Someday, thought Wodan, the announcement of a birth will be good news. Not something terrifying and charged with guilt.
Wodan reached the dark kitchen, then felt his way around to the fridge and grabbed some beers for everyone. As the door shut, he leaped back – Hunley’s aged Smith master stood before him. Skin hung from his face in deep, wrinkled bags, and his milky eyes peered at Wodan from the darkness. His Smith apron was covered in grease and grime.
“Hun… ley?” said the old man.
“No, sir,” said Wodan. “I’m... one of his friends.” Wodan quickly turned and ran downstairs. “Hot damn, Hunley, that old guy is a creepshow!”
“Yeah,” said Hunley, putting away the reels of the film they’d just watched. “When he finally clocks out, I’m gonna hide his body and pretend he never died just so I’ll have the place to myself.” Hunley thought for a moment, then said, “If he’s up this late, then he might wander down here and start telling you guys that you’re damned because you don’t know any of the ultimate truths that only Smiths know about. If you’ve never seen a guy take apart an engine while belittling your character flaws, then you’re better off, believe me. We should sneak out the back and I’ll get you guys home.”
Hunley dropped Wodan off at Floyd Street, which was dark and vacant. Wodan sat in the darkened main room and kept the cat company for a moment. He realized that, with the walls painted, and with several pots of bushes placed throughout, the place looked like an actual home. The transition had occurred in stages, gradually, but now it struck him.
Anne did most of this, he thought.
Wodan took the cat to his desk and tried to revise the plans for the story he wanted to finish, but he couldn’t concentrate. He sat in his large, open window and smoked. As he looked out at the city, he kept imagining smoke, fire, screams of anguish.
I have to stop thinking like this, he thought. It’s not going to happen like that. We’re going to beat the Ugly. We have to.
Just then a car tore through the street, swerved and ran its tires onto the sidewalk, then corrected itself by careening back across the road. It sideswiped the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the place, then the brakes shrieked and the car stopped just short of hitting the building. Two doors opened immediately and Pete walked stiff-legged toward the house while Jens ran into the street and threw an empty bottle. Within a few minutes he heard the pair bellowing on the stairs, then they swept into the Party Room and Wodan met them.
“Where’d you get that car?” said Wodan.
“Borrowed it from work,” said Jens. He began laughing hysterically as he opened another bottle.
“We had a bonfire,” Pete shouted. “We had to celebrate Anne taking part in the miracle of child birth right when we’re on the verge of getting killed by Ugly berserkers.” He lit a cigarette, laid it on a table, then immediately lit another one.
“That’s too harsh, Pete,” said Jens, stomping around. “I thought it was a really pleasant evening, you know? In fact, you know what the best part about tonight was? It was when we realized that everyone who was there was a guy who’d screwed Anne at one point or another. Wasn’t that just great? I think it was at that point that I realized Anne totally has her shit together, and that bringing a kid into this world is just the master-stroke in her master plan.”
“Is she gonna have the baby?” said Wodan.
“Said she was,” said Pete, hanging his head in his hands. After a moment he rose and stepped out of a window onto a lower roof. Wodan joined him and they smoked together. Jens screamed once, then they heard his bedroom door slam shut.
They sat in silence, then Pete said, “She’s going to declare me the father. And I most likely am.”
“What’s going to happen, you think?”
“It means legally I’ll have to marry her. And raise this kid. I can’t be a Coil Lieutenant, much less a Captain, if I’m going to raise a family. I know I don’t talk about it much, Wodan, but I… I was going to use this gig to really make something of myself. I was going to become something that my family could be proud of. But now, I…”
“When we smash the Ugly,” said Wodan, “being a Coil will be a lot safer than it is now. I know it seems rough, but you know you’ve got friends who’ll help you raise a kid. Right?”
Pete sighed, then laid his head on his knees. “Wodan. You’ve got to wake up, man. The Coil don’t have a chance of beating the Ugly. You’re only looking at the numbers. The fact of the matter is that the Coil… they’re made up of people like me.”
Wodan felt sorry for Pete, but he felt much worse for Anne.
Finally Pete lifted his head and stared into the night.
“Wodan,” he said quietly. “I’m so fucking stupid.”
* * *
On the fifth day since the rumor of war, Wodan felt himself slipping into a deep depression, haunted by the idea that he hadn’t done enough to weaken the Ugly before the Coil made its move. He stayed home from work again, then went out with Jens and Pete and walked beside them in silence as they strolled through a Coil-protected neighborhood. Faces peered at him through window blinds, fearful and sad, while Coilmen in plain clothes nodded at the trio and pretended to be youths enjoying their evening. The voices of Jens and Pete became a constant drone of complaints against Anne.
They descended a set of stairs into a Coil speakeasy that was so loud it could be heard across the street. They drank and played pool, and Wodan was so terrible at the game that he had to apologize to a group of tough-looking nihilists when he knocked a ball off his table and onto theirs. While Pete knocked in ball after ball, Jens explained that his mixed left-hand and right-eye dominance – not to mention a slight curvature of his hips – precluded him from beating Pete, which he could otherwise do quite easily because Pete’s technique was apparently deeply flawed.
What am I doing here? Wodan thought. I should be at home coming up with a plan that will help the Coil against the Ugly, instead of getting drunk. But when I go home, all I see is…
Wind raking across dust-choked streets. Dark houses filled with skeletal victims. Gangs of Ugly patrolling, casting their torches about, their souls twisted by cannibalism until they are little more than mindless automatons…
“Man, I’m starvin’ to death,” said Jens. “I need a - woah, what’s wrong with you? You get stabbed or somethin’?”
“I - I’m fine,” said Wodan, putting more money into the Smith-manufactured pool table. “Let’s play another game.”
Wodan set up the table, then Pete looked past Wodan’s shoulder and said, “Damn it all… I never should have brought her here.”
Wodan turned and saw Anne standing in the doorway nearby, her silhouette small and hard. Wodan dimly heard the doorman say, “I’m gonna have to… check you for scars. In the back.”
“She’s with us,” said Wodan.
The doorman nodded and sat down and Anne glared at him, then approached. Pete and Jens turned away from her. She seemed worn and empty as she stood beside Wodan. “Will you get me something,” she said, her voice flat.
Wodan nodded and bought her a drink at the bar. While he waited, he turned back and was surprised to see that she was standing beside him again.
“Wodi!” Pete shouted. “We’re out of here.” Jens was already putting his jacket on.
“But I just bought us another game!” said Wodan. He paused, then added, “I set ’em up so you could knock ’em down!”
Jens glanced at Wodan, then said, “We don’t have to worry about money anymore. You don’t have to hold on to every cent.”
Wodan turned to Anne and was about to ask if she wanted to leave as well. Her face was downturned, clenched as if biting down pain. The boys left without another word.
“Why didn’t you come to see me?” she said.
I barely know her, he thought. But I guess everyone else has turned against her.
“I figured you wanted to be alone.”
“Why would I want to be alone? Now?�
��
“Oh...” Wodan felt a stab of guilt run into him.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” she said.
“Sure,” he said. He picked up their drinks, then said, “We can talk about it, if you want.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I just put money down for a game. You want to?”
She nodded. They played for over an hour, knocking balls around and missing constantly as Wodan bought them round after round of drinks.
Anne told him of her father. The man had once been a successful manager of a small business, but he’d made deals with the Coil on the side and was eventually swindled for everything, including the family’s home and savings. Strangely enough, Anne did not blame the Coil, but her father’s ineptitude.
“Are you afraid of being killed?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m just a secretary.”
“I mean in that war that’s coming up.”
“Pete told you about that?”
She nodded, then said, “Pete’s doing everything he can to get out of it.”
Wodan was so drunk that he very nearly told her that every life in Pontius hung in the balance. He stopped himself, then said, “I’m not afraid. Not for my own life, I guess.”
“Well, you are just a secretary,” she said. “They probably won’t make you fight.”
Wodan laughed. I guess Pete hasn’t told her everything, he thought.
“Have you had any dreams lately?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
They stumbled toward Floyd Street. Wodan knew that he was drunk when he realized he felt no fear in the dark streets of one of the shittiest cities that the wasteland had to offer.
“What if we get attacked by Ugly?” she said.
Wodan had a dead Captain’s automatic in a holster at his heel, but held back from mentioning it because he was afraid Anne would grab it and blow her own brains out. He remembered the wounds that lined his arms and chest, then said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got a guarantee that keeps us safe from Ugly.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m a secretary, remember? We know everything.”
They arrived at Floyd Street. As they crossed the empty weed-choked parking lot, Wodan said, “Anne, are you really going to have the kid?” She said nothing. He let her in the front entrance, then they stumbled up the stairs. “What will you name it? How will you raise it?”
“I’ll name him Pete’s Kid,” she said. “That way everyone will know where he came from. And I’ll raise him up to be a good church-going kid… just like Pete was. Just like I was.”
“What church?”
“Holy Bisectarian.”
“That branch from the Nicean Council?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah! You know they’re a sect that belongs to the Ugly, right?”
She grimaced. “Are you a conspiracy theorist?”
“It’s true. But even if I couldn’t prove it, you have to know that they come from the same root religion as the Ugly.”
“So?”
“Well, that stuff didn’t do any good for you and Pete, did it? All that noise about suffering probably did more harm than good.” Wodan led her to the darkened Party Room, then leaned against the door to his room and said, “Let me raise him. I’ll interpret his dreams and we’ll make a religion of that.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“It makes more sense than going to a church run by psychopaths who cut deals with demons, doesn’t it?”
Anne took a bottle of beer from the fridge, opened it, then collapsed onto a couch and laid a hand over her eyes.
“Well, doesn’t it?” She ignored him and his drunkenness only fed his anger. “That’s how they get by, Anne! If people like you would be less apathetic and call those bastards out on their bullshit, then-”
Anne’s bottle fell from her hand and clattered along the floor. “Wodan, if you’re going to sexually molest me, now is the time to do it.”
He hovered by the doorway, angry and confused, then thought, I’m probably going to be dead in a week anyway. He strode over to the couch and they stripped in a drunken fumbling act. Wodan saw only hints of white skin in near total darkness broken by fragmented awareness. He tried to kiss her but she turned her head away. In a flash he saw a dim image of her form, naked before him, then he was inside of her, then-
“Stop, stop,” she said. “This is too weird.”
He pulled away. “What’s wrong?” he said, unsure of anything.
She laid in silence for a long time, then said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
He got up, surprised that he could be hurt so easily by someone who did not care for him, or even for herself.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, moving toward his room. “It’s no big deal.”
* * *
On the sixth day, Wodan returned to the office with a fierce determination. The Soldiers in the lounge looked at him fearfully when he entered, then ignored him, then whispered violently once he was out of the room. Wodan nodded as Jerry spoke to him, then ransacked the file room once he’d been given some duty to attend to.
Fachimundi, thought Wodan. I can’t believe I didn’t think about it earlier. I didn’t hear anything about him being handed over to the Law. If the exchange is off and war is inevitable, then this might be my last chance to get to him before some random Coil sells him back to the Ugly and pockets the money before anyone realizes what he’s done.
Wodan could not find any notes in the file room, or on his desk, that indicated the Ugly accountant’s exact location. He realized he would have to use the phone, so he pretended to be busy for several hours and waited until Jerry stepped out for lunch. Wodan made several calls pretending that he worked for other Captains until he finally had a name, then an address.
* * *
Pete rode in silence with Wodan for as long as he could, then he finally blew up. “Wodan, just what is this about?”
“This operation’s a little different from the others,” said Wodan. “We planned out the others real methodical-like, but I went by the seat of my pants on this one. I had to go to another Captain to borrow this car, and I used Jerry’s name. It could get traced back – but with war being inevitable, I’m hoping this whole thing will just slip through the cracks.”
“Operation? To do what? I know it looked like I wasn’t doin’ a damn thing when you met me in the lounge, but my Captain will get pissed if I take too long on a lunch break. Besides, as far as “operations” go, you got your war already, man. Are we gonna scope out a good coffin for me?”
“No. We’re going to get you blooded, Pete, so you won’t be afraid of this war. The way I see it, Pete, you’re better suited for a Captain’s jacket than a coffin. We’re here. I’ll explain once we’re inside.”
Wodan parked and they entered another Coil office. The Soldiers in the lounge looked at them, but soon turned away, bored already. They passed through as if they belonged, then the Captain of that office walked by. He was a tall man with gray hair pushed back from an incredibly high forehead.
“Sir,” said Wodan. “I’m Jerry’s man, a secretary. I was wondering...”
“What is it?” snapped the Captain.
“May we see the prisoner Fachimundi?”
“He’s not in this office,” said the Captain, walking away.
“Sir,” said Wodan, bowing slightly. “I’m a secretary.”
“Oh, alright, whatever, just make it quick,” he said, already out of the area.
They strode down a hallway and found a thick door locked with a heavy bolt. Wodan threw the bolt, nodded to Pete, then entered.
Inside a nondescript white room they saw a tall, skinny man sitting in a chair. His feet were bound to the legs of the chair and his hands were tied behind his back. His scarred, tattooed head hung limp. His rough-looking clothes were torn and covered in sweat.
“He smells awful,” said Pete.
The Ugly lifted his head suddenly. His face was covered in bruises and his eyes were slitted and full of dull menace. A gag was tied around his mouth, but he pulled his lips back and Wodan saw that his teeth were filed to points. Terrible memories of that man whispering into his ear as he was marched toward a tent in the wasteland filled Wodan’s heart.
“It’s him,” said Wodan. “Pete, this Ugly’s name is Fachimundi. He’s an accountant for Barkus. Over a year ago, this man ambushed me and made me a slave when I called out for help. I escaped. That old man that me and Jens saved, Hari, he said that Fachimundi led the rest of the slaves on a death march. He killed indiscriminately.”
Fachimundi growled. Wodan approached nearer, then turned to Pete. “It looks like some of the Coil worked him over pretty good, but believe me, he’s done worse things to himself just to become an Ugly in the first place. We’re not going to torture him, though, Pete. Here’s the thing. I know you think I want to smash the Ugly out of revenge, but that’s not the whole story. I want power, Pete, just like you… because I want to make the world a better place. I can’t do that until the Ugly are gone, wiped out. They turn humans into something inhuman, something docile and angry and malicious. I’ve been outside of city walls, Pete; you don’t have to go far if you want to find monsters. People should be fighting monsters, not turning into them.”
Wodan turned toward the scarred accountant, then reached behind his back and pulled the rainbow-colored Blade of the Engels from under his jacket.
“We’re going to unleash the force that’s inside humanity, the very thing that all monsters fear. And we’re going to do it together, because I know you’re capable of greater things than you realize.”
Wodan looked over his shoulder at Pete, then said, “Are you ready?”
* * *
There was a scream in the prisoner’s room. The Coilmen in the lounge jumped, then froze and looked at one another. They waited. Another shrill scream followed the first, then they bolted down the hall, drew their weapons, and burst into the prisoner’s room.
[Demonworld 3] The Floyd Street Massacre Page 22