For A Few Souls More (Heaven's Gate Book 3) (17 page)

“Hey!” called the man. “You one of they demons?”

“Nope,” Billy replied, “no demons here.”

He stepped back through the barrier. Elisabeth had gone, but he wasn’t altogether surprised. He walked up the road a little and found her sat on the bench outside the general store talking to Abernathy.

“I need to open up a whole new supply line,” the shopkeeper was saying, “find a way of buying this muck you mortals like. You know, cows and peas and stuff.”

“I got bored,” she told Billy, “so Ben has been entertaining me.”

“She’s teaching me the point of rhubarb,” Abernathy said, “but I’m just not getting it. If you want something sharp that takes the skin off your teeth, drink acid, that’s what I say.”

“It’s the dessert form of acid,” she agreed, holding out her watch to Billy. “You’ve been gone hours.” The watch said it was nearly half past two.

“Actually,” Billy held up his own watch, “I’ve been gone five minutes. Guess what day it was.”

“Do tell.”

“Thursday.”

“What day is it over here?” asked Abernathy. “I never really bother with days. When they’re all the same who keeps count?”

“I do, darling,” said Elisabeth “and it’s Sunday.”

“Great, that next to a Thursday?”

“No.”

“Well it seems to me that I’m better off. If you mortals can’t come to an agreement why should I bother?” He went back inside to increase some of his prices. That never failed to make for a cheerful afternoon.

Elisabeth was jotting down the time in her notebook. “The differential is definitely narrowing. I shall tell father when I see him, he’ll get all excited and add it to his graph.”

“At least, with time moving faster over here, I could hang around for a few months and not lose my job,” said Billy. “It certainly stretches your holiday.”

“You really think you’ll ever go back to it anyway?”

Billy shrugged. “I suppose it seems unlikely. Got to do something for money though, can’t survive off fresh air.”

“Maybe,” she said, pulling him down onto the bench next to her, “you should just marry someone rich.”

“I guess that’s one solution,” he agreed. “Know anyone?”

Elisabeth kissed him on the lips and smiled. “No. You?”

7.

M
C
D
AID HAD FINISHED
his coffee and chatted awhile, accepting that his employers were likely to be several hours. After very little prompting he’d even helped Hodge with his repairs. Once he’d decided that loitering any longer was to risk a long walk home, he left Elspeth’s house and made his way back towards the main street. Noticing that the carriage was still waiting outside the Governor’s house, he decided to take a walk along the main street, if only so that, when the inevitable cross-examination came later, he could say he had.

His time with Elspeth and Hodge had calmed some of his nerves. As grotesque as some of the sights were he tried to approach them with an open mind. He was not always successful—perhaps a braver man than he could come face to teeth with the rotating maw of the voracious Acka and not give out a startled cry, but for him it was involuntary—but he no longer viewed every resident of Wormwood as the enemy.

He even partook in a jug of something that was like, but wasn’t quite, iced tea at one of the tables outside Madame Mimi’s Refreshatorium. It occurred to him after a couple of glasses that the liquid may have contained something mildly narcotic, as he felt as if he were floating for half an hour or so after drinking it. For a few minutes he panicked slightly, imagining the dressing-down he would likely get from his employer if he appeared insensate when they collected him, but—and no doubt this was also a side-effect of the relaxing brew—he decided it was all in the name of experience and he’d argue as much if pressed. That decided, he found himself enjoying the sensation of weightlessness as he ambled along the street, browsing in the shops and smiling at the folk he passed.

“Well look at you,” came a voice from one of the doorways. “Stranger in town?”

He looked up to see what appeared to be a creature entirely composed of hands. Its limbs were extended fingers, its body a cluster of clasped palms, a knuckle raised as if for a head. With mild curiosity—that ‘iced tea’ really was doing its work, he decided—he looked to see a mouth but the creature seemingly possessed none, the palms that made up its torso merely parting slightly when it spoke, the sound escaping from between them.

“Just visiting,” McDaid told it. “I’m here with the Governor.”

“Lucifer?”

McDaid was momentarily thrown. “Not really,” he said, assuming the creature meant some insult towards his employer, “though certainly Mr Poynter has some enemies. He’s here to talk to your people about, well, you know... what’s going to happen now you’re living in America.”

“I’m living in America, am I?” the creature said, its palms clapping together in amused applause, “and here I was thinking you were now living in the Dominion.”

“Who you talking to, Fingers?” came a voice from inside. It was so dark inside the building McDaid couldn’t discern the speaker, though the shadows appeared to move.

“Some mortal,” Fingers replied. It was silent for a moment, then turned back into the doorway. “Come in,” it said, one of its digit limbs beckoning him.

McDaid couldn’t think of a polite reason why he shouldn’t.

As he stepped inside, Fingers extended a limb and pushed the door closed behind him. “Apparently he’s here to tell us what we have to do now we’re under mortal rule.”

“I didn’t mean it quite like that,” McDaid said, staring into the darkness to find Fingers’ friend. The darkness moved once more, shifting across the walls and floor as if a light was being shifted, altering the shadows. McDaid realised that Fingers’ friend wasn’t in the darkness, they
were
the darkness. “Anyway, it’s just talk.”

The darkness moved towards him, sliding along the floor like oil.

“There’s a lot of talk these days,” said Fingers. “Nyck and I don’t like it much.”

“Nick?” McDaid asked, confused.

“Nyctos,” the darkness said, “people just call me Nyck. Are you afraid?”

McDaid wasn’t, though, having been asked, he suddenly realised that perhaps he ought to be. “No,” he said, “should I be?”

“Mortals always used to be afraid of me,” said Nyctos. “I would slide over their heads and they’d lose themselves in my infinity. They’d scream but nobody would hear them except the darkness.”

“He’s showing off,” said Fingers. McDaid, whose nervousness had now returned, was about to insist that he wasn’t when he realised Fingers was referring to Nyctos. “He misses the old days when he had power, rather than just moping around in corners with an empty belly.”

“I still have power,” Nyctos said, “see how it trembles?”

“You’re an old ham,” Fingers laughed, those palms clapping together again. It prodded at McDaid. “You scared of the dark?”

“Not really,” McDaid replied, which wasn’t entirely true but it seemed such a childish fear that he was reluctant to admit it here. “I guess I used to be.” He made for the door. “I should be going,” he said, “my friends will be waiting for me.”

“Your mortal friends?” Nyctos asked.

“Yes, they’ll probably be finished now and we’ll need to be getting back.”

Fingers moved so that it was between McDaid and the door.

“What about Biter?” Nyctos asked.

McDaid didn’t understand the question, but when Fingers replied he realised it hadn’t been addressed to him. “I don’t see him around, do you?”

“I guess not. Though if he gets to hear then we’ll be on Lucifer’s shit list.”

“Then I guess,” Fingers loomed behind McDaid, pushing him towards Nyctos, “we’d better make sure there’s no evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” McDaid asked.

Fingers placed two limbs on McDaid’s shoulders, forcing him to his knees, staring into the darkness of Nyctos’ body.

“I see your fear!” the darkness said. McDaid felt the tips of Fingers’ limbs pressing on either side of his head.

“Please don’t,” he said, “I don’t want to...” then Fingers pinched off his head like it was extinguishing a candle. McDaid’s body tumbled forward into the darkness of Nyctos’ belly, spurting fruitlessly into the black.

8.

I
NSIDE THE STORE,
Abernathy threw William a broom and suggested he got on with the business of using it.

“And stop looking so damned thoughtful all the time,” he told him, “it encourages the customers to do the same. A thoughtful man is a man that puts things back on shelves rather than buying them.”

William smiled and nodded. He’d taken to helping out in the general store because he needed something to occupy him. Forset had his newfound position in politics and Billy and Elisabeth had become inseparable. He didn’t mind, was warmed by it in fact, but it did rather leave him feeling like he was a spare wheel. So he filled shelves, swept floors and enjoyed the sensation of letting go of his old life and taking on something new. Abernathy, for all his harsh words, was a reasonable enough employer and they enjoyed trading information. William told Abernathy about the mortal world, Abernathy sketched him a picture of the Dominions. It was a profitable transaction for them both.

“Hey kid,” said a gravelly voice from behind him, “where can I find something to eat that ain’t going to fight back?”

He turned to see a dwarf ambling along the aisle, staring at the wares with obvious suspicion.

“You got a problem with my goods, high-pockets?” asked Abernathy, appearing from around the corner and never deaf to any possible complaint.

The dwarf looked down at Abernathy. “What’s it to you?”

“My store, my rules,” Abernathy replied. “Come in from the mortal world, have you?”

“Yeah, I was travelling here with friends and they all upped and vanished so I thought I’d see what I was missing.”

“Left you on your lonesome did they? Don’t sound much like friends to me.”

The dwarf shrugged. “You may be right. We weren’t so much friends as colleagues I guess. We were in a circus together.”

“Circus? What, like gladiator sports?” Abernathy was thinking of the Palace of Bones, a popular entertainment spot in the Dominion of Circles.

The dwarf looked confused. “Side show, you know, freaks.”

“Freaks? And what were you supposed to be?”

“Take a guess, name’s Knee-High.”

“What sort of name is that, you lofty son of a bitch? You telling me you was in a freak show because you were shorter than lanky arseholes like him?” He pointed at William.

Knee-High shrugged. “Where I come from it ain’t common.”

“Freaks my ball sack.” Abernathy spat in disgust, stared at the result and then looked at William. “Fetch a cloth kid, looks like I left half a lung on the canned goods.”

William rolled his eyes and went off to find one.

“What’s your real name, boy?” he asked Knee-High, “because you’re sure as hell taller than my goddamned knees.”

“Brian.”

“Fine, come with me Brian, we’ll get something to eat and drink while the kid minds the store, and you can tell me all about these freaks of yours.”

9.

“W
E NEED TO
act!” Atherton told the gathered crowd, who hung on his every word. “We sit up here, waiting for our leaders to step in on our behalf, but they do nothing. They’re in there now, talking, negotiating, making compromises. Is that enough?”

There was a murmur of disagreement.

Atherton’s gaze fell on the face of Father Martin who was hanging back, his eyes down.

“Of course it’s not. They’ve had long enough. That’s not heaven. That’s not God’s domain. We’ve seen nothing holy step out of its influence. That is Hell. That place should be surrounded by the army, guarding us against the monsters that live there. Instead the door lies open and these things are allowed to just wander out, making their way into our world. We’ve watched them, one after another, strolling off towards our towns and cities. Every minute we stand by and do nothing something else gets free. An invasion force that our leaders chose to ignore. What do they want, these creatures? What does the devil always want?”

There were a few suggestions shouted out from the crowd.

“He wants to corrupt,” Atherton said, “he wants to destroy. He wants each and every one of our souls.”

He turned towards Wormwood. “And who’s going to stop him? Nobody seems to want to try. Nobody seems to care.”

The crowd disagreed, they cared, they told him, they cared a great deal.

“So maybe it’s down to us to show the way,” Atherton said, “maybe it’s down to us to act?”

There was a small cheer at that and Atherton knew he had them.

Of course, they didn’t stand a chance, as he had accepted earlier. If they attacked Wormwood it would be a massacre. But perhaps that was what was needed. Let his employers preach politics then, when the dirt was stained red. Sometimes, to get something important done, you had to make sacrifices.