“So then you decide some people have to die?” said Wodan.
“It’s not like that! Let me finish.” Vachs tore off his glasses, blinked tiny eyes that he glued to the floor. “A man goes his whole life full of dreams. And as you grow old, my boy, you find out it becomes impossible to make any dream a reality. There are simply too many people against you. But I… I wanted to come to a place where I could make my dreams come true. Where I could make a wish - a reality! It’s the same with all men, I’m no different, only I climbed better than the others. Only I saw the shadow-play on the cave walls of the Senate, at the dinner parties, in the drawing rooms of influential men. Only I went farther than they could... and they hated me for it.
“And politics was perfect for me,” he said, changing his tone lightly. “As lonely as it was, the higher I rose, the closer I came to my ideal - to make a wish and reality coincide! Others beneath me, how they shouted and cried out to one another on the Senate floor. Demanding, begging, threatening. And how I could whisper a thing, just whisper it, into the right ear - and I always knew the right ears - and suddenly, men would rush here, men would rush there, would fall over themselves and sell out in any way they could in order to accommodate my whims. Statecraft is the highest art, young man, and I am the master artist.”
“So there were people you wanted to wish away?” said Wodan. “Is that why you set up the exile? Was Peter Remus the main target?”
“If you want to state it like that... in a manner of speaking, yes. Yes, yes! On all counts! Peter Remus was a buffoon, a stuffed-suit that the Stone Warren was going to throw at me in a desperate effort to get rid of me. Remus was like a child, the Warren boys would kiss his ass one minute and he thought he was the king of the world, then they’d chide him on one point and he’d fall to pieces trying to be what they wanted him to be. The fool never had a chance of winning against me as Minister-”
“Then why have him exiled?”
“Okay, alright, he did have a chance. There’s a lot of provincial, backwards, religious sentiment coming out of the laborers these days. But... I wasn’t going to let him have his chance.”
“So you wished him away?”
“I made a wish and he disappeared,” said Vachs. His eyes darted to the big red book at the far side of the room.
“What’s that?” said Wodan.
“Uh.”
Wodan recognized the book, said, “You got it from my friend Agmar when you were trying to get Rachek’s red diary, didn’t you?”
Vachs nodded.
“Tell me about that,” said Wodan.
“It’s nothing, really... a side issue. She said she’d written a lot of foolish things in there. Private matters concerning our relationship, which I didn’t want people talking about. They ended up finding out, anyway. And in the end it didn’t matter. The affair, well, you know, it didn’t matter that people knew.”
“But you had her killed anyway?”
Vachs nodded.
“Say it!” Wodan screamed. “Out loud!”
“Yes! I had her killed. She was bothersome!”
“Just like you killed Seaver and the Jebedians. And you had the Hell Hounds set up to be killed, too, by Third Force Guardians who would “discover” that taped footage. They were all bothersome.”
“I wished them away,” said Vachs, forcing laughter. “Guess I’m the worst man in the world, eh? Just everything you hate, all neatly packaged in the body of one person. You hypocrite!” Vachs leaned forward, screwing his little eyes into Wodan’s. “Do you have any idea how many political dissidents have died under less progressive administrations than mine? How many petty drug dealers?! Who are you to judge me? You’re a blood-hungry murderer!”
“This isn’t about liberals and conservatives to me,” said Wodan, ice in his voice. “People have died unjustly at the hands of every sort of government imaginable. The two of us can’t be compared. I’ve never sent someone else to do my killing for me.”
Udo hunched over Cramer and held his head gently.
“Anyway,” said Wodan. “Let’s talk about me, the murderer, the exile. I want to know, Aegis, why you chose the particular people that you did. Peter Remus makes some sense. Why the others?”
Vachs leaned back, smiling sickly. “I was just one of the conspirators. You haven’t gotten us all, boy. You’ll have to ask the other conspirator if you want the rest of the story.”
* * *
The Reavers lifted Yarek, then placed their homemade stretcher under him. All at once his mouth twisted into a snarl. He opened his eyes painfully.
“You guys still alive?” he said. “We win this war yet?”
One smacked his helm and the visor shot up. “We’re fine, man. And no, we haven’t.”
They heard a loud booming across the avenue, then felt the earth shaking. They turned and watched the intersection. Yarek lifted his head weakly, blood draining from his face.
A great red dragon rounded the corner. It braced its shoulder against a building, shattering half a dozen windows. It glared at them through the darkness. Blood splashed down onto the streets in thick lines and splattered in heavy puddles.
A Reaver cursed loudly.
“Take him down just like we did the other one,” said Yarek, eyelids drooping heavily.
* * *
We are some of the oldest among the beings who rule this world. There is no more seed left to create more of our kind. We are worthy of a worship even beyond that deserved by the rest of our kindred.
We were passed over for the gathering of the Coagulation, the growing tide of the two great armies who will usher in a new aeon. We are unique and ancient and powerful, and this spared us conscription in that gathering. We are not fodder.
But we took part in this emergency invasion. We failed to drive them to extinction, for now, but we have done great things. We have bloodied their psyches and the nightmare of knowing that we exist will never give them rest. The great battle is over. The siege has begun.
Now - it is time for us to leave.
* * *
The Reavers produced what weapons they had and covered the body of their fallen leader. The dragon’s wings lifted, blowing dust and snow that covered the fighters. The wings flapped, spraying great bucketfuls of blood. The red dragon rose, then disappeared into the darkness above.
“Look at that bitch run,” Yarek wheezed. “He must’ve heard about the Reavers.”
* * *
Barkus stalked about the field of dead Ugly, boots squelching in thick goo. He glared at the remains of blasted white armor. Ugly ran back and forth carrying loads from an armory to several grounded zeppelins. The Smith navigator, radio man, and warmaster oversaw, shouting and twitching nervously.
“The dragons are leaving!” shrieked the radio man. “Gods below, they’re actually leaving us!”
“Big surprise,” said Barkus, smiling genuinely. “Didn’t see that one coming!”
Pale-faced and round-eyed, the radio man dropped his headphones, said, “And there’s tons of units pouring in from the west, slamming into Heffer’s men! They’re... aw, blast it all, a handful of enemy airships are coming in from the east, dropping our zeppelins at the center. They... I don’t know how, but they can apparently see our units in the dark!”
An Ugly warrior ran up to Barkus, sweat streaming down his face. He saluted with a hand covered in blood, then said, “Sir! Looks like we’ve loaded up the last of the tech and the weapons.”
One Smith rolled up his map, nodded to the radio man, said, “Let’s get out of here, then, Barkus.”
Barkus unholstered one of the massive handguns at his side, said, “Wait a minute - does this gun look clean to you?” and, swinging around, he blasted the Smith straight in the face. Chunks of raw ground beef sprayed from the man’s hollowed head as he fell backwards.
“Barkus, you - !” screamed the navigator. Hopping sideways, he awkwardly drew a submachine gun.
Barkus unholstered his other gun, p
ointed them both at the man, and fired. The Smith leaped into the air, landed, and spasmed in a death- twitch.
The radio man raised both arms, said, “I w-w-won’t say anything about the tech!”
“Of course you won’t!” said Barkus, blasting off both of the man’s arms. He fell backwards, howling. An Ugly nearby whooped, rushed over, drew his knife, and ground it into the Smith’s neck.
“God damn Smiths pricks,” said Barkus, turning to the zeppelins. His men cheered loudly.
Barkus climbed a rope ladder and clambered onto the deck of his ship. The heat of the fires welled up overhead, then the ship shook and lifted under him. He watched the foothills shrink beneath him. He was leaving Haven again. He was wiser than before and less disappointed with the world. No longer betrayed, moaning about his fate. Now, he was a betrayer himself. He was filled with a certain lightness, an almost-painful buoyancy. “Those who seek to save their lives, shall lose them,” he quoted. “And those who seek to lose their lives shall find eternal life.”
He thought of Heffer for a moment.
“We must live by the demon’s example,” he said quietly. “You were right, brother.”
He felt at the scars around his mouth, felt the shape of a smile.
It felt so real!
* * *
The two remaining dragons glided over the mountains. The sea stretched out before them. The long, serpentine dragon felt the tickling communication in his mind and understood what was happening. He flew ahead of his lagging brother.
The red dragon flapped his wings slower, slower. Wavered left, then right. Saw the sea ahead, then saw dancing black spots. He recalled the face of the boy who had insulted him. The boy had come at him with nothing. The boy had led him to his last battle. He wondered if the boy had been crushed under all that fine marble. He rested his wings. The sea was shining, brilliant, a winding path of endlessly dancing stars. He was oblivious by the time he crashed into the water. His brother flew on.
* * *
Luumis Lamsang climbed up from the basement. The hallway was pitch-black. He had heard the rampage above, the screams of killers and victims. He crouched for hours listening to faraway explosions. He ran a thousand scenarios through his mind but none of them seemed likely. Despite all of his talk about the fall of Haven, none of it seemed real now that the end of the world was apparently in full swing.
Luumis saw still forms lying in the hallway as he crept by quietly. Many doors were open, splintered and cracked. He saw smashed televisions and broken glass glittering past the open doorways. He saw more people lying in the darkness of the silent apartments. In one apartment he saw a naked woman on the floor. He went in and stood over her. Her face was covered in blood, legs twisted awkwardly. He left.
In the lobby, a faint light shone in through the windows. A man propped against a wall stirred suddenly - Luumis leaped away, screaming frantically. He ran outside.
It was dark outside, too, and he was confused about the time of day. He saw a glimmer of blue sky in the distant horizon, but had no idea what that meant. The silence was broken by shouting and feet pounding on the pavement. He turned and saw a dozen armed men in motley armor hauling ass towards him, faces and arms full of scars and tattoos. Luumis did not know it, but the man leading them was Joe Heffer, leader of the Left Arm of the Ugly. His lips were pulled back from his yellow teeth, and his eyes were wild.
Luumis ran back inside the apartment building, leaned against a window, and watched the Ugly run by. So these were the bringers of the end of the world! Suddenly he heard tires squealing so loudly that he thought a car was inside the lobby. A jeep full of Guardians swung around a curve, tearing up the road behind the Ugly. A Guardian manned a heavy machinegun atop the jeep; Luumis watched in fascination as the thing blasted, shaking and eating up a dancing belt of ammunition. The Ugly were thrown up into the air, blood sprayed onto the window before Luumis, then the men slammed into the ground more meat than alive. Heffer screamed a savage battle cry and flung an empty rifle at the jeep as it whirled around. The gunner rotated and fired into Heffer’s torso and blew the side of his head off. A Guardian passenger slapped the side of the jeep, then the driver hit the gas and they all held on as it swung about and flew down the road in another direction.
Luumis was amazed at the sight of the killing. He was horrified, but he also wished he could have watched his bomb go off earlier, just to see what the people would become. He realized that the dying man propped against the wall had been speaking to him; it was the same man who’d caused him to scream earlier.
“What!” Luumis shouted.
The bloodied form shifted, said, “I was sayin’... if they come back, I’d probably play dead, best thing t’do, really...”
Sickened by the idea of listening to the fool ramble on about his ideas and the personal philosophy that guided him through an invasion, Luumis ran back outside. He crouched low over Heffer’s body. Amazing - the man’s clothes, the stuff falling out of his head, the cheap looking tattoos - just amazing, that such a creature could exist. How Haven must be shitting its pants right now, doing everything to preserve its status quo! He saw a blade sheathed at Heffer’s side, gulped, squinted his eyes, and quickly pulled the blade free. He hopped away from the dead man. The blade was long, wide, and notched with gutting marks along one side. It looked ridiculously wicked. Luumis ran back inside.
The man started prattling on the very second Luumis had a foot inside the doorway. And he’d thought this was going to be difficult!
Luumis dashed forward and stuck the blade into the man. He was surprised at how hard the rib cage was, for the blade bounced back immediately. The man jerked, wailing as if he’d actually been hurt. Luumis drove it forward again, tore in between ribs, forced the thing in even though the man was shaking and wailing and throwing his arms about. Grinded the blade in, nearly to the hilt, and even felt the far side of the man’s rib cage. His wails were maddening, intoxicating. He tried to yank the blade free, then the shrill cries redoubled. Luumis dug a foot into the man’s side and yanked, but the blade was caught on something. The man laid his head back, groaned, and threw up onto his own face. Luumis yanked again and, with superhuman effort, he tore the blade free. The sound was sickening and the blade seemed to be covered in snot. Exhausted, he stood over the man as he rolled about feebly, groaning and trying to gather the strength to complain about his problems.
Strangely enough, it took the man well over half an hour to die. Every time Luumis thought he was dead, he would kick him and the man would inevitably groan or cast an arm about feebly. Always the same, stimulus and response. Luumis could not summon any sort of remorse; the longer he watched, the more he despised the man.
He wiped the blade on the man’s leg, then tucked it into the back of his pants. Felt it cold and hard against his ass, reassuring. He left the apartment building and walked along a dark avenue in the direction Heffer had come.
Three Guardians jogging up a side street stopped when they saw him. One pointed a rifle in his direction. Luumis stopped and lifted his hands. The Guardian lowered his rifle.
“What’s going on?” said Luumis, lowering his hands.
“S’incredible!” the Guardian shouted behind his mask. The sudden amiability was like a smack in the face. “All the invaders around the Command Center just got waxed! The dragons left and we were able to line our artillery up and… and we just drilled those invader bastards! It was touch-an’-go, but ol’ Clash, he didn’t sweat it for a second! Cool as hell the whole time, man!”
Dragons? Command Center?
“Zeppelins are comin’ down all over the city! We got gunships zoomin’ around, man, tearin’ the hell outta them bastards!”
“You should go back indoors,” said another Guardian. He waved to the others, and they jogged away.
There probably was not much time left; it looked like he had already missed most of the show. But there was one thing left to do. He would have to hurry.
* *
*
Soft-stringed violettas played inside the bunker, warm and out of place amid Aegis Vachs’s clapping and cruel laughter. Wodan sat down beside the computer, body limp, mind drowning in nightmare-data.
“I think that one got him!” said Vachs, leaning forward and back as he laughed. “Think we got him with that one, Shem, old boy!”
Wodan turned to the computer suddenly, silencing the music and closing down several programs. “Yea-a-ah,” said Wodan, sighing. “Alright, I admit, that was a surprise. You got me. Got me good. Guess there’s one more thing I have to do.”
“Aww, turn the music back on,” Vachs said in mock disappointment. “That was Rigolette’s Second... one of our boy Cramer’s favorite pieces!”
“I just played that stuff randomly,” said Wodan, “because I wanted to distract you from what I was doing at the computer.”
“Come again?”
Wodan unplugged his audio recorder from the computer, said, “I was streaming the feed from my recorder to my family’s web domain and sending the link to as many people and organizations as I could think of.”
“Recorder? Streaming?”
“I was taping your confession and putting it on the datanet. It might now be in your best interest if Haven was wiped out by these invaders.” Wodan stood suddenly, picked up his rifle, and walked toward the exit. “Because if there is a Haven tomorrow, you won’t be a part of it.”
Vachs leaped up, fists shaking at his sides. He took a quick step forward, then stopped. His mouth bent horribly, and he screamed, “Who do you think you are? Fucking Girardo?!”
[Demonworld #2] The Pig Devils Page 27