by Hal Duncan
The fall of Sodom, for instance, at the climax of the movie, resonates with everything from the Odessa Steps scene in Battleship Potemkin to the closing of the Warsaw Ghetto in Schiniler's List. And then of course there is the capture and torture of the heroes, the Hittite prince Istran and the young Hebrew warrior Jonathan…
FOR THE DYING AND THE DEAD
21 st March. So we wait now in the Beth Ashtart, behind a barricade of old church pews and display cases—the heritage of this place all turned now to the most pragmatic purposes, lifted and dragged from their places across the mosaic floor, piled up with a desperate compromise of haste and quiet that has left both the Baron and myself exhausted.
It is a strange scene, quiet and dark. The clutter of cabinets and cases cleared from the center of the hall and heaped in a jumble at the door, there is a strange tranquillity to the place now. Von Strann lies, passed out, on one of the pews, pale and weak from the loss of blood, but patched up to the best of my abilities. Tamuz lies upon the altar, watched over by the Weeping Angel, as she's known, this painted statue that might be the prototype of all Madonnas, the original Venus weeping for Adonis. I can imagine this museum as it once was, as a temple, a place of healing and mourning, prayers for the dying and the dead.
Von Strann should pull through though, I think; he has more strength by far than I'd given him credit for; he's twice the man of many soldiers I've known, I should say, the way he suffered my clumsy excavation of the bullet from his shoulder. I'm no surgeon at the best of times; it's only fortunate that, with no windows in this place, no danger of the Turks spotting our candlelight, at least I wasn't digging around in the pitch-black.
There is a part of me that wants to pray now to this last teraph, this heathen goddess with her glory long gone, scarlet and purple peeled or faded to plaster white and pale blue, one jeweled eye and one empty socket, with the deep gouges on the cheek below that give this Ashtaroth her modern name. I want to pray to this Weeping Angel, to watch over us now the best she can.
And I want to pray that the Book is real, that the Cant is real. That the name of every innocent ever murdered for some insane ideal was written down for future generations to read and lament. That the generals and demagogues who bring this hell upon us could be branded with their crimes, as the first murderer was, their bloody deeds graved in their flesh.
I want to pray that there will be a reckoning for this.
“God damn it!”
Jack swings back into the room as von Strann takes his place above MacChuill crouched in the doorway, firing down the stairwell at the Turks. He flicks the cylinder of the Webley out and empties the cartridges in a patter of metal on wooden floorboards—
“Jack!”
He catches the box of bullets thrown byTamuz from the dresser with its top drawer pulled out, pours the last handful into his palm and reloads, drops the empty box on the floor. As MacChuill swivels back into the room, Jack squats in his place, ducking out and in again to fire at men he can barely catch a glimpse of. Christ, he can't tell how many of them there are, but there must be six or seven bodies on the stairs, and there's more than enough behind them that there's not a hope in hell of holding them off.
Carter takes another Turk down with his last shot, ducks back inside— MacChuill?—but MacChuill is shaking his head, fitting the bayonet to his rifle. Tamuz is digging through the dresser in a last-ditch effort.
“Anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Table,” snaps von Strann—he's inside, slamming the door shut—”fast!”
Wooden legs scrape over floorboards, rattling, as Jack and MacChuill half drag, half carry the table, upend the thing and ram it tight under the doorknob, weight of their bodies behind it. Footsteps on the stair give way to thumping shudders of the door frame. There's a shout in Turkish—out of the way!—and Jack pulls MacChuill back as the rapid fire splinters the door, the frame. More body-slams against it, more machine-gun fire and then the weakened door is being kicked open and it's the three of them, MacChuill with his bayoneted rifle, von Strann with the Winchester held like a cricket bat, and Jack with a knife in one hand, Webley reversed in the other as a club, the three of them against too many Turkish militia too well armed, proving it with a casual spray of bullets that cuts MacChuill down where he stands, even as his rifle lowers.
“Drop your weapons.”
Von Strann lets the Winchester fall but Jack is already leaping at the weak spot, past the bastard's gun and in close, knife in the man's gut, Webley whipped across his face and dropped as Jack grabs the bastard's gun arm, twisting hard to turn it on the Turks, turning to see the butt of a rifle swinging for his head and—
We welcome him into the darkness.
THE CITY OF A THOUSAND STORIES
“There are many stories in this city, mis amigos, tales for every cobblestone that's trodden under jackboot, tales for every railing in the fences round the South Side ghettos, from the tales of underdogs in the underworld, smuggling stolen data down the tunnels where the clockwork trains once clickety-clacked along the track, to tales of overmen in the upper echelons who'll pay a hefty price for sweet delights to while away the endless night with just an orange and some fishnet tights; that's right, and we got all these tales and more here in the dead zone just before the dawn. You're listening to Don Coyote's naughty nightly Notes from the Geek Show, and we got some saucy scandals that'll make your cheeks glow red. But as you know we're always looking for some juicy morsel, so if you know a little gossip for the astral airwaves, just get on the blower, dial six-six-six-four-oh-oh-oh andlet us blow that story open.”
I hit the roof and roll, come up into a crouch, a hunter's squat, turning to aim my Curzon-Youngblood Mark I chi-gun to the skies above, as the ornithopter's searchlight pins me in its circle. I don't mind being in the limelight, but I'd rather they were showering me with roses than the blossoms of chi-energy pounding the concrete all around me. Not that those aren't every bit as pretty, but I'd like to be there for the pink champagne after the show, so I reckon it's time for Jack to exit stage right.
I fire at the wing joints of the thopter—once, twice—and the crippled little technotoy flaps a few times with a hellish racket, lurches through the air, and then just plummets with an elegant twirl into the concrete.
Well, they would ask for an encore.
“But let's start with the story that might just blow polite society apart, the tale of a tart with a heart and the superspyflyguy trying to wing his way back to his love. What makes this the salacious and audacious fare you've come to know from Don's deep dive into the human soul, pray tell, I hear you say? Inquiring minds they want to know. Well, this tart, for a start, has more tackle than your average hooker, if you get my drift, and word on the street is that our hustler, he's been rustling secrets while he rustles sheets and, well, a little birdie tells me he's just recently been seen being hustled in and out of some expensive suites. Rumor is that there's a minister with an almighty taste for his sweet cheeks.
“And you want more? You want to know the full score? Well, mis amigos, if that's not enough, maybe you'd like to hear just how our little queer's been passing on those secrets, shooting the breeze with his main squeeze—who else but the human flea in the fur of Albion's great and good, the one and only Jack Flash. Now, if I were a minister, I'd say that's just plain rude…”
A quick scan of the situation and I scope a door on the far side of the steaming mound of pilot-and-thopter pizza, so I run for it—and skid to a halt as an almighty pounding kicks off on the other side of the door, a sound like thundering guns and screaming feedback cranked up to the max through an amp with a switchblade in it. Sonic ram. Ah, bollocks. As the door begins to glow, begins to go, and then just shatters open in a shower of sparks and shrieks, militiamen spilling out onto the roof, I'm already legging it hard and fast across the concrete in the opposite direction, firing blindly over my shoulder. One spring-heel forward flip over the thopter wreckage later and I
'm safe on the other side of it, chi-pistol holstered, an orgone grenade in each hand, pins out. I keep trying to tell these bastards to make love not war.
If they won't listen to reason …
SIX-GUNS AT SALT CITY, BY JOE CAMPBELL (1973)
“Gringo,” said the bandit chief. “If you no listen to the Major, we gonna have to kill you, si? So we make a deal, eh, gringo?”
Jake Carter narrowed his eyes, and spoke softly through gritted teeth.
“Maybe we do, at that.”
Van Stern raised his head and licked blood from the corner of his mouth where his lips had been broken open by the Major's fist. His foot was going to need some patching but he was a hard man, not the type to be broken by one bullet.
“Rot in hell, you lousy sons of bitches,” he said.
Carter turned toward him.
“Looks to me like we don't have much of a choice, amigo,” he said.
But his voice was quiet and controlled, the voice of a man with a plan.
“Can't hurt us to listen to the man,” said Carter.
The Major stroked his mustache and poured himself another shot of whisky, slugged it back, then took a draw from his cheroot. He put the whisky glass down on the torn piece of map that lay upon the table.
“I think you and I are very much the same, Captain Carter. So one of us is a Yankee and the other a Reb. We're both soldiers, when it comes down to it. We know what war's about, the things a man has to go through, the things he has to do. It ain't a pretty story. War changes a man, leaves him a little cold and dead inside, makes him a killer. I don't think we're really that much different, Captain Carter.”
“Just what exactly is your point, Major?” hissed Carter.
“The point is, Captain, I have here one half of a map that tells me where our Indian-lover's Navajo squaw hid a treasure worth more than you or I can even imagine. The point is that I can't get at it because those damned redskins are swarming over every inch of the ground out there. The point is that, with our friend here as hostage, maybe we can get past those savages. And the point is, Captain, that I need the other half of the map, and I think you know where it is.”
While the Major was speaking, the Mexican had drawn a bowie knife from a sheath at his side; now he was playing with it menacingly as he walked slowly around the table.
Van Stern just laughed.
“The point is,” he said, “that you know damn well that Salt City can't be held against a tribe of Indians any more'n it could be held against your band of cutthroat renegades, and you're quaking in your goddamn lily-livered boots. You know damn well that come nightfall those ‘savages’ are gonna be all over this town, and your scalp is gonna be what every one of those warriors is after.”
Jake Carter looked at the tracker, then back at the Major.
“Think about it, Captain,” said the Major. “Gold… More gold than you can imagine. What do you say?”
The Mexican was now standing directly behind them. Carter felt cold steel pressed sharp against his throat.
“You listen to the Major, gringo, if you know what is good for you.”
“Kill me,” said Carter, “and you'll never find the gold tablets.”
The Major waved his hand to signal the bandit chief to back away, but there was a cold look in his eyes, the look of a hungry coyote.
“I wasn't intending to kill you, Captain. Death is a little too final for my liking.”
He held out his hand for the Mexican to lay the knife in. “Pain,” said the Major, “on the other hand …”
MAJOR JOSEF PECHORIN
Jack wakes from a chaos of unconsciousness riven by bleak deliriums of falling angels, burning books, a voice singing a dirge, another saying:
“Again.”
A blast of cold and wet hits his face, water in his mouth and nostrils, and he splutters awake, choking and coughing, blinking. He tries to put his hand up to his throbbing head, to clear his vision, clear his thoughts, but can't move his arms from where they're bound, behind his back, tight and—
He shakes his head but the grogginess is just replaced with pain.
“Are you with us now, Captain Carter?”
“Yes.”
Facing him is a grubby wooden table, a man seated on its edge, blurred and dark, but coming into focus now with the rest of the concrete cell—a Turk stood by a tap in the wall, bucket in hand, von Strann slumped beside him, also bound in a chair, blood dripping from a wound above one eye. It's the voice of the black-shirt that brings him into focus, and the indolent arrogance in the way he leans forward over Jack. Jack recognizes the bastard straightaway.
“Are you quite together now?” says Major Josef Pechorin of the Black Guard.
Jack says nothing, just glowers at the man.
“Yes, I can see you are.”
He holds a glass of brandy in one hand, a slim cigar in the other, but the scent of smoke and Armagnac on his breath isn't half as pungent as the stale and sickening odor of shit and blood that fills the room, a stench of death and torture. The concrete floor is soaked, a drainage hole over in the corner, but there are stains too deep to wash away under Jack's feet.
“I have some questions for you,” says Pechorin.
“Carter, Jack. Captain. 10138769.”
Pechorin sighs, takes a sip of his brandy, swirls the glass and sets it down on the table. He slides down from the tabletop, moving toward von Strann.
“Do we have to go through the whole routine?” he says. “I ask you questions. You refuse to answer them. I do my best to break you. You persist heroically until I put the barrel of a gun to your friend's head and threaten to pull the trigger. Like this.”
The hammer of his pistol ratchets back as he presses it to the unconscious man's temple.
“You,” says Pechorin, “remain grimly resolute, knowing that lives must, after all, be sacrificed in times of war and I, rather than squander my leverage, demonstrate that we will go as far as it takes.”
He lowers the gun to point at von Strann's foot and fires.
——
The scream trails off into curses choked by moans, moans broken up by curses. Pechorin looks at him with cold appraisal.
“Carter, Jack. Captain. 10138769.”
As von Strann gets to grips with his sudden awakening to torture, Jack keeps his eyes focused straight ahead, tries to shut the sound of pain out of his mind. Muffled and distant but louder than before, he thinks, he can hear that unnerving song in the strange tongue of the Enakites, and it's that he focuses on. He can't tell which direction it's coming from—it almost seems to surround them—but it's unmistakable now, von Strann's lament over the dead child. It sounds like thousands of voices. If Samuel's notes are right, then the Turks should be getting edgy by now.
“Captain Carter.”
Pechorin grabs his chin and forces his face round toward von Strann, who's slumped forward, grimacing in pain and muttering lowly. Carter snaps his head away, stares straight ahead. On the table in front of him lie the saddlebags filled with Samuel's scrawls, along with Carter's own journal, the Song of Solomon, a map of the city.
“Carter, Jack,” he says. “Captain. 10138769.”
Beside him von Strann's moans subside and his voice takes on a quiet singsong quality. Jack feels like he almost understands the words now: There will be a reckoning for this. But with more… detail. As Pechorin comes round into his field of vision, in the blackshirt's eyes Jack can see how the song unnerves the man. His training tells him not to engage at all—name, rank and serial number; any more than that just gives a torturer a foothold—but… the situation is so close.
He looks at the notes on the table, makes his decision.
“Natives a bit restless, Major?” he says. “How long have your communication lines been severed? How many reconnaissance patrols have vanished without a trace outside the walls of Tell el-Kharnain?”
The smirk on the man's face becomes ever so slightly strained.
“You loo
k worried, Major. I mean, on the surface, you look so certain of your own inevitable victory, but it's as if a part of yourself which you consider absurd and superstitious is afraid of… unforeseen circumstances, shall we say? Or would ‘foreseen circumstances’ be a better phrase?”
Pechorin's lips are pressed almost into a snarl now.
“Captain Carter, you would be better to concern yourself with—”
“—with your immediate fate,” says Jack, “rather than with the mystical nonsense of uneducated savages. Is it really nonsense? Why is it, then, that if you look through the pages of that red notebook straight in front of me, you'll find this conversation, word for word, written down? Please, be my guest. You'll find it on a page which has your name as the title. Major Josef Pechorin.”
Pechorin is pale and silent for an indefinable moment, a moment that stretches out like the solemn tolling of a bell. It seems to last forever, that moment, as his eyes and Jack's fix upon each other's, both of them knowing that they've read the very same words in Samuel's scratchy hand within the torn and bloody pages of that book, staring into each other's souls and knowing that their entangled fates are written, sealed.
SON OF THE CITY, BY R. GRAVES (1956)
I knew as soon as the Cossack walked into the room that there was going to be trouble, and the goon behind him told me it was going to be twice as bad. He was big and he was ugly with a thick mustache that couldn't hide his dumb sneer; I tell you, if you shaved a gorilla and put him in a suit, you'd be close to this guy. Not that you'd want to be close to this guy; they might have shaved this gorilla, but they hadn't hosed him down.
“Nice to see you again,” I said to the Cossack. “You going to introduce me to your friend? He's one of Turk's mob, right?”
