Demon Venom: Sometimes, humans are worse than demons (Beneath the Flesh Book 2)

by Alex Kings

  Now the questions was, should he actually get some demon flesh for her? He hadn't lied about his chances – he did have contacts, people indebted to him, and he might be able to convince one of them to get what Jess wanted.

  The upside was that she'd trust him even more.

  The downside was that, like everyone else, he was to occupied with the crisis. Both planning it and keeping himself safe from it. He'd managed to drop a few words here and there to make sure no Dale-supporters were on the salvage or driving shifts, and he'd correctly guessed that this would rile them.

  Why? Because it was more interesting that way.

  But he'd also been covering his back. He'd talked to a few of Dale's people – the more sensible ones. He'd let them know that even though he was working for Mason, he'd have no problem switching sides if the coup was successful; he might even help them along. He had some connections, after all.

  All of which meant, if violence did break out, as he was hoping it would, he was less likely to be a target.

  And in case that didn't work, he worked out a quick escape route towards the vans, and organised things so it's be easier for him to get hold of the keys.

  It was a busy time, a delicate plan. He suspected that risking himself trying to get demon flesh might risk it by making things too complicated.

  That was it, then. He wouldn't try and get the flesh. It was too much risk, even for the reward of getting Jess closer.

  Chapter 14

  The great hall was packed. Many people had come as soon as they could, shaving a few minutes off the end of their shifts wherever possible. Jess and Luke arrived early, but it seemed like already half the population of the compound had got there before them.

  Mason was waiting on stage. Along with her were some of the town's administrators – and, to the side on two chairs sat Dale's thug, Mike; and the loader, James.

  All this for a fight, thought Jess. There had been fights before – maybe once every couple of months, and from what she'd heard, a lot more often during the compound's early days. They were usually ignored. A couple of times in the past something worse had happened – extreme violence or murder – and Mason had been forced to pull together a skeletal justice system to determine what to do to the aggressor. The usual result had been exile, which, with the demons outside, was all but a death sentence.

  But this was just a fight.

  The trouble lay in what it represented – a schism. It wouldn't fade away if ignored. It would fester. Mason was smart enough to see this.

  A couple minutes past ten, Mason stood and walked to the front of the stage. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “Here's the formal statement: This morning we're going to discuss the fight that broke out between James Harrison and Michael Green, and the events and accusation that led up to that fight. We will not be discussing the merits of my style of administration.”

  A voice came from the crowd: “Why not?” It was Dale.

  Mason fixed him briefly with a glare, but didn't reply. “First,” she went on, “I want everyone to get an accurate picture of the fight. Can everyone here who witnessed it come forward?”

  Jess raised her hand. So did Luke. They squeezed forward through the crowd to the front of the stage.

  Once they were there, they stood beside the five others who had seen the fight.

  “Okay,” said Mason, “first of all – do you all agree everyone standing with you also saw the fight?”

  They did.

  “Good. Now I want each of you to give a brief account of the fight. The seven witnesses, then Mike and James. Do not interrupt someone else's story. Do not accuse anyone of lies. We'll root out inconsistencies afterwards.”

  So they went down the line, each explaining to the gathered crowd what they'd seen. There were, as far as Jess could tell, no outright lies. The basic elements remained the same: James and Mike had been seen arguing; the witnesses had gathered and asked them what was going on; Mike had got heated; James had hit him; Mike had retaliated; one of the witnesses had pulled him away.

  But then there were the variations. The ones which made it look like Mike had been having a friendly argument when James hit him without provocation. The ones which made it look like James had hit him just for being a Dale supporter. On her turn Jess tried to give an honest account, but she noticed Luke's was significantly more slanted in favour of James. Coming in at the end, Mike and James, of course, each pushed the story to make themselves look better.

  By the end of it, several of the people onstage were giving each other – and her – some dark looks.

  With the accounts finished, Mason stepped forward again. “Thank you. Could the witnesses return to the audience please?” They did so, and she continued: “I think we all agree, then, that, justified or not, James was aggressor here. In Paradise we have a strong precedent of ignoring minor outbreaks of violence, but since this seems to be a special case it might be time to break precedent. Mike, step forward please. Would you like to bring this to a formal tribunal or not?”

  Mike came to the front of the stage. He seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he said, “Yes.”

  Mason nodded formally. She began to speak when Mike kept going:

  “Not for me, but because I think we have been far too lax for far too long!”

  That, Jess realised, was not the sort of thing Mike would usually say. That was a politician's way of phrasing things. That, she guessed, was Andrew Dale talking to Mike beforehand and telling what to say. As a gambit, it worked perfectly: It pushed a key aspect of Dale's agenda, made it look reasonable, and did so before Mason could do anything about it.

  Mason was silent for a fraction of a second. Apart from a brief glare, she seemed to take it in her stride: “Very well. That's your right. We will organise a tribunal.”

  A shout from the audience. Dale again: “With a balanced jury,”

  This time Mason did respond: “The jury will be openly and randomly selected.” She straightened up a little. “The next issue I want to move on to is the grievance that led to the fight. In case anyone hasn't heard it, the claim is that no open supporters of Andrew Dale were placed on the salvage or van teams. Is there anyone other than Mike who wants to contend this?”

  A smattering of hands went up, amongst them two of her fellow witnesses. Maybe thirty people, Jess supposed. Not a big fraction of the population, but still a worrying number.

  When Mason selected one of them, the man say, “Actually, I think Mr. Dale could explain it better than me.”

  “Does anyone else want Mr Dale to argue the issue?” said Mason.

  Again, thirty or so hands.

  “Very well.”

  Dale was already making his way forward. Without being asked, he climbed the steps to the stage, and stood facing Mason. There were a few isolated cheers. “As you asked,” he announced loudly, addressing Mason but speaking to everyone, “I won't focus on our political differences here.” He made it sound like he was being gracious.

  Dale went on, in full speech mode: “We all know that the most prestigious shifts on the roster are van drivers and now, with the crisis on, salvage teams. Just look at how much acclaim two of our own, Luke Bishop and Jessica Monet, received on their recent, brave salvage trip to restock our medical supplies. Now, listen closely. I'm not saying the other shifts – repairs, guard duty, and so forth – aren't important. Not at all. They're very important. But inevitably, people on the salvage teams and van shifts put themselves in extreme danger to benefit the community.”

  “Get on with it,” Jess murmured under her breath.

  After a pause to catch his breath. Dale continued, “Now, doesn't it seem a bit strange, that just as questions are rising about Mason's leadership, just as we wonder about her role in the crisis, everyone who has openly voiced an opposing viewpoint has been excluded from these roles?

  “Now, I'm not saying that the mayor herself has gone to the trouble. Nor anyone on her team. But I think it has occurred to som
eone along the line that if they keep us out of the way, then when they succeed in making a trade route or bringing back something interesting then her supports will get the credit. And her opposition will get none.” He put on an expression of almost righteous anger. “It's a manipulative and underhand action, like everything else she's done.”

  Applause from a fraction of the audience. Jeers from another.

  “Thank you,” said Mason, not sounding thankful at all. “Now, would anyone involving in making the rosters like to offer a reply?”

  From there the argument went on for another hour. Various people pointed out, Like Richard had done, that there were only a few salvage and driving shifts, and how easy it was for Dale supporters to get excluded by sheer chance.

  Jess herself took the stage once, and argued that this debate was diving everyone up into two camps when they really needed to be working together, and that Dale seemed to be taking advantage of the crisis to score political points. This last argument earned some booing.

  After things went back and forth a bit more, it was suggested that Dale supporters would be explicitly included in the next salvage and driving teams. Others argued back that this would be unfair – in fact, it would overrepresent Dale supports in the “prestigious” positions.

  They reached the end of the argument with no clear position, except that Dale supporters would almost certainly be included in some of the positions they wanted. This was a solutions which pleased no one, so that was the one chosen.

  Finally, in the last fifteen minutes, a tribunal for James was planned for the following day. By then the crowd was beginning to shrink, and brief waves of mingled excitement and worry were passing through the rest. Important as the debate was, it had gone long enough to bore most of the participants, and there was something new and even more important on the horizon. The van from Ironbridge was due to return in the next couple of hours, bearing either salvation or bad news.

  Or perhaps it wouldn't return at all. Perhaps it had been lost. This wasn't likely, but living after the fall you got used to expecting such failures.

  At the end, the hall's remaining crowd – about half of those who had been there at the beginning – filed out into the sunlight.

  An hour, maybe two, maybe three to fill before the van came in. Some went back to work, to get as much of their shifts done as they could to make up for the hours they'd lost in the hall. Jess didn't; she'd done all the work she could before the van arrived, and even prepped in case of failure.

  Instead, after Luke had gone to guard duty, she walked around the outer compound. Without really wanting to, she began to think about the future. The van. If Ironbridge did agree to trade, then they probably wouldn't go to Goat's Head. Too far away. If they didn't, the crisis would get worse. And Goat's Head might turn them down anyway.

  She sighed and headed towards the front gates.

  Chapter 15

  The van had been due to arrive for an hour. People milled about by the front gates or the loading bay, uncertain. They were caught between the excitement that the van would turn up any second now and worry that it wouldn't turn up at all. The eight people on guard duty, Luke among them, sat around on the pavement playing cards. They were divided into two groups – a larger one of Mason supports, including Luke – and a couple of others who supported Dale. Another two guards, standing at the top of the two lookouts above the wall, remained silent.

  More time passed. An hour and a quarter. The guards on lookout changed places with some of those on the ground. Jess wandered away, then came back, not wanting to miss the arrival if there was one. She joined in a card game with the guards for a while, talked to Luke a bit, then went back to waiting.

  After an hour and a half, she was about to leave again, when there came a shout from the top of the lookout. “It's here! It's coming!” The other guard on lookout confirmed this, and suddenly there was a flurry of activity. The guards on the ground grabbed their guns and readied them. Everyone else retreated to a safe distance, prepared to come and see the answer at soon as they could.

  The great metal gates were unbolted with a clanks and opened with a squeal. The soldiers with their guns readied stood prepared at the van drove in, and the gates were closed behind it.

  The soldiers held their guns steady while they checked under the van in case any demons were hiding there. None were, and the van was declared clean. Jess and the others moved forward so they could hear the result.

  The driver slowly opened the door and climbed out. He looked around the crowd.

  Jess could tell in an instant what the answer was:

  “It's a no. Ironbridge aren't going to trade with us.”

  *

  With that answer, it was Jess's cue to start working again. The letter to Goat's Head was written. The initial list of goods to offer in the first van was written up. The route was plotted out on the map. She's already prepared for the disappointment – the plans just needed to be put into motion.

  Was it a disappointment? She wondered. Had she been secretly hoping Ironbridge would turn them down so she could legitimately and honestly get a letter to Goat's Head?

  She didn't know, and pushed the question from her mind.

  In the first quarter hour she had got the goat ahead from Mason for her plans, and sent out requests for the van to be reloaded.

  Then she hurried down to the infirmary. Patel was already there, waiting for her.

  “I heard the news,” Patel said. She reached into an inner pocket of her coat and pulled out an envelope. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks,” said Jess. She paused for a moment, unsure of what to do. To just run off, all businesslike, seemed too cold. “Really, I mean it.”

  “I know,” said Patel, smiling kindly. “Now go do what you need to.”

  Jess walked briskly back to the office. The envelope was addressed to a Doctor Black, with a subheading, “personal message”. She slipped it into a larger envelope which contained her letter to Goat's Head, then took the larger envelope to the van.

  And hour after it had arrived from Ironbridge, the van was ready to leave again. Jess stood, watching it.

  Luke was still on guard duty while the gates were opened and van driven out. Jess waited while the gates were closed, and for a few minutes while Luke finished up his shift. Then he walked over to her.

  “Did you get the letter on board?” he asked.

  It took her a moment to process this. “Of course I did.”

  “Just making sure.”

  “What, did you think I wouldn't bother, or something?”

  “I … I'm not sure,” Luke admitted.

  Jess said nothing. She had no argument – she'd made decisions behind his back before, after all. Some she still hadn't told him about. He was right do doubt her.

  She looked out to the wall, imagining the van, driving ahead with two separate requests for help, and wondered what the response would be.

  Chapter 16

  It's stuck. It knows by now it can't go forward, but it can't go back either. It keeps working only because it doesn't know what else to do.

  It should be finished by now, but it hasn't managed to change more than a tenth of the local life. It shudders at the knowledge of its failure, but no matter how hard it works it can't seem to get any further.

  Jess is there now. She understands. She tries to reach out to it, but it doesn't notice her. She tries again; still nothing. It's too far gone to talk – it'll keep working until it dies.

  *

  Jess woke again, covered in sweat and mind filled with fog. For a moment she wondered where she was.

  Work – work. The word kept going through her head. What was work? Then, as a fragment of memory, it came to her: The work was rebuilding.

  Rebuilding the life of Earth into something else.

  Into demons.

  She sat up in her bed and ran her hand through her hair, thinking it through. If her dreams were correct, then, it meant that for all the damage
demons had done, the process was broken. Unfinished. Well, of course it was unfinished – humanity was still alive, wasn't it?

  And maybe that meant there was a way of stopping it.

  A thought flickered through her: Should it be stopped? Look at how people behaved, even on the edge of extinction – Foxglove Compound scrabbling for higher prices, Andrew Dale trying to force a coup for his own power. Wasn't it time something else deserved a try?

  She squashed the thought immediately. What a terrible idea – of course humans deserved to live, and the demons had to be stopped.