Chapter 2 Hagalaz

The bones of winter soaked in the light snow that dusted campus, trees painted black by the melting water. In the distance, Colonial Williamsburg smelt of woodsmoke and confections from the sweet shop. Further down the cobblestone road pranced horses drawing sleighs full of tourists, decked out gaily for the Christmas season. Single candles shone in the colonial windows like souls. Bruton Parish church rose above the masses, a brownstone majesty confectioned in white. Surrounding it rested a graveyard in the vein of old English burial places, fenced by iron gates.

A brick wall rounded the perimeter, forbidding passerby from glancing inside.

The graves rested below the silent firs. Inside lingered a murder of crows, absently pecking at worms. A wind picked up, and a lull fell over the streets.

Evening service ended as the Parish bells rang. The church emptied of congregants, shuffling off into the snow. One lingered, clad in a white trench coat, with a shock of black hair. His fingers traced the gates as he smiled quietly, humming a hymn off key. The snow fell in small white globes around his figure. When the streets emptied, he hopped the iron fence, coming to a rest near a headstone.

His face was a study in severity, too sharp to be handsome, with a hooked nose that offset the slyness of his flame-blue eyes. He lit a cigarette. The sparks danced in his irises as he settled onto the headstone. He nodded gravely to the crows pecking at the ground. They bobbed back, cawed, and returned to their avian business. He proceeded to stare at them intently until his cigarette disintegrated. He let it burn til the end, charring his fingers on the ash. The weals disappeared. He smirked and lit another. Smoke, finish, burn. Repeating the process until dead cold iced the sun to a premature burial. A thin layer of snow settled over his clothes.

The streets of Colonial Williamsburg were empty. In the blackness of the night, two over-large, mangy crows alighted on the cross that crested the church. They croaked, a burble like trolls with indigestion. The man cocked his head then crushed the cigarette in his hand. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver charm. It glinted in the moonlight, catching the birds' attention. They darted toward the trinket, hopping onto the slab on which he rested to nuzzle his hand.

He laughed, a rich sound the umber of loamy soil. "Gog, Magog," he said respectively as they crept onto his shoulders, pecking his hat off his head. "Where have you been, you little bastards."

Gog held its clawed foot up in offering. In it was clasped a red silk ribbon with stray bits of auburn hair knotted in. Its master took the present, sniffing it as if testing the ribbon's origins. He pried a bit of the hair off and crooked his lip as he examined the strand. "Well I'll be damned. It's her's." He fondled Gog's feathers. "Good job, you mangy worm."

Magog, sullenly forgotten, pecked its owner's cheekbone. In its beak was a cockroach.

"Ah," the man said, "a snack. Why thank you, maggot." He popped the roach into his mouth and with a crunch swallowed it. The man grimaced. "Tastes like the fraternities. You found this at the dorms, didn't you..." he sighed, petting Magog idly.

"That's what happens when corvids cater to you," a dry voice came from behind a copse of firs.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Bub himself. Done whoring in Pandemonium for the day?"

"As always, your humor runs black. Truly, Sam, the evening's too young for your jesting. If you had any idea how harrowing today had been while you've been off carousing on the mortal planes, you'd bite your tail like an ouroborous and swallow your own ass."

"But as you've informed me a myriad times, my mouth is my ass, so what does that make me, Bub?"

"A snake, as always." Bub stepped from the trees. He was a well-muscled figure with ice blond hair and a visage reminiscent of Alexander the Conqueror. A thick scar ran crosswise across his face, marring his beauty. He wore all black: a midnight turtleneck cinched in by belted cargo pants and combat boots. Their darkness offset the sharp pinprick pupils of his eyes that swam in seas of red.

Sam appraised Bub. "You're dressed to the tens, as usual. Allow me to guess: you rolled out of your labyrinth, reached into your closet, where perfectly matched garments lay folded like corpses on gurneys-"

"-no corpse analogies, Samael. Not this early in the evening-"

"-donned your perfectly dreary attire, and attended to your equally dreary work drinking coffee black as your garments, the same coloring of your day, then let the ink leak into your soul-"

"The ink from my ledgers, or metaphorical blackness of my soul?-"

"Both, Beelzebub, both! Devil, you're dry as Prohibition and twice as dapper."

Bub pursed his lips. "I'm not sure I approve of the hat, Samael. This is official business. Where is your formal attire?"

"Official business my scaly derriere. You mean that louse of a girl? Oh please let me terrorize her- let me drive her mad. She already shrieks like a banshee in heat from the nightmares."

"Your robe, Samael," Bub said steely. "We have dinner with the archangels in order to broker peace, or have you forgotten that too?"

"I have forgotten nothing," Sam snapped. He shooed Gog and Magog away, muttering. His clothes morphed into dripping shadows and formed themselves into a severe black robe with a heavy cowl and hood. "Especially not how this blasted vestment itches! Now back to the girl. Are you thinking slow torment or a quick death?"