The Devil's Detective

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

  “Precisely,” said Rhakshasas. “He is not yet everywhere, but he might be. He may already be so powerful that he thinks to challenge for the leadership of Hell. Find out what he is, Information Man Fool. Find out, and tell us.”

  “Yes.” What else could he say? Little ordered Fool, he thought bitterly.

  “And consider, Fool: if he is already what we think that he may become, in investigating him you might find your murderer, the one who is powerful enough to eat souls. Go, Information Man. You have your orders.”

  “Yes,” Fool repeated, and went.

  The question was, where to start? How was he supposed to do this thing that he been tasked with? Fool had been fished from Limbo a little more than six years ago and given this role, but apart from the Information Man’s Guide to the Rules and Offices of Hell he had never been trained or given guidance. When he had first started, there had been nine Information Men, but three had died later that first year and had not been replaced, three more had died the second year, one of whom had been replaced by new flesh, and then another three had died, two of whom had been replaced. Fool had ended up as the senior Information Man not because of any skill but simply through a process of winnowing. There was a line in the Guide he remembered, that the Information Man should “root through Hell in search of Hell’s truth and justice …,” and it made him think of something questing through dirt and earth, forcing its way forward in a focused, driven quest. Try as he might, he couldn’t see himself in that way; he had crawled through dirt, yes, but it had been a helpless, prone slither, an attempt to escape from a demon that had attacked him and his colleagues during an investigation a few years ago.

  Blind rooting, questing, that was the activity of the Man. It was odd, thought Fool, that he had been told to investigate the Man, yet the Man was a better Information Man than Fool would ever be; he had parts of himself across huge tracts of Hell now, had eyes and ears wherever there were crops and dark places and earth to root in. There was no one else who knew as much about Hell, or its denizens, as the Man did.

  No one? True, Fool thought, but there is someone who knows a lot; there’s Gordie.

  On the train back from his meeting with Rhakshasas, Fool did something he had never done before, not really; he tried to plan. As he saw it, he had two things to do; find the stealer of souls and prevent it from carrying out any more attacks, and find out something about the Man to feed to the Bureaucracy, to Rhakshasas, to keep them happy. If the Man was as powerful as Rhakshasas seemed to think he might be, or might be becoming, though, if he was involved in the killing of the Genevieve by Solomon Water, investigating him would be dangerous. Fool remembered again that wet, leathery crunch as the Man’s mouth closed around one of the tiny chalkis, crushing its flesh to a mangled pulp with little apparent effort, and shuddered. He would have to be careful and not let the Man know what he was doing if possible. As for the dead man, he had had no real idea.

  The offices were dark. Fool, as they all did, entered silently so as not to disturb anyone who might be sleeping. They worked separately or together, depending on the job and the amount or canisters, and each had learned early to consider the other two in their actions. Without lighting a lantern, Fool made his way to Gordie’s room, stepping over each board that squeaked without really thinking about it, and then knocked at the younger man’s door. There was no reply, so Fool opened it quietly but found the room beyond empty. Gordie had been called out, he assumed.

  There was a groan from behind him.

  Fool’s reaction was so fast that, afterward, he was surprised at himself. He whirled, head filled with images of spindly demons with no skin, drawing his gun. The hallway was still dark, still empty, and then another groan came from behind one of the doors and he saw one of his friends injured or dying, bleeding, and he kicked at the door and crashed into the room beyond with his weapon held out.

  Gordie was on top of Summer, in her bed, and as Fool burst in he groaned a third time. He was thrusting, his back arched up, and he was covered in sweat. Fool stumbled to a halt in the middle of the room, his gun pointing helplessly about. Summer, her arms wrapped around Gordie’s back and her legs pulled up, pressing into him as he thrust, made a noise that was partway between a shriek and a groan. Fool mumbled a wordless apology and backed out, and as he did so, Summer looked at him over her lover’s shoulders and her eyes were wide and scared.

  Fool waited in the kitchen for them, drinking more weak coffee, staring at his reflected face dancing on the surface of the liquid. When Gordie and Summer came in, neither met his eye and both kept their heads down, making themselves drinks in silence. Finally, as though they were on trial, both sat on the opposite side of the table and faced him. “Please don’t say anything,” said Summer.

  “Who would I tell? And why?” asked Fool, but he knew what Summer was really asking: Don’t think about it, don’t draw attention to us, don’t don’t don’t.

  “We didn’t mean to,” said Gordie, not looking up from his cup on the table.

  “Yes we did,” snapped Summer, startling both men. “I won’t be ashamed of this, Gordie. I won’t tell anyone, but that’s not because I’m ashamed, you mustn’t ever think I am.” She reached across the table and took his hand, squeezing it. After a second, he squeezed back and raised his face slowly to look at Fool.

  “None of my business,” said Fool. “There’s nothing in the Guide about Information Men having relationships one way or another.” This was true; he’d checked while the two of them had dressed and while he was waiting for the water to come to the boil to make the coffee.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you do what you want.”

  “Thank you,” said Gordie. Summer smiled at him, and it made her face lift and appear suddenly younger. Fool reached out and placed his own hand over their linked two. He had no idea what the feelings they had for each other might actually feel like, had never felt anything even remotely similar, but he knew about what they were sensing, had heard about it. Their hands were warm under his own, and he realized with a sudden start that this was the first time during his life in Hell that he had touched another human being by choice; their skin moved under his own, hot and soft and as alien and as wonderful as the feather itself.

  “Do what you want,” he said, “only, be careful. I’ve brought attention to us, to me and, by association, to you. Be careful, and be cautious, and love each other. Now, Gordie, what do you know about the Man of Plants and Flowers?”

  “No one knows who the Man is,” said Gordie later, “but there are rumors.”

  What time was it? wondered Fool. He wasn’t sure; after leaving Summer and Gordie, he had gone to his room and fallen asleep, and dreamed of nothing that he could remember. The feather, lying in its place on his near-empty shelf, cast its light about the room, sending glimmers into its dusty corners, bathing Fool’s skin in its cooling, calm touch. Rising later, he had dressed and placed the feather in his pocket and returned to the kitchen, where Gordie was waiting.

  “He’s supposed to have been human, once,” continued Gordie.

  “Yes,” said Fool, remembering when he had first met the Man. How long ago had that been? Three years? Four? Tracking time in Hell was hard, unless you made an effort; each day was like the one before and the ones that came after, blurring into a long string of similarity and fear.

  “The other theory is that he’s never been human, that he only appeared that way,” said Gordie. “He’s actually a demon, an odd one even by Hell’s standards. He’s able to merge with the plants, any plants, and he eats other demons. The chalkis mostly, the smaller flying things, or some of the scuttling ones. There are supposed to be parts of Hell where you can’t escape from the Man, and parts where he’s not reached yet, but no one really knows where each part is, or whether it’s even true at all. He knows things and says it’s from the extending parts of himself seeing things, hearing them, but maybe it’s knowledge gained from eating things and absorbing what they know. He hel
ps humans, but only for a price: information, news, gossip, sometimes getting them to carry out jobs for him, but the jobs never make any sense. Place a rock on a particular street, draw a pattern in chalk on a particular house, carry a dead plant to the river and throw it in.

  “There’s a story about the Man, that a group of demons got tired of him because they thought he was a human that dared to eat even little demons, that helping humans was unacceptable, so they went to kill him. None of them were ever seen again, and the Bureaucracy did nothing. He’s supposed to know everything. I have no idea whether it’s a true story or not.”

  “How did you find all this out?” asked Fool.

  “I asked, while you were asleep,” said Gordie. “Most humans will talk, if you catch them when they’re tired, or if I’m not asking as an Information Man. I just ask, that’s all, and they tell me what they know.”

  “Do you believe any of the rumors?” asked Fool, thinking, Just ask, that’s all.

  “Not really,” said Gordie. “I mean, yes, he’s unique in Hell as far as I can tell, but he’s not odder than anything else here, is he? He’s a human, I think, or was once; demons tend to avoid damaging each other except under extreme circumstances.”

  “Yes,” said Fool again. It fitted with what he’d seen, that demons considered themselves to be Hell’s real inhabitants and the humans interlopers. Besides, why would they need to attack each other? There were always humans to take their lusts and anger and desires out upon, and more waiting outside the walls if the damage on any one body grew too much and the human died.

  “What’s more interesting is how demons react to the Man, or to the mention of him. I mean, it’s hard to talk to demons, but as an Information Man you can sometimes get them to answer you, but never about the Man. It’s like they’re scared of him, because they don’t understand him. They almost pretend he doesn’t exist.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “Everything in Hell is dangerous; you told me that on my first day with you,” said Gordie, smiling. “But the Man, specifically? Well, he eats some of the demonkind and scares the rest. He’s huge, no one knows how big or where he is or isn’t, and that makes him powerful. So, yes, he’s dangerous, mostly because no one really understands him.”

  “He’s growing,” said Fool. “Getting stronger. More dangerous.”

  “Yes,” said Gordie and then stopped as a canister dropped out of the tube in the corner of the room. It clattered to the floor and rolled toward them, ending up resting against Gordie’s foot. Even in the murky lamplight, the blue ribbon wrapped around its exterior was easy to make out.

  7

  The house glowered. Its boards were darkened with old flames and in places they had burned or broken completely away, revealing glimpses of a shadowed interior. It had windows but they were boarded as well, the wood crudely nailed across the frames in a crosshatch of splintered and sooty planks. The doorway held no door, was empty, openmouthed and sucking, drawing in the light and letting out something worse; the house was blind but not mute, and it screamed at them.

  “It’s an Orphanage,” said Gordie, unnecessarily. Even if Fool hadn’t known, the tiny corpses in the grounds around the house would have given it away. There were only a few, charred shapes lying on earth that was scorched and blackened. One of them still burned, brief orange flames licking around its skull and dancing across its back. A trail led from the doorway to the burning child, still visible, shallow furrows cut through the dust by limbs that were tiny and weak. Flesh gleamed where the flames drew back the skin in curled, blackening skeins. And the house, or whatever was inside it, screamed.

  “Perhaps you should enter?” someone asked.

  “Perhaps you should,” snapped Fool without looking around. He had never been inside an Orphanage, had no urge to enter one now; the burning child outside the house was bad enough, and whatever was inside would almost certainly be worse.

  “No, no, I think that would be your job, Thomas,” said the same person, and this time Fool recognized the voice: Elderflower’s.

  He had approached silently, was standing behind the three of them and smiling. It was impossible to tell whether his smile was one of amusement, irritation, or boredom; it was an expression as distant as the clouds above them, and as hard to read. Fool nodded, hoping to look contrite, but Elderflower waved the nod away and said, “I come with two messages, Thomas, important enough to be brought in person rather than wait for you to pick them up via the tubes.

  “The first is that Rhakshasas is pleased to be able to grant your request, Thomas.”

  “What request?”

  “Your weapon, Thomas, your weapon. All your weapons, in fact. Their ammunition will form far more quickly once spent. You are the only people in Hell to be allowed the use of weaponry, Thomas, besides that which occurs naturally or that which can be converted from other purposes.”

  Naturally? thought Fool, and then realized: The teeth and claws and rocks and poisonous fangs. Natural.

  “It is felt that,” continued Elderflower, “given the current circumstances, you should be allowed more efficient guns. The Bureaucracy has agreed that their Information Men require equipment that supports them in their roles as protectors and investigators. The archdeacons pass on their regards and hope that this pleases you.”

  “They do? They have?” said Fool, confused. They protected people? Investigated? Well, in theory, yes, but in practice? No. Only now they were, he realized, in some small and ill-formed way, searching for some kind of truth about dead humans, and the origins and plans of the Man. “Thank you. Or them.”

  “Indeed,” replied Elderflower. He waited, looking at Fool, his gaze intense. Under his scrutiny, Fool felt again that Elderflower was something he did not understand, was impossible to read. Human or demon, his place in Hell was unclear to Fool. At times he portrayed himself as little more than a glorified clerk, and yet at others he spoke as though he had some minor level of power and influence within the Bureaucracy. He ran the Information Offices, or at least was the link between it and the Bureaucracy, and all his and Gordie’s and Summer’s reports and findings went to him, and all their tubes were delivered by him or by the administrators who worked for him. Fool thought again of the thing in the Assemblies House retrieving papers from Adam, its clawed hands scrunching the unwanted sheets up, and wondered what else those hands might do if Elderflower ordered it.

  “Really, Thomas, you disappoint me,” said Elderflower eventually, still smiling. “You have had such an interesting day, have proved yourself so unexpectedly dogged in your pursuit of the truth, and yet you do not ask the most obvious question.”

  Fool’s head felt thick, muzzy. If there were questions, they weren’t obvious to him; there was simply the knowledge of a blue ribbon, of a murder committed in the house behind him, a house that even now shrieked in something that might be pain or might be horror or might be fury or might be all three. What did Elderflower want?

  “Why has the request been granted? Why now, and not before?” asked Summer, rescuing Fool. She had, Fool saw, removed her own gun from its holster and was staring at it, as though looking for changes to its metal solidity to indicate its new functioning.

  “Precisely!” said Elderflower, clapping his tiny hands together. They were perfect, Fool noticed, the fingers delicate and the nails that topped them smoothly arched and clean. The sound of his clapping was loud, cutting through the wails from the house and through Fool’s muzziness.

  “And the answer is?”

  “You have been noticed, Thomas. Two demons dead in such a short space of time! No human has done that for a long time, and certainly not with such determination. The little one means nothing, but the one in the bar, it has a parentage in Hell’s hierarchies, and siblings who even now are wondering who Thomas Fool is, and why the humans are talking about him in tones of awe and respect. Oh, don’t look so worried, any of you,” Elderflower said, looking at their faces. Frightened Fool, thought Fool,
silly, idiotic Fool. Noticed Fool. How could I have been so stupid as to think that I might have gotten away with it? Walked away from Rhakshasas and the others without a mark, gotten away scot-free?

  “You have done nothing wrong, Thomas. Quite the opposite; whether you know it or not, you acted within the rules, and besides, you are interesting, have amused those who judge these things. The archdeacons find you interesting, Thomas. You are a bright spark in the boredom of Hell’s days, and their eyes are upon you. There are many eyes upon you, not just those of the archdeacons of Hell.

  “Besides,” Elderflower said, “they need you equipped for the mission they have given you.”

  Fool said nothing, thinking that being interesting might be even more terrifying than being merely noticed, and feeling an odd, dangerous anger sweep over him. He was interesting because he had done what? Killed demons? Things, human and inhuman, died every day in Hell, every hour, and nothing seemed interested in them or what had killed them. Elderflower talked about obedience, but what choice did he have, really? They were here because blue ribbon tubes were compulsory to investigate, and if he or Gordie or Summer did not? How interesting would they be then? And who made the decision about whether a death warranted a blue ribbon? He did not know.

  “What’s the second thing?” he asked.

  “Good, Thomas, that’s better. Your presence is required tomorrow.”

  “My presence? At an Elevations meeting?”

  “No, earlier. The delegation wishes to see the Flame Garden and then the wall and what lies beyond, and Balthazar has requested that you be their guide. They are our guests so Rhakshasas has, of course, willingly agreed.”

  For a moment, Fool was speechless. The words were there, in his mouth, on the tip of his tongue and the front edges of his teeth, and his lips twitched to let them out but he would not. A tour guide? A fucking tour guide? For Balthazar and Adam and the scribe and archive, Heaven’s beauteous inhabitants, come down but not Fallen, not them, come instead to decide and Elevate and now wanting to sightsee? A reward, perhaps, for their hard work? “No, I can’t,” he said finally. “I have jobs to do, things to find out.”