Crow Jane - D. J. Butler Page 0,37
seven are great and terrible,” the Legate went on. “One for each of the seven lights on the great golden tree, they are nameless, faceless beings of eternal fire.”
“And beyond them is the throne, and on the throne sits God,” Jim finished the Legate’s account.
The Legate was silent.
“Did I miss a step?” Jim pressed. “Did I forget the bottle-washing angels, or the shoe polishers, or the angels who wax on and wax off?”
The Legate shook his head.
“Maybe I left out the legions of tortured sufferers,” Jim suggested. “Hanging on racks in the kingdom of Heaven to suffer until Judgment Day because their mortal lives weren’t suffering enough! Oh, wait, no, Heaven doesn’t want those people … it sends them away, to somewhere more fitting for them.”
“Is that what you want?” the Legate asked slowly. “You want to free the damned souls in Hell?”
“What I want,” Jim roared, so loud and fierce that Jane took a step back and her hand strayed close to her gun, “is to be left alone! By you, by my father, and by everyone else!”
He looked like his father in that moment, and it took Jane’s breath away.
He also looked like Jacob, whom she had killed without meaning to.
“I don’t care who sits on that throne,” Jim bellowed, “so long as he leaves me in peace!”
“No one sits on the throne!” the Legate charged to his feet, veins popping out in his head.
Jim checked his tirade.
“No one?” Jane asked.
“No one.” The Legate sank back to his seat.
“Who runs Heaven, then?” Twitch asked. “You can’t have a kingdom without a king, can you?”
“No one,” the Legate said again.
“The seraphim.” Raphael said it with conviction, and liked the sound of it so much that he said it again. “The seraphim. It has to be.”
“You’re right, child of Mab,” the Legate agreed. “A kingdom with no king is an abomination. It’s a ship without a captain, and must run aground. We have to end this terrible situation.”
“How do you know there’s no captain at the wheel?” Twitch asked. “What did you do, sneak a peek when nobody was looking? There’s not even a little man behind the curtain, pulling on levers, no one?”
The Legate ignored the questions.
“You’re not going to invade Hell,” Jane clarified. “You’re going to invade Heaven. And you need the Calamity Horn so you can shoot the seraphim with it.”
“Then why do you need me?” Jim demanded. “Take the gun. Kill her. She wants it. Look at her, you can see it in her eyes. Only leave me alone! I am not a part of your revolution, I have nothing to do with my father.”
“Is that how your father sees it, too?” the Legate asked softly. “Does he have nothing to do with you?”
Jim said nothing.
“We need your father and his hordes.” The Legate spoke quietly, but with a note of finality in his voice like he was pronouncing sentence.
“You have the Swordbearers,” Jim said.
The Legate shook his head. “They are here to execute a Writ, and only because Qayna was good enough to put Raphael’s life in danger.”
“I’ll be better than that,” Jane muttered.
“We have sympathizers.” The Legate smiled. “The third part of the host of heaven, I believe, is the traditional figure. But they won’t take up arms unless they are confident of victory. We need the Horn, and we need your father’s help.”
“I want nothing to do with it,” Jim insisted.
“If you refuse,” the Legate said deliberately, “then we will have to kill you, and use your father’s hoof as a lever to involve him anyway. I can’t have you running around free with this knowledge, James.”
“Kill me.”
The Legate arched his eyebrows, nodded, and turned to Jane. “Kill him,” Heaven’s rebel emissary told her, “and the death letter is yours.”
“Go to Hell.” Jane laughed. “Pun intended.” Lightning flashed across the well of darkness overhead, and the rain picked up, heavy enough now to pummel its way down through the ring of fire and splash Jane in the face.
The Legate’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Raphael—” he began.
The golems stepped forward.
Jane’s fingers brushed the butt of the Calamity Horn. “Go for your gun, you angelic son of a bitch.” She stared at Raphael, eyes boring through the puppet-mask of the Deputy’s body and imagining the six-winged Bearer of the Word within. “I’m begging you, please, as a personal favor to me, go for your gun.”
***
Chapter Nine
Fat drops of rain spattered Qayna’s face as she dropped down from the ridge and into the open mouth of