Still I didn’t budge from the stoop. "Is she in there or have you already taken her?" I demanded, a bottomless abyss yawning open in my guts.
"Unfortunately I haven’t seen her."
"Then you’re waiting for her to come here. So you can trap her."
"I’m no doubt waiting in vain. I’ve been here since yesterday, so I guess that means she’s found a new hideout. Odd, though, that she hasn’t told you about it."
"She’s probably left town already."
"As you’ve said before. But you knew even as you said it that she was still here in town. Please…come inside…"
"So you can hold me hostage?"
Turner made a wincing expression. "I’m not a crude man. I don’t like using force, brutality…I never did. I prefer subtlety."
"You prefer playing games. It’s a sport to you."
The door opened wider. Over Turner’s shoulder I saw the Celestial. Its oddly flat, strangely blind-seeming eyes stared at me threateningly. I knew it wasn’t above using force and brutality. I noticed that it was as naked as one of the Demons, without the loincloth it had worn the last two times I’d seen it. The faintly luminous being had both a penis and, below that, a slitted hairless mound in place of a scrotum. A hermaphrodite. It was odd for it to be so generously gifted with procreation apparatuses, being a creature without nipples and a navel.
"These things are best discussed more discreetly, don’t you think?" Turner politely persisted.
"You want me inside and out of sight in case Chara comes along after all. Do you expect me to help you catch her?"
"Well, it would be wise if you were more cooperative. There’s still time to redeem yourself, before you get yourself in a great deal of trouble. And I don’t want to see that, honestly I don’t. You must understand that I could have already brought you into my custody by now."
"You make it sound merciful. But the only reason you haven’t is because you couldn’t prove anything."
"This is Hell, my friend, not the Supreme Court. I don’t need to prove anything."
"You’ve only let me off the hook so far because you thought I’d be useful if I were free."
"Look here, you know that it’s only a matter of time before Chara is caught…"
"Maybe. But I’m not going to have any part in that."
"Do you love her, then? Is that it?"
Finally, I stepped inside the apartment. Turner backed off to give me room. So did the Celestial. But I only entered so that he couldn’t slam the door in my face.
This time, fearing that I might be followed to Chara’s hideaway by her enemies, I had brought both my stolen pistols with me, hidden in the deep pockets of the baggy brown outer jacket I wore. As I entered into the apartment with its walls and floor sheeted in greenish copper, I drew the two handguns from my jacket, one a Glock and the other a chunky, smallish SIG-Sauer P-225 semiautomatic. I extended them both at the ends of my arms, both pointed at the face of the Celestial.
The entity started forward, its glow seeming to brighten with its intensity, but Turner held up an arm to bar its way. "No, Nephi!"
"Let me ask you a question," I said to Turner. "Do you love Nephi?"
"You aren’t a killer. Don’t do this."
"In life, I wasn’t a killer. In life, I don’t think I could shoot somebody in the face, Mr. Turner. But I’ve seen a lot of horrible things since then. I really don’t think if I shoot your lover that I’m going to feel a damn thing."
"Listen to me…"
"Yes, Inspector, to answer your question—I do love Chara. Are you courageous enough to admit that you love Nephi? "
"I love all the Celestials, and all the Angels, and…"
"But you don’t fuck them all, Inspector. All right, you don’t have to admit it. Maybe it isn’t that deep…maybe Nephi’s just a little piece of ass on the side. I can see the Celestials are designed for pleasure, so I guess there’s no shame to sucking dick in Heaven…however hypocritical that might seem to me."
"They have no gender!" he protested. "The Creator designed them first, but decided to split their attributes when He made us!"
I ignored him, went on: "What really matters here is that I’ll kill this thing if you don’t give me your word of honor that you’ll drop your investigation."
"You know I can’t do that!"
"Then go through the motions. Pretend you’re hunting Chara. But leave her alone."
"I can’t lie to my superiors, you must know that!"
"Then your friend here can be a sacrifice for your integrity."
"All I can promise you is that I won’t report you for what you’re doing right now."
"Not good enough. If you can protect me, you can protect Chara."
"But it’s not you they want!" Turner glanced at Nephi, then back at me. "Yes. All right? I do love Nephi. And no…we aren’t supposed to be intimate with each other. Only with our own respective kinds. So I understand your love for this Demon…I do. I sensed it right away, and I can sympathize with it. But the critical difference here, my friend, is that Nephi is a Celestial. A blessed creature. And Chara is a Demon."
"That distinction means absolutely nothing to me, Inspector. Who told you Chara was hiding here? Who betrayed her?"
Turner looked hesitant, but then he confessed, "Captain Abbadon. The leader of Oblivion’s warrior class. Regrettably, he had to be tortured for the information. And since that, executed. Today his body will be crucified and publically displayed." Turner wagged his head. "An awful thing, but I warned them. The command has come through, and it’s official. The rest of the Demons in Oblivion will be rounded up by a force of Celestials who are even now on their way. A new army of Demons will be coming from Tartarus to replace them."
"Great."
"It will be messy, and chaotic, but it must be done. We can’t have this rebellious spirit in the Demons! And the Damned have been too rebellious as well. This city must come under control."
"You can’t even control yourself, Inspector. You’re no different than any of the Damned. Even you can’t believe that you are."
"You and I are alike. So I’m asking you not to hurt this being."
"But you won’t promise not to hurt Chara?"
"You can kill Nephi, but you know you can’t kill me, and you know I’ll hunt you down with every Celestial and Demon I can call into service."
"You want threats?" I shouted. "I’ll blow its head off, I swear it!"
"Wait!" Turner held up his palm. "Please. I’m telling you…I can’t stop hunting for Chara. But…maybe you’ll find her before I do. And if you find her first, I suggest you both get far away from here. I might still follow, unless I get called away to another case. But maybe, if you’re lucky, you two can stay one step ahead of me. I’ll let you go now. I promise not to let Nephi come after you, and I promise not to report your actions to anyone. You have my word of honor on that." He spread his hands. "I can offer no more."
After a few moments, I lowered my guns to my sides. The Celestial still looked tensed to spring, but it didn’t. Still, I wasn’t ready to put the pistols away entirely.
"So now neither one of us knows where she is," I said.
"Maybe she has left town without you. Maybe she doesn’t feel as strongly about you as you do about her."
"Maybe you’re right."
"Then again, she could still be here in Oblivion. And it looks, now, like Abaddon didn’t betray her after all. He probably knew he was putting me onto a cold trail."
"I can’t kill you, Inspector, so I can’t stop you from tracking her. But if I ever catch you two following me, I’ll shoot your lover, I swear it."
"Maybe we’ll be lucky, and neither of us will lose our lover."
I took a step backwards. "I’m going now, Inspector."
"Good luck to you, then." Was his smile sincere? At the very least, it was relieved. "And thank you for listening to reason."
"It’s called mercy. You Angels might want to try it some time."
I slipped my handguns back into my jacket pockets, and opened the door to the tiny apartment, letting myself outside again. With my back turned and my weapons stashed away, I half expected Nephi to pounce on me, but it didn’t happen. I closed the door after myself, shutting the lovers in the room where Chara and I had made love.
Day 72. (At least I think it’s the 72nd.)
At the start of my shift I quit my job. After my confrontation with Turner yesterday I was still feeling empowered, still filled with stifled rage, and I thought I might as well put it to some good use.
I sought out Bruce, and told him I was quitting, and that I wanted my coins for the last pay period.
"What?" he fumed. "You can’t quit like that! I need you on that belt right now! I need a notice first so I can find a replacement for you!"
"You can cover my belt yourself. Give me my money."
"Fuck your money. You don’t get it! File a complaint with the Labor Board!"
I wasn’t about to go anywhere anymore without my guns, but I resisted the temptation to whip one of them out right now. Instead, I merely shoved Bruce with all my might, so that he crashed down hard onto his ass.
"Uh! You son of a bitch!" he raged, scrambling to his feet as I turned away. "I’ll tell Mr. Gold about this! He has powerful friends!"
"Fuck Mr. Gold. And tell him his Demon friends are gonna be rounded up and tossed on a pyre any day now."
"You’re insane! You won’t find another job in this city, I’ll see to that!"
I wouldn’t work in this town again? Some people are walking clichés. But I didn’t invent Bruce, believe me.
Larry saw it all happen, but he didn’t dare laugh at Bruce or cheer me. For all his rebellious talk, he was afraid to ruffle feathers. I felt sorry for him.
As I neared the hotel where I lived and the ectoplasm that served as my adrenalin began to dissipate, I started to reconsider the wisdom of my actions. Chara might indeed have decided it was too risky to take me with her, might have already fled the city…or, like her captain, had been punished for her insubordination. So I might not be leaving Oblivion anytime soon, after all. Did I really want to venture out in search of Pluto or some other distant city alone? And what if I did leave Oblivion and Chara showed up looking for me after all, only to think that I had abandoned her?
Well, I had clothing, a roof over my head. I didn’t actually need to eat or drink despite my hunger and thirst. So as long as I could stretch my meager savings a while in order to pay my rent, I would be okay without a job for a short time.
My hotel was in sight, and the black metal steeples of the Black Cathedral reared above the roofline like a grove of forbidding trees, when the Demon came at me swiftly from behind and seized me by the arm.
I spun, tried to jerk my arm free, but the male Demon’s stern features barely shifted as he dragged me along. "Don’t fight me or you’ll make it worse," he muttered calmly.
"Where are we going?" I was impudent enough to demand.
Luckily for me he was patient and bored. "The Black Cathedral," he said.
"Why?" I cried.
"Because you’re in Hell," the Demon answered, and that was answer enough.
I resisted less as the powerful creature dragged me along, but my mind raced wildly. Irrationally, I considered telling him that I was a friend of Chara…but he might not know Chara personally, or be sympathetic to her rebelliousness. Once I remembered that I carried them, I also considered pulling one of my guns out of my jacket and shooting the Demon in the gut. I hadn’t been frisked, because the Damned didn’t by any stretch of the imagination make a habit of carrying guns (in this respect, I suppose, Hell was safer than the world of the living).
But if I fought him, I might end up having to flee Oblivion or at least go into hiding without having a clear plan…and without Chara. Then again, how long would they keep me in the Black Cathedral? Long enough to make Chara think I’d abandoned her? At last I decided not to fight my captor. If Chara came looking for me, she’d find my journal in my apartment, and she knew I wouldn’t have left without that. If she read my journal, she’d see that I had made no such plans to flee without her.
So, with great reluctance and with the beaten fatalism of the Damned, I allowed the Demon to firmly escort me past the immensity of the machine building’s base, and around the corner into the wider avenue where the Black Cathedral had come to its rest.
Ahead of me, further down the street, I saw a female Demon jerking along another captive toward the menacing structure. There were also two of the Damned stumbling wearily down its front steps, unescorted. Released after an unknown period of time, and unknown torments. One of them appeared to be sobbing violently, the other seemingly numb and vacant.
The cathedral, like the towering machine building, appeared composed of countless mechanical parts interlocked together, and all of it night black. Steam hissed from various apertures. It was not especially huge, and it was narrow enough along its length to fit through those avenues in the city in which its tracks were laid, but it was imposing nonetheless. There were numerous jagged and barbed steeples, and along its sides were stained glass windows which seemed to portray only abstract or geometrical designs, each pane of glass blood red. In the front of the building, above the broad steps that led to the iron double doors of its entrance, there was one large circular window, again blood red and lit from within, like the pit of a volcano or the eye of some gigantic creature waiting to be fed its sacrifices.
Engraved into the metal of the double doors, and highlighted with rust so that the letters looked written in dried blood, was the inscription:
The Spectral Drama Thou Thyself Hast Made!
—Goethe
Though I’d never read it, I knew the lines must be from Faust. The quote’s presence here was provocative, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to ponder its meaning long. As we started up the front steps I heard a pitiful wailing over my shoulder and looked back to see a feeble elderly woman being dragged out of one of the buildings lining the street. As if it weren’t bad enough that she was frail and barely able to walk, for all eternity.
At the top of the metal stairs, which rang under our footfalls, the Demon reached into a recess in the cathedral’s body and tugged on a chain. That either rang a bell, announcing our need for entry, or in itself operated the door mechanism. In either case, the twin doors creaked rustily inward, and then we stepped into the gloom within. It smelled of machine oil and incense.
As the doors clanged noisily shut behind me, I took in the high vaulted chamber we had entered. Its arched ceiling was hazed with steam and that almost choking incense. Doorways branched off either side and at the back of the room. I saw a woman being escorted through one of these doors, and a man emerging from another of them, a Demon accompanying him but no longer needing to grip his arm. The Demon went off in a different direction, and the man was free to leave. As he passed me on his way out I saw a crushing sadness in his face.
A mournful, distorted organ piping sounded from somewhere. It had a mechanical, lifeless quality, that was no doubt generated by the clockwork cathedral itself rather than by any hand. With its unsettling slow motion dreaminess, it sounded like the moaning of ghosts.
In the center of this main hall, a desk rested atop a raised platform like a circular altar. Seated behind the desk was one of those balloon-headed, skeletal administrative Demons like the one whom I’d been brought before upon my entry into Hell, and upon my release from prison. Its translucent, seemingly boneless skull was lit from behind by a hissing gas jet on the wall, and I saw silhouetted veins and a dark cloudiness within which almost seemed to churn, unless that was the rippling effect of the flame. The lipless grimacing face turned its glowing eyes onto me, as the soldier Demon held me in place at the foot of the altar. I imagined that it was probing my mind in a kind of telepathic and unwilling confession.
After a few wordless moments, a gaunt arm lifted, a bony finger pointed at one of the doorways l
ining the room, and without further ado the warrior led me toward it.
Behind the door was a small room with only a chair bolted to the floor, thick leather straps affixed to its arms and legs as if it were an old fashioned electric chair, and—facing that—a tall narrow window. Its shape and position told me it must be one of the red stained glass windows I had seen outside, but on the inside it had a different appearance. It was a black emptiness…though I thought I could just barely make out the odd geometric designs I had seen on the outside, a blacker black against the darkness.
I didn’t resist as the Demon strapped me into the chair, concerned only that he might detect the shape or weight of the guns in my jacket pockets. But soon, and without another word, he left me alone in the room, closed the metal door after himself. My head, too, was strapped to the chair however, so I couldn’t look back at him.
The torture commenced after only a few seconds.
Whether the window was a kind of portal, or nothing more than a sort of television screen, I don’t know…but gradually the darkness lightened, and I watched a scene already in progress.
What I was shown didn’t at all surprise me, as if I’d been expecting exactly this. Then again, maybe they would show me only what I expected, the programming I devised in spite of myself.
Letters From Hades Page 15
