up, and took off her coat. Underneath, she wore a very sexy

white-and-gold costume, one which left no doubt at all as to her gender, and

sure enough, sprouting out of roughly where her shoulder blades should be, was

a fine pair of white feathery wings. She shook them out, beat them a few

times, and then folded them back. I was impressed with her wings, but what

really drew my gaze was in front of her, not behind her. Impressive wasn't the

word, they were magnificent. And ... no, wait, you aren't supposed to think

carnal thoughts about angels.



"Wow," I said. Theological college had not prepared me for this. Angels aren't

on the St Dumas syllabus, at least, not in detail. "You're an angel? Really?"



"No, I'm not. Really. Really really. Not. Definitely not an angel."



She was denying it a bit too emphatically. It's my experience that when

someone does that, they're trying to cover something up. "Well, if you're not

an angel ... you must be a Fallen Angel!" The story of the Fall is very well

documented, Lucifer himself was an Archangel before he Fell.



She closed her eyes, and looked slightly in pain. "David?"



"Look, forget about this angel stuff. Wendy, I told you it was a mistake to

flaunt the wings. Jim, can we concentrate on the problem we came to you about?

She's forgetting things."



I looked at her. "What are you forgetting?" "I don't remember," she said. Then

she grinned. "No, actually, I do, I've been checksumming." "What?" "Uh, uh,

never mind. You see, the thing is, I have a digital memory, I'm not supposed

to lose anything." "Like a computer." "Well, kind of. But the trouble is, I am

losing things, I forget whole chunks of stuff." "Like a computer," I repeated.



She explained to me that this came to light when she found that she couldn't

remember the night she lost her virginity. That wasn't quite how she put it,

but that's what it boiled down to. I told her not to worry, people forget

things all the time. "No," she said, "you don't understand. I'm not supposed

to forget anything at all, and I'm not just forgetting minor details, I'm

forgetting entire chunks of stuff."



Well, this sounded like a storm in a teacup to me, but it was obviously dead

important to her. So I suggested that they join me in a cup of tea, the

beverage that refreshes but not inebriates. "I can't really deal with this

right now," I explained, "we're due for a session with the Devil's Picture

Book this afternoon."



"The what?" asked the Fallen Angel's familiar. "The Devil's Picture Book.

Playing cards, you know?" "Oh, an iniquitous den of gambling, is it?" he

grinned, roguishly. "Well, sort of. It's Thursday, and Thursday is bridge day,

we usually get a half dozen tables up, won't you join us? Oh, you do play

bridge, don't you? Duplicate pairs? The winning couple get a very handsome

certificate."



"Wow, it's ages since I've played duplicate pairs. I used to when I was an

undergrad, the fact that everybody plays the same hand eliminates most of the

luck from it, it's how well you do with the hand of cards compared to how well

everyone else did with those cards," said the familiar, "I'd love to."

"Great!" I enthused. It's an excellent way to recruit new members to the

congregation, all churches use a similar form of lure-them-in with social

stuff. McPherson does dancing, and runs a choir. "Er, David ..." said the

Fallen Angel. "What?" he replied. "Um. Well. I don't know how to ... I've

never ... Oh, never mind, I'll be OK."



He looked across the table at her. "Oh, I never thought. Can you play bridge?"

"I can now," she answered. "By the way," she continued, "could you tell

everyone not to touch my wings? It can be quite painful." "Touching your wings

hurts you?" I asked, surprised. "No, not in the slightest," she replied. Oh.

Oh, right. Not painful to her, OK, I see.



We got twenty people, five tables, so I arranged them in a pentacle (the

parishoners appreciate these little touches) and we used a standard Howell

movement, three hands per table, with ordinary dealt hands. I made a little

announcement beforehand, welcoming the Fallen Angel to our little gathering,

and warning people not to mess with her wings. During the tournament, people

kept asking me about our Visitor from Hell, and I kept telling them that I

didn't actually know what it was all about, but we should hope that it wasn't

a bad omen. Or possibly hope that it was. I get confused sometimes with the

double negatives. And don't touch her wings. Anyway, I wasn't too surprised

when the Fallen Angel and her familiar won the tournament. "Do you play a

lot?" I asked. "Um, well, I played quite a lot very recently," she replied.

Her familiar gave her a funny look, but I suppose Fallen Angels don't tell

their familiars everything.



At the inevitable post mortem (I always think that the post mortem is the best

part; dissecting the corpse and pointing out to your partner where he went

wrong) I asked her about one particular hand, I was wondering how she managed

to make one trick more than everyone else with the same cards.



"Oh, you'll like this," she said. "It's called the Devil's Coup, it's a bit

like a smother play, but with trumps," and she explained how the coup had

worked. Her familiar grinned; I noticed that he'd spent most of the afternoon

playing dummy.



After my little flock trotted off home and we'd folded up the tables and

tidied the hall, they very kindly invited me to dinner with them at a

restaurant not too far from here. "You've been feeding us chocolate biscuits,"

he said, which was true, he'd worked his way through an entire packet, "it's

time we repaid you with a flaming hot curry. Oh, and Wendy?" "What?" "It's a

small restaurant, quite cramped, they don't have much space." "So?" "I think

you should retract the wings." She pouted, but the wings vanished. I suppose

that's one of the things Fallen Angels have to be able to do, otherwise they

wouldn't be able to assume mortal guise and walk amongst us.



We walked into the restaurant, and I got another big surprise. The head honcho

went straight up to Wendy, and said "Where've you been? You just walked out!

We had to hire a temp waitress to fill in for you. Do you know what that cost

me?" She looked embarrassed. She was a waitress here? That didn't really fit

in with anything that I'd read about the Inhabitants of the Nether Regions.

Stoking furnaces, yes. Torturing souls, yes. But waiting tables? It didn't

fit. She went red in the face, and dragged the manager away, and I saw them

having a somewhat heated discussion, mostly in whispers, but I heard the

occasional "No!" from the Fallen Angel/Ex Waitress. And then I saw him flinch,

and go very pale.



Eventually, she came back and sat down with us at the table. "He recognised

you, then," said her familiar, as if it was something that needed to be

pointed out. I suppose familiars aren't too bright. "Yes," she said, "I was

brunette when I was here, and my change to blonde should have fooled them,

except ..." "Except you forgot that you were supposed to be blonde," he

finished. She nodded, and looked across the table at him, and I think there

were tears in her eyes. "Oh, David, I'm forgetting the silliest little things

now."



He turned to me. "You see the problem," he began, but we were interrupted by

the waitress, "Are you ready to order?" The familiar ordered for me, I don't

know much about Indian food. "You'll like this one, Jim, it's devilishly hot,"

he smiled. And when the waitress had gone, he continued.



"She forgets things, it doesn't seem to have any pattern. Great chunks just

vanish, and maybe sometimes they come back, but how can you know? If there's

something you don't remember, then you don't even know that you've forgotten

it, until something brings it to your attention. Like happened just now, she

forget she was supposed to be blonde, so they recognised her." "She was a

waitress?" I asked. "Long story," he said, "you don't want to know about it."

I do, actually. "What's a Fallen Angel doing in a low level job like that?

Shouldn't she be tormenting people; a lawyer or a tax inspector, something

like that?"



"I'm NOT an Angel, Jim, will you stop with that stupid stuff?" Deny deny deny.

Lucifer is the Prince of Lies, and his minions are pretty good fabricators

too. I've seen the wings, you can't fool me.



"How did you deal with the restaurant manager just now," he asked her. She

smiled. "Oh, I used the old 'You know who I am' routine on him. The costume

helps a lot, and when I hover six inches off the ground, he knows I'm the real

deal. And then I explain that if he annoys me, I might just make him bite off

his little finger." "You wouldn't do that, Wendy!" said the familiar. "Of

course not, but is he going to be completely sure of that? So he stopped

harassing me."



It was hot. It was called a Vindaloo, and it was spiced with the fires of

Hell. It was a struggle to eat it, and the sweat was pouring off me after a

few minutes. While we ate, I explained a few things about hell. "You probably

think that because it's hot, it's going to be very unpleasant." "Well, that

and the torture, yes," said the familiar. "That's because you don't

understand. This curry is hot, and painful to eat, right?" "Right." "Yet here

we are, voluntarily eating it. It's the same in hell. You'll actually enjoy

the heat and the pain, Satan has set things up so that it's enjoyable to be

toasty." He raised his eyebrows. "I suppose not a lot of people know that," he

said, "so tell me, how do you know?" "Same way the other lot know that heaven

is a nice place to be, of course." The Fallen Angel nodded wisely. "It's all

about faith," she said. "Right," said the familiar, "got it." It's always good

to clear up that misconception, lots of people think that hell is a bad place

to go. And I could see the elements of an excellent sermon here, I'd write it

up later and deliver it to my congregation some time. "The Delights of Hell."



"So do you have any ideas for her problem?" he asked.



I waggled a forkful of curry at him. "Desperate situations call for desperate

remedies," I explained. "This is going to take more than a chicken." "Oh?" "A

goat, at the very least. Maybe a sheep would be better, or even a cow." "You

want to sacrifice a cow?" I nodded. "Preferably a pure white unblemished fit

and healthy virgin cow, no second rate rubbish." Actually, I rather suspected

that a human sacrifice was really needed, but those have gone out of fashion.

"And that will help how?" he asked. So I explained to him the theory of

sacrifice and prayer. "I see," he said, "basically, we're buying a favour from

Lucifer, the price being one cow." "I suppose you could put it like that."

"And he's really going to think that this cow is such great value, he'll do a

miracle for her?"



"Well no, it doesn't work like that," I protested. "So how does it work?" "The

sacrifice shows that you're serious, it's a lot more trouble than just getting

down on your knees and asking, like the other lot do. It's like birthday

presents, it isn't the value of the present, it's the thought that counts. You

see, Lucifer loves you and what you're doing is just reminding him that you

love him too."



As we walked out of the restaurant, I stole a carnation off the vase on our

table, I mean, even if you can't be totally evil, at least you ought to make

an effort. When we got outside, I handed it to our lovely Fallen Angel with a

flourish. She look it with a gracious smile, looked around, and unfolded those

glorious wings, shaking them out to their full huge wingspan. "No, Wendy,"

said her familiar. She gave him a quelling look, and plucked a feather from a

wing, and handed it to me with a devilish smile. "Now you be a bad boy, you

hear?" she said. And she was gone, her familiar too. I was all alone on the

street, wondering if all that had really happened. Then I saw the feather; I

was still holding it. It was at least twelve inches long, and as white as a

wedding dress. I stroked it with my finger, to feel the silky softness of it,

and I was amazed to see blood welling out of my skin. Of course! A feather

from a Fallen Angel, this would be an Unholy Feather. It was a sign, a

physical manifestation of the Prince of Blood. As I walked home, I meditated

on the meaning of the Unholy Feather, and what I was supposed to do with it.

I'd show it to my congregation, perhaps they could help me decide. At the

least, it would impress the hell out of them. Or impress the hell into them.

Whatever.