And Delta caught hold of her around the waist, switched from squealing to whooping in joy, lifted Judy up, and spun her around.
Ah, right. They’d formed a friendship, back when we’d been working together. For her part, Judy was laughing and reaching down to play-punch against Delta’s mask. It was cute in a bizarre sort of way.
Across the way I noticed Vector flinch as he watched them hug. Something hungry haunted his face for a moment before he turned back to the monitors. The siege of the city was winding up, by the looks of it. The last of the Council had fallen or fled, and Queen Eyeblight was mowing down the last troops Wroth could bring to bear.
Delta let go of Judy, who dropped with a grin. A grin that faded the second she looked over to First Whisper.
“A fucking demon?” In a flash she was across the floor. First Whisper gasped, stepped backward, holding her taloned hands up, but Judy was quick, so very quick.
“DON’T—”
The best dead martial artist I’d ever known stopped her open palm strike three inches from the Succubus’ face.
“—KILL HER. SHE’S UNDER CONTROL.”
“These things eat people,” Judy said, her voice as flat and cold as a glacier.
“We’ve ah, we’ve fixed that.” Vector smiled. “Synthetic soylent green, you might say.”
“I hate it, but it fills me,” First Whisper grinned, as sweat trickled down her face. “Which is the first time I have ever said that sentence.”
Judy snorted, and lowered her hands. “You keepin’ this one around as a fool, Dire?”
“That’s more my job,” The Cat snarked, settling in on its paws. Judy eyed it and shook her head.
“A cheshire too, wot?”
“MORTALS, DEMONS, DAMNED, AND ANDROIDS.” I spread my hands. “WE’RE NOT PICKY.”
The Cat looked her up and down.”Tell me, do you play Monsters and Mangonels? Our ranger is gone now, and we perhaps might use a monk.”
“Wot?”
I shook my head and kept silent. For all the talk of fools, there was one more to sort out.
But I stayed behind for a minute regardless, watched Judy chat with them, getting more and more excited by the minute. Her death hadn’t done anything to her perkiness, and her energy was almost contagious. She was a new face, a friendly one, and those were rare down here.
It reminded me of happier times and I needed that, before I went back to deal with Pagliacci.
We’d stored him on the other side of Beaky from Punching Judy. They were both in ’cells’ that were basically thin points in the Strix lined with shaped charges. If either of them caused trouble we could eject them with high speed and extreme prejudice.
With Judy it had been a necessary precaution. Her chi powers were as lethal as ever, and aboard a living vessel she could kill it if she cut loose.
With Pagliacci it was more of a pleasure. I wasn’t about to take any of his sass, and I reserved the right to take out the trash with style... though also, it was just in case he found a way to turn the tables. He’d been the first real competent foe I’d ever faced, and he’d almost, almost won. I wasn’t going to underestimate the clown. Many had made that mistake. Many had died for it or worse.
He was awake when I entered the chamber but still strapped to the exposed bone we’d used as a table. Under his ruffled, bloody collar the LED of his other collar flashed, telling me the explosives were still armed and ready.
True, he was Damned so it wouldn’t kill him permanently, but it would definitely crimp his style long enough for us to dump him in a hole and cover him with a mountain or two.
“Doctor,” he said, eyes twinkling merrily as he craned his head as far as the straps would allow. “Your décor leaves something to be desired.”
“DIRE FOUND YOU SITTING ON A THRONE OF CORPSES. YOU DON’T HAVE MUCH ROOM TO TALK.”
“Ah. The throne in the tower?” He rolled his eyes. “Demons. By that time the Council’s patience with me had worn thin. It was a petty act of revenge. I asked for a throne, and they gave me that thing. I still have bloodstains on my pants that I shall never get out.”
“THEY ARE SOMEWHAT PREJUDICED WHEN IT COMES TO CUTTING DEALS WITH THEIR FOOD. WHICH MAKES ME WONDER WHY THEY WERE WORKING WITH YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE.”
“Mmmmm...” He stretched as far as the bonds would permit, silver beard glinting in the lights I’d positioned to shine in his face regardless of where he looked. “It’s a rather long tale.”
“THEN TELL IT. DIRE HAS A BIT OF TIME YET BEFORE QUEEN EYEBLIGHT FINISHES SUBJUGATING THE CITY AND ATTEMPTS HER SUDDEN-YET-INEVITABLE-BETRAYAL.”
The clown chuckled, a deep rattling that still haunted my nightmares now and again. “They are rather predictable. Poor things. Poor flawed, broken, hateful little things. So weak when you think about it. So aware of just how... much... trouble... they’d be in if the Damned shook off their angst.”
“OKAY, NO.” I said, chopping the air with one hand. “NO, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW THIS WORKS. SHE TELLS YOU TO DO SOMETHING, YOU DO IT, OR YOU GO OUT THE WINDOW.”
He glanced around as far as he could, opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “YES, SHE KNOWS THERE ISN’T A WINDOW BUT BY GODS SHE CAN MAKE ONE, SO CUT THE FUCKING HANNIBAL LECTER WANNABE SPIEL OUT AND DO WHAT SHE COMMANDS OR GET THE FUCK OUT OF HER LAIR THE HARD WAY.”
For a few seconds, I honestly thought he was considering it. Finally he barked more laughter then tried to shrug. “As you wish. As much as I can. Old habits are hard to break, after all. Especially for the Damned. So, it all started when I awoke in a river of boiling blood.”
“THE STYX.”
“You know, it turns out there are actually about three hundred of those rivers, give or take. The bloodfall at Caym is only one of the falls; there are many more scattered around the ring, which feed into rivers below. All of them are called the Styx.”
The map we’d scored had suggested something like that. I’d mistaken it for errors, wishful thinking, and sloppy labeling. “WAS IT THIS BRANCH OF THE RIVER YOU WERE IN? THAT’S A BIT TOO MUCH OF A COINCIDENCE FOR DIRE TO BUY. HELL IS VAST, AND YOU ARE INSIGNIFICANT.”
“True, I am not significant, not any more. But even though fortune has twisted my way more often than not, I did not awaken on this branch of the Styx. It was some other river of boiling blood, with the weak sunken below, and the strong fighting to stay on the surface.
“And there I fought, making rafts of my victims, defending them against all comers.” He stretched his arms as far as the straps would let him, muscles coiling like steel cables, writhing beneath gray skin. “Hell takes you on your worst day, did you know that?”
“NO.” If that was true, it explained a few things.
“Your body arrives with all wounds healed, yes, but you feel just as you did on that day, at that moment that you hit the lowest point in your life. But on my worst day I was strong, strong from vampire blood, and it was easy to stay on top of the river. Easy to watch the fat from those consumed below bubble to the surface, in great oozing gobbets. Easy to see the demons skim it off at the points where the river curved, to pull it in with pikes and pack it as carefully as if it were whale ambergris.”
“THERE MAY BE A POINT IN THERE SOMEWHERE, AND SHE’S HOPING IT’S MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN THE ONE ON YOUR STUPID HAT.”
“You don’t like me very much, do you?”
I backhanded him, watched him spit teeth and blood.
But there was little satisfaction in it. I’d never taken joy in torture, and that’s what this was, would have been if I continued it.
When he recovered, he looked back at me with a gap-toothed smile. “A stupid question, I suppose,” he slurred, compensating for his split lip and missing teeth. “But then I’ve always seen. Things. In a different way.”
“DIRE’S HEARD IT SAID THAT THE DAMNED CANNOT GO MAD.”
“Oh, not for long. But I’ve never been mad. Quite the opposite, really. I see the world for what it is, the sick joke on eve
ry last one of us. Started by God, sealed by Tesla. And I see how that joke repeats endlessly in Hell. Over, over, and over again.”
He fell silent. I debated hitting him again, but a glint in his eye told me that was what he wanted. Pain had never bothered Pagliacci. It wasn’t that he was a masochist, I didn’t think so, more like it was inconsequential to whatever he was doing at the moment.
Pieces were starting to click together, and I didn’t like the picture they were forming.
“YOU PROSPERED HERE.”
Great Clown Pagliacci clenched and unclenched his hands, tried a shrug. “Eh. No one truly prospers here. But the demons talk and jabber and speak freely; we are livestock to them. Time stretches down here, lasts much longer than it should. I had nothing to do but keep my corpse-raft safely dead and free of intruders, and listen to demons talk. In time I understood their language. For a long while, I practiced their language, and eventually mastered it. And then I heard your name.” He inhaled, laughed. “You were not someone I was expecting to see down here, but you are perfect.”
“WHY WOULD YOU NEVER SEE DIRE DOWN HERE?”
He laughed. “Oh nohoho... you do not get the answer that easily. Once you know that, the riddle of Hell is yours to unravel, and you shall no longer need me.” Pagliacci looked me straight in the mask. “But we were discussing the river. And the time when I heard your name.”
“AND WHAT HAPPENED THEN?”
“I called out to them, of course. Told them that I knew everything about you and that I could help their lord stop you.”
“DID THEIR LORD BUY THAT IDEA?”
“It took some time to convince them. I think you were consolidating your hold in Caym at that time. But eventually, I was ushered into Buer’s domain.”
“BUER...” I’d heard that name. A Fallen Angel, and the sire of Illwrack, who I’d crushed with his own lodestone.
Of course he’d be pissed about that.
“Oh, he wants you gone. But he doesn’t want to take care of you himself. It would cost him much to leave his domain.”
“THAT’S WHERE YOU CAME IN, OF COURSE.”
“That’s what I told him. And after a suitable amount of torture and trial he believed me. I told him I would see to it. I lied.”
“DID YOU, THEN? YOUR PLAN CAUSED A FAIR AMOUNT OF TROUBLE.”
He smiled. “Consider it a test. It was challenging but not impossible. I knew that if you fought the Council as fiercely as you fought me, you could pass it. And so, once Buer thought I might be able to end you, he transported myself and Punching Judy through sorcery. That is how we came to Wroth.”
“WHERE DID JUDY ENTER INTO THE EQUATION?”
“She was a surprise.” Pagliacci looked pained to admit that. “The Council received us and our secret offer of aid from Buer. Judy... would not cooperate. So they infested her. They infested me too, briefly, but my mind was not to their taste.” There was nothing but teeth in his smile.
“DIRE CAN IMAGINE.”
“You do owe me. They were planning to ambush you with the full might of the Council and their dark lightning, and Judy at the same time. But I convinced them to fool you into assaulting their neighbor.” He laughed, dark and deeply. “And you came back with an army. Not what they expected. Not exactly what I expected, to tell the truth, but I expected some twist or the other. You’re good at those.”
“FLATTERY WILL GET YOU NEITHER MERCY NOR FAVOR.”
“True. But I am unworried.” Pagliacci’s face lost its rictus of mirth. “You have already worked the equation and come to the answer.”
I had.
Sloth had slowed me down, and Hell had become aware of me. Perhaps not all of it, but if even one Fallen Angel was gunning for me, that was one too many.
Great Clown Pagliacci, no matter how I disposed of him, truly couldn’t die. He was Damned now, and no matter what I did, no matter what mountain I dropped on him, or what lava pool I sunk his ashes into, he’d be back. He’d done it often enough while he was a supervillain, suffered what to all appearances had been an inescapable death that resulted in a lack of a visible body and always returned months, years, or decades later.
If I left him behind, he would be a loose end.
I couldn’t trust him out of my sight. I couldn’t trust him in my sight either, but my little team could instantly react to whatever he tried.
Hopefully.
This son of a bitch was trouble either way you cut it. But there were no good answers here, not until I could figure out what was really going on with this place.
And maybe, just maybe, I could dig that out of his smug, insane face before he found a way to royally screw us over.
“WELCOME ABOARD. WE’RE GOING TO GO SEE LUCIFER.”
I killed the lights, then turned and left him there. Smiling in the darkness.
CHAPTER 13: FROM WORMS TO WYRMS
“Another part of the original rules that we have modified concerns dragons. The original rules had them as monsters. No, they are far more than that. And so we have moved them to the chapter about natural disasters.”
--An Excerpt from Chapter eleven of the Chronicles of the Shared Lie
Three days later Delta returned to Beaky, scuttling up the ladder we lowered to allow her access. “Mission accomplished. Got about five different groups started and left them copies of the basic rules.”
“AND DICE?”
“Didn’t have enough to go around. I didn’t know we were gonna take this tack, else I would’ve made batches up in advance. Still, most of the demons I got were pretty sharp, so they’ll have plenty made in short order.”
“I still don’t see what this is going to accomplish,” Vector groused. He’d been griping a lot more lately.
“IN THE SHORT RUN? PROBABLY NOTHING.” I stared out the open hatch, and my telescopic vision found the sentries that Queen Eyeblight had put in place to watch us. She wasn’t trying particularly hard to conceal them, and they multiplied and started brandishing weapons whenever we tried to shift the Striges. They never did anything, but for hellions this was about as subtle as their warnings got.
She’d stepped up to posturing earlier than expected, so I’d been forced to change our assault plan a bit.
“IN THE LONG RUN? IT MIGHT KEEP HER BUSY AND OFF OUR TAIL UNTIL WE’RE CLEAR.”
I watched imps fly from the nearest sentries. Then more along the path she’d come up.
“THOSE DEMONS YOU TALKED INTO PLAYING WITH YOU ARE PROBABLY GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY,” I told Delta after we’d sealed the hatch and started back to the control room.
“Yeah, probably.” Delta shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time satanic panic caused trouble for this hobby.”
We’d underestimated the boredom and suffering of Hell for all involved, even the demons. Any distractions were welcome distractions, and they’d taken to it like a cult or secret society takes to forbidden knowledge.
So we’d decided to use that to our advantage.
By forming roleplaying groups like cells within the city, we’d acted in a clandestine fashion while her spies watched, passing on documents and secret knowledge in a way guaranteed to arouse suspicion.
The Queen would never rest easy, knowing that we had used her to conquer the city. First Whisper and The Cat had been clear on that; either I was too weak to handle matters on my own, in which case I had several lairs full of valuable stuff that she could seize for herself, or I was too strong to be anything but a threat to her. Even if she didn’t feel that way personally, her subjects would expect her to feel that way, would become disgruntled and rebellious if she didn’t behave accordingly. She was trapped by chains of power, unable to act in a way that would simply let me go about my business.
“STATUS?” I asked the moment I reached the bridge.
“It’s done,” Alpha replied, gesturing to the rounded corner of the room, and the newly-repaired suit of armor standing upright, back open, waiting for me.
I removed my traveling mask, b
reathed in the warm, foul smell of Beaky’s innards. I was getting used to it, and this worried me. I didn’t want to get used to it.
“We weren’t bothered,” Alpha said, folding his arms. “Epsilon and I got down there, set up the workshop, quietly killed the few sentries who saw us. Then Delta started up her games, and everyone stuck on her like glue on fish.”
“GLUE ON FISH?”
“Well, I didn’t make it easy for them. Gave ’em the slip a few times.” Delta shrugged.
“AND THE WORKSHOP?”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Epsilon voxed. A distant whump echoed through Beaky, and I watched through the viewscreen. A plume of smoke rose in the city. “Not a good idea to leave that behind.”
“NO.” Though the demons were at a renaissance tech level, if they’d managed to enslave one metahuman they doubtlessly had others. It wouldn’t do to underestimate their ability to use and learn from the technology I’d left behind. Which made me worry about Caym a bit, but that bridge had been crossed. There was no going back now.
Instead of dwelling on it, I ran my hand over the black, roughly-patched form of my armor. My poor, battered, way-below-spec armor. I’d had to cut out a few of my mask’s sight modes to salvage the components needed to repair the damaged circuitry. Well, Alpha had, anyway. He’d run down to the city, taken the portable workshop tools, built the larger-scale stuff he needed, and done the repairs. Hopefully it would be enough for the next crisis. Hopefully at some point I’d find the proper metals and rare earths, and have the time to complete more advanced repairs.
Speaking of that...
“ANY LUCK IN THE MARKETS?” I looked to the Grimalkin and First Whisper. The two were unknown to Queen Eyeblight, so I’d sent them on a fairly covert task while Delta drew fire, and Alpha and Epsilon hid and did the real work.
“If by luck you mean ‘did we found some of the shiny rocks you wanted,’ yes, I think we were a little lucky,” The Cat confirmed. “I think she has a box?”
“I do.” First Whisper smiled and drew a small jewelry box from her purse. She had a purse now, and I’m not sure where she got the idea from. Putting aside the speculation as unimportant, I leaned in to survey the goods. Then I logged into my armor remotely and toggled the spectroanalyzer, piping the visual report to my mask.
DIRE : HELL (The Dire Saga Book 6) Page 18