Hellfire

by Jeff Provine

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  The door opened, and Ozzie lunged for it. Parvis squealed behind her. She wriggled past the thin hunchback and leaped out the door into the air.

  Something caught her around the waist. Ozzie tried to wriggle free and kick whoever was holding her. Her boots landed solidly against thick leather.

  It was Biggs. The hunchback squeezed harder and harder until Ozzie couldn’t swing her legs anymore. She tried to take in a new breath, but she couldn’t seem to move her lungs. At last she let her body fall limp.

  The others were dragged out of the wagon. Husk leaned on Nate, who helped him limp forward. Blake stumbled after them. Parvis and the thin hunchback shoved the sheriff to keep him moving.

  Instead of dropping her to the ground after them, Biggs tossed Ozzie back inside the wagon.

  “What are you doing?” she blurted. “Why are you separating us?”

  The giant only turned away. She looked past him and realized they weren’t at the city jail or the capitol. It was the square in front of the City Center.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  The door slammed in reply.

  Ozzie threw herself against it. “Tell me!”

  It didn’t budge. She tried again and again until she fell to the floor and couldn’t get up again. Hot tears were falling out of her eyes. “I have to help them!”

  Ozzie wasn’t sure how long it was until the door at last opened again. This time it was Lake Providence policemen in their button-covered uniforms. One with a bushy mustache offered a hand to her. “Here, girl.”

  She swallowed and stood up. The policeman helped her out of the wagon. The breeze was good against her warm face. It smelled of fires, bodies, and sweet fried foods of a carnival.

  Two police flanked her, taking Ozzie to a cluster of men speaking with a man with graying hair who wore a tailored suit. When he turned around, she saw it was her father. Her heart sank.

  He scowled at her. “Ozera, you—”

  “Father, you have to listen to me,” she said as quickly as she could. “Aaron Burr is alive! He’s made a pact with the devil!”

  “Ozera!” he shouted. It was so forceful that even the police around them shrank back.

  She pressed her lips tight.

  “You’ve embarrassed yourself enough,” her father told her. You’ve embarrassed your family enough. Your mother has already gone home, too overwhelmed by what you’ve done to stay at the festivities. If your name gets in the papers, it will be the death of her.”

  “Home isn’t far enough!” Ozzie screeched. “You have to get her out of the city! And Judy and Haggie! Get across the river!

  Mr. Jacey stomped toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Get a hold of yourself, girl! You’re in public!”

  Ozzie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if we’re in public; I’m telling the truth. We’re all in grave danger.”

  He seemed to pause in thought a moment. “What kind of danger?”

  She took a breath. “The catalyst… It’s a work of Satan, and it’s going to be used to let a great evil into the world.”

  Her father arched an eyebrow. “Have you gone mad, Ozera? Is this something you caught at that asylum of yours?”

  Ozzie blinked. She supposed she had, in a way, yet it went back to the truth she had known long before. “Father, there is so much more than just the world around us and the people in it. There is grave evil, and it is about to overwhelm this city.”

  He listened for a moment more, and then he stepped away and shook his head. “This is the work of those men who captured you. They’ve controlled your mind, manipulated you into believing strange things.”

  “No, it’s the truth, Father. I’ve seen it myself!”

  He sighed. “That’s enough. Come on, we’re going home. In the morning, I’ll take you back to that asylum for good.”

  Her father grabbed the shackle around her right hand. He didn’t touch her skin, just the metal.

  Ozzie pulled back from him. “No!”

  He stood still, staring at her. His face turned red.

  “No, Father,” she told him. “I can’t let this happen.”

  His face darkened to crimson. “You’ve become one of them, haven’t you? You can’t be a Jacey and be one of those spirit-worshippers, too.”

  “I can, Father! And you should be, too. I want to help you see that.”

  He blew out an angry breath. “Would you rather be with those men than with your own family?”

  “I—I,” Ozzie stammered. She nodded in fast beats. “I would. I have to, because it’s true.”

  After a final long pause, her father said, “You’ve decided it.”

  Ozzie wrenched up her eyebrows. “What?”

  He turned to the police. “Constable! This isn’t my daughter. You have the wrong girl. Send her up with the others.”

  The policeman with the bushy mustache blinked. “Sir?”

  “You heard me,” Ozzie’s father said. He walked away from her. “She’s not mine. She’s one of them.”

  Ozzie watched him go. She tried to call after him, but it was a whisper, “Daddy…”

  He did not turn around as he climbed into the family carriage.

  Police surrounded her and pulled her toward a doorway in a stone wall. Ozzie stumbled, but they picked her up and kept her moving. The whole world spun into a haze.

  She had given up her own family. Was the truth really worth that much? She could have gone home, seen her mother again... But what would be left the next morning if Nathan Kemp was right? She had to believe in him.

  The police dragged her up two sets of stairs, one short and one long, finally coming to a landing that led to a shadowy balcony. A warm breeze stinking of rot and smoke rolled inside. A band was playing an uproarious tune heavy with drums and brass. Hunchbacks standing there turned toward her. The police shrank back.

  “She’s all yours, boys,” the policeman with the bushy mustache said. He pushed Ozzie forward and hurried after the others back downstairs.

  The hunchbacks surrounded her. Ozzie breathed in and out faster and faster. She wanted to fight, but she did not even know where to land a first blow on the pack of twisted monsters hidden under long coats and hats. They grabbed her and pushed her into the shadows.

  Nate was there. Husk was leaning on him with bloodstained bandages. Blake stood in the back, his eyes closed.

  “Ozzie?” Nate asked.

  She nodded. “I’m here.”

  He smiled. It was thin, barely more than pursing his lips, all he seemed to be able to do.

  She smiled back at him. This was worth the world.

  A booming voice suddenly rang out. Ozzie jumped and pulled her hands close to her neck. The first words from the voice were lost in the noise, but echoes bounced it back. At first she wondered whether it was the apocalypse, but then the voice continued.

  “Citizens of Gloriana! Welcome to the dedication of the City Center.”

  A loud roar rang out, reverberating off the stone walls behind Ozzie. She squinted into the shadows and took several small steps forward to peek out.

  They were on a balcony above the city mall. The capitol with its parapets and strange spires that always seemed to attract lightning stood in the distance. Below them, crowds swarmed over the grass. In the amber glow of the streetlamps, they could have been bees climbing over one another and chattering all at once. A few lanterns or sparklers shined like beacons in the midst of the miasma. Lines of green-jacketed militia stood among bullwagons to keep the people at bay.

  Ozzie turned back to the building where she stood. It was the City Center, sprawling left and right, blocky and gray with stubby smokestacks making towers of its own. They were on a long balcony at the edge of the tin-plated roof. She stood in a corner with the hunchbacks and the rail agents just beyond them. At the far corner, lit by limelight, the mayor and even the governor stood with a line of state officials. Something large rested in t
he shadows in the middle.

  The mayor, William Griffin, raised a speaking trumpet to his mouth. “My friends, you will never forget this night. From the darkness will come a new light, ruled over by our history’s greatest leader. This night marks his reappearance after two decades.”

  A murmur swept over the crowd like a wave.

  The drums began a long roll. It grew louder and louder. Gasps broke out from the crowd.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, His Excellency, Aaron Burr!”

  With loud pops and whiffs of smoke, limelight lamps came alive in the middle of the balcony. One by one, they lit up pieces of the steel pedestal that propped up the decrepit body of Aaron Burr. His uniform had the strange old fashioned cut from before. The soldiers from the capitol stood behind him in a long row. Burr smiled a silver-toothed grin.

  The gasps in the crowd turned to shrieks. Waves of people convulsed, pushing forward for better views. The militia hurried, bringing forward reinforcements with long muskets to hold the line.

  Mayor Griffin stepped back, and Governor Alexandre Mouton took the speaking trumpet from him. The governor took in a deep breath that rolled back his shoulders and said, “I hereby step down as Governor of Gloriana, with my final action being the appointment of an interim governor until elections may be held. I nominate Colonel Aaron Burr. All for?”

  The men behind him gave a chorus of “Aye!”

  “All against?”

  The men were quiet. No one would speak out against the legendary Burr, even if he were more machine than man now, just as no one would run against him when the elections were held. Ozzie rolled her eyes.

  “Then I pronounce Aaron Burr to be once again Governor of Gloriana!” Mouton set down the speaking trumpet and slipped back among the politicians who hid in the corner.

  Two soldiers stepped forward, bringing with them a huge speaking trumpet. They held it up at arm’s length, just reaching Burr’s lips as the steel chair held him high.

  “I humbly accept,” the ancient man said.

  The band burst into a patriotic fervor. The crowd cheered. Just a few people at first, perhaps professional cheerers on the mayor’s payroll, but soon the rest of the masses joined in.

  Burr waved a bony hand to them.

  The crowd roared louder than ever. Ozzie winced. Were they all so blind?

  Soldiers lifted the speaking trumpet back to Burr’s mouth. The band stopped playing, and the people went quiet.

  “Firstly, my children, I should like to apologize to you for my long absence. My age began to catch up with me while your able leader, and so I retired from public light. Through the efforts of my staff, I was able to reinvigorate my body using new technological devices—technology, which, of course, I shall share with my beloved populace. Never again will lungs weak with tuberculosis or even attacks of the heart end our lives!”

  Gasps of wonder ran through the people.

  “But first, I must dedicate to you this building, the new City Center. As promised, it shall deliver unto all your homes gas, clean water both hot and cool, and a bounty of pneumatic pressure to make your hardest tasks easier. Yet, there is something else this mighty furnace shall grant us all…”

  His pause was long. Mumbles grew louder and louder. Even Ozzie felt her skin crawl with anticipation. When she realized that she was waiting for a gateway to be opened into the Pit, she shuddered.

  The hum of machinery sounded in the building behind her. The stone floor under Ozzie’s feet begin to vibrate. She stumbled, falling a step forward and leaning on Sheriff Blake’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice.

  The tin roof of the building retracted one plate at a time, making thunderous clangs as they went. Enormous gears must have been at work gradually drawing in every part of the huge roof. Red-gold light shone up from beneath it, and the earthy smell of a coal fire wafted up amid the smoke.

  As the roof retreated its final parts, a wave of heat struck Ozzie. Her nose burned, and her eyes watered. She clamped her hands over her face.

  “Behold!” Burr shouted. “The dawning of a new age where both machine and devil serve under the will of mankind!” He turned away from the speaking trumpet. “Release the catalyst!”

  New gears rang in a higher pitch. A long crane extended section by section, growing smaller as it came to the center of the sprawling open fire. It stopped there with a clunk, and then it spewed amber crystals in every direction like a fountain.

  “No!” Nate cried. He took a step forward, but Husk and the hunchbacks held him in place.

  Ozzie swallowed against the hot, smoky air. She wanted to do something, but there was nothing that could be done.

  Lightning flashed from inside the fire. The glow was harsh and came faster and faster until all at once it was gone. Then the smoke and flames waved and danced, as if she saw it through a bubble. While Ozzie watched, the flourish became worse until it seemed like even the building turned into loops and angles. The crane that spat out the catalyst twisted back on itself like a blade of dead grass.

  Then came howls and screeches and mocking laughter. Amid them were whispers of horrible sins and foul desires.

  “Imagine what you could do with your family’s wealth. Steal it.”

  “Your mother will never be happy. End her pain. Kill her.”

  “Take your father to bed. He’ll finally love you there.”

  Ozzie pulled her hands away from her nose and clamped them over her ears. The chain on her shackles pressed tight against her face, but she didn’t care. The pain was worth avoiding the onslaught of unholy noise.

  Then the first hellion appeared. It was a staring eyeball that hung from two huge webbed, dragonfly’s wings. Curls of hair stuck out from the back. The thing floated in the air for a moment, and then sailed into the night sky.

  Ozzie cried.

  The hunchbacks next to them gave off a series of hooting calls and disrobed. Their foul bodies came to view. Parvis’s warped torso let out a deep laugh from his upside-down mouth. Biggs unfurled his bat-wings. The impossibly thin hunchback revealed a scaled serpentine body, leading to legs and arms and fingers all sickeningly snakelike, curving with no joints. The fat hunchback was a rotund pig with the tail of a scorpion.

  “No, no, no,” Ozzie said to herself. She wanted to disbelieve. She didn’t want it to be real.

  “Bring them to me!” Burr cried.

  Ticks, Davies, and the other marshals pushed between the hunchbacks to grab Ozzie. Ticks sneered, while Davies had his face scrunched up in an unreadable emotion.

  “Out of the way, freaks,” Ticks said with a grunt as he threw an arm at Biggs. The giant hunchback shrank away.

  The marshals dragged her into the middle of the balcony. The others were forced to follow. Husk limped along until he collapsed. Blake fell to his knees beside him. Only Ozzie and Nate stood before Aaron Burr atop his steel throne.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Burr asked softly. He waved a hand, and his soldiers brought back his speaking trumpet.

  The pumps of his vocal machine wheezed. “There are some who oppose this new order, and I have brought them here to you as examples. I offered them the same chance you have, to live in a world where man stands a little higher than the fallen angels. They rejected it, and so they shall be the first to fall under my mighty army! Let them be a lesson to you!”

  More grinding machinery sounded, though now it was little more than a rumble underneath the ringing noise from the fire. Beneath them, Ozzie saw the light begin to shine onto the faces of the militia, who had all turned to gawk at the twisting spectacle. Doors were opening, and soon the fire spilled out wicked monsters. They came out in a great heap, writhing and clawing and biting one another as they poured onto the grass. It withered beneath them.

  The crowd screamed and ran. People on the edges dashed headlong into the dark streets. Even the brave men of the militia broke to give way to the gang of hellions. The people in the middle were trapped and huddled together.
A collective cry of anguish was added to the cacophony.

  “The multitudes seem too distracted by my army to hear my message,” Burr muttered, just loud enough to be heard. He shook his withered head. “Never mind, it shall be done, and we’ll enliven it in the papers. Push them over, men!”

  Soldiers moved forward. Ozzie faltered backward several steps toward the short rail along the balcony. Nate stepped in front of her. She set a hand on his shoulder. She couldn’t help but see the writhing mass of monsters beneath.

  “Nowhere to run but the fire,” one of the soldiers said with a chuckle. The soldiers stooped to pick up Husk and Blake.

  “Into the fire,” Nate repeated. He patted his body and then turned to Ozzie. “Water’s not the only way to put out a fire.”

  She stared at him.

  “I need your help,” he told her.

  She blinked. “How?”

  “I need to get to the fire.”

  Ozzie stared again. He tucked his hand into his shirt, where there was a splotch of a bloodstain from the broken jar. The catalyst was still there, all over his body. It would explode and wink out the flames just as the kerosene had done.

  “No,” Ozzie said.

  “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” Nate told her.

  She pursed her lips. Without any further thought that might talk her out of it, Ozzie jumped into a run. She bolted directly toward Aaron Burr, her shackled hands outstretched toward his throat.

  The ancient man gave a raspy cry of shock.

  As her little body dodged between the soldiers, they dropped Blake and Husk and went after her. Ozzie felt a few tugs at her coveralls, and then whole hands grabbed hold of her. She was still an arm’s length from the governor.

  They pulled her back. She struggled.

  “Impudent mort!” Burr said, spitting. “Your disobedience is in vain!”

  “I know,” Ozzie replied. “I just needed to distract you.”

  Burr blinked his dim eyes and then looked down. His eyelids flew open, revealing sickly yellow rings beneath. “Where is the fireman?”

  The soldiers scattered, leaving only two holding Ozzie, one on either arm. The others raced behind Burr, where Nate had run past while they were all looking at her. He had climbed the short back wall of the balcony and now stood just above the fire’s edge. His body looked dark against the wicked light of the coiling flames. He turned back.