He pulled the blade back and forth across his arm, and finally blood welled up in the channels he’d dug earlier. Great strips of red gathered on white, then gushed in long, thin ribbons that caught in other channels.
“Gods, Wodan, stop!” said Jens.
“Be still!” said Wodan.
Wodan’s arm was a mess of slanting red trails. Wodan switched the blade so that he held it underhanded, then moved to his chest. “To be Ugly,” he said, “we make our scars in defiance of the world. Isn’t that so?”
“In defiance of,” said Boris, “but also, in affirmation to. Lies end where acceptance begins. You’re beginning to understand.”
As the blood ran down his belly, Wodan saw Pete and Anne speaking from across the room, their words a strange dance. Then he saw an image of Dove Langley. They were back on the beach, the most peaceful place in the world, and he remembered that she’d said something to him that no one else had heard. The memory belonged to them.
Wodan stopped and let the blade clatter to the floor. He was covered in strips of red and black canals, from his left wrist to his chest. He dripped onto the floor.
Finally Boris said, “Never have I seen another Ugly work with such devotion on his first day of honesty! And that is what you are now: An Ugly. No Coil could ever become a Captain, or even a Lieutenant, with the sort of scars you will bear.”
Wodan’s mind was still on fire. He was filled with something raging and wild that he did not understand. “My work is not done, lord,” he said. “You worked hard to find one Captain. I have another for you.” Wodan reeled off the name and address of a Coil Captain. He had extensive notes at home, and consulted them often, but he had come nowhere near memorizing any of them; even the names of Captains he’d killed had fallen into forgetfulness, but now his mind threw up memory after memory and he reeled off the name and address of one Captain after another. Boris’s eyes grew wide. Wodan finally stopped after eight Captains were revealed, then said, “They are all ready to die at your hands, Lord Boris.”
Boris shot his head to the side and the small Ugly who had escorted them jogged forward with a pen and piece of paper shaking in his hands. “I’ve got it! I got it all down!”
Boris turned to Wodan and nodded curtly. “A wonderful convert… a shining example!” He spoke louder as little Scorpio began to cry again. “And such an act of memory! You may join our scribes immediately, if you like. Or report to any youth of the Body, if you want to give your life in such a way.”
“With all due respect,” said Wodan, bowing, “I would like to report back to the enemy. I’ll become a cancer festering in their belly. In time, I’ll deliver more of their heads to you.”
“Fine, fine,” said Boris, nodding quickly. He turned to the small Ugly and said, “Take that list - run with it - and make those men disappear.” The man ran from the room.
While Boris spoke, Wodan removed his belt, then tied it around Jens’s throat and held it like a leash. Jens looked pale and hollow. The Hand in the corner laughed slightly; the sound was mechanical and unnatural.
“You may escort the Coilman out,” said Boris. “Welcome to the world.”
Wodan bowed again and pulled Jens behind him. The cries of the child echoed behind them.
They walked down the hall. When he was sure that they were alone, Jens jerked the belt out of Wodan’s hands. “Listen man, I know I’ve joked about this before, but there is something seriously wrong with you, Wodan.”
“Told you we’d survive,” said Wodan, smiling back at him.
* * *
They reached the chamber of the deformed cat. It perked up immediately and meowed at the sight of its new friend. Wodan rushed to it and stroked its crazy-looking head, then said, “Jens, gimme that bag!”
Jens complied and Wodan threw his head about conspiratorially. He opened the bag and lifted up the twisted, wriggling animal. “In you go, li’l boy,” he said, stuffing it inside. “Papaw’s taking you home.”
Jens cackled loudly, then said, “I’m gonna force Anne to touch that thing!”
The cat wiggled its hindquarters and settled around the severed head. Its uneven eyes looked back at him, full of love. Wodan held the bag close to his chest, then thought, Hang in there, little Scorpio. I’ll be coming for you one day, too.
* * *
Wodan held Jens’s leash on the first floor, and the Ugly nodded and allowed them to pass. A few scarred men smiled and congratulated him. As they crossed the granite courtyard near the front entrance, they saw a skinny, gray-haired old man lugging a large, rusted out device. He teetered back and forth, legs shaking under the weight. He had no scars, but a slave collar was around his neck. As he passed, Wodan stood still with shock, for he recognized the man.
“Hari!” said Wodan, dropping Jens’s leash and running to him. The old man paused, then nearly fell over under the weight of the thing. Wodan took it from him, easily, and lowered it to the ground. He turned to the man, smiling slightly. “Hari! Don’t you remember me?”
Wrinkles deepened around the old man’s eyes as he stared at Wodan, then recognition slowly dawned on the face of the man who had been a slave with Wodan in the desert. When Wodan, Rachek, and Brad had tried to convince the others to fight for their freedom, Agmar had fetched Hari to counsel the others against risking their lives. Hari was a dull, soft-spoken, forgettable man, but he had done his part to convince many of the slaves to not join the revolt. And, unlike Agmar, Hari had not even been in the employ of the Ugly.
“You’re… but this is impossible,” said the old man. “You’re… Wodan. How could I forget? But… but they set out to kill you!”
“Not dead yet,” said Wodan. He smiled and placed a hand on Hari’s shoulder. The old man nearly crumbled under his touch. His eyes drifted to Wodan’s insane collection of fresh wounds. “Don’t worry about those, I’m just undercover. But, Hari, man, what happened to you?”
“Oh, son, it was terrible,” said Hari. The man immediately began choking on tears. Wodan knew that it was not because he wore his heart on his sleeve, but because he lived in a world of pain and regret where the suffering was always ready to boil up from below. “Wodan, that devil Fachimundi... he killed so many, son, so many. I don’t know how long I’ve been here... ten years? A hundred? No one bought me in Sunport... and others, too, they... they turned people into zombies, son... the ones they couldn’t sell, they kept for themselves, brought us here... I wanted to die. Wodan, you, you were... you were...”
Wodan stopped him before he could say more. “It’s not important, Hari. You survived, that’s what’s important. Now you can-”
“No!” he said, shaking. “I didn’t want to survive! Not like this! In this Hell!”
A fat man strode towards them. He glared at them. He wore fine clothes, but he also wore a slave collar around his neck. Hari saw him, then turned away and moaned.
“Th-that’s my boss,” said Hari. “A slave-master of slaves. Oh, gods… he’ll be so angry that I haven’t gotten this thing across the grounds. B-but Wodan, I c-can’t carry it, I’m… I’m so tired, Wodan!”
“You! Hari!” the man barked.
Wodan was filled with a terrible rage. The idea that a man on the next-to-bottom rung on the social ladder would use what little authority he had to hurt those on the very bottom rung filled him with disgust. It was one more instance of humans behaving like devils as soon as they were safely behind city walls – but it was one instance too many.
Wodan pulled the belt from Jens’s throat, then shouted at the slave-master, “You dog! Why isn’t this thing across the grounds yet?” The man stopped, then his eyes filled with terror when he saw the slashes on Wodan’s arms. He worked his mouth and pointed at Hari, but Wodan whipped the arm aside with his belt. “You gave this job to an old man? Idiot! That thing’s heavy! You should have gotten two strong men to do it!”
“I… I’ll… I’ll go get…”
“You’re goddamn right you’ll get that thin
g across the grounds. Pick it up – now!”
The slave-master bent over and heaved the rusty machine into the air. Wodan slapped his legs with the belt and the man took off, breathing heavily.
“Wuh-Wodan,” said Hari. “Y-you shouldn’t have done that! He’s... he’s going to beat me later... you don’t know how hard it-”
“He’s not going to beat you,” said Wodan, leashing Jens once again, “because you’re my slave now.” He put his hand on Hari’s thin arm and smiled at him. He pushed the bag into Hari’s arms, who looked down at it, dumbstruck. Then Wodan took Hari’s arm and Jens’s leash and dragged his strange and motley train behind him.
They saw the car waiting in the distance. The Ugly at the gate seemed tired and smoked in a cluster. Wodan tilted his head at them and they nodded back. As they drew near, they saw that the car was completely trashed. It was covered in graffiti, all of its windows were bashed in, its windshield was a limp mess of spider webs, and a great mound of feces sat on the hood. They got in and saw the Coil driver clutching the wheel, breathing in quick, shallow breaths.
“Everything cool?” said Wodan, smiling.
The driver glanced at Wodan’s cuts for a split-second, then said, “You think you had it bad? I’d give anything to trade places with you. One of them... gods... one of ’em peed on me. He stuck his pecker in the window, and I… I had to look at it...”
Tears rolled down his face.
* * *
Jens and Hari sat on a curb and shared a sandwich. The weird kitty shook playfully in Hari’s lap while he fed it bits of meat. Hari laughed at one of Jens’s stories, and as Wodan approached, he saw Hari look to the sky with a glimmer in his eye. Perhaps it was the noonday heat, but it almost seemed that Hari had a halo around his head.
“How’d it go?” said Jens.
Wodan stood over them and smiled. “Well, Jerry shit a gold brick about the whole thing. I think he’s calling some of the other Captains now. He didn’t have anything to say about us surviving. I think he was more confused than anything else.”
“What did he say about that head?” said Jens.
“Hey, we didn’t get that far.”
“Funny, funny. I meant the severed head.”
“Oh. He was pretty much completely terrified.”
Jens rose, then helped Hari up. “Well, Hari,” said Wodan. “You ready to go home?”
“Yeah!” said Hari, smiling. For the first time, Wodan saw that there were more gaps than teeth in his mouth.
They strolled down the street and Hari and Wodan took turns holding the little kitty. The avenues widened and the population thinned out as they approached Floyd Street. A familiar car pulled up beside them. It stopped and Virgil stepped out. His mustache bristled as he smiled at them. “You guys going to a freakshow or something?”
The boys waved, then the old man followed suit.
“I wanted to take you guys out to dinner,” said Virgil. “Introduce you to some people.”
“Like who?” said Wodan.
“Important people. They’re a group. Very secretive, and very exclusive.”
“You mean there’s another gang in Pontius?” said Wodan.
Virgil nodded, then said, “Depending on how you look at it, they’re either the newest, or the oldest, gang in Pontius. It’s time you met the Businessmen.”
Chapter Seventeen
Climax of the Ugly
“So Utrecht Sera is dead,” said Boris.
He sat immobile, stalling for time. Earlier that day a troop of Ugly from the Right Leg had entered the dining hall of Sera’s mansion and found their leader, and many of his men, sitting dead over poisoned meals. All the cooks and guards in the kitchen were dead as well, having started meals of their own from the same stock.
Boris had raged against Sera for losing Barkus, but ultimately the man was a good Ugly, and he’d at least gotten the Coil child for an exchange. Rumors were spreading that the Right Leg was rife with spies, that they’d not only stolen Barkus but killed Sera. Boris glanced at the Hand who stood in the corner of his office. When he’d heard the news of poison, he immediately suspected one of his own Hands was the culprit. The Hands were programmed to protect the Head; had Sera been caught planning a betrayal, and been killed for it? He was an ambitious man. Many Ugly stood before Boris in his office, demanding action, and even though Boris had never ordered the man’s death, he had to at least cultivate the possibility that he did order the killing in order to avoid the appearance of weakness.
The Hands are so difficult to work with, thought Boris. They are my greatest protectors, but they are simply impossible to communicate with effectively.
Boris turned his attention back to the men standing before him, two troops of berserkers, one led by Paul the Seer, a Right Leg berserker who had worked for the late Utrecht Sera, and “Claws” Senki, leader of the Left Leg of the Ugly. Sera’s body was not yet cold and already these men coveted the vacuum he left behind.
Senki was a tall, lanky man dressed in rich purple and scarlet robes with chain-link armor sewn throughout. He had a wild mane of blond hair, a swirling mass of purple tattoos on his face, and most of the flesh on his left hand had been stripped off, little by little over the years, until much of the bone was exposed. His left hand was stiff and black. Senki was extremely bloodthirsty, and had become a leader of berserkers because he was natural a berserker himself, constantly screaming and throwing fits and killing at the slightest whim.
“My Lord Boris,” said Senki, bowing like an animal preparing to pounce. “If the Right Leg are allowed to wallow in self-pity, leaderless, then the Coil will see it as weakness. There is no time to wait for Barkus’s return, my lord - we need the Leg whole and strong for the exchange itself!”
Paul the Seer bowed quickly. His white dreads bounced and the water in his goggles sloshed about. “True to a point, my Lord Boris. My master Sera trusted me with the command of many of his men. It would be best if leadership was given to the one with the most experience-”
“Trust!” Senki shrieked. “Look where that trust got your master!”
“You overstep your bounds!” Paul shot back, glaring at him. The berserkers in the room shifted their weight, ready for the negotiations to enter the phase where heads could be blown open or split apart with axes.
“Silence!” shouted Boris, rising to his full height. “Be still! Both of you overstep the bounds of idiocy with your conduct while in the presence of your lord!” The men bowed quickly and stepped back. Scorpio wailed loudly in the sudden stillness and Boris stroked him through his robes.
Boris glared at them, then withdrew into himself so that he could think. Planning was difficult, so difficult, because he could not get the sound of the footsteps of doom out of his mind. Ugly finances were shot. Not long ago, he’d tried to put together an Arm made out of some remnants of the old and a few youths from the Body, but they had failed to return with any slaves. They had most likely been killed by demons; it was easy to see that the flesh demons no longer considered them worth sparing. He had lost communication with Sunport. Most likely, the Ugly there were either dead, or had defected to Filius Bilch. Desperate, Boris had tried to set up a Body protection racket in Pontius, but the Coil had that game in the bag – not to mention their increasingly aggressive stance against Ugly youth wandering the streets. Recruitment was down, the lowest it had ever been under his rule or any other that he knew of, and he spent more time and energy trying to hide this fact from the other gangs, and his own leaders, rather than setting up new avenues of recruitment. Something had to change, or he could become the Head who finally saw the end of their ancient clan.
Boris paced, his hands behind him, and tried to walk slowly so that his movements would seem calm and thoughtful rather than like a caged animal.
If he made Paul the Seer leader of the Right Leg, then power would be distributed more equally. However, he had no idea of the man’s capabilities - he was Utrecht Sera’s man, and the knowledge of
his full experience and abilities had died with Utrecht. It was true that Senki was a good leader, but if he made Senki leader of both Legs then his power would rival Boris’s own. For this same reason, he’d been reluctant to make Heffer the leader of both Arms, and only Barkus’s return had gotten him out of that mess.
If only I could delay things until we got Barkus back, Boris thought. Then I could divide power more evenly, and… what is happening?!
As Boris paced the room, he drew near some of his own guards – then saw one man near the back push his way forward. He saw a knife, heard men shouting, several men pushed towards him, someone grabbed him from behind, the knife drew near his throat –
In a blur of movement the Hand crashed into the guards. In a whirl of limbs too fast to follow, Boris heard the terrible cracking of necks, the splitting of skulls, an arm holding a dagger snapped in half. Several guards were a part of the assassination attempt, but even those simply standing in the area soon found themselves clutching at innards hanging from their open bellies or screaming as their eyes disappeared in a flash of blades.
Both teams of berserkers held Boris away from the slaughter. Paul stood with a gun drawn on the guards and called out, “Stay back, my lord!”
In only a few moments, the Hand stood over a pile of meat, intestines, pale faces, dying men twitching and moaning. The Hand turned to the berserkers, then pulled two handguns. “Get away from the Head,” he said, his voice distorted, hollow, mechanical sounding. “Step back or you all die.”
The berserkers backpedaled to the far wall, bowing and lowering arms. “Of course, Hand,” said Senki. “We only - we were protecting our lord.”
“My job,” said the Hand. He lowered his guns and holstered them.
Boris nodded to the berserkers, then breathed deeply, heart pounding. How close he had come! Guards in his own home - assassins! He studied the dead. Were they Coilmen? Surely they wouldn’t want to unsettle things just before the exchange of hostages... then again, they were a fragmented lot. Smiths? The Law, even? Who could say? Did it matter? They were heralds of the footsteps of doom, in any case.
Demonworld Book 3: The Floyd Street Massacre Page 18
