City Infernal (19 page)

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Authors: Edward Lee

BOOK: City Infernal
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“You might not like what those changes are,” Via said. “She probably hates you, she might even attack you.”
“I don’t care,” Cassie told them. “I just need to ... tell her I’m sorry.”
The silence that followed made it clear that they all understood her motives. Several rag-tag demons and a few humans waited at the stop. One man stood by smoking a cigarette, though his rib cage was missing; black cancer-ridden lungs leaked smoke when he inhaled. A woman in a football cheerleader’s outfit peeled crusted scabs off necrotic skin; she seemed to be selling them to an Imp in an overcoat. When Cassie glanced down off the platform, she noticed an abundance of crushed bodies and body parts: people thrown onto the tracks.
A deafening roar approached, augmented by loud metallic clangings and screeches. The string of subway cars that pulled in looked more like a procession of iron boilers with rivet-seamed porthole windows. The black metal hissed from intense heat. When the subway stopped, a human in a Ted Bundy t-shirt shoved a crippled demon against the car’s exterior surface. The demon howled, its face sizzling against the scalding iron, and when it recoiled, half of its face remained on the car, frying.
“Where do we sit?” Cassie asked, noticing no seats in the coach.
“Nowhere,” Xeke told her. “Grab the hand loop. The subway travels through the underground fires; it’s super hot.”
“If you sat down,” Via suggested, “you’d literally cook your ass off.”
Cassie grabbed the overhead loop, then glanced down in dread. “My flipflops are melting!”
Xeke and Via chuckled at the oversight, while Hush tugged Cassie forward to stand on the tops of her boots. Then the awkward ride began.
“I feel idiotic!” Cassie exclaimed, embarrassed. She hung partially from the hand-loop, balancing her feet on Hush’s boots, while Hush hugged around her waist.
“It’s only a few minutes to Boniface Square,” Xeke said. “You’ll like it, it’s a pretty hopping part of town, lots of action.”
Cassie frowned; she was pretty sure she’d seen enough “action” already; she couldn’t even contemplate what she’d feel like by now if she hadn’t taken the Reckoning Elixir. The subway jerked periodically, and seemed to be accelerating at a phenomenal speed. Soon, the sound of its wheels clattering over the tracks was completely drowned by the sound of roaring flames. A glance to the port-hole window showed her whitehot fire. Next, she glanced around the car itself. Someone had etched some graffiti on the inside of the hull:
Jesus saves.... He passes to Moses, shoots.... HE SCORES!
And as in any subway, advertisement panels ran across the top of the car. One was a photograph of a demon-child grinning as he threw a rock through a window. JOIN THE MOVEMENT TO RID HELL OF THIS SOCIAL OUTRAGE. GIVE GENEROUSLY TO THE “KILL THE BROODREN FUND.” Another showed a solemn cloaked and hooded man holding a handful of
gemstones:
SICK OF POLTER-RATS EATING YOUR FLESH? TIRED OF BAPHO-ROACHES LAYING EGGS IN YOUR BODY CAVITIES? CALL PIP BOYS NOW! THE BEST IN CRYSTALOGICAL PEST EXTERMINATION!
And another: DO YOU HAVE AN UNWANTED HYBRID? ARE YOU TIRED OF ALL THAT SQUALLING, ALL THOSE DIAPERS, AND ALL THAT MESS? WE PAY CASH FOR YOUR BABIES! WHY WAIT? VISIT AN URBAN PULPING STATION NEAR YOU! THAT’S RIGHT! CASH FOR THOSE UGLY LITTLE CRITTERS!
The heat was insufferable; Cassie felt like a piece of raw clay baking in a kiln. But when she feared she might pass out altogether—and flop to the griddle-hot flooring—the subway had ground to a halt, and in another moment they were helping her out. Cassie paid no mind to the amputated derelicts plodding around the platform on their stumps, nor to the pack of Broodren beating a She-Troll down with crowbars near a vending machine that sold Skin Jerky. Cassie began to revive as the grinding escalator ferried them up into an open park. A statue of Lizzie Borden—bearing an axe—greeted them on the street. It seemed darker here—long twisted tree limbs from malformed branches overhead blocked out the eternal twilight. Cassie noticed ill-colored fruit hanging from some of the trees, fruit the size of footballs.
“Don’t stand under the Uter-Gourds,” Via warned and pulled her away. But Cassie noted that the bizarre things were churning as if to dispel their contents through a suspiciously vulvalike groove. Cassie didn’t care to see what came out.
“Make way,” Xeke said. “Don’t piss him off.”
Cassie nearly screamed when she looked at the thing that trod down the sidewalk: a great fleshy mouth a yard high, walking on a pair of human legs.
“A Dentata-Ped,” Via identified. “They made thousands of them at the Office of Transfiguration before they decided to cancel the project. At first Lucifer wanted an entire army of them to supplement the Mutilation Squads.”
“But they don’t have much for brains.” Xeke chuckled. “They were chomping up Ushers and humans alike.”
The thing strode by, teeth the size of paperback books and a huge lolling tongue.
On the side of its burgeoning head, great orbs for eyes gave Cassie a lusty glance.
“And speaking of Mutilation Squads,” Via pointed out, “here’s something you should know.”
At the comer a sign stood: CITY MUTILATION ZONE.
Cassie stopped, remembering. She remembered her dream.
“I saw that,” she said, “or something just like it.”
“In a nightmare?”
“Yes.”
Then the ensuing carnage replayed in her mind, the phalanx of demons tearing into a crowded street to dismember, rape, and destroy.
“They have the Zones to keep things from getting dull around here,” Via mentioned. “Without any warning, the Squads will Nectoport into a Zone and go on a rampage, just for fun.”
“Anything goes in a Mutilation Zone,” Xeke added. “But don’t worry; they did this street not too long ago. Probably won’t hit it again for a while.”
Cassie tried to feel confident as they passed the sign and stepped into the street. “What did you say a minute ago? They ...
Nectoport?”
“It’s the most advanced form of spatial displacement. Kind of like the transporters on Star Trek, only the Sorcerers at the De Rais Labs use tapped psychic energy from their Torture Factories as fuel for the process. It’s the same sort of power that Hell uses in place of electricity, except the Nectoports use a lot more energy.”
They were in the middle of the street when Cassie asked, “So these Squads could appear—anytime—on any street in a Mutilation Zone?”
“Uh-hmm.”
“Even this street right here?”
“Uh-hmm.”
Flipflops snapping, Cassie ran the rest of the way across the street as the others laughed after her. Eventually they all crossed.
“So where are we going now?” Cassie asked.
“Munchies,” Xeke answered.
The short walk seemed as pleasant as it could be, considering that this was Hell. Open-air cafes lined the street, wafting awful scents over the heads of their patrons. One waiter prepared a tableside dish on a red-hot iron plate: small mice-like rodents jumped on the plate, squealing, as they were flambee’d in smoking oil. Espresso machines hissed, expelling steaming blood into dainty cups.
“Careful here,” Xeke said.
One by one they carefully stepped into a large revolving door, as one might find at the front of a ritzy Manhattan hotel—only the edges of the door were sharpened cutting blades. Dried blood and skin on the blades proved that some hadn’t been so careful.
Shortly thereafter, they were sitting down at a table in what was, by initial appearances, a high-class restaurant. The Alferd Packer Room at the No Seasons Hotel.
“This is the best restaurant in any human district,” Xeke said, “and finally, we have the money to eat here.”
A waist-coated busboy—with white warts all over his face—politely filled their water glasses, but the water looked full of rust. Cassie noticed maggots frozen in the ice cubes. “Almost all of the entrees are human-based but it’s not that ground-up stuff that comes out of the Pulping Stations,” Via said with enthusiasm.
“I’m not going to eat
human meat!”
Cassie whispered hotly across the table.
“It’s not like cannibalism in the Living World, Cassie.” Via perused a shiny black menu with gold tassels hanging off the spine. “Here it’s just ... meat. It’s an everyday resource.”
Xeke grinned. “And it tastes just like chicken.”
Not even the Reckoning Elixir would remedy this. “Please,” she pleaded. “Don’t eat
human
stuff! Not in front of me!”
“I guess it’s only proper that we humor her.” Xeke ran his finger down the menu. “Hmm. Let’s see.”
They were attended by a shapely waitress in black slacks and a pretty white blouse with puffed sleeves; however, the front of her face looked collapsed as if beaten in with a pitted bludgeon.
“We’ll start off with an order of Caco-Crabgut Rangoon,” Xeke told the waitress, “the Nether-Worm Tenders in Mustard-Sorrel Sauce, and the Creole Spiced Gargoyle-Liver Pate on toast points.”
For main courses, Xeke ordered Demon-Brain Flambee in Pesto Lung Puree, Via the Troll Wellington Au Jus with E. Coli-Cream Baked Bilge Apples, and for Hush the Spotted Sewer-Fish Sushi and Abyss-Eel Bowel Tempura with Pickled Ginger.
“There. Satisfied?” Xeke asked Cassie. “We won’t scarf any human meat.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, though.
Human
ribs beat baby backs by a long shot.”
“I’ll remember that next time I’m at Ruby Tuesdays.”
“What are you going to have, Cassie?” Via asked. “Veggies? You’d love the Devil Plantains. They deep-fry them in Gargoyle lard. Better than French fries at McDonald’s, no kidding.”
The cycle of culinary grotesqueries made Cassie feel exhausted. “Oh, nothing for me. I’m watching my calories today.”
The “food” arrived amid indescribable odors—but at least the presentation was nice. Cassie averted her eyes as her companions dined, and then she exclaimed “No way! You’ve had enough!” when Xeke jokingly asked if anyone cared for dessert. Then he paid the bill and tipped the waitress a Nero Note, bidding, “This is Be Kind To Mirrors Week. Treat yourself to a new face, babe.”
“Why, thank you, sir,” she mumbled through a mouthful of bloody spittle and tooth fragments.
The red-coated doorman, a well-bred Imp, nodded when they left the restaurant and went back outside. The hotel’s entrance looked as exorbitant as any five-star operation in Washington’s power-lunch district; the long canopy and red carpet could’ve made Cassie forget she was actually in Hell ... until a throng of derelicts encircled them. Humans and demons in advanced states of emaciation tugged at them and held out gnawed and rotten hands, begging for change. Cassie noticed many with ears missing, eyes, fingers and sometimes whole hands missing too: pieces of themselves that they’d cut off and sold to the Diviners.
“Beat it!” Xeke yelled with authority and shoved them off. They squalled, cursing, but eventually dispersed.
Cassie’s first reaction was one of pity. “Can’t you give them some money? We’ve got plenty.”
Via explained, “They’re Zap-Heads, Cassie. It’s their own fault.”
“Only dopes do dope, especially in Hell.” Xeke brushed muck and debris off his leather jacket. “Zap is Hell’s version of heroin. It’s a concoction of infernal herbs boiled in Grand Duke urine until it’s cooked down to paste at the Distillation Vats. The bodily waste of anyone in the Hierarchy is of great value.”
Via added, “Zap is the most addictive substance in either world. One mainline and you’re hooked for life, and here that means eternity. Zap-Heads are great business for the Smoke Diviners. They systematically amputate parts of themselves, to sell in exchange for Zap money.”
“Only a fraction of one-percent of users ever get off it. If a former addict is ever caught clean, they take them straight to a Re-Tox Center.” Then Xeke pointed to a Public Service poster hung in a window.
DO YOUR PART! HELP MAINTAIN THE MISERY! A grainy photograph showed several Zap addicts inserting long syringes into their nostrils. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL DRUG DEALER!
More tragedy. The worst of Cassie’s own world seemed reflected here as well. Or perhaps it wasn’t a reflection at all, but a source. Before she’d come here she’d always believed that evil was just a word, an excuse that the gullible used to define misfortune. But now she could see that evil was an entity, a grand design exercised to offend God.
That was the only purpose of this place.
And now she knew where the evil in her own world really came from.
Back out on the streets, the red twilight seemed to darken as queer yellow clouds moved in overhead. The effect only amplified the brightness of the streetlights and myriad lit building windows. From high poles, just like in any city, she noticed power cables, only these were much more stout. A block away, some sort of juncture of cables sprouted from one of the poles and led into a large cement edifice with a fluttering neon pyramid on top. “What is that?” Cassie inquired. She could hear a heavy, resonant humming.

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