Blood and Feathers

by Lou Morgan

  The stairway ended abruptly, and she found herself standing on another sheet of rock. Abbadona was staring ahead, looking for something – although what, Alice couldn’t make out. She couldn’t make anything out, as it happened. Ahead of them, there was nothing but blackness. Just complete, total and utter dark.

  “I told you this would be fun,” he said.

  “What am I looking at, exactly?”

  “You ever heard the phrase ‘dark night of the soul’?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Come off it, Alice. Of course you have. I remember your living room. All those books. You grew up with theology coming out of your ears.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “This is it.”

  “It’s dark.”

  “Precisely. And you have to go through it.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “I don’t make the rules.” He shrugged. “I’ll be a few steps ahead of you. There’s a path that cuts through to the next level, but you’ll have to stay close. If you get lost, you’re staying lost. And before you even think about lighting up,” he pointed to her hands, “don’t. Just don’t.”

  “I think I can handle a little bit of dark. I’m not four, you know.”

  “Let’s see how you feel when you get to the other side. If you make it to the other side.”

  He sounded entirely too smug, and Alice found herself weighing the possibility of setting fire to him against that of punching him in the face. Both felt like they would be equally satisfying, but instead she gritted her teeth and curled her fingers tightly against her palms.

  The first few steps were fine; a little unsteady, perhaps, but fine. As soon as her foot touched the floor for the next, however, it was as though a curtain fell around her, boxing her into a dark so thick she could almost touch it. Nor was it just an absence of light; this was a visible darkness, with a presence all its own. Quite without realising it, she stopped walking.

  Hearing a whispering sound behind her, she spun round. There was nothing there, just more of the same darkness. Again, there was a noise at her back and she turned again... and again... and again – until, with a horrible crawling sensation, she realised she had no idea which way she was facing. She opened her mouth to call for Abbadona, but no sound came out. She could feel the dark rushing into her mouth and throat, clogging it with velvet. She retched, and forced her mouth shut.

  The whispers in the dark continued. Ghasts, she thought. It must be Ghasts; although, given closer consideration, that wasn’t such a comforting idea. The noises swirled about her, a current of sounds, and the more she listened to them, the more she thought she could make the voices out, pick out the words. “Disappointed,” said one. “Disappointed, disappointed, disappointed...”

  “...Not responding to the treatment as well as we’d hoped...”

  “...Let me down. What would your mother say?”

  She would have known that last voice anywhere. It was her father’s.

  Suddenly, she was nineteen – no, twenty – again. He’d had the grace to wait until just after midnight; sitting in the back room, her head in her hands. Her clothes were crumpled and smelled dirty, and there was grime under her fingernails. He paced up and down in front of her, saying things she barely heard and barely cared about. All she was interested in was making her headache go away. Possibly after she’d found a way to stop the churning in her stomach, or the shaking in her hands. Or both.

  “...So much potential, Alice. If only you’d focus...”

  “...Not what I was hoping for...”

  “...Just look at yourself....”

  “...Trying our best to help, but you need to let us...”

  “...Given you everything, and all you’ve done is thrown it back in my face...”

  “...Ungrateful... Ashamed...”

  “...Recommend another course, a different medication...”

  THE VOICES WERE coming thick and fast. No longer whispers, they filled Alice’s ears, filled her head. There was nothing now except for the storm that raged around her in the thick, silky darkness.

  “...Don’t even recognise you any more...”

  She braced herself for what she knew was coming. It wouldn’t be long now.

  “...Give anything, anything to trade you for her... Don’t understand why they took her away and left me with you...”

  Alice sank to the floor, burning like a comet, and she was lost.

  AND THEN A hand reached through the fire and the darkness and took hold of her wrist, pulling her to her feet. The voices were gone and the only thing left was a wispy strand of black mist that caught at Alice’s ankles. Abbadona shook his hand up and down, looking wounded; already the fresh burns on his hand were turning into great shining welts. “Fun, huh?”

  Alice coughed. “You’ve got a weird idea of fun.”

  “Welcome to the Dark House. It’s always been my favourite.”

  He waved an arm behind him, and Alice saw huddled figures slumped on the ground, scattered here and there across the floor of hell, just as she had been. Some of them were bone-thin, the skin stretched across their faces and limbs, their mouths ripped open in mute despair. “All in their own private little rooms, just like you were,” he said. “I did warn you to stay close, but you don’t listen. You never listen, and now you’ve gone and attracted attention to us, what with that little flame-up, and it won’t be long before one of the Twelve puts two and two together. Let’s just hope it’s Jeqon: he’s thick as shit, so he’s bound to make fourteen.”

  “If you’d at least warned me...”

  “If I’d warned you, it wouldn’t have been nearly so entertaining. But you better learn to put a stopper in that fire of yours, or we’re never getting out of here. Not in the same number of pieces we came in, anyway. You coming, or what?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Blood of Angels

  THE DARK HOUSE, as Abbadona called it, had left Alice feeling distinctly uneasy – although, she thought, she had probably got off lightly. She didn’t dare ask how long the people she had seen there had been trapped on that level, or whether they would ever leave. How did hell work, anyway? Did you just get put somewhere, and that was it, or did you get shifted round on some kind of awful conveyor belt system? She stopped walking.

  “You know, I get the feeling something’s gone a bit wrong in my life.”

  “Talk about stating the obvious.” Abbadona appeared to be chewing gum. Alice fervently hoped it was gum.

  “You are, as ever, the fount of sanity. I mean that I’ve actually started to think about how this place works. That’s not... well, it’s not normal, thinking like that, is it?”

  “Hardly. But then you’re not exactly normal, are you, sweet pea?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m just trying to have a little fun.”

  “See, there’s that word again.”

  “What word?”

  “Fun. You keep saying it. How can you think any of this is ‘fun’? Did you see those people back there? Any of them? What did they do, exactly, to deserve this?”

  “Uhh, hello? Hell? What do you think?” He snapped his fingers and a hazy white shape appeared in the air in front of them. Alice raised an eyebrow. “What’s that? Hell’s version of CCTV?”

  “Shut up.”

  A blurred face had formed in the centre of the square, its eyes closed as though in sleep. Abbadona peered at it, then shook his head and made a hard flicking gesture with his left hand, so hard that Alice was sure she heard a bone pop. The face zipped away, only to be replaced by a new one... still apparently unsatisfied, he flicked that away too. And the one after, and the one after that, until he had scrolled through what must have been hundreds. Finally, he settled on a face that belonged to an old man, eyes closed as before but frowning.

  “This is Adam. Not that Adam, obviously. He’s one of the residents of the Dark House, and he will be for a very long
time to come. Looks harmless, doesn’t he? Someone’s granddad, I’ll bet. Used to bounce the kids on his knee, then fall asleep on the sofa and snore on a Sunday afternoon. Lost his glasses a lot, and could whistle Beethoven.”

  “You’re going somewhere with this, aren’t you? I can tell.”

  “You catch on quick. Well, lovely old Adam here started off small: the odd squirrel, a rabbit, the neighbour’s cat. Next it was dogs: stray ones, then stolen ones, then ones he went out and bought for the purpose. He carried on like that for years, mildly unhappy but – like all of humanity – destined to keep plodding along in the same old rut, until he came across a kid, maybe fifteen or so, sleeping rough one winter. He bought her a couple of hot drinks, made sure she got the occasional meal... just a kind old man looking out for a little girl. And then, one night while she was asleep, he came for her, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t really want to hear...”

  “But you asked, Alice. You asked what someone like him might be doing in hell, what right we have to punish him. He butchered that girl, just like he butchered the three that came after her. And then he thought he could just put it all away: tuck everything he’d done – everything he’d ever been – inside a big box, put a lid on it and become someone new. Become someone’s grandfather, maybe. But, you see, we don’t worry about who you are when you come to us. We’re more interested in who you were. And he, I’m afraid to say, was not a very nice man.”

  “So what happened to her? That first girl?”

  “Oh, she’s here somewhere too. Heroin addict. We don’t like them at all.”

  Abbadona smiled broadly and snapped his fingers again. The image vanished. Alice only wished the ones in her head were as easy to forget.

  “You’re going to need these.” He handed her two small balls of something. They were sticky and left dark oily streaks on her palm.

  “Now I feel bad I didn’t get you anything. Not when you’ve given me this lovely” – she peered at it – “earwax?”

  “You must be feeling better. Don’t worry: that won’t last long.”

  He pulled another lump of the stuff out of his pocket and split it in half, rolling it into two small balls. Alice looked at the stuff in her hand, cautiously. She’d seen it before, somewhere down here, or something very like it. She vaguely remembered something about a lamp... actually, it was very vague. Which was odd, because it hadn’t been that long ago, had it? She shook off the thought, and watched with curiosity as Abbadona continued to roll the balls around his hand, then stuck one in each of his ears. And she was about to ask what he was doing, when she saw the first spider-thin thread creep out of his left ear. It hinged its way out from deep inside, lengthening all the time, and felt its way around the edge of his jaw. Finally, it latched onto his skin, burrowing in as another thread shot out of his ear and followed it... then another, and another until his whole ear was covered by a solid-looking black web.

  Alice gulped. He nodded towards her hands. “Your turn.”

  “You want me to put this” – she held it up – “in my ears? In. My. Ears. My actual ears. You want me to put the spiderwax in my ears and let them get all sealed up?”

  “Basically.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s going to get a little... noisy. Stopping up your ears will protect you.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be doing much for you. You can still hear me, can’t you?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Look, Alice. You can come at this two ways. Either I’m lying, and if you put those in, you’ll lose your hearing – or I’m telling the truth, and if you don’t put them in, you’ll lose your mind. It’s your choice.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. Alice frowned, then shrugged.

  “When you put it like that...”

  IT WASN’T A pleasant sensation. The little balls somehow wriggled further down inside her ears than she could ever have pushed them, and her mind flashed with panic as she realised she was never going to be able to get them out. She felt the threads weave together and anchor into her jaw: a series of tugs and sickly popping sounds, and then it was done. Resisting the urge to touch the sides of her face, she glared at Abbadona.

  “I’m not happy about this.”

  “I know. That’s what makes it perfect.”

  “And how come I can still hear you?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I could explain, but... well, frankly, you wouldn’t understand. So let’s stick with saying it works and you’ll be just fine.”

  She couldn’t resist any longer, and poked at her ear. As the tip of her finger touched the surface of the web, it moved, and she retched.

  “Really not happy.”

  “You’ll thank me when it stops your brain from running out your ears. Just don’t ask me what it is.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’re so predictable.”

  “Seriously. What is it?”

  “Blood. Mix it up with naphtha, and it’s pretty much what makes everything run down here.”

  “You can stop now.” She held up her hand. “Before I throw up all over you.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said with a sniff.

  Ahead of them was a door; just a door, standing on its own with nothing to the sides of it, and apparently nothing behind. It was painted a cheerful sort of yellow. The doorknob had a daisy on it. Alice walked around it.

  “Through the door, right?”

  “You’re catching on.” He laid his hand on the doorknob and she saw him suck in a deep breath.

  The blast that hit her as he opened the door knocked the air out of her, and forced her back a step as though someone had swung a tremendous weight directly at her chest. There was no sound, just pressure. Immense pressure, all of it coming through the yellow door.

  Alice did not like the look of this at all.

  “NOW, DON’T YOU say I never take you places,” Abbadona said, peeling the black web from his ear.

  Alice cleared her own ears and sagged to the ground next to him. Whatever that had been, it hadn’t been fun. Every step had been like walking through a hurricane full of hammers, and her whole body ached. Her eyes felt loose in their sockets, as though they might roll out if she moved too quickly, and her ribs seemed to be knocking against each other. She resolved not to move at all for the foreseeable future, and instead settled down to listen to the gentle thumping that had started inside her head. If she kept still enough and lay down, closed her eyes, it almost didn’t hurt at all. Almost.

  It was surprisingly comfortable on the rock, and at least the strange flat light that was everywhere in hell wasn’t still making her feel like her eyeballs were being turned inside out. She had even got used to the cold. Not before time, either, she thought. After all, she had been down here... And she paused, scratching around in her memory. How long had she been down here? Had she slept? There didn’t seem to be any night or day, just that endless pale light, filling the caverns of hell. She hadn’t eaten, either, and she wasn’t hungry, so it couldn’t have been that long, could it?

  Alice’s eyes snapped open as she sat up. She was supposed to be doing something, but she suddenly couldn’t remember what. There had been something important, she knew that much. It was important, and she had promised she would do it; promised she could do it, and now it was gone like ash on the air. Where her memories should be, there was only fog: a grey blanket that threatened to smother her if she poked around underneath it. Puzzlement gave way to panic, and then – slowly – to confusion. Perhaps it hadn’t been all that important after all. If it had, surely she couldn’t have forgotten it, could she?

  “It’s got you, hasn’t it?”

  “Got me?”

  “The hell-chill. It makes you forget. You having a hard time keeping your head on straight? Remembering things?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just... there’s something...”

  “Something you’re supposed to be doing. I’ll
say. But you’ve lasted longer than I thought you would, I’ll give you that.” He stood back with his arms folded and stared at her. “It wears off once you get across the river.”

  “What does?”

  “Oh, you’re going to be a bundle of chuckles the rest of the way, aren’t you?” He dropped down to a crouch and leaned in close. “Alice, do you remember?”

  “I... I don’t know. There’s a thing, I know that. A thing I should do, should remember to do. I...” She looked up at him blankly. “Help me?”

  “You had to go and ask, didn’t you?” he said with a sigh, rocking back on his heels. “I’m only taking you as far as the river. After that, no deal. Besides, you’ll be fine once you’re on the other side.” Alice had no idea what he was talking about, but he carried on anyway. “It’d be stupid to take you further than that. Worse, it’d be suicide. They’ll all be watching for you. All of them. And if they see me with you...” He watched her rubbing at her temples and frowning. “You don’t understand a thing I’m saying, do you?”

  “There was something I had to do.”

  “Yes, yes. I know. But right now, I need you to stand up. You can do that, right?”

  “But I’m comfortable.”

  “I know. That’s the problem. If you don’t get up now, you won’t. Ever. That’s it. Game over. Done. You’re this close.” He held his finger and thumb a hair’s breadth apart. “Hell’s got her hooks in you, and unless you get up and you get moving, you’ll never be free. So get up. Now.”

  “I... I... don’t....” Her eyelids were growing heavy.

  “Oh, for...” he tailed off with a growl. “I swore I was over doing this.” Leaning close to her, he slung her arms around his neck and picked her up, holding her tightly against his chest, his wings held out as a counterbalance. “Just so we’re clear, you’d better make sure those angels of yours hold up their end of the bargain, or I’m personally going to see to it that you wish I’d left you here to rot.”