For A Few Souls More (Heaven's Gate Book 3) (9 page)

Shadows passed over them, cast by unseen behemoths in the sky. If the beasts wished to hunt they’d need to do so on open ground, there was no way that creatures of such size could pass between these buildings.

“We’re here,” said the kid, halting the rakh opposite a tower of grey brick that reared up in front of them. It stood at the heart of a paved, circular space, the stones winding in a screw towards the building, making it look like it was a long, brick shaft that had been forced into the earth, perhaps to stab the world in its corrupted heart.

“You need to announce yourself before they let you in,” the kid said. “They like their privacy, turn up unwanted and you’ll be a stain on the sidewalk begging for a bucket to pour yourself into.”

“You do it,” he said, “it’s your bounty.”

Her confidence wavered slightly as she made her way towards the entrance to the building, a large revolving door of stained glass. “I’ve found him for you!” she shouted. “And wish to claim my reward.”

For a moment there was silence then the revolving doors began to spin, a low whisper of cushioned metal sliding through its groove.

“You’ve found who?” asked a voice so barely audible it sounded like its speaker was some distance away, possibly underground.

The creature that spoke was a corpulent thing, dressed immaculately in a concierge’s uniform complete with gold braid and the woven hair of innocents.

The rider stepped off his rakh and walked forward, unwrapping the scarf from his face as he did so.

“You want to keep back, boy?” said the concierge. “You don’t want to get me on the defensive, I can be unsettling when riled.”

“I’m no boy,” the rider replied, tucking the scarf in his pocket and lifting his face up to be seen. “I’m Henry Jones, and I’m the man who shot God in the head, so forgive me if I’m slow to unsettle.”

The concierge inclined his head in acquiescence. “I can see that might be the case.” It inclined its head towards the girl. “You claim this man as yours?”

“I do if there’s a bounty.”

“There is. A generous one. There is also a penalty for anyone found harbouring him. Surely both are your due. Which do you wish to claim first?”

The kid thought for a moment and then sighed. She knew when she’d been outmanoeuvred. “Fucking cheat,” she cursed, turning on her heels. She spared a final look to Jones, though she knew his sightless eyes wouldn’t appreciate the fact. “Watch out for them, my little outlaw,” she said, “they’re tricksters all.”

“I know it,” he replied.

“Can the man that killed God be tricked?” asked the concierge, amusement in his voice.

“Of course,” Jones replied, “but he can bite back pretty fucking hard when it happens.”

“I just bet he probably doesn’t need my arm to guide him either?”

“He does not.”

“Walk this way then, God Killer, the council have been looking forward to meeting you.”

As Henry Jones entered the building, the cool air that washed over him was most welcome. His boot heels echoed around him, bouncing between marble floor and a vaulted ceiling.

Out of the chaos of Golgotha’s streets, his ‘sight’ began to return to him, that heightened sense of his place in a room. He could map out the size of the foyer, could sense the spiralling stairwell that ran from its end, descending down into the earth for an immeasurable distance. He could also sense the solitary elevator, its doors open, that lay next to the stairwell. Had there been anyone else in the foyer but himself and the concierge, he would have sensed them too, rocks around which the air of the room flowed.

None of which allowed him to fully appreciate the tone of the place. He could sense a sculpted structure at the centre of the room, could even discern its shape. He couldn’t, however, take in its subject. He didn’t recognise the various human forms that went into its construction. Perhaps, had they been more isolated by the sculptor, he would have recognised them for what they were. That had not been the artist’s vision. The bodies curled and flowed into one another, as if the subjects were terrified at the thought of being unique. It was a grotesque sight as they fought to enter and be entered, not a sexual image, not given the look of terror on their faces, rather a curse that forced them to try and bond, fist into gullet, foot into anus, until there would be only one, amorphous mass left at the centre.

He could tell that they were surrounded by paintings, their heavy gilt frames standing proud from the walls. But he couldn’t see their subjects.

In one, a procession of schoolchildren formed a happy queue at the open door of their headmaster. They laughed and jostled one another, peering inside to watch him as he slit and carved, a master butcher at work, breaking them down into their respective cuts on the tiled floor. At the head of the queue, a child, eager to help, was sketching out dotted lines across his skin, helpful directions for the knife to follow. The headmaster appeared quite content in his work, though the artist had worked to bring a sense of exhaustion to the man’s face—when would this work be done?

In another, while the brushwork was different, a theme was shared: the human animal. Man, woman and child frolicked in the pig pen, naked and jubilant. They ran, copulated, defecated and fought, wild and happy in the straw and shit.

Yet another, this the product of a very angry painter if the brushwork was anything to go by. In places the canvas looked at the very threshold of having torn, distended and uneven, held together by the paint. The subject was presumably the infernal equivalent of Bosch or Blake, wishing to purge the horrific into art. Not for this artist the landscapes of Hell or depictions of a medieval devil. Instead they had presented a lamb, its fleece aglow with sickly light.

The concierge stood back to allow Jones into the elevator. For a moment, the outlaw wondered if this small steel box was a trap, but he entered it anyway. If the residents of The Exchange wanted him captured they would have plenty of opportunities to do so. In truth, he had been theirs from the moment he had crossed the threshold.

“Someone will escort you once you arrive,” the concierge said. “I never leave the foyer.”

“Who wants to get in here anyway?” Jones asked.

“Oh, nobody,” the concierge said. “My job is to keep people in, not out.”

It reached inside the elevator and pressed the final button on the panel, the lowest floor. The Exchange was nothing if not traditional. In the world of mortals, the most important residents occupied the penthouse, reaching up towards the heavens. In the Dominion of Circles honour went in the opposite direction.

As the elevator descended, Jones’ sensitive ears began to pick up other sounds over the creak of winch and cable. As he passed each floor, sounds faded in and out: laughing; screaming; a rattling of sewing machines; the chinking of metal; the lowing of animals in captivity, abattoir music; a sound like, but not quite, the chopping of firewood; the plucking of tuneless harp strings; the stretching of rubber; the whisper of the confessional... The work of the Exchange was busy and varied.

Finally, the elevator reached the bottom and, after a pause that felt like a breath, the doors opened and the cool of the foyer had been replaced with an icy cold that brought clouds of condensation from his lips.

“Welcome, Mr Jones,” came a woman’s voice. It was as sharp and precise as a newly minted coin, a voice of business and professionalism. “May I welcome you to the corporate floor? It’s an honour to meet you, I’m a great fan of your work.”

“Nice to know.” Jones stepped out of the elevator, taking a ‘read’ on his new companion. She was small, wrapped in what he assumed from the smell was a fur coat. “What is that?” he asked, leaning in and taking a sniff. “Rabbit?”

“The coat?” She laughed. “Not quite. It gets quite cold down here, one has to take measures.”

She reached behind her to where a short rack of coats were hung, selecting one from its hanger and opening it up for him. “Please, I’m not sure how long you could stand the temperature in the boardroom without it.”

He let her help him as he pulled on the coat. It clung to him with warmth and the musk of the dead.

“Do follow me,” she said, leading him along a narrow corridor that opened out into a large cavern after a few steps.

He couldn’t get an accurate sense of how big the place was. Their feet rattled on a metal gantry as they crossed the space but it was so large the echo was all but nonexistent. The cold that surrounded them made him glad of the coat. He had recently survived a bout of exposure, his skin frostbitten, his fingers turned ragged until the attentions of a deluded angel had healed them. This was far colder. This was ice colder than the mortal world could ever create. He leaned over the gantry. As far as his senses could tell there was nothing beneath them.

“If you had eyes,” the woman said, “that would have been more than your mortal soul could bear.”

“My mortal soul can bear more than you might think.”

“You’ve proven as much, true. But even a dangerous animal like you has its limits.”

Jones was aware that she was intending compliment rather than insult.

“The abyss,” she continued, “is not something that should ever be stared into.”

“What’s down there?”

“Nothing. At all. Which is why it’s more than most can stomach.”

To Jones, not a man with a mind that leaned towards the philosophical, this sounded like a nonsense. He had no interest in pursuing the matter and they continued on their way.

At the end of the gantry, his escort pushed open a pair of large doors and Jones once again found himself in an environment he could partially understand.

It was a large room, dominated by a central desk. The light in the boardroom was dim, offered by three flickering lamps spaced across the arced wall. Twelve figures surrounded the desk and from a distance, or to a blind man, they might appear perfectly normal. But look beyond their silhouettes and their true nature was revealed. Six male, six female, dressed in formal suits, the magic of them began at cuff, collar and hem. Wherever skin would be exposed there was nothing but dark shadow. Look closer, if you could bear it, and perhaps you might get the impression that the blackness had depth; it wasn’t simply an absence of the person in the clothes, cut from reality as if with a pair of sharp scissors, it was an opening to the abyss. These people had given themselves to that absence and it had sucked them from the world.

“Mr Jones,” said the woman at their centre. She lifted her hole of a head as if to look at Jones and her auburn hair twitched, revealing itself to be a wig. If Jones could see the true nature of these figures he might wonder what was keeping that wig in place, and indeed, what was filling out the shirts, blouses and jackets they wore. Or perhaps he would simply accept it as another dark miracle of the Dominion of Circles. It takes a lightness of heart to be impressed by the otherworldly, an inclination towards wonder and fear. Jones was too grim to acknowledge either.

“It’s excellent to have found you,” the woman continued, her voice carrying a slight echo as it travelled up through the emptiness at her heart.

“You didn’t find me,” said Jones. “I came of my own free will.”

“Which is interesting,” said one of the male figures, a solitary monocle hovering where his left eye should be. “And leads us to conclude we have something you want.”

“Is that true?” Auburn Wig asked. “Have you come to make bargains?”

“We do respect a good bargain,” added another woman, her absent head capped off with a smart bonnet, its ribbon tightly knotted around nothing at all. “They’re the oil that greases our engine.”

“The salt that flavours our meat,” said another man, polishing the lens of his wire-framed spectacles with a silk handkerchief. He placed them back on the memory of his face and the lenses magnified the emptiness beyond.

“I think you wouldn’t have let me be here if it wasn’t you who was after the bargain,” Jones replied.

“Ah,” sighed Auburn Wig, “even if that were true then you couldn’t have known as much when you entered the city. You bluff well but you came with an offer in mind, I think.”

“An enticing offer,” said Monocle. “A tasty offer. Perhaps we let you get this far purely because we were curious to hear it?”

Jones couldn’t argue the logic of this.

“The Dominion no longer has a ruler,” he said, “that’s what people tell me. Once it was a kingdom, now it’s nothing but a collection of sovereign states.”

“This is true,” agreed Spectacles, “though we like to think we have a certain influence over those states.”

“But do you have all the influence you want?” Jones asked.

“We are the Exchange,” said Auburn Wig. “We are the heart through which all the blood of the Dominion must be pumped. We control the worth of power, we are the measuring stick by which power is measured.”

“You’re bankers,” said Jones.

“By mortal standards,” Auburn Wig replied, “that is accurate. Power is worth nothing unless it has comparative value. How much is a memory worth? What is the going price for a fix of Buzz? How much the price for another’s head? We are the balance, the scales that measure each state against another. In return they all pay a percentage of their earnings to us.”

“Which makes you the wealthiest of all?”