“Soft? Me? There’s only one of us here who’s soft, and that’s you. In the head. How dare you accuse . . .”
The bickering continued unabated until the Hounds were too close to the cave for comfort. Then the insults became much more personal, and purely telepathic . . .
Chapter 21: Cirque du Freak
Icepiccadilly Circus was an amazing experience, the one place in the entire underworld where a carnivoral atmosphere reigned twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all year round.
Not that Satan was growing soft. Far from it. Our Infernal Father was the very epitome of cruelty. And nowhere was this better expressed than at the major attraction he had fabricated especially for the Devil’s Children. A unique locale where his Blue Suits and spooks could come to unwind after a hard day’s incivility, to watch the grotesque and the fugly (those who had seriously fucked up and were mutated beyond recognition) and, of course, to witness the most invasive results of the Undertaker’s warped sense of humor.
Erected at the junction of four main thoroughfares connecting the Worst End with Westmonster, this was also the site of a temporal nexus — an esoteric knot where five eras blended together in a frenzy of time-bending confusion: Modern; pre-Second World War; Victorian; Medieval; and Roman.
Everyday Joes were required to attend the circus at least once every year: a clever ploy, for although most denizens continually bickered about their lot or complained at the injustice of their banishment, a visit to this event reminded everybody of how bad things could get if they didn’t shut up, buckle down, and make the best of what they’d been given.
And what a reminder it was.
Not for hell the tepid thrill of caged, toothless animals, or trapeze acts spinning gracefully through the air to land in the cosseted safety of thoughtfully placed nets. Oh, no. Here, in the Cirque du Freak that was Icepiccadilly Circus, you would witness rejects too hideous or repulsive to live a normal life, forced to perform for the public’s displeasure.
The Upside-down Woman, for example, who had her limbs and entire gastrointestinal system swapped around upon her arrival in hell. Now made to walk everywhere on her hands, she could only eat laxatives or high fiber foods through her ass, and would defecate on demand through her mouth and nose until she passed out from asphyxiation while spectators vomited in disgust.
And she was only one example of these crossbred human chimeras, so deformed that the mere sight of them caused some amongst the gathered throng to experience heart attacks. Such travesties were usually goaded into gladiatorial combat unto death. Only a temporary reprieve, of course, for if they didn’t acquit themselves well enough in battle or entertain the crowd sufficiently, they would receive further “adjustments” and be sent back to fight again. Wretches with no arms or legs, forced to cling by their broken teeth from piss-soaked high wires strung up just beyond the reach of snapping, rabid hell-wolves. None survived for long, and all screamed hideously as they were devoured. Clowns strapped into radio-activated suicide vests chased each other with buckets full of sulfuric acid, each dreading the moment a bored member of the audience would send them to their fiery doom. Dwarves, bound and gagged, fired from cannons into cages where demented reavers had been starving for weeks. Wild West-style shooting stunts where the targets were sentient, gelatinous blobs of goo. Whatever the Undertaker had done to keep these travesties conscious was miraculous, for the only parts of them that looked even vaguely human were their ocular appendages. Deliberately left intact, their pop-eyed expressions conveyed the full depth of their terror before their eventual and inevitable demise.
My particular favorite was the Inside-out Man, who existed by strapping his externalized internal organs to his torso with masking tape. His was a funny act to watch, for he ran the gauntlet of a maze filled with razor-wire whilst pursued by a pack of slavering hellhounds with burning fur and poisonous fangs. Slipping and slithering about in blood, bile, and other bodily fluids, he never got far, and would go down pleading for mercy amid a circle of snapping incisors and slashing claws.
This soul must have really pissed off our Dark Father for he’d been filling the same slot for over two hundred years. Just thinking of the suffering he’d endured made me tingle with anticipation for Cream’s forthcoming appointment with destiny: Me!
When I eventually catch the bugger . . .
But revenge must wait. First, I needed an appropriate form of payment to set before the Oracle, and I was in exactly the right place to find it.
Some kind of warped karma was in force here. While Satan had done his best to ensure that abject misery held sway, fate smiled upon the unfortunate to counter their maledictions in the strangest of ways . . .
These doomed and unrepentant souls could create the most wondrous gifts: fire-flake crystal pendants, carved from the flames of Gehenna made manifest; air-flute symphonies, orchestrated to the song of the northern storm as it grazed the ice forests of Higher Niflheim; the most intricate lifelike representations of Satan’s favorite rose — worn only on special occasions — the dark red Demonkracie, fashioned from the yet-beating heart of a phoenix; liquefied nightmares, distilled from the horror experienced by those first awakening in hell and bottled for the connoisseur to savor, over and over again.
But more than the significant or cryptic flowed from the workshops of the aberrant; even their everyday offerings were also sublime in most spectacular ways:
The resonance of a hell-kitten shrieking, its tail pulled, was captured, amplified, and held to the ear of one deprived of hearing. Ablaze with color, cutterflies (miniature clockwork miracles woven from the purest strands of spider silk and razorblades) stuttered and fluttered from thistle to thistle, deadheading other insects as they went, just like the real thing. Vicarious thrill-seekers shared the delicious sensation of a victim’s body going limp as life was strangled from it, and the subsequent orgasmic relief, experienced in the moments before the spiders and scorpions started their bloody work.
How they did it, Satan only knows, but I had a sneaking suspicion that ‘he who mustn’t be named’ was making a point. And to be honest I was glad he was, because without the Freaks’ help I wouldn’t stand a chance of gaining the Oracle’s counsel any time soon.
The last time I’d traveled this part of Regret Street, I’d had to navigate the confines of a Roman Legionnaire stockade. Since then, however, hellspace had obviously twisted, for I now found myself somewhere in the mid 1930s looking at dated adverts for bootblack, fever cures, pickled herrings, and sanitized tapeworms.
Smoke blackened and soot covered, these reminded me of little windows of time through which passersby could catch a glimpse of lifestyles now abandoned or forgotten.
Except for here. Who would have realized the service Satan has provided for the annals of history, eh? Nice one, Boss.
We turned a corner and came to an outer circle of smaller tents and pavilions. Bordered by ramshackle carts, gypsy caravans, and a plethora of cooking pots in all shapes and sizes, the area was full of bizarre and extreme damned, relaxing and taking their ease. On one side, deformed acrobats practiced their act of dodging blazing arrows whilst balanced on sharpened stakes above a pit of vipers. On the other, a gryphon wrestled with a Minotaur.
Barbecued comestibles appeared to be their favorite, and from what I could surmise they weren’t too fussy. I saw eyeballs, ears, livers, and an overwhelming assortment of limbs. Soiled underwear, old boots, and car seats were high on the popularity list too. One griddle even had the contents of a street bin strung out on a wire above the flames: used nappies, tin cans and all.
“Bingo! We’ve hit their living area head-on. Now I won’t have to wade through all the booths and sideshows trying to find what I need.”
“Shame . . .”
I glanced at Nimrod and caught him gazing toward the eaves of the brightly-lit pagoda with disappointment etched across his craggy face.
“I haven’t blown up a clown in months,” he complained. He had a wist
ful look in his eyes. “Do you know . . . if you wait until they’re in a prime position and time things just right, you can set off a chain reaction that takes out a whole bunch of them? My record’s seven, and that doesn’t include the two who doused themselves in acid when they dropped their buckets. What an awesome night that wa–”
Nimrod’s eyes suddenly focused. He spun on the spot and looked about as if searching for something.
“Are you seri–?What the fu–?”
I felt a vibration tickle my toes. Then the earth beneath my feet heaved and buckled. A high-pressure jet of steam burst forth from the ground only ten yards from my position, to be joined by another from across the street. A third one hit us, right in the middle of the big top itself. Hunks of rock and paving slab blew high into the air, along with a number of wagons and lean-tos. From the squeals I heard, many bystanders must have been swept away by the initial eruptions.
The trembling increased, and a loud crack heralded a crevasse appearing in the middle of the street. Tendrils of mystic potency writhed out, the rumbling deeper and more resonant. In moments, the chasm had widened. Although denizens ran hither and thither, many still fell into the growing abyss. They were closely followed by a shower of bricks and chunks of mortar when the nearest buildings started to topple. Sulfurous rain spattered down from the blood-dark vault, as if hurled here from another realm.
Somewhere, a siren started wailing.
This doesn’t feel right.
My suspicions were confirmed by an overwhelming sense of foreboding. Black as midnight, it manifested a corporeal form and boiled up and out from the pit, latching onto anyone unfortunate enough to stray too close. Like a predatory cephalopod, its tentacles coiled around arms and legs or ankles and necks before dragging its victims, kicking and screaming, into the bowels of the earth.
But who’s behind it?
I was in no mood to suffer further distractions and immediately took the offensive.
With a strenuous bound, I leaped high into the air, ripped my scythe free from its holster, and swung it back over my head in a double-handed grip. Then I called on the full extent of my mundane potential and channeled it into my weapon. The moment I touched down, I slammed the heel of my staff into the deck and depressed the scythe’s top button.
A colossal surge of arcane power lanced into the rift. Instinct took over. I blended into the flow and, with a roar, bent it to my will.
“Troh a’ lùthse ain mi sealbģh (By the power invested in me),
“etom An a’ Satanas aínim (and in the name of Satan),
“ràchaîs bi fádh etom Ilfrinn bi aiseghd! (be gone, and hell be restored!)”
The vault above thundered in response to my command, and lightning split the air. My whole body became encompassed in bands of violet and golden augury. And as I hung transfixed in midair, the ground below me shook, and the teeming winds above the city were sucked inward from all points of the compass.
A tornado formed.
Undaunted, I redirected the sustaining essence of the underverse, pouring it down through my core and into the invading breach. The Phage beckoned, and I teetered on the edge of manifestation.
A glittering bubble ballooned away from me, huge and expanding exponentially. It grew in all directions until it encompassed the entire Icepiccadilly area in a shimmering corona of cabbalistic might.
No sooner had my countermeasure solidified than the upheaval ground to a halt. Deprived of whatever energy had sustained it, the menace retreated; the edges of the fissure grumbled and groaned their way back together. Soon, even the tremors died away.
A subliminal pop signaled the release of transcendent pressure.
Caught unprepared, I fell to my knees, momentarily overcome with nausea and weakness. I scanned my essence and took stock.
The outcome was exasperating. Although I had prevailed, the effort had cost me dearly.
Idiot! You failed to manifest again.
Nimrod came sprinting across the rubble. Before he could reach me, the atmosphere between us shimmered, turned gray, then bloomed outward like a convex viewing glass.
The face of Lucifer himself, in beatific form, appeared within the ocular. His eyes, however, betrayed his anger, and flashed like the fangs of a cobra.
“Well played, my Reaper!” Satan’s voice boomed across the expanse of the square. The afflicted and ordinary damned citizens alike fell to their knees, cowering in fear. “I sensed the incursion the moment it began. I was gratified to witness the fortitude of one of my most vigorous subjects, and your unreserved commitment to defending my realm. If only more were like you, I could rest easier on my coals.”
“Majesty,” I acknowledged.
“You need not concern yourself further with this attack. Not for now, at any rate. Samael will investigate the circumstances behind it and devise an appropriate response. However, I am aware your Hounds are currently engaged in enquiries elsewhere. If there’s the slightest indication that the two events are connected, let me know immediately, and we can revise our strategy. Understood?”
“Of course. It will be done.”
The heat of His Infernal Majesty’s gaze washed across the crowd once more.
“Let this be a lesson to you all,” he growled. “Weakness and cowardice incurs my eternal wrath; bravery, my benevolent gratitude.”
His visage wavered and disappeared. As it did so, a coruscating ribbon of Bãlefire shot out from the vortex, striking me square in the chest.
Surrounded by a maelstrom of swirling, vital energy, I felt my entire being expand and then mesh with the animated tincture of infernity made manifest. Its resonance produced the highest high I could ever experience. Sadly, it was also far too brief.
As the helix contracted, the trailing edges of the plasma ribbon leached into every extremity of my body. Air exploded from my lungs, and the intensity of the rush left me twitching.
“He saved us,” one of the survivors shouted.
“Yes, you saved us all,” another joined in.
“Thank Purgatory for that,” said a third.
“Stop!” I snapped. “I don’t want or need your thanks. I didn’t do it for you. It’s my nature to protect Satan’s name and reputation. You just got lucky.”
The crowd around me grew larger; I looked to Nimrod for support.
“Nevertheless,” the first voice continued, “what you did kept us all alive.”
As if obeying some unspoken command, the gathering throng began to slither, stagger, and hobble forward to surround me. I stood up in an effort to look more frightening and put them off. It didn’t work.
“Thank you, Reaper.”
“Satan save you.”
“Hex you, Reaper, hex you.”
“Be careful what you say.” I raised my voice. “All praise must go to our Awful Father. And I’ve already told you, I don’t want —”
“How can we ever repay you?” wondered an elderly mutant standing right next to me.
Hello?
I peered closer at the wretched little fellow and saw the result of a failed chimera experiment: He had the face of a man but his skin had liquefied in some obscene way, so that it hung from his skull in rivulets that gave the appearance of melted wax. Weedy avian arms and legs poked out from an alpine bib and brace set. He cut a pathetic figure, hopping from one foot to the other, wringing a bright blue cap between his twiglike fingers.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I want to know how we can repay you,” he repeated. “Directly, indirectly, it matters not. You saved us. We may be the lowest of the low, but we have our pride and always pay our debts.” He extended his claw. “My name is Obadiah. At your service.”
I shook the proffered limb.
This guy has balls. “Now you come to mention it, Obadiah, we’re not actually here for the show. My friend and I require the services of the Oracle and need —”
“Ah, the Hyde Price,” he cut in, “of course, of course. Please follow me.�
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Obadiah led us toward a separate cluster of caravans and stalls congregated near the entrance to Gashouse Street. Because of their location at the extremity of the Circus environs, they had escaped the recent chaos with only minimal damage.
We drew closer, and I could pick out the various features of this part of the camp. To my left, a female hoopy was busy hanging gaily-colored washing from a makeshift line strung between a cart’s wheel and the nearest shop, Bombs & Ignoble. Several younger ones sat nearby, on adjacent chamber pots. Trousers down, they were grinning at each other and eating highly laxative sticks of candy flush, obtained from one of the funfair’s vendors. I wasn’t sure, but from the way they were acting, they appeared to be engaged in a contest to see how long they could hold out before submitting to the bowel-loosening effects of their treats.
Typical; even in hell, boys will be boys.
I had to physically drag Nimrod along behind me, otherwise he would have stayed to watch until the bitter, pan-filling end.
At a stall just outside the caravan to my right, another elderly hobgoblin was braiding the nostril hairs of a fellow mutant, adorning each strand with a row of brightly-colored beads. Next to them, a distinguished-looking boglin was fashioning the most delicate little charms from lumps of freshly plucked earwax. Had I not seen them made before my eyes I’d never have guessed their origins, for each one was encrusted in moon dust and sparkled like the stars in a night sky.
We stopped outside a small pavilion, and Obadiah disappeared inside. He soon re-emerged carrying a small glass ball.
He explained: “Just over a year ago, I heard the Oracle was given a childlike mannequin by a grateful customer. As you know, youngsters are rare in the underworld, and such were the intricacies of the doll’s design that the Oracle came to view it as his prized possession. In fact, he has grown to love it as if it were his own offspring and, over the past thirteen months or so, has sought to instill in it the many qualities of true life. In anticipation of future revenue, we at the Cirque du Freak have bent our arts toward creating the perfect accompaniments to his desires.”
Hell Bound (Heroes in Hell) Page 31