You'd think that breaking into a store would be small potatoes for the likes of me, though as I stared at the glass door and yanked on the stubborn metal latch, it occurred to me that I didn't know what I was doing. Was I supposed to use a credit card to trip the lock or something? Unscrew the hinges? I thought back to every heist movie I'd ever seen and tried to figure out the best way to get inside without making a scene.
“Just bust the damn glass, you idiot!” Germaine almost jumped out of my pocket.
“Damn, fine.” I punched a glass panel in the door out of position and then reached in carefully between the remaining shards. After a few minutes of groping, I disengaged the lock and opened the door. Pausing at the threshold, I didn't notice any signs of occupancy.
We were in.
It was a small space, one room with what looked like a broom closet behind the counter. The antiquated computer at the register was hibernating, the glowing green buttons on the tower casting an eerie light about the walls. The merchandise was mostly veiled in shadow, though as I started through the racks of DVDs, the glossy, smiling faces of submissive asian teens and blonde MILFs in cheerleader garb stared out at me. The effect was a lot more chilling than arousing.
True to Germaine's word, there were four booths in the back where, presumably, one could sit down and view adult films. I paused outside of them. “Which one did you say it was?” They were all rickety-looking, painted black, and not particularly spacious. The door to each one bore a faded little sign, put up with Scotch tape, reading, PLEASE DO NOT PEE IN THE GARBAGE CAN. Classy joint, this.
“The third one, I'm pretty sure. Bear in mind I ain't ever been here myself, kid. Try each one. We'll know it when we find it.” Scrambling out of my coat, Germaine pointed to the first door.
I pulled it open, the hinges groaning, and found little within but a bench, a television and a garbage can that reeked of piss. The floors were a bit sticky, too. I continued along the line, opening the doors one by one. “I'm not seeing anything in any of these. Are you sure this is the place?”
Crawling into the third booth, Germaine waved me in. “Come in here, close the door. Pretty sure this is it.”
I followed him, but not without some trepidation. Motioning to the bench inside, I shook my head. “I'm not sitting on that, by the way.”
Closing the door behind me, I left the two of us in the dark. Standing in this jerk-off closet with the talking spider, I felt like a huge idiot, and waited for him to declare the whole thing a prank. Instead, he walked across the walls, muttering to himself.
I reached out and touched the rough wooden walls of the booth gingerly, seeking out anything that smacked of a hidden door. To my right, just about waist-height, I came upon a hole in the wood. Sticking my fingers in it, I gave it a little tug. “Hey, there's a hole in the wall here. Think maybe this is part of the door?”
The spider cackled. “Nah, pretty sure that's just a glory hole, kid.”
That settled it. Once we were out of here I was going to sterilize the ever-loving shit out of my hands.
“Here it is!” declared Germaine as I wiped my hands off on my coat. “Give us a little light, Lucy.”
I cranked up Joe's Zippo and illuminated the booth, finding Germaine clinging to a narrow wooden door behind the television. A door that hadn't been there before. “Where the hell did that come from?” I asked, reaching out to touch it. The wood was weathered and knotty, and the metal loop answering for a handle was cold to the touch. Pushing the television to the side, I let Germaine back onto my shoulder.
“All the entrances to the Beyond are like this, kid. You've gotta know what you're looking for, and you've gotta be open to the other side. You wanna open it?”
Giving the handle a tug, I held out the flickering lighter and had a look at the space ahead. What awaited us was a long, unlit corridor. I looked back into the booth, at the television and trash can, and wondered if this wasn't just some back room in the adult video store. Germaine urged me on however, and as we started slowly down the hall, closing the door behind us, I came to realize the corridor was far too long to be a part of this lone building. Like the hook in the alley behind Yao's where we went to visit Mona, this stretch existed somewhere between the worlds.
“So...” I began, “where is this, exactly? Are we in the Beyond right now, or...?”
Germaine made his way to my other shoulder, peering intently into the darkness ahead. “Eh, not quite. I wouldn't stress over where this place is, exactly. Might break that little brain of yours, kiddo. Suffice it to say that this path is gonna take us where we wanna go. It's a bridge between the world you know and the world we're wanting to visit.”
This corridor didn't seem to want to end. We'd been walking for some minutes when I suddenly paused and looked back, finding only impenetrable darkness to my rear. So on we went. The walls here were of crumbling plaster, the floors a well-worn tile, nothing at all like the wallpapered drywall and carpet of the adult video store. “How much further?” I asked, a tremor of fear in my voice. I was afraid that maybe I hadn't walked fast enough, that my wondering about the nature of the corridor had seen us swallowed up into some pocket between the two worlds from which we might never return.
“Not much further, I'm sure. Keep going,” said Germaine.
And so I did. This interstitial space between the two worlds reminded me of something. Kubo had explained that, in ancient times, the Manticore had been banished by the gods to some void between the Earth and the Beyond. Was this the kind of place he'd meant? Was I going to open a door or round a corner here and get a face-full of other such horrors?
When next I took stock of my surroundings, I realized I had run out of corridor and was standing upon a large, wooden trapdoor. It was eerily similar to the one that led to Mona's, down to the forged iron ring that served as a handle. “This is it, huh?” I reached down and gave the door a tug, blinking into the perfect darkness that existed within. The Zippo wasn't going to do me any good here, so I stashed it away. “You ready to jump?”
“Do it up.” Germaine clung to my coat as I took the first step into the Beyond.
When we landed, it wasn't in front of Mona's cottage, but in a small alley between two wooden buildings. The ground was dirt, and the shuffling of passersby caught my attention from the get-go. This was the Underground; I knew it before I even ambled out of the alley and took in the sights. The aroma of horse droppings, the menagerie of bizarre, inhuman creatures walking the streets, the clamor of street vendors; it was all as I remembered it.
I reached up and scooped Germaine into my pocket, pulling the collar of my coat up so as to keep my face hidden. “Is it a good idea for us to be down here?” I asked him. “I mean, after what happened last time, aren't we kind of outlaws around here?”
“Nah, we're good. Just keep your head down,” said Germaine. “The Underground is a big, big place. We're far from that bit of the Underground where all of that went down. I don't imagine anyone around here will recognize us, so hurry up before you prove me wrong. We're just passing through.”
Our last visit to the Underground had been pretty eventful. We'd gotten into a street fight against a few cutthroats, had sacked the Celestial Armory in search of the Archangel Saber and had made it so that Germaine could never return to his bookshop again, lest he get himself murdered. I was determined to keep a low profile and avoid all of that drama this go-round, and asked him to direct me. “Where to?” Though bustling, this stretch of town wasn't quite as densely packed with buildings as the other had been. There was a bar across the street, its windows glowing orange and the panes crammed with fragrant smoke. There were clusters of yowling street vendors peddling late-night snacks and a few lone wolves that gave me terrible vibes, however most of the buildings in this spot were dark, closed for the night. “Is this a more residential area or something? There are less people here than I expected.”
Germaine ignored my question. “Keep go
ing, a mile or so down this main road. You'll come upon a small house, abandoned. It's got a caved-in roof, I think. No door. That's where we're going.”
Not that I'd been expecting the Hamptons, but I was less than excited about heading into a tottering old house like what he was describing. “So, this Servant of Darkness gig doesn't pay Lubec well enough to live in a nice place, huh?”
The spider was clamming up, speaking less and less as the wheels turned in his head and he fielded yet more regret for leading me down here. He was twitchy, breathing hard, probably trying to think of a way to ask me to turn back.
We'd gone too far for that, though. At this point, if he hadn't wanted to play ball, I'd have gone up to each hideous passerby along the street and asked them to help me find Lubec. The spider knew it, and so he kept his mouth shut. Better that the two of us march into the devil's den together, I guess.
There were a ton of tumbledown houses to be found on the flanks of the larger buildings, crumbling little places where people had once run homes or businesses, but it wasn't until we'd passed all of the hustle and bustle that I discovered the worm-eaten abode Germaine had described. You know what gave it away? It wasn't the color of the roof or the fact that the door was missing, although those details had matched Germaine's account. It was the smooth flagstone half-buried in the front lawn that did it. I stood over the thing a moment, kicking away clods of dirt and weeds, and discovered an inscription.
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.
I grinned. “Well, get a look at that. This must be the place, though I have to admit I'm sort of disappointed. That's some generic shit. Couldn't he have written something more original?”
Germaine climbed out of my pocket. “Yeah... yeah, this looks about right. Go in there, down to the cellar. Should be a sealed door down there. Knock on it three times, and...” He chose not to finish that sentence.
That was enough to go off of. I entered the house, the wood floors sagging beneath my feet, and batted a veil of cobwebs from my path. I didn't have to look hard for the entrance to the cellar. The door was laying across the floor of a ruined kitchen, and as I cut across the living room, Zippo in hand, I zeroed in on the stairs that would take me down below.
I took the first few steps carefully, checking to make sure they were stable, and then bounded down the rest of the flight like a dumbass. The second to last step splintered beneath my heel and I ended up with a sizable cut along my calf as I skidded down onto the concrete floor. The cut was no biggie, but in the fall I'd let go of Joe's lighter and it'd clattered across the floor, leaving us stranded in absolute darkness. “Shit!” I cried, running my palms over the dirty concrete. “Where the hell did the light go?”
Germaine dove off of me and pressed on ahead. I guess he could see better in the dark than I could. A few moments later, as I crawled deeper into the cellar on all fours, I heard the spider fussing with the cap of the Zippo. Grunting, he managed to switch it back on, setting it gingerly on the floor and backing away quickly, lest he light his furry bulk up like a firecracker. “Let there be light!” His amusement was short-lived as I drew near and he motioned at what appeared to be a thick, wooden door embedded in the wall of weathered bricks. “I, uh... I think this is the door. You wanted Lubec, so there he is.” He held his breath. “Are you sure about this, kiddo?”
I stood up, studying the outside of the door in the flickering light, and then gripped the handle. “Of course I am. There's no time to waste, man. Come on.”
The door wouldn't budge. I rattled the brass handle, pushed against the wood, but it wouldn't move in the least.
“You've gotta knock. Three times,” Germaine said.
“Just like a fairytale or something, huh?” I pocketed the lighter and let Germaine take refuge in my pocket before landing three loud knocks on the door. “Hope we haven't picked a bad time,” I whispered. “If he's taking a shit in there, there's no telling how long we'll have to wait.”
We didn't have to wait long at all, as it turned out, because no sooner had the words left my lips did the door fly open. On the other side there burned a fluorescent light that made my eyes hurt, and in its glow was rendered a striking silhouette of a man. The grey, scowling face that met us on the other side of that door was human in shape only. That there was something demonic buried just under the surface was clear even before my heart began to thump in recognition.
He took a step back, appraising me with cold, penetrating interest, and as he did so I caught a look at what he was wearing. A leather butcher's apron. Glimmering in the fluorescents to his back were boxes of sharp surgical instruments surrounding a long, metal table like I always imagined aliens might use during a post-abduction probing. Ruddy handprints coated the thing; the dried blood of thrashing victims, I took it. Then, deeper into this room I spied a wooden barrel stuffed to bursting with human limbs. I didn't look too closely, though, because the smell of clotting blood hit me so hard I just about threw up on the guy's bare feet.
When next I looked up into the grey face of this aproned man, I found an eerie smile fixed there. He outstretched his arms, bowed his head in reverence, and came in like a creepy uncle for a bearhug. “I almost didn't recognize you, my lord,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
30
Beyond this den of horrors, it was possible that Lubec had some tasteful furniture or a fine art collection. I don't really know. It wasn't like I got a grand tour or anything like that. This room, though, which looked more and more like a spacious old bomb shelter to me the more I paced around it, positively reeked of death. Even had the human remains been hauled out, the floors scrubbed, a fresh coat of painted dashed across the brick walls, there'd have been no getting rid of it.
Despite the Buffalo Bill vibe I'd gotten from him initially, Lubec proved an enthusiastic host. He set out a chair for me to sit in, asked me all sorts of questions as though the two of us were old war buddies and waxed poetic about his “work” as though I knew what he was talking about.
I guess that meant he could see the demon in me, knew Gadreel was in the house. I was still in the dark about this guy, and Germaine, walking carefully along the back of my chair, hadn't filled me in yet.
So, I had to go for it. “Listen,” I began, “this is going to sound hella rude, but I actually don't think we've met. The two of us, anyway. It's pretty clear you're an old chum of Gadreel's. I'm Lucian Colt, though, and I'm the body he's been wearing for the past few months.” I considered reaching out to shake his hand, but quickly decided against it. Those hands of his had probably just been playing around in someone's guts.
There was some confusion in his stony features as he pondered this. “I don't understand...”
I plopped down into the chair and took off my coat. The room was pretty damn warm. Either this guy had the heat cranked all the way up or we were in a much warmer climate now. “Well, see, I'm a Demon-Heart. I received Gadreel's heart some months back.” I shifted a little. “I came to see you because--”
I didn't even have to finish explaining myself, because the guy suddenly understood. Rather than the happy, chatty Lubec we'd met upon entering the room however, we were now faced with a righteously angry Lubec, the Lubec who scowled and gesticulated a lot as he started into a tirade. “They carved out your heart, my lord? Who would dare such a thing? It is barbaric to so mistreat one of the grigori. I am at a loss for words. These savages... Who are they? I will assist you in cutting them down, will wage a war against them for their misdeeds. Imprisoning the heart of a prince of the netherworld in a lowly vessel such as this...” He shook his head and looked like he was about to spit at me. I tried not to take it personally. “At any rate, I wish you'd come to me sooner. I'll have you squared away in short order.
“I am a craftsman, an artist, known throughout the netherworld for my skill. Living on Earth for so many eons has allowed me to assist my brothers-in-arms. When a demon possesses a fresh vessel, I have the skills to he
lp them retain their host permanently. I can unleash a demon's hidden power, can utilize the ancient rites to channel the very energies of Hell into my brethren. This is why Lord Gadreel insisted you come to see me. I am the best at what I do, and he is well aware. A prince of demons has no greater ally in this world than me.”
That last part had gone over my head. “W-well, see, that's the thing right there. I was told to come here and see you, but I don't really know why. Gadreel said that you could help me somehow, make me stronger. He didn't, uh... didn't elaborate a whole lot, though.” I glanced back at Germaine, who kept on pacing against the back of the chair, uncharacteristically silent.
In the corner of the room, I spied a little pit. It was covered with a stony lid, however the edges of the aperture glowed a bright orange. An assortment of wrought iron instruments like something straight out of the Inquisition were positioned in a rack just beside it, and it was towards these that Lubec walked. “Gadreel is interested in attaining the Marks of Abbadon, of course.” With his heel, Lubec shoved the lid to the fire pit away, revealing a mound of hot coals. He sized up the sharp instruments in the rack and studied them with his calloused fingers. “It will take only a few hours, I assure you. And when it is done, you will know strength beyond strength.”
Though I liked the sound of that, I knew better than to think this guy was just wholesomely quoting Thundercats. As with any upgrade in the demonic realm, there were probably going to be strings attached. We were sitting in a room full of human remains for Christ's sake. For all I knew, Kubo had a thick-ass file on this dude back at HQ. What I was doing here was probably tantamount to treason to the Veiled Order. Lubec, though friendly with me, was one of the bad guys. I didn't have much doubt about that.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? If I was ever going to reach across the aisle and really embrace my inner demon-hood, I could think of no better time.
Happy End of the World (Demon-Hearted Book 3) Page 14
