The Scarlet Gospels (43 page)

“What?”

“Light. Coming out of the top of the puzzle. Going straight up. And bright. Wait … it's dropping.”

“Keep clear of it.”

“It's nowhere near either of us. It's sliding down onto the wall where your big map of New York is pinned up. Now it's stopped.”

“Describe it.”

“It's just a long, narrow line of light. One end at the bottom of the wall, the other—”

“Six feet up.”

“A bit higher maybe. What
is
this?”

“A door. To Hell. Open just a crack.”

“Another one?” Lana said. “Caz!”

“I'm right here,” Caz said. He was at the door between the rooms.

“Have you got Ryan?” Harry asked.

“More or less. He's subdued.”

“Get him out of here. Get everybody out.”

“No, fuck this. We did our time. They can't do this to us again!”

“I don't think it works like that. Tell me: what's going on through there?”

“The light's dying away,” Lana said. “It got really bright for a few seconds and now is just fading. Maybe you stopped it before it got going?”

“No.”

The solid structure of the room didn't greet the door's defiant appearance in its midst without complaint. Bricks, forced askew to accommodate the trespassing door, had cracked from top to bottom and now ground their broken halves together. Black lightning fractures crossed the ceiling and zigzagged down the walls, flakes of paint shed from overhead, flickering as they fell.

A gust of wind, befouled by the stench of rot, blew in from Hell and caught the door as it came, throwing it open. The room complained vehemently having to suddenly make room for the entire door, the walls shaking in their fury, particularly the map wall, where the cracks were an inch wide around the doorframe. Timbers creaked and splintered as the comforting geometry of the real was recalculated by the supernatural; brick dust, ground into a fine red haze, filled up the room, the gusts from the other side making it curl and eddy.

“What can you see through the door?”

“Not much,” Caz said. “If I go to the threshold, will I get sucked back in?”

“That's not how it worked for me,” Harry said.

“Shouldn't there be a bell? I remember you telling me there was a bell tolling.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Like a funeral bell.”

He lifted his head back, listening closely for the sound. It wasn't there. “No bells in Hell?” he said.

“No, nothing in Hell,” Caz said, peering into the portal. “Harold, if that box is supposed to open a doorway to Hell, either Hell ain't there anymore or the box dialed the wrong number.”

“I'm coming to you,” Harry said.

He stood up and Lana took hold of his arm again. She helped him around the side of his desk, moving cautiously over the littered floor. When they got to the corner of the desk Harry paused for a moment, then turned and reached back to pick up the puzzle box. He didn't handle it with reverence now, which fact it recognized by letting out a shrill shriek, the sound so sudden Harry almost dropped the thing. It modulated immediately, the shriek becoming the sobbing of an infant.

“Caz?”

“I'm right here.”

“Three steps, Harry,” Lana said. “Yeah, that's it. Two. One. Okay. There's a stone step a couple of inches ahead of you. That's the threshold.”

Harry tapped the step with the toe of his boot. Then he set the Configuration down onto the step. The box rolled over a couple of times and then stopped, its anguished mewling dying away. He didn't need his sight to evoke the wasteland that lay beyond the threshold. Harry faced the blustering wind. Lucifer's country smelled of death and disease. There were no appeals, no judgments, no prayers or shrieks—just the occasional buzz of a fly, looking for somewhere to lay its eggs, and the remote rumble of thunder from storm clouds pregnant with poison rain.

“Smells like Hell,” Harry said. “I guess it's gone. Thank God.”

“Any idea what to do about this fucking door?” Caz said.

“Just one. You used to be a football player, right?”

“I never told you that. How'd you—”

“Kick the box.”

“What?”

“The box, Caz. Kick it as far as you can.”

Harry felt Caz's grin of pleasure. “Gimme some room.” Harry and Lana backed up a couple of steps.

He couldn't see Caz's kick of course, but Harry felt and heard it. The rush of air as Caz ran past him, the sound of his boot connecting with the puzzle box, and a barely contained yelp from Caz, who growled to Harry:

“Fuck! That fucking thing did
not
want to be kicked.”

The tremors started again in mid-sentence, the room shaking, drizzles of paint flakes and brick dust beginning afresh. Harry stood at the threshold, Caz on one side, Lana griping his arm firmly on the other, as he listened to the door close once and for all.

 

4

Harry tentatively threaded between the towers of televisions, which he had turned off two hours ago, as it began to get dark, and found his way to the chair in front of the window that faced the river, setting a bottle of single malt on the floor beside him. Harry had been given, at his request, a meticulous description of the view spread before him by Caz, but before he could bring it into his mind's eye something bright moved left to right across what would once have been his field of vision. It had barely passed from view when a second blur of light came after it. This time Harry followed it with his spirit-sight to the corner of the room and then lost it as it turned the corner, leaving for his study, beads of luminosity shedding as it traveled out of sight.

But, even as they fell from sight, a massive shoal of bright forms burst into view, drawing his gaze back over to the left. The forms wove between one another as they came, and stopped in front of Harry's chair so that they could scrutinize him with their glistening eyes and allow him to have sight of them. They were the dead, of course, some still wearing their fatalities like ragged insignia on their bright anatomies, others, their killing traumas perhaps internal, unmarked, but all dead, all ghosts, and all lost, he assumed, or else why had their wanderings brought them to him?

Norma had given him two five-hour-long lessons on how to deal with his deceased visitors when they came.

“And they will come,” she'd said. “You can be certain of that. Because I'll go among the lost dead and tell them where to find help.”

She'd done her work well. Now the rest was up to him. He took a swig of Scotch and very slowly, so as not to cause any panic among the ghosts, he got up out of his chair. It was six steps to the window. He took five, still moving cautiously, and saw the throng of wayward spirits below. He was suddenly seized with the overwhelming knowledge that life was good. If he ever needed a reminder, all he had to do was gaze down at the hopeless deceased spirits seeking answers below. So what if he couldn't see? The sighted memories he had weren't all that pleasant to begin with. It seemed that the time-tested metaphor of passing through the fire held true. Harry was on the other side of it, burned but cleansed. Maybe tonight he'd even call Lana and ask her out on that date everyone had been trying to talk him into setting. Or maybe he'd do it tomorrow. Hell was easy; romance was hard.

Harry took a deep breath and again turned his mind to the task at hand. He then reached out with his right hand, laying it on the cold glass of the large window.

“My name's Harry,” he said, hoping his words would be audible to them. “I'm here to help, if you have questions, and to direct you if you're lost. I can't guarantee that I'll have all, or any, of the answers, though. I'm new at this job. But I will do my damnedest—sorry, my best—I'll do my best to get your problems solved so you can go on your way. Please, come closer.”

The invitation was barely out of his mouth when the entire shoal came at him, the suddenness of their approach sending Harry stumbling back toward his chair. They flew through the room, their presence instantly chilling the air by several degrees. Then they circled him, picking up speed with each circuit, dividing around Harry as they swept by him. Norma had warned him he might find the first couple of nights a little raucous until word got around that he was the real thing, but she hadn't advised him on how to deal with such situations. No matter; Harry had corralled enough demons in his time to know how to handle an energetic spirit.

“All right!” he yelled. “You've seen the room! Now all of you get the hell out of here! I mean it! I want this room completely cleared! Do you hear me? I said completely cleared!”

The shoal divided now, as those who were instantly intimidated by Harry's orders fled for the open air, leaving three or four troublemakers to keep circling, deliberately clipping him as they flew past him.

“If you don't get out right now,“Harry said, “nobody gets a word of advice from me. You understand? I don't care how fucked-up your death was or how lost you feel. I'll keep everything I know to myself.”

The phantoms slowed their flight, exchanging glances that Harry couldn't interpret, and then turned, faces to Harry's window, and flew directly at the glass and out into the night air.

The fracas had not gone unnoticed; far from it. Outside, Harry saw there were spirits converging toward the Big Room from every compass point. A few came in the company of other wanderers, but most were solitaries.

“Okay,” Harry said quietly. “Another hit of Scotch, then I get going.”

He returned to his chair, picked up the bottle, opened it, and put it to his lips, pausing for a second or two in sweet anticipation, then took a good-sized hit.

There are worse things I could do with my life
, he thought as he set the bottle down once more.

Then he turned to look at the window and caught sight of the most distressing of his visitors he'd yet witnessed. A woman, with a child at her side—a boy, Harry thought, though he couldn't be sure as the crowd eclipsed them too quickly. He sat down and surveyed the many faces before him. How many were there now? Forty? Fifty? He wouldn't get through them all tonight. A lot of them would have to wait until tomorrow, by which time, of course, word would have spread and there'd be plenty of new wanderers. No wonder Norma had been so covetous of her brandy and so happy to have her televisions on hand, to give her some time to herself and drown out the din of needy souls.

There was hectic motion in the crowd, and a child—surely the boy he'd seen with the woman at his side—slipped through.

“Welcome,” Harry said. “Please come in.”

“What about my aunt Anna? She's very well behaved.”

“She can come too.”

The boy turned and waved the woman in. She entered, shaking. Funny, Harry had never imagined ghosts did that.

“Hello, Anna,” he said.

“Hello, Mister…”

“D'Amour.”

“See,” the boy said to his aunt. “It's French for ‘love,' like I said.”

“I lost my faith for a little while out there,” the woman said.”I didn't think there was anybody to help us.”

“There wasn't, for a while,” said Harry. “But I'm here now. I see you.”

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CLIVE BARKER
is a legendary author, filmmaker, and visual artist. His acumen as a horror writer has been praised widely for its contribution to pop culture. Stephen King hailed Barker as “the future of horror.” His Books of Blood series and his novella
The Hellbound Heart
, which inspired the Hellraiser movies, have amassed a global cult following and cemented their place in pop-culture history.
The Scarlet Gospels
marks Barker's highly anticipated return to horror fiction. You can sign up for email updates
here
.