Omni Best Science Fiction Two by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

He grew aware that she was leaning against him. He started to say, “I’ve still got two hours left,” knowing how she would answer, but she was asleep.

He thought of what he’d found in the old encyclopedia set and the embarrassingly few books they had in the apartment and wondered again what a public library would tell him. Even in the books in these rooms, he had found the story everywhere.

Cherubim and seraphim.

The seven archangels.

Nabu, Karubu, Azazel, and Satan.

The Angel Rulers of the Seven Heavens. The angels of Babylon and the Zend Avesta. Theophanic messengers, fallen sons. The Armenian hreshtak—angels at the beginning of the world. The Japanese winged “Bloom Lady,” fairies, and tennin—Japanese host of angels. The Pcrsmnfirishtah, Hebrew mal’ak, Slavic “angel of death,” and the guardian angel of Njals-saga. Dwarfs—fallen angels of the Danes. Allah’s angels sent to worship man. Africa’s child of the angels who brought rain. And the dark Panis, Hindu demons of the night.

And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man . . . And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood . . . And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun . . .

But best of all, the poem he had taught only once in fifteen years: Castor and Pollux, winged children of Leda . . . and her godlike swan.

He thought of the creatures outside, of The Shadow that shook the universes in its passage, and wondered how many times this had happened—this Door—and what it must have been like for other men and women—on the sands of Judaea, on African veldts, in Asian jungles and European fjords long ago. Abraham and Daniel. Guadalupe, Joan of Arc. Coming out of nowhere, the white wings spread, a ragged ball of light that could move anywhere, and the darker thing that would always follow.

He thought of the darker things. He wondered which world they had come from and was afraid he knew.

Ten days ago one of the things had appeared only a few feet from their window as they sat looking out. Its form wasn’t clear. It wasn’t real, and so they didn’t move from the couch. It was the size of a man, dark, wingless, and perfectly still, floating there before them, changing before their eyes—jaws giving way to other jaws, eyes to other eyes, legs to other legs.

When the jaws struck—the glass bending with the blow, the teeth slipping along it with a dark smear that bubbled away into the twilight—he ran for the gun.

The thing was gone when he returned, and he stood looking at the cracked window, at the place where its saliva had etched deeply into the glass.

They waited, afraid, for it to return. For three days they did not fight.

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