by M. K. Gibson
The new man stopped in the doorway of the bathroom and paused. He looked back at the sink full of hair and blood. He looked into the broken mirror.
“I hate you because I didn’t have to the stomach to get me to where I needed to be. I had to become you so this new version of us could exist. In a weird, fucked-up way, I have to thank you. Thank you, Reynolds. For doing what I couldn’t.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette and lit it. He looked at the pack a moment and smiled. Looking into the broken mirror, he nodded his head. “Call me Winston.”
Winston nodded to himself. He held up Reynolds’s old expensive shirt and lit it with his lighter. Once a good fire was going, he tossed the burning shirt onto his bed. Immediately the bedding caught ablaze and spread fast across the room. Winston had thought ahead and disabled Reynolds’s fire suppression system. This apartment would be a fiery hell in moments.
The bombs he planted throughout the building would also ensure the same humans who were recognized by the noble court wouldn’t amass any more power. Reynolds might be gone, but his lessons were learned.
Winston walked through the living room as the fire grew behind him. In stride, he walked past the dining table and picked up the broken metal action from the sniper rifle, which served as the table’s centerpiece, and stuffed it into his coat pocket.
As he walked past the couch, he nudged Gh’aliss, waking her. “You might want to get out of here. Besides the fire, there will be several explosions in about eight minutes. I have no idea how much damage it will do.”
“Wait, what?” Gh’aliss said as she tried to get her bearings. “What time is it?”
“Four in the morning. Early bird gets the worm and all that bullshit.”
“Reynolds, is that you?”
“Nope. Reynolds is dead. You have seven minutes and thirty seconds.”
Winston left the apartment and rode the express elevator to the ground floor. Once outside, he walked across the street and sat on a nearby bench. Lighting another smoke, he sat back and waited.
Moments later, the apartment rocked as seven controlled explosions detonated simultaneously. Windows exploded outwards in a spray of glass while chunks of stonework flew in all directions. There were few demons and people on the street that early in the morning, but those who were stopped and stared.
“Nice show, kid,” a voice said next to Winston. He looked over and saw a short, bald, muscular man with sunglasses on sitting next to him on the bench.
“Ricky?”
“Yup.”
“How’d you get here?”
“Not important. Just wanna say you’ve done good. One step closer to what you want. Good for you.”
“Thanks,” Winston said. Being near Mr. Rictus, or Ricky, made him as uncomfortable as the first time they met.
Ricky stood and nodded his head as sections of the high-rise smoked and crumbled. Smaller explosions went off as fire damage ruptured power cells.
“See ya around, Winston,” Ricky said as he walked down the street.
Winston frowned. He never told Ricky his new name.
“What happened?” a hellion asked aloud.
“I heard someone targeted a guy named Reynolds and a bunch of humans who received commendations,” Ricky said as he continued walking away, smiling.
Winston shook his head. Ricky was right. It wouldn’t take long for such rumors to spread. Thanks to leaving behind enough blood and hair samples, Reynolds would be pronounced dead. Winston’s DNA would match Reynolds’s and all of Reynolds’s holdings would pass on to him as his son. No doubt he would be suspected of murdering his “father” to gain his assets. And because of that, no one would question him or stop him. He would be applauded.
Hell was nothing if not predictable.
After he made his claim, all he had to do now was make his way to his irradiated land in the former Western Maryland. He didn’t fear the radiation. After all, he was the one who activated the machine in the hidden underground government facility that would make the soil come back as positive for radiation.
************************
Now . . .
Hours later, I found myself sitting at a small steel table in a nondescript slate gray room. My manacles were shackled through a hole in the table and bolted into the duracrete floor. Opposite me was a large wall mirror. No doubt it was a two-way mirror and I was being watched from the other side. But there was a more pressing issue occupying my thoughts.
I looked like hell.
I felt worse inside.
Gh’aliss’s death replayed in my mind over and over. I could barely remember numbly obeying Mastema, getting dressed as golems entered the room and began beating me. I didn’t really remember being put into manacles or being dragged here through the mud, ice, and freezing rain.
But watching her die, hearing her last words?
Those were etched forever into my mind.
What would she have said right then? Most likely, she would mocked me for being beaten. She would have laughed at me for having feelings. She would have promised me all manner of sexual favors if I spit in the eye of the first person who came into the room. I smiled at that.
I held onto that smile. Not because I wanted to smile, but because she would have wanted me to be ferocious and unafraid.
Straightening myself in my chair, I examined myself in the mirror. My hair was grown out a bit and matted. My beard was the same. Seeing my clothes in proper lighting, in a clean room, I realized I looked like a bridge-and-tunnel hobo. A hobo covered in his lover’s blood.
Sitting there in silence was beginning to piss me off. All it did was give me time to think. Time to wonder why they killed her. Time to consider what I was going to do them. One thing you should never do—give an angry, dangerous person time to plan.
I looked past myself into the mirror itself. Switching my eyes into infrared, I could see there were three bodies behind the glass. I switched back to normal vision and addressed the mirror.
“All right. Whoever’s watching, can we get on with it? I have a very busy day of thinking of how I’m going to skull-fuck each one of you,” I said aloud. I didn’t plan on being so direct, but I chalked it up to being just plain fed up with everything.
Instead of the door opening, the entire wall with the two-way mirror simply slid up, revealing the room beyond. In the new room sat the archduchess of Ars Goetia, High Lady Bathin. Standing beside her on either side were Master Tormentor Mastema and Ars Goetia’s archduke Maz’ael.
High Lady Bathin sat in a throne-like leather chair. She sat slightly aside, cross-legged, and playfully ran her left hand along her cheek and tapped her face.
The Pride demon was about my height and had light blue, partially scaled skin with white highlights. She had small, bleach-white horn protrusions along her eye ridges and along her delicate jaw. Her white hair was put up in a complex weave of braids with a few stylish locks hanging loose as if she were going to prom. She wore a matching set of blood-red leather pants, boots, and corset. She took a moment and studied me. She seemed to be amused. Her wings furled and unfurled and her tail whisked like a curious cat. She was truly beautiful. And deadly.
But so was Gh’aliss.
I tested the chains to my manacle for a moment, seeing how much power I needed to break them. Those chains wouldn’t break. But I had an idea.
“Baron Salem. You have looked better.”
“Lady Bathin,” I lowered my head solemnly. “Forgive me, I would rise and show proper respect, but it seems that I’m chained to a table and the floor. Inconvenient and all. As to my appearance, well, I have been imprisoned and forced to scavenge in the muck and mire for the last few months or so. You understand,” I said. “But if I were able to stand and greet you, things would become violent very quickly. Hope you don’t take too much fucking offense.”
“None, Baron. I would believe less of you if you did not wish to kill me,” Lady Bathin smiled.
Mast
ema did not smile. “Allow me to correct his disposition,” the warden said as he began to come at me with a wicked sadistic grin. Bathin placed a hand on one of his spider-like appendages, which were still covered in Gh’aliss’s sticky blood.
“Mastema, please. I know Baron Salem well and what he considers humor. Let us conduct this in a civilized manner. Maz’ael, if you please.” Mastema stood down while Maz slowly bowed his head at Bathin’s command.
“Of course. Salem, how are you, bud?”
“Maz, I know you’re all kinds of important now, but out of some twisted respect for the fucked-up friendship we had, just drop the pretense of giving a shit about me and get on with this bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” Maz cocked his head quizzically, but his voice had the tone of recognized insubordination.
I leaned back in my chair as far as the chains would let me. I lolled my head back and sighed. I would have banged my head on the table in frustration, but I had a feeling that would have just made them chuckle. Demons were funny that way.
I was just fucking sick and tired. Frustrated. Angry. And it has been my experience that when we, as people, reach that level—well, our mouths get the best of us.
I leaned forward again and stared at these three with narrowed eyes. “I’m not stupid. There is no reason for you to be here, unless you want something from me. This place.” I inclined my chin to point around. “This prison. The setup. Andromalius. Gh’aliss. Questions about Ricky. This little sit-down session. This is all some half-assed plot to get something from me or get me to do something for you, isn’t it? If you wanted me to rot, you would have left me here to rot. But here you are. You want something. Something bad. So out with it, you miserable pricks! What the FUCK do you want?!”
“Archbishop Maz’ael, I do believe the Baron is referring to his expertly played part in our design to lure our enemies out.”
“Indeed, Archduchess,” Maz nodded. “He does not realize he is a hero to Ars Goetia.”
“What the shit are you talking about?”
“Why, my—thereby our—enemies in Lemegeton, of course.” Bathin smiled. “You must realize that my rise to station in Ars Goetia from Ars Amadel would not transition smoothly. Did you not? You created quite a disruption with the fall of Abraxas’s citadel and your subsequent title. Our enemies perceived machinations, perhaps against them. We needed to draw them out.”
Things started falling into place and I felt very small as the demon basically explained I was chum to see which shark came to take a bite.
“I was just . . . bait?”
“Of course.” Bathin smiled. “We needed a noble here to maintain the months of investigation. And considering your ties to my rise, and that you’re only a human, you were the perfect candidate.”
I sat in stunned silence, feeling inconsequential as Bathin continued. “We suspected Dantalion, of course. Our spies confirmed he was plotting against us. Which meant, naturally, his spies within our organization were reporting back to him of our suspicions. Therefore, we needed an elaborate ruse from outside the organization. You understand, of course.”
“Gh’aliss,” I whispered.
“What was that, Baron?”
My mind raced like a jet. Gh’aliss was trying to tell me something. Something about Ricky. He and Bathin had a connection and her promises of freedom in Lemegeton hinged on me telling what I knew of him. I looked at the trio of monsters sitting across from me. They were powerful. But they were posturing. When someone is that pompous, it usually meant they have a trump card, usually in the form of some heavy backup.
I know because I did it the last few months with Chael at my back.
“What does Dantalion want with Ricky? Is he the one pulling the strings?”
“Rictus is a powerful being and an excellent adviser. His past involvement with your Norse allies is well-documented. But as an agent of chaos and change, the status quo fears beings like Rictus, nothing more.”
It didn’t take Grimm’s ability to see she was lying through her perfect white fangs and forked tongue. It was also clear she wasn’t going to say anything further about it. So I shifted my questions.
“Why Gh’aliss?”
“The whore? Remarkable that Dantalion was willing to dig that deep into your past and pull her from obscurity to hurt you,” Bathin said.
“No, that’s not how it went down,” I said, shaking my head. “She was being beaten. She only said my name to save herself,” I rambled.
“Baron, Baron, shh,” Bathin said in a soothing tone. “Let me guess, she told you she could have said your name sooner to help herself? But she held onto your past, and only used your status when she absolutely had to? Did she say that she wanted to be with you, running free? Did she say she loved you?”
I said nothing. I only stared at the table, rocking in my chair, running her death over in my head.
“Dear Baron, she was a Lust demon, tutored by a very powerful Sloth demon. No wonder your head is so twisted. She would have said anything, done anything, to get what she wanted from you.”
“Why did she have to die?” I whispered.
“She was Dantalion’s operative.”
“Can I go home now?” I asked in a weak, beaten voice.
“Home?”
“You got what you wanted.”
“But that does not excuse your crimes,” Bathin smiled. “Archbishop?”
Maz stood. “Baron Salem, you have been charged with the following: Failure to Allocate Proper Tithes, Larceny without a Sanction, Assault of Minor Noble, Assault of a District Bishop—”
“You’re . . . kidding. Right?” I asked in disbelief.
“Murder of a licensed assassin,” Maz continued.
I started to laugh and bang my head on the table. “Are your out of your fucking minds? You set me up to come here!”
“Yet none of us made you do these things.” Maz smiled. “You committed them all of your own volition.”
“I haven’t paid because I was stuck in here! Sure, I was a little behind, but you know I have the merchandise to sell. I had to move some stuff. And larceny? Hell, I only took back one thing from Andromalius, who stole from me first!”
“He had a permitted sanction under the Right of Aggrieved Kin,” Bathin interjected, smiling. “You did not file a request.”
“Who the fuck did I kill?”
“The licensed assassin known as Legion,” Maz said, reading from his tablet.
“The prick was trying to kill me.”
“Yes, legally.”
“But I didn’t kill him. He blew his own head off!”
“According to one witness report from Abigail Bird at Dante’s Bar and Brothel, you were boasting about the death of Legion. That and the video feed you provided to the cyborg The Field, which the assassin Ahlray intercepted, confirmed you detonated some kind of device on Legion’s head, killing him.”
“I didn’t kill the prick! Although not from lack of trying. He blew his own head off!”
“From our point of view, it appeared you killed him,” Maz replied coldly.
“But ... whoa, wait . . .” My mind was looked for options, trying to think of a way out of these bullshit accusations. Ah-hah! “What does it matter? I have a Lethality License.”
“Had,” Maz corrected. “It was revoked when you missed your first tithes payment.”
Aww, fuck. “Of course it was.”
“Let us not forget his actions during the Abraxas incident,” Bathin added.
“Of course, Archduchess. Assault of a major noble, murder of a major noble, destruction of infernal architecture, destruction of private property . . . the list does go on.”
“Major noble? What, Abraxas?! Are you freaking kidding me? We all benefited from his death! Hell, you are the new archduchess and archbishop because he’s gone! Besides, he attacked me first and I did have a Lethality License then!”
“That does not exclude the fact you did knowingly, and with purpose, assault and ki
ll a major infernal noble and likewise destroyed the palace of Ars Goetia. The Lethality License you had during that time was not applicable to major noble status. Read the fine print.”
“Wait, you were there! Hell, you helped! It was sanctioned by Dantalion!”
“I never laid a single finger on Abraxas, nor did I have any part in the destruction of the palace. You did all that on your own. And Archduke Dantalion holds power in Lemegeton, not Ars Goetia,” Maz countered. “His authority does not cross kingdom lines. The simple fact is, someone needs to pay for those crimes.”
“Baron Salem, how do you plead?” Lady Bathin asked me in a calm tone.
I slumped in my chair, defeated. “You didn’t just need a pawn to draw out your enemies. You need a scapegoat to save face in front of your district’s nobles for everything that happened. And some human minor noble seems to fit the bill.”
“Aww, you’re learning,” Maz said with a grin, showing off his razor-sharp teeth. “You have to understand, we can’t have the general populace thinking they can rise up against our rightful rule and get away with it, now can we? There are rules in place to keep the populace in check. Your willful attack against demonic nobility sent a ripple throughout all of New Golgotha. Your ascension to minor nobility status, more so. Ergo, your current status as a prisoner of Flotsam. Examples have to be made, you see.”
I sat there, half listening, feeling numb. I had dared to hold out hope that this whole ordeal was a joke. That after a while I would be released because I was liked and important. Or that someone would come and save me. I guess that was a common feeling among prisoners. And now I felt the next step in that process—resignation. I would be here until I rotted.
“Baron Salem,” Lady Bathin addressed me, her voice switching to a formal tone, “while I thank you for assisting in ferreting out our enemies, you have been found guilty of crimes against the rule of Hell. You are hereby sentenced to remain in Flotsam Prison until you die, or until equivalent atonement be made.” Lady Bathin stood up. “Master Tormentor Mastema, I believe dinner is next?”
And with that, Mastema led Lady Bathin out of the room, leaving me behind as if I was garbage she didn’t give a second thought about. I sat there, mouth agape, staring at the table.