“I’ve got something big here, and I need a search warrant from Rosebudd and no-one-but... and I need it now.”
“Tell me where you are.”
As soon as DeSark said that, Virgil glanced at Janice and felt another tug of intuition. “Just get me Rosebudd, old buddy,” said Virgil. He put the radio back on his belt, then said, “Put your goddamn mask back on.”
Virgil pushed, and they walked toward Janice’s house near the Precinct.
* * *
“This is your fault, not mine!” one Coil screamed at his Captain in the parking lot at Floyd. He stood by an open car door while his buddy nervously tugged on the locked passenger door. “You better believe I’m gonna tell Pelethor that you screwed this whole thing up!”
“Come on, man!” said the other Coil. “Let’s just go, let’s get out of here! Unlock my door, bro!”
His friend ignored him as he shouted at their Captain. “You can’t send new recruits against… whatever the hell that thing is in there! That’s not a normal person, that’s some kind of-”
A shotgun barked thunder and the Coil’s head was whipped to the side and slammed into the car. His friend turned and saw Wodan standing with a smoking shotgun. Jens leaned against a pile of rubble with the cat in his lap. The Coil screamed an ear-splitting shriek, dropped his gun, and ran across the lot. Wodan aimed, then decided to let the young man live so that he could spread the tale of the Floyd Street Massacre.
Wodan walked through flaming ruins and black mist toward the parked cars, his old wounds open and bleeding and shining in the firelight. His eyes were locked on the Captain’s jacket flapping in the wind. A smile crossed his face as he dropped the shotgun, then he unsheathed his knife and dropped it as well. The smoke parted and he saw Pete dressed in a Captain’s jacket, shotgun in hand. Wodan knew that he could be the only one sent to kill those who posed a threat to Pelethor’s vision of a new tomorrow.
“My Captain,” said Wodan. “My friend!”
* * *
Virgil and Janice walked up to Janice’s front door. Virgil saw motion, whirled, and held the empty shotgun at Detective DeSark. The old detective raised his hands, and said, “Now let’s just calm down a minute, old friend.”
“How did you know I would come here?!” said Virgil.
“Just... detective’s intuition,” said DeSark, lowering his hands slowly.
“Keep’m up!” said Virgil.
“Don’t you trust me?” said DeSark. He stopped, but did not raise his hands.
They waited before the doorway for a long time. The radio beeped and Virgil picked it up slowly, not sure what he would do if the situation came to violence.
“Detective Virgil,” said the radio.
“Yeah.”
“Got Judge Rosebudd here, just a minute.”
There was a pause, then, “Virgil? What’s this all about, son?”
“Sorry to wake you, sir, but I need a search warrant for Director Janice’s house, right now, if you can, sir.”
Another pause, then, “Is that where you’re at?”
Virgil shook his head in frustration. “I just - sir, I need that warrant!”
An even longer pause, then, “Fine. You’ve got it. I’ll make it official first thing when the courts open.”
“Official?”
“Official.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Virgil. He pushed Janice into the house.
They stalked about in the darkness with DeSark trailing along the entire time, eyeing Virgil strangely. “Stay back!” Virgil hissed several times, but the old man never seemed to stop shuffling along.
Janice threw off his mask, then said, “DeSark! Help me!”
“Shut up!” Virgil screamed.
Virgil heard sirens outside, then saw the lights of squad cars in the windows. He wondered how many of the Lawmen were dirty, and were in league with Janice. Then he wondered if only DeSark was dirty, and would possibly try to kill Virgil before backup arrived. “Get back, goddammit!” Virgil shrieked at DeSark, then kicked Janice into a desk.
“Alright, son,” said DeSark, quietly. “Anything you want, son.” But he would not stop shuffling forward.
Virgil tore into the desk and rifled through stacks of documents. “That’s just financial information,” said Janice. “It’s none of your business.”
Virgil shuffled the papers about. He found official bank documents made out to Janice. Then he bank documents made out to a numbered account, without name. It was just what he’d wanted.
“Numbered accounts,” said Virgil. “Who are these for? You as Director of the Law? Or you as a Master Thief?”
Janice’s head dropped. Virgil heard feet pounding in the hallway, then voices. “We’re in here!” shouted DeSark.
“We’re going to follow these numbers and find dirty Coil money,” said Virgil. “You’ve profited off death and destruction, and now you’re going to rot for it.”
“No I’m not,” said Janice, smirking.
Lawmen in denim rushed into the room. “Arrest that man!” shouted DeSark as he pointed toward them. Virgil froze in alarm.
“Director Janice!” one Lawman shouted. The others raised their guns and centered them on Virgil. Virgil lowered his shotgun.
“Director Janice,” said DeSark, “was a Master Thief in league with the Coil. Arrest him, gentlemen. And shake the hand of the hero who’s made Pontius that much cleaner.”
Virgil was taken aback, then hardened his face and nodded.
As the Lawmen led Janice away, Virgil said, “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. Real sorry.”
“Why sorry?” said the old detective, crinkling his brow. “I never taught you to trust anyone. I taught you to get out there and catch bad guys - no matter what.”
Virgil bowed his head. “Right... no matter what.”
* * *
Shirtless and unarmed, his old scars open and streaming black blood, Wodan approached Pete. Pete gripped his shotgun and stared at him, his face unreadable.
“Pete!” said Wodan, still smiling. “You’ve come so far… but there’s still so much further we have to go! It looks like they’ve given you a Captain’s jacket. But did they tell you what kind of man to put inside of it?”
Pete’s heart shook in his chest as he tried to comprehend what Wodan had become. He should be dead, or in agony, but as he approached, Pete could feel Wodan’s aura raging like a storm on the surface of the sun. He was no longer a man, but a force of nature.
“I see your flaw now,” said Wodan. “Finally, I can see it! It’s the same flaw I’ve seen in others I’ve met. You have ambition, an unmatched will to succeed. You can overcome anything, Pete. But you lack a moral center. That’s the thing, my friend! You find your back against the wall, so you do anything you can to survive, and you tell yourself that if you can overcome this obstacle or that obstacle, then you’ll become a good person. But the obstacles never stop coming, Pete. They never stop. You learned that tonight, when you tried to kill me, didn’t you?
“I know your secret, Pete. Don’t pity yourself – I know you killed Anne. You killed her and your own child, and you told yourself that you would be a better person tomorrow after this night of horrors.
“Don’t look away, Pete. I can help you. I can show you the goodness inside of you that you can’t see with your own eyes. I can teach you so many things. Pete, don’t you know that if we work together, nothing will be outside of our reach? The Ugly and the Coil are broken. We can replace them. We can become the most terrifying thing that Pontius has ever known. Together, we can steal from thieves and kill murderers. The Smiths will become our lackeys and the Law will be forced to work around us. Together, we can hunt down the very people who want to make this world Hell. We can create a renaissance, a rebirth of the human spirit, a utopia where decent people can reach for anything they want – but small, mean-spirited men will look upon the shining streets with terror, wondering if each night will be their last!”
Woda
n stood before Pete, shining in the dark. Pete’s shotgun dropped slightly.
“We can change this world together. You and I, Pete… master and disciple.”
Pete’s face relaxed, and Wodan saw a light in his eyes. Finally, Pete smiled once again.
A shotgun blast shattered the stillness and Pete slammed against the hood of the car. Another thunderclap roared and Pete’s chest opened up, then he rolled over the side of the hood and crashed into the ground. His arm jerked lamely, the wind shook the end of his Captain’s jacket, then he fell still and silent.
Wodan recoiled in horror. He turned and saw Jens leaning against a section of broken wall, nestled in dying embers and cradling a smoking shotgun. His face was drawn and heavy. Agony flooded into Wodan and his strength gave out in a rushing wave and he fell to his knees, weak and tired. His face burned with sorrow and he felt a light shrinking, then it was snuffed out. In terrible anguish, he knew that he was alone in a dead city full of dead souls.
“Good distraction, buddy,” Jens muttered, then he laid his head back and rested.
* * *
The Master Thief called One entered the meeting room and saw that both of the other doors were standing open. He peeked through one doorway and saw nothing, then looked out the other door and saw a dead man in the hallway. He jerked backwards and pulled off his mask of paper so that he could breathe.
Foreman Arcturus, leader of the Most Holy Order of the Smiths, knew in that moment that the Coil were done for. Their highest echelons had been infiltrated, and the lower ranks had been usurped by another. They had come to their end. He tossed the mask onto the ground and left that place, never to return.
In the nights to come, he was always haunted by a question. In vain he wondered just who the other Master Thieves were. He never learned that, all along, the Coil had been led by a Smith, an Ugly, and a Lawman.
* * *
The sun rose over the wasteland and Barkus sat on a hard patch of red sand with the demon child he’d sired. The massive flesh demon was bleeding from a hundred gunshot wounds, and the bone that covered its head was cracked and chipped. As for his own condition, Barkus was so sore that he could barely move. His body was covered in bruises from the treatment his demonic son had given him during their escape from Pontius.
He laid back in the sand and the other demon, the little one, crawled onto his chest. It was round, with glistening skin the color of old milk, and it had small, wiry tendrils that provided locomotion. The thing was mostly an eye, and when it had originally crawled down into his cell in Precinct Zero, he had recognized it as the goiter that had been attached to Mother’s neck since his own childhood. The devil had been watching them all along.
But the eye worked both ways. As it sat on his chest, an image played on the little demon’s smooth surface. Barkus saw demons, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of them, all gathered in the wasteland or just beneath the surface. He saw them shifting and writhing, packed closely like the skin of a single organism, a roiling mass of tentacles and strange, hideous heads turning about... Barkus wondered if he was supposed to be impressed with it and turned away. He had grown weary of the eye several days ago. He did not even know if the images were real. When he was first shown the vision, he was filled with wonder and asked the creature if it was his destiny to lead the army of flesh demons. The little devil bounced and shook – it had laughed at him. He felt like a fool. Nobody needed him, of course. Nobody at all.
Now that he was freed from Pontius and lying in the sand in the shade of his son, he dozed off. He soon woke with a start, for the little eye devil was trying to attach itself to his neck. It had no other way to feed itself. Disgusted, Barkus grabbed the thing and squeezed it until it popped like an egg in his hands. He cast the thing away and saw his demon son watching him. The brute seemed only vaguely curious.
Barkus lifted onto his elbows and looked about. It was getting hot already. He rose and then his son rose as well. Barkus looked into the waste extending outward as far as he could see. Waste without end.
He turned back to the walls of Pontius, so far away. He let out a sigh.
“Gods below,” he said. “I’ll be glad if I never see Pontius again.”
Then he and his demon son walked into the wasteland.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Killers
Wodan left the dreary, filthy abattoir that was Pontius’s version of a hospital. His head hung low and he felt utterly empty inside. He’d just visited Jens; the two had sat in silence for a long time, then Jens asked him if he wanted to pick up Ullrich and Anne so they could catch a movie at Hunley’s. Jens’s eyes stabbed into him. Wodan decided there was nothing he could have said.
As Wodan walked down the street, he was seized by yet another coughing fit. He rubbed his bleary eyes, then noticed that someone with an arm in a sling was waving to him.
“Virgil!” said Wodan. Wodan tried to smile, but Virgil could see that the expression was worn and false. “How are you these days, old man?”
“I made Lieutenant Detective,” said Virgil, patting the insignia on his chest. “Got a team of my own boys, and we’re really hitting the streets. And my friend DeSark - he’s the new Director at Precinct Zero. You wouldn’t believe everything we’re getting done, Wodan.” They walked in silence for a while, then Virgil said, “It looks like both of us took down a Coil Master Thief and the whole city knows it. The last few Captains are turning on one another, and others are drifting into legitimate business. Can you believe that?” He paused again. “We really did it, Wodan. We took down the Ugly and the Coil. You should be proud!”
“There will always be gangs in Pontius,” said Wodan, staring at the ground.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Virgil.
“I know I am. There are more of them now than ever before. What’s the count at now? Last I heard, there’s the Stranglers, the Clowns, the Lux Lators, Mob Seven-One-Eight, the Watchers-”
“Okay, I get the idea.”
“They’re filling up the black markets just as fast as these kids can realize that no better options are available. A lot of kids are dying, and a few old men are raking in the profits.”
“You could become a Lawman, you know,” said Virgil. “I’d love to have you on the force. Even as a secretary!”
“I’m done with gangs, Virgil. I’m done with helping this city. I’ve gotten enough people killed as it is.”
As they walked side by side, Virgil was struck by how small and frail Wodan looked. They stopped at an intersection.
“You live that way?” said Virgil.
Wodan nodded. “Nobody knows where I live, and I need to keep it that way.” He looked at Virgil, then said, “See you around. And thanks.”
“Oh. For what?”
Wodan shrugged. “I don’t know. For being what this city needs, I guess.”
Wodan turned and walked away. “We’ll see each other again, right?” said Virgil. Wodan turned into an alley and disappeared from view.
Wodan crossed to another street. The sun had already fled, and only the ghost of dusk remained on the horizon. Wodan heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw three men in dark jackets and hats staring at him. As he stared, they stopped and pretended to look at something across the street. He continued and drew near his apartment building. He chanced another look back and saw the same three men dart into an alleyway.
He wondered if they were sent to kill him. Who wanted him dead?
Who didn’t want him dead?
Wodan was too tired to feel fear. He climbed the stoop that led to his apartment building, then leaned against the doorway as another coughing fit overcame him. While he wiped his mouth, he watched the three strangers watch him from the end of the block. He turned away and entered his apartment building.
Climbing the stairwell was no easy task, but he knew that he would soon rest. When he opened the door to his place, he found that his lamps were already lit.
Matthias, one of the
strange Die Engelen he’d met during his journey to Pontius over a year ago, sat in a chair he’d dragged into the center of the room. He sat leaning back, his long legs jutting out. His dark clothes were covered in the grime of the wasteland, and greasy black hair hung down over his face. In one hand, he stroked Wodan’s freakish cat as it sat in his lap. In the other hand, he held a heavy handgun.
Wodan nodded to him tiredly and tossed his keys onto the table. “Matthias. What brings you here?”
The strange, pale young man waited for a long time, then said, “A year ago, we took a vote on whether or not to let you live. Thing is, that was a military operation. Soldiers don’t normally vote on whether or not they follow orders, do they?” Matthias looked up at Wodan, then said, “I’ve come here to kill you.”
Wodan nodded slowly and crossed to a window overlooking the street. He could see the dead, lifeless moon hanging overhead. If only he’d done it a year ago, he thought. This city is the same as it ever was. I changed nothing. If he’d done his duty back then… then, my friends would still be…
Wodan noticed an old couple standing on a balcony in the apartment complex across the street. A skinny old man had an arm around his wide-hipped wife, and they both smiled as they discussed something. Suddenly the old man waved, then Wodan saw a man on another balcony waving back as he flipped something on a hot grill. The people smiled as they shouted something to one another. On the sidewalk below them, he saw a young couple walking hand in hand. They stopped at a table that a young man had set out in front of his stoop, and he showed the couple a small stack of books, a few decent bowls, and a collection of shirts that he was selling. A bolt of lightning ran through Wodan as he leaned against the window and saw other people walking and enjoying the night.
He was shocked to his very core.
I’ve never seen the people of Pontius enjoying anything! he thought, heart racing. He pressed his face in the other direction and saw a child racing alongside a black and white dog. Then he realized that he could see inside of other windows. The blinds were not shut; he could see people reading, watering plants, or sitting and thinking.
[Demonworld 3] The Floyd Street Massacre Page 32
