[Demonworld #2] The Pig Devils

by Kyle B. Stiff

  Sevrik stopped by the door to Didi’s old quarters. He thought about saying the pass phrase to enter, but felt ridiculous for thinking of it. He knew many of the computers that had been inside were now with Didi, imprisoned in his home. Even the Killswitch, the tool that they would use to destroy the god they created should it become a monster, had been moved. There was no reason to go inside.

  Sevrik walked to a room marked Demonology. He entered. The room was dark, save for a large cylindrical vat lit with green lights. Several scientists pretended to ignore him.

  Sevrik approached the vat. Inside floated the remains of a flesh demon. It was stretched out, incredibly tall, a gray mockery of the shape of a man. Its legs were squat and crooked, with long hooked toes. Its arms were long, as was its torso. Not much remained of the torso; it had been blown to pieces by the bandits it crossed the sea with. There had been some sort of betrayal. The creature had no reproductive organs; it was a mule like any other demon they’d ever studied. The eyes of the thing were dull and yellow, and its mouth was tiny. Membranes like gills stretched from the corners of its eyes down to the base of its fat cheeks, some sort of powerful olfactory sense. A hound dog. A scout.

  Sevrik had never liked that they brought the thing here. In his youth he had flown with Guardians and scientists into the wasteland to kill and study demons. The things were known to communicate with one another, somehow, over long distances. It might not be safe to keep the thing here. Sevrik decided that his Reavers might have to take the thing away themselves, burn it in a ship and cast the ashes into the sea. But it was probably too late for that to do any good.

  Your trial is coming soon, old friend. Investigators have already combed through the Maker files; combined with what I’ve told them, I assume they have enough to put you away forever. You have a choice to make. You must explain the facts exactly as they are. You must make them acceptable to the people of Haven. Either that, or go down, and possibly take me down with you. Haven’s lines of defense would be weakened in a way that no lawyer hungry to make a name for himself could ever understand.

  Sevrik thought of Didi implicating him in an act of revenge. If there was enough to implicate Sevrik in a crime of “biological treason,” would Yarek have what it takes to either kill or disqualify the power-hungry but incompetent Shem Udo and take control of the Guardians – all of the Guardians - during a time of crisis?

  I’m not afraid of this band of savages called the Ugly. Their fanaticism makes them dangerous, but ultimately they are no threat to our land. Still, they brought a demon with them. If one of them knows us, chances are good that more do, too. We may find ourselves under assault by the devil himself.

  Didi, I had no time to explain to you why I did what I did. The world is changing. A line was drawn long ago, and now that line has been crossed. If the devils of the wasteland come in force, then only a god of flesh backed by warriors loyal to him has any hope of stopping them. I wonder, Didi, if you have the strength of will to make the people of Haven understand that terrible, ultimate truth.

  * * *

  Yesterday Afternoon

  The sun rode high and bright and Luumis sat with a group of uniformed laborers eating their lunch.

  “So, three slangers go into a bar,” said one.

  “Go into one?” said another. “When do them sumbitches ever leave a bar?” They laughed, and he said, “You already tol’ that one, anyway, ’bout the twelve-inch pianist.”

  “I never heard it!” said a third.

  “I got another!” said the first laborer. “So this kezar kid goes up to his dad-”

  “They’s tight with their money!” said another.

  “Yeah, I know, I’m tellin’ this joke... anyway, kid goes up to his dad, says, ‘Dad,’ he says, ‘Dad, can I have five dollars?’ Dad says, ‘Four dollars? Whadda ya need three dollars for?’ ”

  There was an uproar of laughter from them all. Luumis’s face broke into a pained smile. He glanced at the leather bag.

  One of the laborers turned to him, said, “Hell, kid, you don’t want this job, any-who. Sucks a mean one, it does.”

  Luumis looked down, blushing.

  “You go to school, right? What’cha gonna be?”

  “I take, uh,” said Luumis, “I got a lot of classes in mytho-philosophy...”

  “Wassat?”

  “It’s like... we like, study different stories, sorta. I dunno.”

  “Stories? Like writing,” he said knowingly. Others nodded. “Gonna be a writer?”

  “I’m not very good at writing,” said Luumis. “I dunno.”

  “Hell, go inta journalism,” said another. “None of them can write, anyway! Nothin’ truthful, no how!”

  Laughter from some, and even Luumis chuckled.

  “There’s money in that, though,” said the joke-telling laborer. “You stay outta here, stay in school, believe me.”

  Another laborer, older than the others, jogged up to them. “Cut th’chatter!” he yelped. “Guys, ya’ll’re never gonna believe the shit happened to me last shift.”

  “Here we go!” said one no older than Luumis.

  “Okay, so I worked night shift last night, right? Pullin’ a double. Not gonna believe what I saw...”

  “Prob’ly seein’ double!” said one, tilting his hand back in drinking motion.

  “This ain’t funny, now! Okay, but I saw this dog... well, I thought it was a dog. Walkin’ on all fours, it was. Now this was out by the bins, round back, right? It was just sniffin’ around. So I toss a rock at it, cause, why not?, right?, an’ I yell git! Now this thing turns to me... and I shit ya’ll not, it’s got two damned horns! It opens its mouth...”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “... and its got a row o’ fangs like some kinda monster! And its eyes were all yellowed up, like a cat’s. It bounded away, just as graceful as y’please. I ran like hell.”

  “You was ti-i-i-ired or somethin’, man!”

  “Hell, son, tired don’t make you hallucinate! I tell you I saw some kinda monster snoopin’ around the plant, and I ain’t lyin’!”

  Many of the men laughed, though some among them knew the old one well enough to know he wouldn’t cry devil. But he did drink, and the end-of-break bell rang, and so they filed the story away in their minds. Luumis shook hands with them, said it was good to meet them, and he even meant it somewhat, then he left that place to go see Nicholas.

  * * *

  Wodan entered a Guardian bar. He saw wood paneling, televisions playing sports or news, and hundreds of photographs of noteworthy soldiers. Some Guardians played video games in the back, while some others, half-armored or wearing rough white suits, sat at the bar laughing loudly. Wodan sat at the bar some distance from them.

  The bartender approached, said, “ID, man.”

  “Can I just get a nutrimilk?” said Wodan.

  The bartender raised an eyebrow, then poured a glass. It was then that Wodan remembered he was now old enough to drink. He considered having one; the way his silly investigation was going, it probably wouldn’t hurt.

  He sipped at the milk and considered the past few hours. He had found out that Third Force kept some sort of administrative building at this very camp. He had tried to get an interview with Secundus Shem Udo, for he had seen the man at the Jebedian compound shouting orders. The secretary had been an even bigger prick than the one before, and had stated outright that Udo would not care to spend time with some kid who had nothing to do with the chain of command. Wodan had been halfway relieved, too, for Udo had seemed like a lout at the dinner party. But as soon as he left the administrative building, he felt defeated. To think that he’d even been planning on “interrogating” the Prime Minister today, too. What nonsense!

  “You know,” a Guardian said loudly, and Wodan knew he was speaking to him. “You know the DoS takes a piss in every gallon of nutrimilk, right?”

  Several at the bar laughed, and Wodan felt his ears burn.

  Wodan decided to play
along. “I don’t know about piss,” he said, “but there are some subtle fecal notes in this batch, I think.” Seeing that he was game, several nodded at him as they laughed.

  “I know you!” said a female voice. One of the Guardians broke from the group and approached him.

  It was Mevrik Clash, Sevrik’s daughter, Yarek’s sister. Short, rounded, black hair flattened from her helmet, eyes lit with drink and good times. She wore form-fitting white linens, the stuff Guardians wore under their armor. The winged insignia of a pilot shone on her breast. A handgun bounced at her wide hips.

  “Lady Clash!” he said, smiling broadly. “I’m Wodan, if you don’t remember...”

  “I remember,” she said, smiling. Her teeth looked like fangs. “Dad is always talking about you.”

  “Does he?” said Wodan, crinkling his eyebrows with suspicion.

  She pulled up a nearby stool, plopped down heavily, and said, “So what brings you here?”

  “I came to interrogate your dad. Try to beat some info out of him.”

  “The hell?”

  “It’s not like that! I’m after Shem Udo, too. I’m on an unstoppable mission of vengeance, you see, tracking down whoever exiled me.”

  Both of them laughed.

  “You should interrogate my brother Yarek, too. You know he’s the leader of a special ops unit, the Reavers, right?”

  “That’s nothing, I’ll drop his ass with one of these,” he said, chopping the air with his hand. Even as they laughed at his false bravado, Wodan still made a mental note about the Reavers.

  Wodan felt his mood brightening immediately. She had the same charismatic aura as her parents, both benign and aggressive.

  “Wodan, shouldn’t you let the Guardians worry about the detective stuff?”

  “Mevrik.” He stuck a finger in his milk and twirled it slowly. “What kind of civilian populace depends wholly on its authority figures to get things done?” He turned to look at her. Her face looked very clear and piercing, and he had to ignore his instinct to look away. “You know how those things get filed away, how they disappear. When I came back to Haven, I was interrogated as if I was the bad guy. Now, what sort of leads are being followed up on? Any? Is anyone even talking about the exile anymore, or is Luumis Lamsang at the top of everyone’s list? Unless those in authority are directly involved, or directly insulted as in the case of Rudy Seaver or Cyrus Jebediah, then I don’t think the establishment can be counted on for much help. I can wish all I want, but ultimately, I’m the only person who can help me.”

  She turned away and stared at nothing for many long minutes. It was so like her father, this trait of mediating in the very middle of a conversation. To those who enjoyed unbroken conversations, it seemed rude. Wodan drank his milk in peace while Mevrik thought about what he had said.

  “Wodan, how is your detective work going?”

  “Horrible. I tried to get an appointment with Sevrik and Udo. Failed on both counts.”

  “Want me to get you an interview with my father?”

  “No. It’ll happen. Or maybe it doesn’t have to happen.”

  “You’re right.”

  “About what?”

  “The Seaver thing, the Jebedians - that was a big mess that never should have happened. It was before my time, and my father never talks about it. I know you think it was Guardians that took you and the others away, so it probably all seems like the same big mess. What are you going to do next?”

  “I dunno... probably nothing today.”

  “Why say it like that? I can tell you’re thinking something else.”

  “Well, I thought maybe I’d get an interview with... well... uh, Aegis Vachs... but since I didn’t have any luck today, maybe today’s just... you know, it’s just bad timing...”

  He realized she had been cutting into him with her eyes. The terrible gaze of a Clash had the power to make anyone’s bullshit fall apart even as it came out.

  “Then you should do it,” she said. “If you were planning on doing it, you should do it.”

  Wodan clenched his jaw. It felt like such a simple solution, to follow his will. Luck, bad timing, good timing – were those just excuses?

  “You’re right,” he said. “I will.”

  A hard little smile bent one corner of her lips, and she patted his shoulder roughly.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’ve got this audio recorder thing... my Mama gave it to me.” He pulled it out and turned it on. “Where were you on the night I was abducted?”

  She leaned into the mic, said, “I didn’t do it.”

  * * *

  Seven Months Ago.

  “Cause and effect are ineluctable forces of reality,” said Professor Korliss Matri. “It’s all quite unfair, especially when you’re dealing with outland stories like Agamemno’s. His wishes wouldn’t work in real life. But without cause and effect, there is no reason, there are no hard principles of reality. Our science would be groundless. Without cause and effect and the reason on which it rests, we never would have found the means to fight Pharaoh’s Curse, and Haven would have been wiped out long ago. The wasteland would have won.”

  Professor Korliss stopped, then added, “So why is Machina such a boring story, then?”

  The students laughed politely. Wodan leaned back and smiled.

  “What’s so funny back there, Mister Kyner?”

  “Uh... well, Luumis was right. The protagonist in Machina didn’t do anything!”

  Luumis twitched in his seat.

  “A good point,” said Korliss. “Machina was written some fifty years ago by someone who had grown cynical concerning the magic that was lost because of our reliance on technology. Your own generation is very much a product of this man’s so-called cutting-edge thought. Science, he said, was man’s ultimate rape of nature, making the ineffable impure by forcing the great mystery into a box and labeling it neatly.

  “Machina has a protagonist, but it has no hero. You see? Because a hero cannot follow cause and effect from A to B to C. Any cog in the machine can do that. Do you hear me? Any cog in the machine can do that. And perhaps even should do that. But a hero? A hero must make intuitive leaps. And he must do them well.”

  “Intuition?” said Saul, loudly. “That sounds like whim!”

  “Whim is the disregard for cause and effect, Mister Hargis. But, according to the ancient philosopher Aasimov, intuition is the cognitive faculty for taking in a great amount of seemingly unrelated data and then unconsciously drawing something out of it. Intuition draws something out that a cog cannot see; a cog cannot see the machine for the gears. A hero must have the ability to see the body as a whole - and then, to see the bit that doesn’t fit, the cancer, the villain - and rip it out. Mister Lamsang was correct, to some extent...”

  Luumis couldn’t believe how hard Professor Matri was actually trying to humiliate him. Why was he going out of his way to do this in front of everyone, including the dark-haired girl?

  “... in that a hero must do something great. We can say that intuition is a high-end cognitive function. We have to call it that; we’re coming at it from a rational framework. Ultimately, we don’t know what it is. It is an ability of greatness. But villains, too, can be great, as well as small and mean. Power, coupled with whim, can help a villain overcome the boundaries of reality, and can fulfill his darkest wishes... for a while. Such a villain could appear to be a god, a superman even.”

  “So,” said Saul, “what can the hero do, in that case?”

  * * *

  Six Months Ago

  Luumis Lamsang pounded through Professor Korliss Matri’s apartment building. He was not quite sure what he was doing, but he was filled with the sense that he had to talk to the man. It was obvious that he was coddling several of the students, being intolerably “buddy buddy” with them, but any time Luumis said anything, he was given a verbal beating in front of everyone. The same thing had been happening all of his life. It wouldn’t seem so intolerable, but Matri seemed like
a hypocrite for doing it. All his talk of heroes and greatness... it was bullshit! He was even doing some weird tutoring thing with Saul on the side. Were they sucking each other off, or what? The way things were going now, Saul probably wouldn’t even have to take the final exam!

  The door to Matri’s apartment was already cracked open. Luumis guessed this was a part of his “open door” policy... what a jackass. Luumis entered and closed the door behind him.

  He couldn’t believe how nice the place was. It looked like some kind of museum, with nice paintings and little statues everywhere. Even the curtains covering the window looked grand and theatrical. The hardwood floors were so shiny he could see his double staring up at him, jaw hanging open, wild hair already losing the combing he had given it for this confrontation. He felt terribly out of place, out of his league. He saw a heavy desk nearby. Luumis was overcome by a strange notion, a memory of childhood games. He ran to the desk and crawled under it. In the darkness down beneath, unseen, he felt safe. He felt the power of having some kind of advantage. Why, if he waited, and he heard Saul and the professor talking, perhaps ridiculing him behind his back, he could leap out and point his finger and scream at them for…

  Someone knocked on the door, then pounded violently. He heard footsteps from further back in the apartment.

  A woman’s voice: “You said you’d leave the door open!”

  Korliss’s voice: “I thought I did!”

  The lights in the room dimmed, then winked out. Luumis heard Korliss say, “You gonna arrest me, or what?”

  He heard something weird, a light, wet smacking, then chuckling. Something hit the couch.

  Inspired by the darkness, Luumis swung about and stuck his head around the corner of the desk. A soft blue light peeked through the curtains. Korliss was on the couch. A Guardian woman stood over him. Her lean, form-fitting armor gleamed in the blue light. She was short, but thickly built. She put a hand to the gun at her side. Luumis wondered if he should run. What was she going to do?!

  She unfastened her gunbelt and let it drop. She unfastened her helmet, wagged her head, then dropped the helmet. It was difficult to see her face. Hard cheeks, cutting blue eyes, short black hair, skin blue in the light. Her lips were thick and imperious. “Take off your clothes!” she barked.