Blind Shrike

by Richard Kadrey

  “That was once my name in a dead Sumerian dialect.”

  “You’re Lucifer.”

  “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”

  Lucifer went to Ashbliss and prodded him with his boot. “Up, you rosy turd. I know what you wanted from this mortal, and you can’t have it. Normally, I wouldn’t care about your second-rate treacheries, but we’re at war and I need my loyal generals on their feet, not buried under quicklime in the garden. Understand? “

  Ashbliss got to his feet, but stared down at the black and white pavement slabs that formed a checkerboard pattern in the square. “I understand, my lord. Have mercy on me.”

  “Mercy? You must be thinking of someone else.”

  “Cut the little creep some slack,” said Spyder. “He’s supposed to be sneaky. He’s a demon for Christ sake. Oh. Is it okay to say that down here?”

  “Do you hear that?” Lucifer asked Ashbliss. “This mortal, whom you were about to betray and murder, is pleading for your life. It will be a long time before you see such grace down here again.”

  “Kill me? We had a deal.”

  “No you had a lie,” said Lucifer. “This little wretch doesn’t work for Beelzebub. Do you, turd?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Ashbliss here is a freelance thug. Someone has paid him to dispose of one of my better commanders. Possibly our friend, Xero. Little Ashbliss was going to trick you into doing the dirty work for him and then eliminate you.”

  “Is that true?” Spyder asked.

  Ashbliss wrung his hands.

  “Fuck him,” said Spyder. “Drag him back to the butchers’ quarter them hang him up on a hook.”

  “I can’t refuse a guest,” Lucifer told the demon.

  Ashbliss burst into tears. His candles flickered out, one by one.

  “Hell, I’m just blowing off steam. Can’t you just lock him up or something?” asked Spyder. Then to Ashbliss. “You’ll tell this man everything he wants to know, won’t you, asshole?”

  Ashbliss looked up with red-rimmed eyes, not sure what to do. He lunged and grabbed Spyder’s hand, planting kisses on it with his thin membranous lips. “I will! I will! Thank you!” His candles flickered back to life.

  Spyder looked at Lucifer. “Can you make the doggie stop humping me?”

  “Come here, wretch.”

  Ashbliss went and stood before Lucifer.

  “You’ll begin your rehabilitation by going back to where you left my friend’s companions and bringing them to my palace. Go quickly, before you ruin my good mood.”

  Bowing once, then twice, Ashbliss took off across the plaza as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him.

  “Run, Forrest, run!” shouted Spyder.

  Lucifer grabbed Spyder in a quick embrace. He was dressed in a striped black and gold hakama, the familiar chainmail over this bare chest, and a short jacket of some shiny material—vinyl or rubber. His head was shaved and from his mid-scalp down the back of his neck, his pale skin was covered with black tattoos, intricate lettering in what Spyder remembered from Jenny’s books was a kind of Angelic Script related to the Coptic alphabet. Even in Hell, Lucifer carried deep scars in his handsome face.

  “It’s good to see you, little brother.”

  “You know, my father was Baptist and my mother was Lutheran and sometimes I ended up going to both churches on the same Sunday, so I shouldn’t be happy to see you,” said Spyder. “But I am.”

  “Being able to embrace contradictions is a sign of intelligence.”

  “Or insanity.”

  “That’s what the Archangel Gabriel once said to me. Just before I cut off his head.”

  “Damn.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. He would have cut off mine, if I’d given him the chance. I haven’t thought about that in a long time. You know, that was the incident that triggered the war.”

  “In Heaven?”

  “None other. You don’t really think we’re here because of the nice views?” Lucifer put out his right arm and wrapped Spyder’s left arm around it. “We can catch up while I show you around my little kingdom.”

  FIFTY ONE

  Off the Radar

  “You son-of-a-bitch. We thought you were dead,” said Spyder.

  “I was,” Lucifer said. “That body was as dead as dead could be. I just ended up back here.”

  “You wanted us here all along, didn’t you? You manipulated this whole thing just to get us here. Why?”

  “Xero Abrasax. He came here with some very impressive magic. Enough to rally an army and challenge me. I needed a champion. A mortal to kill a mortal soul. Shrike can kill him. He doesn’t show it, but he’s afraid of her. There’s something in the book she can use against him.”

  They passed a golden temple, like an Aztec step-pyramid. In front was a kind of sculpture on a tall bronze base. A heavy cloth twisted languorously on top, looping and folding over itself, as if it was spinning slowly in water. The material changed colors as it moved, revealing eye and mouth holes. Spyder realized that it wasn’t cloth, but human skins sewn together.

  “Even if I believed that, all the shit you put us through, dragging our asses through the desert and across Hell, why do that if you wanted us here all along?”

  “The universe has rules for these things. I needed Shrike here. I knew she needed a partner that could help her get here, but would have no personal desire for the book. Besides, do you think you would have come if I’d just popped into your tattoo shop one night around closing and said, ‘Hello, I’m the Prince of Darkness. Think you could help me out with a little war next Tuesday, say, sixish?’”

  “You had that demon attack me in the alley!”

  “I just pointed out to the Bitru that you were carrying its mark.”

  “I’m suddenly remembering Sunday school. You’re the Prince of Lies.”

  “First, don’t try to quote chapter and verse to me, little brother. I know every holy book ever written. I even penned a few of them. Second, the ‘Prince of Lies’ is Ahriman, the Zoroastrian lord of darkness and brother to Ahura Mazda, the lord of light. Not that I ever met either one, but I’m sure they were lovely chaps. No, before you try telling me how the world is and who I am, remember what Samuel Butler, a mortal, once said: ‘It must be remembered that we’ve only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.’”

  “You’re just a victim of bad publicity?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Lucifer asked. “I was the loyal opposition in Heaven. I tested Job and plenty of others, all with Yahweh’s blessing. In the early days, mortal faith and free will were new concepts. That’s where the conflict began. God gave you free will, but we angels were expected to bow and scrape. I couldn’t accept that.”

  “You were going to steal God’s throne.”

  “I bet you believe everything Republicans say about Democrats. The archangel Michael accused me of wanting to sit in the throne of Heaven, but I didn’t want to be God. I didn’t want to be God’s lap dog, either.”

  “You’ve got some serious daddy issues, mister.”

  The devil smiled. “Pride, too. The books got that right, at least.”

  “So, you’re building Heaven to prove God wrong.”

  “Something like that. Heaven with free will.”

  “And not to set yourself up as a new God?”

  Lucifer stopped walking and pointed with his free hand. “That’s my palace over there. I don’t need to remind anyone down here who’s in charge. I’m not deluded enough to see myself as God. Over all, the first one did an impressive job creating the universe. It’s the details I dispute.”

  “What’s that weird quote? I’ve heard it a couple of ways, ‘God is in the details…’”

  “And, ‘The devil is in the details.’ Yes, I’m aware of it. I don’t know which version is more insulting.”

  “Let me get this straight, you’re just down here having this family squabble with God for the last few million or few thousand years�
� I don’t get how time works here.”

  “Don’t try. You’ll hurt your brain.”

  “Cool. And you just want to show God that free will for your kind is hot biscuits and gravy. Then why fuck with us mortals? What’s with all the temptation and corruption?”

  “Who said that was me? Oh yes, everyone.” Lucifer released Spyder’s arm and they sat on a stone bench on the edge of the square. “I have to take some responsibility for that. Millions of angels came with me when father threw me out and changed the locks. I had to give them something to do.”

  “All those monks and nuns, Jesus in the desert, all the visions of all those righteous types, none of that was you?”

  “I’ll admit that I’ve had my hand in a tempting manifestation or two. I was an angry young man, lashing out at all God had created. But like you, little brother, I couldn’t help growing up just a little.”

  Demons walked by them through the plaza, glancing furtively at the talking meat chatting with the ruler of Hell. Tall, bile-colored women with snakes for hair and dressed in high-collared latex robes whispered to each other as they passed. Graceful, loping things, like mechanical praying mantises, craned a stalk eye or two at the conversation. A flock of living skeletons, human from the waist up, but bird-like from the waist down, stopped and stared at the men on the bench. They skeletons moved as a group, like pigeons, chittering down one of the side streets.

  “What about all those souls remodeling your den? What about the ones being tortured down here?”

  “Do you think I invited them here? We’ve been Heaven’s junkyard since time began. I’m just making use of the freeloaders. The tortures are just day work for my less intelligent brethren. And truthfully, some souls are useless, not even fit for manual labor.”

  “I’m having a hard time with this poor, poor, pitiful me line, Count. Lucifer. What should I call you?”

  “Anything you want, just don’t call me later for dinner,” Lucifer said. He looked Spyder in the eye. “The truth will set you free. But it might also hurt your feelings: You see, humanity isn’t even on my radar. My quarrel is with Heaven, not you.”

  Spyder looked at Lucifer’s palace, thinking over everything he’d seen and heard. “You’re my friend. At least Count Non was. I don’t really know what to believe right now.”

  “Admit it. You want me to be a monster. Humanity has to find someone to blame for its crimes. The problem is that you never really believed Copernicus. You still think you’re the center of the universe and that all creation revolves around you.”

  “You’ve been practicing this speech for a while, haven’t you?”

  “I’ll give you an another example. The snake in the garden of Eden?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was just a snake. I was never there. Humanity’s first real decision was to defy God. So was mine. That’s the reason I make you uncomfortable. We’re so much alike.” Lucifer leaned closer, speaking quietly. “In Heaven I tempted mortals for God’s benefit. It’s a hard habit to break. But I always worked on the little things. Lust. Jealousy. Greed. Humanity didn’t need any help with the big sins. It was you who ate the apple and fell from grace. It was you when Carthage was raped and burned and the earth salted. It was you at Hiroshima and Wounded Knee and Auschwitz and at every lynching of every hapless sharecropper who dared to meet the eyes of a white woman.”

  “You must really hate us. If we didn’t exist, you’d still be in Heaven.”

  “I don’t hate you. You’re children and don’t know any better. And if it hadn’t been you, something else would have set off the troubles between God and me.” Lucifer shrugged. “Fathers and sons.”

  “Did you have anything to do with taking my blindfold off?”

  “Why would I do that? I don’t like many mortals and the few I do care for should be off living their lives, not going mad down here. You were trapped by something else. There’s a black cloud around you that I can’t see through, which means I can’t help you. But you’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later.”

  “Who’s the Painted Man?”

  Lucifer rolled his eyes. “The boogey man for demons. The Painted Man is the monster in the closet. Dr. Moriarty. Kayser Soze. He’s supposedly a creature of pure chaos, neither God nor angel nor demon, who one day will come to destroy us. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. I heard a demon mention him.”

  “That’s all? And you called me the Prince of Lies.” Lucifer stretched and stuck out his long legs. “Don’t trouble your handsome young head, Spyder Lee, you’re not the Painted Man.”

  “Is Xero?”

  “No, but he thinks he is and that makes him dangerous.”

  “How do you know he’s not?”

  “If he were I would have smelled him coming. I’d have tasted him. I’d have heard every beat of his heart. If the Painted Man ever sets foot in Hell, I’ll know it.”

  Spyder looked down and saw a half-smoked cigarette lying at his feet. He picked up the butt and smoothed it straight. “Got a light?” he asked. Lucifer handed him a pink fur lighter.

  “This is Lulu’s,” said Spyder.

  “She dropped it by the Bone Sea. I was going to return it the next time I saw her.”

  Spyder lit the butt and dropped the lighter into his jacket pocket. It felt good to pull the smoke into his lungs.

  “What’s the deal with all the Satanic losers back home? Do you like them? Do they drive you crazy? What about Anton LaVey?”

  “I love Anton LaVey. I love all carnies. God can have the meek. I’ll take the grifters.”

  “You’ve got an answer for everything. I’ll give you that, Count.”

  “We all have to live with ourselves, especially here. I’ll tell you something, because I think you’ll understand: I know that our Heaven is quite probably a pointless and futile thing, but we’ll build it anyway, because it’s all the Heaven we’re ever likely to have.”

  Across the plaza, Ashbliss came with Lulu and Shrike. The men rose as they got closer. Both Lulu and Shrike went right to the man they knew as Count Non and hugged him.

  Spyder said, “Ladies, let me introduce you to the man in black, his infernal badness, Lucifer.”

  Shrike and Lulu looked at the devil. Shrike took Spyder’s hand. Lulu smiled. “Count Non, you tricky fuck. I knew there was something about you. Not many men can make me question my gender preferences.”

  Lucifer looked at Ashbliss. “I’ll talk to you later, dung beetle. Vanish.” He snapped his fingers and the little demon was gone.

  “Here,” said Spyder, and handed Lulu back her lighter.

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “What happens now?” asked Shrike.

  “Under other circumstances I’d probably throw a party. Given the current unpleasantness, I’ll just take you to the book.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Unless you’d like to wait around in the open for Xero to attack again.” Lucifer nodded to the hills beyond the golden step-pyramid. Men and demons were massing along the ridge.

  Lucifer turned to Shrike. “By the way, it’s nice to finally see your eyes. They’re lovely.”

  “Thank you. It’s good to see you, but a little strange, too.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  Lucifer started across the square to his palace as the others followed. Spyder looked over his shoulder and saw Xero’s troops starting down the hill for Pandemonium.

  FIFTY TWO

  Waiting for the End of the World

  The entrance to Lucifer’s palace was covered in flowers.

  Bloody roses snaked, on unnaturally long stalks, around the main entrance, a wide portico which let onto an immense reception hall. Inside, the roses were joined by clusters of white lilies and fleshy pink and tiger-striped orchids. The white marble floor was covered with a rich, purple carpet, trimmed in gold. On one wall were exquisitely detailed anatomy charts of humans, demons and e
very kind of animals Spyder had ever seen. On the opposite wall hung a huge tapestry, a rendering of William Blake’s “Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun.” Along the back wall was what Spyder took to be Lucifer’s trophy gallery.

  Victorian-style curiosity cabinets were laid out neatly around the gently curved walls. The first cabinet held a kind of black knotted lump floating in air behind leaded glass. The little plaque at the bottom of the case read, John the Baptist’s Heart. Next to it was a set of battle armor, blackened, the metal ripped and melted by some monstrous blast. “That’s mine. From the old days,” Lucifer told Spyder. Nearby was a silver trumpet. “Gabriel’s. I nicked it on the way out the door.” The next cabinet held a crown of thorns. “No explanation needed there, I suppose.” Rare plants and animals were lying in bell jars and pinned in display cases. They were all alive, but trapped. Two cases side-by-side held an assortment of Fabergé eggs and different kinds of puzzle boxes. Lucifer shrugged and said, “I just like them.” Another glass case contained a kind of black, swirling nothingness that seemed to suck light into itself. It was labeled, Chaos. At the end of the row was a cage and in it lay the book. It was as tall as Spyder and the covers were riveted plates of solid steel, with runes etched into the surface. When Spyder saw it, he thought, This is not a human’s book.

  “I feel sick,” said Shrike. She clutched her chest.

  “Is it the key?” Spyder asked. “We’re near the book. It’s probably trying to get out.”

  “I’m not sure. This doesn’t feel right.” She took deep, painful breaths.

  Behind the cage that housed the book, the flowers began to die. The wave of death spread around the room. The flowers all turned black, shedding their petals before falling to the floor in dry heaps. Spyder’s gaze followed the trail of rot around the room. The trail of dying flowers ended at a long staircase where Xero stood, with Shrike’s father at his feet. Xero kicked the old man and he rolled down the stone steps, landing in a heap at the bottom.

  “Father!” screamed Shrike, and she stumbled to him. Spyder and the others followed, Spyder with the black blade out and Lulu with her shotgun pointed at Xero. As Shrike reached her father, demons dropped down from the ceiling and dragged her up the stairs. Spyder started after them, but Lucifer grabbed his shoulder and held him.