Live and in Concert (Mythklok, Chapter 7)
Nov. 27th, 2010 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: Live and in Concert (Mythklok, Chapter 7)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Charles smokes while the boys plan a concert. And a bit of MythKlok: the Prequel.
Warnings: Slash AND het and so many pairings I can’t even keep track any more. Also, AU and OCs plus plenty o’ F-words and smoking.
Notes: A millionty billion notes after the jump
This is a Metalocalypse AU that’s been taking over my life.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiktaalikroseae started calling it “Mythklok” so I’ll just steal that since I can’t think of a better title. Here are the other bits, about an angelic visit (Chapter 1), a hunt (Chapter 2), a barbecue (Chapter 3), a ski trip (Chapter 4), a sword fight (Chapter 5) and Bette Davis Movies (Chapter 6). I’m frankly not totally happy with the first couple chapters, so if you wanna start in the middle, that’s fine with me.
THE STORY SO FAR (as told by Nathan Explosion): “So, Skwisgaar’s been acting like a total douche because he found out his relatives are all like gods and shit. But, his dad King Wotan dude is cool and he’s going out with this kinda hot angel chick names Raziel, though she’s kind of a weird chick, but she also likes to stab shit with a sword, and that’s badass, I guess unless she stabs you, huh? So, anyway, Charles stabbed like a couple of demons too – oh, he’s like an angel and shit, and even has a stupid gay angel name, and he’s still annoying, but the stabbing part is pretty badass, ‘cause like I told Pickles I bet other bands don’t have managers that totally go stab shit, right?
“I did mention swords are badass, right?
“Oh, yeah, and there’s also this Shiva dude who hangs out a lot with Wotan and likes to stab shit, because I guess that’s how gods spend a lot of their time cutting up shit with swords. And his girlfriend is TOTALLY smokin’ hot and I think stupid Skwisgaar likes her or something. Oh and I met these two Kachina dudes and they’re totally cool and they got me REALLY stoned on some shit. But, I haven’t seen them stab anything yet, so I’m not sure whether they’re gods, even though one dude has like a bear head. Oh, and I gotta quit narrating now because we’re totally gonna do a concert and I gotta preserve my voice because MY VOICE IS MY FUCKING INSTRUMENT.”
Me again. Last time, a couple of you guys wanted some Prequel!Charles, so here ya go. If you don’t like it, IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT. Feel the guilt.
Charles smokes Marlboros in this AU. Smoking is Bad for You. But, we all kinda think it’s sexy. Here’s some Smoking!Charles arts fromlate_totheparty, used here with permission. Actually, you’re probably better off gazing fondly at this than reading the fic.
Live and in Concert (Mythklok Chapter 7)
Nathan knocked again on the office door. He knew damn well Ofdensen was inside, as he’d seen the fucking guy earlier. He finally decided to put his peerless death metal voice to work. “HEY CHARLES ARE YOU IN THERE OR NOT?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” came the voice.
Nathan pushed inside and saw Ofdensen standing in front of his desk, looking slightly guilty. “Ah, hey, Nathan.” When the manager realized it was just Nathan, he smiled and brought out the sword he was holding behind his back, set it aflame, and started feinting with it. As, Nathan presumed, given the smell of brimstone in the air, he’d been doing just before Nathan knocked. Probably for fucking hours before Nathan knocked.
“Uh, didn’t Raz tell you not to use that inside?”
“She said inside the house!” Ofdensen cheerfully told him, whipping the blade around. “Mordhaus, in case you haven’t noticed, is a fucking castle!”
Nathan frowned. “Huh. Yeah. Whoa! Were those your good lamps?”
“Uh, yeah. Might’ve knocked over one. Or two.”
“OK. Anyway. I need to go over some stuff about the concert.”
“Sure!” Ofdensen lunged at an imaginary opponent, but didn’t seem inclined to put the goddam sword down.
“So, this is gonna be a new venue.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And, some other bands have complained about the rotating stage.”
“Noted.”
“And, uh, the lighting.”
“OK.”
“So, uh, you’re gonna find out about it?”
“I will take it under advisement.”
“Take WHAT under advisement?”
“The, uh, thing you said, before you said that other thing.”
“Have you been listening to a FUCKING WORD I’VE BEEN SAYING?”
“Sure!”
“OK, so, if you’ve been listening, what was the thing I said that was before I said the other thing?”
“Well, that was the thing you said after you said the first thing but before you said the thing after the other thing.”
“I’m confused! WHEN DID I SAY THAT OTHER THING?”
“You can’t keep track of what you’ve said? Well, why don’t you just go off and figure it out.”
“Are we ready for this concert?”
“Ah…. Sure! Oops. That was a good one.”
Ofdensen waited until he could no longer hear Nathan’s retreating footsteps, and then dove for his phone. “So, did you get my message? No, I can’t make it up there. I can’t…. I can’t get away this week. We have a concert and they really won’t let me alone. Yeah, late is fine. Yeah, sure, that would be a good time for me to take a break. Yeah. OK. See you in a bit.”
They walked along what would have been the dragon’s back, carrying swords.
“I told you, not inside the house,” Raziel was saying.
“THIS IS NOT A HOUSE. IT’S A FUCKING CASTLE,” Ofdensen said irritably.
“So. This is supposed to be a dragon boat?” Raziel asked.
“Uh. Yeah.”
Dragons do exist in this universe, and are not difficult to see in a place like Asgard. They do indeed spit fire, however, they tend to not grow terribly much bigger than Gila monsters. Though considered pests, they are not threatening if one is armed with so much as, say, a bucket of water.
“Didn’t you consider modeling it after something dangerous? Like a venomous snake? Or perhaps a bee? You know bee stings….”
“I’d prefer not to talk about it. Wanna get to it?” He held up his sword and set it on fire, so she shrugged and did the same, and for a time, they went about happily trying to cut each other’s head off.
At one point, she somehow got the toe of one boot up on his sword tip, and used the leverage to spring into a rather impressive backflip, featuring a flying kick that would have probably knocked his head off if he hadn’t immediately fallen backwards, quite nearly losing his footing if he hadn’t managed to get a hand out behind him.
“That wasn’t a legal move!” he protested, springing back up in a rather pissy mood.
“Legal according to whom?” she asked, crossing her arms and grinning. “The International Blazing Sword Fighting Federation?”
“That was…. That was definitely cheating!”
“You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it.”
“I would NEVER use a move like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…. Because…. It didn’t look very stylish!”
“WHAT?”
“HOW LONG HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN FUCKING AROUND UP HERE?” Nathan was scowling one of his ten best scowls. Though unfortunately the effect was slightly undercut by Pickles, who was just behind him, giving Raziel a terribly friendly little wave. The angel smiled and waved back.
“I was just, uh…. I was just actually…. Uh, heading back to the office in…. In ten minutes. In five minutes. Uh, three minutes?”
“We need to talk about da recordin’” Pickles explained.
“You guys are…. You guys are doing a new album?” Ofdensen was stunned. That kind of thing usually took at least six months of constant badgering.
“The LIVE CONCERT RECORDING.”
“The…. What?”
“Dick Knubbler is recordin’ da concert.”
“THIS concert? This week?”
“Yeah dood!”
“Uh, why do I not know about this?”
“Yoo signed da papers!”
“When did I sign the papers?”
“IN THE STRIP CLUB!”
“The strip club? The strip club?” Ofdensen suddenly felt a chill. “The strip club you took me to a couple weeks ago? Where I PASSED OUT?”
“Yeah, dood, we sorta took yer hand an’ signed fer yoo,” Pickles supplied, handing off a stack of papers to their disbelieving manager.
“We decided you were TOO IMPAIRED to make such an IMPORTANT DECISION!” Nathan thundered.
Ofdensen stared at the contract. “You…. You…. You misspelled my name.”
“It’s sort of a WEIRD NAME.”
“How the fuck do you misspell ‘Charles?’”
“By da way,” Pickles told Raziel, “Dat was a pretty sweet move.”
“Oh, you mean going up on the sword?” Raziel asked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, thanks, but, it didn’t really work right.”
“How was it supposed to work?”
“I was supposed to kick him in the head.”
“Oh, dat’s OK, I’m sure you’ll get him next time.”
“Ah thanks.”
Ofdensen looked up from the stack of papers. He had decided on a course of action. There were three people on this roof who needed to die. He had a sword. He simply had to work out the correct order in which to brutally murder them.
Sometime later, when tempers had cooled somewhat, the angels had relocated to one of Mordhaus’s chest spires, as Raziel reckoned it would brook no more interference from musicians bearing bad tidings. After an initial bout of vertigo, he had had to agree: what it lacked for maneuverability it sort of made up in the sheer giddy and frankly stupid risk of it all.
Though, in truth, they were currently not sparring at all, but just sitting there, as he’d wanted to stop for a smoke. No, actually, he had desperately needed to stop for a smoke. As it turned out, this was the best place in the entire complex for a quiet cigarette.
“So, what’s it like?” she asked.
“What’s WHAT like?” he asked. He sat with his back to the exterior wall of the building, legs stretched out on the spire, thinking there was nothing more pleasant on God’s green earth than a Marlboro Menthol.
“A Dethklok concert! What’s it like?”
“Oh. Jesus.” He watched his smoke curl, vanishing away like his pleasant mood. “The headache usually starts 48 hours beforehand. I mean a blinding one. Painkillers won’t touch it, and I can’t take them anyway, because I have to stay conscious. And, anyway, I can’t keep anything down, food, drink, drugs, anything. That’s when everything starts to go wrong. It doesn’t matter how much you plan, or how many contingencies you’ve figured in. You can get the best lighting guy in the business, and 2 days beforehand, he’ll get eaten by a Yeti. And I don’t mean he’s out climbing Mount Everest and they’re attacked, I mean he’s home gardening in New Jersey and the Yeti finds him there. And, the venue is now completely under water because mermaids attacked it, or some shit. And, there’s a dock workers strike that holds up the delivery of capello de mago goats milk cheese so Murderface won’t go on because he evidently needs that particular spread on his Ritz cracker before he can play bass. And, the parliament of whatever country we’re playing will outlaw guitar pickups so we have to go kidnap or bribe some senators. And….”
“What I meant was,” Raziel put in. “What’s it like to hear them play live?”
Ofdensen stared for a long moment at the strange creature who was not a woman, sitting there looking at him with inhuman eyes, kicking her short legs over the spire, such a dizzying height above the ground.
“Huh?” he said.
“They’re renowned musicians. What’s it like to hear them play?”
“I…. I have no FUCKING idea anymore.”
“Really?”
“I haven’t actually heard them play live in….” He shook his head.
“Oh. OK. Well, maybe it’s for the best that the Dick Knubbler person will make a recording! And then, you may listen!”
“Uh. Yeah. I guesso.”
She stood. “Well, I must dash. Freyja and I are dueling at dawn.”
“Oh. OK. What? Wait, don’t-fucking-disappear-stop!” He had jumped to his feet as well, slightly overbalancing in his haste and putting a hand to the wall to keep from falling. “Tell me this again, only pretend you’re talking about your fucking outfit or something.” She frowned. “In more than three words, Raziel!”
“Um,” she fiddled with her sword. “This has been brewing for a while. As you can imagine, pretty much every single female resident of Valhalla would like to see my head inside a box. As well as a surprisingly large chunk of the men.” She laughed. “When Wotan’s soldiers were betting on you to die fighting that demon last week? It wasn’t entirely due to your winning personality. But, it has not escaped notice around Asgard that I kill archangels as a sideline, so, valiant warriors or no, nobody’s really had the balls to warn me to my face to stay the fuck away from their beloved god king.”
“But, Freyja?”
“Yeah, so she called me a stuck up angel bitch or something. And made sure it got back to me so I couldn’t ignore it. So I had to call her out. I mean, it’s silly because I AM a stuck up angel bitch. But, you know, Court politics and all….”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Should I be there for this?”
“You’re busy.” She shrugged.
He tossed his cigarette away. “I absolutely cannot stay. I will go up for the duel, and then right back afterwards.”
She nodded, a faint smile on her face.
And they were not longer on the spire.
“CHARLES? ARE YOU FUCKING IN THERE?” Nathan thought he heard a soft voice inside, so he pulled Ofdensen’s office door open, and he and Pickles ventured inside. It was completely dark: good lamps, bad lamps – what was left unbroken anyway - everything extinguished. Ofdensen was behind his desk, but leaning back with what looked like a towel over his forehead.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Nathan demanded.
“Please. My head is gonna explode,” Ofdensen whispered.
“Dood, are yoo hung over? I don’t remember goin’ out drinkin’!” Pickles looked expectantly at Nathan, who shrugged.
“No. Pickles. You didn’t black out.” Ofdensen gingerly pitched forward and took the towel off his head. “Valhalla.”
“YOU WERE PARTYING IN VALHALLA?” Nathan asked, a bit louder than he really needed to, if truth be told.
“Raziel,” Ofdensen whispered. “She was dueling Freyja. Wotan’s ex-wife.”
Pickles and Nathan grinned at each other.
“WOTAN’S EX-WIFE?”
“Is dat how dey do it up dere? Wit’ a chick fight?”
“THAT IS SO TOTALLY METAL!”
“Guys! Please? Anyway, afterwards, they all have to toast each other and talk about how honorable they all are. Everybody. Toasts everybody else. I can’t believe how fucking honorable they are.”
“We gotta talk to you about da concert.”
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to submit your ideas in writing? No, huh?”
“This is about THE LIVESTREAM.”
“The…. The what? Oh no. Oh no. Was this in the papers I signed when I was passed out in the strip club?”
“Nah.”
“This was later, when you were smoking dope with us IN THE LIMO.” Nathan happily slid the contract across the desk.
Ofdensen grabbed the contract and flipped through it. “Nathan, I misspelled my own fucking name here.”
“Yeah, you tend to do that when you’re HIGH,” Nathan laughed.
“Hello? Oh, yeah, hi. I’ve been better. Yeah, that was a lot of toasts. You guys are very, very honorable. Yeah, I think they appreciated that you spared Freyja’s life. Oh, you’re welcome. I actually…. I actually have a lot of experience writing speeches, I just don’t remember anyone actually fucking giving one before. Especially in the middle of a duel. They usually.... Ah, never mind, it doesn’t matter. No, it’s….. It’s gotten worse actually. They’re going to do a live stream. A live stream? No, it’s not a… No, I don’t think Poseidon could help. It’s not a literal stream. It’s a…. It’s just a live broadcast. Yeah. Well, yes, thanks for the offer, I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll keep him in mind. And, Raziel? Please don’t tell the boys about your stream idea? They’re still after me to dig a volcano. Yes, I realize that volcanoes are terribly useful. Yeah. Well, if I change my mind, I’ll definitely contact Surtr about it. OK. Bye.”
Some days later, Ofdensen looked up from the toilet. It certainly not the first time since he had become manager of a death metal band that he had found himself enthusiastically puking up food he could no longer remember consuming.
Sadly, today, he did not even have as consolation the memory of a previous drinking binge.
Today, people were gonna die. Maybe a few people. Maybe a lot of people. Maybe a whole lot of people.
And there was not a fucking thing he could do about it.
He stopped at the sink and blearily splashed cold water on his face. And stepped out of the mens room into the backstage area.
Dethklok was in concert today.
“Uh, Sire?”
He nodded to the Klokateer. He knew he was going to have hooded people bearing bad tidings swarming around him like bees today.
“Sire, there’s a commotion at the VIP arrival area.”
“I think I know what it is. Thanks.” He made his way over to the entrance, silently repeating to himself, whatever you do, don’t say Bollywood.
As it turned out, it was a bit more than a commotion. In fact, about a dozen colorfully-dressed people were holding ticket-takers at swordpoint.
“They just all arrived out of nowhere, Sire,” the Klokateer was explaining.
At that moment, however, a trio of well dressed people also arrived at the area. They also seemed to have just suddenly popped out of nowhere. They all looked to be of Indian origin, as did the swordsmen. There was a small, graceful middle-aged man front and center, and, on one side, an absolutely gorgeous woman who looked like she may have been an Indian supermodel. Flanking the small man on the other side was a very handsome 30ish man with shoulder-length hair.
The middle-aged man halted, frowning and snapping his fingers. Immediately, the handsome man sprung ahead and talked very quietly to the swordsmen. “If you would be so kind, these people are only doing their job. If you might see clear to stand down, and we shall see to your admission?” The swordsmen immediately obeyed and, if one had been watching closely, one would have noticed that all of the swords somehow disappeared.
“They all wanted in on the same comp ticket, Sire,” the Klokateer whispered to Ofdensen.
The handsome man stood before him, and bowed courteously. “Our deepest apologies. These are friends of ours, and, like my father, they are all quite devoted fans of Dethklok. I am afraid they became a little, um, overenthusiastic. We greatly regret the altercation.”
“No problem, Ganesh. Don’t worry. We’ll get you guys seated.” Ofdensen said. He nodded to Lord Shiva, for the middle aged man was he, and turned around to talk to the Klokateer. “Put ‘em all in the loge.”
“But, Sire, there are a lot….”
“I don’t care. Put ‘em all in the loge, and let them figure it out.”
“Sire!” It was another Klokateer.
Excellent, thought Ofdensen, and we’re on to crisis number two.
As it turned out, this was no crisis. The god king Wotan was around the back.
With cigars.
So that also happened to be where Ofdensen found himself.
"I certainly appreciate this, setting aside a block of tickets like that," the Norse god was saying.
"Lord Shiva has, uh, quite the entourage."
"He never travels but with a veritable circus. I finally had to put my foot down at Valhalla. I told him, yourself, Lord Ganesh, and a servant, and anyone or anything else goes to my Lady Raziel for fencing practice."
"That's one way I suppose.”
“As I’ve said, to you, friend Sariel, talk to my accounting people, we can get you at least a charitable tax deduction.”
“You have quite the operation. Denmark?”
“Yeah, Norway is just too damned expensive these days. My Lady is after me to open another branch, some place like Milan or Barcelona. I’ve told her sunny is nice, but people don’t seem to have as much inclination to do work there.”
“So, you can't stay?"
"No. My Lady has me in attendance some kind of charity thing. I have been warned that there will be fashion people there. That's why this ridiculous suit."
Ofdensen sighed. It was an expensive looking three piece deal. And the handsome Norse god looked like he had been born to wear it. Ofdensen reflected darkly that if he didn't like Wotan so damn much, he might well despise the bastard.
"Is that a Caraceni?" Ofdensen guessed, somewhat abashed that he even knew.
"Yes. My Lady insists it's an important piece. I told her, darling, diplomacy is important, as is my hunt. A suit cannot be important."
"And, did she listen?"
"Might just as well have tried to convince an ant to stay out of the sugar bowl. Ah, but I see my ride is here.” He gestured to where a limousine was parked in the VIP arrival area. “Shall I wish you the human version of good fortune, to fracture a limb?”
“Uh, it’s break a leg. And, I dunno, we just kinda hope for the best.” Wotan grinned, and, waving his Cuban, made his way to the parking area. Just before he reached the limo, a red Ferrari roared up and suddenly squalled to a halt inches from the God.
“Oh, fuck no,” Ofdensen whispered.
A small, dark-haired woman leapt out of the car, and, dangling a pair of high heeled shoes from her fingertips, trotted around bare-footed to plant a tip-toed peck on the Norse god’s cheek. He waved his cigar, saying something, and she tipped down her oversized sunglasses to squint up at Ofdensen. She waved merrily at him, and then proceeded to make a terrible fuss wiping her lipstick smudge off Wotan’s face and adjusting his tie and straightening his lapels. When she was finally satisfied that her god was presentable, he took a seat in the passenger side, and, after tossing her shoes in the back and retying the scarf wrapped around her hair, the small woman hopped behind the wheel, and the car disappeared with a squeal of tires and a quite impressive expenditure of G force.
Wow, thought Ofdensen. Wotan had actually managed to find the one place on earth more dangerous than a Dethklok concert.
He wandered back inside, praying that none of the members of his band had seen the All-Father depart, lest they each demand he procure for them an Italian sports car equipped with an angelic chauffeur. He ended up running into Toki, but the guitarist was concentrating on Lord Shiva’s still arriving party. While they watched, Lord Shiva himself walked past, Lady Parvati on his arm, and Lord Ganesh just behind. Ganesh looked over and nodded courteously, and Ofdensen waved his cigar.
“Who ams dat lady?” Toki growled.
Ofdensen did a double-take. He wasn’t aware that Toki Wartooth was capable of growling.
“Um, do you mean the woman accompanying Lord Shiva?”
“Dat’s da ones.”
“Uh, that is Lady Parvati, Lord Shiva’s consort, er, I mean, girlfriend.” And then he was going to say the thing everybody said after they mentioned Parvati, that everybody likes Parvati. Only he could see that in this case, it wasn’t true.
Toki scowled – another first for Toki. “I ams not likes her,” the guitarist stated.
Well, that was a world first. Lady Parvati, although her human form was considerably toned down, was - amongst her other responsibilities - a love goddess. Ofdensen had yet to meet, or even hear about, a single human being who was not quite favorably disposed towards her, and that went double for men.
He looked down the corridor. Skwisgaar was there, standing off to the side. His eyes were also following Parvati. She passed him, but they did not directly acknowledge each other. Although, Ofdensen could have sworn he felt something, like when you walk across a new carpet and the static electricity kind of builds up.
“CHARLES!”
Pickles had grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back against the corridor.
Ofdensen irritably pushed the drummer away. “Pickles, I said AFTER THE CONCERT.”
“Uh, dood, I t’ink you might wanna see dis,” the redhead said.
He followed the dreadlocked drummer through the labyrinthine backstage area to a small room. There were three men in the room. Nathan Explosion was seated in a chair. And two men hovered beside him, a large bear of a man and a small skinny, nervous-seeming man.
“Kwahu, Hon.” Ofdensen said.
“Hey, you went to get your angel homeboy!” Hon told Pickles. “You made your whole goddam band into a bunch of uptight pussies, Sariel!”
Ofdensen leaned over in front of Nathan.
This was bad. This was very bad. There was no there there. Nathan’s heart was still beating, and Nathan’s lungs were still dragging in air, but there was no Nathan there. He was some place, very far away.
“Hon, what did you give him?”
“Aw, he’ll be OK,” Hon said.
“He said he needed to talk to Spider Grandma,” Kwahu explained. Even in his human form, the Eagle Kachina’s voice had a bit of a hiss to it.
“He has a concert in half an hour. You guys couldn’t wait?”
“He seemed to think it was urgent,” Hon said.
“Oh, and Eototo says hi!” Kwahu said cheerily.
“Oh, yeah, he wants you to come down for the next dance! It’ll be cool. Big medicine!”
“Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I’ll have plenty of time ‘cause it looks like I’m soon gonna be out of a fucking job,” Ofdensen grumbled.
“Here,” Hon said, placing something in Ofdensen’s hand. “Maybe you need some too. You gotta be less stressed out, dude.”
And with a laugh, the Kachinas disappeared.
“Whoa,” said Pickles. “Dey can do dat too? Dat’s pretty cool.”
‘Yeah. Really cool.” Ofdensen actually sank to his knees in front of Nathan, wondering if he would be the first person in history to cancel a concert due to Kachinas.
“I wonder what da fuck dat stuff is?” Pickles said. “I’ve never seen anybody so high. Including me!”
Ofdensen grabbed Pickles by the shoulders.
“Dood! I t’ought you didn’t have time for dat,” the drummer laughed.
“You have a spirit animal. Right? That’s what Raziel told me.”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“You can walk around, or whatever, when you’re high?”
“Yeah. So?”
Ofdensen put the tab he’d gotten from the Kachinas into Pickles’ hands. He gestured at Nathan. “Then GO FUCKING GET HIM!”
“Uh, how?”
“I don’t fucking know! Whatever it is you do!”
“I dunno dood….”
“PICKLES! YOU’RE TURNING DOWN A CHANCE TO GET HIGH?”
“Well. Dose guys said dere would be spiders…..”
“Pickles!” Ofdensen had him by the shoulders again. “OK. I will personally got get strippers! Extra strippers! With … extra big tits. Whatever you want. Anything.”
Pickles looked at Ofdensen, looked at the tab, and smiled.
“I’m gonna need some Scotch t’ wash dis shit down,” he grinned.
Pickles the Spirit Octopus oozed along the dry desert landscape.
He had been stoned before. In fact, he had probably spent the majority of his life now in some kind of altered state.
But he had never been this stoned. Or rather, stoned quite like this. It was like he’d kicked the TV foot pedals by mistake and turned up the color saturation on everything, and then maybe fucked with the vertical hold, and then Murderface spilled his banana split on top of it all. It’s like he was living inside the TV. Which was actually pretty fucking cool. He reminded himself to ask the Indian dudes if they had any more of this shit.
Nathan was there. Sitting by a fire, all Native American and shit. And, drinking beer! Inside a drug vision, there was beer!
It was like the best psychedelic universe ever. He wondered if he could get drunk here. And then maybe shoot some heroin inside that vision. It would be like Inception. He wondered if that hot Juno chick was around somewhere.
“Dood, could ya pour some o’ dat beer on me? I’m kinda dried out.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure dude.” Nathan poured, and the Pickles-pus wriggled happily in the beery hydration.
“Man, you are really stoned,” Nathan said approvingly.
“No, you’re da one who’s stoned! I’m just in yer vision, dood.”
“Really? Whoa. That’s pretty badass!”
“Yeah, so, what’re ya doin’ here anyway? Dis is kinda my scene, ya know?”
“Eh. I just wanted to talk to the Spider Lady about a couple things that have been bugging me. Do you think Charles is insane?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“No, I mean, is he MORE INSANE than he was before?”
“Huh. Well, maybe. Why?”
“Just, last time at VALHALLA, it seemed like he was really getting off, killing shit.”
“Yeah, dood, isn’t dat what he’s supposed to do for us?”
“What?”
“I t’ought dat’s what we hired him t’ do for us? Kill guys.”
“Uh. But, doesn’t he do other stuff?”
“What other stuff?”
“I dunno. Like, run the business? And stuff?”
“Ah. Dat can’t take much time. Oh, can I get some more beer dood? I’m feelin’ a little dry again.”
Nathan poured beer on the writhing drummer. “Hey, you know something, dude? You look really tasty. Like, you’d go well with melted butter.”
Pickles-pus cringed. “Nat’an, how did you get dat alligator head?”
“It’s pretty badass, huh? You don’t mind if I maybe had a bite of your leg, huh?”
Pickles cringed, and concentrated, and suddenly, he was just Pickles, and not the Pickles-pus.
Nathan had one of Pickles’s braids in his hands, ready to take a bite. “Ewwwww!” he said, letting it drop. He was now back to his Nathan head.
“Dat’s kinda cool. I didn’t know I could do dat.”
“Do what?”
“Be me instead of my spirit animal!” He looked at his braids. They were soaked in beer. He put one in his mouth and sucked on it just a little.
“Huh,” said Nathan.
“Anyway, dood, Charles sent me to get ya.”
“God damn that guy, he’s even fucking with my DRUG VISIONS?”
“Well, we do have dat concert.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
“Did you get any ancient wisdom from da Spider Chick Dude?”
“Nah. She gave me this real AWESOME chant though. Maybe I could perform it during the concert?”
“I dunno, dood. We got da Dick Knubbler recordin’ and da live stream. Maybe we gotta stick to da playlist?”
“Eh. Naw.”
“Well, den, OK. Wanna head back?”
Back at the concert venue, Nathan Explosion rose and brushed himself off.
“Are you OK to go on?” Ofdensen was asking.
“Sure, dude. What’s with the THIRD DEGREE?”
“Pickles?” Ofdensen asked. “Uh. How did you braids get wet?”
Pickles smelled his beery braids and laughed a Pickles laugh.
The concert had been eventful for being noneventful.
Well, for a Dethklok concert.
“We’d like to do one more number,” Nathan Explosion announced. “This is a new song, with lyrics based on a magical incantation!”
Ofdensen actually pushed a Klokateer out of the way to grab the set list.
“Oh god Nathan no….”
The flying serpent appeared over the stadium before Nathan was even finished with the first verse. It was beautiful and amazing really. At least 60 feet long, an emerald green, with long feathered green wings. It flew gracefully down from the sky.
It was so pretty, like a long, graceful green banner.
It was a bit confused though. It was usually summoned to appear before much smaller crowds. And not a stadium full of noisy death metal fans. Not to mention the blaring sound of Nathan’s voice backed by screaming guitar and drums. It was a bit upsetting.
It gave a sonorous cry, so loud you could actually hear it over the band.
And then it began to breath fire.
Stage right erupted in flames. The band looked over, startled, and then erupted in cheers along with the audience when the flames were quickly extinguished by the waterfall.
What had happened was, Poseidon's cell had run out of batteries, so he didn't get Raziel's text about canceling the live stream.
But just then, there came another, stronger cry.
The fire serpent was blocking the Lord Shiva’s view of The Dethklok.
As it happened, the four-armed blue god did not esteem obstructed views.
With a scream, of, “I am Shiva, Lord of Destruction,” the Hindu god led armed men and horses and bulls and tigers and even elephants out of the loge section, across the sky, in a furious assault on the winged reptile. The fiery beast screamed, and writhed, and blew fire, but there were simply too many of them, for Lord Shiva was really a terrible freeloader, who had kind of exploited the whole comp ticket thing.
The beast fled. Shiva's warrior's cheered. The audience was on its feet. And not just the damp people seated in the section under the waterfall.
The famed rock critic, Simon Montague, who was home in his mother's basement watching the live stream, later complained about the obviously computer generated special effects work during this portion.
Ofdensen read the papers the Klokateer had just handed him. “Water damage?” he said. “That’s all? You’re fucking kidding me.” It had been the least destructive Dethklok concert in years.
He looked up and noticed a great number of Lord Shiva’s party congregated in the backstage area waiting for autographs. He spotted Lord Ganesh and signaled to him.
“Uh, if it’s not too much trouble, can you make sure your folks don’t kill my band? Or, uh, dismember them? Or cause them great bodily injury….”
Ganesh waved his hands. He smiled his funny smile, one that looked like it was a bit too big for his handsome face. “Kindly do not worry. Be assured that all members of our party shall conduct themselves with the utmost deference.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Scho, why do you dudesch all use schwords inschtead of gunsch?” William Murderface demanded of Ganesh. Ofdensen hadn’t noticed Murderface and Dick Knubbler approaching them.
“You are presently armed, are you not, William Murderface of Dethklok?” Ganesh pleasantly inquired.
“Of coursch.”
“I am as well. Perhaps you would care to shoot me?” And Ganesh bowed courteously.
“Ganesh-“ Ofdensen started, his voice choking.
“Are you schure?” Murderface asked, wide eyed as a kid on Christmas morning.
“I am a god, and thus, you may be assured that your weaponry will do me no harm.” And he smilingly winked at Ofdensen.
To Ofdensen’s horror, Murderface drew his weapon.
But then he no longer had it in his hand. It was tossed up in the air, and Ganesh was holding his saber, which flashed several times. Ganesh reached out both hands, and caught the falling remains. He then bowed and presented William Murderface with the tiny pieces of what had once been his handgun.
“We find,” Ganesh courteously explained, “that such weaponry is of limited utility against our superior armaments.”
“That wasch my favorite handgun,” Murderface whined. He glared, oddly, at Dick Knubbler. “There better be a blow job in schtore schoon!” he growled, leaving the room.
Dick Knubbler’s robot eyes flashed green to red and back to green. He sighed, and followed the surly bassist out of the room.
“The Lady Raziel suggested that you might care to arrange a meeting in the near future,” Ganesh told Ofdensen. “Regarding matters involving, er, my mother?”
“Oh!” Ofdensen turned. “Yes, definitely. I…. I’m sorry to drag you into this….”
“I understand perfectly. My parents unfortunately require a bit of, er, management now and again. This situation has aspects which would not be beneficial at present for the Eastern Kingdom.”
“We can…. We can arrange a meeting then.”
“And I trust your injuries have healed in a satisfactory manner?”
“Oh, yeah, thanks!” Ofdensen offered up his right hand. “No scarring at all, that was fantastic.”
“One must pay careful most attention to injuries incurred by demon claws, as there is always the possibility of venom.”
“Oh, no, those are fine too,” Ofdensen told the Hindu god.
“I would be most willing to attend to the scratches on your back at some future point, if you fear any possibility of an infection?”
“Uh….”
“DOOD! Dere ya are!”
“Pickles,” Ofdensen said.
“C’mon, dood, we got strippers waitin’!” the redheaded drummer declared, slipping an arm around Ofdensen’s shoulders. “Titties galore!”
“Uh, just one more moment here, Pickles?”
“I’ve been waitin’ a fuckin’ week, dood! Get yer fuckin’ ass over here!”
“I see you are occupied at the present moment,” Ganesh smiled.
“Uh, yeah, sorry Ganesh.”
“We will make arrangements at some later date then, perhaps?” Ofdensen nodded, and Ganesh suddenly raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately the elephant god was surrounded by an honor guard of swordsmen. He bowed courteously. “I shall contact you then. I must attend to my parents now.” And with that, he turned on his heel and the retinue swiftly departed the room.
“Whoa,” said Pickles. “Dat’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah. That’s…. That’s really cool. Actually.”
“C’mon dood,” Pickles said, giving Dethklok’s manager a good yank by the collar.
The stripper was wearing a red tie.
And nothing else.
Ofdensen was not entirely sure if she was sleeping, passed out, or perhaps having some kind of out of body experience courtesy mysterious substances left over by Kachinas. But he managed to carefully pluck the tie from her neck without disturbing her. He made to tuck it in his jacket pocket, and just them realized he didn’t have a jacket pocket, as he was not wearing a jacket. Nor, indeed, much of anything else. He rolled his eyes, draped the tie over his own neck and then waded carefully through a knee-deep tide of sleeping strippers looking for his pants.
“Whoa, dood. You leavin’?”
Ofdensen finished zipping up his pants and went looking for his jacket, as it contained the cigarettes. “Yeah. Can we…. Can we talk?” He motioned out towards the hallway. Pickles shrugged into a hotel bathrobe and padded after him, yawning blearily.
“Look. We can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore.”
“What? Yoo seemed like yoo wuz havin’ fun last night. We can get more strippers wit’ even bigger tits next time.” Pickles grinned a great evil grin.
“Pickles! It’s not that!” Ofdensen tugged on his jacket without bothering with a shirt, and went searching for his packet of cigarettes. “I don’t just work for you. I work for all five of you. We already talked about this. Before. They decided it’s not brutal or metal or whatever the fuck it is you guys think you want.” He found the packet of Marlboros and shook one out.
“Eh. So tell da rest of ‘em to go fuck themselves.”
“Pickles! I work for you guys! Not the reverse! Has it maybe occurred to you they will fucking fire me?”
“Dey’re not gonna fire ya,” Pickles scoffed.
“Are you kidding me? You guys were gonna fire me because I wasn’t fun enough!”
“Dat’s not da reason anyway.”
“What?”
“Dat’s not da reason. Dat was never da reason.”
“What are you talking about?”
Pickles shrugged a Pickles shrug. “You just can’t enjoy yourself, dood. It makes you crazy or somethin’.”
“You don’t…. You don’t know the first fucking thing about me.”
Once upon a time, very long ago….
Raziel ran down the golden corridors.
She hated Headquarters. Really despised it. It was a terrible way to feel, and she wouldn’t dare breathe this to a soul. Everyone was supposed to love Headquarters, due to the whole being in His presence thing.
She skidded around a corner, annoying a few Cherubim who had flocked there to gossip. They got a little wings up, but then realized she was a Seraph, and quickly stood aside and went back to their nattering. She was late. She shouldn’t have delayed so much. She hated Cherubim. Hated the itchy and unbecoming clothes she was forced to wear. She despised all the gold and silver and precious jewels stuck everywhere. Angels tended to have affection for precious items. Among angel foibles, it wasn’t a bad one (there were many, many angel foibles) but it meant their decorating sense tended to range from merely tacky to outrageously over the top. The philosophy tended to be, why some well-selected silver goods in a room when you could just make the whole damn room silver? And marble floors? OK, it was impressive, but it was kind of slippery.
Here it was all about who was in His favor, who was closest to Him this week, who was His current pet, and who was on the outs. She wouldn’t even be back if she hadn’t been summoned.
She hated this place. She had been made for warfare, and that’s what she liked: being sent out on some great quest, battling forces of darkness, serving with honor.
And how she loved traveling to far-flung places in the universe. It had been her custom to enjoy time with the inhabitants: tasting their food, getting drunk on their alcoholic beverages, landing in some trouble playing their games of chance, and, if the opportunity presented itself, spending some private time with local men who caught her fancy.
Ah, men. She thought she missed them most of all. She really wanted a pretty one, right now. To be quite blunt, she found sex with mortals infinitely more satisfying than the few regrettable encounters she’d had with other Seraphim. Prissy, stuck-up bastards.
Angels, she thought, were overrated.
But there were no men here. Nor great quests, nor delicious food. Nor even tasteful accessories. It was all about these horrible formal robes. She wore a pair of boots she’s picked up on the last world she’d visited, praying that no one would notice she was slightly out of uniform. But, the soles didn't grip very well on these ridiculous floors.
She slipped around another corner and nearly knocked over the much larger Seraphim. Well, actually, his Court Form was larger than hers. Angels, in their True Form, come in a maddening array of sizes. Putti can be as tiny (and annoying) as small dogs. Seraphim, like Raziel, are big as buildings, and have wings that could loft a 747 jet. Seraphim, in fact, have three full sets of wings. Obviously this size differential makes meeting in formal situations a bit of a problem, and as angels find the need for many formal occasions, they all manifest Court Forms, which are more or less human-sized, and lacking wings, as wings are not only an inconvenience (as they can easily knock over your tacky silver candlesticks), but are considered the height of impolitesse to flash in public if one is not girding for warfare.
Raziel’s customary Court Form was a bit smaller than the norm. Primarily, she simply found lugging her hulking True Form around to be a bit clumsy and annoying, so she liked to escape into something sleeker and more maneuverable. Though it also had not escaped her notice, in her travels, that many beings were favorably disposed towards a small, cute woman.
Especially male beings.
The Seraph she had nearly run down, unfortunately, was not one of those male beings.
She drew back and apologized breathlessly. “My apologies, Honored Brother.” She used his honorific. Angels were big on titles. And could get quite irritated if you used an improper one.
Angels were quick to anger. And when angered, tended to kill one another.
Another one of those angel foibles we’ve discussed.
She had used the correct honorific to address him. Unfortunately, a couple of this particular angel’s retinue had seen fit to chuckle at the near altercation, and one thing Uriah couldn’t bear was to be an object of fun. He drew himself up.
“You ought be more respectful, Honored Sister!”
She tried to remain pleasant. “Well. No need to get the wings out,” she said, forcing a smile.
“You’ve greeted half of creation with wings out. Or is that, legs up? So I’ve heard.” He didn’t have to laugh, as several of his retinue did it for him.
She glared. “Yeah, I suppose that image is something you’d wank off too, if you could only find your dick,” she snapped.
Uriah did not reply. He made to sweep past her, his shoulder too close to hers. She locked eyes and did not flinch.
She stood stone still as she waited for he and his Brother Seraphim to pass, and then took off, now even more late for her appointment.
She definitely wanted to show that one the sharp end of her saber. But, maybe later.
Raziel was the most lethal swordsman in the Legion. Her hunts ended in a kill.
But today there would be no hunt.
She finally lurched to a halt in front of a golden door and remained in place for a moment, smoothing her hair, arranging her horrible, itchy gown, and trying to get her breathing back to normal. She opened the door and entered the large, bright studio.
“Father,” she said quietly.
He was painting. He had taken up the hobby fairly recently. Apparently, it brought out his creativity.
He looked up from his canvas. “Honored Daughter,” he said, casually, as if she’d just shown up in his studio and not been summoned from half a universe away for the audience.
“What are you working on now, Father?”
He turned his easel around, so she could see. The canvas was blank. As it always was
“What do you think Honored Daughter?”
“I think it’s a blank canvas, Father.”
He smiled knowingly. He always fucking smiled knowingly. And she just wanted to be somewhere else. “I am working on a new project, my Daughter. A new Creation.”
“Oh!” Well, this will be good, she thought. It’s always fun to see a new universe. Perhaps there would be cute men, and ugly fire-breathing monsters. “Whereabouts, Father?”
He smiled mysteriously. “Right here, Little One. I am going to create a new race of angels.”
She was silenced. She wondered, why was He telling me? And, what did He want me to say?
She was immediately annoyed with herself. This was why she hated Headquarters. This is what you did. Instead of just thinking, your mind filled up with why He’s doing what He’s doing, and how He wants you to react.
She decided to be honest. “Uh. So, more Cherubim?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Like you. But not designed for warfare. Not that warfare is an ignoble pursuit. But, times have changed. It is time for new thinking. Which means it is time for new minds.”
She looked again at the blank canvas. Nope, she didn’t get that either.
It was no sooner said than it was done.
Raziel was there because she was expected to be there. The newest Creation. Her new Little Brothers.
And she really hated them. The New Ones. All of them. And she was miserable. And she wanted to escape as soon as possible and go stab something.
And all male too. That was a slap. There were so few female Seraphim. It was like saying, well, don’t want to repeat that mistake again.
There was a New One who was obviously the best. She could tell, from the way Michael fawned, and the others circled around him.
“Lady Raziel, this is Lord Lucifer,” Archangel Michael gushed.
She bowed low.
“I am also known as the Morningstar,” he bragged.
“Um, why are you known as the Morningstar?” she asked, baffled. “Weren’t you just Created like the others?” And he laughed, a strange series of grunts. And, several others around him then produced the same weird mirthless laughter.
“Ah, that’s Raziel!” said Michael. More grunt-laughs.
And she realized how blind she really was, lacking one hue of the rainbow, or a certain frequency of sounds. There was something that everyone else saw or heard or smelled that she didn’t.
She was introduced to some more of them, each worse than the other. Rozier, Phenex, Baraquiel, Batariel (at least, she thought they were two different angels, or maybe she just misheard the name twice), Chazaquiel…. And then she stopped listening.
In time, she slowly managed to back away. Another benefit of a small Court Form. And then she was off the main floor entirely, escaped up the back steps, watching the assembly from the mezzanine, safely unnoticed. She didn’t have much of a head for numbers, but she calculated the number of hours, minutes and seconds until the event would be over, and she could safely flee.
Then her mind wandered. For whatever reason, she thought of the hungry fire demon she remembered on an alien world, many years ago. It was about the right size. She wondered, if she could conjure it now, would it be able to swallow the entire crowd down below? Of course, they were Seraphim, and the New Ones, so they could probably defend themselves against it, but what if she was to make it appear, by surprise, out of thin air. She smiled, and leaned far over the balcony, trying to more accurately gauge the size of the room.
“What exactly are you doing?”
She whirled around. One of the goddam New Ones. He must have snuck onto the mezzanine somehow, and he was glaring at her. The grey eyes were like steel, like the knife he looked as if he wanted to stick through her heart.
It was like looking in the mirror. He looked precisely the way she’d felt all evening.
She decided to be honest. “I was making an assessment of the main room. I saw a monster once. I was wondering if it would be capable of devouring the entire party in one gulp.”
He stepped forward and surveyed the room. “Doubt it. He’d have a job of it swallowing that guy,” he said, pointing to Michael.
“Oh, it actually had a mouth with teeth inside its mouth. So it could swallow, and then chomp things up.” She mimed the horrible action with her hands.
“Huh. That sounds intriguing. Could you show me?”
“I…. I don’t actually know. Can you guys go places?”
“I fucking hope so! I’m not spending eternity trapped here with these assholes.”
They regarded the room below for a long moment.
She smiled, though he did not return the smile. “I’m Raziel,” she said.
“Yeah, I kinda figured that out.” She looked at him for a long moment, so he finally said, “Sariel. I’m Sariel.”
“So, Sariel….”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you have an impressive nickname?”
She didn’t think it possible, but his glare actually intensified. “Morningstar? He came up with that himself.”
Her eyes grew big. “He didn’t.”
“He did.”
“Wow. What an asshole!”
“Yeah.”
They both stood, leaning over the mezzanine banister, for a while. She studied Sariel out of the corner of her eye. They’d overdone the silver on this one, she thought. Silvery eyes, silvery hair, silvery wings. Angels. You could always trust them to go overboard. But he really had the most terrific scowl. She desperately wanted to take him out and let him glare at something volatile, to see if he could make things explode like that.
“OK. Can we go find the monster now?” he asked.
“Well, I can’t show you that specific one.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stabbed it. It’s dead.”
The grey eyes flashed. “Can I stab a monster too?”
She shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“What are we fucking waiting for?”
She nodded, and they started out of the room. “You’ll have to make a Court Form, Little Brother. I can’t take you out with your wings out like that.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Call you what?”
“Little Brother.”
She smiled. “I could call you Morningstar.”
“All right. All right. Little Brother will do.”
And so they lit out to find a monster.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Charles smokes while the boys plan a concert. And a bit of MythKlok: the Prequel.
Warnings: Slash AND het and so many pairings I can’t even keep track any more. Also, AU and OCs plus plenty o’ F-words and smoking.
Notes: A millionty billion notes after the jump
This is a Metalocalypse AU that’s been taking over my life.
tiktaalikroseae started calling it “Mythklok” so I’ll just steal that since I can’t think of a better title. Here are the other bits, about an angelic visit (Chapter 1), a hunt (Chapter 2), a barbecue (Chapter 3), a ski trip (Chapter 4), a sword fight (Chapter 5) and Bette Davis Movies (Chapter 6). I’m frankly not totally happy with the first couple chapters, so if you wanna start in the middle, that’s fine with me.THE STORY SO FAR (as told by Nathan Explosion): “So, Skwisgaar’s been acting like a total douche because he found out his relatives are all like gods and shit. But, his dad King Wotan dude is cool and he’s going out with this kinda hot angel chick names Raziel, though she’s kind of a weird chick, but she also likes to stab shit with a sword, and that’s badass, I guess unless she stabs you, huh? So, anyway, Charles stabbed like a couple of demons too – oh, he’s like an angel and shit, and even has a stupid gay angel name, and he’s still annoying, but the stabbing part is pretty badass, ‘cause like I told Pickles I bet other bands don’t have managers that totally go stab shit, right?
“I did mention swords are badass, right?
“Oh, yeah, and there’s also this Shiva dude who hangs out a lot with Wotan and likes to stab shit, because I guess that’s how gods spend a lot of their time cutting up shit with swords. And his girlfriend is TOTALLY smokin’ hot and I think stupid Skwisgaar likes her or something. Oh and I met these two Kachina dudes and they’re totally cool and they got me REALLY stoned on some shit. But, I haven’t seen them stab anything yet, so I’m not sure whether they’re gods, even though one dude has like a bear head. Oh, and I gotta quit narrating now because we’re totally gonna do a concert and I gotta preserve my voice because MY VOICE IS MY FUCKING INSTRUMENT.”
Me again. Last time, a couple of you guys wanted some Prequel!Charles, so here ya go. If you don’t like it, IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT. Feel the guilt.
Charles smokes Marlboros in this AU. Smoking is Bad for You. But, we all kinda think it’s sexy. Here’s some Smoking!Charles arts from
late_totheparty, used here with permission. Actually, you’re probably better off gazing fondly at this than reading the fic.
Live and in Concert (Mythklok Chapter 7)
Nathan knocked again on the office door. He knew damn well Ofdensen was inside, as he’d seen the fucking guy earlier. He finally decided to put his peerless death metal voice to work. “HEY CHARLES ARE YOU IN THERE OR NOT?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” came the voice.
Nathan pushed inside and saw Ofdensen standing in front of his desk, looking slightly guilty. “Ah, hey, Nathan.” When the manager realized it was just Nathan, he smiled and brought out the sword he was holding behind his back, set it aflame, and started feinting with it. As, Nathan presumed, given the smell of brimstone in the air, he’d been doing just before Nathan knocked. Probably for fucking hours before Nathan knocked.
“Uh, didn’t Raz tell you not to use that inside?”
“She said inside the house!” Ofdensen cheerfully told him, whipping the blade around. “Mordhaus, in case you haven’t noticed, is a fucking castle!”
Nathan frowned. “Huh. Yeah. Whoa! Were those your good lamps?”
“Uh, yeah. Might’ve knocked over one. Or two.”
“OK. Anyway. I need to go over some stuff about the concert.”
“Sure!” Ofdensen lunged at an imaginary opponent, but didn’t seem inclined to put the goddam sword down.
“So, this is gonna be a new venue.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And, some other bands have complained about the rotating stage.”
“Noted.”
“And, uh, the lighting.”
“OK.”
“So, uh, you’re gonna find out about it?”
“I will take it under advisement.”
“Take WHAT under advisement?”
“The, uh, thing you said, before you said that other thing.”
“Have you been listening to a FUCKING WORD I’VE BEEN SAYING?”
“Sure!”
“OK, so, if you’ve been listening, what was the thing I said that was before I said the other thing?”
“Well, that was the thing you said after you said the first thing but before you said the thing after the other thing.”
“I’m confused! WHEN DID I SAY THAT OTHER THING?”
“You can’t keep track of what you’ve said? Well, why don’t you just go off and figure it out.”
“Are we ready for this concert?”
“Ah…. Sure! Oops. That was a good one.”
Ofdensen waited until he could no longer hear Nathan’s retreating footsteps, and then dove for his phone. “So, did you get my message? No, I can’t make it up there. I can’t…. I can’t get away this week. We have a concert and they really won’t let me alone. Yeah, late is fine. Yeah, sure, that would be a good time for me to take a break. Yeah. OK. See you in a bit.”
They walked along what would have been the dragon’s back, carrying swords.
“I told you, not inside the house,” Raziel was saying.
“THIS IS NOT A HOUSE. IT’S A FUCKING CASTLE,” Ofdensen said irritably.
“So. This is supposed to be a dragon boat?” Raziel asked.
“Uh. Yeah.”
Dragons do exist in this universe, and are not difficult to see in a place like Asgard. They do indeed spit fire, however, they tend to not grow terribly much bigger than Gila monsters. Though considered pests, they are not threatening if one is armed with so much as, say, a bucket of water.
“Didn’t you consider modeling it after something dangerous? Like a venomous snake? Or perhaps a bee? You know bee stings….”
“I’d prefer not to talk about it. Wanna get to it?” He held up his sword and set it on fire, so she shrugged and did the same, and for a time, they went about happily trying to cut each other’s head off.
At one point, she somehow got the toe of one boot up on his sword tip, and used the leverage to spring into a rather impressive backflip, featuring a flying kick that would have probably knocked his head off if he hadn’t immediately fallen backwards, quite nearly losing his footing if he hadn’t managed to get a hand out behind him.
“That wasn’t a legal move!” he protested, springing back up in a rather pissy mood.
“Legal according to whom?” she asked, crossing her arms and grinning. “The International Blazing Sword Fighting Federation?”
“That was…. That was definitely cheating!”
“You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it.”
“I would NEVER use a move like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…. Because…. It didn’t look very stylish!”
“WHAT?”
“HOW LONG HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN FUCKING AROUND UP HERE?” Nathan was scowling one of his ten best scowls. Though unfortunately the effect was slightly undercut by Pickles, who was just behind him, giving Raziel a terribly friendly little wave. The angel smiled and waved back.
“I was just, uh…. I was just actually…. Uh, heading back to the office in…. In ten minutes. In five minutes. Uh, three minutes?”
“We need to talk about da recordin’” Pickles explained.
“You guys are…. You guys are doing a new album?” Ofdensen was stunned. That kind of thing usually took at least six months of constant badgering.
“The LIVE CONCERT RECORDING.”
“The…. What?”
“Dick Knubbler is recordin’ da concert.”
“THIS concert? This week?”
“Yeah dood!”
“Uh, why do I not know about this?”
“Yoo signed da papers!”
“When did I sign the papers?”
“IN THE STRIP CLUB!”
“The strip club? The strip club?” Ofdensen suddenly felt a chill. “The strip club you took me to a couple weeks ago? Where I PASSED OUT?”
“Yeah, dood, we sorta took yer hand an’ signed fer yoo,” Pickles supplied, handing off a stack of papers to their disbelieving manager.
“We decided you were TOO IMPAIRED to make such an IMPORTANT DECISION!” Nathan thundered.
Ofdensen stared at the contract. “You…. You…. You misspelled my name.”
“It’s sort of a WEIRD NAME.”
“How the fuck do you misspell ‘Charles?’”
“By da way,” Pickles told Raziel, “Dat was a pretty sweet move.”
“Oh, you mean going up on the sword?” Raziel asked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, thanks, but, it didn’t really work right.”
“How was it supposed to work?”
“I was supposed to kick him in the head.”
“Oh, dat’s OK, I’m sure you’ll get him next time.”
“Ah thanks.”
Ofdensen looked up from the stack of papers. He had decided on a course of action. There were three people on this roof who needed to die. He had a sword. He simply had to work out the correct order in which to brutally murder them.
Sometime later, when tempers had cooled somewhat, the angels had relocated to one of Mordhaus’s chest spires, as Raziel reckoned it would brook no more interference from musicians bearing bad tidings. After an initial bout of vertigo, he had had to agree: what it lacked for maneuverability it sort of made up in the sheer giddy and frankly stupid risk of it all.
Though, in truth, they were currently not sparring at all, but just sitting there, as he’d wanted to stop for a smoke. No, actually, he had desperately needed to stop for a smoke. As it turned out, this was the best place in the entire complex for a quiet cigarette.
“So, what’s it like?” she asked.
“What’s WHAT like?” he asked. He sat with his back to the exterior wall of the building, legs stretched out on the spire, thinking there was nothing more pleasant on God’s green earth than a Marlboro Menthol.
“A Dethklok concert! What’s it like?”
“Oh. Jesus.” He watched his smoke curl, vanishing away like his pleasant mood. “The headache usually starts 48 hours beforehand. I mean a blinding one. Painkillers won’t touch it, and I can’t take them anyway, because I have to stay conscious. And, anyway, I can’t keep anything down, food, drink, drugs, anything. That’s when everything starts to go wrong. It doesn’t matter how much you plan, or how many contingencies you’ve figured in. You can get the best lighting guy in the business, and 2 days beforehand, he’ll get eaten by a Yeti. And I don’t mean he’s out climbing Mount Everest and they’re attacked, I mean he’s home gardening in New Jersey and the Yeti finds him there. And, the venue is now completely under water because mermaids attacked it, or some shit. And, there’s a dock workers strike that holds up the delivery of capello de mago goats milk cheese so Murderface won’t go on because he evidently needs that particular spread on his Ritz cracker before he can play bass. And, the parliament of whatever country we’re playing will outlaw guitar pickups so we have to go kidnap or bribe some senators. And….”
“What I meant was,” Raziel put in. “What’s it like to hear them play live?”
Ofdensen stared for a long moment at the strange creature who was not a woman, sitting there looking at him with inhuman eyes, kicking her short legs over the spire, such a dizzying height above the ground.
“Huh?” he said.
“They’re renowned musicians. What’s it like to hear them play?”
“I…. I have no FUCKING idea anymore.”
“Really?”
“I haven’t actually heard them play live in….” He shook his head.
“Oh. OK. Well, maybe it’s for the best that the Dick Knubbler person will make a recording! And then, you may listen!”
“Uh. Yeah. I guesso.”
She stood. “Well, I must dash. Freyja and I are dueling at dawn.”
“Oh. OK. What? Wait, don’t-fucking-disappear-stop!” He had jumped to his feet as well, slightly overbalancing in his haste and putting a hand to the wall to keep from falling. “Tell me this again, only pretend you’re talking about your fucking outfit or something.” She frowned. “In more than three words, Raziel!”
“Um,” she fiddled with her sword. “This has been brewing for a while. As you can imagine, pretty much every single female resident of Valhalla would like to see my head inside a box. As well as a surprisingly large chunk of the men.” She laughed. “When Wotan’s soldiers were betting on you to die fighting that demon last week? It wasn’t entirely due to your winning personality. But, it has not escaped notice around Asgard that I kill archangels as a sideline, so, valiant warriors or no, nobody’s really had the balls to warn me to my face to stay the fuck away from their beloved god king.”
“But, Freyja?”
“Yeah, so she called me a stuck up angel bitch or something. And made sure it got back to me so I couldn’t ignore it. So I had to call her out. I mean, it’s silly because I AM a stuck up angel bitch. But, you know, Court politics and all….”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Should I be there for this?”
“You’re busy.” She shrugged.
He tossed his cigarette away. “I absolutely cannot stay. I will go up for the duel, and then right back afterwards.”
She nodded, a faint smile on her face.
And they were not longer on the spire.
“CHARLES? ARE YOU FUCKING IN THERE?” Nathan thought he heard a soft voice inside, so he pulled Ofdensen’s office door open, and he and Pickles ventured inside. It was completely dark: good lamps, bad lamps – what was left unbroken anyway - everything extinguished. Ofdensen was behind his desk, but leaning back with what looked like a towel over his forehead.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Nathan demanded.
“Please. My head is gonna explode,” Ofdensen whispered.
“Dood, are yoo hung over? I don’t remember goin’ out drinkin’!” Pickles looked expectantly at Nathan, who shrugged.
“No. Pickles. You didn’t black out.” Ofdensen gingerly pitched forward and took the towel off his head. “Valhalla.”
“YOU WERE PARTYING IN VALHALLA?” Nathan asked, a bit louder than he really needed to, if truth be told.
“Raziel,” Ofdensen whispered. “She was dueling Freyja. Wotan’s ex-wife.”
Pickles and Nathan grinned at each other.
“WOTAN’S EX-WIFE?”
“Is dat how dey do it up dere? Wit’ a chick fight?”
“THAT IS SO TOTALLY METAL!”
“Guys! Please? Anyway, afterwards, they all have to toast each other and talk about how honorable they all are. Everybody. Toasts everybody else. I can’t believe how fucking honorable they are.”
“We gotta talk to you about da concert.”
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to submit your ideas in writing? No, huh?”
“This is about THE LIVESTREAM.”
“The…. The what? Oh no. Oh no. Was this in the papers I signed when I was passed out in the strip club?”
“Nah.”
“This was later, when you were smoking dope with us IN THE LIMO.” Nathan happily slid the contract across the desk.
Ofdensen grabbed the contract and flipped through it. “Nathan, I misspelled my own fucking name here.”
“Yeah, you tend to do that when you’re HIGH,” Nathan laughed.
“Hello? Oh, yeah, hi. I’ve been better. Yeah, that was a lot of toasts. You guys are very, very honorable. Yeah, I think they appreciated that you spared Freyja’s life. Oh, you’re welcome. I actually…. I actually have a lot of experience writing speeches, I just don’t remember anyone actually fucking giving one before. Especially in the middle of a duel. They usually.... Ah, never mind, it doesn’t matter. No, it’s….. It’s gotten worse actually. They’re going to do a live stream. A live stream? No, it’s not a… No, I don’t think Poseidon could help. It’s not a literal stream. It’s a…. It’s just a live broadcast. Yeah. Well, yes, thanks for the offer, I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll keep him in mind. And, Raziel? Please don’t tell the boys about your stream idea? They’re still after me to dig a volcano. Yes, I realize that volcanoes are terribly useful. Yeah. Well, if I change my mind, I’ll definitely contact Surtr about it. OK. Bye.”
Some days later, Ofdensen looked up from the toilet. It certainly not the first time since he had become manager of a death metal band that he had found himself enthusiastically puking up food he could no longer remember consuming.
Sadly, today, he did not even have as consolation the memory of a previous drinking binge.
Today, people were gonna die. Maybe a few people. Maybe a lot of people. Maybe a whole lot of people.
And there was not a fucking thing he could do about it.
He stopped at the sink and blearily splashed cold water on his face. And stepped out of the mens room into the backstage area.
Dethklok was in concert today.
“Uh, Sire?”
He nodded to the Klokateer. He knew he was going to have hooded people bearing bad tidings swarming around him like bees today.
“Sire, there’s a commotion at the VIP arrival area.”
“I think I know what it is. Thanks.” He made his way over to the entrance, silently repeating to himself, whatever you do, don’t say Bollywood.
As it turned out, it was a bit more than a commotion. In fact, about a dozen colorfully-dressed people were holding ticket-takers at swordpoint.
“They just all arrived out of nowhere, Sire,” the Klokateer was explaining.
At that moment, however, a trio of well dressed people also arrived at the area. They also seemed to have just suddenly popped out of nowhere. They all looked to be of Indian origin, as did the swordsmen. There was a small, graceful middle-aged man front and center, and, on one side, an absolutely gorgeous woman who looked like she may have been an Indian supermodel. Flanking the small man on the other side was a very handsome 30ish man with shoulder-length hair.
The middle-aged man halted, frowning and snapping his fingers. Immediately, the handsome man sprung ahead and talked very quietly to the swordsmen. “If you would be so kind, these people are only doing their job. If you might see clear to stand down, and we shall see to your admission?” The swordsmen immediately obeyed and, if one had been watching closely, one would have noticed that all of the swords somehow disappeared.
“They all wanted in on the same comp ticket, Sire,” the Klokateer whispered to Ofdensen.
The handsome man stood before him, and bowed courteously. “Our deepest apologies. These are friends of ours, and, like my father, they are all quite devoted fans of Dethklok. I am afraid they became a little, um, overenthusiastic. We greatly regret the altercation.”
“No problem, Ganesh. Don’t worry. We’ll get you guys seated.” Ofdensen said. He nodded to Lord Shiva, for the middle aged man was he, and turned around to talk to the Klokateer. “Put ‘em all in the loge.”
“But, Sire, there are a lot….”
“I don’t care. Put ‘em all in the loge, and let them figure it out.”
“Sire!” It was another Klokateer.
Excellent, thought Ofdensen, and we’re on to crisis number two.
As it turned out, this was no crisis. The god king Wotan was around the back.
With cigars.
So that also happened to be where Ofdensen found himself.
"I certainly appreciate this, setting aside a block of tickets like that," the Norse god was saying.
"Lord Shiva has, uh, quite the entourage."
"He never travels but with a veritable circus. I finally had to put my foot down at Valhalla. I told him, yourself, Lord Ganesh, and a servant, and anyone or anything else goes to my Lady Raziel for fencing practice."
"That's one way I suppose.”
“As I’ve said, to you, friend Sariel, talk to my accounting people, we can get you at least a charitable tax deduction.”
“You have quite the operation. Denmark?”
“Yeah, Norway is just too damned expensive these days. My Lady is after me to open another branch, some place like Milan or Barcelona. I’ve told her sunny is nice, but people don’t seem to have as much inclination to do work there.”
“So, you can't stay?"
"No. My Lady has me in attendance some kind of charity thing. I have been warned that there will be fashion people there. That's why this ridiculous suit."
Ofdensen sighed. It was an expensive looking three piece deal. And the handsome Norse god looked like he had been born to wear it. Ofdensen reflected darkly that if he didn't like Wotan so damn much, he might well despise the bastard.
"Is that a Caraceni?" Ofdensen guessed, somewhat abashed that he even knew.
"Yes. My Lady insists it's an important piece. I told her, darling, diplomacy is important, as is my hunt. A suit cannot be important."
"And, did she listen?"
"Might just as well have tried to convince an ant to stay out of the sugar bowl. Ah, but I see my ride is here.” He gestured to where a limousine was parked in the VIP arrival area. “Shall I wish you the human version of good fortune, to fracture a limb?”
“Uh, it’s break a leg. And, I dunno, we just kinda hope for the best.” Wotan grinned, and, waving his Cuban, made his way to the parking area. Just before he reached the limo, a red Ferrari roared up and suddenly squalled to a halt inches from the God.
“Oh, fuck no,” Ofdensen whispered.
A small, dark-haired woman leapt out of the car, and, dangling a pair of high heeled shoes from her fingertips, trotted around bare-footed to plant a tip-toed peck on the Norse god’s cheek. He waved his cigar, saying something, and she tipped down her oversized sunglasses to squint up at Ofdensen. She waved merrily at him, and then proceeded to make a terrible fuss wiping her lipstick smudge off Wotan’s face and adjusting his tie and straightening his lapels. When she was finally satisfied that her god was presentable, he took a seat in the passenger side, and, after tossing her shoes in the back and retying the scarf wrapped around her hair, the small woman hopped behind the wheel, and the car disappeared with a squeal of tires and a quite impressive expenditure of G force.
Wow, thought Ofdensen. Wotan had actually managed to find the one place on earth more dangerous than a Dethklok concert.
He wandered back inside, praying that none of the members of his band had seen the All-Father depart, lest they each demand he procure for them an Italian sports car equipped with an angelic chauffeur. He ended up running into Toki, but the guitarist was concentrating on Lord Shiva’s still arriving party. While they watched, Lord Shiva himself walked past, Lady Parvati on his arm, and Lord Ganesh just behind. Ganesh looked over and nodded courteously, and Ofdensen waved his cigar.
“Who ams dat lady?” Toki growled.
Ofdensen did a double-take. He wasn’t aware that Toki Wartooth was capable of growling.
“Um, do you mean the woman accompanying Lord Shiva?”
“Dat’s da ones.”
“Uh, that is Lady Parvati, Lord Shiva’s consort, er, I mean, girlfriend.” And then he was going to say the thing everybody said after they mentioned Parvati, that everybody likes Parvati. Only he could see that in this case, it wasn’t true.
Toki scowled – another first for Toki. “I ams not likes her,” the guitarist stated.
Well, that was a world first. Lady Parvati, although her human form was considerably toned down, was - amongst her other responsibilities - a love goddess. Ofdensen had yet to meet, or even hear about, a single human being who was not quite favorably disposed towards her, and that went double for men.
He looked down the corridor. Skwisgaar was there, standing off to the side. His eyes were also following Parvati. She passed him, but they did not directly acknowledge each other. Although, Ofdensen could have sworn he felt something, like when you walk across a new carpet and the static electricity kind of builds up.
“CHARLES!”
Pickles had grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back against the corridor.
Ofdensen irritably pushed the drummer away. “Pickles, I said AFTER THE CONCERT.”
“Uh, dood, I t’ink you might wanna see dis,” the redhead said.
He followed the dreadlocked drummer through the labyrinthine backstage area to a small room. There were three men in the room. Nathan Explosion was seated in a chair. And two men hovered beside him, a large bear of a man and a small skinny, nervous-seeming man.
“Kwahu, Hon.” Ofdensen said.
“Hey, you went to get your angel homeboy!” Hon told Pickles. “You made your whole goddam band into a bunch of uptight pussies, Sariel!”
Ofdensen leaned over in front of Nathan.
This was bad. This was very bad. There was no there there. Nathan’s heart was still beating, and Nathan’s lungs were still dragging in air, but there was no Nathan there. He was some place, very far away.
“Hon, what did you give him?”
“Aw, he’ll be OK,” Hon said.
“He said he needed to talk to Spider Grandma,” Kwahu explained. Even in his human form, the Eagle Kachina’s voice had a bit of a hiss to it.
“He has a concert in half an hour. You guys couldn’t wait?”
“He seemed to think it was urgent,” Hon said.
“Oh, and Eototo says hi!” Kwahu said cheerily.
“Oh, yeah, he wants you to come down for the next dance! It’ll be cool. Big medicine!”
“Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I’ll have plenty of time ‘cause it looks like I’m soon gonna be out of a fucking job,” Ofdensen grumbled.
“Here,” Hon said, placing something in Ofdensen’s hand. “Maybe you need some too. You gotta be less stressed out, dude.”
And with a laugh, the Kachinas disappeared.
“Whoa,” said Pickles. “Dey can do dat too? Dat’s pretty cool.”
‘Yeah. Really cool.” Ofdensen actually sank to his knees in front of Nathan, wondering if he would be the first person in history to cancel a concert due to Kachinas.
“I wonder what da fuck dat stuff is?” Pickles said. “I’ve never seen anybody so high. Including me!”
Ofdensen grabbed Pickles by the shoulders.
“Dood! I t’ought you didn’t have time for dat,” the drummer laughed.
“You have a spirit animal. Right? That’s what Raziel told me.”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“You can walk around, or whatever, when you’re high?”
“Yeah. So?”
Ofdensen put the tab he’d gotten from the Kachinas into Pickles’ hands. He gestured at Nathan. “Then GO FUCKING GET HIM!”
“Uh, how?”
“I don’t fucking know! Whatever it is you do!”
“I dunno dood….”
“PICKLES! YOU’RE TURNING DOWN A CHANCE TO GET HIGH?”
“Well. Dose guys said dere would be spiders…..”
“Pickles!” Ofdensen had him by the shoulders again. “OK. I will personally got get strippers! Extra strippers! With … extra big tits. Whatever you want. Anything.”
Pickles looked at Ofdensen, looked at the tab, and smiled.
“I’m gonna need some Scotch t’ wash dis shit down,” he grinned.
Pickles the Spirit Octopus oozed along the dry desert landscape.
He had been stoned before. In fact, he had probably spent the majority of his life now in some kind of altered state.
But he had never been this stoned. Or rather, stoned quite like this. It was like he’d kicked the TV foot pedals by mistake and turned up the color saturation on everything, and then maybe fucked with the vertical hold, and then Murderface spilled his banana split on top of it all. It’s like he was living inside the TV. Which was actually pretty fucking cool. He reminded himself to ask the Indian dudes if they had any more of this shit.
Nathan was there. Sitting by a fire, all Native American and shit. And, drinking beer! Inside a drug vision, there was beer!
It was like the best psychedelic universe ever. He wondered if he could get drunk here. And then maybe shoot some heroin inside that vision. It would be like Inception. He wondered if that hot Juno chick was around somewhere.
“Dood, could ya pour some o’ dat beer on me? I’m kinda dried out.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure dude.” Nathan poured, and the Pickles-pus wriggled happily in the beery hydration.
“Man, you are really stoned,” Nathan said approvingly.
“No, you’re da one who’s stoned! I’m just in yer vision, dood.”
“Really? Whoa. That’s pretty badass!”
“Yeah, so, what’re ya doin’ here anyway? Dis is kinda my scene, ya know?”
“Eh. I just wanted to talk to the Spider Lady about a couple things that have been bugging me. Do you think Charles is insane?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“No, I mean, is he MORE INSANE than he was before?”
“Huh. Well, maybe. Why?”
“Just, last time at VALHALLA, it seemed like he was really getting off, killing shit.”
“Yeah, dood, isn’t dat what he’s supposed to do for us?”
“What?”
“I t’ought dat’s what we hired him t’ do for us? Kill guys.”
“Uh. But, doesn’t he do other stuff?”
“What other stuff?”
“I dunno. Like, run the business? And stuff?”
“Ah. Dat can’t take much time. Oh, can I get some more beer dood? I’m feelin’ a little dry again.”
Nathan poured beer on the writhing drummer. “Hey, you know something, dude? You look really tasty. Like, you’d go well with melted butter.”
Pickles-pus cringed. “Nat’an, how did you get dat alligator head?”
“It’s pretty badass, huh? You don’t mind if I maybe had a bite of your leg, huh?”
Pickles cringed, and concentrated, and suddenly, he was just Pickles, and not the Pickles-pus.
Nathan had one of Pickles’s braids in his hands, ready to take a bite. “Ewwwww!” he said, letting it drop. He was now back to his Nathan head.
“Dat’s kinda cool. I didn’t know I could do dat.”
“Do what?”
“Be me instead of my spirit animal!” He looked at his braids. They were soaked in beer. He put one in his mouth and sucked on it just a little.
“Huh,” said Nathan.
“Anyway, dood, Charles sent me to get ya.”
“God damn that guy, he’s even fucking with my DRUG VISIONS?”
“Well, we do have dat concert.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
“Did you get any ancient wisdom from da Spider Chick Dude?”
“Nah. She gave me this real AWESOME chant though. Maybe I could perform it during the concert?”
“I dunno, dood. We got da Dick Knubbler recordin’ and da live stream. Maybe we gotta stick to da playlist?”
“Eh. Naw.”
“Well, den, OK. Wanna head back?”
Back at the concert venue, Nathan Explosion rose and brushed himself off.
“Are you OK to go on?” Ofdensen was asking.
“Sure, dude. What’s with the THIRD DEGREE?”
“Pickles?” Ofdensen asked. “Uh. How did you braids get wet?”
Pickles smelled his beery braids and laughed a Pickles laugh.
The concert had been eventful for being noneventful.
Well, for a Dethklok concert.
“We’d like to do one more number,” Nathan Explosion announced. “This is a new song, with lyrics based on a magical incantation!”
Ofdensen actually pushed a Klokateer out of the way to grab the set list.
“Oh god Nathan no….”
The flying serpent appeared over the stadium before Nathan was even finished with the first verse. It was beautiful and amazing really. At least 60 feet long, an emerald green, with long feathered green wings. It flew gracefully down from the sky.
It was so pretty, like a long, graceful green banner.
It was a bit confused though. It was usually summoned to appear before much smaller crowds. And not a stadium full of noisy death metal fans. Not to mention the blaring sound of Nathan’s voice backed by screaming guitar and drums. It was a bit upsetting.
It gave a sonorous cry, so loud you could actually hear it over the band.
And then it began to breath fire.
Stage right erupted in flames. The band looked over, startled, and then erupted in cheers along with the audience when the flames were quickly extinguished by the waterfall.
What had happened was, Poseidon's cell had run out of batteries, so he didn't get Raziel's text about canceling the live stream.
But just then, there came another, stronger cry.
The fire serpent was blocking the Lord Shiva’s view of The Dethklok.
As it happened, the four-armed blue god did not esteem obstructed views.
With a scream, of, “I am Shiva, Lord of Destruction,” the Hindu god led armed men and horses and bulls and tigers and even elephants out of the loge section, across the sky, in a furious assault on the winged reptile. The fiery beast screamed, and writhed, and blew fire, but there were simply too many of them, for Lord Shiva was really a terrible freeloader, who had kind of exploited the whole comp ticket thing.
The beast fled. Shiva's warrior's cheered. The audience was on its feet. And not just the damp people seated in the section under the waterfall.
The famed rock critic, Simon Montague, who was home in his mother's basement watching the live stream, later complained about the obviously computer generated special effects work during this portion.
Ofdensen read the papers the Klokateer had just handed him. “Water damage?” he said. “That’s all? You’re fucking kidding me.” It had been the least destructive Dethklok concert in years.
He looked up and noticed a great number of Lord Shiva’s party congregated in the backstage area waiting for autographs. He spotted Lord Ganesh and signaled to him.
“Uh, if it’s not too much trouble, can you make sure your folks don’t kill my band? Or, uh, dismember them? Or cause them great bodily injury….”
Ganesh waved his hands. He smiled his funny smile, one that looked like it was a bit too big for his handsome face. “Kindly do not worry. Be assured that all members of our party shall conduct themselves with the utmost deference.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Scho, why do you dudesch all use schwords inschtead of gunsch?” William Murderface demanded of Ganesh. Ofdensen hadn’t noticed Murderface and Dick Knubbler approaching them.
“You are presently armed, are you not, William Murderface of Dethklok?” Ganesh pleasantly inquired.
“Of coursch.”
“I am as well. Perhaps you would care to shoot me?” And Ganesh bowed courteously.
“Ganesh-“ Ofdensen started, his voice choking.
“Are you schure?” Murderface asked, wide eyed as a kid on Christmas morning.
“I am a god, and thus, you may be assured that your weaponry will do me no harm.” And he smilingly winked at Ofdensen.
To Ofdensen’s horror, Murderface drew his weapon.
But then he no longer had it in his hand. It was tossed up in the air, and Ganesh was holding his saber, which flashed several times. Ganesh reached out both hands, and caught the falling remains. He then bowed and presented William Murderface with the tiny pieces of what had once been his handgun.
“We find,” Ganesh courteously explained, “that such weaponry is of limited utility against our superior armaments.”
“That wasch my favorite handgun,” Murderface whined. He glared, oddly, at Dick Knubbler. “There better be a blow job in schtore schoon!” he growled, leaving the room.
Dick Knubbler’s robot eyes flashed green to red and back to green. He sighed, and followed the surly bassist out of the room.
“The Lady Raziel suggested that you might care to arrange a meeting in the near future,” Ganesh told Ofdensen. “Regarding matters involving, er, my mother?”
“Oh!” Ofdensen turned. “Yes, definitely. I…. I’m sorry to drag you into this….”
“I understand perfectly. My parents unfortunately require a bit of, er, management now and again. This situation has aspects which would not be beneficial at present for the Eastern Kingdom.”
“We can…. We can arrange a meeting then.”
“And I trust your injuries have healed in a satisfactory manner?”
“Oh, yeah, thanks!” Ofdensen offered up his right hand. “No scarring at all, that was fantastic.”
“One must pay careful most attention to injuries incurred by demon claws, as there is always the possibility of venom.”
“Oh, no, those are fine too,” Ofdensen told the Hindu god.
“I would be most willing to attend to the scratches on your back at some future point, if you fear any possibility of an infection?”
“Uh….”
“DOOD! Dere ya are!”
“Pickles,” Ofdensen said.
“C’mon, dood, we got strippers waitin’!” the redheaded drummer declared, slipping an arm around Ofdensen’s shoulders. “Titties galore!”
“Uh, just one more moment here, Pickles?”
“I’ve been waitin’ a fuckin’ week, dood! Get yer fuckin’ ass over here!”
“I see you are occupied at the present moment,” Ganesh smiled.
“Uh, yeah, sorry Ganesh.”
“We will make arrangements at some later date then, perhaps?” Ofdensen nodded, and Ganesh suddenly raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately the elephant god was surrounded by an honor guard of swordsmen. He bowed courteously. “I shall contact you then. I must attend to my parents now.” And with that, he turned on his heel and the retinue swiftly departed the room.
“Whoa,” said Pickles. “Dat’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah. That’s…. That’s really cool. Actually.”
“C’mon dood,” Pickles said, giving Dethklok’s manager a good yank by the collar.
The stripper was wearing a red tie.
And nothing else.
Ofdensen was not entirely sure if she was sleeping, passed out, or perhaps having some kind of out of body experience courtesy mysterious substances left over by Kachinas. But he managed to carefully pluck the tie from her neck without disturbing her. He made to tuck it in his jacket pocket, and just them realized he didn’t have a jacket pocket, as he was not wearing a jacket. Nor, indeed, much of anything else. He rolled his eyes, draped the tie over his own neck and then waded carefully through a knee-deep tide of sleeping strippers looking for his pants.
“Whoa, dood. You leavin’?”
Ofdensen finished zipping up his pants and went looking for his jacket, as it contained the cigarettes. “Yeah. Can we…. Can we talk?” He motioned out towards the hallway. Pickles shrugged into a hotel bathrobe and padded after him, yawning blearily.
“Look. We can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore.”
“What? Yoo seemed like yoo wuz havin’ fun last night. We can get more strippers wit’ even bigger tits next time.” Pickles grinned a great evil grin.
“Pickles! It’s not that!” Ofdensen tugged on his jacket without bothering with a shirt, and went searching for his packet of cigarettes. “I don’t just work for you. I work for all five of you. We already talked about this. Before. They decided it’s not brutal or metal or whatever the fuck it is you guys think you want.” He found the packet of Marlboros and shook one out.
“Eh. So tell da rest of ‘em to go fuck themselves.”
“Pickles! I work for you guys! Not the reverse! Has it maybe occurred to you they will fucking fire me?”
“Dey’re not gonna fire ya,” Pickles scoffed.
“Are you kidding me? You guys were gonna fire me because I wasn’t fun enough!”
“Dat’s not da reason anyway.”
“What?”
“Dat’s not da reason. Dat was never da reason.”
“What are you talking about?”
Pickles shrugged a Pickles shrug. “You just can’t enjoy yourself, dood. It makes you crazy or somethin’.”
“You don’t…. You don’t know the first fucking thing about me.”
Once upon a time, very long ago….
Raziel ran down the golden corridors.
She hated Headquarters. Really despised it. It was a terrible way to feel, and she wouldn’t dare breathe this to a soul. Everyone was supposed to love Headquarters, due to the whole being in His presence thing.
She skidded around a corner, annoying a few Cherubim who had flocked there to gossip. They got a little wings up, but then realized she was a Seraph, and quickly stood aside and went back to their nattering. She was late. She shouldn’t have delayed so much. She hated Cherubim. Hated the itchy and unbecoming clothes she was forced to wear. She despised all the gold and silver and precious jewels stuck everywhere. Angels tended to have affection for precious items. Among angel foibles, it wasn’t a bad one (there were many, many angel foibles) but it meant their decorating sense tended to range from merely tacky to outrageously over the top. The philosophy tended to be, why some well-selected silver goods in a room when you could just make the whole damn room silver? And marble floors? OK, it was impressive, but it was kind of slippery.
Here it was all about who was in His favor, who was closest to Him this week, who was His current pet, and who was on the outs. She wouldn’t even be back if she hadn’t been summoned.
She hated this place. She had been made for warfare, and that’s what she liked: being sent out on some great quest, battling forces of darkness, serving with honor.
And how she loved traveling to far-flung places in the universe. It had been her custom to enjoy time with the inhabitants: tasting their food, getting drunk on their alcoholic beverages, landing in some trouble playing their games of chance, and, if the opportunity presented itself, spending some private time with local men who caught her fancy.
Ah, men. She thought she missed them most of all. She really wanted a pretty one, right now. To be quite blunt, she found sex with mortals infinitely more satisfying than the few regrettable encounters she’d had with other Seraphim. Prissy, stuck-up bastards.
Angels, she thought, were overrated.
But there were no men here. Nor great quests, nor delicious food. Nor even tasteful accessories. It was all about these horrible formal robes. She wore a pair of boots she’s picked up on the last world she’d visited, praying that no one would notice she was slightly out of uniform. But, the soles didn't grip very well on these ridiculous floors.
She slipped around another corner and nearly knocked over the much larger Seraphim. Well, actually, his Court Form was larger than hers. Angels, in their True Form, come in a maddening array of sizes. Putti can be as tiny (and annoying) as small dogs. Seraphim, like Raziel, are big as buildings, and have wings that could loft a 747 jet. Seraphim, in fact, have three full sets of wings. Obviously this size differential makes meeting in formal situations a bit of a problem, and as angels find the need for many formal occasions, they all manifest Court Forms, which are more or less human-sized, and lacking wings, as wings are not only an inconvenience (as they can easily knock over your tacky silver candlesticks), but are considered the height of impolitesse to flash in public if one is not girding for warfare.
Raziel’s customary Court Form was a bit smaller than the norm. Primarily, she simply found lugging her hulking True Form around to be a bit clumsy and annoying, so she liked to escape into something sleeker and more maneuverable. Though it also had not escaped her notice, in her travels, that many beings were favorably disposed towards a small, cute woman.
Especially male beings.
The Seraph she had nearly run down, unfortunately, was not one of those male beings.
She drew back and apologized breathlessly. “My apologies, Honored Brother.” She used his honorific. Angels were big on titles. And could get quite irritated if you used an improper one.
Angels were quick to anger. And when angered, tended to kill one another.
Another one of those angel foibles we’ve discussed.
She had used the correct honorific to address him. Unfortunately, a couple of this particular angel’s retinue had seen fit to chuckle at the near altercation, and one thing Uriah couldn’t bear was to be an object of fun. He drew himself up.
“You ought be more respectful, Honored Sister!”
She tried to remain pleasant. “Well. No need to get the wings out,” she said, forcing a smile.
“You’ve greeted half of creation with wings out. Or is that, legs up? So I’ve heard.” He didn’t have to laugh, as several of his retinue did it for him.
She glared. “Yeah, I suppose that image is something you’d wank off too, if you could only find your dick,” she snapped.
Uriah did not reply. He made to sweep past her, his shoulder too close to hers. She locked eyes and did not flinch.
She stood stone still as she waited for he and his Brother Seraphim to pass, and then took off, now even more late for her appointment.
She definitely wanted to show that one the sharp end of her saber. But, maybe later.
Raziel was the most lethal swordsman in the Legion. Her hunts ended in a kill.
But today there would be no hunt.
She finally lurched to a halt in front of a golden door and remained in place for a moment, smoothing her hair, arranging her horrible, itchy gown, and trying to get her breathing back to normal. She opened the door and entered the large, bright studio.
“Father,” she said quietly.
He was painting. He had taken up the hobby fairly recently. Apparently, it brought out his creativity.
He looked up from his canvas. “Honored Daughter,” he said, casually, as if she’d just shown up in his studio and not been summoned from half a universe away for the audience.
“What are you working on now, Father?”
He turned his easel around, so she could see. The canvas was blank. As it always was
“What do you think Honored Daughter?”
“I think it’s a blank canvas, Father.”
He smiled knowingly. He always fucking smiled knowingly. And she just wanted to be somewhere else. “I am working on a new project, my Daughter. A new Creation.”
“Oh!” Well, this will be good, she thought. It’s always fun to see a new universe. Perhaps there would be cute men, and ugly fire-breathing monsters. “Whereabouts, Father?”
He smiled mysteriously. “Right here, Little One. I am going to create a new race of angels.”
She was silenced. She wondered, why was He telling me? And, what did He want me to say?
She was immediately annoyed with herself. This was why she hated Headquarters. This is what you did. Instead of just thinking, your mind filled up with why He’s doing what He’s doing, and how He wants you to react.
She decided to be honest. “Uh. So, more Cherubim?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Like you. But not designed for warfare. Not that warfare is an ignoble pursuit. But, times have changed. It is time for new thinking. Which means it is time for new minds.”
She looked again at the blank canvas. Nope, she didn’t get that either.
It was no sooner said than it was done.
Raziel was there because she was expected to be there. The newest Creation. Her new Little Brothers.
And she really hated them. The New Ones. All of them. And she was miserable. And she wanted to escape as soon as possible and go stab something.
And all male too. That was a slap. There were so few female Seraphim. It was like saying, well, don’t want to repeat that mistake again.
There was a New One who was obviously the best. She could tell, from the way Michael fawned, and the others circled around him.
“Lady Raziel, this is Lord Lucifer,” Archangel Michael gushed.
She bowed low.
“I am also known as the Morningstar,” he bragged.
“Um, why are you known as the Morningstar?” she asked, baffled. “Weren’t you just Created like the others?” And he laughed, a strange series of grunts. And, several others around him then produced the same weird mirthless laughter.
“Ah, that’s Raziel!” said Michael. More grunt-laughs.
And she realized how blind she really was, lacking one hue of the rainbow, or a certain frequency of sounds. There was something that everyone else saw or heard or smelled that she didn’t.
She was introduced to some more of them, each worse than the other. Rozier, Phenex, Baraquiel, Batariel (at least, she thought they were two different angels, or maybe she just misheard the name twice), Chazaquiel…. And then she stopped listening.
In time, she slowly managed to back away. Another benefit of a small Court Form. And then she was off the main floor entirely, escaped up the back steps, watching the assembly from the mezzanine, safely unnoticed. She didn’t have much of a head for numbers, but she calculated the number of hours, minutes and seconds until the event would be over, and she could safely flee.
Then her mind wandered. For whatever reason, she thought of the hungry fire demon she remembered on an alien world, many years ago. It was about the right size. She wondered, if she could conjure it now, would it be able to swallow the entire crowd down below? Of course, they were Seraphim, and the New Ones, so they could probably defend themselves against it, but what if she was to make it appear, by surprise, out of thin air. She smiled, and leaned far over the balcony, trying to more accurately gauge the size of the room.
“What exactly are you doing?”
She whirled around. One of the goddam New Ones. He must have snuck onto the mezzanine somehow, and he was glaring at her. The grey eyes were like steel, like the knife he looked as if he wanted to stick through her heart.
It was like looking in the mirror. He looked precisely the way she’d felt all evening.
She decided to be honest. “I was making an assessment of the main room. I saw a monster once. I was wondering if it would be capable of devouring the entire party in one gulp.”
He stepped forward and surveyed the room. “Doubt it. He’d have a job of it swallowing that guy,” he said, pointing to Michael.
“Oh, it actually had a mouth with teeth inside its mouth. So it could swallow, and then chomp things up.” She mimed the horrible action with her hands.
“Huh. That sounds intriguing. Could you show me?”
“I…. I don’t actually know. Can you guys go places?”
“I fucking hope so! I’m not spending eternity trapped here with these assholes.”
They regarded the room below for a long moment.
She smiled, though he did not return the smile. “I’m Raziel,” she said.
“Yeah, I kinda figured that out.” She looked at him for a long moment, so he finally said, “Sariel. I’m Sariel.”
“So, Sariel….”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you have an impressive nickname?”
She didn’t think it possible, but his glare actually intensified. “Morningstar? He came up with that himself.”
Her eyes grew big. “He didn’t.”
“He did.”
“Wow. What an asshole!”
“Yeah.”
They both stood, leaning over the mezzanine banister, for a while. She studied Sariel out of the corner of her eye. They’d overdone the silver on this one, she thought. Silvery eyes, silvery hair, silvery wings. Angels. You could always trust them to go overboard. But he really had the most terrific scowl. She desperately wanted to take him out and let him glare at something volatile, to see if he could make things explode like that.
“OK. Can we go find the monster now?” he asked.
“Well, I can’t show you that specific one.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stabbed it. It’s dead.”
The grey eyes flashed. “Can I stab a monster too?”
She shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“What are we fucking waiting for?”
She nodded, and they started out of the room. “You’ll have to make a Court Form, Little Brother. I can’t take you out with your wings out like that.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Call you what?”
“Little Brother.”
She smiled. “I could call you Morningstar.”
“All right. All right. Little Brother will do.”
And so they lit out to find a monster.
