We were born to fight evil, but we rarely get our hands on the real thing.
We slammed through the enemy ranks, and they shattered and fell apart before us. Some fought; most turned to run; none escaped. The Sarjeant saw to that. He sent his people off to surround the enemy and block their escape routes, driving them back to their deaths. Some threw down their weapons, tried to surrender, begged and cried for their lives. But we had no time for that. They gave up every right to civilised treatment when they joined the Satanists. They had sworn their lives and souls to evil, given up everything that made them human.
You can’t simply join the Satanists. You have to buy your way in with blood and murder, horror and the suffering of innocents. You have to do things from which there can be no coming back, no chance of atonement or redemption. You don’t just sell your soul; you spit on it and throw it away.
They belonged to Hell, and that’s where we sent them.
I moved steadily through the ranks of the enemy, smashing in chests and crushing skulls, moved by an implacable cold rage. I have always thought of myself as an agent, not an assassin, but if ever I have felt justified in what I do and what I am, it was on that day. Some evils are so great all you can do is stamp them out to keep them from contaminating Humanity. But even as I fought I never lost control, because it wasn’t enough to just strike down the rank and file. Dusk was still out there somewhere. And if he got to the mind-influencing machine . . . I fought on through the ranks, my spiked golden fists rising and falling tirelessly while blood ran endlessly down my armour . . . heading for the Cathedral Hotel.
Molly was right there with me, grabbing Satanists by their shirt-fronts, hauling them in close and screaming, “Where’s my sister? Where’s Isabella? What have you done with her?” right into their faces. But no one even knew what she was talking about, so she threw them aside and moved on, searching for someone who would know. Now and again someone would make the mistake of attacking her, and Molly would strike them down with some swift and nasty magic and keep going.
I’d almost reached the far edge of the conflict when Harry suddenly ran past me, leaving the fighting behind and heading for the hotel. The Sarjeant yelled angrily after him, thinking he was abandoning the battle, but I knew where he was going. I hadn’t seen Roger Morningstar anywhere in the ranks of the army, which meant that if he was here he was inside the hotel. Harry was going to find him. So I went after him. The fight was already won; it didn’t need either of us. And if Roger was there, I wanted to be there when he met Harry.
I burst into the hotel lobby almost on Harry’s heels. It looked bright and open, modern and efficient, and completely deserted. Harry spun round, ready to fight, and I quickly stopped and raised my hands to show they were empty.
“I’m not here to stop you, Harry. I’m here to help.”
His featureless golden mask looked back at me. “Why would you do that, Eddie?”
“Because I don’t want to believe that Roger is totally lost to us.”
“You never liked him.”
“He never liked me. So what? He’s family.”
Harry shook his head slowly. “I don’t want you here. This is private.”
“Roger’s not going to be here alone,” I said, lowering my hands. “He’ll have guards. Protections. Layers of security. You’re going to need someone to watch your back, or you’ll never get to him.”
Harry nodded stiffly, reluctantly, and then we both broke off and looked around sharply, as we heard rapidly approaching footsteps. We moved quickly together, side by side, and a whole bunch of heavily armed security guards came running in from a side corridor. They all had automatic weapons, and they all opened up on Harry and me the moment they saw us. We stood our ground, not flinching in the least at the roar of automatic fire, and our armour soaked up every single bullet. The sheer impact would have knocked over a horse, but we didn’t budge an inch. More guards arrived, firing strange-energy weapons. Violent forces crawled and crackled all over our armour, trying to force a way in. They failed and fell away.
Harry and I waited to be sure they’d thrown everything they had at us, and then we strode purposefully forward. Heavy blades erupted out of Harry’s hands, while terrible spikes rose up from his arms and shoulders. He moved among the security guards like a living scythe, cutting down everyone who stood before him. I grew a long golden sword from one hand and moved alongside him, hacking and cutting. There was no room for mercy in either of us. All I had to do was think of the Great Sacrifice and mountains of dead children, and my heart was a cold and terrible thing.
It didn’t take long. It was a slaughter, not a battle. Soon enough, the lobby was full of bodies and soaked in blood. More blood ran down our gleaming armour in streams, to pool around our feet.
“Well,” said Harry. “I think we can safely assume they know we’re here. Let’s go introduce ourselves.”
He strode down the corridor the guards had come from, and I went with him. The corridor led to another corridor, and then we stopped again. There was a low, ominous growling from somewhere up ahead.
“Oh, bloody hell,” I said. “They’ve summoned up a demon dog. I hate those.”
“Any way round it?” said Harry.
“Beats me,” I said. “I don’t see any side corridors. But whatever that is, it has to be here to guard something. Or someone. So we have to go through it. . . . Okay, I’ll handle it. You go on. Find Roger.”
“Getting cocky, Eddie? No Drood’s ever managed to take down a demon dog on his own before.”
“You haven’t been keeping up with my reports, have you, Harry? I took one down at Lightbringer House.”
“I did read your report; you had Molly and Isabella there to help you.”
“You read my reports?” I said. “I’m flattered. Look, I can keep the thing at bay while you go talk with Roger. That’s what matters.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Yes, you can. You can’t stand me, remember?”
“Oh, yes. There is that. Anything for the family?”
“For family, Harry.”
We strode down the corridor together, took the sharp left turn, and found it wasn’t a demon dog after all. The whole of the corridor before us had been changed, transformed, possessed by a spirit out of Hell. The corridor was alive, its every surface organic, fleshy, corrupt. Like the living throat that had replaced the elevator shaft back at Lightbringer House. The walls were flesh: scarlet and purple meat, with dark rotting patches and networks of heavy, pulsing veins. The floor was a long, rippling, shocking pink tongue, slick with digestive juices. The whole of the ceiling was one long elongated eye, watching us unblinkingly with mad, fascinated intent. Huge, jagged teeth protruded from the meat of the walls in regular rows; and as we watched, they began to revolve slowly, like a meat grinder, or a living chain saw. The whole thing stank of blood and sulphur and sour milk; it was alive and it was hungry and it was waiting for us. I looked at Harry.
“After you.”
“It’s only meat and teeth,” said Harry. “You really think that could get through our armour?”
“That . . . is a demon out of Hell,” I said. “A major power and a major presence, to be able to overwrite our reality so completely. I have absolutely no idea what that thing could do to our armour.”
“It was put there to stop our getting to Roger,” said Harry.
“Almost certainly,” I said. “Still, when in doubt, cheat. If we can’t go through it, maybe we can go around it.”
I turned away from the possessed corridor and punched a hole through the ordinary wall next to me. My golden fist slammed through it with no problem at all. I pulled my hand back, and broken bricks and brick dust fell to the floor. I hit the wall again and again, making an opening big enough to step through, but when I stopped to look, all I could see on the other side was the possessed corridor, looking back at me.
“Damn,” I said. “It’s written over the whole hotel, mapping
itself to every corridor at once. It’s everywhere it needs to be, all at the same time. Whichever way we go to try to reach Roger, this thing will always be there to block our way.”
“You understood all that from looking through one hole?” said Harry.
“Of course not. I accessed my armour’s sensors.”
“We should have brought an exorcist with us.”
“Well, next time we’ll know, won’t we?” I said. “You can’t think of everything when you’re in a hurry. Why don’t you wish for a tactical nuke as well, while you’re at it?”
“Don’t get tetchy,” said Harry. “Let me try something.”
He concentrated and brought both his arms together before him. Swift ripples ran along his golden armour, which then shifted and fused together, forming itself into a huge machine gun. The kind you see in action movies when the hero wants to bring down a whole house at once. I moved quickly to get out of the way, and Harry opened fire on the possessed corridor. Strange-matter bullets exploded from the long golden barrel with incredible speed and fury, chewing up the demonic flesh of the floor and walls. Purple meat exploded under the impact, dark blood spattering everywhere, and sustained firepower ripped the long pink tongue apart from one end to the other. Something screamed horribly: a vast, harsh and utterly malignant sound. Harry shifted his aim, tearing the corridor apart and devastating the elongated eye from end to end. The long split pupil exploded, and thick fluids rained down into the churned-up flesh of the corridor. Harry stopped firing, and the gun sank back into his armour again. And as he stood there, considering his work and finding it good, every single strange-matter bullet he’d fired jerked free of the demonic meat and flew back to him, to be absorbed into his armour.
“All right,” I said. “That’s impressive. Terribly destructive, but neat with it. I didn’t know our armour could do that.”
“I’ve been practicing,” said Harry. “Roger gave me the idea. His favourite film was always The Wild Bunch. I don’t know how many times he’s made me watch it with him.”
“The fiend,” I said.
And then we both broke off and stared blankly as the ripped and torn-up flesh of the possessed corridor repaired itself, rebuilding and reestablishing itself, demonic flesh fusing back together until the corridor looked exactly as it had before. Rotting walls, pulsing tongue, watching eye.
“Damn,” said Harry.
“Well, quite,” I said. “Major demonic presence . . .”
“Now what do we do? Send out for a tanker full of holy water?”
“Take too long,” I said. “Let me think. This is more Molly’s territory than mine.” I thought hard. This had to be a delaying tactic, to hold us off while Roger and Dusk got the hell out of Dodge, probably taking the mind-influencing machine with them. We had to find a way through. . . . A thought occurred to me.
“Are you religious, Harry?”
“What? Not as such . . . not in any organised way. Hard to find an organised church that wants anything to do with the likes of Roger and me. You?”
“In my own way. We know Heaven and Hell are real; the family has regular dealings with them. But we don’t know much about either; only enough to know we don’t want to know more.”
“How is this helping us?” said Harry. “What do you want me to do, shape my armour into a big golden crucifix?”
“Might come in handy if we come up against a nest of vampires,” I said. “But no, I have something else in mind. And you’re really not going to like it, Harry.”
“What else is new?”
“How brave are you feeling?” I said. “And how much do you really love Roger?”
“What kind of a question is that?” said Harry angrily.
“A relevant one. You’re not here for duty or vengeance, like me. Or even to fight Satanists. You’re here to find, and hopefully rescue, the hellspawn Roger Morningstar. You’re the only one who came here just for him. Because you love him. And there’s no place for love in any place possessed by Hell. So I think you should armour down and walk into that corridor, and trust to your love to protect you.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Maybe. But I think it’ll work. If you’re up for it.”
“I knew it,” said Harry. “You want to get rid of me!”
“You’re here for Roger! That’s what matters to you! So is he your love true or not? Because if he isn’t, this is where you get to find out the hard way. If he is, Hell itself won’t be able to stand in your way.”
“Love conquers all?” said Harry. “Aren’t you a little old to be believing in that?”
“I believe in evil because I’ve seen it,” I said. “And I believe in good because I’ve seen it. And I believe in love. My Molly went into Limbo, into the shadow of death itself, to find me and bring me back. Do you dare do less for your love? Whenever Hell intrudes on Earth, Heaven is also there. What we do in Heaven’s gaze has Heaven’s strength.”
“You are so full of it,” said Harry. He looked down the possessed corridor standing between him and Roger. He looked back at me. “You really want me to do this?”
“I’ll be right there with you,” I said.
“I’m not sure I believe in this,” said Harry. “So you’d better believe enough for both of us.”
He armoured down, and so did I; and then he walked slowly forward into the living corridor, an ordinary-looking man, in his smart suit and wire-rimmed spectacles, with a face trying hard to be brave and determined. I walked behind him, but he didn’t look back once. He walked steadily forward into the foul and stinking air and the bloodred light. His foot came down on the thick, pulpy tongue that had replaced the floor, and it shrank back from him. Where Harry’s foot came down it was suddenly ordinary corridor floor again. He didn’t hesitate, or look down after the first incredulous glance; he kept walking forward . . . and Hell retreated before him. The tongue fell back, and the rotting flesh of the walls retracted in sudden jerks, revealing patches of ordinary wall. Jagged teeth fell out of the walls, disappearing before they hit the floor.
About halfway down the corridor, the decaying flesh still on the walls bunched up, thickened and threw itself at Harry, trying to engulf him; but it couldn’t reach him. It dissipated and fell apart, made mist and dust and less than dust. Harry walked down the corridor, all the way to the end, with me right behind him. And when he finally stopped and turned around and looked back the way he’d come, there was nothing left to show that Hell had ever had a place on Earth there.
Harry looked at me. He was trying to smile, but he was too shaken. I was trembling a bit myself.
“I wasn’t altogether sure that would work,” I said.
“Now you tell me.” Harry took a deep breath and let it out. “I . . . am going to have to consider the implications of what just happened. And when I get to Roger, maybe I’ll sing him a quick chorus of ‘The Power of Love.’ Roger always did love Frankie Goes to Hollywood.”
“I’ve always had a soft spot for ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome,’”I said. “Great video.”
Harry looked at me. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Eddie?”
“You have no idea,” I said cheerfully.
“You really think Heaven’s watching?” said Harry.
“Maybe.”
“Well, I didn’t do this for Heaven. I did it for Roger.”
“Then let’s go tell him,” I said.
We started off, and then Harry stopped abruptly and looked at me. “What would you have done if it hadn’t worked?”
“Oh, I’m sure I’d have thought of something else. . . .”
“I could have died!”
“Every plan has its drawbacks, Harry.”
“I hate you.”
“Careful,” I said. “You never know who may be listening.”
We moved on, deeper into the building. Harry seemed to know where he was going, so I followed him. And soon enough we reached the conspiracy’s control centre. It was a function room
at the back of the hotel, right next to the old bell tower, presumably chosen because it was closest to the last remnant of the deconsecrated cathedral. The door was not only not locked or guarded; it was standing half-open so those inside could get a breath of fresh air on such a hot, sunny day. Harry and I armoured up and strode right in, and there was Roger Morningstar, looking perfectly human, along with half a dozen assistants, and two armed guards having a quiet sit-down on a smoke break. They were all watching what was happening outside on a series of large display screens. It was pretty obvious the fight was over. The Sarjeant-at-Arms was directing moppingup operations on the few surviving Satanists in the car park.
Roger looked round suddenly and saw Harry and me. He nodded slowly. His assistants and the two guards looked round. The guards went for their guns, and Harry and I killed them quickly. The assistants bolted out the back door, and I let them go. I could have caught them, but I’d had enough of killing. Let the Sarjeant deal with them. They weren’t what we’d come here for. Harry advanced on Roger. I stayed back by the doorway.
“You did come,” Roger said to Harry. “I wondered if you would. Hello, Harry.”
“Hello, Roger,” said Harry. “I think we need to have a serious talk about where our relationship is going.”
Roger looked at me, and I looked back. I wasn’t ready to leave Harry and Roger on their own together, not yet. Roger got up from his chair before the display screens to stand before Harry. The two men looked at each other for a long moment.
“I’ve missed you, Harry,” said Roger.
“I’ve missed you, Roger. Now tell me what the hell this has all been about.”
“A test,” said Roger. “I’m afraid, in the end, this has all been about me. I knew you’d come here with the Drood army, and so did my superiors. This is my final test of my loyalty to Hell. I have to kill you, Harry, here and now, to prove to them and to me that the emotions of this world no longer have any hold over me. That my only allegiance is to the forces of Hell.” He held up one hand to show off a small device. “Our new weapon designers made this for me. A simple toy, based on something the Armourer once used. A clicker that can temporarily force Drood armour back into its torc, against the wearer’s wishes. Leaving the wearer helpless and vulnerable. All I have to do is use this and then kill you, Harry. And you, too, Eddie; I wouldn’t want you to feel left out. And then . . . I will finally have proved which side I’m on. I will be made one of the generals of Hell, and when the Gates of Hell are finally thrown open, and all the damned come forth to tread the Earth and all its peoples under our cloven hooves, I shall be a prince of the Earth and have dominion over mankind. Everything I ever wanted, in return for killing you, Harry. It’s not much of a choice, is it?”
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