by John Hook
Roland nodded.
“What’s his name, or is he just the boss?”
“For you, ‘the boss’ will do.”
I had some grudging respect from Roland, but there were limits. He stepped back and joined the other dark man as they blocked the hall and kept their eyes on us.
“So you really don’t know what that was?” Blaise asked.
“I’m guessing it has to be something that came from her work with Saripha. On the other hand, I got the feeling she was as genuinely surprised by what happened as we were. For now, she seems to have things under control, although it is taking all my will power not to rush that door and see what’s happening.”
“Rox didn’t give you a heads up?” Izzy asked.
“She said she had a plan. I guess that was it? Or maybe not. Maybe she just improvised in the moment.”
At that point, Rox appeared at the double doors and asked us to come in. She turned and walked to the back. We followed her.
“Will someone please tell me what just happened?” I was looking back and forth between Rox and the boss.
We had entered what was actually a suite of rooms. We were standing in a main room, a living space with grass mat couches and carved chairs and a small nook kitchen with a small fire pit and a counter. To the right and left were two other rooms, one with a large mattress of some sort, the other set up with a desk. I never figured out why people in Hell had desks, me included, since no one did desk kinds of things here. It seemed to be out of nostalgia.
The boss sat in a large, ornately carved chair, obviously custom made to fit his large glamour. He was beginning to look more like himself again. The strength was there and even some of the confidence. On the other hand, he seemed to be uncomfortable with Rox, eyeing her with a mixture of fear and resentment.
Rox shrugged. “Seems he has lost his appetite for me.”
“Can’t say I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine how that could happen.”
“Boss, what did she do to you?” I admired Roland just in the sense that he was a cool head. He wasn’t sure what was happening here, but he wasn’t panicking. He wanted to understand as much as I did.
“Roland, you have known me for a long time.” The boss looked at him.
“Served you proudly, sir.”
“Then all is well.” He looked at us and his face became troubled again. “I want the witch out of here. As for the others, if this young man and his companions want to be taken to the Demon King, take them. I doubt a very pleasant fate awaits them, but they will no longer be our problem.”
“Most people I meet here seem to want me to go away. I wonder if I should take it personally.”
The boss ignored me. Most people do.
“Make no mistake. You will follow Roland’s orders to the letter until you are in the hands of the demons. If you do anything Roland even suspects could create trouble for us with the demons, he has my authorization to turn you into a proto on the spot.”
Roland smiled enigmatically, but said nothing.
I looked at Rox.
“What did you do?”
Rox shrugged. “I’m actually not sure. Saripha showed me how I could reverse my empathy. Draw upon it to project emotion or even pain into another. I had a vague idea of connecting to the despair I experienced as Katrina. I hoped it might make him connect emotionally to what he was doing to these people. Fill him with doubt about his cause. That’s not what happened.”
“So what did happen?”
“I apparently projected a vision into him. I don’t know what it was. It’s as if there is something else inside me and he drew it out of me. I only felt a glimmer of it, but it was something pretty powerful.”
“I thought she had done it on purpose,” the boss said, looking at me. “I can’t yet bring myself to talk much about it and some I can’t even remember. I remember seeing a black angel.”
“Black angel?”
“I have heard rumors of a race of angels here, but I have never seen one. Every reference to them that I have encountered refers to them as bright, filled with light. This was something different.”
I wanted to ask him more about the black angel, but I could tell he didn’t want to dwell on it any more.
“Tell me what the deal with the demons is. Help me understand why you do what you do, because right now it just enrages me.”
“The demons here are a particularly powerful group. Their approach is to not live amongst the humans but in their own walled city. They serve a Demon King who somehow is of gigantic proportions.”
“Not unlike someone else we know.”
“I’m not willing to apologize for protecting my people.”
“Nice to have a philosophy.”
“We all do what we can in this terrible place.”
“Let’s get back to your deal with the demons, because we aren’t going to agree on what this place makes you do.”
“They want humans to serve their whims, but they want them frightened, terrorized and traumatized before they even get them. They don’t want the ones who withdraw and become gray.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. Never cared. When we first came here, we were strong and independent because we had turned on the weaker demons in our border town. Apparently the demons here didn’t think we made good enough victims, so they instead offered us this deal.”
“You essentially do the prep work for them and turn the terrorized humans over to them. Why don’t you fight them like you did your own demons?”
“Hard to do when they wall themselves up. They only let a few of us in when we make a ‘delivery.’”
“And that’s it?”
“There is one other thing.”
“One more thing you do for the demons?”
“They are interested in people who have remained hopeful in the face of all the terrors in this world. They are pretty rare, but the demons want us to bring them.”
“Because they take special pleasure in taking away all hope?”
“I don’t really know, but it’s odd. They don’t do them harm when we deliver them. They usually tell them that there is a place to escape everything here.”
“Haven.” It had immediately jumped into my mind.
“You’ve heard the rumors then.”
“Do you know what Haven is?”
“No idea.”
“What happens to these hopeful people you give to the demons?”
“Again, not our concern. We make our deliveries and come back out of the walled city as soon as possible.”
“Deliveries. Nice.”
“I told you, I’ll not apologize.”
“Did one of these hopefuls come through here recently? The last few weeks?”
“There was one. He had heard rumors about Haven. I remember being impressed that he seemed so strong a personality and acted like he was used to a lot of autonomy.”
“Was his name Philip?”
The boss turned to Roland. “Did we have a name for him?”
“Don’t remember, boss.”
“You have a name besides ‘boss’?” I was feeling a little snappy.
“Gerod. And you are?”
“Quentin Case.”
“First and last name. You still remember your mortal existence.”
“Guess that’s why I still care about people.”
Gerod didn’t say anything.
“So what happened to the guy?”
“We took him to the demons. He wanted to go. They seemed very pleased with him and assured him they could get him to Haven.”
“Now I know it’s a setup. Demons don’t do humans favors. Surprised Philip would think any differently.”
“People here believe whatever will get them through,” Gerod said.
“How do you make the delivery?”
“We march the captives in surrounded by a large column dark men as a strong show of force. Demons respond to displays of force. However, only a small unit is allowed
in with the prisoners.”
“Do they shut the gate while you are in there?”
No. they leave demon sentries at the gate to watch the troops.”
“And so you show up every time. Your troops stand outside the open gate and wait while you deliver to the demons and return out of the walled city and it is closed up again.”
“Yes, that’s about right.” Roland answered. Obviously it was Roland and not Gerod who went.
“And you have been doing this how long?”
“So long that we have forgotten how long.”
I grinned.
“The demons will have grown lazy. They would be completely unprepared for you to do otherwise.”
“No.” Roland said evenly. “The men have no training for such a battle.”
Gerod looked at me with an unmistakable intensity. He was holding his ground. “Be grateful for what we are allowing you. Do not exceed your authorization or we will stop you.”
I turned my attention to Roland because I knew deep down he understood what I was saying and he might be more open to it.
“You can’t keep doing this to the Zaccorans.”
“I will not let anything happen to our people.”
“Then you and I are going to have troubles down the road.”
“I suppose we will. Probably be better if I just turned you into a proto now.”
“Probably.”
“Then again, seems a waste of effort when the demons will likely take care of the problem for me.”
“When is your next delivery, Roland?”
“We can make it any time. We just need a few hours to prepare.”
“Then get ready. I need to talk to Rox, but then you are going to deliver me.”
“Us” both Izzy and Blaise said at once.
“What are you planning to do?” Roland was cautious.
“For now, learn what we can about the demons and see if we can find out what happened to Philip.”
I had left Izzy and Blaise to work logistics with Roland. A few of the more blindly patriotic dark men were upset at our being let go. After all, we had killed some of their numbers. However, in the long run, they couldn’t argue with Gerod and his most trusted field commander, Roland. Rox and I had been given a guest room to talk in. It had a bed and a lock, which was promising.
“My head is spinning.”
“Isn’t that what always happens to you around me?”
“Point taken.”
“I don’t know much more about what happened than I told you.”
“Can you do that whenever we need it? Turn rather large and dangerous adversaries into begrudging allies?”
“I don’t think so. There was an odd synergy there.”
“But you knew about this. That was your plan.”
“Saripha showed me how to draw on an experience that involved crippling emotion and project that into someone. Mostly it would slow an adversary down. I had this crazy scheme that if I could get the boss to show weakness, his men might become unsure what to do. Maybe give us enough hesitation to get away.”
“That was it? That was your plan?”
“Says the man whose previous plan was to write ‘and then it all changed,’ and hope it would actually make things change.” Rox teased.
“But it didn’t turn out as you planned.”
“No. When we were working, Saripha found some mysterious, deeply buried psychic layers. She couldn’t get me to access them so we never found out what they entailed. I believe that Gerod is strong, not just physically, but psychically. When I connected to him he actually drew out something from one of those deep layers. Whatever he drew out doesn’t seem to come from my experience.”
“Maybe he created it out of something more unformed and archetypal in you.”
“Um, sure.” Rox rolled her eyes playfully. “Whatever happened, he became fearful of me in a way that is very uncomfortable for him. He can’t let his men see that. Roland is okay because of their deep trust, but not his men. It saved us because he is more invested in being rid of us than punishing us.”
“I’ll get Roland to get you an escort back to Rockvale. I’m pretty sure he can be trusted to do what he says.”
“More than likely, Kyo will circle back and find us. Besides, I can handle myself.” She let her darker side rise to the surface.
“You know, you shouldn’t do that.”
“Let the bad girl come to the surface?”
“Tends to distract me.”
“Might keep you from making so many enemies.”
“But how do we stop all this?”
“That’s your job, I’m sad to say. Sad, because I know you are going to find a way to try to do it and you are going to be in great danger.”
“Do what?”
“What you do. If you want the dark men to stop what they do, you have to take away the threat. The only way to do that is…”
“…to eliminate the demons. Not to mention the Shade and the Manitor. Like Rockvale. In this case, we have a ready-made army. The dark men.”
“But they will only act if they think they can win. Right now there are too many unknowns.”
“And that’s my job.”
“None of them will do it.”
“And I do it the same way I always do it.”
“Keep poking until you know what you need to know or get turned into a proto.”
“We could just stay locked in this bedroom and let them protect us.”
“But you won’t.”
“I might for an hour or two.”
“Or three.”
She unclasped her shirt.
“I don’t think there is anyone on this floor.”
We kissed. It was always a thrill to connect to her, the energy that seemed to pulsate inside her.
“Do you think it’s weird to get intimate in a place where we are surrounded by armed misogynists?”
“It kind of adds to the excitement, doesn’t it?” Rox winked.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
She dropped her blouse from her shoulders.
“Anything you want.” Her eyes shone. “I wouldn’t want you to forget me while you are away.”
“Not much chance of that.”
8.
We gathered in a great hall in the morning for “breakfast.” The dark men were apparently very big on the “comforts” that reminded them of life. They ate and drank often, mostly partaking of various illusory foods. The demons developed the technique and provided it to humans as either a reward or incentive because, dead as we were in reality, it was hard to think of yourself that way. Like our bodies, there was a biological substrate underlying the illusion of sight, taste and smell. All the enjoyment came from the glamour imposed. There was no real nutrition and these bodies needed none.
Glamour food had been around in Rockvale when I arrived there, but it was never that big a deal. Those who had remained in Rockvale were those who had given up and had retreated inward against the horror of where they were. As such, there wasn’t much seeking of warm human pleasure, illusion or otherwise. Thinking about this reminded me of Anita. I remembered why I was here. I remembered what my primary mission was, despite all the other things. I had made a promise and I intended to keep it. I would find Philip.
We sat at a table at the head of the large chamber. Roland sat at the head of our table. I sat on one side with Rox and Izzy and Blaise were on the other. We were joined by a couple of Roland’s trusted associates who were polite but wary. I had the feeling that the larger majority of the dark men still thought Gerod had been bewitched by Rox. Who could blame them? However, they would never do something that was counter to Roland’s wishes. He was a great leader and had earned unquestioning loyalty.
The nice thing about illusory glamour food is you could have it be pretty much anything you wanted. I had pancakes and sausage, Izzy bagels and lox, Blaise had a sausage and biscuits with beans combo. Rox didn’t eat and was a bit disdainful of im
aginary food, probably because it was a tool for settling new humans in her experience.
Breakfast was mostly winding down and dark men were drifting out. We were discussing our plans with Roland.
“When you deliver new groups of humans to the demons, you take them into the walled city?” I was thinking out loud.
“Yes. The Demon King wants them paraded before him, like a tribute.” Roland answered.
“And the ones who are looking for Haven?”
“They get an audience with the Demon King.”
“He decides if they go or not,” I stated, looking for confirmation.
“Which is the danger in your plan,” Roland answered. “The Demon King is a mercurial fop, if you can call a very large demon with claws and sharp teeth a fop. He is totally self-absorbed and quite stupid, but he is fully in charge. If he decides not to send you to Haven, he will make you a prisoner and there won’t be anything I can do about it.”
“What happens to the other people?”
“This particular tribe of demons is very into keeping humans separated from demons except when they want them. Humans are kept in cages. When they want to amuse themselves with torturing and sexually abusing them, they drag them out. Even that is done by shirks.”
The ability of Roland and the dark men to remove themselves from feeling anything about any humans who were not of their group was astounding. Doing what they did, in their minds, was all that protected the group. In some corner of their minds, they knew how horrible a price it was to pay. However, they had built elaborate scaffolding to rationalize away what they were doing. Even helping me was reluctant and predicated on our not terribly disrupting their “skin trade.”
“And you just leave those people to their fate and walk away.”
“We’ve been through this.” Roland sighed. “What I care about is that they don’t get to do that to our people. I won’t let anyone do anything that threatens that status quo. It is all that we have in this most inhuman of places.”
“In a place where nothing is good, it is more important than ever to do the best, most right thing you can do.”
