Maria could not speak. In her mouth she held some of the orange, gel-like gruel she had been served in a bowl by one of the human mess hall workers. She tried to smile at Russ, rubbing her belly and wagging her head as if to indicate she didn’t feel well. Concern flashed into his face and he stepped aside to let her pass.
"Are you going to be sick?" When she nodded, he asked, "Can I help you?"
She shook her head, patted him on the arm as she moved forward again (hoping he didn’t take the contact as having flirtatious meaning) and left her would-be beau behind.
It was not unrealistic for him to believe she might be ill. In Hell, there were microscopic Demons, or at least infernal creatures, that could infest, infect, cause grief to the Damned. Maria knew this well; from the irregular holes rotted open in the walls on the 53rd floor of this building, she had been able to look outside at a narrow building that reminded her of a spinal column, in which these viruses were manufactured by other workers like herself.
"Hope you feel better!" he called after her.
When Hell freezes over, she thought.
She had walked only a few steps when she heard Russ cry out in alarm and pain. Turning, she saw that a Caliban had loomed up behind him and seized him in its pincers. One of his wrists, pinned, was half severed and jetting blood. Another pincer had ripped his trousers down, while a third was closed around his genitals as if to masturbate or castrate. The weight of the immense body doubled him over and the creature was no doubt entering him.
"What is your sin?" the Demon wheezed.
Russ and Maria held their eye contact. Russ looked more ashamed than in pain. Maria was ashamed, too, that there was nothing she could do for him. She knew the next time they met he would be physically healed, at least…and she knew they would not discuss this.
As she left him behind, she heard the Demon grunt more demandingly, "What is your sin?"
We have forsaken our Father, Maria thought. And He has forsaken His children, the ultimate deadbeat dad.
««—»»
There were more people in the sleep chamber than there had been yesterday, when she had retired without a trip to the mess hall first. Many of the orifices were already occupied, like eggs filled with termites that would hatch tomorrow to take to their labors. She climbed up the rib-like ridges that protruded between two columns of the elliptical hollows, and then ducked into her own in the third tier.
Against the back wall of her sleep space, her spare uniform lay crumpled up. And that crumpled heap was subtly moving, like the heap of gelatin had been yesterday.
Maria pulled aside her clothing to reveal the larval Demon lying on the glassy hard surface beneath it. Its eyes shifted toward her, held her gaze, blinking. Its fingers plucked and kneaded at the air. Her eyes trailed down to its puny genitalia; it was a boy.
She pinched the infant boy’s nostrils shut. The creature’s squirming became more pronounced, and she was afraid he would cry out. So far, he hadn’t cried or made any loud sounds. In fact, even his soft burbling sounds had decreased over the hours of her rest period, which made Maria both relieved and concerned. Was he making less sounds because he was content, or because he was ailing, growing weak?
The thought of clamping her free hand over his mouth came into her mind. The Damned were immortal, so that they might suffer through eternity. The Demons could perish. The Demons were only machines, so to speak. This diabolic cherub was at her mercy. He was one of the many genera of her tormentors. And her torments might be increased in severity if she was found to have been hiding him. He was the enemy…
Last night, she had considered smuggling him out of this room and abandoning him in some little-used corridor, or in the space between two machines, and leaving him to the Fates. But there were no Fates, just Demons, and if they found him they’d kill him to further the factory recall, or genocide, of his species.
So what if they killed him? So what?
But it was because they’d want to kill him that she hadn’t killed him. Though still a Demon, he was now something kindred to her.
Maria pinched his nose, but didn’t cover his mouth. His mouth opened in a disgruntled gasp, and leaning over him, she drooled the orange, citrus-flavored gruel out of her own mouth into his, like a bird feeding her winged but flightless chick.
««—»»
One could still dream in Hades. Sometimes, Maria dreamed of Los Dias de Muertos. Markets filled with flaming marigolds and family crypts in pastel shades. Seeing through the eyes of a plastic ghost or ghoul or devil mask. Rows of sugar skulls with sequin eyes. Sometimes, in her dreams, Maria imagined these skulls were the heads of Demons waiting to be attached to their bodies, and come alive. The bread called pan de muerto. Edible crucifixes, in a kind of communion…
Sometimes, Maria would dream of paging through the blood-soaked tabloid Alarma! and seeing photos of her own raped and murdered corpse there for the entertainment of the masses.
Tonight, she dreamed of sneaking out of her mausoleum nook…of stealing down the curved wall of the sleep chamber…of creeping out into the maze of hallways with a bundle tight against her breasts.
She dreamed of climbing staircase after staircase, or scrambling up ladders, or mounting inclined ramps, until at last she had reached the 53rd floor of the structure she worked and lived her undead life in. The level—perhaps near the top, perhaps only halfway up—where great, irregular holes had rotted open in the resin-like, semi-organic walls. Holes looking out upon the immensity of the Demon city, Tartarus, where winds whistled or wailed between the tightly packed skyscrapers of bone, winds which set her long black hair flapping as she neared the lip of one such opening.
She uncovered the face of the infant in her arms, and he gazed up at her dumbly. Not crying, not cooing. She had no idea what thoughts, if any, breathed in his head. Would his interrupted progress resume? Would he mature to an adult, or remain at this stage forever? Though he would be helpless out in the world of the underworld, she found the latter possibility agreeable. That he should remain an eternal innocent.
Maria unwrapped the creature’s swaddling, and as if he guessed her purpose, his wings began to flex and fan. She held him under his arms, held him up at the level of her face. For a moment, she almost kissed his bare belly, where there was a navel though it had never had an umbilicus fed into it. But she didn’t kiss the white flesh, instead turned the infant in her hands to face the city sprawling beyond. She stepped closer to the rim. She held him higher aloft. Her arms slipped out into the biting wind of the air, beyond the lip of the wound. And then, she let him go.
She was afraid he might plummet, but he did not. Instinctually, his wings began to beat so quickly, like those of an insect or hummingbird, that he was buoyed up, and the currents of air howling through the canyons of skyscrapers did much of the work. Up, he rose, and up. Out over the darkness of unseen depths below. Up and into the mist between two particularly gargantuan edifices…until he was lost from sight. Until he was free.
In a building so close to hers they were practically conjoined, she saw a figure in one of the windows. A witness to her act. But just as the figure turned away, she recognized who it was and became less afraid. She knew that her father would not betray her this time.
««—»»
When she awoke and uncovered the Demon larva beside her, she found he had expired while she was asleep, his lids half closed over his already clouded eyes.
Maria did not stir for a long time. She was almost late to work because of it. But at last, she covered his head again under her spare uniform…and this she carried with her to work as she often did, so that she might wash it in one of the basin-like recesses in the shower chamber when her shift was over.
She waited until there were no patrolling Demon guards or supervisors in view. She waited even until Patty, her co-worker, had briefly left to roll in another cart loaded with bottles of maggots. Then, swiftly, she dragged out her bundle from under the conveyor belt. Unwrapped
it…took the immobile, rubbery little body in her hands…and dropped it into the next open mold. Then, she poured the contents of one jug of maggots over that. She watched the mold be borne away along its track.
Today they were making Calibans. Would the human-like Demon live on, in some sense, in the body of a new Demon despite its different form? Or had her act been purely one of defiance? Would the Caliban born from this mold be more human, like those rebellious Demons who were being hunted down and cleansed from existence…or would this new Caliban one day rape his own mother?
When Patty returned with the cart she became concerned for Maria, touched her arm. She told Maria she had never seen her cry before. But Maria laughed a little, and touched her arm in turn, and they resumed their work.
««—»»
It was not Russ’ turn to guard at the entrance to the women’s showers today, but Maria sought him out in the mess hall, and found him, seated herself directly to his left. He turned and looked a little surprised to see her there. Her smile made his rising shame over the other day drop away again.
"Hi," she said to him.
"Hi," he said, sounding a little confused at her open tone. Maria had always been reserved with him, her smiles polite, not showing teeth. Now she smiled more warmly at him.
She stole her hand under the long table they sat at, and rested it upon his own hand.
Russ’ uncertain smile grew, as well. But now it was his turn to avert his eyes shyly. He didn’t withdraw his hand from hers, however; instead, curled his fingers around it.
They ate like that, side by side. Almost like a husband and wife. Almost like parents at their supper table.
Black Wings
The palace was called Urian, though amongst themselves the Demons liked to joke that it was Castle Urine. It was a great square block worked from a single stone, its luridly red-orange surface pocked and pitted as pumice, with no towers, no carven decorations, just far-spaced slits for windows and only a single door. This red cube rested at the heart of a desert of red sand, and on the rare occasion that it rained, the scarlet powder would reveal itself to be dehydrated blood, and would liquefy, become a sludgy mud flat of gore. From the desert sprouted a dense forest of bare, tree-like growths as white as coral. The surfaces of these coral trees were so rough that to rub against them was to draw blood, like the rasping skin of a shark. Their leafless, lifeless arms wove jagged thickets of bone that had never worn flesh.
There was a path through the coral reef, however, that ran to the door of the castle. From one of the narrow windows, the Demon named Xaphan peeked out at the approach of the carriage that was delivering Urian’s latest guests. The carriage itself was a featureless, black iron globe between two huge wheels, pulled by a harnessed team of two dozen naked Damned children, so Xaphan could not as yet spy the guests themselves.
He started as another figure slipped beside him; he had been so intent he hadn’t heard Vjeshitza’s approach. She pressed her face into the crook of his neck, and bit him hard there without breaking his dark skin. While doing so, she held onto his folded wings, which like her own were feathered and black as a crow’s, though the wings did not permit their species of Demon to fly. Xaphan and Vjeshitza both possessed skin of a deep chestnut hue and luster, both of them hairless, even without eyebrows. And both wore no garments. Their only embellishments were black onyx rings pierced through their nipples—and on their upper chests, raised keloids like the healed wounds of a tiger’s slash, four of these tracks above each breast, where they had marked themselves with their retractable talons upon having completed their warrior’s training in the city of Tartarus, where all the Demons in this region of Hell were mass produced before marching to their assigned cities, forts and outposts.
Vjeshitza lifted her face, smiling, and traced her tongue—more tender now—along the rim of Xaphan’s ear. "They’re newly dead," she purred, "and this is their first visit to Hades."
"Their first vacation?" Xaphan snorted. "Are they bored with their celestial pleasures so soon?"
"The man wants to hunt. His wife will be entertained here. Come away now, before you’re seen loitering about. We must all be prepared to serve them."
"I hate when their kind come," he said.
"Shh," hissed Xaphan’s lover, looking over her shoulder in case one of the Baphomets might be near. "You mustn’t appear sullen."
"Should I appear giddy, then? I’m a Demon."
"You should appear dignified, but servile. We must assemble now. They’re almost here." As she withdrew from him, she lightly raked the tips of her mostly-retracted claws across his hard belly, as if to mark him with scars again.
««—»»
The Demon population of Castle Urian gathered in the high-ceilinged entry hall, the ranked warriors with their wings folded, but a few superiors, at attention near the door, with their wings opened in a majestic display. Looming over these Demon officers were the three creatures that presided over Urian, nicknamed Baphomets by the Damned laborers who manufactured them in Tartarus. The Baphomets concealed their pillar-straight forms in black robes, their bodies surmounted with the charred heads of goats, though the white flames that enveloped their skulls radiated cold rather than heat. They never spoke, but the winged Demons could read their meaning in the lapping of their flames.
A heavy, hollow rapping of the outer knocker, and a Demon lunged forward to creak open the black iron door. Into the hall walked a small procession of four white-robed Angels. The Angels were not homunculi like the Demons, but had once been mortal, had died and been resurrected in Heaven. One of them wore a white, starched head covering pointed into a cone, the other three simply with cowls that they slipped off their heads as they entered. Xaphan could see that one of these latter Angels was a woman.
They had met the one with the cone-like headdress before; his name was McDonald, a used car salesman who had died in the 1960s and found employment for himself over the past few decades as a guide leading other Angels on vacation tours through certain areas of Hades. The other three were his current tour group, who one of the Demon officers introduced to the assembly. "These are the brothers Anthony and James Colombo, and James’ wife, Teresa. They will be staying with us for an indeterminate time. During that time, we are all to be at their service."
As one, the assembled Demons gave a deep bow.
The party had strolled further into the hall, slowly, as if to inspect each of the Demons in their rows. They were close enough to Xaphan now that he could hear the Angel named James Colombo snort and comment, "Haven’t they heard of clothes around here? I feel like I walked into National Geographic." Over his shoulder, he said, "Check out their color, Tony. Big surprise, huh?"
Their guide, McDonald, put in, "Well, guys, these aren’t the only sort of Demons. Some look like whites, some like orientals…"
"How politically correct."
"I think they’re beautiful," said Teresa Colombo, who unlike her husband had a British accent, dark and smoky. "In a scary way."
"They’re okay," Anthony opined, flicking the nipple ring of one of the female Demons. Xaphan saw her jaw twitch slightly.
The woman’s husband stopped, turned to her with a cocked eyebrow and said, "You do, huh? Well…they’re not as bad as those things." He gestured openly at one of the towering, immobile Baphomets. Xaphan could tell by the fluctuations in its caul of cold flame that it was displeased by the comment, but he knew it wouldn’t have given voice to its disapproval even if it had had a voice.
"Right," said his wife smartly, spinning to address McDonald, Mick as he insisted on being called. "Mick, can those poor children be unharnessed now from that awful contraption we rode here in, and given some food and water and maybe some rest? I never should have stepped into that thing when I saw what was pulling it."
"Uh, this is Hell, sweetheart," said James. "There’s a good reason for those kids to be here, I’m sure."
"It’s their parents’ fault if they weren’t baptized…"
Uncomfortably, McDonald chuckled and put a hand on her arm. "Don’t worry, Terry—we’ll take care of them. And when you leave, I promise we’ll have a carriage pulled by animals."
"What kind of animals? A team of a hundred kittens with their fur on fire?"
Her brother-in-law laughed. "Whoa, that I’d like to see. Terry, you should be one of the torture designers down here."
The guests were shown off to their opulently-appointed rooms, and the ranks of Demons broke up. Xaphan found Vjeshitza and muttered, "I could devise or administer no greater torture than the smile in an Angel’s voice."
««—»»
While Xaphan and Vjeshitza made love, a sandstorm howled outside. Xaphan hoped the two brothers and Mick were on a hunting excursion at this very moment, and had been caught out in the storm. He pictured them hunkered down in the inadequate shelter of the forest of antler-like bone, covering their faces against the stinging sands of dried blood.
That was the main reason the brothers had come to Hades—to hunt the Damned for sport. Though they had brought their own rifles, custom-made for them in Heaven, Castle Urian opened the doors of its armory to guests, and Xaphan had heard that earlier today the brothers had gone down into the tunnels below the palace to fire crossbows into targets. He didn’t know if the targets were Damned prisoners from the palace’s cells, but he didn’t doubt it. These prisoners were released as hunting stock when the free-ranging Damned outside grew scanty in this area.
Jeffrey Thomas, Voices from Hades Page 3