Hellblazer 2 - Subterranean

by John Shirley

  Looking up at them, Constantine felt sick to his stomach.

  “Please,” one of them rasped. “Please kill me . . .”

  10

  IT WERE BETTER FOR HIM THAT A MILLSTONE WERE HANGED ABOUT HIS NECK

  “Mum!”

  “Bosky!”

  They were in each other’s arms, in the queen’s chambers, within two seconds of seeing one another. Scofield watched glumly from the doorway. “We cannot stay long. Someone will wonder why we are here, and it is better that no one knows she is your mother.”

  Maureen stared at Scofield. “Aren’t you—?”

  Scofield nodded. “I am. Your brother-in-law, once.”

  Bosky turned to him and asked, “Why shouldn’t the King know she’s my mother? You said she’s a maid or something for the queen. So she can’t be too awfully out of favor or whatever.”

  “If it’s known that you’re related, the King will wonder what sort of plot you two might cook up. His paranoia is muscular and keen. Which is one way he’s stayed alive for so long.”

  “Bosky, how did you get here?”

  Bosky explained, saving Granddad’s death for last. She went to her knees, hearing of Garth’s dying; weeping, shaking her head. “He said he’d become a foolish old drunk, said it just last week. And I told him not to say such things. And then he gave his life for you . . . he loved you so, Bosky. And me.”

  “I know, Mum.”

  “There’s no time for this,” Scofield put in. “Now your mother knows you’re alive, and that’s enough. We may need her help. She will have to get the queen to do something difficult—to take a necklace from the King’s neck, while he sleeps. It sounds easy but it’s not. He’s protected.”

  The door opened then, and Megan came sweeping in, pouting. “Where’s my lady in waiting? My hair’s a mess and I’m all, like, so not presentable for the orgy tonight . . . Oh, hi Scofield. And who’s this?” She goggled at Bosky, looking him over. “He’s cute, in a kid kinda way.”

  “He is to be a servant to the King,” Scofield said. “We were paying our respects to the lady, exchanging gossip about the world above.”

  “Oh, did he come from there too?” She turned to Bosky again. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask Maureen, but maybe you know. I mean, I know you’re not American, but do you know who’s president of the USA now?”

  “Believe it or not,” Bosky said, “it’s—”

  But he broke off when a courtier came sauntering in. A tall, round-shouldered man, with jaundice-yellow skin and black lipstick, gray, glaucous eyes that made Bosky think of oysters in just-opened shells, a beard carefully shaved into a cluster of pointed spikes, like a cactus, and a robe ornately figured in silver, black, and red.

  “Lord Spurlick,” Megan said dourly, as the newcomer bowed to her. “What’s up.”

  “My Adored Queen . . .” Spurlick managed to make the honorific sound both unctuous and mocking. “Forgive the interruption. We beg that you will approve the decorations for the feast.” His eyes strayed to Bosky and he licked his lips.

  “Oh yeah okay whatever, just let me fix my hair and . . .” She seemed to remember the appropriate diction. “I will attend to the matter.”

  He bowed again, and backed out of the room. Megan shut the door. “He is like, so gross. I’m so glad he’s a pedophile, the King won’t make me have sex with him.”

  Maureen looked startled. “The King makes you have sex with . . . with other people besides him?”

  “Oh sure, when he’s in the mood. He calls it ‘the royal blessing.’ Sometimes I like it, it depends on who it is—hey where’s my gold hair clip, the one shaped like a man with a rope around his dick? That’s my best one. The King gave it to me when I complained that Lord Pifuss was following me around and stealing my shoes and licking them and just bothering me so he had Pifuss hung by his boy-parts at a feast, and gave me the hair clip to, y’know, commemorate it, and shit . . .”

  She was poking through a large jewelry box, talking to herself, so Scofield gestured for Maureen and Bosky to come close and whispered, barely audible, “Not yet. When the time is right, we’ll try to enlist her. Beware of Spurlick . . .”

  “What?” Megan said, turning. “Did you say something about Spurlick? I hate that guy. But I guess he’s not much worse them some guys I knew in Beverly Hills. That’s where I’m from. Did you ever go to Beverly Hills? I miss Rodeo Drive so much.”

  “No,” Maureen said. “I’ve not been out of the UK.”

  “My Lady, we will take our leave,” said Scofield, bowing to the queen—and giving Maureen a significant look.

  Megan turned back to the jewelry box, and Bosky gave his Mom’s hand a squeeze and mouthed, Don’t worry.

  He followed Scofield out, thinking bitterly, What, after all, is there to worry about?

  ~

  Leaning on his cane, King Culley was twenty minutes into a pedantic explanation of the principles underlying his device, but Constantine was having difficulty attending. He was distracted by the throb of energy from the machine, by the psychic tension in the air, and by the occasional moan from one of the people trapped above him, invariably begging to be killed. He was trying not to stare at the people trapped in the gray growths overhead—five people in all, faces twitching in perpetual horror, mounted in the cup-shaped fixtures of brass and iron. But his eyes kept straying back to them. Their moans made him look. “Kill me . . .”

  “What do you call this device, Your Majesty?” Smithson asked. He stared, fascinated, at it; perhaps thinking that he might utilize it himself somehow.

  “You may call it the rejuvenation projector. It draws a vast amount of energy; to restore youth is to pay a great price, which must be paid in the bowels of this kingdom, by the crankers, and of course by the subjects you see in the containment vessels.”

  The faces of the “subjects” were mottled blue and white; their hair had fallen out and was replaced by growths of gray-white fur-like mold. They were up to their necks in an enclosing growth that looked like dirty steel wool. Thicker outgrowths of the carefully bred fungus, like sections of artichoke but of a leather toadstool-like material, kept them immobile. It was more thoroughly restraining them any straitjacket, the King boasted.

  “How, ah, long have they been there?” Constantine asked. As he asked, he noticed another door, just visible in the shadows beyond the spindle-shaped machine dominating the room. Where did that door go?

  “How long have they been there, you ask?” The King mulled it over. “I get so forgetful, at this time of day. Perhaps two or three centuries? Yes; they’ve been alive in there for centuries.” He chuckled to himself. “Yes indeed!”

  “They’re kept alive by the fungus, like the ‘crankers’ I have heard about?” Constantine asked innocently.

  “It’s a much more elaborate variation of the fungus I developed for the crankers. It first clamps the body immovably in place—forever immovably—then penetrates it with micro-pistules through the pores of the skin. They force their way in ever more deeply, and grow up through the veins to all the organs, even the brain, ultimately penetrating every cell needing to be restored. Death by aging is prevented—at a great cost, of course, to the individual. They are fed through tubes in the vessel, which go directly into their bellies. The fungus feeds on them at a cellular level through the micro-pistules. More importantly, psychoactive chemicals are secreted by the fungus, which keeps the subject in a state of perpetual dreamlike—or perhaps nightmarish—passivity. This chemical also serves to increase the radiance of inner selfhood, which is the key to the device. You see the purple rays, emitting from yon pentagonal artifact—I have lapsed into old-fashioned speech. Let me rather say, emitting from that pentagonal artifact, the locus of the rejuvenation projector. The rays penetrate the spiritual fields of the five subjects, and are transfigured within them. The metal vessel in which the subjects are contained is far from merely a support; it drains the transfigured energies, and radiates them downward, whence
they penetrate my person. I must walk anti-clockwise around the circle, under them, exactly five times, to receive the emanations. I thereupon feel weary, and must sleep, but when I awake I am physically restored, once more young. This effect begins to ebb as the day wears on, as if the day is a microcosm of a man’s life. By afternoon I am approaching middle age, and so on, like the Sphinx’s riddle. More exposure does not help the effect; to the contrary. The repeated fiveness you perceive is not accidental; it relates to my personal . . . well, that is information you do not need. Not as yet. And so gentlemen, consider the problem—not the first time for Mr. MacCrawley—and see if you can look for a way of perfecting it, so that the juvenescence becomes either more long-lasting or, ideally, permanent. Now, if you will direct your attention hither, that is, over here . . .”

  With the soldiers following closely, the King shufflingly led the group to stand not quite directly under one of the vessels in which the “subject” sagged—a woman, quite obviously dead. “This one died this morning. One of my queens, she had been unusually naughty and so I placed her here, replacing another who’d died due to a feeding accident. But Dierdre here, my divorced queen, has killed herself. A remarkable achievement. Do you know how she killed herself?” He lowered his voice so the other “subjects” wouldn’t hear. “It was almost admirably resourceful. She had been here for, oh, a mere twenty years, and went quite mad—well, they all do—and in her madness managed to bite off her tongue and chew a hole in her cheek. You can see it there. A hole so big that, together with the bleeding from the stump of her tongue, she bled to death. We failed to notice it until too late.”

  “Oh . . .” Geoff muttered, staring at the woman’s body, mounted overhead. “Oh that . . . this is fucking sick. This is all . . . just all of it . . .”

  Constantine looked at him, the boy swaying in place, looking like he might faint. Overcome by what he was seeing.

  The King frowned at the boy. “Your apprentice has a weak stomach. How you can have much hope for him, I don’t know. Perhaps you might want to sell him to me. I’ll give you a box of gems for the wastrel. We have plenty of those. I could find some better use for him.”

  Geoff gaped at the King, looking dangerously like he was going to retort. Constantine, inwardly wincing, made himself turn to Geoff and give him another sharp slap across the face. “Boy! Stop gaping at the King so! Now walk around the device and make observations! Forget nothing you see!”

  Geoff put a hand to his face, blinking. Then, seeing the look in Constantine’s eyes, he nodded. “Yes . . . master.” He started around the column of the rejuvenation projector, staring at its base.

  Constantine inclined his head apologetically toward the King. “My apologies; young people now have attention deficit problems, Your Majesty. For now, I will retain the boy; I have invested a great deal of time training him.”

  MacCrawley looked suspiciously at Constantine and then at Geoff, but said nothing.

  Clearly, the King needed a new “subject” for his projector to replace the dead woman, and soon. Constantine, aware that he was near powerless here, and very aware of the presence of the guards behind him, thought he ought to try to appear useful, and quickly. He forced himself to look at the whole construction. “I have some thoughts on a redesign, Your Majesty, but I will need a few days to organize them, and perhaps time to observe the rejuvenation projector a little more. It is a work of genius, and thus not simple to understand.”

  “True, true,” the King Underneath conceded magnanimously.

  Constantine pointed at the small, locked door in the shadows. A door of brass. “I’m curious as to that other door, on the farther side of the room, sire. Is there more machinery there? Perhaps some equipment I should know about, so that I can help perfect it?”

  “Hm? That?” The King seemed suddenly pensive, annoyed. “No, nothing of interest there. Just storage. And now . . .” He clumped on his bony cane over to the central shaft of the rejuvenation projector, opened a panel on its side, and twisted a lever within the panel. The vessel with the dead woman at the end of its vane quivered once, then lowered itself mechanically to the floor, making Constantine think of a seat in a carnival ride lowering for a rider. The King took a vial from a pocket in his robes and approached the fungus enclosing the dead woman, and sprinkled blue fluid from the vial on the fungus. It shuddered and withdrew its gray-black petals, its steel wool interior shrinking back with a sound like tearing paper, and the woman’s body slumped, freed. The King muttered in Latin to his litter bearers, who reached in, pulled the corpse free, and dragged it unceremoniously to a corner of the room. “We’ll clean that up later,” the King remarked. “I don’t like to be untidy.”

  Then he gestured to the skull-faced guards and spoke in Latin. MacCrawley took a quick step away from Lord Smithson, who looked around in blinking uncertainty—which became a horrible certainty as the guards seized him and dragged him to the now-empty vessel where the hungry fungus awaited him.

  “No! Your Majesty!” Smithson wailed, his face contorted in naked fear, as he realized who was to replace the dead woman. “Is this how a great sovereign repays those who have given him a gift? Is this how a gracious King shows his hospitality? No no no! Take that useless boy there! I believe I have seen him in the—”

  Fortunately, before Geoff could be outed as merely another of the residents of Tonsell-on-the-Stream, Smithson broke off to howl in terror as the guards ripped his clothing away. They stripped him nude, knocking him down with the butts of their weapons when he tried to run or fight back, and then four of them grabbed him and forced him snugly into the open center of the artichoke-like cluster of giant fungus in the containment vessel.

  He screamed even more shrilly when the big fungus closed around him, gripping him with implacable firmness, and the wooly probes rustled and climbed up around his neck, beginning to penetrate his pores . . .

  “No no no . . . no!” Smithson screamed. “MacCrawley! You led me into this! I have done all you asked! I gave him the village, I transferred my gold to you!”

  “And you’re getting your desserts in return!” MacCrawley crowed.

  “This cannot be! For God’s sake! You may not betray a lodge brother, MacCrawley!”

  MacCrawley showed his teeth like a shark; it might’ve been some form of smile. “Why, I’ve given you what you bargained for! Immortality! Or as close as possible! You will live for centuries, perhaps even millennia, right there, never dying! You wanted to be a King? Long live the King!”

  The King laughed creakily at that. “How I do enjoy a good prank! Especially one that may last a thousand years and more.” He shook his head with amusement, still chuckling as he returned the control lever to its former position and the vane lifted up into place with Smithson, who was now whimpering madly, muttering to himself, “Oh I feel them . . . they’re so . . . so very dry and crisp and eager, pushing into my . . . into veins, into my heart . . . my brain! But it’s like the roots of royalty stretching out, stretching out into the body politic . . . and it tickles from within, tickles most painfully! Oh hee hee hee hee heeeeeeeeee . . . oh hee oh heeeeeeeee . . .” And then the mad giggles stopped for a moment and he spoke out in awed tones, each word spoken with a surprising clarity, quoting from the gospel of Luke: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and him cast into the sea . . .” And then he resumed his babbling: “The sea . . . by the beautiful sea, the sea-ee-eee . . . hee-hee-heeeeee . . .”

  The faint purple rays were now emanating from the pentagon outward to all five of the vessels, and as the King threw another switch, Constantine could see a corresponding glow, more red than purple, shining down from the bottom of the vessels, to pool onto the floor. “And now gentlemen,” said King Culley, his voice rusty with age, “please observe closely.”

  The King walked anti-clockwise around the circular room under the vessels, through one pool of reddish-purple light after another, shuffling along without his cane, arms upraised
, muttering certain words of power.

  When he’d passed through the final pool of light he called for his litter. His nude littermen carried it to him and the King, looking like he might fall without the litter to lie upon, stretched out on it. To Constantine’s relief, they all trooped out of the horrid room, leaving its smell of decay and fungus, its moaning, its burbling, its palpable emanation of misery.

  “By the sea, by the sea . . . by the beautiful sea-eeeeee . . .” Smithson warbled. “Kill me, kill me, kill me-me-me-me-ee-ee!”

  And then the door clanged shut behind them.

  ~

  They had almost passed through the corridor that led past the chamber of frozen queens when MacCrawley, feeling the chill from the ice window, put his hands in his pocket and said, startled, “What the devil?”

  And he pulled out the crystal that Constantine had planted when he’d jostled him in the throne room. He stared at it in astonishment. Then he scowled.

  Constantine reached into his own coat pocket and closed his fingers on the other crystal. He squeezed it hard with his hand, concentrating his psychic field, sending current down his arm into the stone, all as Balf had instructed him. Ritual magic was not possible here, except the King’s, but telepathy was another matter (or more precisely, another energy), and Constantine sent a telepathic message directly to Balf through the troll crystal. He thought Balf’s name first, so that his transmission was directed to the stone that Balf held, in a cavern somewhere far below . . .

  Balf! Constantine thought, The time has come! Do it now!

  “What are you doing with that sensing stone, MacCrawley?” the King asked, looking over sleepily from his litter. “That is a troll artifact! What have you to do with troll-stuff here?” He sat up, glowering with suspicion at MacCrawley through his hooded, red-rimmed eyes.

  “But someone must have . . . Constantine!” MacCrawley turned to accuse Constantine, but already Balf’s voice was emitting loudly from the stone MacCrawley held in his hand. The telepathic impulse, coming through at the receiving end, was translated into spoken words.