Letters From Hades (20 page)

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Authors: Jeffrey Thomas

BOOK: Letters From Hades
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As I walked home alone, I half-hoped that Chara wouldn’t come to my flat tonight. What if Turner were watching me? Or other Demons, no longer loyal to Chara, afraid of Turner’s threats? But at the same time I longed to see her again, as if we’d been apart for weeks.
Did I dare go to her, instead? I was afraid to lead lurking enemies to her hideaway. I wanted to tell her that Turner had found out where I lived, come to my flat, and threatened to kill all of her fellow Demons. Didn’t he suspect that I was in contact with Chara? And didn’t he, thus, intend for me to tell Chara about his threats…hoping that she would surrender herself to protect her comrades?
I couldn’t risk leading Angel or Demon to her. I must be patient. She had told me she’d contact me somehow, some way.
I just hoped that she’d live long enough to do so.
Day 70.
O
n my walk to work this morning, I was the victim of a drive by shooting…riddled with bullets by one of two Angels who roared past me on their motorcycles. They obviously haven’t left town yet.
As I resumed consciousness, lying on the black brick sidewalk with my blood running along the curb into a grate, I saw my gouged chest through my tattered and saturated shirt. Damn it. I’d have to go home, throw it out, and change into another. I’d be late to work and catch hell, pardon the expression, from my group leader Bruce. But my main concern at present was the pain that made tears flow down my cheeks, and had me curled sobbing in a fetal position, each jolting sob making the pain worse. I was too absorbed in my own suffering to do much more than note that a girl of about nine had had the top of her skull shot off in the same attack, and lay in the arms of the Damned woman who had taken her in as her own child. This surrogate mother wasn’t weeping, but the haggard look of impotent rage and beaten fatalism in her face was just as tragic. I saw the girl’s skinny legs twitch and then convulse as she began her agonizing reconstitution.
Finally, still losing blood from the larger exit wounds in my back (at least I wouldn’t heal with annoying bullets trapped inside of me), I dragged myself into my flat. There, I sat down until I mended some more and the edge of the pain grew duller. The entry wounds were just bloodless puckered craters which I counted (six) with my fingers through my clean shirt as I returned to the street and half-trotted to work, hoping no more Angels would ride past me. When I got to the factory at last, Bruce was waiting for me, furious, hefting in his hand a fearsome-looking toothed wrench sort of thing the like of which I’d never seen before in life or death.
"Where the fuck were you?" he fumed, red-faced. "I’ve got Yolanda covering your belt for you. You think maybe I should give her your job permanently and fire your ass? Why are you late this time…was it raining again?"
"Chill out," I muttered. I’d never seen him this bad before, and to make it worse some other workers were looking over at me.
"Don’t tell me to chill out! I ought to crack your skull open!" He half raised that greasy, weighty tool. "We have to keep things running here, do you understand?"
"No," I snapped, lifting my eyes to his, "I don’t understand. What exactly are we keeping running in this place? And why are you threatening to brain me, Bruce? Did you wake up as a Demon today? Maybe you ought to look in the mirror…you’re still a man. A man like me. Aren’t we on the same side, here?"
"What side? We have a job to do, and it isn’t for us to understand the whats and whys. You want to argue with Mr. Gold about it, instead of me? He won’t just threaten to brain you, he’ll see that you end up in the sub-basement of a torture plant. Now go man your belt!"
"I was wrong about you, Bruce," I said as I started away. "You aren’t human, after all. You’re just a Demon wannabe."
"One more word, and I take it to Mr. Gold. Go on." He smirked furiously.
I just gave him a little smile and trudged off toward my work station. This was why the Damned could never hope to truly unite against the Demons, or the Angels. The majority were too afraid. And sometimes that fear made them align themselves with their oppressors. Forget about the legends of devil worshipers kissing the behind of Satan. In Hell, people like Bruce had their whole head up the collective demonic ass.
But I gave up on the argument, didn’t I? I was afraid to push it further, afraid of what Bruce and Mr. Gold, who apparently does exist after all (unless Bruce is being misled himself), might do to me. In their allegiance to the Demons, they are indeed like Demons themselves. And I was too cowardly, or at least too beaten down (like that surrogate mother with her adopted child in her arms) to act upon my pride. This demoralization hurt me more, in a way, than my bullet wounds did. Because those would go away.
As I write this, I’m home, and it’s what passes for my night (even though others are heading off to work in the street below me as if it’s the start of their day). And I still haven’t heard from Chara. What I hear is the chatter of automatic fire from far away…the Angels have been very loud tonight. At first I thought it might be more attacks by those rebels, but I’ve been hearing the distant roar of motorcycles as well.
Maybe they’re painting the town red one last time before they head back upstairs, or wherever it is that Heaven resides. Their paradise of Disneylands abutting every city. I picture rows of solid gold motor homes inside which hang neon-framed portraits of the Son, who bears a suspicious resemblance to Elvis, His eyes radiating intoxicating beams stronger than the fountains of bourbon in every Astroturfed park.
Or maybe the Angels are agitated, all fired up. Because two of them were savagely humiliated by an uppity Demon. And now the Damned are killing their captors and freeing prisoners from torture centers. The whole town is going to Hell in a hand basket.
And Chara is at the center of it all. My frightening Eve who is not falling from grace…but discovering it.
Day 71.
T
oday, the Black Cathedral came to my neighborhood.
There was an ear-splitting grinding screech that approached steadily from the distance and mounted to such an extent that at first I ran to the window to look out at the machine building, then actually went down into the street to look at it again. With all the horrible sounds that thing made in the course of its unknowable functions, I thought this was some new and extra-loud emanation. Or, perhaps, a terrible malfunction that might cause the thing to explode.
But the mechanical skyscraper wasn’t the source of the metallic shrieking. The opposite side of the machine building faced onto one of those wider avenues with the twin rail tracks laid into the cobblestones. In this broad street, rising above the roofs of the intervening smallish tenements, I saw the black spires and steeples of the Black Cathedral for the first time. I knew instantly what they were, because they were moving along from left to right, like the masts and sails of a ship seen above the roofs of some old seaport town. Even from here, it was apparent that they were made entirely of black metal. The cathedral soon disappeared behind the machine building, however, and the screeching stopped altogether. The migrating, nomadic cathedral Larry had described to me had found a new location to temporarily set up camp in.
I hadn’t seen or even heard from Chara since the 68th and now I was really beginning to worry. Maybe she was being more patient than I was…or then again, maybe she was already captured, tortured and executed. It tortured me not to know.
She might be furious for it…but I decided today to go to her room under the bridge, and see if she were still there.
The trick was in finding the place again, and I took many a wrong turn, but because I had found my way home from there on my own once before, I was able to locate it eventually. All along the way, I would look back over my shoulder to see if I were being followed. I saw no one suspicious, no one tailing me. There was one odd occurrence, however. At one point I passed a troop of maybe a dozen Demons, on their way to some bit of no doubt unpleasant business. Their apparent leader was carrying a black iron spear and sported an insignia on his belt that must indicate the rank of a sergeant or such. As we walked past each other, I met the eyes of the sergeant, and he held my gaze a long moment, even turning his head slightly to keep our eyes locked, before we had fully passed one another. Maybe it was simply because he wanted to stare me down. Maybe because I am involved intimately with a Demon, I was making the mistake of fearing the other Demons less; up until recently, I would have avoided a devil’s gaze. But still, I had the strange notion that he recognized me, somehow, as if he knew who I was. The lover of Chara, their comrade they were being forced to hunt.
Glancing over my shoulder once more, I rapped on the metal door set into one arched leg of the stone bridge. After about ten seconds, which my heartbeat heavily counted off, I pounded a bit harder. This time, the door squealed open, and a familiar figure stood before me.
"Oh…well, I suppose I should have been expecting you," said Inspector Turner, his smile more forced than usual. He was wearing his outer white robe but not his peaked cap, and his gray hair was mussed as if he’d been napping. "Come in," he invited.
I saw no further need of playing games. I remained where I was. "Where is Chara?" I half choked, trying to sound tough.
"Well, obviously you could have told
me
 that, before. I had to find out about this cozy little nook through my own channels. Really, please come inside. I insist."
Still I didn’t budge from the stoop. "Is she in there or have you already taken her?" I demanded, a bottomless abyss yawning open in my guts.
"Unfortunately I haven’t seen her."
"Then you’re waiting for her to come here. So you can trap her."
"I’m no doubt waiting in vain. I’ve been here since yesterday, so I guess that means she’s found a new hideout. Odd, though, that she hasn’t told you about it."
"She’s probably left town already."
"As you’ve said before. But you knew even as you said it that she was still here in town. Please…come inside…"
"So you can hold me hostage?"
Turner made a wincing expression. "I’m not a crude man. I don’t like using force, brutality…I never did. I prefer subtlety."
"You prefer playing games. It’s a sport to you."
The door opened wider. Over Turner’s shoulder I saw the Celestial. Its oddly flat, strangely blind-seeming eyes stared at me threateningly. I knew it wasn’t above using force and brutality. I noticed that it was as naked as one of the Demons, without the loincloth it had worn the last two times I’d seen it. The faintly luminous being had both a penis and, below that, a slitted hairless mound in place of a scrotum. A hermaphrodite. It was odd for it to be so generously gifted with procreation apparatuses, being a creature without nipples and a navel.
"These things are best discussed more discreetly, don’t you think?" Turner politely persisted.
"You want me inside and out of sight in case Chara comes along after all. Do you expect me to help you catch her?"
"Well, it would be wise if you were more cooperative. There’s still time to redeem yourself, before you get yourself in a great deal of trouble. And I don’t want to see that, honestly I don’t. You must understand that I could have already brought you into my custody by now."
"You make it sound merciful. But the only reason you haven’t is because you couldn’t prove anything."
"This is Hell, my friend, not the Supreme Court. I don’t
need
 to prove anything."
"You’ve only let me off the hook so far because you thought I’d be useful if I were free."
"Look here, you know that it’s only a matter of time before Chara is caught…"
"Maybe. But I’m not going to have any part in that."
"Do you love her, then? Is that it?"
Finally, I stepped inside the apartment. Turner backed off to give me room. So did the Celestial. But I only entered so that he couldn’t slam the door in my face.
This time, fearing that I might be followed to Chara’s hideaway by her enemies, I had brought both my stolen pistols with me, hidden in the deep pockets of the baggy brown outer jacket I wore. As I entered into the apartment with its walls and floor sheeted in greenish copper, I drew the two handguns from my jacket, one a Glock and the other a chunky, smallish SIG-Sauer P-225 semiautomatic. I extended them both at the ends of my arms, both pointed at the face of the Celestial.

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