Beyond the Veil

by Tim Marquitz

  I swallowed hard at the thought just as a tiny clink drew my attention to the floor. A yellowish-white triangle laid there, a couple of thick threads protruding wetly from the flatter end. It took me a second to realize it was a tooth. By then, another had joined the first. Mihheer clutched to Longinus’ wrist as the ex-AC held the alien’s mouth open with magic and was pulling his teeth out one at a time. A gurgled screech accompanied each removal, blood gushing into his throat. It spewed out with every scream, spattering Longinus, but he didn’t seem to care. He spent several minutes de-fanging Mihheer, stopping only when the alien’s mouth was a mountain range of jagged flesh and oozing blood. A pile of teeth sat on the ground next to him.

  Then Longinus moved on. A small piece of the alien’s finger flew past me, dots of blood speckling my sleeve, their warmth sinking in. There was a flash of energy and the smell of charred meat wafted to my nose as Longinus cauterized the wound with his magic. Then another finger bone whirled by. Another followed, and then another. Hiss, rip, pause, hiss, rip, pause: the pattern repeating over and over. All the while Mihheer shrieked, Longinus’ question floated from his lips every few seconds, punctuated by the snap of bone.

  When he’d finished the fingers, the alien still refused to answer, so he went on to the metacarpals, plucking out each bone with vicious precision. He worked to the wrist, grabbing the nubs of both bones and yanking them apart as though they were wishbones. The skin and meat tore, Mihheer’s forearm shaping a “V” until the bones slipped loose of the flesh. Longinus cast them aside and peeled the skin away next, tugging at the tendons.

  By the time he’d reached the elbow, I’d had all I could take. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not above putting a few bullets in a guy—angel, whatever—for information and the occasional vicarious thrill, but there was a hazy line I tried not to cross…too often…when I could help it.

  Normally, I’d have just blamed my sensitivity to ultra-violence on my mother, the inner monologue of my underdeveloped conscience, but recent revelations screwed the pooch on that excuse.

  The image I’d had of her, however manufactured and unlikely as it might have been to begin with, had been shot all to hell. Now I didn’t know who or what I was supposed to be. My moral compass was fucked seven ways to Sunday and twice on Tuesday, all without lube. It’s not that it ever pointed true north, but it hadn’t slipped too far south until recently. Nothing puts a black mark on your permanent record quite like cold-blooded murder.

  Maybe I wasn’t that different from dear old dad after all. That didn’t stop me from wanting to be.

  Longinus caught up in his messterpiece of origami flesh and bone, I slipped into the adjoining hallway and shut the door behind me. I was still in the God-proof room so Rachelle couldn’t spot me, but the stone helped filter out the alien’s screams…at least a little bit.

  I wanted Karra back more than anything, so I sunk to the floor and waited while Longinus did his thing. My guts churned as I imagined what was happening on the other side of the stone barrier. I wouldn’t waste any energy to stop him, but I damn sure didn’t feel the need to watch.

  Three

  After about forty-five minutes, give or take, Mihheer’s agonized screams drifted into the background noise of my head. I’d started picturing porn and quoting rap lyrics to keep from going crazy while Longinus put the squeeze on the alien. The porn helped, but the lyrics just made me want to smoke dope and beat bitches. Probably not the best of distractions, I admit.

  I curled up into a ball, my hands over my head and my face on my knees. I would have gone fetal, but I’m not that flexible. If I were, I could have found better ways to entertain myself. A happy ending out of the question, I sat that way until I heard the creak of the door opening. Against my better judgment—a mental reaction of mine more prevalent than the training of Pavlov’s dog—I looked up as Longinus reclaimed his sword from the floor where I’d dropped it, my gaze immediately drawn through the crack of the doorway and into the room.

  What had been gray stone was now dripping with crimson, not an inch of its natural color showing through. Stalactites of blood and entrails coated the ceiling, hanging down like sausages at an old-timey butcher shop. They swayed even in the still air. Wet drips sounded as though a gentle passed over. My eyes followed the carnage downward. Visible through the space between Longinus’ legs was a droopy puddle that had once been something humanoid in shape. Like silly putty washed in red paint, the remnants of Mihheer lay stretched and distorted, hammered thin into a sheet of boneless meat. Vibrant greens and blacks stood out amidst the mass, colors swirling to make intricate shapes, which spoke legions of the torment the alien had endured.

  I swallowed hard and looked up at Longinus. “So?” It wasn’t much of a question, but it was all I could squeeze out of my throat right then.

  Longinus nodded. He didn’t even bother to wipe at the blood that coated him as moistly as it did the room. “He gave up his master’s location a half hour ago.”

  A cold chill danced the Macarena down my spine as I spied the subtle flickers of a satisfied smile playing across his lips. He’d gotten the information he needed and still spent an extra fifteen, twenty minutes turning Mihheer into a puddle of goop. I kept my mouth shut, but it damn sure gave me the willies. You just don’t question that kind of conviction, which probably explains why so many people in history have happily swallowed the Kool-Aid. Determination like that carries a weight that’s hard to oppose.

  A moist gurgle drew my gaze back to the room. My heart thrummed at seeing the sludgy remnants of Mihheer twitch, a tiny wave rippling down the length of his flattened body. He was still alive.

  I stood on numb legs and stumbled past Longinus, amazed and sickened by the destruction that had been visited upon the alien. To realize all he’d suffered and yet still clung to life was a testament to the nature of Hell. Torment was a certainty here, but death wasn’t so easy to come by.

  A half-pulped eye turned in the soupy mass. Its foggy stare settled on me, memories washing in its wake. I’d seen such butchery before…caused by my own hands.

  Arol’s shattered face stared out of the past, and I recognized shadows of the agony I saw in Mihheer, the final moments of misery before the end stole in and gratefully washed all the pain away. I’d given Arol mercy, not because I felt he deserved it, but because it satisfied something in me to finish it, to have closure for my mother. That bitterness stung my tongue now that I knew how I’d been used, how Arol’s death had been nothing more than a means to keep me under Lucifer’s thumb.

  I glared at Mihheer. His one eye trembled in its soggy socket. It begged for release, whimpers squirming out from somewhere within the carnage of flesh and oozing wounds. Death was coming for him soon. He was too far gone now to stop it. My hand reached instinctively for my gun, but all I could think of was Karra. Gorath had her and Mihheer had been complicit in her capture. My hand fell away from my pistol.

  “You did this to yourself,” I told him, my condemnation his epitaph, the last words he would ever hear.

  I turned and left the room, closing the door behind me, the rancid stench of the alien’s failing life fading away. I swallowed hard against the bile that stung my throat and looked to Longinus. It was done. All that mattered now was finding Karra.

  “You know where she is?”

  “I have the coordinates, but there is more we need before we can begin our journey.”

  “Such as?”

  “Blood.”

  My eyes involuntarily surveyed the copious amounts of exactly that still rolling off his face and chest before returning to meet his eyes.

  Longinus grinned. “This is nothing compared to what we need.” A faint shadow crossed over his features, and he leaned in a little closer. “Do you have access to your uncle’s dread fiends?”

  Right then I realized Longinus had no idea I was Lucifer’s son…and neither did Karra. Shit. He hadn’t asked how I’d locked down Hell, probably assuming I’d been given t
he keys as a going away present by Lucifer. As the wayward custodian everyone believed me to be, it made sense for me to have them. I nodded energetically to cover the sigh that threatened to slip loose, the truth chasing its tail like a lost puppy. There was absolutely no way I could tell Longinus who I really was, especially not right then.

  Hey, by the way, those dread fiends you want me to gather up—you know, the exact same ones that ripped you to shreds and left you on physical vacation for the last four hundred years—well, they were passed down the line from Lucifer to his newly revealed son…uh, which just happens to be me, the demon giving it to your beloved daughter in the poop chute. So, you’re asking the kid of the guy who killed you with dread fiends to go and bring back a bunch of dread fiends. Kind of ironic, huh?

  Yeah, I couldn’t see that going over well. At least, if I’d inherited nothing else from my father, I was a good bullshitter. “Yeah, I know where they’re at. How many will you need?”

  “A thousand, at least. More if you have them.” He set a big hand on my shoulder and nearly made me tinkle. “This Gorath apparently used the same portal Baalth was using to shuttle power to God and your uncle.”

  “But how? It was destroyed?”

  Longinus shook his head. “Only the earthly gateway on this end was damaged. The alien tapped into it the core of it and shunted him and Karra through to the other side, piggybacking on the foundation Baalth had already set in place.”

  I did the mental math a moment—two plus two equals nine—and realized something I was pretty sure I wanted to be wrong about. “So, if he used the same portal Baalth had been using, then Gorath took Karra to the same dimension as God?” And Lucifer…my estranged father…a person I damn well did not want to see right at this moment.

  “Yes.”

  The answer was a punch to the gut. Not only would Longinus learn who I really was, he’d know I purposely avoided telling him when there was more than ample opportunity to do so. He’d either think I was a coward or exactly the same as Lucifer, neither winning attributes for someone who wanted to continue sexing up his daughter.

  I sighed as another thought stabbed my skull. “Could he have made it all the way there…you know, with Karra?”

  “He could, but it would have drained his remaining energies to do so.”

  Which was yet one more ironic twist to the story line. “That means he popped into the same realm his greatest enemy resides, in a condition that makes him completely vulnerable. Yet conversely, that exact same weakness is exactly what allows him to do so without being detected.” It was so stupid it was brilliant. “Drained of energy on arrival, no one would even notice he was there.”

  “Exactly, but that leaves him desperate on the other side and in need of power.”

  It sounded good in theory, but I’d already discussed the effects of traveling so far through dimensions with Baalth. “Won’t that leave us in the same boat?”

  He smiled. “That’s what the fiends are for.” Longinus gave me a shove. “Go get them and meet me at the portal room. We’re wasting time.”

  I shook my head and wandered off without arguing. Extra torture wasn’t a waste of time but discussing our plans before we dove headlong into another dimension apparently was. My memory could be pretty faulty sometimes, but I didn’t recall reading that particular tactically-genius strategy in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It started to make sense why Hell had always been on the losing side of the battle with Heaven. Charge in and die was a valid maneuver, apparently.

  ~

  Just a short while later, I arrived at Baalth’s toasted little portal room with about fifteen hundred dread fiends in tow. They shuffled at my back as I popped the door open and went inside. Longinus was already there, waiting on me. He’d taken a few moments along the way to clean the blood off and looked almost jovial without the guts of an alien creature splattered across his countenance. While I had no real desire to try the stuff, it was probably good for your complexion. G’Oréal: “Because you’re worth it.”

  It looked like the rooms could use a good coating. Outside of a narrow path, which led to the devastated pool McConnell died in, the chambers were exactly as I’d seen them last. The floor was littered with rubble and ruin, bits and pieces of the bodies that had been pinned to the wall were scattered all about. Fingers and toes stood at attention, an elbow here and there alongside the occasional charred head, which had made it through the magical tumult that destroyed the room.

  Barely a week since it happened, the raw stink of death still clung to the air. I tasted it with every breath, the smell saturating the room even over the stink of the fiends. The ground crunched beneath my feet as I went to join Longinus near the tub. He motioned to where the portal had been upon the ceiling, where Mihheer had skipped out just before Baalth went kablooey. My gaze followed his, and I noticed the orb that was there before had been replaced with a hand drawn pentacle. Crafted in blood—and I had a pretty good idea as to whose—it was the old school way of gating through dimensions, much like the one Lucifer rigged up in my house so I could slip down to Hell.

  “You gonna be able to crank that old jalopy over?”

  Longinus grinned. “This was how it was done in my time, Triggaltheron. Blood and willpower and the occasional vial of semen were all a demon needed to accomplish a goal.”

  I twinged at the use of my full name, not to mention the recipe he was cooking with, but let it go. It wasn’t like we were eating it. “Okay, Grandpa Longinus; fifty miles both ways to school, uphill in the snow against the wind, with no shoes…I gotcha.” He laughed, and I realized I’d said that aloud. “I, uh—”

  He waved it off. “I know things have changed but sometimes the old ways work just as well, if not better. We should be grateful they still do.”

  “Amen.”

  He turned to face me, an indecipherable expression distorting his features. “There are moments when I wonder what my daughter sees in you…Frank, but there’s certainly no doubting how much you care for her. You’re ready to cross the universe, risking your life to save hers, entirely of your own free will, when you could be anywhere else, instead. I think, perhaps, Karra might have the right of it.”

  And here I was thinking guilt didn’t come in a dildo that big.

  I let my breath out slow and easy and forced a smile. He was right. I was here for Karra and I always would be, but I damn well knew how temporary these warm fuzzies of his were. Maybe I’d get lucky and we wouldn’t run into anyone who would spoil my little secret before I was ready to do it myself. I muffled a laugh. Who was I kidding? Reality was an opportunistic rapist with a thing for my ass. It’d have me pantsed and bent over before I got as much as a request for dinner out.

  With hopes of diverting the train of my awkward thoughts, I changed the subject. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Longinus pointed to the tub. “We’ll use that as a reservoir. Have the fiends line up and fill it.”

  I waved the sub-demons over to the pool, telling them what I wanted. Despite being ordered to kill themselves, they shuffled in, the first clambering up the broken stairs without hesitation. It ripped open its throat with its claws and lay down with its neck over the tub. The one behind grabbed its legs and raised it up so the blood gushed faster, tossing the first’s body off to the side when it was done before following its example into the abattoir. The pungent tang of fresh claret, mixed with that of the decaying bodies, made the room reek something fierce.

  “How’s this gonna work?”

  “The blood will fuel the opening of the gate and provide me with additional power to protect us for the majority of the journey without me having to expend my own energy.”

  Always a catch. “The majority?”

  He nodded. “The last of the trip will be…uncomfortable, most certainly.”

  Uncomfortable was doctor slang for, ‘I’ve never been dumb enough to submit to this procedure, so I really don’t know how painful it actually is, but the test subjects all shit
tears and begged to be put out of their misery.’

  “Don’t worry, Frank. We’ll be fine. The blood of the fiends will lubricate our passage, so to speak, easing our transition between worlds.”

  Famous last words and the perfect setup for an anal violation joke. He was really egging fate on. I let the opportunity for sarcasm slip away and wondered if this was what maturity was supposed to feel like. If so, it was disappointing. I hustled the fiends through their bloodletting as quickly as I could get them to move. At this point, I didn’t see much purpose in waiting around to die, so we might as well get on with it.

  Longinus waited until the pool was about halfway full, bodies piling up, before he began. “Keep them at it even after we’ve gone. I’ll need all of their blood.” He raised his arms like a conductor and I felt his power well up, the hair on my arms standing at attention as I passed along the directive.

  A cold breeze swept through the room. It wasn’t strong, but it chased the odeur de rotting skunk ass away and sent tiny bits of debris skittering along the wreckage. I sucked in a deep breath for the first time since I’d been in the room and watched him go to town. There was no graceful ballet of magical artistry behind his casting, but something I could better relate to: brute force.

  Longinus didn’t tease and coerce, he hammered and threatened the spell into place. It was like watching a prime Chuck Liddell bash in Tito Ortiz’s face. Magical fists slammed into the pentacle over and over and over, rage focused and targeted with precision. There was a quiet hum building, the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch at a time, grinding on my senses. I could feel the pressure against my skull as though an elephant squatted on my head. My eyes watered. Tears streamed down my cheeks without restraint. I gasped and struggled to draw a breath, and then the pressure was gone.