They had been walking all morning and they were cold, miserable, and weary. The shepherd was exhausted from carrying Persephone across the countryside in increasingly worse conditions for over a week. Luckily they hadn’t run into any snow, as spring didn’t necessarily mean the end of winter weather in Iceland. His clothes, which had become more and more ill-suited as the weather got colder and colder, were soaked and filthy. Persephone's soft wool was matted and caked with mud, and she shivered constantly.
She had woken him up in the middle of the night over a week ago, bleating like she was being eaten by wolves, and banging on his front door. He hadn't recognized her at first, but when she spoke to him the voice was unmistakable. All he could get out of her was that “he” had found her and they had to run. He wasn't entirely sure who “he” was or where they were going, but Persephone insisted with such an intense fear that he couldn't tell her no. He could never tell her no. He was in love with a lamb. Now they were heading toward the only people that might take them in.
They walked through a field and came up to a small, muddy country road. Out of habit the shepherd looked both ways before he stepped onto it. Safety first, after all. Despite the wind and rain, visibility was good enough that he see the coast was clear in either direction. It was quite a surprise, therefore, when an SUV with a couple of pickup trucks trailing behind seemed to appear out of nowhere going incredibly fast. It didn't look like they were going to stop.
St. Peter was complaining with much gusto about the lack of enthusiasm and intelligence the average henchman had these days. Though he was driving, he was only paying marginal attention to where they were going. They were in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere Iceland where there was nothing but sheep and inbred farmers.
“What I want to know is why it takes so much fucking effort to get good henchmen?” asked St. Peter.
He was unleashing this well-trodden tirade on the only passenger in the SUV, a long-time lackey named Wheezy whom he had recruited straight out of Hell over a hundred years ago.
Wheezy was a tall, lanky man with a patchy beard and beady eyes, whose tanned and weathered skin constantly looked dirty even though he was a meticulous neat freak. He had been a guerilla fighter for the Dutch farmers during the First Boer War in South Africa in the late 1800's. Now he was a low-level Shadow in the employ of Hell Industries, so technically he was one of Satan's boys, but St. Peter paid him well and let him do things that he would never get to do as a Shadow. Hell Industries thought he was too stupid to do important work. The truth was that Wheezy was actually pretty smart, but he had been tortured so many times before and after his mortal death that he no longer had a tongue, and his vocal chords were either completely severed or severely damaged.
“It’s not like I’m asking for a whole lot. I just want average intelligence and unwavering loyalty. I can get the loyalty, but then they’re too dumb to know the difference between following orders to the letter and following the spirit of those orders. On the other hand, if they show a modicum of common sense, I can’t get them to do shit.”
The demon shot a quick look at St. Peter and sighed.
“You don’t have to say something for me to know what you’re thinking. You think if they’re smart enough to know better than to follow me blindly. So what’s your excuse? Just smart enough to know you’re not smart enough to do it all by yourself?”
Wheezy gave a concessionary shrug. He might be ignorant, but he wasn’t stupid; St. Peter decided he would have to keep an eye on him.
“Don’t think that just because you can’t talk that I don’t know what you really—”
Wheezy rarely made any noise unless it was necessary, and was completely incapable of forming words, so St. Peter didn't automatically recognized the meaning behind Wheezy’s haunting wet, raspy, whispered yell. It was more the spit flying than the noise that really got his attention. He still wasn't sure what he was trying to get across until he followed Wheezy's outstretched hand that was pointing out in front of the SUV to something standing in the middle of the road. St. Peter hit the brakes and fish-tailed in the thick mud, sliding directly toward the soon-to-be-hood-ornaments in the road. With less than a foot to spare, the large SUV slid to a halt. The other trucks in the convoy swerved to avoid St. Peter’s vehicle, barely avoiding a pile-up.
St. Peter and Wheezy were staring at a wet farmer in tattered and muddy clothes that couldn't possibly have kept him warm even if it weren't raining. He was holding a soaking wet lamb in his arms. St. Peter imagined it had to smell like a sweaty jock strap. The stunned shepherd stared back with a blank expression. After a moment he looked down at the lamb said something to it, paused, said something else, and then shrugged. To St. Peter and Wheezy it looked like the shepherd was consulting with the lamb. They looked at each other, wondering if they were both seeing the same thing, and then looked back as the shepherd continued to cross the road and walked off in the direction of the mountains.
“God damn it, I hate this country,” said St. Peter as he hit the gas again. The SUV threw up mud behind it and then roared off. The pick-up trucks, which were full of an assortment of large Nordic brutes in modernized armor with axes and war hammers, along with short, skinny Africans in military uniforms with AKs and an RPG, followed.
It had taken all day, but the survivors had sorted through the bodies and reinforced the tail section of the plane with scavenged aluminum struts. Mestoph and Leviticus were quietly salvaging anything that could be used as a weapon. They had recovered two handguns, one that Sir Regi had rooted around and found on the body of a sky marshal that had died in the crash, and another that Mestoph had found in the cockpit when he sneaked off to the forbidden wreckage as the light was fading. Leviticus had crafted rudimentary but perfectly usable axes and machetes from sharp and jagged pieces of metal. Some of the passengers had apparently been adventurers, or just very well prepared and paranoid, and had flashlights, lanterns, a few headlamps, and even a pair of sinister looking ice axes in their luggage. The lights would come in handy and provide some much needed comfort, and the pair of axes could end up being useful if embedded into some mercenary asshole’s skull. Food had been recovered from the galley in the rear of the plane, consisting mostly of sandwiches and boxes of noodles with vegetables. Nobody had much of an appetite.
Easily the greatest comfort came from the large campfire that Marcus and Stephanie had built at the edge of the refitted plane cabin with more wood from trees that had been torn up and split in the crash. It was only partially shielded from the weather, so they had made it big as much for warmth and safety as to survive the rain. There was something calming and familiar about a campfire and most of the survivors, of which there were now only twenty-three, crowded around its calming glow.
There had been more survivors immediately after the crash, but injuries seen and unseen had claimed about a dozen more. One man had slipped away shortly after dark and killed himself, slitting his wrists with a jagged razor of aircraft aluminum. Sir Regi noticed him leaving and had followed him, but had been unable to convince him not to do it. He secretly feared that seeing a talking dog might have made it worse. Sir Regi quietly returned to let Mestoph and Leviticus know, and they buried him in a simple rock cairn beyond one of the surrounding hills. Morale was going to be low enough come morning, when it would dawn on people that no one had come to rescue them in the night; a suicide definitely wasn't what they needed looming over them.
The fact that there hadn't been any planes or helicopters looking for the wreckage hadn't surprised Mestoph and Leviticus, and when Stephanie had mentioned it in a whisper to Marcus, he had just nodded. Mestoph had been unable to find the black box, which was actually bright orange, in the cockpit. Its absence confirmed his suspicions that this was no accident.
“We're not going to be rescued, are we?” asked Marcus quietly, though it was much more statement than question. Mestoph shook his head.
“We need to organize first thing in the morning, before dissent amongst the ranks can entrench itself. We're going to have to leave the wreckage behind and make it to the nearest town,” said Leviticus.
Mestoph and Leviticus had decided to tell them the truth about the wreck, or at least their version of the truth. They told them that they thought the wreck was intentional. That they didn't know how, but that someone high up had made it happen. They didn't think the survivors were likely to believe a story about a conspiracy of shadow Angels and Demons, so they would have to tell them something they could believe. While the five of them, counting Sir Regi, would know the “truth”, they would tell the survivors it had been an RPG that brought them down. There was an odd sense of irony to telling complete strangers the truth and those close to them a complete fabrication, but Mestoph and Leviticus each had their own reasoning behind it.
Mestoph thought an RPG attack made the mysterious fifth column group that Leviticus had invented sound too human, and he wanted their invented assailants to remain other-worldly. He was afraid that if Marcus and Stephanie thought humans were already involved it was too late and that there was already no hope of survival. Leviticus on the other hand thought it made them look far too vulnerable when some guy with an RPG could take them all out. The truth was they were both right in a way – they were far too vulnerable, and the only thing that allowed Marcus and Stephanie to continue trusting their fellow humans was the fact that it was still an Us vs. Them scenario.
The sun hadn't even fully risen, and already there was whisperings amongst developing cliques about how they should have, at the very least, heard a plane or helicopter flying over, if not spotlights trying to find them. They also had a surprising ally that had come to them just as the sun rose.
Mestoph recognized him as the priest that had been sitting behind him just before the crash. He couldn't help but feel uneasy. Mestoph had fought alongside African rebels in the early 60s when Muammar al-Gaddafi staged his coup to take control of Libya, he had fought with the Saracens against the Crusaders at Tyre, Jerusalem, and Cyprus, and he had seen the full wrath of Satan himself directed squarely at him—and yet he feared nothing quite so much as a Catholic priest. He blamed The Exorcist.
“I'm Father Mike,” said the priest in what Mestoph was now fairly certain was the accent of a British-educated Kenyan. He extended his hand in a friendly gesture that made Mestoph hesitate. The priest, whose collar was smudged black with dirt and red with blood, noticed the awkwardness and smiled. “Forgive my forwardness; I feared your friend might be Shia from his complexion, so thought it safer to shake your hand instead. I meant no offense.”
Leviticus slipped into the conversation and quickly shook the priest’s still awkwardly extended hand. “Please ignore my socially inept friend’s heirophobia,” he said, giving Mestoph a look of disdain.
The priest looked at him—Leviticus couldn't tell if it was amusement or suspicion that he saw on his face—and smiled again. “Wrong on both accounts, I suppose,” said the priest.
Leviticus shrugged. “I'm about as Christian as they come—short of being the savior himself.”
Any suspicion or hesitation disappeared from the priest’s expression, which in turn made Mestoph relax—though only a little. Father Mike, who explained that his name was actually Makena, told them that he seen something strange right before the plane went down. “I was one row behind you,” he said, nodding at Mestoph. “I wondered if you had seen the same thing. It was a rocket-propelled grenade, I’m sure of it.”
Leviticus and Mestoph gave each other a meaningful look, as much to be sure they were both on the same page as for the theatrical effect it would have.
“You have a lot of experience with RPGs?” asked Mestoph.
The priest shrugged. “I’ve seen my share of fighting. I wasn’t always a priest.”
And with that, Leviticus nodded to Mestoph and they let Father Mike into the inner circle.
Less than an hour later, Mestoph, Leviticus, Marcus, Stephanie, Sir Regi, and now Father Mike stood before the assembled survivors, who were huddled together in the remains of the cabin. They told everyone what they had seen and that they didn't think they were safe staying at the crash site. The survivors were skeptical. Several voiced the opinion that it would be better to wait there for a rescue. Leviticus squirmed uncomfortably as he felt the crowd beginning to turn; it was at least partially his fault that they were in this mess, and he’d be damned—pardon his language—if he’d let more innocents suffer. Not even Mestoph could leave them to fend for themselves. Not to mention that they would likely lose Marcus and Stephanie's faith if they did.
Mestoph revealed that he had been to the cockpit and hadn’t found any sign of the black box. That swayed more than a few people. One man had the reasonable point that Mestoph wasn't an aviator so he might have missed it. Mestoph conceded this but offered to go along with anyone who wanted to look again. This quieted a few of the non-believers. The single point that held the most sway, however, was Father Mike's story about having seen what he thought was an RPG. Several of the survivors admitted to having seen something come at them from the ground. When Leviticus planted the fear that whoever had shot them down would come and finish them off, there were only one or two vocal critics of the plan, and even they seemed uncertain of their own argument. In the end it was a unanimous vote.
The biggest logistical problem was the injured. Of the twenty-three survivors, six of them weren't fully mobile. For those who couldn't move at all, they would have to fashion together some sort of litter and then work out shifts for everyone to carry or pull them along. Those who were hobbling and limping would be splinted as best as possible and would just have to try not to further injure themselves during the march.
The march itself was the next problem that had to be solved. Most of the survivors weren't Icelandic, so there was a serious lack of geographical knowledge. Father Mike again proved to be invaluable since he was in Iceland to do mission work in the rural and farm areas of the island country. He easily had the best practical knowledge of the lay of the land.
Father Mike worked with Mestoph and Leviticus to draw up a map of the coast. As best as they could figure, they were somewhere between Klaustur and Skaftafell National Park, which meant they could go twenty miles approximately west and maybe hit Klaustur, or walk ten or fifteen miles just about any direction but southeast and hit Route 1. Father Mike thought they were closest to the National Park, which meant they were farther from anything resembling civilization.
While Mestoph and Leviticus worked with Father Mike to plan their escape, Marcus and Stephanie—and, in his own way, Sir Regi—worked with the survivors to get everything in marching order. To make the litters, they had pried the emergency exit door off. The emergency slide burst out of the door and inflated as Marcus absentmindedly pulled the emergency lever. Sir Regi let out a startled bark and one of the other passengers, a young woman in her early twenties, let out a shriek followed by nervous laughter.
They slit the inflated sides of the slide to deflate it and then cut it into long strips that would make up the base of the litter. They then supported it with two long narrow struts from the insides of the plane. They wrapped the jagged ends of metal in strips of cloth from the clothes found in the salvaged luggage. The supports and vinyl from the slide were lashed together with some climbing rope from the suitcase with the ice axes, and when they ran out of that some electrical wiring from inside the plane. Sir Regi brought most of the wire, rooting through the small crawlspaces and digging through the debris to find as much as possible. The result was a crude but serviceable way to pull or carry those who couldn't walk.
As they searched through the suitcases, Marcus and Stephanie learned more than they ever wanted to know about their fellow passengers. In an age of internet porn there was a surprising number of nudie mags tucked underneath clothes. More alarming was the sheer volume of dildos, vibrators, and – not to leave the men out - pocket pussies. It seemed that good old one-handed masturbation, good for guys and girls, wasn't enough these days. There were rubber, silicon, and uncannily skin-like genitalia of a startling degree of accuracy, or inaccuracy in the case of large foot and a half long jiggly cocks with variable speed vibrators.
To a man like Marcus, who had never set foot in a sex shop, the sheer variety of fake phalluses was astounding. There were ones shaped like animals, dolphins and rabbits in particular. There were ones with a complicated array of rotating “pleasure beads” inside. There were ones where the head, and only the head, rotated and squirmed like a flailing fish. The other startling thing was that no one seemed to travel with only one dildo, but almost always a pair, and in some cases there were small travel boxes dedicated solely to their owner’s toys. One box had half a dozen dildos, French ticklers, condoms, lube, and a burned DVD he was fairly certain was full of porn. When he looked up at Stephanie, wanting to share his surprise with someone else, she just shrugged. Marcus suddenly imagined a similar black and chrome travel box tucked underneath her bed back at her house. As if reading his mind, she nodded. Marcus shook his head in dismay, and felt a sudden inadequacy in his boring, vanilla sexual habits. She put her hand on his shoulder and whispered to him, “Don't worry, nobody stays innocent forever.” Marcus felt a blossom of excitement and fear inside him.
It had taken the better part of the day to get everything together between scavenging for provisions, trying to prepare the injured for transport, and the back and forth debating about where they should go. In the end they decided to head in the general direction Father Mike believed Klaustur was, but agreed to follow Rt. 1 west toward Reykjavik if they hit it first. They also decided that they had burned enough of the day that it would be pointless to leave now. By the time everyone was assembled and motivated to move out in the miserable weather, they would be lucky to get an hour out before it started getting too dark to safely navigate the rocky and uneven terrain of the seemingly endless lava fields.
Leviticus and Mestoph were the only ones who thought an hour of travel was better than nothing. Resigned to another night at the crash site, they arranged to keep watch in pairs. Marcus and his dog would take first watch, Stephanie and Mestoph, who wasn't comfortable spending too much time with the priest, would take second watch, and Leviticus and Father Mike would keep watch until sunrise. Mestoph gave Marcus and Stephanie a private, impromptu weapons lesson, showing them the safety, what to do if it jammed, and the quickest way to change a clip. He gave Marcus the 9mm that he had found in the cockpit.
Sir Regi suggested that they at least try to arm some of the other passengers in the guise of utilitarianism by making rough hatchets and machetes from jagged metal and support beams, wrapped together with the leftover wires that weren't used for the makeshift stretchers. Now they passed them out under the pretense that the makeshift weapons could be used for gathering wood for fires and clearing brush as they traveled the next morning.
First watch with Marcus and Sir Regi was uneventful, and they gratefully returned to the dry spot Marcus called a bed and the pile of clothes he would be using as a pillow. He tapped Stephanie on the shoulder and she sat up instantly; he was fairly certain she hadn't been asleep. Marcus handed her the gun and she awkwardly stuck it in the waistband of her pants. Marcus walked over to the small fire where Mestoph and Leviticus were huddled together, deep in conversation. They hushed as Marcus walked over; he didn't take it as an insult since he was sure there was plenty of things mortals like him weren't meant to know about. Mestoph nodded to Marcus and then got up to take his watch, leaving him with Leviticus. Marcus didn't stay to talk.
Mestoph found Stephanie sitting on a row of seats at the edge of the fuselage. The weather was starting to clear up a bit, the ominous storm moving further inland, and in the random gaps of clouds they could see stars peeking through. They sat there for close to half an hour before she spoke. “You're not really an Angel are you?”
Mestoph looked at her intently for a moment, a look that went briefly from amusement to a complete lack of surprise. He wasn't so much shocked that she had doubts; he couldn't hide his true nature forever. He was surprised that she was so sure and so unafraid. He smiled ruefully and nodded.
“So what are an Angel and...a Demon?” At Mestoph’s nod, she continued, “What are an Angel and a Demon doing running around together and trying to stop the end of the world? I mean, I can see why an Angel might, but not a Demon. And not an Angel and a Demon working together.”
Mestoph looked up at the clouds, which parted again briefly to show a sliver of moon. He hadn't planned on having this talk, at least not yet. He had hoped maybe it could be avoided completely. Stephanie was too smart to be blown off, so Mestoph decided to go as close to the truth as he dared.
“Me and Leviticus have been friends for a very long time. I'm not going to lie and say that I haven't done some things you'd flinch at; it comes with the territory. However, Leviticus and I meet in the middle when it comes to our views of our jobs. I'd be lying if I said either of us weren't both anxiously awaiting The End. Ultimately, that's what both sides are working toward. However, you—humans, that is—deserve a chance to do it your own way. That whole free will thing. It's a pretty amazing thing, but it's really all you have going for you. Without it you're just playthings for God and Satan to push around the chessboard in their unending cock-measuring contest. Someone is out to take that one and only thing of yours away by jumpstarting The End. Seeing Leviticus as good and me as evil is far more simplistic and inaccurate than the truth. It may surprise you to find out that some really good people end up in Hell while some really shitty people in up in Heaven. It has absolutely nothing to do with lack of faith or devotion respectively. There's not a lot in life that's fair, but if we can do something to keep free will alive as long as possible, it behooves us all to do our part.”
Mestoph was surprised to find that he actually believed what he was saying. Not all of it was true and some of the facts were omitted, but the sentiment was there. He actually did care about what happened to humans—at least to these humans.
“I won't tell Marcus,” was all Stephanie said in response.
Mestoph looked at her expectantly for several minutes, but she didn't look at him again. They continued their watch in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence; it was just a lack of talking. He finally spoke up, the curiosity close to killing him.
“Are you OK with...you know...me being a Demon?”
Stephanie looked over at him and smiled slightly. “Yeah, I'm OK. It explains a lot. And to be honest, it makes me feel better knowing you’re...you know...a Demon.”
Mestoph cocked an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued instead of sated. “Better?”
“Yes, better. Because I know when the Nephilim, Seraphim, St. Peter, or who knows what else finally finds me...us...you won't hesitate to kill them.”
The bright beam of a pair of headlights broke over a distant hill, revealing the jagged outlines of lava rocks. Five more pairs of headlights followed. They all pulled up side-by-side on the crest of the hill, pointing toward the cockpit section of the wreck. Mestoph drew his gun and tapped Stephanie on the knee, motioning for her to wake up Leviticus and Marcus.
Whoever had shot them down had finally found them.