[Demonworld #4] Shepherd of Wolves

by Kyle B. Stiff

  “I suggest you watch your tone!”

  A loud thud resounded from the anteroom. Zach and Arcturus turned and saw that the Foreman’s secretary had finally been laid out on the floor, blue-faced and unconscious. A soldier of Hargis stood panting and leaning against a wall, then saluted Zach. Foreman Arcturus was outraged, but he noticed that his Magi were standing on the far side of the Hargis soldiers; if his men fired, he risked being hit. He angrily signaled for his men to stand down.

  “Foreman, listen,” said Zach. “I do not mean to insult your office. However, this city needs to take many, many steps if it wants to survive. We need every able-bodied human being with a gun in his hands, we need artillery pieces lining up behind the city walls, enough radios to keep our fighting forces in close communication, and zeppelins full of bombs to cover the skies. I need digging machines to lay multiple lines of trenches at least along the southern front, and not only that, but a tunnel system that leads under the city walls so that the trench-men, fully equipped with machineguns, mind you, can retreat back into the city once the trenches are overrun. I need more towers built near the walls for our sniper units. I need mines lacing the open area outside the city, and the technical know-how to find them all again if we do happen to survive this invasion. Furthermore, I need you to open up your secret vaults, and I need every bit of so-called forbidden technology unleashed.”

  “I see. Well.”

  Zach, leaned over the Foreman’s desk. “These dogmen are coming, and their little brains are completely incapable of understanding concepts like fear or peace or negotiation. All they know is that it feels good to tear out the throats of men like us or, if they can’t do that, to at least die trying. Have you heard any stories that detail the sexual proclivities of your average dogman? To a dogman, making love and committing rape are practically one and the same, and they will do either one to anything that moves. Anything, sir. Once they have crushed the defenders of Pontius, they will roam this city and turn it into a cross between a slaughterhouse and a brothel. The amount of human suffering they are capable of creating would shock you, sir, and believe me when I tell you that brute force is the only language they are capable of understanding.”

  The Foreman twitched slightly, then gritted his teeth and said, “Perhaps we could lower our prices a tad, for certain respected customers, in light of the current situation.”

  Zach stared at the old man for a long time, burying his rage and his pride. “Very well,” he said finally. “I did not want to do this. But… if Pontius writes you a blank check in exchange for your complete cooperation, will you release all of your technology and work with the citizens in its use?”

  Foreman Arcturus’s shrunken black heart quickened, and it was the closest thing to joy he had felt since childhood. He knew that if Pontius gave the Smiths such a blank check, it would result in the Smiths becoming the most powerful gang in Pontius. The Law, the city officials, the wealthy – all of them, all of them, would be indebted to the Smiths. He could see the golden gear of the Smiths flying over the city… his city. Arcturus would go down as the greatest Cog in Smith history. Perhaps every generation of Smiths who had toiled in secrecy had looked forward to a day in the future when he, Arcturus the Magnificent, would bring them into a promised land of unlimited power and license…

  Arcturus shook himself from the dream, then said, “Director DeSark of the Law would never go along with such an arrangement.”

  Zach turned away. “Actually, he probably will. DeSark’s a sensible man. That puts him at quite a disadvantage in dealing with the monsters of this world.”

  * * *

  An old Lawman and a young Lawman stood at one of the many stations where people lined up with tablets that proved their bill of health, and handed out guns from the massive stockpile overseen by a crew of Smiths. A strong, slack-jawed hick presented his tablet upside-down and gingerly picked up a rifle while the older Lawman glared at him and held onto the rifle for a moment longer than necessary. The hick bowed his head and scurried off with the thing.

  “You know,” said the young Lawman, “in Hargis, they had a ton of dudes on the state payroll who would run around with guns and just look for trouble.”

  “Yeah, well, every nation has a police force,” said the old Lawman.

  “Naw, man, they had a police force in the city. But these armed guys that I’m talkin’ about, they camped outside the city. An’ they didn’t have a whole lotta paperwork to deal with - if they saw dogmen, they would just chase ’em around an’ kill ’em!”

  “It’s an army,” said the elder. “They call it an army. The Ugly did the same thing when they went on their crusade, in a way.”

  “And their laws against gun ownership,” said the youth, rambling, “they was a lot more relaxed than here.”

  “And look where it got them!” said the older Lawman. “There ain’t even a Hargis anymore. All gone, like it wasn’t never there, because people didn’t give a shit for Law an’ order. Now, what I’m worried about, is how are we gonna get all these guns back once we chase off these outlanders? You think it’s gonna be fun an’ games when we’re doing the paperwork on every gun tucked into every hut out in the farms, or stuck in some wasted druggies’ shorts? You wanna know the truth? I hope some dogman runs up and blows my brains out. I’m not kidding. Then you’ll get stuck doin’ the paperwork, not me.”

  “And also,” said the young Lawman, “the people in Hargis, they had walls and they had demons, just like us, but these dogmen, we never had to deal with them. I heard they put them Hargis boys all over our ranks, just to show us how to deal with them dogs when they come here. Everything, man, everything’s changin’!”

  “You think they’re getting paid more than us? Hell, what am I saying. They wouldn’t be in Pontius if they weren’t.”

  A young farmer and an old farmer walked away from the lines, rifles and ammunition in hand. The youth looked around to make sure that no Lawmen were watching, then he blasted an imaginary flying dogman out of the air. The older farmer let his rifle hang limp at his side, angry at his clean bill of health and resentful of his brother who’d just recently fallen into a well and skewered his prostate on a sharp stone, thus excusing him from the battle.

  “Shee-yit!” said the young farmer. “I’m sure glad I didn’t get stuck on trench-diggin’ detail!”

  “Don’t count yourself lucky,” said the elder farmer. “I heard that the city, they was payin’ plenty for that work. Ol’ Ruther Tucker, he’s makin’ him a li’l money doin’ that, him an’ others, too. They git to dig the graves - and we git to lay down in ’em!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rainbow Bridge vs. Sickness unto Death

  The boys rode hard all through that first night, often looking back to make sure that dozens of jeeps full of hundreds of dogs weren’t behind them. They did not stop the next day but continued on under the burning sun, taking breaks only so that Cedrik and Wodan could exchange Sylas between them. During one such exchange, Chris asked Cedrik where they were going.

  “Away, man, away,” said Cedrik, shaking his head as he lashed Sylas’s beaten body to Wodan’s back.

  Chris protested vehemently but offered no better course, and so they continued through the wasteland. They were exhausted and hungry and their water was running low, but they had to avoid the lowlands to the west; the plentiful water of that area now belonged to a legion of dogmen. The boys were going nowhere except away.

  The next night they were sick from lack of sleep, and Wodan could only hold himself up by propping an elbow across the handlebars. Once when Wodan shook his head from drowsiness, he was sure that he had fallen asleep while riding because he saw that Jon bore the burden of Sylas but he did not remember making any exchange. Weariness bore into them unmercifully, for they no longer had any goal to reach; there was only riding, endless heat, and dwindling resources.

  The heat of the next day was toxic and hateful beyond belief. They rode across a hard land
cracked up in hellish geometrical forms. Their tires burned so hot that they shone smooth. One of the boys stopped and immediately the others followed suit. Jake and Chris helped Sylas to the ground, then gave him a little water, then placed his jacket over his face as one would do for the dead. They gathered up what little food they had and ate, and Wodan realized that in only a few minutes they ran through half their supply. They held their canteens gingerly, and Cedrik said, “Try to save it, try to save it,” and they took little sips and glared at one another, waiting for someone to break.

  They no longer had any tents, so they took off their jackets and laid them atop their heads and huddled in a mass around Sylas. They slept like sausages on the skillet until sundown, but when they mounted up again Chris’s bike would not start. They stared at it and none had any idea what to do. Silently Cedrik rose, took the rim off their funnel, and sucked out the fuel and let it pour into his own bike. Chris stood over him, watched him in silence, and when Cedrik was done Chris kicked his bike over with a subdued grunt and stalked over to Jake. “Move over,” said Chris. “I’m driving.”

  “It’s my bike,” said Jake, moving to the rear.

  They resumed driving at night and slept during the day under their jackets. They ate only tiny morsels. Wodan asked Cedrik if there was any chance of them finding some game to hunt for food. Cedrik shook his head, then said, “No animal’s dumb enough to come this far out.”

  Several days into their hellish ride, Wodan glanced at Chris and Jake riding together with their helm visors lifted. Jake’s arms were wrapped around Chris, and both of them were sullen and angry to be near one another; when Wodan thought of them as an unhappy couple, a laughing fit took him. He leaned over, straining to breathe as he swerved about. He could not suppress the idea of telling the others, so rode hard and drew ahead of them, waving an arm wildly and nearly losing control of his bike. The others stopped and Jon shouted in alarm, “What’s wrong?!”

  “Chris... Jake... unhappy... couple...” said Wodan, pointing, laughing, and crying.

  Cedrik looked about, concerned and confused. Jon looked at Chris, then started laughing as well, his chapped lips cracking apart into strips of white and red. The laughing fit spread. Finally Sylas awoke from his stupor and began laughing as well.

  “Sylas!” said Jon, face drenched in tears. “You’re alive! Look at... Chris... an’ Jake!”

  “Couple!” laughed Sylas, his face still purple and swollen. “Unhappy... couple!”

  “Fucking... idiots!” said Chris, laughing and shaking his head.

  Later that night Wodan’s own bike kicked and hopped and its ghost fled with a drawn-out wheeze. The others pulled up around him and Wodan got on behind Cedrik’s bike but within half an hour that bike ran out of fuel, then Chris and Jake’s bike drank its last, and Jon and Sylas followed beside the walkers for a time, slow and ominous, the last horseman of their own personal apocalypse, until it too died and they helped Sylas down so that he could lean against them and walk among the doomed. Within an hour they stopped, ate the last of their food, and laid down to sleep.

  They slept as if comatose, and did not rise until the sun was well and truly gone. Wordlessly they huddled in a circle, shook their canteens, poured a little here and a little there so that all would be even, then looked at one another and decided that a man’s water was a man’s water and that no fighting should arise to dispute this fact, ever. “Justinas would have wanted it this way,” said Sylas. They nodded, then rose painfully to walk until the end of the night.

  Now they were closer to the wasteland than ever before. No more roar of engines, no more helmet-enforced isolation. The oppressive silence of the land hung over them. There was a small slip of moon and a cold horizon that did not change. The flat, hard earth bit their feet until their legs were numb. One time they saw, or thought they saw, a long-tailed mouse race across the path before them. They stopped and stared in alarm, but the thing disappeared before they could move. They tried to remain attentive after that, but they saw nothing and soon decided that the story of the wasteland was written only in zeroes.

  They sat down just before dawn. Jake took a sip from his canteen, then swirled the thing and felt that there was only a tiny bit left. He groaned, then tipped the thing back and chugged the last of it.

  Chris looked at him and sighed. “You’re right. Fuck it,” he said, then tipped up his own canteen as well.

  “Man!” said Cedrik, even as he opened his own canteen. “The hell are you all doing?”

  Wodan drained off his water as well. The coolness slid along his tongue, a welcome and short-lived relief, then a little grit followed the final droplets. They laid down to sleep, and they knew what the next day would bring.

  While they slept, they sweated more moisture than they’d taken in. When they rose the next night, Wodan pissed into his own canteen, saw the others looking at him, then winked and raised the thing and drank it off. It tasted like warm water with a slight aftertaste, and so he smiled and gave his friends a thumbs-up and they followed suit.

  That night as they walked and meditated on the great zero of the land that stretched on without end, Wodan glanced at Cedrik and saw that he was looking down at his feet. Wodan was startled, then remembered that Cedrik had not been leading them anywhere since their escape. Now they were too far out even to give themselves up to the invaders. Hungry and exhausted, Wodan felt of his own arms, wondering at the strange strength he’d been given; he was shocked to find that his arms felt like long, thin sticks. His body was eating itself. As they laid down to sleep, Wodan said, “We need some kind of a miracle.”

  While they slept that day, their miracle came. Clouds kicked up in the sky and a great wind blew dust onto them. Cedrik raised up lamely, strung nonsense syllable together, and then rain patted them lightly and the others jumped up. With feverish quickness they uncapped canteens, held them up to the tiny, near-invisible droplets, then Jake got the idea to lay his jacket out in a bowl-shape and the others followed suit. The rain was over in minutes and in a gray and cool world they sucked the canteens dry, moaning at the few droplets they had, then knelt down in the greasy earth and licked the moisture off the jackets and gathered up the bundles in such a way that they could force the droplets onto their quivering tongues. In a flash the sun roared and scattered the clouds. Furious white light poured over them, for a few seconds they could see the mist burning off of the earth, and then perfect dryness returned. They sat in wonder at the strange dream they had seen, then they hung their heads because they knew that no miracle could save them.

  They nearly made it through another freezing night, then Sylas collapsed. They stood over him and, before they could stop themselves, sat beside him. No one had the strength to rise, much less carry him. They stared at Sylas with dull eyes.

  We’re going to kill him and eat him, Wodan thought. Slowly, a sense of horror built in his chest. We’re going to kill him. And for what? To continue on in this nothingness?

  Wodan unholstered a handgun that he’d taken off the body of a dogman. With newfound strength, he lifted it and fired it into the air. No one stirred at the great sound, the most violent thing they had heard in many days. The gun clicked empty. Wodan dragged himself to his knees, then took the sniper rifle from Chris and fired it into the air, over and over. Chris did not protest. Jon understood what was happening, so he unholstered his Coil Magnum, fired it into the air six times, reloaded it slowly, fired six times, reloaded and repeated, and was finally empty. Wodan took all their guns and fired all of their bullets and when he took Cedrik’s gun, Cedrik fell back, unsheathed the Blade of the Engels, and threw the thing far over his head and into the endless, dusty wastes. Wodan leaned over and then fell onto his side, arms shaking, and knew that if they were going to kill and eat anyone then it would require more strength than any of them had.

  They laid around for the rest of the night, then they saw a strip of pink on the horizon as dawn’s rosy fingers crept up to strangle them.
Wodan moaned lamely, for he knew that this day would bake them all. Not fully understanding what he was doing, he took off his own jacket, cast it to the ground, then took the jackets from all of them and again no one protested. He laid them in a pile, then took their flints and struck them against one another. The flame took to the jackets and the old crusted-in grease sizzled and popped, an offering to the great Nothing. Wodan crawled away from the lurching black smoke and laid near the others, without any cover, ready to sleep for the last time.

  The executioner sun parted the horizon. They knew that there was no miracle left for them, not in all the storehouse of creation, for the world itself was weary and ready for an end of things.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A New Path

  Wodan was a giant and he stood over a plain covered in snow. One foot was encased in ice and the other foot was on a frozen bank. Flakes of ice fell from the darkness above. He looked at his body and saw that it was completely black, a living featureless shadow. He did not feel welcome in the world, as if he was a criminal that had been hidden away for over a thousand years. He knew that none of that mattered; if the world wept, that was the world’s business.

  A little creature sat hunched over in the snow beneath him. At first he thought it was a ghoul, like many others he had seen in the valley of his exile. Its skin was pale and lined with veins, and its face was contorted like a constant complaint. He looked closer and saw that the creature had brown hair and Wodan realized, disappointed, that that thing was Wodan.

  The giant and the little creature must have been connected by some invisible umbilical cord, because Wodan felt his perspective shifting from the larger to the smaller. The giant shadow threw its arms up and toppled over. It hit the ground silently and sent up a great plume of snow. Wodan crawled over to the giant. He felt his legs bending along soggy knees at an awkward angle, so he pulled himself along with his arms. He crawled along the length of the unmoving giant. The face was indistinct and difficult to see; Wodan bent over and smelled the head, and so he was able to “see” that the giant had only a curving smoothness that warped its head. It had no mask, nor any face at all.