Strange Angels

By K. Koja

Image by Deanse

I got this book as a part of a strange fiction bundle, and like many books I buy in bundles, it’s been sitting on my e-book reader long enough for me to forget I had it, let alone why and even if, I wanted it. I picked it up this January, in a break I needed to take from The Golem and the Jinni by H. Wecker (a subject for another post), because the title resonated with my ongoing Darksiders obsession. But soon I discovered several more unexpected resonances.

Crowfather

https://www.tumblr.com/smehur/676073424214441984/war-brother-why-kill-him-he-proved-an-ally-in

E. A. Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

And thus, as a closer and still close intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempts at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe in one unceasing radiation of gloom.

The Seven Seals on the Armageddon Blade

https://www.tumblr.com/smehur/675366095397568512/the-seven-seals-on-the-armageddon-blade-the

Gone Fishing – A Darksiders Story

Years after the events of Darksiders: Genesis, two tired Horsemen finally get a chance for some well-deserved rest and a bit of escapism. Loose sequel to Not Alone.
Cover by ♥ Anjian ♥

Read it here or on AO3.

Dueling Grounds

A short Darksiders story celebrating the lovely War/Strife art piece I commissioned from DayGlowBlue. ♥

The crowd cheers, rising from the seats of the marble colosseum in a blinding wave of white robes, whiter hairdos, and a flurry of white wings, as another challenger bites the dust.

Yeah, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Pigeons have their own version of the Arena. They call it “The Dueling Grounds”, and the list of rules is so damn long I got dizzy just watching the scroll unfold. The first one, of course, is that only angels are allowed to fight. Pfft. And he asks me why I feel more at home in Hell despite the heat. There is no place in all of Creation more inclusive than the pits of the Arena. Everyone is welcome to bleed and perish there, bird and bat alike. Here, you’re not even allowed to die.