by Guy Adams
First published 2014 by Solaris
an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,
Riverside House, Osney Mead,
Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK
www.solarisbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-84997-880-4
Copyright © 2014 Guy Adams
Cover art by Dominic Saponaro
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
Dedication:
The reviewers and readers that have travelled this three-book road. The kind words from you is what kept this stupid outlaw in the saddle. I hope you’re happy with where the wagon train has settled.
CHAPTER ONE
MAN WHO CAME TO KILL
1.
TWO BULLETS CHANGED the world. The first had already been fired, the second was still to come, resting in its box in the left hand pocket of Atherton’s coat as he rode towards the town of Wormwood.
It was the end of a rushed and uncomfortable journey and Atherton was in no mood for the atrocities that surrounded him. He’d heard the stories and read the report but words on a page don’t prepare you for the sight of a demon.
“Spare a few cents?” one asked him, brushing a plume of gelatinous, weeping fronds away from its mouth.
Atherton had once watched a table of Chinamen eat noodles with chopsticks. The passage of edible string from bowl to lip had seemed endless, as if they had been trying to consume an infinite clutch of twine. He had thought it like an ancient illustration of hellish torment and was reminded of it now. The demon coughed and the fronds whipped forward, some of them sticking to the creature’s forehead, hanging and quivering in front of its small, blue eyes like a mucus-splattered cobweb.
“Damned sickness,” the demon said, brushing the fronds free with its scaly hand. “The things you humans spread around.”
“If I give you money will you buy medicine?” Atherton asked. He had no intention of doing so but the question intrigued him.
“Heavens, no,” it replied, “waste of dollar. I’ll spend it on whisky. It won’t make me better but it’ll make me not care.”
“I’ll save my money then,” Atherton replied, moving on.
“Fuck you very much,” the demon said, falling into a coughing fit.
Atherton continued on towards Wormwood.
According to the reports, it had appeared out of nowhere. Atherton’s natural inclination would have been to dismiss such talk. He had once watched the illusionist, John Nevil Maskelyne seem to conjure a woman out of thin air but he doubted even that august performer could achieve the same with an entire town. Yet Atherton accepted his concept of reality was now in need of refreshment. While his superiors talked politics, terrified of the global ramifications of this new land in their midst, it seemed to Atherton that the real victim was science. He glanced up at a shape in the sky, it had the wings of a vulture but a human body. It swooped and curled in the air, either for the joy of it or on the hunt for a meal, Atherton couldn’t tell. Science, he thought, science may never recover from the presence of Wormwood.
The flying creature issued a cry that brought a hungry seagull to mind. Atherton kept one eye on it, wary in case it should swoop down onto him.
He couldn’t resist guiding his horse in a circuit of the town. He had been told that, while it might appear to be nothing more than a small collection of buildings and streets, once entered it was a gateway to almost infinite space. Impossibility after impossibility.
From a distance the place looked empty. That too was a lie, he was assured. His employers had sent a team of local men to investigate—Atherton had been on the other side of the country and a train could only run so fast—and they had all commented on the difference between the town’s external appearance and the sights that unfolded once you crossed its threshold. The real town lay hidden, only visible once you were inside it.
As he watched, this was proven as a small group emerged from one of the side streets and out onto the open plain. They appeared like the resolution of a mirage, a shimmering of silver light, indistinct and liquid, that solidified as they left the influence of the town. There were two men, between them a young girl riding on a horse. They appeared perfectly human but Atherton knew better than to jump to conclusions.
“Good day,” said one of the men, nodding at him and smiling so widely that his thick beard rippled, like a dog shuffling into a comfy position to sleep on his face.
Atherton nodded and smiled back. “Been exploring?” he asked.
“More than that,” the other man said, “setting up house.”
This fellow was clean-shaven and less friendly. When he looked at Atherton it was with analytical eyes. Sensible man, Atherton thought. It was the English accent, that always brought people up short.
“Really?” Atherton asked, looking at the kid. “Seems a funny place to call home to me.”
“You new here?” asked the man with the beard. Atherton nodded. “Then maybe you need to get a feel for the place before passing judgment.”
Atherton shrugged. “You hear stories.”
“Yeah,” the man continued, “that’s as maybe but Wormwood’s something you’ve got to experience for yourself.”
The girl smiled at Atherton and he noticed her teeth were moving, rolling up and down like the keys on a clockwork piano.
“Kid needs a dentist,” he said, encouraging his horse past them, continuing towards the town.
He entered Wormwood, passing through the invisible barrier that stood between it and the rest of the world.
The town was bloated with people. Great crowds, both human and demon, making their way along the wide, dirt streets. Everywhere he looked, Atherton saw the species intermingling. America, he thought, the melting pot of the world. He had been stationed over here only two months but he had grown to hate the country. Its chaos. Its contradiction. Its sickening enthusiasm.
A pair of children scuffled together in the dust. One looked perfectly human whereas the other had all the right body parts, just in the wrong places. The human kid laughed and threw a small ball, the demon child leapt to give chase, the legs that sprouted from his rosy cheeks paddling in the dirt as they dragged the rest of his torso behind him, arms clenching and clapping at the rear like a dual tail.
It made Atherton sick.
He tied up his horse outside a tavern, the riotous sound of cheering and laughter washing over him as he pushed open its doors and stepped inside.
It smelled like a place whisky went to die.
An obese creature navigated her way towards him on three legs. Her blouse was torn open to reveal multiple teats, all damp and pink from suckling. “Want milk?” she asked, the nipples turning towards him like the heads of flowers searching for sunlight. Atherton shoved her aside, repelled by the sensation of her bloated torso rippling against his arm.
He made his way towards the bar, teeth gritted. His skin crawled. He fantasised about drawing his gun and shooting indiscriminately into the crowd. Did demons bleed? What colour would the blood be as it splashed its wet heat onto the dirty floorboards?
A man with a separate chunk of flesh for each of his features turned away from the bar, clearing a space. His head reminded Atherton of a book, opened to reveal a handful of thick, fleshy pages. On either side, the ‘covers’ held an ear, then a wedge each for the eyes, the nose and a p
erpendicular mouth that waved back and forth in the centre with the shifting of the creature’s neck. Atherton didn’t manage to conceal his disgust and the creature’s lopsided mouth sneered to see the man’s revulsion.
“Problem?” the creature asked. It reached up towards its mouth with a three-fingered hand and parted the lips. They creaked like rubber and Atherton turned away from the sight of the distended, pink innards revealing themselves like a bloodless wound. The demon threw the contents of his whisky glass into the aperture and then let it slap shut.
“No problem,” said Atherton, though he would love to see if the creature’s mouth could accommodate something larger than a shot of bourbon, a fist perhaps, or a broken bottle.
“What can I get you?” asked the barman, who at least appeared human.
Atherton had given up finding anything that suited his palate in this godforsaken land. “Whisky,” he said, because it couldn’t make his stomach more uncomfortable than the sights that surrounded him.
He gazed into the warped mirror behind the bar as his drink was poured, watching what appeared to be a chimp in a suit as it clambered up the stairs in pursuit of a young woman. She giggled, an enticement, though her suitor needed none; he screeched and raised his hairy fists in the air, a daunting bulge in his trousers proving his appetite was already perfectly sharpened.
“Join me?” asked a woman sat at a table to his right. How her voice had carried over the raucous cheering and cackling was beyond him but, as trickery went, it was small beer considering what else he had experienced.
She was dressed in a frock of satin and lace, the garment blooming in all the places that a proper lady’s would not. A whore, he decided. He had no interest in paying for what fought to expose itself from beneath her skirts but she might be useful in providing information. He sat down.
“New in town?” she asked and he noticed her mouth wasn’t moving.
“Yes,” he replied. “How do you do that?”
“What?” she asked and then touched her lips with her fingers.“Oh, the voice,” she continued and this time her lips moved and her tone was different, as if another person was speaking entirely. “I’m a woman of multitudes. Pay me and you can count them.”
“Maybe,” he said, not wanting to put her off, “but first, tell me a bit about the town, would you?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, you hear stories on the trail, I guess I just want to know how true they are.”
“It’s hard to exaggerate about this place, honey, take a look around you. I imagine that, whatever you’ve heard, the truth is richer and harder to believe.” She leaned forward and the next time she spoke it was the other voice, the first voice he had first heard. “Why don’t you explore?”
“The town or you?” he asked.
She shifted her chair and hoisted her skirts to reveal the source of her second voice. “There’s nothing out there to compare with what you can find in here,” her sex said, its lips parting slightly as it spoke.
The look of disgust on his face didn’t anger her as it had the man at the bar, instead she laughed. “Oh, you are new around here aren’t you? Or are you one of those boys from the mountains? Here to fire up your righteous anger?”
“He just doesn’t know what he’s missing,” whispered the voice between her thighs, “one kiss from me and he’ll be smiling again.”
Atherton drew his gun beneath the table, leaned forward and stoppered her secondary voice with its barrel.
“I think I’d rather only hear from one of you,” he said, looking into the woman’s eyes. “Now tell me about the people in the mountains.”
“They’re like you,” she sneered, “typical men, cold and afraid of what they don’t understand. They look down on us and pray for deliverance, sweet little words to a God who would have ignored them anyway, even if He weren’t dead.”
“You can’t kill God,” Atherton replied. Her sex mumbled its disagreement around an inch of metal but he cocked the trigger and it ceased its complaints. “Can you say the same about yourself?”
“Oh, it would take more than you’ve got to ruin me,” she said, her words heavy with double meaning, “and the minute you pull that trigger you’ll have half of this bar wanting to make games of your offal. So, by all means, shoot your load, boy, I’ll make children of your bullets and invite them to dance on your grave.”
He met her gaze for a few moments more then withdrew his pistol, stood up and marched out of the bar, ignoring the dual peals of laughter that followed him.
2.
ATHERTON WAS ANGRY to be leaving the town so shortly after he’d entered it. He had let his anger get in the way of his common sense and could only hope he’d find something of worth in the whore’s words.
He urged his horse towards the mountains that surrounded the town, scanning the horizon for signs of life.
After half an hour’s ride he was forced to accept that he would have to continue on foot. The landscape was too steep for his horse, the route through the rocks too narrow.
Angry and aware that he might never see the animal again, he did his best to find it some shade and cinched the reins between a pair of rocks.
He had been climbing for twenty minutes or so, the sun beating down on him, when he realised he was no longer alone.
He turned to look down at Wormwood, feigning casual interest, a man out for a hike, all the while keeping his hand close to his holster. As he turned he glimpsed a pair of shadows dart out of sight and he tracked their owners to an outcrop just above him and to the left.
“Why don’t you come out?” he asked, keeping his hand close to his gun and looking around for the best natural cover should they decided to reply with gunfire. “I’m no enemy of yours. Quite the opposite.”
“You came from Wormwood?” the voice asked. Atherton was surprised to note the speaker’s accent, it was as British as his own.
“I’ve just been there,” he admitted. “I was sent to investigate it.”
“Sent by whom?”
“Come out and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me one other thing first: what’s the purpose of your investigation? What do your superiors want to do with the town?”
Atherton smiled. “They have yet to make their intentions wholly clear but I imagine they’ll want me to destroy it. As both a political and spiritual abomination.”
There was a scuffle from behind the rocks and a man stood up. He was wearing a monk’s habit. “Then I can see we are, indeed, allies. I’m Father Martin and I welcome you to our little commune.”
3.
ATHERTON FOLLOWED THE monk and his companion, a frail-looking man who remained silent, throwing the occasional concerned look in Atherton’s direction.
“You’re from England?” Father Martin asked as they climbed up through the rocks.
“Yes, though I’ve been here a few months.”
“A spy?”
“An observer.”
“Semantics, something I am well versed in as a religious man.”
“What brought you here?” Atherton asked.
“The town. I travelled over with a larger party. We had all heard the myths about Wormwood and wanted to be here for when it appeared.” Father Martin glanced over his shoulder where the town was still visible. “At the time I had thought I was on a holy mission. Perhaps I was, though it’s hard to cling to that.”
“And the rest of your party?”
Father Martin sighed. “Some are still with me, the majority of my brothers. The rest are lost to me. I’m afraid we suffered from a divergence in philosophy.”
“Not unusual for someone in your line of work I’d have thought.”
“My ‘line of work’ has irrevocably changed. We’ve moved from the dust of the library to the open plain. No more discussion of beliefs and theoretical ethics, now the work of Hell is as physical as these rocks, an inarguable thing for all to gaze on.”
“Perhaps that’s a good th
ing for faith?”
“The very point of faith is that it’s a matter of belief. Fighting against that,” Father Martin gestured towards the town, “is not about faith, it’s about fear.”
“Did you see it appear?”
Father Martin nodded. “And I saw it collide.”
“Collide?”
The monk nodded. “That’s our word for it. The moment when it became a fixed part of our world. We can discuss that later. We’re here.”
The track through the mountain dropped down, leading into a hollow space where Father Martin’s people had made their camp. Being a man of practical considerations, the first thing Atherton analysed was the camp’s security. It was well hidden, surrounded on all sides by rocks, and would remain unseen until you were right upon it. That said, once discovered, the advantage would rest with the attacker, able to maintain the high ground and shoot into the crater. The camp’s residents would be captive targets. Fish in a barrel. All of this rushed through Atherton’s head before he took in the human details.
It reminded him, unsurprisingly, of a travelling church congregation. The kind of evangelical folk who toured the country en masse, pitching their tent and preaching to the locals before folding the words of Jesus away into their packs and trunks and carting them off to the next town. The people looked drawn and severe, a flock of hungry birds wrapped up in plain feathers. Here and there, fires burned, heating thin stews and watery soups. It was a place of abstinence. A camp of grey people. A place of puritanism and disapproval. Atherton liked it.
“Are you hungry?” Father Martin asked.
Atherton had travelled too far and too hard to refuse a meal when it was offered so Father Martin led him through the camp to a small tent on the far side.
Their companion, sparing just enough time to offer Atherton one last cautious glance, peeled away to rejoin his family.
