by Edward Lee
Buyoux was smiling. “My good Favius. Aren’t you even going to ask why I braved this dismal storm to come here?”
Favius stood at parade rest when addressed. “It is not for me to ask, Grand Sergeant.”
Buyoux sat back down, seemingly at ease even as the stone floor was shifting minutely. “I came to see you, Favius—to . . . tell you something.”
“I exist to follow your orders, sir.”
Buyoux shrugged. “In the midst of a storm that may well destroy us . . . you needn’t be so formal. The truth is, you’re the only one I trust on this entire site. I don’t even trust my own commanders. I only trust you . . .”
“Grand Sergeant, I am duly honored by your praise, and unworthy of it.”
The Grand Sergeant picked at one of his self-inflicted facial scars. He seemed to be reflecting inwardly now. “We’re the Human Damned, Favius—yes, we’re humans. Regardless of the extent to which we’ve been modified, no matter how much amplification surgery we’ve had, no matter how many demonic transfusions . . . we’re still human.”
Favius stood, trying to comprehend. Was his superior having a breakdown?
“That’s why I’m here, friend. It is my human frailty that brings me.” Buyoux’s voice lowered in a secret excitement. “I have to tell someone. I feel as though I’ll burst if I don’t . . .”
“Grand Sergeant, in my utter inferiority, I do not understand.”
The barbican rocked from another gust. Outside, someone screamed.
“You’re the only one I trust,” Buyoux repeated but now was staring off into nothing. He was smiling. “Not too long ago—just before the storm, in fact—I received a coded cipher, as did every Grand Sergeant on this reservation—”
Favius tensed up. He yearned to ask . . . but knew that he couldn’t.
“It was a cipher from the Ministry of Satanic Secrets, Favius, and they finally disclosed the true nature of this project—the reason for the Reservoir’s construction, and everything else . . .”
Favius cringed. Why would Buyoux brave a deadly storm to come here and say this? Unless it is to tell ME, because he cannot contain his excitement . . .
The drone of Buyoux’s voice seemed to gleam. “It’s for a Spatial Merge, Favius,” came the whisper. “Do you know what that is?”
“Yes, Grand Sergeant. I learned about the process in one of my Clandestine Sorcery classes.” Favius had to stress his ancient memory. “It’s a secret technology whose goal is to substitute a finite perimeter in Hell with an equal perimeter in the Living World. Objects and even living beings in Hell are then able to occupy space on Earth, but it requires a massive Power Exchange, and the Merge is only temporary.”
The scar-tissue mask that was Buyoux’s face continued to beam as he shook his head. “They’re not temporary anymore, my friend. After eons of research and repeated trials, the De Rais Academy has perfected the process. Theoretically, at least, a permanent Merge can be effected—”
Favius froze. “But, but, sir . . . Such a feat would require an unthinkable transfer of Deathforce—”
“Unthinkable no longer,” the Grand Sergeant intoned. “The technology exists. Exactly what it is . . . I’ve not been apprized, but what does it matter? All that matters is this: it will work. Every Soothsayer in the City has foreseen it.”
The prospect made Favius’s head spin. He was just a simple soldier, not a scientist. Nevertheless, the information granted him goaded a simple deduction. “A permanent Spatial Merge, Grand Sergeant, and then . . .” His jaded eyes returned to the window.
“Yes,” Buyoux croaked.
All this hellish Bloodwater and infernal sewage, not to mention the atrocious creatures within . . . His voice sounded parched when he voiced the observation. “They’re going to transfer six billion gallons of this to the Living World.”
“Indeed, they are, Favius—permanently.” The Grand Sergeant tittered. “Like dumping one’s garbage into the yard of a neighbor—the very idea is thrilling.”
“But a Merge requires a target of equal volume, Grand Sergeant. When the contents of the Reservoir is sent there, something from there must then be brought here.”
“You remember your lessons well, astute killer. It’s an interesting swap, to say the least.” Buyoux pointed to the churning scarlet slop within the massive Reservoir. “We’re exchanging six billion gallons of that with six billion gallons of fresh water—”
“Great Satan!” Favius exclaimed.
“What a slight to God and all that’s holy, yes? There’s never been fresh water in Hell, so Lucifer will simply steal it from God’s green Earth, and with it he will make his own oasis . . .”
Favius reeled at the implication.
Buyoux’s corrupted voice reduced to the slightest whisper yet. “And we will be the first to see it, my friend. And we will even be allowed to drink of it . . .”
This, Favius could not even conceive.
“So be on your guard, warrior. Nothing must go wrong now. The Reservoir is nearly filled.”
Favius’s gaze jerked out. “And, Grand Sergeant! The storm has passed!”
“Just as the Channelers predicted. Good omens abound!” Buyoux returned to the window. During their guarded talk, the Sputum Storm has indeed abated, the green clouds were now black again and dissipating before their eyes. Even the infernal wind had died.
Favius and Buyoux went out on the rampart. The Golems were already at work squeegeeing the noxious rain off the black flooring into the Reservoir. Favius immediately ordered a damage report from his underlings.
“The rampart is secure, Grand Sergeant. We only lost three Golems—”
“And Conscripts?”
“None lost, sir.”
“Splendid!”
“But, sir, if I may ask . . .”
The Grand Sergeant gave a modest nod, but his eyes said quietly.
“When . . . will the Merge take place?” Favius whispered.
“When the Main Sub-Inlets gush no more and the Reservoir is filled to capacity.” And then they both looked out over Hell’s first man- and demon-made lake.
The fluid level had risen so high that only the uppermost fringe of the Inlet could be seen and therefore only a fringe of the atrocious inflow.
But they both knew this: the Vandermast Reservoir would be filled very, very soon.
Favius ordered a work detail of Imps to clean the ill-colored muck from the Grand Sergeant’s armor; in the meantime, the Grand Sergeant himself strolled closer to the rampart’s edge, hands on hips, to marvel at the sight of the pit’s filling.
It was Favius, not Buyoux, who noticed several jagged cracks in the basilisk stonework.
Alarmed, Favius rushed forward. “Grand Sergeant! Step back, sir—the storm seems to have caused some stress fractures in the foundation—”
Buyoux glanced down, shrugging. “Oh, I don’t think that’s anything to worry ab—” But before the dismissal of caution could be finished—
“Grand Sergeant!” Favius bellowed.
—the black stonework beneath Buyoux’s feet gave way, and then an entire wedge of the flooring fell out of the rampart and tumbled into the pit’s roiling scarlet ooze. Grand Sergeant Buyoux had no time to even cry for help as he fell into the ooze, too.
“Man the wall!” Favius commanded at the top of his lungs. “Ropes and ladders! Now!” And then—
SPLASH!
—he dove unhesitantly into the churning, bubbling, and creature-infested Bloodwater, but even before his feet had left the retaining wall, there’d been no sign of Grand Sergeant Buyoux . . .
CHAPTER TEN
(I)
Gerold laughed to himself when, after hours on the lake, he realized he was still wearing his life preserver. With my luck, I’d fall in BEFORE I’ve had my fill of crayfish. He was on his fourth pot now—and that lady was right, they were almost the size of lobsters. Gerold’s last meal was everything he’d hoped for and more.
By nine, the sun began to
sink, a spectacular sight from his vantage point in the middle of the lake. The molten orange light slowly turned pink behind the endless range of westerly trees. Gerold stared.
It seemed strange that he would only notice the world’s intense beauty on this final day of his life.
But beauty it was—a delirious, sharp-as-cracked-glass beauty that he’d never been aware of until now. It’s easy to take things for granted until you know you’re about to lose them . . .
The Sterno can was lasting longer than he’d expected. He dropped the trap for another haul—why not?
I’m not exactly in a rush, am I?
He leaned back in his safety chair, half dozing and half staring at dusk’s shifting cornucopia of light playing on the lake’s mirror-still surface . . .
When will I do it? The question kept popping up in the back of his head. I really AM going to kill myself, right? But he knew that he was, he was positive. Even now, with the beautiful evening, the gorgeous lake, the delectable food, and the utter peace and quiet—he still wanted to do it. He yearned for it.
For some reason, he was suddenly thinking about that guy he talked to at the church. What did he say his name was? Hudson? He’d read Gerold like a book—He KNEW I wanted to kill myself. What was it like to be a guy like that, Gerold wondered. The center of his life was his faith—he was even going to become a priest. That was some sacrifice.
And, shit, I promised the guy I’d be in church Sunday, he recalled. Looks like I’ll be breaking that one.
But what Hudson didn’t understand was that things worked different for different people, and so did the world. Gerold wasn’t a bad guy, so would he really go to Hell for offing himself? If there really was a God, Gerold felt sure he would understand.
Life just isn’t for me. It’s that simple. No sour grapes, no regrets. It was great while it lasted but now it’s time for it to end. Period.
He lounged back and smiled.
He looked at his watch. Midnight seemed as good a time as any. I’ll fling myself over the side at a couple minutes of and who knows? Maybe I’ll die exactly when the clock strikes twelve . . .
The idea seemed kind of . . . neat.
Every so often, a fish would break the surface and flip. Schools of smaller fish seemed to spiral into one another and form fascinating shapes. When Gerold stared up at the coming twilight, birds roved silently across the water. Not once today had another boat come near him. Just after the sun sank, crickets began to throb en masse.
What a PERFECT day to die . . .
Gerold drifted in and out of sleep.
He dreamed of walking, of being with women, of pursuing his goals and succeeding. He dreamed of all the things he’d lost . . .
Something like a grating sound in his head dragged him awake. His eyes fluttered open, and what he noticed first was how the pulsing cricket sounds had ceased, leaving the lake completely absent of all noise. It was full dark now . . .
What was that grating sound? he wondered, leaning up, but then it came again—
A hard crackle, like static.
Then a voice: “Hon? You there? Aw, jeez—”
The walkie-talkie, he realized. It was the woman from the dock with the outstanding implants. “Hi, I’m here,” he answered into the device, imagining her sitting on the pier just as topless as before.
Her Florida drawl crackled over the line. “Oh, gracious, thank God. I thought . . . well, you didn’t answer so’s I thought somethin’ happened, hon.”
“Sorry. I fell asleep. But I’ve had great luck catching crayfish,” Gerold said. “They’re delicious—” Something cut off the rest of his words. He sniffed.
“Is everything . . . all right out there? You notice anything . . . out of kilter?” the woman asked next.
Out of kilter . . . Gerold noticed something not right about her voice, even over the static. Did she sound distressed? But then he sniffed again, flinched, and also realized his ears felt funny, like when flying on an airplane while descending.
“Now that you mention it . . . My ears are clogged up, and . . . I smell something.” The faintly metallic odor seemed just as faintly familiar.
“Like an electric motor sort’a thing?” she asked.
“Yeah! That’s it. Ozone, I think it is. Like before an electrical storm—”
A long pause drew over the line.
“Hey, are you okay?” Gerold asked.
“Well, hon, I feel like a horse’s heiny but, well, I’m kind of . . . scared.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I ain’t sure but—and this’ll sound nutty—but all my hair’s standin’ right on end, like it’s floatin’ up off my head—”
Well. That DOES sound nutty, Gerold reflected but at the same moment he saw that the hairs on his forearm—
What the hell?
—were standing on end. Then he slowly raised his hand and discovered that all the hair on his head was sticking up, too.
“This is weird but the same thing’s happening to me,” he told her.
“Must be a ’lectrical storm comin’—”
“But that’s impossible,” he replied. Overhead stretched a cloudless expanse of flickering stars, deep twilight, and a radiant white sickle moon. “The sky’s clear.”
The woman’s voice quavered nervously. “Then it’s heat lighting or somethin’, hon—I don’t know! Somethin’ don’t feel right in my gut. I’d feel a whole lot better if ya’d come in—”
I can’t come in! he could’ve shouted. I’m gonna KILL MYSELF in a little while! But then the woman actually croaked a tiny sob over the line.
Wow, she really is scared, Gerold realized. He sighed. Fuck. What difference did it make, though? I’ll kill myself tomorrow. “Look, don’t be afraid, I’ll row myself in right now—”
“Oh, thank you, sweetie! Somethin’ just don’t feel right, and I am beside myself with the jitters.”
“Just hang tight, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Gerold said. He signed off, then pulled the crayfish trap again and found it empty. Well that’s strange. First empty pull all day. And nighttime was the best time to trap.
No matter.
Gerold grabbed the oars and began to row. It felt good being needed, though. Paralysis notwithstanding, the woman was scared and didn’t want to be alone. This can be my last good deed, and who knows? Maybe I’ll get to see her boobs again . . .
He estimated that it would take him about twenty minutes to row back in to the dock, but what he didn’t estimate—what would’ve been impossible to estimate—was that he would never get there.
(II)
Krilid glided the Nectoport high over the green-black clouds. Watching the immense Sputum Storm had been something. All that hock raining down on the evil bastards. He’d seen them over urban areas where the winds had toppled skyscrapers and the mucoid rain had caused flash floods. Good for them, Krilid thought.
But the storm’s moving off made his own job easier.
A moment of directional thought in his warped head collapsed the distance of over a thousand miles and—
Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!
—in an indivisible sliver of a second, he’d relocated the Nectoport high over the Pol Pot District. This second part of his mission, he knew, would be much more difficult to pull off, if indeed it could even be pulled off. I’ve got no choice but to trust Ezoriel, and if his intel turns out to be bad?
Shit happens, he reasoned. But it had been a lot of fun whizzing around carte blanche in a Nectoport. How many Trolls get to do that?
How many Trolls, Imps, Demons, Humans—whatever!—got to see the Mephistopolis from this high up? It’s a privilege, I guess, and it must be worth SOME brownie points. Down here everything is good against evil, and good almost NEVER wins, but I’m on the side of good.
Krilid supposed this fact made him either very unselfish or very stupid.
He took no chances of being detected, slipping the Nectoport in and out of clouds. All of the scaffold
ing around the Demonculus had been taken down, and he spotted very few Balloon Skiffs floating about the unliving thing’s colossal body. That means all the maintenance duties are finished. They only have a few more things to do before they bring that disgusting thing to life . . .
However, there were a few more things for Krilid to do as well, before he could hope to pull this off.
He pulled the Nectoport off with a simple thought, and then found himself hovering high above one of the Torturaries in the Pogrom Park District. This particular compound specialized in Cage Roasting as its mode of slow torture, and it exclusively housed Human Damned who—like Krilid—had defected to Ezoriel’s Contumacy or some other anti-Satanic sect. From this range, the compound looked like a typical prison yard, with towers manned by armed Conscripts, and a nearly impenetrable Blood-Brick fence resistant to not only impact but also Breech Spells. The rolls and rolls of “barbed” wire did not sport barbs but instead invisible needle-teeth from exterminated Bapho-Rats.
Krilid loved coming to the Torturaries—they were perfect places for target practice.
Slug-skinned Ushers stalked the grounds to supervise the Torture Attendants, and as for Cage Roasting? Sulphur beds were kept sizzlingly hot by various Crossbreeds forced to constantly pump foot-operated bellows systems. Above each bed hung a cage, quite like an iron maiden, which contained one very unhappy subject. The cages were lowered very slowly, and when the occupant began to burn, the cage was raised, to protract the unassuagible pain. Agonicity terminals were implanted into each subject’s brain, to provide the compound with all the power it needed.
Krilid groaned as he watched the machinelike process below: the systematic raising and lowering of the facility’s hundreds of Roasting Cages. Eventually a captive would be roasted down to a crisped twig but since almost all prisoners here were Human Damned, those twigs never died. They’d be thrown into trenches where they would twitch, shudder, and think for eternity.
Krilid figured he was half a mile up when he sighted his matchlock rifle. The sounds that came from below could’ve been a diabolic song. Screams intensified as cages were lowered, then diminished when they were raised. It was a pipe organ in Hell, with Human throats as the pipes.
