City Infernal Read online

  Xeke grinned. “And it tastes just like chicken.”

  Not even the Reckoning Elixir would remedy this. “Please,” she pleaded. “Don’t eat human stuff! Not in front of me!”

  “I guess it’s only proper that we humor her.” Xeke ran his finger down the menu. “Hmm. Let’s see.”

  They were attended by a shapely waitress in black slacks and a pretty white blouse with puffed sleeves; however, the front of her face looked collapsed as if beaten in with a pitted bludgeon.

  “We’ll start off with an order of Caco-Crabgut Rangoon,” Xeke told the waitress, “the Nether-Worm Tenders in Mustard-Sorrel Sauce, and the Creole Spiced Gargoyle-Liver Pate on toast points.”

  For main courses, Xeke ordered Demon-Brain Flambee in Pesto Lung Puree, Via the Troll Wellington Au Jus with E. Coli-Cream Baked Bilge Apples, and for Hush the Spotted Sewer-Fish Sushi and Abyss-Eel Bowel Tempura with Pickled Ginger.

  “There. Satisfied?” Xeke asked Cassie. “We won’t scarf any human meat.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing, though. Human ribs beat baby backs by a long shot.”

  “I’ll remember that next time I’m at Ruby Tuesdays.”

  “What are you going to have, Cassie?” Via asked. “Veggies? You’d love the Devil Plantains. They deep-fry them in Gargoyle lard. Better than French fries at McDonald’s, no kidding.”

  The cycle of culinary grotesqueries made Cassie feel exhausted. “Oh, nothing for me. I’m watching my calories today.”

  The “food” arrived amid indescribable odors—but at least the presentation was nice. Cassie averted her eyes as her companions dined, and then she exclaimed “No way! You’ve had enough!” when Xeke jokingly asked if anyone cared for dessert. Then he paid the bill and tipped the waitress a Nero Note, bidding, “This is Be Kind To Mirrors Week. Treat yourself to a new face, babe.”

  “Why, thank you, sir,” she mumbled through a mouthful of bloody spittle and tooth fragments.

  The red-coated doorman, a well-bred Imp, nodded when they left the restaurant and went back outside. The hotel’s entrance looked as exorbitant as any five-star operation in Washington’s power-lunch district; the long canopy and red carpet could’ve made Cassie forget she was actually in Hell ... until a throng of derelicts encircled them. Humans and demons in advanced states of emaciation tugged at them and held out gnawed and rotten hands, begging for change. Cassie noticed many with ears missing, eyes, fingers and sometimes whole hands missing too: pieces of themselves that they’d cut off and sold to the Diviners.

  “Beat it!” Xeke yelled with authority and shoved them off. They squalled, cursing, but eventually dispersed.

  Cassie’s first reaction was one of pity. “Can’t you give them some money? We’ve got plenty.”

  Via explained, “They’re Zap-Heads, Cassie. It’s their own fault.”

  “Only dopes do dope, especially in Hell.” Xeke brushed muck and debris off his leather jacket. “Zap is Hell’s version of heroin. It’s a concoction of infernal herbs boiled in Grand Duke urine until it’s cooked down to paste at the Distillation Vats. The bodily waste of anyone in the Hierarchy is of great value.”

  Via added, “Zap is the most addictive substance in either world. One mainline and you’re hooked for life, and here that means eternity. Zap-Heads are great business for the Smoke Diviners. They systematically amputate parts of themselves, to sell in exchange for Zap money.”

  “Only a fraction of one-percent of users ever get off it. If a former addict is ever caught clean, they take them straight to a Re-Tox Center.” Then Xeke pointed to a Public Service poster hung in a window.

  DO YOUR PART! HELP MAINTAIN THE MISERY! A grainy photograph showed several Zap addicts inserting long syringes into their nostrils. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL DRUG DEALER!

  More tragedy. The worst of Cassie’s own world seemed reflected here as well. Or perhaps it wasn’t a reflection at all, but a source. Before she’d come here she’d always believed that evil was just a word, an excuse that the gullible used to define misfortune. But now she could see that evil was an entity, a grand design exercised to offend God.

  That was the only purpose of this place.

  And now she knew where the evil in her own world really came from.

  Back out on the streets, the red twilight seemed to darken as queer yellow clouds moved in overhead. The effect only amplified the brightness of the streetlights and myriad lit building windows. From high poles, just like in any city, she noticed power cables, only these were much more stout. A block away, some sort of juncture of cables sprouted from one of the poles and led into a large cement edifice with a fluttering neon pyramid on top. “What is that?” Cassie inquired. She could hear a heavy, resonant humming.

  “It’s a district power transformer,” Xeke answered.

  And Via added, “There’s no electricity here—we’ve got agonicity instead.”

  “Agon—”

  “Come on, I’ll show you. We can see through the vents.” Xeke led her down the block, toward the strange pyramidic structure. The humming grew louder as they approached, and intermittent crackles could be heard. A sign came into view:MUNICIPAL POWER PLANT #66,031

  (Boniface District)

  “They’re really efficient,” Xeke went on. “Lucifer really nailed a big problem when his Bio-Wizards came up with the technology.”

  Agonicity? Cassie repeated the odd word in her mind.

  “There’s one in every district in the city, and all it takes is a single unit to provide all the necessary power to an entire district.” Xeke stopped right in front of a drab brick wall. Metal vent slats studded the wall, and Cassie could feel their slow gusts of heat. “And all it takes is one person to run the whole unit,” Xeke went on.

  Cassie was astounded. “One employee runs the entire station?”

  “No, no. I’m not talking about maintenance personnel. One victim.”

  Victim? Cassie didn’t see his meaning.

  Until she looked into the vent.

  When Xeke propped the metal slat open with a finger, the steady humming began to mix with another sound:

  Screaming.

  Cassie looked into the vent and she saw the most macabre thing. Large capacitors—probably ten feet high—pillared the brick-walled room. A figure in a dark hood and cloak stood aside as if in supervision, and at the center-point of the room was a simple stone column.

  Lashed to the column was a naked human man.

  From a smoking cauldron beside the column, two uniformed demons took turns removing ladles of boiling water. The water was then splashed onto the naked man’s skin, each splash understandably causing him to scream and convulse from the pain.

  “Who needs turbines and dams and nuclear power plants,” Xeke proposed, “when the brain of a single human being can generate an enormous amount of convertible power? See that wiring harness?”

  Cassie squinted, got a better look. The top of the man’s skull seemed to have been sawn off, and situated over his raw brain was a contraption of narrow cathode tubes and wires, the wires sunk deep into the brain pulp.

  “The boiling water lights up the pain centers in the brain, and those impulses are then converted to energy that’s processed by all those capacitors. Sorcery works into it too, sort of an electric alchemy.

  The torture that that poor sap suffers is turned into power for the district. And since a human can’t die in Hell—”

  Cassie denoted the rest. They power the entire city with human pain, and the power source can’t die....

  “Agonicity,” Xeke said again. “It’s theoretically eternal.”

  “You mean ... they’ll torture that man forever?”

  “Well, not forever. Probably just for a hundred years or so. Then they’ll put a fresh human in there and start all over again. In Hell, agony is product, pain is a fuel source.”

  Cassie pulled her eyes away from the vent; the barking screams faded. She’d seen enough.<
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  With every new vision came more verification of the pure evil of this place. Exploitation was maximized for an ultimate effect.

  It made her mad.

  They walked back over to Via and Hush who waited for them at the comer of 1st and Attila. Lissa, Cassie remembered. She struggled to regain her focus. “When are we going to—”

  “Soon,” Xeke said. “The S&N Club is across the Square. In Herod’s Alley.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s go—” but when Cassie began to cross the street, Xeke grabbed her arm, held her back. Hush looked absolutely woeful as she pointed across to the decrepit park. The Polter-Rats were scurrying away, and strange fanged birds lifted out of the trees in black flocks. The image reminded Cassie of how birds and animals sometimes sense a coming storm.

  The air felt still.

  “This isn’t good,” Via said.

  “Yeah,” Xeke agreed. “It might be a—”

  Then a man, whose upper body looked as if it had been clawed, stepped into the middle of the street, holding a sack. From the sack he withdrew fistfuls of crisp Hell-Notes and began to throw them up into the fetid air. “Hell-Notes!” he shouted. “Come and get it! Hell-Notes for the poor! Thousands of dollars in HellNotes!”

  Each fistful blossomed overhead, then rained down like confetti. In just seconds the street was mobbed, hundreds of the destitute—mostly humans—shouting, scrabbling for the money.

  “This is a set-up,” Xeke said.

  Cassie didn’t understand. “It’s just a man giving money to the poor.”

  Via pointed hotly to the sign—

  CITY MUTILATION ZONE

  “Run!” Xeke said.

  They sprinted off, Cassie still confused. Now the street was a literal riot as hundreds more struggled into the desperate fray.

  Before Cassie and her friends could get away—

  Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!

  —a terrifying sound popped in the air. Cassie felt her ears pop too, like an airplane descending, and next came a flash of throbbing green light. The flash seemed to grow into a stagnant, shuddering blob at one end of the street, and then she noticed an identical blob at the other end. The blobs grew, painting everything in their eerie green glow.

  “Nectoports!” someone screamed.

  Too late.

  Within each blob of light, an aperture formed ... and out stormed one Mutilation Squad after another. Armored Conscripts with great, webbed wings led droves of ferocious Ushers and clay-bodied Golems into the crowd. Strange edged weapons were raised along with hooknailed three-fingered hands. Screams crashed like heavy surf, and soon the tumult turned into pure chaos. By the time the green Nectoports closed and faded away, the Squads had completely enveloped the crowd and then began to move in. Great scythes swept this way and that, mowing down lines of humans like weeds. Hewers fell, dividing people completely in half from head to crotch. Golems crushed whole heads—and whole bodies—with intractable hands and beneath anvil-like feet. Ushers tore into the horde with their claws, dismembering, decapitating, and disemboweling with each swipe.

  Where moments ago, the air had been raining money, it was now raining gore.

  The meld of sound was deafening: metal clanking through flesh to the pavement, the ceaseless whistling of scythes, and of course the throat-flaying screams. Ironically, across the street, Cassie spotted the man who had lured all those people into the street by throwing cash. He greedily stroked his chin as a demonic sergeant paid him off. The whole thing was a trap, Cassie realized. The Constabulary paid that guy to throw money around, and draw everyone into the middle of the street—baitfor the Mutilation Squads.

  “If we don’t get out of here now,” Xeke said worriedly, “we’ll be lunch meat.” They sprinted down the sidewalk, behind the surging rank of mutilators. “If we’re lucky we can—”

  Via and Cassie screamed in unison, while Hush’s mouth shot open in her own silent scream.

  “Fuck,” Xeke said.

  A rabid Usher came out of the street, charging Xeke. When its claws grabbed him, Xeke deliberately fell to the ground, dragging the demon with him. He fell and rolled, and when they were both on the pavement, he’d managed to jump on the Usher’s back, all the while slipping something long from his pocket. It looked like a piece of rope, only with handles at each end.

  The Usher roared. Before it could regain an advantage, Xeke got the rope around its neck and began to yank back and forth on the handles.

  Screams exploded from the Usher’s throat, and eventually its head came off.

  That’s when Cassie realized that the implement was no mere piece of rope. It was a rope-saw.

  The creature’s body ran off headless and blind, blood black as hot tar spraying from the severed arteries in its now-exposed neck. The hideous head rolled into the street, where it was trampled at once.

  “That took care of him,” Xeke said. He was winded but seemed pleased with the gory job he’d done. But then—

  “Behind you!” Via yelled. “Holy shit! Look out!”

  A reptilian-skinned demon in a visored helm broke from the ranks and was trotting right for them, a wide-bladed hewer held at port arms. A monstrous smile could be seen below the helm. At the end of each of its curving horns a severed human head had been planted, warrior decor.

  “Stay right behind me!” Xeke ordered. “Get ready to move quick. When I get him out of the way, run your asses off to the comer till you’re out of the Zone!”

  “But, Xeke!” Via began.

  “Don’t argue with me! Just fuckin’ do it!”

  Xeke rushed the demon—

  Cassie couldn’t believe what Xeke was about to attempt. “Xeke! No!” she shouted.

  The great blade’s first swipe blurred a silver line across the air. Cassie had never even imagined a handheld weapon so large; it was wide as the pendulum blade in the Poe story, shining like lightning at its sharpened edge.

  Swooosh!

  The blade cut crosswise through the air, so fast it could scarcely be seen. Xeke ducked beneath it, then sprang back up and somehow managed to grab the hewer at mid-shaft. A vicious kick to the demon’s groin stunned it—then Xeke twisted the hewer out of its monster-hands.

  “Now! Run!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Get the hell out of here as fast as you can!”

  Cassie, Via, and Hush ran, their feet splattering in the fresh blood that was overflowing now from the gutters, stumbling on chopped limbs, heads, and various body parts that lay forth. When they got to the comer—out of the danger perimeter—they all peered back in focused terror.

  Xeke had already hewn the demon’s head in half, through the helm. It staggered about, its split cranium spurting green blood and lumps.

  Swooosh!

  A second swipe cleanly severed the creature at the waist, whereupon strangely shaped organs twirled in the air. However horrific, it was a magnificent sight. But when Xeke did the same thing to a Golem, the thing’s upper half just kept coming at him, walking on its hands.

  “Try this on for size, Gumby....”

  Swooosh-swooosh!

  But even when two more swipes of the great blade divorced the thing from its arms of black-gray clay, the arms continued to flop forward:

  “Persistent little dickens, ain’t he?”

  Finally Xeke hacked the arms into chunks, and that was the end of the Golem.

  “Come on!” Via yelled. “Get out of the Zone!”

  Xeke was about to retreat, but then a pair of primeval-faced Ushers broke rank and came after him. Suddenly there was no effective point to retreat to. His only option was to charge into another fight.

  “Go on without me!” Xeke yelled back. “Just go! I’ll meet you at the club later! The Constabs’ll be here any minute.”

  “Come on,” Via said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “We can’t just leave him here!” Cassie exclaimed, even though she realized there was little they could do against such creatures themselves. What, spit at them? Say
bad words? Cassie cringed at her own sense of helplessness as the Ushers surrounded Xeke.

  “Don’t shit a brick just yet,” Via said with some confidence. “He can take care of himself. Look.”

  A frantic glance showed her that Xeke had already eviscerated the first Usher and beheaded the second. More came after him from the chaotic ranks.

  “Come and get it, you ugly fucks!” he laughed and charged them.

  Cassie couldn’t watch the demonic slaughterfest. Via tugged her away and they began to run, the cacophony of screams fading behind their frantic footfalls.

  Chapter Nine

  (I)

  It was not a nightmare that snapped Bill Heydon out of his slumber. What was it then?

  Suddenly his eyes were open in the high, valance-trimmed bed. Something had terrified him, but he could recall nothing in the way of dreams. Often, images of his dreams lingered at times like these—dark, late at night—but this was not an after-image.

  Then he realized what it was.

  Creep me OUT! he thought. He sat upright immediately in bed and switched on the small tulip-shaded lamp on the night stand.

  No, it wasn’t an after-image, it was an after-touch.

  He jumped out of the bed; the bedside lamp wasn’t enough. Next he clicked on the chain-mounted swag fixtures that hung overhead.

  Now the room bloomed with light.

  And, of course, no one was there but him.

  Jackass, he called himself.

  The lagging sensation remained spooky nonetheless. It felt as though someone had touched him, shaken him, while he slept.

  “Must’ve dreamed that someone touched me,” he muttered. The whole room seemed to look back at him in his fading fear. “Then I forgot the dream.”

  Now the bright light was too bright, bringing a sudden headache; he turned them off and walked in the much dimmer light from the nightstand to the broad mahogany armoire in the comer. He opened the frame-tiled doors and dug his pack of cigarettes out from behind rolls of socks. The antique parliament clock on the wall ticked nervously. He was still nervous, from the dream-touch or whatever it had been. It seemed very late but then the clock told him it was only a few minutes past midnight. He looked at the half-empty pack of cigarettes and thought, To hell with it. I might as well do this right.