OctoPickles (Mythklok, Chapter 65)
Aug. 25th, 2011 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: The Amazing and Almost True Story of OctoPickles (Mythklok, Chapter 65)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's a typical day of fun for Dethklok's angelic manager!
Warnings: Cursing - I use a slang term for a sex act pretty frequently in this one, so definitely NSFW.
Notes: Notes after the jump.
What's been happening: Pickles is suffering from stage fright, so Ganesh has volunteered to help cure him. Using modern psychological techniques. And voodoo. This ought be interesting.
This makes some reference to a story I wrote called Guernica. You can read that too, in case you want a little more background.
Oh, and a couple of voodoo priests make an appearance this time. If you hate my song parodies, probably time to stop reading NAO. Oh, and I included a bit that was actually I think stolen from Tam's idea from the comments.
"So, you wanted to see me, Ganesh? Aiiiiii!"
"Dooood!" said Pickles in greeting, He sat cheerily behind his drum kit on the rehearsal stage at Mordhaus.
He twirled a drumstick. And another drumstick. And another drumstick. And another drumstick....
Ganesh and Elegba grinned (albeit a bit sheepishly) at Charles.
"Ganesh," said Charles evenly. "Ahem. What did you.... And why is he.... Why is he red like that?"
"Er. Side effect?" proposed Ganesh.
"Yeah. Definitely side effect," said Elegba.
"But, on the positive side, he feels prepared to resume touring!" said Ganesh.
"I'm rarin' t' go, chief!" agreed Pickles, flexing his red arms and arms and arms.
"He cannot. Go on tour. LIKE THAT," Charles choked.
"But, he's so awfully happy!" Ganesh pointed out.
"I have never seen one happier little motherfucker!" agreed Elegba, tipping back his tall hat.
"Ganesh! We cannot do a concert with ... with an OctoPickles!"
"OctoPickles?" said Ganesh. "That is a terribly clever coinage."
"He's a motherfucking cephalopod for true!" vowed Elegba.
"I c'n hit every drum at once!" Pickles cheered, giving a quick demonstration.
"I feel we are 90 percent there!" Ganesh told Charles.
"95 percent," added Elegba.
"Ganesh," said Charles, gripping the taller man's shoulder.
"Er. Yes?"
"Fix. Him."
"Yes, well, I suppose...."said Ganesh.
"Yeah, I suppose...." agreed Elegba.
"If that's what you wish."
"Yes. A four-limbed, flesh-toned drummer. Please," said Charles.
"Doooood! Couldn't dey work on gettin' me more legs? Den I could do QUADRUPLE KICKS!"
Charles sighed a Charles-sigh, and departed for his office.
"Hi, Kam. I'll take him now," Charles told Elias' tutor.
"You're going to the meeting room now, Honored Sariel?" asked the Cherub.
"Uh, yeah?"
"Might I suggest you avoid the main corridor near the library?"
"Yeah? Why is that?"
"Some grievous paper cuts this morning."
"Paper cuts? Were there injuries?"
"Yes. And two fatalities."
"From.... Paper cuts."
"Grievous paper cuts."
Charles looked up from the architectural drawings to see his band glaring curiously at him from the meeting room doorway. "Oh, uh, sorry guys, we ran a little long. Come on in."
He muttered a hasty thank you to the visiting consultants as they departed, and began to remove the large drawings that covered the table surface "Yeah, stack 'em up Boon," he told his son, who had been happily sitting on the table watching the proceedings.
Nathan sank into a chair, pulling Elias into his lap as he did. He spread out the paper the child had been holding. "What is this shit?" he asked suspiciously.
"Just plans for a house," Charles muttered.
"Dood! Whose house?" asked OctoPickles, grabbing several sketches in several hands.
Charles scowled as his stacked plans were rapidly being unstacked by death metal musicians. "Just. A place for me and Ganesh. So. You know."
"We ams know what?" Skwisgaar inquired. He had swiftly folded up the drawing nearest to his place and was trying it out as a slide on his guitar.
"What do you know that we don't know?" Murderface asked as he stabbed a plan that Charles was trying to grab with his hunting knife.
"Just," said Charles. "A place where we can bring up my son."
"YOU CAN'T TAKE BOON AWAY FROM US!" Nathan bellowed, wrapping his thick arms protectively around the younger Ofdensen, who giggled appreciatively.
"I am not.... I am not taking Boon away! I just wanna place where he can have a normal childhood! Where he's not stepping over dead Biblioteers...."
"Ooo, librerry deaths! Wut did dey die of?" in quired Pickles.
"Does it matter?"
"Dere ams da pools!" protested Skwisgaar.
"Uh. Paper cuts. Grievous paper cuts?"
"All right bro!" shouted Murderface. The other band member grumbled and grudgingly held out $50 bills for him.
"OK. That's not the point," Charles growled. "Anyway, I'm gonna build him a house. Where he can do normal kid things!"
"But he's not a normal kid!" Nathan protested. He had folded an architectural drawing into a paper admiral's hat, which Elias now proudly stared out from under.
"Ja, hims ams gots da feather and a million billion arms," noted Skwisgaar.
Charles glared at Skwisgaar. "I want him to grow up normal. Doing normal, wholesome childhood things. Like, I dunno, whatever the fuck they are."
"Like da puppies?" ventured Toki, who had twisted an architectural drawing into a lovely swan.
"Yes, Toki, thank you. Like raising a puppy."
"Can we ams has da puppies?" Toki asked hopefully, batting blue eyes.
"Wait. What? At Mordhaus?"
"Yeh, dood, a puppy!" Pickles chimed in.
"We would WALK IT, and FEED IT, and TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT," Nathan vowed.
"Doggie!" squealed Elias.
"Do you guys know how long a dog would survive-"
"Why ams you not gets us a puppies!" wailed Toki.
"The angel robot never let'sch usch do anything,” grumbled Murderface.
"You too, William?" asked Charles.
"Yesch, I am a fanschier of caninesch."
"And, you have never mentioned this before today?" Murderface merely glared, so Charles continued, "Guys, look, you have the yard wolves! Isn't that-"
"Dey ams not play felch," Toki grumbled, irritably crossing his arms.
"What?" stuttered Charles.
"You ams t'rows da balls, an' day ams looks at you wit' dem eyes. Felch!"
"Yeh, dood, it's kinda humiliation'," Pickles asserted, throwing up many hands in disgust.
"Those wolves need to learn some manners!" Nathan muttered.
"So, to restate: you guys need a puppy because the yard wolves ... look at you?"
There were nods and words of assent.
"OK, what if I could teach the yard wolves to play, uh, fetch? Would that solve the problem?"
"Dey ams play felch?" demanded Toki.
"They will, uh, retrieve a ball. Or similar thrown object,” Charles specified.
"And they won't LOOK AT US?" asked Nathan.
"And they won't, uh, look at you. So, can we go on to talk about this new album?"
"Dood, why're we doin' dis agen?" asked Pickles.
"What did we talk about when you guys said you wanted to help with the angels?"
"That we should finish the album," Nathan repeated.
"But why ams we finishes da albums?" Skwisgaar asked.
"Because they evidently don't want us to," Charles supplied. "Raziel's tiger says-"
"We're takin' orders from a cat now?" Pickles asked, drumming the fingers of some hands while he studied the fingernails of some other hands.
"Hey! It'sch a very aweschome cat," Murderface asserted.
“Thank you William. The angels don't like my kid, and they don't like you guys. Seems like you're something they can't control."
"No. 'Cause we're bein' controlled by a freakin' tiger,” Pickles complained.
"It'sch a noble beascht. Hey! Charlesch, tell Picklesch to schtop pointing his third eye at me."
"Pickles. Stop pointing your third eye at William."
"Awwwww!"
"But Dick Knubbler is being a COMPLETE DOUCHE!" Nathan protested.
"How is he being a douche, Nathan?"
"He took away my DELETE KEY!"
"That wasn't Dick, Nathan."
"No?"
"No. I told him to disconnect it,” Charles told him.
"You did WHAT? YOU CAN'T TAKE AWAY A MAN'S DELETE BUTTON!"
"Nathan! You need to learn an important lesson!"
"That you're a douche?"
"No!” lectured Charles. “That you need to stand by your creations! You can't just arbitrarily keep changing your mind like this! Do you know how long this album has been delayed?"
"You're interfering with MY MUSE!" Nathan averred.
"You want this album to turn into Latvian Hegemony? Huh? Do ya? Do ya?"
"Doooood, he braught out da Latvian Hegemony card!" said Pickles.
"Dis ams serious businesses now!" Skwisgaar laughed.
"What ams Fat Man Fudge Monies?" Toki asked.
"Pffft. It ams Rikki Kixx's albums," Skwisgaar snorted.
"Yeh, dood, before da dood took over my feckin' band, after his band broke up, he wuz workin' on an album."
"It ams been eighteen years," Skwisgaar tutted.
"Some o' da session men disappearing int' da studio an' were NEVER SEEN AGEN!" Pickles vowed.
"This isn't Latvian Hegemony because RIKKI KIXX IS A COMPLETE DOUCHE!" Nathan thundered.
“Well, then, see that you finish the album.”
“Whats abouts da violins parts?” Skwisgaar strummed.
“I told you! I don't – I CAN'T perform.”
“YOU PERFORMED! WE HEARD YOU!”
“Look, there is a very good reason.”
“What's the reason?” growled Nathan.
“I gotta go now. I gotta get my kid something to eat.”
Charles picked up Elias and left the meeting room, to Nathan grumbles about Rikki Kixx and his delete key.
“OK, are we ready for lunch?” Charles asked Elias as they headed into his office.
“An Boon an wunchie, Dada!”
“All right. The usual?”
“Wammin!”
“OK. We'll get you some ramen.”
“An da wammin an da tamoorai!”
“Yeah, ramen just like the samurai eat.”
“He has developed an interest in samurai culture, Sire?” inquired Klokateer 31415, who was sitting in the outer office.
“Uh, yeah. His, uh, cousin has a crush on Toshiro Mifune. Could you call Jean-Pierre?”
"Certainly, Sire."
"Tops ticks, Dada?"
"Yeah, I got your chopsticks," Charles sighed.
Charles got Elias settled at a small table and chair inside his office, where the boy eagerly clicked a pair of elephant chopsticks his indulgent Auntie Sarasvati had bought him. With great effort, Elias had learned to "use" the chopsticks: he would pluck ramen noodles out of the bowl with his fingers, and then grab them (most of the time) in the chopsticks, whereupon they almost inevitably fell into his lap somewhere on the way to his mouth. So Charles also carefully fastened on an elephant bib that Auntie Sarasvati had supplied. It was his custom that when Elias' lap had reached the half full mark, he would give the boy a spoon. He wanted to indulge his son, but worried that he needed a certain amount of calories to make it into his mouth in order to survive.
“Yeah, yeah, put it down there,” he distractedly told the Chefateer as he picked up the phone. “Yeah, is this the dog trainer? Yeah, what I need to do is train some wolves. Yeah, wolves. Uh, what kind of wolves? I dunno, what kinds are there? Oh, uh really? What we need them to do is to play fetch. Fetch. Like, with a ball. No, that's, ah, a sexual act. What I want is-”
“Dada!”
“Uh, yeah, Dada is on the phone now," Charles told Elias.
“Dada an wing!”
“What, you got a chicken wing, Boon?”
“Dada! Wing!” repeated the child, holding it up.
“You got- Oh, mother- I'll call you back.” Charles leapt over to where Elias was eating and grabbed the bowl.
"OK, Boon? Dada will take care of this. Pie!" he hollered at the reception desk.
"Yes, Sire?"
"Jean-Pierre. On the phone. NOW." He grabbed the phone once again. "Jean-Pierre. Your kitchen just served MY SON soup with a ring in it. Yeah. And the ring was still ATTACHED TO A FINGER! Waddya mean, so that's where that went? I don't fucking care about a tragic Mixmaster accident! This is my fucking kid! Jean-Pierre. ABSOLUTELY NO BODY PARTS IN MY KID'S FOOD! Is that clear? Yes, even the Salisbury steak!"
"Fingy wammin, Dada?" asked Elias.
"What if we go get you some nice Dimmu Burger for lunchie?"
"An Fwenchie?"
"Yes. And French Fries. Vegetarian French fries."
"Thanks for coming, Ganesh."
"And what is the nature of the secret mission?" Ganesh smiled as he draped himself in a guest chair in Charles' cavernous office.
"I want you to use your woo woo vision thing. On Pie."
"I would really appreciate it if you would cease calling it my woo woo vision thing."
"Well. Whatever."
"And has 31415 consented?"
"No. I thought you would just look at him."
"Sariel, that's a bit rude."
"Why? You always look at people!"
"But it's like listening in to a dream."
"I've done that."
"I know you've done that. You are a terribly rude angel!"
“This is important!”
Ganesh sighed. “May I request his consent first?”
“OK, yeah, whatever,” Charles told him, going to the door. “Hey, 31415, could you come in for a minute?”
Ganesh arched an eyebrow.
“Would you have a seat?”
“Certainly, Sire,” said the burly Klokateer.
“Uh. You said something that piqued our interest the other day, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling me a little more about it?”
“What would you like to know?”
“You do realize that it's unusual for a human to be able to read or speak the Angelic language?” Ganesh asked him.
“That is what I was given to understand, Lord Ganesh.”
"You are aware that I am able to read the magical auras of living beings, humans and gods?"
"No, Lord Ganesh. I was not formerly aware such a thing existed."
"I'm not totally convinced such a thing exists," Charles grumbled.
Ganesh shot Charles an annoyed glance. "Would you mind terribly if examined yours?"
"No, I would be interested to hear what you see."
Ganesh stared at him. “You have rather more magic about you than the average human.”
“I find that surprising, Lord Ganesh. I'm sorry. Do you mean like the Harry Potter books?”
Ganesh smiled the lovely broad elephant smile that seemed to big for his face. “It's not exactly the same. Some people manifest with … talents. Being able to comprehend Common Angelic might be one of them.”
“Common Angelic?”
Charles said something that sounded, to 31415, very musical. “I'm sorry?” the receptionist inquired.
“There are two Angelic languages,” Charles told him. “Interesting. I wonder if they know? Would you mind telling me about how you got picked for a translation unit?”
“My story is quite simple. I am originally from East Los Angeles, in California. When I was a young man, having made my share of mistakes, a judge gave me a choice: prison time, or service to my country. I chose the army. I was very proud and happy to serve in the Special Forces.”
“You were a Green Beret, Pie?” Charles asked, forgetting and using the Klokateer's nickname.
“Yes, that is the colloquialism for the group. However, one day a representative came through to test our aptitude for learning an odd new language. I was the only one in my unit who could seem to manage it, so I was reassigned.”
“They taught you Common Angelic?”
“Yes. It was during this assignment that I met the late object of my affections, Rodrigo. Despite injunctions against it, we decided we could no longer live a lie, and resigned our commissions.”
“And you guys joined the Klokateers?”
“Rodrigo, as I have explained previously, was a die-hard fan.”
“Do you know who headed up the translation unit?”
“I believe the general in charge was an official named Crozier.”
“Do you refer to the current head of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff?” inquired Ganesh.
“That would be he,” 31415 agreed.
“Holy crap,” said Charles, who exchanged a glance with Ganesh. “Uh. That's all for now I think, 31415. Thanks for being forthcoming.”
“It was my honor, Sire,” said 31415, rising and returning to his own desk.
Charles frowned. “What the fuck interest does the US military have in Common Angelic?”
Ganesh sighed deeply. “What interest does the US military have? What interest does the US military industrial complex ever have in order to interfere in other peoples' affairs! How many developing nations, living in peace, have been subjected to forces of imperialist oppression-”
“Ganesh! These are angels. Not a buncha dudes wearing berets and Che T shirts.”
“Hmpf,” said Ganesh, brushing some imaginary lint off his slacks. “And I never wore a Che T shirt! They're overdone.”
"So, 31415?"
"What of him?"
"Is he human?"
"Not entirely."
"Wow!"
"He is probably not a halfling. Like Skwisgaar. Or ... my brother. But Sariel, it is not uncommon to find a human with some godly ancestry. In elder days, the god's could be quite prolific."
"Ganesh. He groks Angelic! Only angels really do that. Well, and people who have the misfortune to be married to one."
"I have mostly picked up some Common," Gamesh told him.
"You picked up the cursing."
"That is all you use it for!"
"Common has better curses."
"Are you saying, Sariel, do you think your receptionist is potentially part ... angelic?"
"I don't know."
"It's difficult to believe such a thing would be possible," Ganesh mused, picking up Elias' paper admiral hat. "I examined the Nephilim. The extent of the disability..."
"Yeah, but Lucifer and his buddies were Seraphim and New Ones, like me. We're pretty fucking powerful. Maybe too much magic for humans."
"You are definitely a handful," Ganesh remarked, glancing up at Charles. They locked eyes for a moment.
"Damn," said Charles, a thin smile creeping onto his face. "I wish I didn't have another appointment."
"How much time do we need?" inquired Ganesh, not looking away.
Charles grinned, and waved a hand at the door. The lock clicked.
Ganesh was slipping on his shoes. He rarely wore socks. But found himself interrupted by an angel suddenly sitting in his lap.
"That was nice," Chatles murmured. "That was so nice."
"I was only doing to you what the US military has been doing to unwilling developing nations for decades!" Ganesh laughed.
"Mmm, yes, oppress me!" Charles told him, chewing on his earlobe.
"Didn't you have some place you needed to be?" Ganesh asked. Charles merely grumbled and continued to nuzzle his neck. Ganesh gripped him by his angel rump, picked him up, and walked him over to his desk, where he set him down. "I've got to get going. And so do you," Ganesh told him.
"Awwww!"
"We can play imperialist and the geopolitical struggle later tonight. Whatever is this, by the way?" he asked, picking up Elias' now somewhat crumpled paper hat.
"Architectural drawings. For our house."
"Our house? What house?"
"You know. We talked about this. A place for us. And Boon. So he doesn't draw murals all over your living room?"
"I didn't think we had agreed to go forward?"
"I want Boon to have some place wholesome to grow up!"
"He appears perfectly healthy to me. We will discuss is later. I need to go. I have a drummer to repair!" He gave Charles a peck on the forehead, and disappeared.
"Hmpf! You're late!" snorted Raziel.
"Only a couple minutes," protested Charles as he appeared in the gardens at Mordland.
"You haven't been playing oppressed third world nation with Ganesh again, have you?"
"What? No! I mean. Anyway. The PC term is developing nation," Charles huffed.
Raziel tipped her sunglasses down and began to rebutton Charles's shirt so the buttons matched to the correct holes. "So, what did you wanna meet about?" she asked.
"It's those guys!" Charles said, waving his hand.
"Your creepy wolves need a publicist?" she asked, eyeing the yard wolves, who gazed back in arrogant wolf fashion.
"I need someone to teach the yard wolves to play fetch."
"What? Me?"
"Who else but you! You love dogs! And you keep a fucking tiger as a pet!"
"I like doggies. But not those things. They creep me out. They look at you!" She stared at the alpha, who glared defiantly back.
"C'mon Raziel! I need this done!"
"And why is that one wearing eyeglasses?" she pointed out.
"He's myopic! Come on, Raziel," said Charles, draping the world's most awkward friendly arm around her shoulders. "I know you can do this! I'll triple your salary!"
"To three dollars a month?"
"Yeah?"
"It's not the salary I do it for, you know."
"No?"
"It's the clothing allowance," she grinned.
"Wait! What clothing allowance?" he sputtered. But she had already disappeared.
"You wanted to see me, Dick?" asked Charles, sitting Elias down on a chair near the mixing board with his Dimmu Burger death metal coloring book and crayons.
"Sarry, baby! Yeah! We need to get that violin track down, chop chop!"
"Violin-? Look, didn't you just hire a studio musician, like I asked?"
"Nate baby wouldn't hear of it. No."
"We took away his delete key, Dick! What can he do."
Knubbler sighed deeply, his robotic eyes blinking a depressed red. He hit a button on the mixing panel desk. Suddenly, a Dethklok track was playing.
"Oh. Gods, what the fuck!" Charles screamed, covering his ears. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"
Knubbler punched another button. "He had Willie baby record a live bass track over everything, yeah. And wouldn't let him at the catering table, no. Low blood glucose."
"Dada!" said Elias, tugging on Charles' sleeve. "Boon an need da mo blud red!"
"Here's another blood red one, Boon," said Charles, digging a crayo out of his pocket. "So if we don't do what Nathan says, we get an album of Murderface bass tracks?"
"He also has one with Toki doing scales too after Skwisgaar told him Functional Bunny ams dildos, yeah, Sarry baby," agreed the producer.
"So, you gonna stop being a douche and PLAY YOUR VIOLIN?" Nathan inquired as he burst into the recording studio. He scooped up Elias and slid into the chair underneath the boy.
“Dada pay byelin!” agreed Elias.
"I told you, Nathan, there is a very good reason why I don't play!"
"What the fuck is the reason?"
"It's a long story."
"I have time."
"Oh, sure there's nothing else to do? Like WORKING ON THE ALBUM?"
Nathan glowered. Charles glowered back. This stand off might have continued for some time had it not been interrupted by a great wailing noise.
"What is that?" asked Charles.
"Oh, it's just Skwisgaar out in the yard playing a guitar solo for the yard wolves so they'll play fetch and you don't have to get Toki a puppy."
"... What?"
Charles had grabbed his son and hastened to Mordland's extensive gardens to find most everybody from inside had already arrived. They had a makeshift stage rigged up, where Skwisgaar was currently grinding out some rather tasty solos.
He also spotted two very familiar figures.
"Chango. Orula. How ... completely unsurprising to see you here."
"Charles! How refreshing to see you!" enthused Orula.
"Oi! Cheers, mate!" chipped in Chango, flipping his puce Seraphim feather boa around his neck.
"And," sighed Charles, "might I ask what you are doing at Mordhaus?"
"I hired them," Raziel told him, coming up holding the hands of Liam and Abby. "For your ball retrieval situation." The twins gave a shriek of recognition, having not seen their cousin Elias for at least 24 hours.
"Show him our card, Chango!" ordered Orula.
"Chango and Orula, award-winning transplant surgeons?" read Charles.
"Chango, you silly goose, give him the other card," scolded Orula.
"Chango and Orula, Canine Obedience Solutions. You guys are dog trainers?" asked Charles.
"Yes! We utilize positive reinforcement," explained Orula.
"There is no such thing as a bad dog," Chango quoted.
"I don't think the person who said that had ever met these things," grumbled Raziel, peering over her sunglasses at the leering yard wolves.
"And the reason for the concert stage is...?" Charles inquired.
"I find it most useful to express our request through the universal language of song!" Orula declared, twirling his cape.
Charles sighed. And then got a good look at Toki, who was already holding a tennis ball at the ready. The hopeful guitarist had in fact an entire milk crate full of dog toys at his feet.
Charles sighed yet another Charles-sigh. "Yeah," he told Orula. "Go ahead. Do whatever you need to."
Dire wolf!
Standin' in the yard
No thumbs!
Or you'd be playin' a guitar!
What kind of attitude is not chasing a ball?
Don't you wanna please these human dudes at all?
Toki
Doesn't understand
Why you
Won't take drooly tennis balls from his hands
Some kind of douchery is evident in your gaze
And since when did any wolf require an eyeglass case?
You can fetch a ball
Ain't no thang at all
You can fetch a ball
It's not a sex act - that's just a similarly sounding word!
Skwisgaar then wailed on a particularly crunchy guitar solo. Even the rather rude wolves seemed duly impressed.
Toki tossed a tennis ball at the wolf pack.
The wolves blinked, grinned wolf grins, and moved off to harass the alpacas.
Toki blinked back tears. "Dey ams not felches," he sobbed.
Charles eyed Chango and Orula. "That worked. Like Vietnam."
"But you got a rather jolly musical number! I would say a great return for your money!"
"My money? How much did we pay-?"
"Charles are you ready to stop CLOWNING AROUND and come record your FUCKING VIOLIN PART?"
"Nathan, I've told you, I can't!"
"You can. You just won't," Raziel laughed.
"What's e fucking DEAL?" demanded Nathan.
"You haven't told them the story of the violin?" Raziel asked.
Charles shook his head. "What story?" demanded Nathan.
"Ooo, dere ams da story?" inquired Toki.
"Wellllll," said Raziel.
Many years ago, in Italy....
"Ciao, Little Brother!"
"Go away, Raziel!"
"Hmpf! And why are you being Signore Grumpypants?"
"Call me Signore Grumpypants again, and I'll show you. With my sword."
"Aw. I just wanted to visit my favorite Little Brother!"
"And I say again, go away, Raziel."
"You really want me to go away?" she asked, blinking her dark eyes at him.
Sariel looked at her for a time. “You got smokes?” he finally asked. She smiled and brought out a small case. He seized it, and extracted a cigarette. “What's so fucking hard about discovering tobacco,” he asked as he used a stick from the fireplace to light up. “Stupid humans.”
“So you gonna answer why you're all cranky?” asked Raziel, plucking on a violin.
“Raziel, don't touch the merchandise!”
“I've heard you're the most famed luthier in all of Italy!
“Only because my mentor and his mentor before him both died of plague.”
“You got plague here? Ewwwwww!”
“Who told you I'm the greatest luthier, anyway?” Sariel asked, blowing smoke.
“My new boyfriend. Pope Innocent!”
“Your boyfriend. Is the Pope?”
“Yeah. His mistress is pretty pissed. You never answered about why you're cranky?"
“Oh. There's rumors that I killed my mentor. And his mentor.”
“With plague?”
“Well. You know humans. They think I'm a witch. Or a Waldensian.”
“It could be. I know I never trusted you.”
“Mutual. I'm sure.”
“Hey, you know what you could do? To quash these rumors of witchcraft. Or Waldensianism?” asked Raziel.
“Yeah. What?”
“Howzabout playing at my Zio Lorenzo's house?”
“Lorenzo? The boss of Florence? Is now your uncle?”
“He likes me to sit upon his knee.”
“I bet he does.”
“Anyway, he has all these affectations of being a patron of the arts. Why not, you know, come kiss some ass, play the violin, have some lasagna?”
“Uh. I dunno.”
“It's Saturday night! There might be an assassination!!”
“Well....”
“So, you are the finest luthier in Firenze?” asked Zio Lorenzo when Sariel was introduced at his exclusive salon.
“Well, I wouldn't say that,” said Sariel modestly.
“Only because he killed his mentor and his mentor's mentor with witchcraft!” Raziel piped up.
“Raziel,” whispered Sariel. But his words were drowned out by roars of laughter.
“Haha, that's a good one!” said the Pope, giving him a hearty slap on the back. “Witches! What a buncha bull crap!”
“You don't believe in witchcraft, Your Excellency?” asked Sariel once he had recovered his breath.
“Of course not,” chuckled the Pope. “We make up that shit to keep the peasants busy. There, you lot, go burn a witch!”
“Are you gonna play something for us?” asked Zio Lorenzo.
“OK, sure,” said Sariel, hoping to distract attention from the political discussion. He quieted himself, and then began to play. He decided to play something a bit slow and sad. He rather liked the tone on this violin, one of his newest ones. The crowd, which had been boisterous, slowly stilled as they listened to the mournful tones.
But then, it was something funny, like a new overtone. He stopped playing, wondering if something had come loose. But the overtone remained. And then grew louder.
And then there was a new presence in their midst.
His old mentor. Who, inconveniently enough, was dead of plague.
“Yooooooou!” moaned the spirit, angrily pointing at Sariel. “You killed me! With witchcraft! And probably Waldensianism!!”
“What the fuck?” protested Sariel. “You died of plague!”
“Hmpf,” tutted the Pope. “I could probably ignore the witchcraft, but unfortunately, not the Waldensianism. Royal Swiss Guards!”
“Omigawd!” said Raziel, who had been bouncing on Lorenzo's knee. “Look out! Assassins!” She was very quickly off Lorenzo's knee and slicing up the Pope's guard.
Suddenly, the salon became a confusing mixture of flashing steel and flowing blood.
Meanwhile, Raziel grabbed Sariel by the collar and hustled him out a back entrance.
“Wow, that was a great Saturday night!” said Raziel. “Ghosts and assassins! And Waldensianism!”
“There wasn't any Waldsianism. I'm not a Waldsian.”
“What the fuck is a Waldsian, anyways?”
“No fucking idea,” sighed Sariel, lighting a cigarette. “Can you wait one minute, Raziel?” He took the violin he was carrying by the neck and chucked it into the Arno river. “That's the last fucking solo I ever play.”
The present day...
“Wait!” said Nathan. “You won't play violin because you're worried you'll summon a COOL ITALIAN GHOST!”
Charles, who was glaring at Raziel, said, “Well. Yeah.”
“Dood! Yoo so totally need to play da solo.”
“Ja! We ams wants to see da ghostie.”
“Vengeful spirits are TOTALLY METAL!”
“Look. Guys! I don't want that guy's spirit following me for eternity! He was an asshole in real life. And he hasn't gotten any better in the afterlife.”
“Charles!” enthused Orula. “As it happens, we are precisely what you need!”
Chango handed a card to Charles.
“Chango and Orula, expert taxidermists?”
“No, the other one, Chango dear.”
“Chango and Orula, reputed astrophysicists?”
“No, the other other card, Chango!”
“Chango and Orula, Nobel Prize-winning exorcists? Wait, there's a Nobel prize in that?”
“Look at the rest of the card.”
“Specializing in unpleasant Renaissance-era Italian spirits. Orula, how many of these cards do you guys got anyway?” Charles looked up to the sound of squealing, as did several other people.
Liam and Elias had gotten their little wings out, and were now happily flying after tennis balls as Toki tossed them in the air. Abby, still holding her mother's hand, sighed and rolled her eyes. “Boys are silly,” Raziel assured her.
The yard wolves also carried what appeared to be terribly annoyed expressions at the angel babies.
Toki, who was obviously quite well prepared for pet ownership, then picked up and tossed a cloth pull toy at the flying toddlers. Both boys dove at it, and then squealed in delight as they played a kind of mid-air tug of war over it.
There was a barking. One of the yard wolves evidently could stand such tomfoolery no longer, and had positioned himself under Liam and Elias, whooping and howling at them. The children, delighted at having a creature to tease, then occupied themselves for a few moments diving down so that the cloth pull toy was temptingly close to the incensed yard wolf, but just beyond the grasp of its jaws. And the wolf was now, despite the indignity of it all, jumping and snapping at the pull toy. Finally, and perhaps on purpose, the boys allowed the wolf to wrest a corner of the toy into its jaws. Thereupon followed perhaps a full minute of an epic tug of war battle, before the two boys, as if on signal, finally let the toy go, and the wolf found itself parked unceremoniously on its yard wolf butt, the two boys screaming and diving overhead.
The wolf gathered its dignity, marched over to Toki, and ceremoniously dropped the pull toy at his feet. It sat there, panting.
Toki picked up the toy, hefted it in his hand, and then gave it a great heave.
The wolf took off like a shot after it. Despite being a yard wolf, and sort of an asshole, it was, after all, a dog.
“See?” said Raziel. “There you go! My kids fixed your wolves for you!”
“One of them was my kid,” Charles grumbled.
"I ams likes dat wolfs!" Toki told Charles. "I t'ink ams names him, Saber!"
"That's very nice, Toki," said Charles. "Except...."
"Excepts?"
"Uh, I think the him is a her."
"Her?" said Toki. He frowned, and then rifled through his milk crate. He finally came up with a hot pink Functional Bunny scarf. "Saber! Ams comes here, girls!" he yelled.
"Is my rhythm guitarist gonna live out the day?" Charles asked Raziel.
"Want me to hang out with the kids for a while?" she laughed. "I'm gonna have to charge you extra! I need new yard wolf training boots. I'm thinking Valentino!”
"Whatever. I think I'm gonna have to go," Charles sighed, as Nathan stormed up.
"Come on!" urged the lead singer. "Let's go summon a vengeful spirit!"
Charles felt fucking weird. Although he usually regarded it as the domain of Dick Knubbler and the boys, he had been down there in the recording studio countless times, and had even found himself inside the booth on occasions when it was required, such as the time Pickles made Toki watch too much anime, and Charles had had to sit inside with Toki so "da tentacockles ams not rapes him."
But headphones? And a click track? And a producer watching? This wasn't right. He really shouldn't get mixed up in this side if things. But, on the other hand, his job was to indulge a group of spoiled kids. This was their daily ice cream and hookers, he supposed.
Dick signaled for silence. The producer had found him a violin that had actually been maufactured during the Renaissance by one of his rivals. Charles accepted it gladly, hoping this might be enough to keep the cranky spirit at bay. If not.... Well, he had just witnessed Chango and Orula's efforts at dog training.
He closed his eyes and tried to think only of the music. It had been so long since he'd dared play a violin in reality, other than a few notes to test the tuning. The instrument made a tone like no other. It wasn't long before he had in fact forgotten all about the double panes glass and the robotic eyes staring at him. Nathan's tune, like all good ones, simply seemed to sustain itself.
Charles opened his eyes. From somewhere far away, Dick Knubbler was giving a thumbs up sign. He wondered what that was about.
And then. It was like an overtone.
"Oh. Fuck," said Charles.
“Yooooooou!” moaned the cranky Italian spirit. “You witch! You Waldensian!!”
"Now for our prize-winning exorcism!" said Orula.
“Is this gonna work?” Charles asked the vodouisant.
“My songs inevitably work!”
“But you couldn't even get a dog to chase a ball!”
“He is fetching now, is he not?”
“Because of my kid!”
“Because Chango and I softened him up!”
"Yoooouuuuu!" howled the spirit.
"Oh, shut the fuck up," Charles told him. "Orula, whatever you're gonna do, please do it soon!"
“All right, Chango, hit it!” said Orula.
You are
A sprit
Why don't
You clear out?
Believe me when I say
We want you to go away...
"SQUEEEEEE! I love this song," trilled Raziel, who had just appeared with the kids.
Nathan merely growled.
'Cause we
Are two worlds apart
The living
And you are not
Let me say
Just go the fuck away
Raziel was now seated at Orula's feet, Abby clutched in her lap like a Teddy bear, and two pairs of blue eye batted up at him.
Tell me why - you ain't nothing but an asshole
Tell me why - overstaying when you should go home
Tell me why - just get off to the astral plane
We'll make catty remarks when you're gone
Dick Knubbler too hunched over the control panel, blinking green eyes at Orula.
"Et tu, Knubbler?" grumbled Murderface.
Now you can see we've got you Google maps
For the way that you want to go, yeah
The greater the distance
We'll pack you a lunch
And scoot you along the way.
Might I inquire
My one desire
Is just to ask you
Why don't you go away?
Suddenly, there was a terrible crash, and smoke, and fire.
“DOOOOOOOD! Wut happened?” came a voice.
Pickles sat on the ground. He was once again Pickles-colored. And featured just two upper limbs.
"Are you OK?" asked Charles, helping him up.
"I lost mah arms!" Pickles sobbed. "An' mah t'ird eye. Dood, dat t'ird eye wuz cool."
"A third eye is terribly cool," Charles had to agree.
"Yooooooouuuuuu!" moaned the annoying Italian spirit.
"Dick," said Nathan. "Can you record that ghost dude's moans? Because that's pretty cool."
"Hey, spirit baby! Can you give Dick Knubbler some moans, yeah?"
The spirit cooperatively let out a hellish moan.
"Awesome," said Nathan. This will be the first album recorded with ANGELS AND DEAD GUYS,"
"So, whaddya think?" Raziel asked Charles.
"Well, I got my drummer back. And Nathan is now more interested in recording the ghost than my violin crap. So I guess the overall effect is positive."
"Dada? Top ticks?" Charles looked over to where Elias had run into the booth where Pickles' drum kit was set up and waiting.
“No, not chopsticks,” Charles told him.
"Naw, Boon dood!" the drummer told him. "Dose are drumsticks!" Pickles sat down and pounded out a riff in noisy demonstration.
Elias answered by rapping the drumsticks on a nearby drum. He giggled.
"No!" shouted Charles. "Elias! We do NOT play with Uncle Pickles' drums."
"Dood!" said Pickles. "It's OK. Like dis!" he told Elias, tapping an easy rhythm. He adjusted the child's grip slightly, and Elias tried again. Pickles tried something a little more complicated, and suddenly, Elias pulled out his extra pair of arms, grabbed more sticks, and tried to repeat it.
"FECKIN' SWEET!" said Pickles, now grabbing Elias into his lap.
"You sure he's not annoying you, Pickles?" asked Charles.
"Dood! You gaht a natural born drummer!" Pickles told him, holding Elias over the kit so he could reach all the drums.
"Yabb!" said Elias. His little cousin Abby was standing beside the drum kit, her ice blue eyes staring at him in wonder. Pickles set Elias down next to her. "An dwum ticks!" Elias explained to her, holding up his drumsticks.
Suddenly, Abby tackled him, knocking him to the ground, and gave him a sticky toddler kiss. And then she ran off.
Elias sat up, too stunned for words.
"Dood!" said Pickles. "Yoo gaht yer first groupie!"
"Oh, boy," muttered Charles.
"So, your drummer has been successfully fixed?" asked Ganesh, who was relaxing on the couch in his residence.
"As a side effect of Orula's song, yeah," said Charles, who still felt a bit baffled.
"How ever it happened, I am glad."
Charles nodded. And Ganesh was one of those people who probably was honestly glad.
"And I understand from Raziel that we have our own drummer?"
"Oh, gods," said Charles, sinking into the couch. "Why couldn't it be a piccolo?"
"Perhaps because you manage a rock band, and not a string quartet?" laughed Ganesh. "Still, you might consider building him a soundproofed room down there, while I am expanding my studio up here."
"Since when are you extending your studio?"
"The mural issue?" said Ganesh, nodding towards his son's painting, which covered an entire wall of his living room. "He requires more space. So we'll give it to him."
"But what about our house?"
"Boon already has two perfectly fine residences, Sariel! You have said before that you don't wish to spoil the child. Well, overly spoil him."
"Ganesh, he needs a normal place to grow up! A place where he won't find a finger in his soup!"
"But you corrected it immediately. And took him out for a burger. And don't pretend you don't sneak him burgers, because I know you do."
"That finger was attached to a human!"
"And his lunch was once a peaceful cow."
"I don't want him to end up fucked up!"
"When I look at him, I see a bright, smiling child. Sariel, have you seen troubled children?”
"I don't have to see them! I was one! I'm Fallen, Ganesh! You have NO IDEA what that means."
Ganesh stood. "I need to take you some place. Show you something." He took Charles by the hand.
It looked to Charles to be an orphanage. But it was, somehow, a nightmarish place. It was spotlessly clean and well lighted, and surrounded by a pretty garden outside.
But the children seemed to range from merely zoned out to quite miserable. There were staff everywhere, feeding and bathing and tending to them. But some sobbed, some cried, and some, the most disturbing, just sat and rocked.
Ganesh led Charles through the facility, where at last they stood over a crib. The occupant, a tiny boy, seemed to be sobbing himself to sleep.
“Ganesh,” asked Charles, “What is this place? Why isn't anybody here trying to comfort these kids?”
“It is a great tragedy. We didn't know about this place. Not until it was too late. There was a great disaster here some years back, and many children were left orphaned. They had adequate food. At least enough to keep the children from starving. But they had not enough staff. Or at least enough of those who cared. These children were almost never picked up, almost never held.”
“So why isn't anyone trying to hold 'em now?”
“That is what I am trying to tell you, Sariel. These children may never be comforted! They lacked the human touch, at a critical time, and now, alas, it is too late. We may feed them and bathe them and keep their care. But we can never give them comfort. That is impossible now.”
“It's-” said Charles.
“Sariel," said Ganesh, holding his shoulders. "This is what I have been trying to tell you. Look upon our own boy. And be thankful. He is healthy. He is happy. He is surrounded ever by people who love him. And that is the most important thing.”
“Sri Ganesha?” said a staff member. She spoke quickly to him in Hindi.
“One moment, I'll be right back,” Ganesh apologized. He and the woman walked out of the room.
Charles looked at the fussing boy in the crib. He clenched and unclenched his fists.
He thought of Elias, teething. Had his boy ever been that tiny?
And then his hands went to his jacket buttons.
When Ganesh returned to the room, it had grown quiet. “Sariel, are you-” he began.
He looked into the room. And beheld silver.
Silver eyes glanced up at him. “Boon likes the wings. When nothing else works.”
“Yes,” said Ganesh, eyeing the now drowsing boy. “I remember.”
“Maybe this one is part god or angel?” Charles said, gently setting the infant back into the crib.
Ganesh heard a quiet gasp beside him. The worker who had spoken to him earlier had her hands over her mouth, gazing in wonder at a True Formed angel. Ganesh touched her shoulder and spoke some quiet words, and she nodded, dazed, and left the room. “That might be true, Sariel,” said Ganesh.
“I have Cherubs working for me. Maybe I could send some of 'em?”
“That,” said Ganesh, “is a very interesting idea. Yes, let us try that. I will need to train my staff. But we can definitely try.”
"They're not beyond help," said Charles. "No one is beyond help."
"That is quite true. Thank you for reminding me," said Ganesh quietly. He put a hand on the angel's shoulder, and they stood for a while and watched the boy sleep.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's a typical day of fun for Dethklok's angelic manager!
Warnings: Cursing - I use a slang term for a sex act pretty frequently in this one, so definitely NSFW.
Notes: Notes after the jump.
What's been happening: Pickles is suffering from stage fright, so Ganesh has volunteered to help cure him. Using modern psychological techniques. And voodoo. This ought be interesting.
This makes some reference to a story I wrote called Guernica. You can read that too, in case you want a little more background.
Oh, and a couple of voodoo priests make an appearance this time. If you hate my song parodies, probably time to stop reading NAO. Oh, and I included a bit that was actually I think stolen from Tam's idea from the comments.
"So, you wanted to see me, Ganesh? Aiiiiii!"
"Dooood!" said Pickles in greeting, He sat cheerily behind his drum kit on the rehearsal stage at Mordhaus.
He twirled a drumstick. And another drumstick. And another drumstick. And another drumstick....
Ganesh and Elegba grinned (albeit a bit sheepishly) at Charles.
"Ganesh," said Charles evenly. "Ahem. What did you.... And why is he.... Why is he red like that?"
"Er. Side effect?" proposed Ganesh.
"Yeah. Definitely side effect," said Elegba.
"But, on the positive side, he feels prepared to resume touring!" said Ganesh.
"I'm rarin' t' go, chief!" agreed Pickles, flexing his red arms and arms and arms.
"He cannot. Go on tour. LIKE THAT," Charles choked.
"But, he's so awfully happy!" Ganesh pointed out.
"I have never seen one happier little motherfucker!" agreed Elegba, tipping back his tall hat.
"Ganesh! We cannot do a concert with ... with an OctoPickles!"
"OctoPickles?" said Ganesh. "That is a terribly clever coinage."
"He's a motherfucking cephalopod for true!" vowed Elegba.
"I c'n hit every drum at once!" Pickles cheered, giving a quick demonstration.
"I feel we are 90 percent there!" Ganesh told Charles.
"95 percent," added Elegba.
"Ganesh," said Charles, gripping the taller man's shoulder.
"Er. Yes?"
"Fix. Him."
"Yes, well, I suppose...."said Ganesh.
"Yeah, I suppose...." agreed Elegba.
"If that's what you wish."
"Yes. A four-limbed, flesh-toned drummer. Please," said Charles.
"Doooood! Couldn't dey work on gettin' me more legs? Den I could do QUADRUPLE KICKS!"
Charles sighed a Charles-sigh, and departed for his office.
"Hi, Kam. I'll take him now," Charles told Elias' tutor.
"You're going to the meeting room now, Honored Sariel?" asked the Cherub.
"Uh, yeah?"
"Might I suggest you avoid the main corridor near the library?"
"Yeah? Why is that?"
"Some grievous paper cuts this morning."
"Paper cuts? Were there injuries?"
"Yes. And two fatalities."
"From.... Paper cuts."
"Grievous paper cuts."
Charles looked up from the architectural drawings to see his band glaring curiously at him from the meeting room doorway. "Oh, uh, sorry guys, we ran a little long. Come on in."
He muttered a hasty thank you to the visiting consultants as they departed, and began to remove the large drawings that covered the table surface "Yeah, stack 'em up Boon," he told his son, who had been happily sitting on the table watching the proceedings.
Nathan sank into a chair, pulling Elias into his lap as he did. He spread out the paper the child had been holding. "What is this shit?" he asked suspiciously.
"Just plans for a house," Charles muttered.
"Dood! Whose house?" asked OctoPickles, grabbing several sketches in several hands.
Charles scowled as his stacked plans were rapidly being unstacked by death metal musicians. "Just. A place for me and Ganesh. So. You know."
"We ams know what?" Skwisgaar inquired. He had swiftly folded up the drawing nearest to his place and was trying it out as a slide on his guitar.
"What do you know that we don't know?" Murderface asked as he stabbed a plan that Charles was trying to grab with his hunting knife.
"Just," said Charles. "A place where we can bring up my son."
"YOU CAN'T TAKE BOON AWAY FROM US!" Nathan bellowed, wrapping his thick arms protectively around the younger Ofdensen, who giggled appreciatively.
"I am not.... I am not taking Boon away! I just wanna place where he can have a normal childhood! Where he's not stepping over dead Biblioteers...."
"Ooo, librerry deaths! Wut did dey die of?" in quired Pickles.
"Does it matter?"
"Dere ams da pools!" protested Skwisgaar.
"Uh. Paper cuts. Grievous paper cuts?"
"All right bro!" shouted Murderface. The other band member grumbled and grudgingly held out $50 bills for him.
"OK. That's not the point," Charles growled. "Anyway, I'm gonna build him a house. Where he can do normal kid things!"
"But he's not a normal kid!" Nathan protested. He had folded an architectural drawing into a paper admiral's hat, which Elias now proudly stared out from under.
"Ja, hims ams gots da feather and a million billion arms," noted Skwisgaar.
Charles glared at Skwisgaar. "I want him to grow up normal. Doing normal, wholesome childhood things. Like, I dunno, whatever the fuck they are."
"Like da puppies?" ventured Toki, who had twisted an architectural drawing into a lovely swan.
"Yes, Toki, thank you. Like raising a puppy."
"Can we ams has da puppies?" Toki asked hopefully, batting blue eyes.
"Wait. What? At Mordhaus?"
"Yeh, dood, a puppy!" Pickles chimed in.
"We would WALK IT, and FEED IT, and TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT," Nathan vowed.
"Doggie!" squealed Elias.
"Do you guys know how long a dog would survive-"
"Why ams you not gets us a puppies!" wailed Toki.
"The angel robot never let'sch usch do anything,” grumbled Murderface.
"You too, William?" asked Charles.
"Yesch, I am a fanschier of caninesch."
"And, you have never mentioned this before today?" Murderface merely glared, so Charles continued, "Guys, look, you have the yard wolves! Isn't that-"
"Dey ams not play felch," Toki grumbled, irritably crossing his arms.
"What?" stuttered Charles.
"You ams t'rows da balls, an' day ams looks at you wit' dem eyes. Felch!"
"Yeh, dood, it's kinda humiliation'," Pickles asserted, throwing up many hands in disgust.
"Those wolves need to learn some manners!" Nathan muttered.
"So, to restate: you guys need a puppy because the yard wolves ... look at you?"
There were nods and words of assent.
"OK, what if I could teach the yard wolves to play, uh, fetch? Would that solve the problem?"
"Dey ams play felch?" demanded Toki.
"They will, uh, retrieve a ball. Or similar thrown object,” Charles specified.
"And they won't LOOK AT US?" asked Nathan.
"And they won't, uh, look at you. So, can we go on to talk about this new album?"
"Dood, why're we doin' dis agen?" asked Pickles.
"What did we talk about when you guys said you wanted to help with the angels?"
"That we should finish the album," Nathan repeated.
"But why ams we finishes da albums?" Skwisgaar asked.
"Because they evidently don't want us to," Charles supplied. "Raziel's tiger says-"
"We're takin' orders from a cat now?" Pickles asked, drumming the fingers of some hands while he studied the fingernails of some other hands.
"Hey! It'sch a very aweschome cat," Murderface asserted.
“Thank you William. The angels don't like my kid, and they don't like you guys. Seems like you're something they can't control."
"No. 'Cause we're bein' controlled by a freakin' tiger,” Pickles complained.
"It'sch a noble beascht. Hey! Charlesch, tell Picklesch to schtop pointing his third eye at me."
"Pickles. Stop pointing your third eye at William."
"Awwwww!"
"But Dick Knubbler is being a COMPLETE DOUCHE!" Nathan protested.
"How is he being a douche, Nathan?"
"He took away my DELETE KEY!"
"That wasn't Dick, Nathan."
"No?"
"No. I told him to disconnect it,” Charles told him.
"You did WHAT? YOU CAN'T TAKE AWAY A MAN'S DELETE BUTTON!"
"Nathan! You need to learn an important lesson!"
"That you're a douche?"
"No!” lectured Charles. “That you need to stand by your creations! You can't just arbitrarily keep changing your mind like this! Do you know how long this album has been delayed?"
"You're interfering with MY MUSE!" Nathan averred.
"You want this album to turn into Latvian Hegemony? Huh? Do ya? Do ya?"
"Doooood, he braught out da Latvian Hegemony card!" said Pickles.
"Dis ams serious businesses now!" Skwisgaar laughed.
"What ams Fat Man Fudge Monies?" Toki asked.
"Pffft. It ams Rikki Kixx's albums," Skwisgaar snorted.
"Yeh, dood, before da dood took over my feckin' band, after his band broke up, he wuz workin' on an album."
"It ams been eighteen years," Skwisgaar tutted.
"Some o' da session men disappearing int' da studio an' were NEVER SEEN AGEN!" Pickles vowed.
"This isn't Latvian Hegemony because RIKKI KIXX IS A COMPLETE DOUCHE!" Nathan thundered.
“Well, then, see that you finish the album.”
“Whats abouts da violins parts?” Skwisgaar strummed.
“I told you! I don't – I CAN'T perform.”
“YOU PERFORMED! WE HEARD YOU!”
“Look, there is a very good reason.”
“What's the reason?” growled Nathan.
“I gotta go now. I gotta get my kid something to eat.”
Charles picked up Elias and left the meeting room, to Nathan grumbles about Rikki Kixx and his delete key.
“OK, are we ready for lunch?” Charles asked Elias as they headed into his office.
“An Boon an wunchie, Dada!”
“All right. The usual?”
“Wammin!”
“OK. We'll get you some ramen.”
“An da wammin an da tamoorai!”
“Yeah, ramen just like the samurai eat.”
“He has developed an interest in samurai culture, Sire?” inquired Klokateer 31415, who was sitting in the outer office.
“Uh, yeah. His, uh, cousin has a crush on Toshiro Mifune. Could you call Jean-Pierre?”
"Certainly, Sire."
"Tops ticks, Dada?"
"Yeah, I got your chopsticks," Charles sighed.
Charles got Elias settled at a small table and chair inside his office, where the boy eagerly clicked a pair of elephant chopsticks his indulgent Auntie Sarasvati had bought him. With great effort, Elias had learned to "use" the chopsticks: he would pluck ramen noodles out of the bowl with his fingers, and then grab them (most of the time) in the chopsticks, whereupon they almost inevitably fell into his lap somewhere on the way to his mouth. So Charles also carefully fastened on an elephant bib that Auntie Sarasvati had supplied. It was his custom that when Elias' lap had reached the half full mark, he would give the boy a spoon. He wanted to indulge his son, but worried that he needed a certain amount of calories to make it into his mouth in order to survive.
“Yeah, yeah, put it down there,” he distractedly told the Chefateer as he picked up the phone. “Yeah, is this the dog trainer? Yeah, what I need to do is train some wolves. Yeah, wolves. Uh, what kind of wolves? I dunno, what kinds are there? Oh, uh really? What we need them to do is to play fetch. Fetch. Like, with a ball. No, that's, ah, a sexual act. What I want is-”
“Dada!”
“Uh, yeah, Dada is on the phone now," Charles told Elias.
“Dada an wing!”
“What, you got a chicken wing, Boon?”
“Dada! Wing!” repeated the child, holding it up.
“You got- Oh, mother- I'll call you back.” Charles leapt over to where Elias was eating and grabbed the bowl.
"OK, Boon? Dada will take care of this. Pie!" he hollered at the reception desk.
"Yes, Sire?"
"Jean-Pierre. On the phone. NOW." He grabbed the phone once again. "Jean-Pierre. Your kitchen just served MY SON soup with a ring in it. Yeah. And the ring was still ATTACHED TO A FINGER! Waddya mean, so that's where that went? I don't fucking care about a tragic Mixmaster accident! This is my fucking kid! Jean-Pierre. ABSOLUTELY NO BODY PARTS IN MY KID'S FOOD! Is that clear? Yes, even the Salisbury steak!"
"Fingy wammin, Dada?" asked Elias.
"What if we go get you some nice Dimmu Burger for lunchie?"
"An Fwenchie?"
"Yes. And French Fries. Vegetarian French fries."
"Thanks for coming, Ganesh."
"And what is the nature of the secret mission?" Ganesh smiled as he draped himself in a guest chair in Charles' cavernous office.
"I want you to use your woo woo vision thing. On Pie."
"I would really appreciate it if you would cease calling it my woo woo vision thing."
"Well. Whatever."
"And has 31415 consented?"
"No. I thought you would just look at him."
"Sariel, that's a bit rude."
"Why? You always look at people!"
"But it's like listening in to a dream."
"I've done that."
"I know you've done that. You are a terribly rude angel!"
“This is important!”
Ganesh sighed. “May I request his consent first?”
“OK, yeah, whatever,” Charles told him, going to the door. “Hey, 31415, could you come in for a minute?”
Ganesh arched an eyebrow.
“Would you have a seat?”
“Certainly, Sire,” said the burly Klokateer.
“Uh. You said something that piqued our interest the other day, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling me a little more about it?”
“What would you like to know?”
“You do realize that it's unusual for a human to be able to read or speak the Angelic language?” Ganesh asked him.
“That is what I was given to understand, Lord Ganesh.”
"You are aware that I am able to read the magical auras of living beings, humans and gods?"
"No, Lord Ganesh. I was not formerly aware such a thing existed."
"I'm not totally convinced such a thing exists," Charles grumbled.
Ganesh shot Charles an annoyed glance. "Would you mind terribly if examined yours?"
"No, I would be interested to hear what you see."
Ganesh stared at him. “You have rather more magic about you than the average human.”
“I find that surprising, Lord Ganesh. I'm sorry. Do you mean like the Harry Potter books?”
Ganesh smiled the lovely broad elephant smile that seemed to big for his face. “It's not exactly the same. Some people manifest with … talents. Being able to comprehend Common Angelic might be one of them.”
“Common Angelic?”
Charles said something that sounded, to 31415, very musical. “I'm sorry?” the receptionist inquired.
“There are two Angelic languages,” Charles told him. “Interesting. I wonder if they know? Would you mind telling me about how you got picked for a translation unit?”
“My story is quite simple. I am originally from East Los Angeles, in California. When I was a young man, having made my share of mistakes, a judge gave me a choice: prison time, or service to my country. I chose the army. I was very proud and happy to serve in the Special Forces.”
“You were a Green Beret, Pie?” Charles asked, forgetting and using the Klokateer's nickname.
“Yes, that is the colloquialism for the group. However, one day a representative came through to test our aptitude for learning an odd new language. I was the only one in my unit who could seem to manage it, so I was reassigned.”
“They taught you Common Angelic?”
“Yes. It was during this assignment that I met the late object of my affections, Rodrigo. Despite injunctions against it, we decided we could no longer live a lie, and resigned our commissions.”
“And you guys joined the Klokateers?”
“Rodrigo, as I have explained previously, was a die-hard fan.”
“Do you know who headed up the translation unit?”
“I believe the general in charge was an official named Crozier.”
“Do you refer to the current head of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff?” inquired Ganesh.
“That would be he,” 31415 agreed.
“Holy crap,” said Charles, who exchanged a glance with Ganesh. “Uh. That's all for now I think, 31415. Thanks for being forthcoming.”
“It was my honor, Sire,” said 31415, rising and returning to his own desk.
Charles frowned. “What the fuck interest does the US military have in Common Angelic?”
Ganesh sighed deeply. “What interest does the US military have? What interest does the US military industrial complex ever have in order to interfere in other peoples' affairs! How many developing nations, living in peace, have been subjected to forces of imperialist oppression-”
“Ganesh! These are angels. Not a buncha dudes wearing berets and Che T shirts.”
“Hmpf,” said Ganesh, brushing some imaginary lint off his slacks. “And I never wore a Che T shirt! They're overdone.”
"So, 31415?"
"What of him?"
"Is he human?"
"Not entirely."
"Wow!"
"He is probably not a halfling. Like Skwisgaar. Or ... my brother. But Sariel, it is not uncommon to find a human with some godly ancestry. In elder days, the god's could be quite prolific."
"Ganesh. He groks Angelic! Only angels really do that. Well, and people who have the misfortune to be married to one."
"I have mostly picked up some Common," Gamesh told him.
"You picked up the cursing."
"That is all you use it for!"
"Common has better curses."
"Are you saying, Sariel, do you think your receptionist is potentially part ... angelic?"
"I don't know."
"It's difficult to believe such a thing would be possible," Ganesh mused, picking up Elias' paper admiral hat. "I examined the Nephilim. The extent of the disability..."
"Yeah, but Lucifer and his buddies were Seraphim and New Ones, like me. We're pretty fucking powerful. Maybe too much magic for humans."
"You are definitely a handful," Ganesh remarked, glancing up at Charles. They locked eyes for a moment.
"Damn," said Charles, a thin smile creeping onto his face. "I wish I didn't have another appointment."
"How much time do we need?" inquired Ganesh, not looking away.
Charles grinned, and waved a hand at the door. The lock clicked.
Ganesh was slipping on his shoes. He rarely wore socks. But found himself interrupted by an angel suddenly sitting in his lap.
"That was nice," Chatles murmured. "That was so nice."
"I was only doing to you what the US military has been doing to unwilling developing nations for decades!" Ganesh laughed.
"Mmm, yes, oppress me!" Charles told him, chewing on his earlobe.
"Didn't you have some place you needed to be?" Ganesh asked. Charles merely grumbled and continued to nuzzle his neck. Ganesh gripped him by his angel rump, picked him up, and walked him over to his desk, where he set him down. "I've got to get going. And so do you," Ganesh told him.
"Awwww!"
"We can play imperialist and the geopolitical struggle later tonight. Whatever is this, by the way?" he asked, picking up Elias' now somewhat crumpled paper hat.
"Architectural drawings. For our house."
"Our house? What house?"
"You know. We talked about this. A place for us. And Boon. So he doesn't draw murals all over your living room?"
"I didn't think we had agreed to go forward?"
"I want Boon to have some place wholesome to grow up!"
"He appears perfectly healthy to me. We will discuss is later. I need to go. I have a drummer to repair!" He gave Charles a peck on the forehead, and disappeared.
"Hmpf! You're late!" snorted Raziel.
"Only a couple minutes," protested Charles as he appeared in the gardens at Mordland.
"You haven't been playing oppressed third world nation with Ganesh again, have you?"
"What? No! I mean. Anyway. The PC term is developing nation," Charles huffed.
Raziel tipped her sunglasses down and began to rebutton Charles's shirt so the buttons matched to the correct holes. "So, what did you wanna meet about?" she asked.
"It's those guys!" Charles said, waving his hand.
"Your creepy wolves need a publicist?" she asked, eyeing the yard wolves, who gazed back in arrogant wolf fashion.
"I need someone to teach the yard wolves to play fetch."
"What? Me?"
"Who else but you! You love dogs! And you keep a fucking tiger as a pet!"
"I like doggies. But not those things. They creep me out. They look at you!" She stared at the alpha, who glared defiantly back.
"C'mon Raziel! I need this done!"
"And why is that one wearing eyeglasses?" she pointed out.
"He's myopic! Come on, Raziel," said Charles, draping the world's most awkward friendly arm around her shoulders. "I know you can do this! I'll triple your salary!"
"To three dollars a month?"
"Yeah?"
"It's not the salary I do it for, you know."
"No?"
"It's the clothing allowance," she grinned.
"Wait! What clothing allowance?" he sputtered. But she had already disappeared.
"You wanted to see me, Dick?" asked Charles, sitting Elias down on a chair near the mixing board with his Dimmu Burger death metal coloring book and crayons.
"Sarry, baby! Yeah! We need to get that violin track down, chop chop!"
"Violin-? Look, didn't you just hire a studio musician, like I asked?"
"Nate baby wouldn't hear of it. No."
"We took away his delete key, Dick! What can he do."
Knubbler sighed deeply, his robotic eyes blinking a depressed red. He hit a button on the mixing panel desk. Suddenly, a Dethklok track was playing.
"Oh. Gods, what the fuck!" Charles screamed, covering his ears. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"
Knubbler punched another button. "He had Willie baby record a live bass track over everything, yeah. And wouldn't let him at the catering table, no. Low blood glucose."
"Dada!" said Elias, tugging on Charles' sleeve. "Boon an need da mo blud red!"
"Here's another blood red one, Boon," said Charles, digging a crayo out of his pocket. "So if we don't do what Nathan says, we get an album of Murderface bass tracks?"
"He also has one with Toki doing scales too after Skwisgaar told him Functional Bunny ams dildos, yeah, Sarry baby," agreed the producer.
"So, you gonna stop being a douche and PLAY YOUR VIOLIN?" Nathan inquired as he burst into the recording studio. He scooped up Elias and slid into the chair underneath the boy.
“Dada pay byelin!” agreed Elias.
"I told you, Nathan, there is a very good reason why I don't play!"
"What the fuck is the reason?"
"It's a long story."
"I have time."
"Oh, sure there's nothing else to do? Like WORKING ON THE ALBUM?"
Nathan glowered. Charles glowered back. This stand off might have continued for some time had it not been interrupted by a great wailing noise.
"What is that?" asked Charles.
"Oh, it's just Skwisgaar out in the yard playing a guitar solo for the yard wolves so they'll play fetch and you don't have to get Toki a puppy."
"... What?"
Charles had grabbed his son and hastened to Mordland's extensive gardens to find most everybody from inside had already arrived. They had a makeshift stage rigged up, where Skwisgaar was currently grinding out some rather tasty solos.
He also spotted two very familiar figures.
"Chango. Orula. How ... completely unsurprising to see you here."
"Charles! How refreshing to see you!" enthused Orula.
"Oi! Cheers, mate!" chipped in Chango, flipping his puce Seraphim feather boa around his neck.
"And," sighed Charles, "might I ask what you are doing at Mordhaus?"
"I hired them," Raziel told him, coming up holding the hands of Liam and Abby. "For your ball retrieval situation." The twins gave a shriek of recognition, having not seen their cousin Elias for at least 24 hours.
"Show him our card, Chango!" ordered Orula.
"Chango and Orula, award-winning transplant surgeons?" read Charles.
"Chango, you silly goose, give him the other card," scolded Orula.
"Chango and Orula, Canine Obedience Solutions. You guys are dog trainers?" asked Charles.
"Yes! We utilize positive reinforcement," explained Orula.
"There is no such thing as a bad dog," Chango quoted.
"I don't think the person who said that had ever met these things," grumbled Raziel, peering over her sunglasses at the leering yard wolves.
"And the reason for the concert stage is...?" Charles inquired.
"I find it most useful to express our request through the universal language of song!" Orula declared, twirling his cape.
Charles sighed. And then got a good look at Toki, who was already holding a tennis ball at the ready. The hopeful guitarist had in fact an entire milk crate full of dog toys at his feet.
Charles sighed yet another Charles-sigh. "Yeah," he told Orula. "Go ahead. Do whatever you need to."
Dire wolf!
Standin' in the yard
No thumbs!
Or you'd be playin' a guitar!
What kind of attitude is not chasing a ball?
Don't you wanna please these human dudes at all?
Toki
Doesn't understand
Why you
Won't take drooly tennis balls from his hands
Some kind of douchery is evident in your gaze
And since when did any wolf require an eyeglass case?
You can fetch a ball
Ain't no thang at all
You can fetch a ball
It's not a sex act - that's just a similarly sounding word!
Skwisgaar then wailed on a particularly crunchy guitar solo. Even the rather rude wolves seemed duly impressed.
Toki tossed a tennis ball at the wolf pack.
The wolves blinked, grinned wolf grins, and moved off to harass the alpacas.
Toki blinked back tears. "Dey ams not felches," he sobbed.
Charles eyed Chango and Orula. "That worked. Like Vietnam."
"But you got a rather jolly musical number! I would say a great return for your money!"
"My money? How much did we pay-?"
"Charles are you ready to stop CLOWNING AROUND and come record your FUCKING VIOLIN PART?"
"Nathan, I've told you, I can't!"
"You can. You just won't," Raziel laughed.
"What's e fucking DEAL?" demanded Nathan.
"You haven't told them the story of the violin?" Raziel asked.
Charles shook his head. "What story?" demanded Nathan.
"Ooo, dere ams da story?" inquired Toki.
"Wellllll," said Raziel.
Many years ago, in Italy....
"Ciao, Little Brother!"
"Go away, Raziel!"
"Hmpf! And why are you being Signore Grumpypants?"
"Call me Signore Grumpypants again, and I'll show you. With my sword."
"Aw. I just wanted to visit my favorite Little Brother!"
"And I say again, go away, Raziel."
"You really want me to go away?" she asked, blinking her dark eyes at him.
Sariel looked at her for a time. “You got smokes?” he finally asked. She smiled and brought out a small case. He seized it, and extracted a cigarette. “What's so fucking hard about discovering tobacco,” he asked as he used a stick from the fireplace to light up. “Stupid humans.”
“So you gonna answer why you're all cranky?” asked Raziel, plucking on a violin.
“Raziel, don't touch the merchandise!”
“I've heard you're the most famed luthier in all of Italy!
“Only because my mentor and his mentor before him both died of plague.”
“You got plague here? Ewwwwww!”
“Who told you I'm the greatest luthier, anyway?” Sariel asked, blowing smoke.
“My new boyfriend. Pope Innocent!”
“Your boyfriend. Is the Pope?”
“Yeah. His mistress is pretty pissed. You never answered about why you're cranky?"
“Oh. There's rumors that I killed my mentor. And his mentor.”
“With plague?”
“Well. You know humans. They think I'm a witch. Or a Waldensian.”
“It could be. I know I never trusted you.”
“Mutual. I'm sure.”
“Hey, you know what you could do? To quash these rumors of witchcraft. Or Waldensianism?” asked Raziel.
“Yeah. What?”
“Howzabout playing at my Zio Lorenzo's house?”
“Lorenzo? The boss of Florence? Is now your uncle?”
“He likes me to sit upon his knee.”
“I bet he does.”
“Anyway, he has all these affectations of being a patron of the arts. Why not, you know, come kiss some ass, play the violin, have some lasagna?”
“Uh. I dunno.”
“It's Saturday night! There might be an assassination!!”
“Well....”
“So, you are the finest luthier in Firenze?” asked Zio Lorenzo when Sariel was introduced at his exclusive salon.
“Well, I wouldn't say that,” said Sariel modestly.
“Only because he killed his mentor and his mentor's mentor with witchcraft!” Raziel piped up.
“Raziel,” whispered Sariel. But his words were drowned out by roars of laughter.
“Haha, that's a good one!” said the Pope, giving him a hearty slap on the back. “Witches! What a buncha bull crap!”
“You don't believe in witchcraft, Your Excellency?” asked Sariel once he had recovered his breath.
“Of course not,” chuckled the Pope. “We make up that shit to keep the peasants busy. There, you lot, go burn a witch!”
“Are you gonna play something for us?” asked Zio Lorenzo.
“OK, sure,” said Sariel, hoping to distract attention from the political discussion. He quieted himself, and then began to play. He decided to play something a bit slow and sad. He rather liked the tone on this violin, one of his newest ones. The crowd, which had been boisterous, slowly stilled as they listened to the mournful tones.
But then, it was something funny, like a new overtone. He stopped playing, wondering if something had come loose. But the overtone remained. And then grew louder.
And then there was a new presence in their midst.
His old mentor. Who, inconveniently enough, was dead of plague.
“Yooooooou!” moaned the spirit, angrily pointing at Sariel. “You killed me! With witchcraft! And probably Waldensianism!!”
“What the fuck?” protested Sariel. “You died of plague!”
“Hmpf,” tutted the Pope. “I could probably ignore the witchcraft, but unfortunately, not the Waldensianism. Royal Swiss Guards!”
“Omigawd!” said Raziel, who had been bouncing on Lorenzo's knee. “Look out! Assassins!” She was very quickly off Lorenzo's knee and slicing up the Pope's guard.
Suddenly, the salon became a confusing mixture of flashing steel and flowing blood.
Meanwhile, Raziel grabbed Sariel by the collar and hustled him out a back entrance.
“Wow, that was a great Saturday night!” said Raziel. “Ghosts and assassins! And Waldensianism!”
“There wasn't any Waldsianism. I'm not a Waldsian.”
“What the fuck is a Waldsian, anyways?”
“No fucking idea,” sighed Sariel, lighting a cigarette. “Can you wait one minute, Raziel?” He took the violin he was carrying by the neck and chucked it into the Arno river. “That's the last fucking solo I ever play.”
The present day...
“Wait!” said Nathan. “You won't play violin because you're worried you'll summon a COOL ITALIAN GHOST!”
Charles, who was glaring at Raziel, said, “Well. Yeah.”
“Dood! Yoo so totally need to play da solo.”
“Ja! We ams wants to see da ghostie.”
“Vengeful spirits are TOTALLY METAL!”
“Look. Guys! I don't want that guy's spirit following me for eternity! He was an asshole in real life. And he hasn't gotten any better in the afterlife.”
“Charles!” enthused Orula. “As it happens, we are precisely what you need!”
Chango handed a card to Charles.
“Chango and Orula, expert taxidermists?”
“No, the other one, Chango dear.”
“Chango and Orula, reputed astrophysicists?”
“No, the other other card, Chango!”
“Chango and Orula, Nobel Prize-winning exorcists? Wait, there's a Nobel prize in that?”
“Look at the rest of the card.”
“Specializing in unpleasant Renaissance-era Italian spirits. Orula, how many of these cards do you guys got anyway?” Charles looked up to the sound of squealing, as did several other people.
Liam and Elias had gotten their little wings out, and were now happily flying after tennis balls as Toki tossed them in the air. Abby, still holding her mother's hand, sighed and rolled her eyes. “Boys are silly,” Raziel assured her.
The yard wolves also carried what appeared to be terribly annoyed expressions at the angel babies.
Toki, who was obviously quite well prepared for pet ownership, then picked up and tossed a cloth pull toy at the flying toddlers. Both boys dove at it, and then squealed in delight as they played a kind of mid-air tug of war over it.
There was a barking. One of the yard wolves evidently could stand such tomfoolery no longer, and had positioned himself under Liam and Elias, whooping and howling at them. The children, delighted at having a creature to tease, then occupied themselves for a few moments diving down so that the cloth pull toy was temptingly close to the incensed yard wolf, but just beyond the grasp of its jaws. And the wolf was now, despite the indignity of it all, jumping and snapping at the pull toy. Finally, and perhaps on purpose, the boys allowed the wolf to wrest a corner of the toy into its jaws. Thereupon followed perhaps a full minute of an epic tug of war battle, before the two boys, as if on signal, finally let the toy go, and the wolf found itself parked unceremoniously on its yard wolf butt, the two boys screaming and diving overhead.
The wolf gathered its dignity, marched over to Toki, and ceremoniously dropped the pull toy at his feet. It sat there, panting.
Toki picked up the toy, hefted it in his hand, and then gave it a great heave.
The wolf took off like a shot after it. Despite being a yard wolf, and sort of an asshole, it was, after all, a dog.
“See?” said Raziel. “There you go! My kids fixed your wolves for you!”
“One of them was my kid,” Charles grumbled.
"I ams likes dat wolfs!" Toki told Charles. "I t'ink ams names him, Saber!"
"That's very nice, Toki," said Charles. "Except...."
"Excepts?"
"Uh, I think the him is a her."
"Her?" said Toki. He frowned, and then rifled through his milk crate. He finally came up with a hot pink Functional Bunny scarf. "Saber! Ams comes here, girls!" he yelled.
"Is my rhythm guitarist gonna live out the day?" Charles asked Raziel.
"Want me to hang out with the kids for a while?" she laughed. "I'm gonna have to charge you extra! I need new yard wolf training boots. I'm thinking Valentino!”
"Whatever. I think I'm gonna have to go," Charles sighed, as Nathan stormed up.
"Come on!" urged the lead singer. "Let's go summon a vengeful spirit!"
Charles felt fucking weird. Although he usually regarded it as the domain of Dick Knubbler and the boys, he had been down there in the recording studio countless times, and had even found himself inside the booth on occasions when it was required, such as the time Pickles made Toki watch too much anime, and Charles had had to sit inside with Toki so "da tentacockles ams not rapes him."
But headphones? And a click track? And a producer watching? This wasn't right. He really shouldn't get mixed up in this side if things. But, on the other hand, his job was to indulge a group of spoiled kids. This was their daily ice cream and hookers, he supposed.
Dick signaled for silence. The producer had found him a violin that had actually been maufactured during the Renaissance by one of his rivals. Charles accepted it gladly, hoping this might be enough to keep the cranky spirit at bay. If not.... Well, he had just witnessed Chango and Orula's efforts at dog training.
He closed his eyes and tried to think only of the music. It had been so long since he'd dared play a violin in reality, other than a few notes to test the tuning. The instrument made a tone like no other. It wasn't long before he had in fact forgotten all about the double panes glass and the robotic eyes staring at him. Nathan's tune, like all good ones, simply seemed to sustain itself.
Charles opened his eyes. From somewhere far away, Dick Knubbler was giving a thumbs up sign. He wondered what that was about.
And then. It was like an overtone.
"Oh. Fuck," said Charles.
“Yooooooou!” moaned the cranky Italian spirit. “You witch! You Waldensian!!”
"Now for our prize-winning exorcism!" said Orula.
“Is this gonna work?” Charles asked the vodouisant.
“My songs inevitably work!”
“But you couldn't even get a dog to chase a ball!”
“He is fetching now, is he not?”
“Because of my kid!”
“Because Chango and I softened him up!”
"Yoooouuuuu!" howled the spirit.
"Oh, shut the fuck up," Charles told him. "Orula, whatever you're gonna do, please do it soon!"
“All right, Chango, hit it!” said Orula.
You are
A sprit
Why don't
You clear out?
Believe me when I say
We want you to go away...
"SQUEEEEEE! I love this song," trilled Raziel, who had just appeared with the kids.
Nathan merely growled.
'Cause we
Are two worlds apart
The living
And you are not
Let me say
Just go the fuck away
Raziel was now seated at Orula's feet, Abby clutched in her lap like a Teddy bear, and two pairs of blue eye batted up at him.
Tell me why - you ain't nothing but an asshole
Tell me why - overstaying when you should go home
Tell me why - just get off to the astral plane
We'll make catty remarks when you're gone
Dick Knubbler too hunched over the control panel, blinking green eyes at Orula.
"Et tu, Knubbler?" grumbled Murderface.
Now you can see we've got you Google maps
For the way that you want to go, yeah
The greater the distance
We'll pack you a lunch
And scoot you along the way.
Might I inquire
My one desire
Is just to ask you
Why don't you go away?
Suddenly, there was a terrible crash, and smoke, and fire.
“DOOOOOOOD! Wut happened?” came a voice.
Pickles sat on the ground. He was once again Pickles-colored. And featured just two upper limbs.
"Are you OK?" asked Charles, helping him up.
"I lost mah arms!" Pickles sobbed. "An' mah t'ird eye. Dood, dat t'ird eye wuz cool."
"A third eye is terribly cool," Charles had to agree.
"Yooooooouuuuuu!" moaned the annoying Italian spirit.
"Dick," said Nathan. "Can you record that ghost dude's moans? Because that's pretty cool."
"Hey, spirit baby! Can you give Dick Knubbler some moans, yeah?"
The spirit cooperatively let out a hellish moan.
"Awesome," said Nathan. This will be the first album recorded with ANGELS AND DEAD GUYS,"
"So, whaddya think?" Raziel asked Charles.
"Well, I got my drummer back. And Nathan is now more interested in recording the ghost than my violin crap. So I guess the overall effect is positive."
"Dada? Top ticks?" Charles looked over to where Elias had run into the booth where Pickles' drum kit was set up and waiting.
“No, not chopsticks,” Charles told him.
"Naw, Boon dood!" the drummer told him. "Dose are drumsticks!" Pickles sat down and pounded out a riff in noisy demonstration.
Elias answered by rapping the drumsticks on a nearby drum. He giggled.
"No!" shouted Charles. "Elias! We do NOT play with Uncle Pickles' drums."
"Dood!" said Pickles. "It's OK. Like dis!" he told Elias, tapping an easy rhythm. He adjusted the child's grip slightly, and Elias tried again. Pickles tried something a little more complicated, and suddenly, Elias pulled out his extra pair of arms, grabbed more sticks, and tried to repeat it.
"FECKIN' SWEET!" said Pickles, now grabbing Elias into his lap.
"You sure he's not annoying you, Pickles?" asked Charles.
"Dood! You gaht a natural born drummer!" Pickles told him, holding Elias over the kit so he could reach all the drums.
"Yabb!" said Elias. His little cousin Abby was standing beside the drum kit, her ice blue eyes staring at him in wonder. Pickles set Elias down next to her. "An dwum ticks!" Elias explained to her, holding up his drumsticks.
Suddenly, Abby tackled him, knocking him to the ground, and gave him a sticky toddler kiss. And then she ran off.
Elias sat up, too stunned for words.
"Dood!" said Pickles. "Yoo gaht yer first groupie!"
"Oh, boy," muttered Charles.
"So, your drummer has been successfully fixed?" asked Ganesh, who was relaxing on the couch in his residence.
"As a side effect of Orula's song, yeah," said Charles, who still felt a bit baffled.
"How ever it happened, I am glad."
Charles nodded. And Ganesh was one of those people who probably was honestly glad.
"And I understand from Raziel that we have our own drummer?"
"Oh, gods," said Charles, sinking into the couch. "Why couldn't it be a piccolo?"
"Perhaps because you manage a rock band, and not a string quartet?" laughed Ganesh. "Still, you might consider building him a soundproofed room down there, while I am expanding my studio up here."
"Since when are you extending your studio?"
"The mural issue?" said Ganesh, nodding towards his son's painting, which covered an entire wall of his living room. "He requires more space. So we'll give it to him."
"But what about our house?"
"Boon already has two perfectly fine residences, Sariel! You have said before that you don't wish to spoil the child. Well, overly spoil him."
"Ganesh, he needs a normal place to grow up! A place where he won't find a finger in his soup!"
"But you corrected it immediately. And took him out for a burger. And don't pretend you don't sneak him burgers, because I know you do."
"That finger was attached to a human!"
"And his lunch was once a peaceful cow."
"I don't want him to end up fucked up!"
"When I look at him, I see a bright, smiling child. Sariel, have you seen troubled children?”
"I don't have to see them! I was one! I'm Fallen, Ganesh! You have NO IDEA what that means."
Ganesh stood. "I need to take you some place. Show you something." He took Charles by the hand.
It looked to Charles to be an orphanage. But it was, somehow, a nightmarish place. It was spotlessly clean and well lighted, and surrounded by a pretty garden outside.
But the children seemed to range from merely zoned out to quite miserable. There were staff everywhere, feeding and bathing and tending to them. But some sobbed, some cried, and some, the most disturbing, just sat and rocked.
Ganesh led Charles through the facility, where at last they stood over a crib. The occupant, a tiny boy, seemed to be sobbing himself to sleep.
“Ganesh,” asked Charles, “What is this place? Why isn't anybody here trying to comfort these kids?”
“It is a great tragedy. We didn't know about this place. Not until it was too late. There was a great disaster here some years back, and many children were left orphaned. They had adequate food. At least enough to keep the children from starving. But they had not enough staff. Or at least enough of those who cared. These children were almost never picked up, almost never held.”
“So why isn't anyone trying to hold 'em now?”
“That is what I am trying to tell you, Sariel. These children may never be comforted! They lacked the human touch, at a critical time, and now, alas, it is too late. We may feed them and bathe them and keep their care. But we can never give them comfort. That is impossible now.”
“It's-” said Charles.
“Sariel," said Ganesh, holding his shoulders. "This is what I have been trying to tell you. Look upon our own boy. And be thankful. He is healthy. He is happy. He is surrounded ever by people who love him. And that is the most important thing.”
“Sri Ganesha?” said a staff member. She spoke quickly to him in Hindi.
“One moment, I'll be right back,” Ganesh apologized. He and the woman walked out of the room.
Charles looked at the fussing boy in the crib. He clenched and unclenched his fists.
He thought of Elias, teething. Had his boy ever been that tiny?
And then his hands went to his jacket buttons.
When Ganesh returned to the room, it had grown quiet. “Sariel, are you-” he began.
He looked into the room. And beheld silver.
Silver eyes glanced up at him. “Boon likes the wings. When nothing else works.”
“Yes,” said Ganesh, eyeing the now drowsing boy. “I remember.”
“Maybe this one is part god or angel?” Charles said, gently setting the infant back into the crib.
Ganesh heard a quiet gasp beside him. The worker who had spoken to him earlier had her hands over her mouth, gazing in wonder at a True Formed angel. Ganesh touched her shoulder and spoke some quiet words, and she nodded, dazed, and left the room. “That might be true, Sariel,” said Ganesh.
“I have Cherubs working for me. Maybe I could send some of 'em?”
“That,” said Ganesh, “is a very interesting idea. Yes, let us try that. I will need to train my staff. But we can definitely try.”
"They're not beyond help," said Charles. "No one is beyond help."
"That is quite true. Thank you for reminding me," said Ganesh quietly. He put a hand on the angel's shoulder, and they stood for a while and watched the boy sleep.
