Chance Damnation

by DeAnna Knippling

  “What is it?” Aloysius panted.

  “That way.” Jerome pointed and took off.

  Aloysius grunted, hefted Sebastian again, and accidentally thumped Sebastian’s shoulder against the wall. He took a half-step sideways and started running again.

  The corridor looked familiar, but what did he know? He followed Jerome through the corridors until he was standing next to Theodore, still with Celeste Marie in his arms.

  Theodore had changed.

  Aloysius cursed. “What’s the holdup?”

  “Can’t figure out how to go up,” Theodore said.

  Jerome looked at Aloysius. Aloysius cursed again, let Sebastian slide down the wall, and inspected the door. After a few seconds, he switched the lever at the bottom from pointing down to straight across, and then upwards. He opened the door. “You first,” he told Jerome. His voice sounded strange in his own ears; he wasn’t sure whether it was his voice or his ears.

  Jerome stepped onto the tile by the door, which didn’t have a black hole in the middle. Something reached down from above him and pulled him upwards, his kicking feet shedding their boots as they disappeared above, into the ceiling.

  “You next,” he told Theodore. “That kid’ll be back in a second if you don’t take Celeste Marie up there pronto.”

  Theodore gently laid Celeste Marie on his shoulder, her head lolling in the crook of his neck under his ear, and stepped onto the tile. He rose slowly and disappeared.

  Aloysius looked down at Sebastian.

  Of the four of them, he was the least changed. His horns were bare nubs on his gray forehead, his ears small and delicate. The gray fur hadn’t covered his face yet.

  Aloysius picked him up and tried to walk him to the tile, but he was pure-dee out, and his knees folded under him. Aloysius carried him to the tile and held him more or less upright until the stuff dripping out of the ceiling like a haunted spider web had started to pick him up. Then he jerked his hands back. He gave Theodore a few seconds to put Celeste Marie down and drag Sebastian out of the way. Then he stepped onto the tile.

  Later, he couldn’t figure out whether the floor had started collapsing or he’d been pulled upward first. It was close, either way. He was whisked upward. As the elevator’s slippery non-stuff surrounded him, it insulated him from the heat.

  He landed, got his balance, then bent over to pick up Sebastian again. “Keep moving; the level below us just went. Whatever is happening down there is happening really fast. Widespread.”

  “God will have vengeance,” Jerome said.

  “If you say so. Get moving. I want to get back up to the level with the tunnel out as quick as possible.”

  Theodore picked up Celeste Marie. She hadn’t changed; she was still human.

  “This way,” Jerome said. He led them down the corridors. The corridors were just a little wider on this floor, and they made better time. Something crashed, and Jerome pulled up beside a hole in the floor that led down into the pit. Smoke rushed up at them.

  Jerome cursed; Aloysius ignored him. The kid had earned the right to a few off-color words, in his book. Jerome led them back along the corridor, turned off in a different direction, and headed in the opposite direction than Aloysius expected.

  “Reasonably speaking, this one should work,” Jerome said.

  The floor shuddered. Aloysius kicked the lever without putting Sebastian down. Theodore went first, Jerome second, and Aloysius carried Sebastian onto the tile. They’d have to go together; he wasn’t about to have his feet toasted underneath him again.

  He pulled Sebastian’s elbows in, but it wasn’t enough. The walls—or whatever—of the elevator scraped him all down his arms and backside as he went through. But he made it.

  “Shh,” Jerome said.

  Aloysius held his breath and tilted his ears. It sounded like a herd of cattle in a corral outside, milling around, the occasional yell from what, on earth, would be a cowboy but was not just another demon.

  He looked at the others. “What’s the problem?”

  “They’ll kill us,” Jerome said.

  “I don’t know if you noticed,” Aloysius said, “but what makes you think that?”

  Jerome looked at him like he was an idiot, the light bead squeezed so fiercely between his fingers that Aloysius worried he might pop it. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help savoring the moment.

  It wasn’t too often that anybody got one up on Jerome, after all.

  “We’ve changed into demons,” Aloysius said. “Didn’t you notice?”

  Chapter 43

  Jerome stared at his furry gray hands with such an intensity that Aloysius had to laugh out loud. His laughter almost scared him, it sounded so deep and harsh, and came out in a mocking tone that he hadn’t meant.

  Jerome tensed and glared at Aloysius.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to sound that way.”

  “Just shut up,” Jerome said. “I’m trying to think.”

  Aloysius snorted, and Sebastian flinched awake. He was getting his signals all wrong. “Just ignore me,” he told Sebastian. “I don’t mean anything by it.”

  Jerome was bending over Celeste Marie, picking up her eyelids, putting an ear to her mouth. Theodore stood patiently until Jerome pinched Celeste Marie’s body; then he pulled her away.

  “Don’t hurt the dead,” Theodore said.

  Aloysius shivered. Good to know that if Theodore chopped you down, he’d leave you alone afterwards.

  Jerome said, “It took a miracle to change us into demons. The only person I know who can work miracles is Celeste Marie. Wake up!” he shouted.

  From the way her body looked, it would have been a cruelty to bring her back from the dead.

  “Let her rest,” Aloysius said. He was trying to say things in a way Jerome would understand. “See how tired she is? Let her rest with God.”

  Jerome gave him a disgusted look and shouted again, “Wake up!”

  Sebastian was laughing under his breath, and Aloysius kicked him in the leg.

  “Ow,” Sebastian said. A trickle of blood welled up through the fur.

  “Damn it,” Aloysius said. “Every damned thing I’ve done today has gone wrong. I’m sorry. But don’t laugh at the kid.”

  Theodore was turning away from Jerome, trying to keep Jerome from shaking the girl’s body.

  “I wasn’t laughing at him,” Sebastian said. “I was laughing about the miracle comment. I was mad for a second, because, hey, I can work miracles, too, if you haven’t noticed. And then I remembered all I’d done was damn us. Miracles aren’t supposed to send you to Hell.”

  “What were you trying to do?” Aloysius asked.

  “Impress people of the reality of the supernatural,” Sebastian said.

  Aloysius burst out laughing, and kept on laughing until he wore himself out. Sebastian kept explaining what he’d done and how he’d done it, and Aloysius missed the whole thing. It didn’t matter; he didn’t need to know the details, really; more than likely Sebastian knew that Aloysius wasn’t really listening and just needed to get it off his chest.

  Aloysius’s laugher faded into giggling, which sounded creepy enough in his demonic throat that he was able to stop himself. He took a few shallow breaths to calm himself.

  “I’ll have to remember that,” Sebastian said. “Laughing all the way through someone’s confession.”

  “Ah, ah, sorry.”

  “It’s a humbling experience.”

  Aloysius started giggling again and forced himself to stop. “Just let me know the next time you need to come clean about something. Be happy to listen.”

  Theodore and Jerome were in another room. Aloysius got up to find them when there was a banging on the door. He and Sebastian looked at each other. Sebastian shrugged, and Aloysius opened the door.

  A gray demon with a spear was standing outside, looking angry. “What are you still doing here? Haven’t you heard the orders? You’re supposed to be moving along with the others to
the north supply hold.”

  “Sorry,” Aloysius said. “I ran into my brothers. Thought they were dead. We’ll follow you out. Let me get the other two.”

  “Four brothers?” the guard said. “I honor your mother.”

  Aloysius’s throat tightened, and he nodded. Sebastian went to search for the other two and returned with them a few seconds later. Celeste Marie had been completely wrapped in a thick hide in Theodore’s arms.

  “His calf?” the guard asked.

  Aloysius murmured, “He’s not…” he wasn’t sure how to say it in a way that wouldn’t make the guard suspicious of his word choice. All right in the head? All there? What would a demon say?

  Fortunately, the guard raised a hand. “No need to say it. We’ve all lost herd mates. Follow me.”

  The four of them followed the guard down the corridor. The floor shuddered, and they trotted forward faster. Aloysius wondered if they’d come this way before; no way to tell.

  The guard led them into a room that Aloysius did recognize: the big room with six door and a tunnel, the first one they’d reached from above.

  The air was hot and close and smelled horribly sweet. What seemed like almost a thousand demons milled around in the room, shifting, stamping, and grinding their teeth. The ones he saw were mostly gray, mostly males. The few black demons he noticed were of the scruffy-looking kind.

  One of the demons, a large gray demon with a double set of horns, one set spread wide and almost straight, just curling at the tips, and the other curling down toward its ears, was standing on the pile of rubble from the tunnel wall. As they crossed into the room, the demon was shouting, “The spirits are pushing us! For keeping slaves! For separating black from gray, Urgda from Makkur! There are no sacred bloodlines. Never were. We may breed together and form new stock! The battle between Urgda and Makkur never was any more than that, a battle! The spirits have no desire to keep the Makkur as rebels and slaves!”

  “That’s going to be trouble,” Aloysius muttered to himself.

  The guard nodded. “Orfel. He’s been warning of our trail leading to slaughter for years. He’d be just as happy to see us all dead, if it meant he was vindicated.”

  More gray demons started pushing them from behind, and Aloysius pulled Jerome ahead of him and tried to push sideways through the doorway. The guard, fortunately, headed the other direction.

  Behind them, a group of demons with red stripes on their foreheads pushed their way into the room. “Clear the way! Clear the way!”

  The lead demon had two spears and clashed them together. The sound must have been a signal, because the demons shoved out of the way, leaving a more-or-less clear path to the stack of rubble.

  Behind the red-striped demons was a mottled-colored demon, mostly white with black and gray spots. The demons around them murmured, “Bahgoral. Bahgoral’s here. He lived. He’s alive.”

  Bahgoral walked up to the mound and shoved Orfel to the side as he was climbing down. He climbed to the top and shouted, “Yes, Bahgoral lives.”

  The demons cheered and quieted quickly.

  “I do not bring good news. We have been cut off from the herd. Your loved ones are lost to you.”

  The demons moaned. Bahgoral drew an axe and chopped the air with it, and the demons silenced themselves.

  “We do not know how far the destruction of the Makkur has spread, but we have lost contact with everyone else. Everyone.” He paused, turning from side to side, searching the crowd. He seemed to linger at areas with the black demons, counting heads.

  “Does anyone doubt that the Makkur are a danger?”

  “No!” the demons shouted. Whatever the demon Orfel had to say about it was drowned out.

  “We have tolerated them, in honor of the spirits. However, we cannot have traitors in our midst in this fiery moment. I know many of you are fond of your servants, but it is a risk we cannot take.”

  The black demons screamed and yelled and tried to escape, but quickly disappeared as they were pinned to the ground.

  “I am sorry, my brethren. We must kill them all.”

  Aloysius closed his eyes, but he didn’t dare cover his ears or Jerome’s. The black demons screamed in agony, then were silenced.

  Bahgoral gave the demons a few seconds to finish the job. The black demons were dragged forward and placed in front of him, as far as Aloysius could tell. Bahgoral raised his axe and chopped the air, and the gray demons held still.

  “Now we must go. The lower levels have collapsed into the fiery pit, and it is only by the spirits’ grace that the floor here has not collapsed. I will lead you through the tunnels.”

  “To Hell!” one of the demons shouted.

  “No,” Bahgoral shouted. “The one thing the Makkur found that was in accordance with their lying book was that the surface is not Hell. It is a paradise for the weak. We call the creatures who live there demons, but they are as fragile as spider webs. We can easily kill them all and dig new warrens until we can find our way home—or we may need to provide a new home for the other survivors. We cannot know. All we can know is that this circle is collapsing!”

  The floor had started to shake, almost as if Bahgoral had planned it that way. Bahgoral jumped off the pile of rubble and ran into the tunnel. “We go!”

  The red-striped demons followed him, and the other demons followed them.

  At first the demons would only go through the door one at a time, but two of the red-striped demons came back out of the tunnel and shouted, “Stampede!” and banged pairs of spears together.

  The demons ran toward the tunnel as one, shoving each other forward, pressing. Jerome was pulled out of Aloysius’s arms, then he was pulled along by the press of demons behind him from the corridors.

  “Jerome! Jerome!”

  He shouted until he was hoarse.

  Chapter 44

  Jerome ran. Luckily, his hooves were small and hard; his human feet would have been ripped apart in seconds. He offered up a quick thanks to Celeste Marie. He didn’t thank God; he was only doing the task that He had set him. Jerome offered up his soul for His glory instead. The demons around him coughed as smoke rushed into the tunnel around them.

  He felt the presence of his brothers behind him fade; the demon stampede was pushing them all where chance would have it. It might seem that the demons were deliberately forcing them apart, but it was only an unpredictable series of events that moved in perfect harmony with the laws of nature; he simply wasn’t intelligent or wise enough to see the outcome before it happened.

  He grabbed onto the back of the demon in front of him and almost dangled from its back hair, stumbling again and again under the shoving of the larger demons.

  How could Theodore keep his balance and still hold on to Celeste Marie? He would just have to, that was all.

  Jerome thought he brushed against Sebastian for a moment. He couldn’t tell the demons apart from his brothers; first, it was dark, and second, when he could see a glimpse of another demons’ face in the soft, blue glow of a light bead, he seemed to see his brothers’ demon features wherever he looked. None of them were carrying the hide-wrapped Celeste Marie, at any rate, and none of them were dressed.

  He looked down at himself; he couldn’t see anything at the moment, but when he brushed one hand across his chest (then quickly grabbed the demon ahead of him again), his shirt was missing.

  It might be that none of them had been dressed, once they’d changed. Of all the things not to notice.

  The demons ahead of him slowed; the ones in front had reached the slope. Jerome was crushed upright, no hope of falling now. His demon’s lungs were stronger than his human ones, and he could breathe fairly easily, at least compared to some of the times over the past few days. His lack of height spared him the worst of the smoke.

  He found himself remembering Peggy for some reason. The last time he’d seen her, he’d been too annoyed at being left behind to do anything more than pout, really. He was such an immature kid. A brat.
When had she died? What had killed her? Had she been replaced by one of the demons?

  Granata had been killed by Theodore in the basement, he knew, but had been returned to the pit with Celeste Marie. He’d probably forbidden her to even imagine him dead. Jerome burped and tasted bile; Granata would have been alive again, if Celeste Marie hadn’t been dead.

  Ah.

  Jerome smiled, his demon’s mouth stretching oddly over his demon’s teeth. It was lucky, then, that he hadn’t been able to bring her back to life. Luck. He’d never relied on luck. Luck was for people who didn’t have faith that everything was happening because of God’s plan. So he hadn’t been lucky; it had all been part of the plan.

  Jerome was shoved forward and up, the weight of the demons behind him lifting him upward. It was an easier climb, too, with his hooves. The digging machine must have really packed the dirt in solidly; even with hundreds of demons running up the slope, the earth wasn’t overly churned underneath them.

  Up, and up, and up.

  He slipped, and the demon whose fur he had been ripping out at the roots reached behind him and pulled him up before he could be trampled. Jerome shifted his grip to a different patch of fur and grabbed on tighter.

  Jerome breathed in something that was almost like fresh air as the demons in front of him rushed faster up the hill, then leveled out.

  Behind them, demons started to scream.

  The demons ran faster, reaching out to each other, pulling each other along. Faster.

  They broke out of the tunnel in a wash of smoke. The church basement was full of bodies but was not, luckily, on fire. The black Makkur demons must have had to change plans when Granata disappeared. Or maybe he hadn’t disappeared; Jerome had no idea how it worked when the story of the world changed from one thing to another. It was not something he was prepared to consider at the moment, at any rate.

  He let go of the demon in front of him and shoved his way toward the basement wall. He watched the demons and smoke pour out of the tunnel. The demons’ black eyes now had panicked white circles around them. He waited for a demon carrying a hide-wrapped bundle.