Hell Cop

by David C. Burton

  “Yeah, dope,” I said, not yet scared. “Jeez, give me a hand will ya?”

  He slowly moved out of sight, and then the whole front of the cave fell in. Darkness and sand enclosed me. I panicked. There was space behind me, but I began gasping for air anyway. I scrabbled at the sand. Pleaded and cursed at Macy to help. Sand got in my mouth, nose, and eyes. I choked on it. It stuck to my tears. I knew I was going die, buried alive, alone except for monsters who would drag me down and into the dark to feed me to other monsters. They grabbed at my legs, I felt them. Then I broke through. Light and air flooded in, driving the monsters away.

  * * * *

  “Was yer friend there?” Gregory asked when I fell silent.

  “No. I was alone.”

  “Did he go for help?”

  “That's what he said.”

  “You dinn'a believe him?”

  “I guess I did, but he abandoned me. I could never forgive him for that.”

  “And never have it seems. Ye were but wee children, Getter. He made a childish mistake. It was not as if a grown-up you trusted left you.”

  “He abandoned me, Gregory. He should have stayed.”

  We were quiet as we walked quickly on. Ahead I heard the loud whining buzz of angry Corn Wasps. A soul burst out of the field and ran away from us on the road. He swatted at the dark cloud of wasps that surrounded him. Remembering past experience, my muscles tensed each time he screamed at the searing pain of a sting. An alert Skyhook glided over us and lined up on him. The hook took the soul dead center and yanked him off the ground just as the paralysis took him. Gregory and I waited as the bewildered wasps swarmed in a tight ball, then flew off.

  We continued on.

  Gregory asked me, “Did ye remain friends, you and Macy?”

  “Yeah, but it was never the same. About a year later his family moved away. I was glad.”

  “You never forgave him for his mistake?”

  “Not while he was alive.”

  “So you saw him again?”

  “Fifteen years later,” I said reluctantly.

  Gregory stopped and held his head cocked to one side like a bird listening for worms. He turned and looked behind and to the right of us.

  “There,” he said.

  I saw the ripple of something moving fast through the grass. A tall thin soul emerged onto the road only ten feet from us. He glanced at us, kept running, then suddenly stopped and stared with wide, haunted eyes.

  “Gregory?” the soul asked with a Scottish brogue even deeper than my companion's.

  Gregory stiffened, sucked in a quick strangled breath.

  “McFetter!” he said as if spitting out sour milk. “I felt your evil in this place.” He drew Zoat's sword. “Bastard. You have not known Hell till now. Now justice will be done.”

  “Gregory, please,” McFetter pleaded.

  My little soul friend, the fire of vengeance in his eyes, ran after McFetter, and they disappeared into the grass. I started after them, but a knee high centipede, after the same prey as Gregory, blocked my way. When it saw me, it raised up its first few segments and snapped ice-tong-sized mandibles at me. I stuck the end of my walking stick under one row of legs. The insect tripped about fifty times, veering toward me, but away from the feuding Scots. I poked the big bug several times, and it glided back into the grass.

  Stunned, I watched the two souls’ path through the field. The raised sword served as a marker to their progress. I wasn't the only one watching. A Skyhook had noticed, also. It lined up behind them.

  “Gregory! Behind you!” I yelled.

  The big bird came in low enough for the grass to tickle its belly, the hook hidden from view. When it passed over Gregory's position, it looked like it stopped for just an instant, as if the hook had snagged on prey caught in a net. The bird let out a squawk like a bass Crow and flapped its fifteen foot wingspan to gain height.

  My jaw dropped at what I saw then. Gregory wasn't impaled by the hook and carried away for a lunch on the fly. He hung on with his hands. The hooks, though about a foot and a half long, only have a sharp edge for half that length. The back half is rounded so that the souls won't split in two and fall off.

  From my pack I quickly dug out a small pair of binoculars. I got them focused in time to see Gregory scamper up the long leg of the hook and emerge on top of the bird, riding it like a mouse on an elephant. The bird put on an incredible display of acrobatics to dislodge its surprise passenger. Flips, rolls, dives with last second pullouts, nothing shook the tenacious Scot. Mesmerized by the spectacle I forgot to watch out for myself. The unending plains were still for once, acquiring a benign feeling as all its denizens waited for the outcome of the unusual aerial display.

  Finally, the big Skyhook had had enough. It flew slow and level until it turned and glided lower in wide easy circles. It floated past me at about fifty feet. Gregory's smile filled the sky. He held the sword up in salute.

  “Thank you, Getter,” he yelled. “We will meet again.”

  Astounded and suddenly alone, I watched Gregory and his tame Skyhook rise, then circle the area where they had come together. Suddenly, they dove straight down. At the last second the Skyhook leveled out. Its hook ripped through the grass. The bird hesitated, then rose up, with McFetter neatly and securely skewered on the hook.

  They flew off into the distance.

  I reshouldered my pack and continued on down the road. Occasionally I glanced in the direction he had gone, thinking maybe he would come back. I already missed the little Scot and had more questions than ever to ask when I saw him again.

  An itch in the center of my back reminded me to look around. “Shit!” I hit the dust. A hook whistled as it flew past my ear.

  Two hours later, neck sore from looking over my shoulder, I sighted the Nexus in the distance. I also came upon a phenomenon I'd never seen before in 73. It surprised and concerned me. And I really began to feel that something was not quite right in Hell.

  Chapter Eleven

  A wide area around the Nexus, perhaps a mile or more, had no standing grass. It had been trampled flat, ground into the dust. I crouched at the edge of the area for a long time trying to figure out what happened. When I examined the dust, I found it covered with hoof prints. My first thought was horses, but that made no sense. There are few horses in Hell and those are reserved for the souls who are terrified of them. I thought of pigs, then I thought of cloven hoofs, and then a chill ran up my spine.

  I'd heard some of the stories passed down by the old hands: of Satan's cloven-hooved minions marching through Hell, of wars for power and control of souls, of palace infighting and assassination. What had Rack the Hack said? Security had been increased. Security meant Mephisto, and anything that involved Mephisto meant trouble for Hell Cops. Once he acquired a soul, mistake or not, he hated to lose it. And why was Captain Boam checking out minor disturbances? Something was happening, and whatever it was, it wasn't good.

  I couldn't wait any longer. The quicker I got the girl and got out the better. After a quick, exposed jog across the cleared area, I filled my canteen and entered the Nexus. In two minutes the Nexus walls contracted and slid me through the rock into the classic Hell of 15.

  Rough, black rock formed a straight up wall with no obvious exits around the Nexus. I darted to a small recess while I checked the Find. I followed its lead and an opening appeared. Inside, stone steps led upward. At the top I cautiously poked my head out. Since I had seen the trampled area in 73, caution seemed in order.

  15 is ragged black rock mountains and perpetual night. I scanned around. Guards! There were never guards here. I saw their spindly winged forms as silhouettes against the glow of the fires. Fortunately they weren't guarding hard. They smoked crooked cigars and laughed at the piteous cries of the souls.

  I slipped onto the Nexus wall and crawled around to another set of steps that descended into one of many narrow canyons radiating away from the Nexus. The canyon stretched into the far distance. The floor
was a hundred yards wide and the walls curved in. A rift, ten to twenty feet wide, ran down the middle of the canyon floor. Yellow mists floated from the rift carrying the smell of brimstone and eternity. A fall into it was to fall forever through the Abyss. Stone bridges spanned the rift intermittently. There were, of course, legends of lost cities and great wealth guarded by majestic monsters in the Abyss. They were just stories. No body or soul or demon had ever gone in and returned to tell.

  Visible just below the rift rim was a second level. There the Devil's minions tended huge fires that heated the canyon floor to an orange glow. Bandy legged minions scampered about the flames, their shadows cast large on the glistening canyon walls.

  Souls filled the space between the rift and the walls. Hundreds, thousands, millions of them as far as I could see, a churning sea of pale, luminescent souls scrambling over each other to avoid the searing heat of the rock under their feet. The press of souls pushed up a mound of bodies against the wall. The overhang toppled the pile over onto the flat. The souls’ skins hissed and turned black as the hot rock scorched it. Then they ran back to the pile to gain a few minutes respite from their eternity of suffering. Sometimes the souls on top of the heap would throw a climbing soul far enough that it would tumble over the edge of the Rift.

  Octoguards, octopus-like demons that scuttled along the edge on hundreds of tiny legs, snagged the falling souls with their long tentacles and dragged them back into the crush. The Octoguards, relatives of the Squidlings, operated on instinct more than intelligence. They were ever vigilant for the accidental as well as the on-purpose leapers. Many souls would rather chance the Abyss than an eternity of hot feet.

  I had to get almost ten miles down the canyon then over the mountains and into the Schoolyard. Even in the easiest of times, entering the Schoolyard by the Nexus was sheer folly. Like a spinster headmistress at an all girls boarding school, Mrs. Scritch guarded her charges closely. Inappropriate visitors were dealt with most harshly, starting with death and getting worse. Sneaking in the back way was always the safest. The longest, but most secure route, was the trail between the ridges that formed the canyons.

  I crept cautiously through the rocks to the left, keeping to the flickering shadows formed by the fires’ glow. I hadn't gone far when I heard the dry, crackley voices of minion guards. Going around them didn't seem to be a problem until I heard the deep bass gnarl of a Hound.

  I froze. Hell Hounds were not to be taken lightly. I didn't have to see it to know what it looked like: massive square-jawed head high as my chest, a blood red tongue surrounded by backward curving snake's teeth, yellow eyes filled with savage intelligence that glowed like red searchlights when on the hunt. Black as the Abyss, even in full light, Hounds were indistinct, as if they were their own shadow. Maybe that's why, even using the Hellmetal load in the shotgun shells, they were unaffected by the guns Hell Cops carried.

  I backed away. A little distance back I climbed over a huge boulder where I could get a look at the guards. There were three of them playing cards around a fire, all oblivious to any disturbance. The Hound was invisible in the dark except for yellow eyes scanning for me like laser beams. It growled, but a guard told it to shut up. The eyes swung to the guard and flared red with disapproval. All the guards froze in place, realizing how close they were to being dog meat. There was no way past the Hound. I'd have to take another route.

  The Find guided me through hidden doors down to the fire level. The Fires were stoked with coal mined from under the mountains by souls supervised, according to legend, by blind miner demons who had worked the mines since Hell began. Ore carts on golden rails rumbled out of caves miles deep. The carts dumped the coal in a circle around gigantic caldrons. Souls, whipped on by scampering, bony minions with flat monkey faces, climbed rickety ladders to toss the black chunks into the flames.

  The hundred feet from the mine entrance to the coal mounds were usually deserted, and with a little caution, easy to traverse. I made good progress for the first few miles. I only had to duck into a cave once to avoid a four-armed demon Supervisor as he kicked some lazy minions back to work.

  My mind wandered as I got into the rhythm of stopping at each set of tracks, checking if anything was watching, moving on. Was Brittany Hightower really as innocent as her parents made her out to be? Now that I had a chance to think about it, I didn't like the veiled reference to the death of another daughter. Were the changes in Brittany they mentioned because of guilt, or sorrow? The mother had the vision that brought them to me. Yet, a previous sin unentered in the Book is not unknown.

  The parents obviously loved the child. If my daughter had survived wouldn't I love her unconditionally, want the best, no matter any vague suspicions? Would I love her enough to erase any unfavorable entries?

  The question that came back to me more and more was would I have the chance to find out if I could love that much. I was 36, in a dangerous, little known profession. A permanent relationship was hard when you might have to leave on a moment's notice for an undetermined amount of time, and if you didn't return, the other person might never know what happened.

  If I had kids, I'd have to give up being a Hell Cop. Did I have that much love in me? I didn't know. I doubted it. It would take a special woman. I did know one woman special enough. She was a Hell Cop, too, but the thought of her with kids just didn't compute. Though her thoughts on the matter might be different.

  Voices ahead. I ducked into a cave mouth and waited. An iguana-headed Supervisor with prehensile whiptails for arms drove four souls into the next cave. A loaded cart from below caught me by surprise. I pressed flat to the ground as it rumbled past, and I lay still as the souls working the fire began to unload it. Except for the roar of the fire the second level was quiet. My body insisted on rest. I promised it five minutes.

  The faint howl of a Hell Hound jolted me awake after three minutes. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My heart shrank in my chest, and for a moment I closed my eyes and wished it would be all over. But, I thought, jumping to my feet, what would happen to Brittany Hightower if I surrendered to an instant of weakness? Of all my retrievals, this one was the one I didn't want to fail.

  The howl rose from a bass growl to a high wail that penetrated right to the brain's panic center. I peered out of the cave in the direction I'd come from. I heard the frightened voices of souls, minions, and Supervisors alike. A hunting Hound was not particularly discriminating about its victims.

  A dark shape ran erratically toward me, hugging the wall. The Hound's howl grew louder, and in seconds the red glow of its eyes became visible in the distance. The limping figure drew closer. It had to be a Hell Cop. In between the Hound's wails I heard the Cop's grunts of frustration and fear. I knew those grunts!

  The Hound closed in, sure of its prey. The limping figure came even with the cave mouth. I grabbed an arm and swung the body in.

  “What the fuck?” the Cop grunted, eyes big with astonishment, hands up in self-defense.

  “Hello, Sneaker,” I said. “Out walking the dog?

  “Getter? Where the Hell'd you come from? Jesus, the Hound.”

  I took her fine thin face in my hands and kissed her. Quickly.

  “Sneaker, you'll make a damn good mother someday.”

  “What? Getter?”

  The Hound was close. I bolted out of the cave, yelled, “Hey, fuck you, bitch!” at the beast, and followed the golden tracks around the caldron. The Hound followed me.

  Souls and minions scattered. A Supervisor tried to grab me with a tentacle. An angry snarl from behind me changed his mind.

  I slid to a stop at the edge of the Abyss. A stone bridge spanned the twenty foot gap a few feet away. I tensed, concentrating on the beast in front of me and not on the emptiness of the Abyss behind. The Hound silently approached.

  The way it was supposed to go was that the thing would leap at me, I'd duck, and it would fly over the edge into the Abyss. Another brilliant save.

  The Hound sto
pped ten feet away. What it thought about my idea rumbled deep in its throat. Smoldering eyes tried to hypnotize me. Then it took a slow, confident step forward.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Abyss wanted me. I felt it between my shoulder blades—Come to me. Come to me. Blissful nothingness awaits within me.

  It was either the Abyss or death in the fangs of the Hound. Unless ...

  I had my gun out. I'd never actually shot at a Hound. Maybe the stories were false. I raised the gun, and Sneaker came into view directly behind that slobbering black shadow. If the beast didn't stop the shot, Sneaker would.

  Sneaker wore her show-no-mercy face, eyes narrowed to slits, nostrils flared, thin lips tight and slightly turned up on the left side. I hoped she wasn't mad at me for scaring her. A few of the minions appeared now that the Hound had cornered its prey. One minion, showing a snaggletooth grin and chuckling at the prospect of blood, stood a few feet from her. Sneaker lunged at it, caught the four foot high minor demon by the scruff of its leathery neck and, raising it over her head, threw the nasty little creature directly at the Hound.

  The minion screamed. Sneaker yelled. I jumped for the bridge. The Hound leaped. At the same time the unlucky minion fell on top of it. And went right through, as if the Hound was only a phantom. Then, the Hound lashed out with a claw filled paw and gutted the little beast in the air. The body dropped into the Abyss without a sound.

  I took my chance. I shot point blank at the Hound. The blast ripped through it. The damned thing got to its feet. I stepped backward onto the bridge.

  A thought occurred to me. If the Hound was so insubstantial that the gun didn't affect it, how could it be substantial enough to hurt me? On the other hand, the claws were certainly substantial to the minion. I suspected it could go either way at will.

  While I was asking myself questions, the Hound stalked toward me.

  Sneaker had the same questions. She came forward and raised her gun. She stepped on an old bone, and the dry snap drew the Hound's attention. It swung its massive square head and snapped at her. She fired. The shot went through the black demon as if through a shadow and blasted a divot out of the rock an inch from my foot. Not used to being attacked, the Hound was in trouble. Its hindquarters slipped over the edge. Concentrating hard, I thought I saw a slight shimmer as it became solid again. Thinking I knew what to look for, I held my breath and fired.