Hell's Vengeance

by Max Jager

  He opened the door, the locks were broken in already. There was no security system, the house was too old for it. The floorboards groaned and shrieked, the chandeliers shook from the rough shutting of the door. It seemed like a strong wind would have knocked the house down, the blow of a wolf maybe. And as Darr came to realize, the wolf had already done just that. In the kitchen he could hear the destruction of the house, the opening and removal of cupboards, that clunky cacophony as if the house was being reclaimed by scavengers. Ajax was turning over a drawer, spilling knives and forks all over.

  "I'm surprised you came back." Ajax said. He turned the fridge over. "It's undignified to crawl back after what you did."

  "I stand by what I did. I'd do it again if I had the chance." Darr's eyes narrowed.

  "You killed three people and left two to burn alive. You stand by that action?" Ajax looked underneath the table, went around, through a door underneath the stairs and peered inside the small safe room.

  "You saw what they did. They killed a fucking girl."

  "Involved in the murder of a small girl, we don't know if they did it or not and we never will."

  "What do you mean?!" Darr slapped the wood. A piece of the stair guard fell on his head and landed on the floor beneath them. Ajax came out of the room, picked it up and looked at Darr.

  "I don't really disagree with your choice. I understand it, really, I do. Even after the fact that you knocked me the fuck out."

  "I made sure you were safe."

  "Right." Ajax said. He inspected the wood and the nice chipped end of which it came off of. It had been crushed.

  "Did you tell the Priest?" Darr asked.

  "No." Ajax climbed slow and steady up the stairs. "I lied."

  "Why?" Darr climbed after him.

  "Because what the Vatican would do to you would be much worse than any jail or any harassment that the Priest could ever give you." Ajax said. "Death would be a very, very, merciful thing for you. If they caught you, of course."

  Darr stood. His throat felt dry and no amount of swallowing spit lubricated it. A hot dryness as if he had swallowed a handful of sand and let it chafe his insides.

  "I'm sorry." Darr said.

  "What's the point of apologizing, to me of all people?" Ajax stood at the top of the stairs. "You're much more tolerable when you actually commit to something. Even if it's murder."

  "I can't call it murder." Darr walked up past him. "I killed child killers, they weren't people."

  It almost made Ajax chuckle. He went up, through the hall where the chandeliers fell close to their head, where it shook and spread their shadows out like and rotated them. Like a night lamp casting shadow puppets, thrown and left spinning on the floor. The light stopped and Ajax's shadow fell upon a door, ivory oak. He put his hand to it. It would not move. Darr came to help but Ajax stopped him, instead, put his foot below the knob and pushed. It caved in. He took the hinges off with him. Dust flew back, wrapping around the falling door and hitting them with the antique smell of books and history.

  "I can't believe I'm just asking this, it makes me feel stupid, but why are we are?" Darr asked.

  "It's not just a feeling, Darr, but I'm glad you're reflecting today." Ajax said. Darr groaned. "We're here to find the man who killed the little girl, Sophie. Or, the alleged murderer."

  Darr flared up again, eyes red. Ajax shook his head.

  "He's not here, so relax. When I first came in I noticed a struggle and a missing car. The fight came from one of the lower bedrooms, into the garage, out the driveway. I thought I could find something of a clue in the kitchen. Nothing. Then you came." He said. "Are you wearing gloves?"

  "No." Darr said.

  Ajax handed him a handkerchief.

  "Well, make sure to wipe your evidence off everything. Everything."

  Darr rubbed aimlessly, nervously, as Ajax inspected the room. He passed him glances now and then, looking where he searched. He knocked on the walls. Looked over the stacks of books, lines of them, some midway removed. Nothing. He looked over the tops of desks and of cabinets where the film of dust had been disturbed. There was a clean stain in the shape of a circle and they both only wondered.

  Darr came in at last. He went over to one end of the room and looked down at a rug.

  "Don't touch anything." Ajax said. It was too late, with that wide mouth curiosity, Darr flipped over the skin of a bear and made it moan as he threw it off to the side with its body depressed.

  Ajax nodded his head and they both looked. The arcana symbol was on the floor, smudged a bit but there, visible, an imperfect circle. Ajax knelt to inspect it.

  "It's amateurish." He said.

  "Well this amateur is giving us a lot of trouble."

  "You think he's getting help?" Darr asked.

  "Astrix." Ajax said. "I looked him up. Son of Hector of Troy, he was stabbed in the belly by the Achaean's and thrown over the wall of Troy. Or Ilium."

  "What's that?"

  "Ever read the Iliad?" Ajax tilted his head. "Have you ever read at all?"

  "No, it's too boring." Darr said.

  "Right." Ajax sighed. "Well, I thought it was just fiction. But who knows, maybe who we're talking about is someone else. Probably a new prince in the upper levels of Hell, perhaps."

  Ajax looked back to the symbol, the geometry that was sloppy and the letters in Latin and in Hebrew, misspelled and misplaced. Amon was written there, at the bottom. On top of it, more Hebrew.

  "I only know Latin." Darr said.

  "It says." Ajax squinted. "Formless and Empty."

  "Oh, oh. Bingo!" Darr yellowed. Ajax put his finger over his mouth to hush him. "Jeronus four twenty-three, I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void; And to the heavens, and they had no light." His voice was booming, his chest pumped like a proper preacher at the holy edifice, above the crowd and above the bible stand.

  "Right." Ajax said. He shook his head and put his hand against the paint. He removed it. Electricity shot out. A loud bang that popped the glass and left them deaf. Ajax opened his eyes, his jaw was moving uncontrollably in muscle spasms. He was shaking his hand, blowing air against it. It had been burned, the nails completely burned off and the concussion leaving large bruises all around him like a brown Dalmatian.

  "Fuck." Ajax couldn't hear his own curse. His ears were still ringing, Darr hadn't suffered much of anything and was clearing his face from smoke. He looked at Ajax's wound, watched him try and blow away the pain. He was the first to look outside and nearby. No one cared, not the rich and their lighted houses. They were too far to care. He looked back to Ajax who picked himself up, then to the floor and missing glyphs.

  "Fucking fuck." Ajax said. "Self-destructing piece of fucking shit." He was nearly foaming in his anger.

  He lugged his body around like a rag doll, holding his hand low to the ground. His mouth was scrunching hard against itself, Darr could hear the sound of grating. They both looked to the broken window, to a docile albino crow. It scurried away. Ajax looked up. His hand was getting better, he could walk now.

  "Let's look elsewhere." Ajax said. "Before something else annoys me."

  They wandered a bit. Ajax kissed his hand. It healed, mostly, and all that was left, mostly, were the twitches of damaged nerves. Those took longer to heal. The finer details always did.

  They came up to an end and to nothing. The light switch at the side did not work, they looked back at the hall now dark. Ajax was holding his hand, Darr was looking around and putting his ear against the wood.

  "Do you think the house can talk?" Ajax asked.

  "Well, I saw you knocking. I thought I might hear something."

  Ajax nodded his head. He moved a bit in the darkness, then felt something over his head. A string perhaps. He raised his hands, the ceiling was too far from him. So he yanked the chord, Darr shuffled away. Stairs descended with what sounded like an annoyed croak of rusted metal. The sound of something wanting desperately to be ignored. And from what
, both of them suspected, they would find out soon. It was immediate, almost.

  The smell of death. Light came out from the small square in the ceiling where the smell came from.

  "Are you sure you want to come up?" Ajax asked.

  Darr's face went still. His eyes focused, weighted, like they were a burden on his face. Two giant balls of cold, black steel.

  "I'm used to it already, right?" He said. Ajax looked away then climbed.

  Darr followed and he looked nearby at another beaded string. Darr pulled this one. They reeled back at the image.

  It smelled of rotted pig, left to disintegrate in the heat of a dumpster. It almost smelled sweet, that same pig, drawn out and on top of it, cheap sickly sweet perfume poured over. A carcass, both rotten and sweet. A body dressed in that disingenuous sweet smell.

  There was a corpse in front of them. There was a knife lodged in his back. Both of them could not tell who it was, for the body was too engorged and glossy red to tell. It seemed like a giant ball, ready to pop, foaming red where the bug-eaten holes were formed.

  "Just another victim. Ten days old, it seems." Ajax said.

  Darr's eyes fell.

  "I want to pretend that he was the first. But that would be a lie, wouldn't it?" Darr asked.

  "Probably."

  They both went silent. There was no need to inspect, there was nothing that could tell them who it was. All they knew was that it was somebody, all the knew, was that it was one amongst the many, a pile, a wall, that grew and grew and grew.

  And they felt for some reason, that this body was just another promise, the promise of more death.

  12:35 PM

  Aleistar

  July 25th, 2017

  12:35

  "This would be your thirteenth. Thirteen isn't that far from twelve." The voice said.

  The candle dimmed in front of Aleistar and the cool wind blew across from one end of the car window to the other. The hairs on his arms stood. His nose dried, he could feel it, smoke congesting him and filling his skull with the musk.

  "This one isn't just one more." Aleistar said. "He's my son."

  "More of a reason to get rid of him, the betrayal of the son ought to be punished." The voice said. "He's sold you out once. He'll do it again."

  A candle (or maybe more apt to call it the telephone or receiver) sat in the glove compartment, eating string and releasing the smell of hot burning wax. It dripped on its sides and absorbed into the seats like white ink on for the draft of some great proclamation.

  "You can't say that with certainty."

  "I can say it with good faith. I've seen it, in the church steps, in the quiet solitude of the small room he's called haven. Some dusty hotel, with the whores and abusers to his rear, moping and crying and contemplating with his loose tongue what else to say. And to whom? Oh, Aleistar. This is good faith I speak with, and good faith is all you've ever needed." The voice said. "He told the Priest, he'll tell the journalists, the police, the world. And the few who believe in that mortal, flawed law, will fight for him. Fight against you. Few is all anyone ever needed to start a war. Or end it. You should know that."

  "You're not fucking helping me!" Aleistar slapped the dashboard and watched the radio compress and change its tune. "Just orders, always orders. For what? The promised land?"

  "Paradise. Not just any land, but the land, the only land worth fighting for. To breath air and not feel death creep upon you, to live without the anxiety of the day to day. The mocking, the sadness. To live with your wife. Paradise. And it has room, room for your son. You know that, don't you? Death isn't the end. It's a new journey."

  "I've lost so much. How could I give you the only thing left?"

  "You're still thinking in terms of what is lost and what is gained. You lose nothing but stand to gain everything. Don't consider this a murder. It's a displacement. You'll see your son, you'll see your wife."

  "You say that." He reached into the glove compartment. He found a flask and drank. "But can you prove it."

  "All I have is my word. But was it not my word that saved you from the Vicars? Ten minutes, ten minutes sooner would have killed you."

  "And maybe I deserve to die." Aleistar said. He drank, it felt hot down his throat.

  "Maybe. But if you die, so does the dream. I can't help you when you're dead, not like your mother and your son. Paradise needs its key and you're sitting on it, waiting on it. All it takes is one more death, blood for heaven. A cup, filled. That's all this has been for, the chalice and your happiness."

  "This…" He held his nose bridge. "This is my son."

  "Your son, your faithless son. The modern Judas. I think he'd have more nobility in his sacrifice than his life. You know that to be true, too."

  Aleistar teared up. They fell down his cheek and with it, sense, reason. The dribble, the stream, like a faucet on his chin. All of it, draining down that black hole.

  "What's it like?" He asked. "Is my wife there. What about my baby girl? I never got to see her first birthday. Never got to see her fall, or walk, or yawn or cry or laugh. Never got to see her face for what it could have been."

  "She's beautiful. Blonde, like your wife. It's all beautiful." The air nipped at his neck. "Joy, happiness, like a drug. You'd think it'd be boring. But they keep going, smiling, laughing. There is no feeling of tiredness, no boredom. Just a stupid, pure, joy. Ecstacy. The fields of grass, the marble temples. It's holiness. As best as it could ever hope to be."

  Aleistar drank and with each drink, falling deeper into the words. A whirlpool, spinning and flushing him, crushing him, tearing him.

  "The sky is like a bubble. It feels so close, it wraps around you so tight and snug and comforting. A blanket of clouds. The weightlessness of it all. It's so close, the sky, you swear that by just standing, you might be able to touch it. The world feels so big here yet so small that you might be able to hold it in your hands. It's a goodness that swells your heart and that hurts me most. That you might not get to feel this. God has not promised you this land, God will not give you this land. I will though, I will, because it is birthright. All suffering is birthright to everlasting joy and you have suffered. Haven't you?"

  Aleistar's eyes glazed, he tilted his head up and down.

  "It waits for you if you're willing to fight for it, if you can muster the stern stuff to take it."

  "I feel weak. I'm scared. I'm chased and worried and waiting, waiting for them to kill me. Those fucking hyenas, the smell - My scent - The know it. My name, my home. They'll chase, and chase, and chase. And it feels like the more I run, the more my feet and my body break away. It hurts, it fucking hurts."

  "Then let them find you. Let them come and face judgment. And you? You will be there too. As jury, when my guiding hand strikes upon them an endless fury and an endless pain. I promise you."

  He took a final gulp. The car turned on, the shield wipers sprayed and dragged across the foggy window.

  "Remember. It was your son that brought them to you in the first place." The flames flickered with the finality of the tone.

  "Is it necessary? His blood."

  "Yes."

  Aleistar cleaned his face on his sleeve.

  "I don't need to make it hurt." Aleistar said.

  "If only you knew what little pain means for true, good and proper eternity."

  "It'll be quick."

  "If that will make it easier."

  "I won't leave Itrus, not for a second. 'Till the very end."

  "As a father should. That's true devotion."

  "Make me humble, please. Take me to him."

  There was a silence. Aleistar rolled up the windows and listened in the privacy of his car. To his side, an old cabin in the woods. A forgotten summer home. Nostalgic pain. The holes were plentiful on the dark wood planks that boarded the home, the patches to those holes were few. The whole house rumbled to the car engine and in front of the door stood the porch, slanted and sinking deeper into the wet mud. Loose foundation.
>
  A swing rested on the porch, next to a potted collection of roses now turned to rough, brittle black sticks. A swing set, two white ropes, and a dirt-colored plank. It jumped in the front of the porch. It swung. It went up, creaking, and fell down. Like the checkered flag fall of a race, Aleistar drove. Like the pendulum fall, he chased.

  4:26 AM

  Itrus

  July 15th, 2017