City Infernal (21 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
And, of course, no one was there but him.
Jackass,
he called himself.
he called himself.
The lagging sensation remained spooky nonetheless. It felt as though someone had touched him, shaken him, while he slept.
“Must’ve dreamed that someone touched me,” he muttered. The whole room seemed to look back at him in his fading fear. “Then I forgot the dream.”
Now the bright light was
too
bright, bringing a sudden headache; he turned them off and walked in the much dimmer light from the nightstand to the broad mahogany armoire in the comer. He opened the frame-tiled doors and dug his pack of cigarettes out from behind rolls of socks. The antique parliament clock on the wall ticked nervously.
He
was still nervous, from the dream-touch or whatever it had been. It seemed very late but then the clock told him it was only a few minutes past midnight. He looked at the half-empty pack of cigarettes and thought,
To hell with it. I might as well do this right.
too
bright, bringing a sudden headache; he turned them off and walked in the much dimmer light from the nightstand to the broad mahogany armoire in the comer. He opened the frame-tiled doors and dug his pack of cigarettes out from behind rolls of socks. The antique parliament clock on the wall ticked nervously.
He
was still nervous, from the dream-touch or whatever it had been. It seemed very late but then the clock told him it was only a few minutes past midnight. He looked at the half-empty pack of cigarettes and thought,
To hell with it. I might as well do this right.
Next he was shuffling out of the first-floor bedroom, in his underwear. The headache pulsed; he kept the lights off, preferring a dark trip through the foyer to the pantry behind the kitchen. Moonlight through the back bow windows barely gave him enough light to see by, but eventually he got his hand around the bottle of Glenlivet that he kept stashed behind some sacks of flour. Given Cassie’s former drinking problem, he didn’t want any hooch sitting around to tempt her. Thank God, though, that she’d worked hard to put all that behind her. As far as Bill knew, his daughter hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since Lissa had died.
He took the bottle into the kitchen where the moonlight was brighter, carefully retrieved a glass from the cabinet, and poured himself two fat fingers. The first sip sang down his throat. Ooo, yeah! Then he sealed the ritual by lighting a cigarette.
Yeah, momma!
In his retirement, at least, this seemed appropriate. Nothing wrong with a man who’d worked hard all his life having a drink and a cigarette.
Yeah, momma!
In his retirement, at least, this seemed appropriate. Nothing wrong with a man who’d worked hard all his life having a drink and a cigarette.
At midnight.
In the dark.
In his underwear.
Well ...
To hell with it,
he thought again.
he thought again.
He downed the drink, poured himself another. Just a finger and a half this time. Hell, he’d heard on the health shows a bunch of times that a few drinks a day could even be good for you, lowered the cholesterol count or some such. What could be the harm, especially to a man with some heart troubles?
He took another edgy sip.
And that’s when he heard the footsteps.
Shit! Cassie’s coming down the stairs!
The last thing he wanted was for her to catch him sneaking a nip and a smoke at midnight. In his underwear. He stashed the glass in the cabinet, doused the cigarette in the sink. Then he walked back out into the foyer, trying to seem as casual as possible.
Casual, yes. At midnight in his underwear.
Strange.
The hall lights on the second-floor landing remained off. And the long stairwell was empty.
Jackass,
he called himself for a second time.
I must have one grade-A class of the willy’s.
He was certain he’d heard Cassie coming down the long stairs.
he called himself for a second time.
I must have one grade-A class of the willy’s.
He was certain he’d heard Cassie coming down the long stairs.
Back to the kitchen, to retrieve his drink.
What the hell is going on! Is this some kind of a damn joke?
Not two seconds back in the kitchen, he heard it again.
Footsteps. Slow but deliberate footsteps.
Only this time they were going back up the stairs. He dashed back to the foyer. Turned on the crystal chandelier.
There was no one on the stairs.
All right, I’m still shook up over the dream, or whatever the hell it was.
It was the only explanation possible ... or so he thought.
I’m like a little kid, scared of the dark and wanting mommie to make the monsters go away!
It was the only explanation possible ... or so he thought.
I’m like a little kid, scared of the dark and wanting mommie to make the monsters go away!
Out went the chandelier and back went Bill to the kitchen. He finished his drink but then—
Holy MOTHER-
—dropped the glass when he felt a hand gently touch his shoulder from behind. The glass shattered, spewing wet fragments across the kitchen floor.
He spun around, and in spite of his fear, he knew there’d be nothing there.
And was wrong.
In the moon-lit darkness, a slender young woman stood before him.
Grinning.
She was nude, her skin pale as cream. Just standing there.
Bill couldn’t move a single fiber of muscle.
The young woman’s slender arms reached out. Her white hands touched his chest but the touch seemed to
dissolve.
Her hands seemed tangible for only a moment, then they disappeared into his chest.
dissolve.
Her hands seemed tangible for only a moment, then they disappeared into his chest.
A ghost touching him.
But now he knew who the ghost was.
The long black hair with the white streak on the right side.
It was Lissa, his dead daughter.
Worse was the obvious mutilation.
Her breasts were gone, as if sliced off, leaving only two angled lines of black stitches in their place.
“I’m in Hell now, Dad,” she said, but the voice flowed from her mouth like some corrupted dark fluid.
Then the apparition disappeared.
I’m fucked up,
Bill concluded, wiping his brow on his t-shirt sleeve.
Bill concluded, wiping his brow on his t-shirt sleeve.
There’d been no ghost, of course. There were no such things. But there were hallucinations, optical illusions, and horrible images produced by the subconscious. There were powers of suggestion from unknown and undeciphered traumas and stress. There were alcohol-induced visual tricks.
Bill regained his breath. He refused to let this bother him. He was a mature man, not a nut. He poured the expensive, eighteen-year-old scotch down the drain in the fancy brass-and-porcelain-fitted kitchen sink. It gurgled away, leaving its warm aroma floating in the air.
That’s enough of that,
he thought firmly.
he thought firmly.
Lissa was dead. It was the worst tragedy of his life, and it had obviously left its mental scars. True, the entirety of those scars would probably never go away altogether, and he realized that.
But she was dead and buried and gone now.
There were no ghosts. There were no spirits haunting the dark.
He walked stolidly back to his room, turned off the bedside lamp, and got under the sheets.
Jackass. Just go to sleep.
He was determined to do exactly that, but when he rolled over he saw that someone else was in bed with him.
(II)Cassie felt distressed as she, Via, and Hush trotted away from the abattoir of the park, their gory footprints trailing behind. As they ran off, Constabulary platoons marched in the opposite direction, followed by Collection Crews pushing their wheeled hoppers to pick up the carnage and deliver it to the Pulping Stations. In spite of the gruesome incident, the rest of the district seemed back to normal only minutes afterward, as though such outbursts of atrocity were as routine as a fender-bender in any other city.
Evidently, they were.
“We’ll be pretty safe here,” Via suggested to her. “The Constabs don’t generally pay much attention to the heart of Boniface Square. Lucifer likes all the money that pours in from the clubs, restaurants, and stores.”
“It’s like a shopping district?” Cassie asked.
“Entertainment district is a better way to think of it. The better-heeled residents of Hell come here to party. It’s like the Hollywood Boulevard of Hell.”
“But as ex-residents—XR’s,” Cassie ventured, “I thought that makes you fugitives, right? Doesn’t that mean that the Constabulary will be looking all over the place for you?”
“Technically, yes, but there aren’t any official warrants out for us here. The Ghettoblocks and Industrial Zone are another story, ’cos we’ve committed a lot of crimes there. Mostly stealing, and things that would be considered Crimes of Nonconformity.”
“Crimes of—” Cassie began to question.
“Resisting arrest, killing Ushers and other Constabs, ripping demons off—stuff like that,” Via answered as though it were no big deal. “One time Hush painted
Satan Sucks
on the front door to the Westminster Church of the Anti-Christ, so the Constabs but an APB out on us. Then there was another time when they sent an entire regiment of Conscripts after us ’cos Xeke blew up a police station near Baalzephon Mall.”
Satan Sucks
on the front door to the Westminster Church of the Anti-Christ, so the Constabs but an APB out on us. Then there was another time when they sent an entire regiment of Conscripts after us ’cos Xeke blew up a police station near Baalzephon Mall.”
“So ... you’re like urban guerillas?” Cassie saw the association. “Like the terrorists Xeke was talking about earlier?”
“We do our part, but it’s all nickel-dime compared to the real revolutionaries. Like Xeke was saying, there is a bona fide resistence movement—the Satan Park Contumacy—but they operate mainly in the City Center. We don’t have the guts to join them.”
This sounded fascinating to Cassie. “Why not? It seems to me that if enough people banded together—”
“We could overthrow Lucifer?” Via laughed at the idealism. “It’ll never happen, Cassie. The Contumacy is led by Ezoriel, one of the Fallen Angels, but even with half a million volunteers, he can’t beat Lucifer’s security forces. They’ve been trying to break into the Mephisto Building for a thousand years, but even with the power of a Fallen Angel, they’ve barely been able to penetrate the Flesh Warrens. It may sound cowardly, but if we joined them, we’d just wind up in the Torture Factories eventually. We gotta spend eternity here—eternity’s a long friggin’ time. Why would we want to make it even worse for ourselves?”
Cassie couldn’t very well argue. After all, she was still a member of the Living World, and as-yet Un-Damned. She only hoped she could keep it that way.
“Well, at least that’s something of a relief,” she observed, “that we’re safe from the Constabs in this district.”
Concern on her face, Hush pulled on Via’s punky leather jacket and silently mouthed the word Nicky.
“Oh, yeah,” Via was reminded. “There is one guy we’ve got to look out for, though. Nicky the Cooker. He’s not in the Constabulary; he’s a Mob guy. A while back, we ripped one of his shylocks off for five thousand.”
“Like a loan shark, you mean?”
“Yeah, same thing here. Nicky’s one guy who’ll
always
be looking for us, so we’ve got to be careful. ’Cos of the strip clubs and bars, he does a lot of business in Boniface Square.”
always
be looking for us, so we’ve got to be careful. ’Cos of the strip clubs and bars, he does a lot of business in Boniface Square.”
Cassie hated to ask, but she asked anyway. “Why do they call him ‘The Cooker?’ ”
“If you cross him and he catches you, he cooks you.”
“Cooks you?”
“Yeah. He owns a sulphur pit in Outer-Sector East,” Via calmly explained. “They put you in a big metal drum, seal the lid, and throw the drum into the pit. So you just sit there in that drum and
cook.
Forever.”
cook.
Forever.”
Jesus!
Cassie thought.
Cassie thought.
“It’s real funny how a lot of the Mob guys in the Living World kick off, go to Hell, and continue being Mob guys here. Live or dead, I guess you are what you are. Lucifer loves organized crime and all the corruption that comes with it.”
Cassie imagined so, and Nicky the Cooker was one person she hoped she’d never have to meet.
Soon they were walking through an urban maze of strip malls and commercial buildings boasting a multitude of enterprises. “Boniface Square is huge,” Via said. “Where we just came from—the restaurant and hotel district—is the Square’s ritzy area. from here down, things get kind of seedy. Bars, strip joints, porno parlors, and bordellos, like that. It’s where wealthier citizens buy their drugs and get their jollies. The music clubs are all mixed in here, too.”
Music clubs,
Cassie reminded herself.
Like the place where Lissa works.
The endeavor to find her sister remained foremost on her mind, but then there was always the issue of Xeke. Cassie was terribly worried about him, but Via seemed unperturbed.
Cassie reminded herself.
Like the place where Lissa works.
The endeavor to find her sister remained foremost on her mind, but then there was always the issue of Xeke. Cassie was terribly worried about him, but Via seemed unperturbed.
“Aren’t you even a little worried about Xeke?” she asked.
“A little? Sure. This is Hell. There’s lots to worry about. But I’ve seen Xeke rip his way through Mutilation Squads and Constabs a bunch of times. The smartest thing for us to do is simply follow his instructions. He knows what he’s talking about. He told us to meet him at the S&N Club, so that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t
make
it to the club?” Cassie had no choice but to challenge Via’s confidence.
make
it to the club?” Cassie had no choice but to challenge Via’s confidence.
“He’ll make it,” was all Via said.
More questions arose, a force of habit. “I’m a little confused, you know, about you and Xeke—your—”
“Relationship?” Now Via seemed subtly displeased. “I’m in love with him. How’s that?”
It seemed so. “But—”
“Is he in love with me? Hell, no. To him, we’re just pals, we’re ‘buds.’ Jesus. We’ve never even gotten it on, never even kissed, which pisses me off ’cos I’ve given him every chance.” A dolorousness crept into her voice.
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