The Scarlet Gospels (23 page)

And nestled amid it all was a greenish fog that sat, unmoving, in the expansive shantytown in a trench directly in front of the city. The fog cast its greenish hue onto a band of buildings from the monolithic structures close to the summit down to the high walls that marked the limits of the city proper as it sat, willfully motionless, over a portion of the mass of tents and crude shacks and animals that formed the chaotic fringe around the city limits. It was this place, this vast shantytown, that was the source of the screams. This bizarre fog had seemingly settled upon this place, and it was apparent that those who had failed to find their out of its haze were in terrible agony.

“Who's got the best eyes?” Harry said. “It's not me. I can see people moving down there, but they're a blur.”

“They're better staying that way,” said Caz.

“What's happening?”

“They're fucking insane or something,” said Lana.

“They're running around”—Caz shook his head—“beating their heads against the walls. And, oh God, there's a guy … oh Jesus Christ—”

“Are they human?”

“Some of them,” Dale said. “Most look like demons to me.”

“Yeah,” Lana said. “And human beings can't make noises like that.”

It was true. The cacophony, which continued to grow louder, was a sickening din—a befouling stew of noise that was beyond the capabilities of the human lungs and throat. The near-death shrieks were mingled with the noises that sounded like an engine or machine in the final phase of self-destruction, gears shredding, and motors shrieking as they tore themselves apart.

“This is more like it,” Harry said. “Hell was starting to disappoint me.”

“Don't put that out there, man,” Caz said. “We don't need any more bad vibes than we've already got. Or … I dunno, maybe you do.” He looked at Harry, who was squinting to try to get a clearer view of what was happening. “You can't wait to get down there, can you?”

“I want this over with, Caz.”

“You sure that's all?”

“What else could there be?” Harry said, keeping his eyes trained on the spectacle.

“Stop looking at the atrocities for two fucking seconds, Harold. This is me. Caz. You know that I'm following you all the way down into this mess no matter what, right? I'm here to get Norma, together, and I ain't leaving without her. But I need you to look me in the fucking eyes right now and tell me the truth. And don't do it for me. Do it for you.”

Harry turned to face his friend and uttered a single defiant, “What?”

“Are you enjoying this?” Caz asked.

Harry's face fell. After a moment, he opened his mouth to speak. That's when Lana shouted, “I can't take it!”

Caz and Harry turned to see Lana drop down onto the ground, her arms crossed over the top of her head as though to forcibly hold in her sanity. Caz went on his haunches beside her.

“It's okay,” Caz said. “We'll be okay.”

“How can you say that? Look at them! Look what this place is doing to them. And they
live
here! We don't stand a chance.”

Harry sat down in the long white grass a yard from them, tuning out Caz's placating condolences, as he turned his attention once more to the chaos within the Pit. Harry knew nothing of the poor creatures whose screams rose heavenward and more than likely fell on deaf ears; perhaps they deserved the agonies that had been set upon them. Perhaps not. Either way, their supplications brought him into an unwelcome headspace and they mingled with the rest of the assaults on his senses—the penetrating stench of sulfur mixed with burning flesh, the tattoos beating a wild refrain on his body in a way that brought him once more to that never-distant-enough night. He could hear the demon's voice in his head, even now, a world away.

Spit
. Harry heard the word tearing at the inside of his skull. How he wished he could have done something differently that night. If he had, then maybe he'd be able to shake the feeling that he was now exactly where he belonged—where he'd always belonged—in Hell.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Dale's voice cut through his thoughts like a knife. His words were an anchor wrapped in innocence.

“I'm trying to work out how we fit together,” Harry said. “Why we're here.”

Dale laughed. “You don't have the first idea, do you?”

“No. Do you?”

“Ah. That's the big question, isn't it?”

“You already know.”

“I sure do.”

“Care to let me in on the secret?”

“Easy: watching isn't the same as seeing.”

Harry laughed. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I heard it in a dream.”

Apparently Dale assumed the conversation had reached its end here, because without uttering another word he kissed Harry on top of his head and sauntered away. Caz, meanwhile, had somehow coaxed Lana to her feet and was keeping the city at her back.

“I don't want to go down there,” she sobbed. “And none of you can make me.”

“We wouldn't want to,” Caz replied.

There was a raw chorus of birds overhead.

Harry looked up to see that the noise was coming from the longer of two species of winged creatures that were circling above the city. They had congregated with remarkable speed, attracted either by the promising din of agonies from the streets or by the smell, which only now became apparent. The aroma was complicated. There was the twinge of blood in it but also the fragrance of old incense, and another smell that was impossible to fix and for that reason far more tantalizing than the others.

As he sat on the summit, his thoughts still stirred up by the exchange of enigmas (it could scarcely have been called a conversation) he'd just had with a potentially crazy southerner, Harry took in the mingled glories and grotesqueries of Hell. He wasn't any less exhausted than he'd been when he left his apartment in New York, he wasn't any less in need of a ten-year vacation in Hawaii—just him, a hut, and a fishing pole—but if he was going to get there then he was going to have to finish this first.

“Okay,” he said. “Let's do this.”

 

13

Being in the fog had very little impression on Norma. The Hell Priest had done as she had asked him, and whatever protection he was using to seal himself off from the fog's effects he had extended to her. She heard, all too clearly, however, the ghastly noises behind her made by those who had been subjected to the fog's influence. Some were simple grunts made by creatures in pain, others begged more articulately for help, but most pitiful of all were those who—upon seeing the Hell Priest's imposing figure emerge from the muck—requested with as much civility as they could muster that he please put them out of their misery.

Suddenly Felixson began to shout. Norma, who had clutched at his garments, felt the fabrics torn from her hands.

“Oh God in Heaven, no!” he shrieked. “I can smell the fog. It's getting in my eyes. My mouth! Lord! Master! Help me!”

Norma stopped dead in her tracks.

“Hello? What happened? I thought Felixson was protected?”

“He was,” the demon said, near to Norma's ear. She jumped at the sound of his voice. “But I've stopped.”

“What? Why?”

“His story is at its end. His service to me is complete. I have, in you, all that I need.”

“You can't! I beg your mercy, on his behalf.”

“You do not want to assume such a debt.”

“He eased my pain.”

“Because he did not wish to carry you.”

“I know. I knew even then, when he was doing it. But still, he did it.”

“Very well. All he need do is ask. Do you hear, Felixson? Ask, and ye shall receive.”

There was an answering sound from the magician, but it did not resemble any words known to Norma. Norma reeled in the direction of Felixson's gasps.

“Speak!” she said. “Felixson, listen to me! Your Lord called your name! Answer him. That's all you have to do.” She took a step in the man's direction, her arms extended. The tip of her right shoe came in contact with him first.

“Can you hear me?” she begged, bending forward and searching for the magician.

A gaseous grunt was all she received by way of reply.

“Felixson! Speak the words.”

She heard pitiful sounds indicating his final attempts. Then she heard nothing.

“Felixson?” she whispered into the darkness.

“He can't hear you,” the Priest said.

“Oh Lord in Heaven,” Norma muttered. Her fingers, not yet believing what her mind was still only realizing, continued their search for Felixson's body. She had taken a knee when her fingers made contact with something hot and sticky. Instantly she pulled her hand back, her mind's eye already painting an unwelcome picture of flesh ravaged by the carnivorous fog.

“I don't understand,” she said. “This man was loyal to you.”

“What have I to gain by feeling anything?”

“Isn't there anything you care about?”

“All is death, woman. All is pain. Love breeds loss. Isolation breeds resentment. No matter which way we turn, we are beaten. Our only true inheritance is death. And our only legacy, dust.”

So saying, he turned and walked on, leaving the dead man behind. Norma said a short prayer for Felixson and quickly followed after the Cenobite for fear that if she faltered he would decide she too was no longer worth protecting. Despite her age and sightlessness, it wasn't difficult for Norma to keep up. Whatever protection working had been thrown over her, it seemed to lend her body strength, and she followed in the demon's wake without undue effort.

 

14

It was called the Bastion of Tyath now, though it had gone by many names before that, each one chosen by the newest ruling despot. But however the interior of the Bastion changed to suit the metaphysical or potential ambition of its occupants, the exterior remained unaltered. It was an uncompromising tower of stone, the blocks of which had been so precisely measured and chiseled that it was virtually impossible, unless you had your face to the Bastion wall, to discover where one stone ended and another began.

Many legends had accrued around it, chiefly regarding its creation, the most popular and probably the likeliest this: that it had been the first building raised in the vicinity, its commissioner, architect, and sole mason an urdemon called Hoethak, who had built it to protect his human wife, a woman called Jacqueline, who was pregnant with a quintet of hybrids—the first fruit of the mating between the sublime angelic, fallen or not, and the ridiculous humans. All had survived—father, mother, children—and from their five dynasties had descended increasingly contaminated bloodlines and swelling lists of vendettas.

Of the eight members of the present regime, only three were in the Bastion tonight. Their enthusiastic general, Augustine Pentathiyea, an unrepentant lover of war and its rapturous cruelties, sat in the high-backed chair where their regime's noticeably absent authority, Catha Nia'kapo, was usually seated.

The others in the room—Ezekium Suth and Josephine L'thi—were not able to conceal their agitation.

“If Nia'kapo were here,” Suth began, “we would have this situation under control by now.”

“It is under control,” General Pentathiyea replied. He wore his hair long, as did all of the members of the regime, though Pentathiyea's hair was gray, and his purple-black brow ritually scarred with three downward cuts, each the thickness of a finger. They had been coaxed with repeated cutting to stand proud of his forehead. The marks gave him an expression of perpetual fury, though his voice was measured and calm.

“How do you figure?” Suth asked.

“I'd like to hear your theory as well,” L'thi offered. She was standing against the far wall of the chamber, her waist-long white hair unkempt, her eyes closed as her detached gaze searched the fog outside, below the Bastion, looking for the felon. “He murdered all but a few of his Order. We should have him arrested and executed.”

“A trial would be better,” Suth opined. He was by several centuries the oldest in the room, though he did much to conceal the fact, his hair dyed an unnatural intense black, his brows plucked, his skin white where it wasn't rouged. “Something showy to distract the populace.”

“Distract them from what?” said Pentathiyea.

“From the fact that we're losing control,” L'thi said. “Isn't it time we were honest? If not now, when?”

“L'thi is right, General,” Suth said. “If we made a real example of the Cenobite, a long public trial followed by some form of crucifixion, we'd have back the love of our citizens, and—”

“Our enemy is at the gates,” L'thi said, interrupting Suth's soliloquy. “And he has a follower.”

“Another Cenobite?” Pentathiyea asked. “I thought you said they were all dead.”

“I said most. But it's not a Cenobite. It's a human woman.”

“Then Hell's most wanted villain is at our doorstep. Ezekium. Do you have anything prepared for this fiend?” Pentathiyea wanted to know.

“As it happens, I do, General! I have devised a metal blanket, which has a lining that will be filled with ice. We'll burn him at the stake. Eventually, of course, the ice will melt, and the fire will have its way, but I've repeated the experiment eleven times now, using men, women, and even infants, just to be certain my calculations were consistent.”

“And?”

Ezekium Suth allowed himself a barely perceptible smile. “He'll be fully conscious while the skin is burned off him as his muscles fry in their own juices. Indeed we'll judiciously arrange the fuel for the fire so that he isn't smothered by the smoke, which is too easy a death. Instead, he'll be cremated systematically. But I discovered that this method draws the victim up into a pugilistic pose, so I'll bind him with chains to prevent the posture. It'll oblige his bones to break while they cook inside his flesh.”