I thought about it for a moment. See what the waves bring me . . .
Okay, good idea. While Nimrod and I continue to concentrate on Cream and Chopin, you look for anything specific to the Blue Suits and Devil’s Children. I’m sure you appreciate my worry. We need to establish how many are involved and, dependent upon the actual division they work in, what kinds of personal data they can access.
You’re fortunate then, Donna assured me. The Den is very much in the public domain. Everyone knows who the Reaper is, and what his Hounds and Inquisitors do.
Sorry, but you’re missing my point, I countered. If the leaks work in the wrong branch, our targets will not only have access to some very sensitive and private information, but you can bet your bottom dollar Cream and company will ensure they’ll also have possession of items to negate our defenses and abilities. Until I can update the wards about the Den, my people are vulnerable.
A sense of unified purpose and determination trilled through the ether.
We’re on this, Bella and Donna replied in unison, trust us.
I do!
With that, they severed the connection.
Good girls.
I blinked my eyes back into focus to find Nimrod staring at me. “All sorted?”
“It is now. C’mon, we need to get back to Olde London Town; there’s something I need to check out.”
As I tried to stand, a powerful tremor rocked the building. My balance was slightly off from my long distance hail: I tripped and went to my knee
“What in Hades was that?” I snarled.
“I don’t know. Does the metro run beneath us? Perhaps there’s been an accident?”
I sent my astral sight powering down through the substrata.
“No, it felt deeper, much deeper.”
“A hellquake then? No matter how stable a place might appear, everywhere gets them at times. His Satanic Majesty loves to remind us all of his overwhelming power and authority.”
“Hmm.” I wasn’t convinced. “Our lord has a funny way of showing his stability, I might have . . .” A pungent, chemical tang assailed my nostrils. “That smell is familiar.”
I looked down and discovered that I’d fallen close to the overflowing wastebasket. The aroma was coming from a scrunched-up sheet of paper near the top of the pile.
“Is that embalming fluid?” I sniffed the offending article to make sure I had selected the correct one, and started to unfold it. Yes, it is!
For some reason the smell reminded me of Don Pérignone’s prized kill jar, where the preservatives had leaked from the dodgy lid.
But what if they hadn’t? I experienced a revelation. “Hey, do you think Cream and Chopin have had a major falling out?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Don thought the seal on the jar of our last clue had perished and leaked. What if it hadn’t? What if the leak had been caused deliberately, and whatever was originally inside had been replaced with a clue that led us here? Not to Judas or any other Blue Suit, but to Chopin’s home address. Someone we didn’t know existed, except by oblique reference to his mystery poems and shady descriptions at several of our target sites.”
Nimrod appeared genuinely surprised. “You think they’ve had a falling-out? But this place is empty.”
“No, it’s abandoned, not empty. All the indicators point to Chopin leaving in a hurry.”
The possibilities of this development were mind boggling.
“So what have you got there?” Nimrod asked as he helped me to my feet.
“Let’s take a look, shall we? Hopefully it’ll help.”
I placed the crumpled piece of paper on the desktop and smoothed out yet another in a long list of rhymes. But this one was different.
“It looks to have been completed by two people,” I murmured.
The first portion, clearly written in Chopin’s declining style, read:
As passing as a paper cut upon fragile, gossamer skin,
I leave my mark,
Noxious, invisible, and uninvited.
Escape is impossible, for once ingested,
You are inclined to do my bidding.
Fear not,
Your scars will be an epitaph
Of a life snuffed out before its time.
Claret, rich, and thick,
Spilt from scarlet lips,
A birthmark, excised forever.
Cream had then added the following:
We mourn your passing, in red-bricked cathedrals,
Stately monuments to shadow and gloom,
Subterranean arteries
Of oily water and noxious fumes.
And screams, don’t forget the screams
Echoing in vaulted chambers,
Where the dripping, gurgling resonance
Of carcass, garbage, and chamber pot
Fester in pools of stagnant abandonment.
Do you feel cast off?
Like a tuning fork that reverberates
To the flotsam and jetsam
Floating beneath our feet each day?
At the very bottom was an additional line:
Seeing as Chopin couldn’t deliver, have this one
on me . . . for old time’s sake.
Signed with a flourish, I could almost taste the twisted kick Cream had gotten from penning it.
“He’s starting to get personal,” Nimrod observed.
“Started? Do you know what I think this is?” I waved the note in the air. “I think Chopin wrote this as the original clue, and Cream replaced it with the one that led us here. Cream wanted us to discover the identity of his partner in crime, and where he lives. Then, realizing that Chopin would have fled, our worthy doctor came to this very house, added his little bit at the bottom, and left it here for us to find. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s been a conflict of interests. Cream wants out. Has done all along. If what you say is correct, Chopin doesn’t, but . . . he wants to bring someone in from heaven. These guys thought they were on the same team to begin with, but now they think they’re nearing their goal, it’s led to conflict . . . and Cream stuck the knife in first.”
“Then why go to all that bother? What point is Cream trying to make here?”
We took another look at Chopin’s segment.
“His whole poem is a definite threat,” I muttered, “but who could be the target? Hang on! ‘A birthmark, excised forever.’ Hmm, birthmarks . . .”
Moles, bruises, café au lait. Then there’s a stork bite, port wine stain . . . oh, and of course, a strawberry birthmark . . .
“No way! Strawberry?”
“But surely she can handle herself?”
“Tell me about it . . . unless she was caught by someone with arcane weapons in a place where she usually lets her guard down. Somewhere she goes to relax . . .”
I studied again what Cream had inferred from the second half of the clue.
Bastard! He is making it personal.
Opening my mind, I focused my thoughts along Strawberry’s intimate mode.
Strawberry? Strawberry, this is urgent. Answer if you can hear me?
Nothing but telepathic static hissed back.
I went cold.
We have to go, now!”
Chapter 19: Divided Loyalties
The cenote had existed for millennia, an ancient cave-well with all-devouring limestone jaws. Always open to the elements and forever ravenous, its bowels displayed the evidence of perpetual hunger: they were lined with the detritus of root and vine and, of course, with the remains of those unfortunate enough to fall in from the realms above.
Overgrown in mold and decay, the atrium brooded in shadow. Stalactites hung from its roof, frozen like crystal tears at the moment of expression, paying homage to those pioneers now lying in their grave below. For only once they had fallen to their doom had those brave explorers rediscovered mysteries unseen for centuries.
The silence of the vault was punctuated by the constant plink, plink, plink of water dropping
from far above into black-mirrored pools; and every now and again, eerie moans issued forth from the constricted throats of deeper tunnels.
A blinding pillar of transforming plasmic brilliance pierced the gloom. Lichens, roots, and ancient gut rock that hadn’t seen the light of day for an age were bathed in phosphorous glory for but a moment, and then the cavern’s interior found itself host to more than three dozen souls, once men and women.
Some barked orders, others illuminated lamps, the remainder opened equipment rolls. Two figures detached themselves from the throng and made their cautious way along a ledge toward an adjoining gallery. The first massaged the knuckles of his hands, while the second took great care to sheath a long silver cylindrical object within an oiled cloth.
“Congratulations,” Chopin beamed, “your latest multi-phasic portal generator worked like the proverbial charm.” He looked back at the combined squads of mercenaries behind them. “Everyone appears to have arrived safely, limbs and organs intact.”
Tesla smiled. “I could say the same of you. Your vision was spot on!”
“Of course. While everything else I do is blighted by this accursed place, the unexpected consequence of the Undertaker’s interference continues to prove faultless. Without it, I fear I may have gone insane.”
They stared about themselves for a moment, taking in the splendor of broken columns and water-generated anthropomorphic carvings that looked as if, over eons, the dying had attempted to record their existence when faced with their inevitable demise.
“Whenever I visit these places to recover what I’ve seen,” Chopin continued, “I always feel as if I’m intruding on sacrosanct landscapes where humans should never tread.”
“Technically, we aren’t human,” Tesla jibed. “We gave that right up long ago, once we damned our souls to hell — or at this precise moment, Purgatory. So, by all means, intrude away, I’m sure no one will mind.”
Both men chuckled.
“I wish we had more time to explore these hidden halls.” Chopin’s face adopted a wistful look. “Just think of what treasures we might uncover. But time is pressing and I need to recover the Moral Compass with all haste.”
At the mention of their objective, Tesla focused.
“So what will this contraption do, exactly?”
“The Compass is an empyrean tool that acts as a combined lodestone and sextant and is designed to navigate regions of reality protected by wards of great esoteric power.” Chopin sidled closer to his companion and lowered his voice. “I have foreseen a great upheaval, my friend, wherein the very fabric of the netherworlds will be threatened. Whatever the outcome of this cataclysm, I need to ensure that I can reach a certain destination unhindered. The Compass will allow me to do just that, for it remains true through any medium; heavenly, hellish, and mundane.”
“Why not simply use one of my multi-phased generators? They’ll get you to wherever you need to go in the underverse.”
“Because I’m not going anywhere in the underverse, Nikola. I’m going someplace in between, where we can’t be sure your orbs will work.”
“I see . . .” Tesla appeared unnerved. “Then we had better hurry our friends along.” He turned to the soldiers gathered behind them. “Colonel Banner? A moment of your time, please.”
Colonel Severin Banner, a thirty-year fighting veteran and commanding officer of the “Cursed and Proud,” one of the hardest, most vicious bunch of mercenaries ever to tarnish the realms of the damned, came skipping lightly across the rocks. “Gentlemen?”
“Remember, your men are searching for an old sea chest, about four feet square,” Tesla began. “If you think of pirates, you won’t go far wrong. That chest will have been down here for a long time, so the wood may have rotted and spilt its contents into the filth and muck you see about you. Tell your soldiers to look for black, tarnished pieces of metal. That’ll be pieces-of-eight, your bounty. My colleague and I are interested in the arcane items amongst those coins, talismans of scientific value —”
“Yes, I remember,” Banner said. “You only have to tell us once. I have my lads and lasses sorting out the metal detectors and thermal imaging equipment as we speak.”
“Thank you for your tenacity,” Tesla replied, “but I thought I’d better stress how time is of the essence. Our agreement of a fifty-fifty split still holds. That works out to ninety million in adjusted diablos. However, if your officers are able to locate what we require within the hour, your cut will increase to seventy-five percent. Is that clear?”
The colonel’s eyes sparkled. Without a further word, he spun on his heels and began bellowing fresh commands. The mood permeating the cavern sharpened, and the makeshift camp shifted to a higher gear.
“This diversion has proven costly, but necessary,” Chopin sighed. “But so long as it keeps us ahead of Cream and the Reaper, I will be content.”
“Do you think our former associate will create more trouble?”
“Oh, I have no doubt of it. The items in his possession give him the advantage of both speed and surprise. Regardless, we have more than enough remaining to complete this venture.” Chopin fingered the lover’s knot tied about his wrist. “And don’t forget, through the link we now have with him, I remain alerted to his machinations, sometimes before even he is aware of them.”
*
Erra couldn’t believe what he’d heard. The air above him boiled with malevolence and the ground beneath shuddered as he struggled to contain his surprise.
“Really? This is how you would seek to undermine him?”
“Yes, Lord,” replied the First, spokesperson for the Seven, “for our experimentation thus far, although restrained, has shown the lithosphere, crust, and mantle responsive to our manipulation.”
“But do you think it will work sufficiently to cause widespread doubt and fear?”
“Most certainly, for once we have achieved resonance with the quiddity binding each realm of hell to the other, we can sever the anchors holding them in place, disrupt hydraspace travel, and effectively isolate each circle. Sire, terror and anguish will rock Satan’s empire to the core, and his domain will never be the same again. But please be aware, until we are ready to expose our machinations, we must confine our efforts to sparsely populated areas. Once we gain access to the geodesic arch, however, we’ll hit the most fragile realm first: Juxtapose.”
The charged atmosphere abated as Erra’s agitation turned to satisfaction.
“As always, you have done well, my champions. By all means, proceed with your endeavors, and report back when you are ready to unleash hell on . . . well, hell itself.”
*
In life, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson was one of the most inspirational leaders ever to exist. I admired his superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics and the “up and at them” attitude that had made him an absolute demon to face in battle. His reputation preceded him, so that after he arrived in the underworlds, we in Satan’s service were very happy for him to continue his tradition of conquest and victory.
So focused was his dedication to duty that within a hundred years of being appointed, Nelson had effectively reduced the mayhem being wrought by feuding revolutionary parties across hell’s endless seas to nearly nothing.
His Infernal Majesty rewarded Nelson by allowing his topside monument to co-exist here, in the Juxtapose level of Olde London Town. Situated in Travulgar Square, the Darkmoor granite of Hellson’s Column always drew the eye, providing a fine testimony to the ruthless character Satan expected from all his celebrity minions.
I liked it too, but for other reasons.
Below the statue, away from prying eyes, was a secret facility. A private set of rooms combined with a torture chamber belonging to Strawberry Fields, my most ruthless Inquisitor. We’d often enjoy coming here together on our rare days off, either to spend some quality time alone, or to refine our “interview” techniques on those subjects unlucky enough to have incurred our wrath.
Apart from a
tight-knit circle of friends, no one knew about it.
Or so I thought.
Having left Perish via an emergency portal, Nimrod and I immediately made our way to the Den of Iniquity, just in case Strawberry was engaged in interrogating prisoners in a shielded part of the castle grounds. But she wasn’t there.
Next, we tried the Black Tower and her private apartments, where we drew a similar blank.
Only then did I reveal my fears to Nimrod.
Cream’s portion of the clue referenced the screams echoing from chambers within “red bricked cathedrals,” and “stately monuments to shadow and gloom” where “subterranean arteries” literally festered with garbage and “the flotsam and jetsam” of Hellonian society ran beneath their feet each day.
Strawberry’s little complex had been built directly below the stately monument of Hellson’s Column, and could only be accessed from an entrance opening onto a major sewer junction — a hub, built from the finest blood-red bricks diablos could buy.
Nimrod and I finally made our way there with all speed.
“The door looks intact,” Nimrod offered. He peered into recesses hidden in darkness. “And none of the defensive measures here have been triggered. But I suppose we have to expect that if Cream’s using the . . . what was it again, Dagger of Damocles?”
“Close enough,” I replied. “And remember, if he has got something like that, it’ll probably negate our supernatural enhancements as well. So I’ll not give him any advance warning by trying to use my astral sight, or phasing through the air. We’ll go in the old-fashioned way: on foot, using eyes and ears only. If you spot him, employ your natural brute strength and agility and snap his spine. Try to leave him alive if you can. I want to be the one who sends him for reassignment.”
“I’ll do my best.”
My recent experience with the strong room at Place Venôme gave me an idea.
For all their considerable strength, the barriers didn’t nullify angelic power. Perhaps a bolt or two of God’s Grace might be just the thing I need here?
Hell Bound (Heroes in Hell) Page 28
