by Edward Lee
“No, you’re not,” Buyoux’s word came, drained. “We’re all the same, if you want to know the truth.” He gave Favius the Abyss-Glasses. “Go ahead. You have my permission.”
Favius’s large hands trembled when he took the glasses. The model supplied to Grand Sergeants was hundreds of times more powerful than the pair Favius had been requisitioned.
Very slowly, the Conscript turned and raised the Abyss-Glasses to his jaded eyes . . .
The sights took his breath away: the blazing scarlet sky shimmering above the illimitable city. Here was Osiris Heights with its gleaming black monoliths and ceaseless pillars of smoke from the Diviners Stations. Next, the recently rebuilt Bastille of Otherwise Souls, the eternal black prison for Humans damned only for the sin of suicide. Bosch Gardens was a frenzy of giant beaked Demons pitchforking a pitiable Human horde into steaming crevices or feeding the children of Crossbreeds into the mouths of mammoth Gastrodiles. Gremlins prowled through subcorporeal footholds in the coal black clouds, while Gargoyles skulked the ledges and sills of leaning skyscrapers and pointed pinnacles rising to titan heights. Between the drab buildings of the Ghettoblocks stretched cables from which the Damned unwisely hanged themselves, only to learn that the death they longed for would never come, leaving them to hang by their necks, alive, for time immemorial. Gryphons and Wolf-Bats, some the size of airships, glided serenely through the soiled air. Favius zoomed in on a middle school’s playground, where sinister and often-fanged teachers fired young students back and forth on catapults, punishment for earning superior grades. On a foul street corner—the Filth District?—several slug-colored Ushers torqued the arms and legs off a Hybrid man for evidently double-parking his steam-car; and on another corner, a pack of Broodren were raping a half-bred Succubus while simultaneously disemboweling her by a hook shoved down her throat.
“It’s-it’s . . . beautiful,” Favius whispered in awe.
“Yes, it is,” his superior replied in similar awe. “Look to the North Quadrant. There’s something there you’ll find very interesting . . .”
Favius followed the instruction, then paused, locked in a rigor of shock and wonderment.
“It’s the Pol Pot District, and as you can see, fine Conscript, good things are all about.”
Favius could barely maintain his train of thought. There, spiring from the middle of the smoke-hazed District known for beautification via staked heads and “cubing” the Human Damned in massive industrial compactors, was a great statue-like obscenity higher than any building in the vicinity. An enormous, horned thing standing perfectly still.
Parched, Favius uttered, “Antichrist Almighty . . . A Demonculus . . .”
“So it is. The myths are true. While we’ve been guarding this wasted post for centuries, the De Rais Academy has built that. I can scarcely believe they did it. We all thought it was impossible . . .”
“The sorcerial technologies must have multiplied by leaps and bounds,” Favius, in his awe, postulated.
“And why not? It does in the Living World. Stands to reason the same should be true here.” Buyoux’s blemished lips turned to a sharper smile. “Who knows when they’ll be able to bring it to life, but when they do? Our troubles with the Contumacy will be finished in short order.”
“I pray Satan . . .”
The Grand Sergeant pointed down off the rampart. “Now, follow the Pipeway, and maximize your magnification . . .”
Favius did so, training the supernatural binoculars on the massive pipeline sixty-six yards in diameter.
“A hundred miles, a thousand,” Buyoux uttered, “no one really knows. But pay heed. What is your interpretation, Conscript?”
Favius followed the perfectly straight line of the Pipeway from its connection here at the Reservoir all the way across the black, blasted plain of the Great Emptiness Quarter. It took minutes to follow the Pipeway’s complete terminus at the Mephistopolis, and there, where it seemed to officially end, he noticed the features of the Sector District it disappeared into . . .
Gushing smokestacks pumping endless soot into the air, squat buildings stained black from said soot, and the workers atop those buildings stained as well. Yet this zone’s most salient feature clearly existed in its composition. The outline of its high buildings, towers, and industrial structures appeared fuzzy, blurred, imprecise. Spongy, Favius thought. The mishmash of colors—all drab reds, greens, and yellows—offered the most bizarre contrast. Then, Favius knew . . .
“Rot-Port?” he asked rather than stated.
“I think so, almost assuredly,” Buyoux said.
“The District where all within is composed of some type of rot. The walls of the skyscrapers and buildings, the streets and sidewalks, even the very bricks themselves are manufactured by using deliberately cultured strains of rot, waste, and mold.”
“You know much, Favius.” The Grand Sergeant seemed pleased. “You’ve performed duties there in the past?”
“No, Grand Sergeant, but I have heard of the place.”
“Splendid. Then what else is Rot-Port known for other than its plaguey composition?”
“I believe, sir, that Rot-Port is the most active harbor in the Mephistopolis, and the largest guarded District along the Gulf of Cagliostro.”
“You’ve learned well,” Buyoux approved, “for that is quite true. It’s the most elaborate Port District in the city.” Now the Grand Sergeant eyed Favius narrowly. “Speculations?”
An excited hush caught in Favius’s armored chest. “It must be the Bloodwater of the Gulf itself that the Engineers mean to fill this Reservoir with . . .”
Buyoux nodded, arms crossed as he looked out. “And it’s no stretch to assume. Rot-Port is guarded nearly as well as Satan Park and the very domain of Lucifer’s new manse. If any District is impervious to insurgent meddling, it is there. Therefore, we may well have the answer . . . or at least half of it.”
Favius understood at once. “Yes, Grand Sergeant. The other half being this: what purpose could there be in tapping six billion gallons of the Gulf and pumping it here?”
Yes. All at once, like a bomb going off, it made perfect sense now, but that only left the even more bizarre question.
“Until that is answered, soldier, we can only tend to our tasks—to the death, if need be—and wait.” Buyoux’s voice ground lower. “At least we’ll have something to ponder until the time comes when our Great Dark Lord deems that we should know.”
Favius felt an ecstatic privilege having the conclusion shared with him. Joy was little felt here—save for the joy of serving Satan—but now he’d been blessed with a joy greater even than that of slaughtering the innocent.
“Our respite is finished now, good servant,” Buyoux said and took back the Glasses.
“Thank you for bestowing me the honor, Grand Sergeant . . .”
“You deserve it.” Again, Buyoux’s voice declined in volume. “There are great wonders afoot, here, there, all about. And we are privileged to be a part of it.”
“Yes, your Wretched Eminence!”
Buyoux seemed to pause, suddenly taken by the Conscript’s adornments on his arms and face. “Tell me, just how many women and children did you kill in Angle-Land?”
Favius paused. “I . . . never kept count, sir. Hundreds, I’m sure.”
“But what of the men?”
“They were hobbled and enslaved, then forced to build fortifications until they dropped.”
“Then why not do the same to the women and children?”
“It was viewed as too great a risk, Grand Sergeant. Better to butcher the women so that their wombs may never bear future enemies, and better to butcher the children so that they may never grow to adulthood to raise a sword against Rome.”
Buyoux’s scabbed brow rose. “My. You are quite a killer . . .” He patted Favius’s armored back. “And soon, by the grace of the Morning Star, you may be killing again.”
Favius snapped to attention. “I live to serve Lucifer!”
Buyoux, hands
behind his back, began to walk away. “And, Favius? Mind your tongue.”
“I would halve myself with a halberd before I would betray a confidence, Grand Sergeant!”
Buyoux, still smiling, raised his left forearm. “Until we meet again, hail Satan . . .”
“Hail Satan!”
Favius brimmed in the news of his departing commander. Yes! There IS hope . . . What else might the Grand Sergeant have implied of the future? But as he turned to ponder this question he found himself staring down at the rampart’s stone floor . . .
He stared.
The shining black surface of basalt shined like polished obsidian; and in that reflection he peered at the adornments of his Oath in the Brigade.
The prideful thought slipped into his head: Praise to Lucifer. My adornments look so much better than the Grand Sergeant’s . . .
Indeed. Onto nearly every square inch of Favius’s body had been grafted the severed face of a murder victim, the Human Damned, the face of a species of Demon, a Hybrid, a Troll or Imp—it didn’t matter.
Favius liked his modifications, especially those most recent. Onto each cheek had been grafted the face of a butchered demonic newborn babe.
(III)
Gerold rolled out of the downtown library, into stifling heat.
Jesus . . . Between Florida’s high temperatures and the outrageous humidity, he felt as though he’d just rolled into a pizza oven. He wilted even before he’d made it to the Fourth Street bus stop.
Gerold didn’t walk, he rolled. In a Tracer EX2 wheelchair. The IED near Fallujah had penetrated the floor of his Hummer, just a week before the vehicle had been scheduled for up-armoring. Gerold had killed four insurgents that day with the caliber .50—his first enemy kills, he was pretty sure—and felt awful about it, even knowing that the four would’ve gladly killed him and not felt awful about it. On his way back to the firebase, the bomb had gone off, shattering his spine and shredding his kidneys. He’d never walk again, and would need dialysis for the rest of his life.
Still, he kept the faith, or at least he had until last night.
Shit. Last night. What was I doing? Then: “Shit!”
In a gust of exhaust-stoked heat, the bus roared by when Gerold was but five yards from the bus stop. The driver had pretended not to see him, and he knew why. Because it’s a pain in his ass to lower the wheelchair ramp . . .
Sweat trickled down his forehead as he wheeled north.
Last night. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. The last time he’d been in that bar was three years ago—on a thirty-day leave—and, yes, he’d solicited a prostitute, the very one he’d seen last night wearing the NO GAG REFLEX shirt. The sin made him feel tainted, but he wanted to be with a woman, if only for a few minutes, in case he got killed when he went back to his combat duty station. Last night, though? Why? Why go in there knowing I can’t do anything anymore! It doesn’t make sense! It was almost as if some cruel sliver of his psyche had forced him in there just to make him feel lousy. Impotent. Sterile.
That’s when he had snapped, and determined to go to the library the following day . . .
Gerold had opted for a manual chair rather than a battery-powered one; at least if his legs no longer worked, he’d have strong arms. But . . .
Big deal, he thought now, huffing as he wheeled farther up. The heat was killing him. And though Florida possessed mind-boggling heat, it also possessed mind-bogglingly attractive women. They walked by this way and that, braless breasts bouncing beneath sheer tops, with sleek tan legs, silken hair, and beaming faces. However, this, too, had become an annoyance even worse than the heat because as the women passed they either averted their eyes or merely didn’t see him at all, as though he were utterly invisible. Just more reminders of what he could never have.
Up the road he wheeled around to the Fourth Street Shrimp House, one of his favorite restaurants before he’d shipped out. He knew it was his subconscious that had brought him here—the same cruel mechanism that had sent him into that bar last night. As he stared at the specials sign, he realized that his ruined kidneys now precluded him from eating fried seafood because it would raise his creatinine levels and force him into an emergency dialysis session.
Fuck! he thought.
Today just wasn’t Gerold’s day.
“Hey, I remember you,” said one of the cooks. The slim, straggly man stood outside the restaurant, smoking. “You used to eat here all the time, but then . . . Oh, you went into the army, right?”
Gerold remembered the guy, because the restaurant had an open kitchen. “Yeah. Got back a year ago . . . like this.”
“Sorry to hear it, man, but, shit, my uncle was in a chair for thirty years and he always said ‘walking or rolling, it’s still a beautiful world.’ ”
Gerold couldn’t reply.
“You guys are hard-core,” the cook went on. “I hope you know that all of us peacetime candy-ass civilian punks honor your service.”
“Thanks,” Gerold said.
“Come on in. Your lunch is on me. All-you-can-eat clam strips, man, and they’re hand-dipped. None of this pre-breaded frozen shit.”
Gerold felt dizzy in despair. “Thanks but . . . I can’t now. I don’t even know why I came here. I’m on a restricted diet ’cos of my kidneys.”
“Shit, that sucks. Those fuckers.” The cook paused. “Did you . . . Well, never mind. None of my business.”
“What?”
“Did you get any of them?”
Gerold didn’t look at him when he said, “Four, I think. With a machine gun called an M2. It tore them apart.”
“Fuck ’em.”
“Half hour later . . . this happened.”
The moment collapsed into cringing awkwardness. “I gotta go,” Gerold said.
“Sure. See ya around.”
I doubt it. Gerold wheeled away, back up into scorching sun. His throat felt swelled shut; he didn’t want the cook to see the tears in his eyes. Eventually he made it to one of the covered bus shelters—finally, some damn shade—but when he wheeled in, a squalid face peered over very quickly. It was a woman, probably a lot younger than she looked. She wore dingy shorts and a baggy men’s white T-shirt. “Hey,” she said and smiled.
“Hi.” Gerold knew at once what she was, from the smile. Her teeth were gray, from either meth or crack. A street whore, he knew. There seemed to be twice as many of them now, since the recession had bitten in.
“You know,” she began, and now her bloodshot eyes were intent on him. She stood up. The sweat-damp T-shirt betrayed flat, dangling breasts. “We could go over by them trees.” She pointed.
Gerold saw one of many stands of trees around the park. Gerold sighed. “I’m not looking for any action, if that’s what you mean.”
She walked over and without warning began to rub his crotch.
Gerold frowned.
Her desperate whisper told him, “Let’s go over to them trees. Twenty-five bucks. I’ve done guys in chairs before; some of ’em get off.”
“I don’t get off!” he spat.
“Hmm? You sure?” She kept rubbing, her grin knife-sharp. “You feel that, don’t you?”
“No,” he grumbled. He was enraged and humiliated. “I’m paraplegic. You know what that means? It means dead from the waist down.”
“Come on, just let me play with it anyway. Twenty bucks. You’ll like it.”
“Get away from me!” he bellowed.
“Well fuck you, then!” she yelled back. “Fuckin’ cripple.”
“Yeah,” he said, grimacing. He got out his wallet. There was his bus pass and a fifty-dollar bill. “Do you have a knife or a gun?”
“What?”
“I’ll give you fifty bucks, my bus pass, and my bank card—”
“For what?”
“I want you to kill me.”
The junkie face seemed to pucker like a pale slug sprinkled with salt. She left the shelter and jogged away.
Anyway, that’s what had brought
Gerold down here in the first place. That’s why he’d been in the library: to use their computer, go online, and read about castor bean poison, which he’d found quite easily. Just as easily, however, he’d found that the extraction process was way too complicated, save for anyone but a chemist; and then when he’d looked up some other poisons, he’d caught the librarian eyeing his screen with a troubled frown on her face. He’d felt idiotic so he’d left in a rush.
SWOOOSH!
The next bus drove right by, its driver pretending not to see Gerold waiting in the shelter.
No. Today just wasn’t Gerold’s day.
(IV)
When Hudson finally fell asleep, he dreamed almost in flashback: the recent past. A year ago when he’d graduated from Catholic U., he’d taken a summer job for a Monsignor Halford, the chancellor of the Richmond Diocesan Pastoral Center. Hudson needed a letter of reference to get into a quality seminary, so here he was.
Halford had to have been ninety but seemed sharper and more energetic than most clerics half his age. He did not beat around the bush with regard to spiritual counsel. He said right off the bat, “The only reason you’re working here is for a reference, but I won’t give you any manner of reference or referral unless you do this: take a year or two off, go into the work force—not volunteer work or hospices—you’ll do plenty of that during your internship.” The pious old man chuckled. “Work a real job, live like real people, the other people. You have to be one of them before you can be one of us. Work in a restaurant, a store, do construction work or something like that. Earn money, pay bills, know what it’s like to live like they do. Go to bars, get drunk, smoke cigarettes, and, above all . . . familiarize yourself with the company of women, like St. Augustine. There’s nothing worse than a young seminarist going straight from college to seminary and taking all his idealism with him. Those are the ones who fold halfway through their pastorship.”
Hudson sat agog. St. Augustine was a whoremonger before he found faith . . . “You don’t mean . . .”
“I mean as I’ve said,” the elder replied in a voice of granite. “Am I ordering you to engage in sexual congress outside of wedlock? No. But hear this, Hudson. A venal sin now is much more forgivable than a grievous sin later, later as in after your ordination.”
