Once Upon a Time in Hell (21 page)

Then he heard Jones shout: "Harmonium!" His voice barely carried over the wind. "One way or the other I'll find you honey. Now run!"

This was more luck than The Geek could have expected. Jones had just made himself the primary target. He ran, keeping his body as low as possible without losing his sense of balance, presenting as small a target as he could. Toby ran alongside him, the young idiot.

"Get out of here, damn it!" said The Geek. "We need to split their aim not make their job easier." A shot rang out. Then another. Toby gave a yell and fell. The Geek dropped, rolling into the snow. It was so deep he knew he must be all but invisible to their would-be killers. But were they running after him and Toby? Would they be on top of them at any moment?

He turned and looked back in the direction he had run. There was nothing but a pale grey wall of snow and ice.

Then, only appearing when he was almost right on top of him, Bryson was looming over him.

The Geek jumped at the man, making a grab for the barrel of his rifle, pushing it up between them. He didn't have time to think; he responded as nothing more than a cornered animal, leaping onto the startled man and burying his mouth into the soft flesh of his throat. With a grunt, he bit and tore, his freezing cold face suddenly warmed by a jet of arterial blood.

By the time Bryson had registered what was happening enough to make a noise, he no longer had the physical wherewithal to do so.

Holding the man down as he bled out into the snow, The Geek looked up, a lion keeping a wary eye on the terrain around it before it began to feed.

Garrity must have pursued the others, he decided.

He quickly stripped Bryson of his clothes, the man still choking out his last, and put them on over his own. The more he had to keep himself warm, the longer he might survive. He also took the man's rifle, reloading it from a handful of spare shells in the pocket of the stolen coat.

He moved as quickly as he could. Only too aware of the fact that he could stumble upon Garrity at any moment.

He tried to listen out for signs of the others but there was nothing but the wind. 

T
HE
G
EEK WALKED
for an hour or so, by which time even his extra clothing was failing to provide him with warmth. His whole body had grown numb, muscles twitching as he tried to ensure he kept in a straight line. This last had become something of an obsession with him. He was convinced that he was doing nothing more than going round and round in circles. The snow was falling so thickly that he would never stand a chance of seeing his own trail if he came up behind it.

The hand of God was sweeping along behind him as he moved, eradicating all sign that he had even been there.

Not that he knew where he was going anyway. He didn't know the area, hadn't the first idea what the lay of the land was like. For all he knew he was walking a straight line that would get him precisely nowhere. Still, that kind of questioning didn't help. His life had become one of absolutes: the snow continued to fall, he continued to walk and he would die or he wouldn't.

He discussed the matter with God, in his simple, unpretentious fashion and hoped for the best. He knew an acknowledgement of the Lord wouldn't be enough to save him. His parents had filled the air above their sickbeds with Hail Marys and Hosannas but they'd died in them just the same. Still, it couldn't hurt and it wasn't as if he had anyone else to talk to. So, he walked and he conversed with God. Finally, he even took the gentleman's name in vain as he stumbled through a particularly dense snow drift and found himself face down on hot, dry stone.

He lay there for a moment, pressing his hands to his jaw and cussing, having bitten a small piece off his tongue when he'd fallen. Eventually, he rolled into a sitting position and looked around. He was sat on the top of a mountain plateau, the sun beating down on him as hot as the very fires of Hell. He turned around; there was no sign of the snow he had walked through, the last signs of it ever having existed fell in small clumps from his clothes and melted on the ground beside him. He stripped off his extra clothes and moved to the edge of the plateau. He was looking down on a small range of mountains, a valley between them and the site of what appeared to be a new town, a growing camp of tents and caravans.

It made no sense at all. But then, that was nothing new.

He needed a rest, but there was no cover from the sun and sitting there in the open was likely to do as much harm as good. He had little choice but to begin the long climb down in the hope he could find somewhere with a bit of shade. He looked at the fading shadows on the rock where the snow had melted and regretted letting it melt away; in this heat he would begin to dehydrate soon and he could have given his body a head start by eating the snow. Too late now, even the shed clothes were all but dry.

He slung the rifle over his shoulder and began to descend. His legs were still far from steady and he had to go slower than he would have liked, for fear of them giving out.

It took him half an hour to find shade beneath a rock outcrop. He pressed himself beneath it and tried to stop his arms and legs shaking. He closed his eyes, the skin on his face painfully tight as it began to burn.

There was a sudden rattling sound and The Geek realised he wasn't alone. The snake darted for him but, even in his weakened state his reflexes were quick.

"Too slow, Flo," he said, having gripped the snake just beneath its head. It wriggled and thrashed until he took a couple of bites out of it. Hopefully that would give his body a bit of a boost, though, as per his way, he could only swallow a couple of mouthfuls before the animal was dead and, therefore, beyond the state when he could allow himself to eat. Even in his difficult circumstances, he wouldn't break the rule of a lifetime: food had to still be living when it passed your lips.

He fell asleep for a short while, figuring it was best to get his rest now while the sun was at its height.

When he woke, the heat had passed a little as the sun began to fall lower in the sky. He figured it was safe to start moving again.

He crawled out and stretched his legs. They were a little numb with pins and needles, but once he shook them out they felt a lot better than they had before. He was able to get a better speed up now that he felt refreshed, hopping from one rock to another and making his way down the mountain with a precision that would have been the envy of many. Sometimes, The Geek joked about his physicality, the way he could hunt, run and climb. "When you've eaten as many critters as I have," he would say, "some of it's bound to rub off."

In truth he had spent all of his life learning to move like his food, his belly just got fuller that way.

Mid-afternoon, he took a rest and watched Wormwood appear in the open plain before him. It was one of the nicer miracles he'd witnessed. When Alonzo made his announcement, The Geek heard it loud and clear. He suspected it didn't refer to him, he was a witness not an acolyte.

The attention towards the town offered him the opportunity to deal with his thirst and hunger. The people of the camp were all but absent when he descended.

He had decided that he would keep to his own company on the mountain. He knew from experience that his habits didn't endear him to people.

He found a pair of water canteens hanging from the cross strut of a beige tent. He drank his fill from one and stole the other for later. He had never known such easy pickings. He peered through the flap of a large tent that seemed to be operating as a field hospital—narrowly missing setting his eyes on Henry Jones, the back of Clarke blocking his view. It was the only place that still seemed occupied.

He was heading back towards the mountain path when he was punished for his overconfidence.

"Mama!" a young girl cried, suddenly appearing from the other side of a tent. "Monster!"

"Ain't no monster, kid," he said, though his voice was uneven from lack of use and she was far too busy screaming and pointing at him to hear anyway.

"For Christ's sake," he looked around, sure her noise would bring people running any second.

The shovel hit him on the side of his head, bright lights exploding behind his eyes. The rifle fell from his shoulder.

"The devil!" a woman cried. "Run, baby, it's the devil!"

That made The Geek see red, damn it. He had spent far too much of his life being called names—and yes, fine, maybe he did ask for it looking the way he did—but the bitch had nearly caved his skull in. He snatched the spade from her, reversed it and got in a better blow than she'd managed.

He threw the unconscious woman over his shoulder and ran for the mountains, leaving the screaming kid. He could hear she'd begun to draw a crowd and he had no interest in that.

Stupid, sloppy work. He dragged her as far as he could then, aware he was being followed, made an angry meal of her right there in the sun and dust. If they wanted a devil he'd damn well give them one. He avoided his pursuers easily enough, though ended up lying on his back under a rock for several hours shortly after, riotous indigestion twisting his guts to knots.

Then he remembered he'd left the rifle behind. He never had been much good with guns.

As night fell he listened to the chaos floating up from the camp below him, his stomach still bloated and uncomfortable. He was surprised how much the meat had unsettled him. He wasn't a man with a tender stomach after all and you had to learn to scoff when you ate living food. Perhaps it had been the anger he had felt. Or perhaps there had been something wrong with her, something that had poisoned her tissues.

He slept for awhile and, as dawn came, he found he was feeling a little better. The experience had certainly put him off the notion of breakfast though. Not that he would have considered eating the old man he chanced upon. The meat was too old, the chances of him dying be fore The Geek even got his teeth wet, too high. He simply wasn't of culinary interest. Besides, judging by his clothes he was a man of God and his parent's lessons still ran deep. If yesterday's meat had turned his stomach this would surely tear it wide open.

Instead they talked for awhile. Which was not something The Geek was naturally inclined to do but the hard night and the morning heat had made him feel dreamy and philosophical.

The old man was concerned over the health of his friends after an angry mob had begun to form. The Geek, having known the power of a mob from time to time, knew that it was too late for the old man to do anything and told him so.

What interested The Geek was how quickly his advice was accepted. For all his initial panic and concern, the old man was clearly desperate to relinquish responsibility for those he considered in his care. Of course, The Geek would happily have told him, nobody is ever really in our care, people will do what they do. Life is a spectator sport, The Geek believed, never less so than when it turns nasty.

"I dreamed of you I think," the old man said as the first gun shots rang out below.

The Geek didn't really know what to say to that. 

T
HE ROOM BEGAN
to burn.

Greaser had knocked me aside but almost as an afterthought, his attention now fixed on the point behind me where the old man had stood. He let go of Meridiana's hand too, turning to wards the bright flames and the roaring, the point in Hell that was filling with the greatest power that Dominion of Circles had ever seen.

"What in all the fucks is that?" Greaser wondered.

At the centre of the pillar of fire, the old man stood, his mouth open, the source of the flames that encircled him. His eyes reflected them but they didn't touch him. Even as they scorched the floor, he stood fast, a black shadow at the heart of this orange sun. He was stood with his arms out, palms facing towards his holstered revolvers.

"That's your invisible friend?" asked Meridiana.

"Yeah, though he's not always on fire... I mean, sometimes, a bit..." I was waffling in panic, "but not like this."

"The Damnatio Memoriae," said Agrat, "now I understand. Of course it would have been him..."

"Oh," I said, "you know him?"

She looked at me as if I were an idiot, not, it must be said, for the first time. "Of course I know him. Who here doesn't? He's the Fallen, God's Right Hand, The Prince of Hell until his banishing. The Light Bringer."

"Lucifer," added Meridiana.

"Oh," I replied. Just goes to show, you never do know who you're going to bump into on the trail.

He reached for his guns and the moment of stillness broke. His hands seemed to move, gently, almost slowly, but before you could really appreciate the fact, the guns were in his hands and he was firing.

Greaser dived to the right, taking cover in one of the rows between the cages.

"Shoot, damn you all!" he shouted, trying to stir his henchmen from their shock and into action. The old man, Lucifer, needed no such encouragement; three men had fallen in the time it had taken Greaser to speak. His guns barked and the sound was deep, like a dynamite explosion deep underground, a boom that resonated.

"Stay down," said Meridiana, her hand slapping me on the back of my head and forcing my face towards the floor.

I couldn't see what happened next, just heard the wave of gunfire, the screams of the men who took the bullets, the crackle and roar of the flames that encircled the man I had journeyed with all this time.

A wave of heat washed over me as he stood next to us, spent shells raining on our backs.

"Get out of here," he said, and I felt the heat pass as he ran further into the factory, the constant sound of gunfire echoing around the walls.

"I can't believe what you made me do!" Agrat said as we ran for the main doors. "To bring him back... do you realise who I just made an enemy?" "If He has been paying the remotest attention to your life over the last few centuries,"

said Meridiana, stooping to pick up the guns dropped by two of Greaser's men, "that can't be anything new."