The Devil's Detective

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

  “Where’s Summer?” said Gordie.

  “I don’t know,” said Fool, dragging the body toward the door. The weight pulled against him and his grip on the sheet slipped. “Help me, Gordie. Quickly.”

  “Where’s she gone?” said Gordie and grabbed the sheet. The two of them hauled the wrapped corpse to the door. In the leaping, sinuous light, moving shadows danced across the floor and up the walls, filling the hallway. The screams’ volume was a physical thing that beat at Fool’s ears. He made out little and could not see the entrance to the Orphanage, so thick was the gathering smoke, but he could feel the violence, the predatory stances, the impending attack.

  Summer was standing in the middle of the hallway.

  8

  She was wreathed in tendrils of smoke, her gun hanging loosely at her side, and she was speaking. “Please,” Summer said, “I know you hurt, but a part of you is human. We only want to help this man, to find out what happened to him. Won’t you tell us, please? You must have seen. And if you can’t, please can you let us pass? Please?”

  Amazingly, the orphans stopped moving for a moment. Fool sensed rather than saw them regarding Summer with blank-eyed malice. “Summer,” he called quietly, dropping the sheet and taking a step into the hallway.

  “Summer,” shouted Gordie, his voice wavering, “come here. Run!”

  Summer ignored them, crouching and holding her hand out to the nearest orphan, a ragged thing with a human face melting into a body that appeared to consist of a black, pulsating carapace covered in countless limbs and a bristling, whipping tail. It retreated from her hand, hissing and shrieking, spitting fire to the floor, where it sputtered and went out. Summer held out her gun and let the orphan see it before dropping it to the floor. “You’re human, just a baby,” she said, “and I know you hurt, and you’re angry, but hurting us won’t help.” Behind Fool, Gordie moaned, a low wail that sang under the cries of the orphans. And then a movement shivered around the hallway like a whirlwind collapsing in on itself and the orphans surged toward Summer.

  She got off one shot, scooping up her weapon and aiming at the thing that, moments before, she had been holding her hand out to. Fool saw it spin back into the crowd, the flame of its death spraying wide above its companions. Summer threw herself backward, but she was too slow and the closest orphans leaped upon her.

  Flames snaked across the thin material of her uniform as Summer screamed. Something on a thread that was burning dropped down on her from the ceiling, long legs opening to clamp around her head, and she screamed again, the cry muffled by the orphan that even now was wrapping silver threads about her. As Gordie started toward her, the threads began to blacken, their outer layer drying and crackling, flaking away, and by the time he reached her, the first flames had appeared along their cabled length. He tore at the strands, crying out as the flames snatched at his fingers, Summer screaming and pushing up at the orphan on her head as more crawled up her body. Fool fired, shooting the nearest scuttling creature, and joined Gordie in pulling the creatures from Summer. He pulled his cuff down over his hand to protect it from the twisting skeins of flames, knocking orphans to the floor and kicking at them. Most were light and hadn’t gripped onto Summer strongly, but there were so many that their tide was inexorable and began to swamp them.

  Gordie fired and an orphan clambering up Summer’s legs exploded, the violent burst sending shards of sickly light into all corners of the hallway. He pulled the trigger again but the gun clicked emptily. Bending, he dragged Summer’s gun from the mass of darkness of flesh and flame on the floor, pulling the trigger as he did so; it did not fire, and would not for anyone other than Summer. She was still tearing at the limbs of the thing that had wrapped itself around her head, untangling her hair from its grasping legs. Gordie pushed her gun into her hand and then guided the barrel up, calling, “Fire!” when it was pushed up against the body. There was another flash and a crown of flesh leaped up and danced in the air above them for a moment and then fell, spattering, to the floor.

  Gordie began to drag Summer toward the Orphanage’s entrance, kicking and punching at the orphans as they came close. Fool followed, dragging the corpse in its filthy shroud behind him, batting at the creatures when they approached him or his burden. Flames had caught around the edges of the torn plasterboard of the walls and were winking in and out of life. The Orphanage must have some resistance to the flames, or the flames were not strong, Fool thought as he moved. Summer’s hair had not ignited despite the burning threads and the orphan that had been upon her head, and the wooden floors showed only superficial damage, vast black blooms almost hidden under the writhing mass of orphans.

  Gordie fired again, as did Fool, their bullets carving paths through the things ahead of them, opening up a space that they moved into. Summer, sobbing, fired and then staggered as one of the orphans jumped at her and landed on her shoulder. She went to one knee and Gordie pulled at her as she knocked at the thing. They both fell, coming to rest in an ungainly heap against the wall, and the orphans swarmed again.

  This time, they went for Gordie rather than Summer. Summer righted herself and started pulling at them, tearing them from him, but every one she pulled away was replaced by another, black eyes gleaming, limbs clenching and grasping, burning. Fool pushed at Summer, driving her ahead of him, pulling at the corpse. Reaching for Gordie, he kicked at the things clustering over him, but they were thicker than ever, more of them falling from above, leaping onto the writhing pile and trying to find a purchase, the man below lost to sight. Flames, bright and strong, curled from somewhere within the struggling mass and Gordie screamed. The orphans momentarily backed away from these flames before darting back in, and Fool had the oddest flash of insight: these were human flames, not demonic ones. Despite the apparent weakness of the orphans’ burning, Gordie had caught alight.

  “Take this,” Fool shouted, pushing the knot of sheet in his hand at Summer, forcing her to grasp it and carry on with the corpse, and then turned back to Gordie. Most of the orphans were ignoring Fool, sensing Gordie’s weakness, and they did little more than nip at him as he pulled them away, simply circling back to the fallen man from wherever Fool threw them. The flames, the human flames, were growing fiercer and Gordie was screaming louder. Somehow, he managed to raise himself to his hands and knees and started to crawl. Demons dangled from him, locked tight, their jaws clamped on his clothes and their clawed arms and legs grappling him. Here and there, tiny human arms and legs kicked and waved. Something with a face that looked human but that was glowing red from within hissed at Fool as he tried to knock it loose.

  Fool swept an arm across Gordie’s back, knocking off everything that clung to him except the rapidly growing flames. They had taken hold of his uniform, the material already charring, the flames releasing the scent of burning flesh and hair and the sound of bubbling fat, and the demons shrieked, and still they darted in and bit at Gordie, tiny mouths drooling fire, lips moving, eyes glittering. Gordie raised his face to Fool, his own mouth moving, screaming, as the fires from clothes leaped across his skin, singed it from pink to a swelling red mass. His stubbled hair sparked as it burned free from his scalp, tiny fireflies of light leaping from his head and disappearing into the roiling smoke above him. Fool tried to flap the flames out, but they had too strong a hold and merely swayed out of reach of his hand and then leaned back in, sucking eagerly at Gordie’s clothes and skin.

  Gordie took another stumbling lurch forward, still screaming, and raised a burning hand to Fool. Fool reached out but Gordie knocked his hand away. “Go,” he said through a mouthful of flame, “go. Look after Summer.” Fool took a step back as Gordie collapsed in a swirl of sparks and leaping fire and the orphans swarmed in again.

  Behind Fool, Summer screamed, her voice joining the swelling chorus as the Orphanage’s inhabitants began to feed.

  Summer was in her room, but she was not asleep; Fool could hear her weeping.

  The body Fool and Summer had dragged
from the house was in the cellar, transported by two unsmiling, silent men who had used the sheet from the Orphanage rather than use their own. Gordie’s corpse was still in the Orphanage and would remain there, despite Summer’s exhortations to Fool to return for him. It wasn’t cowardice that made him refuse to return; rather, he didn’t think that, between the demons and the fire, anything of Gordie would be left. His body would be picked clean of flesh, the orphans stealing every scrap of him to eat whatever emotions they could find. Fool had a terrible vision of them, replete, still shrieking as the demonic part of them degraded the human part but somehow, for the first time in their lives, satisfied. Would Gordie’s love for Summer make them feel better? he wondered. Were they full of stolen memories of the good times that Gordie and Summer had managed to find with each other? He hoped so, and hated them for it.

  Returning to the office, Fool had found a tube from Elderflower, the contents of which had been a single sheet of parchment. In its center were the words I am to inform you that a replacement will be provided, and reading them had filled him with that helpless, directionless rage again. Summer had simply started crying again when she read the message and had gone to her room.

  The area behind their building was walled. It was flagged, an old courtyard from when Hell had been a different place and the building had a different use. There was a mosaic set into the ground at its center, the design swallowed by earth and age and decay. The stone slabs were choked with weeds and dirt, tendrils of growth pushing up around them, lifting them and making the space an uneven buckle of edges and dips. Worn and shapeless statues lined its walls, their sightless eyes staring into the center of the space as though waiting, silent and patient and solid. Fool went out there now, still holding the scroll and leaning against the wall between two of the statues, staring up into the sky at the clouds. Even they were beautiful, he thought, graceful and distant and uncaring. He watched as they moved and shifted, catching occasional glimpses of Heaven, of its towers and spires and windows.

  Gordie was gone.

  He hadn’t even known him that well, not really, but he had liked the man, liked him especially for his memory and for his eagerness to do his job and for how he and Summer had been together. How long that eagerness would have lasted he would never now know because, of course, Gordie was gone and he would be replaced at Hell’s convenience. He and Summer were the Information Men now, and their job went on because the violence and murder went on. Somewhere, a demon was eating souls, somewhere humans were being beheaded in the streets, somewhere demons were using the flesh of humans for their pleasure, and just for a moment, Fool allowed himself to forget about it and to look at Heaven and to dream of a life where his clothes didn’t smell of the scorched flesh and burned hair of his friend.

  “Fool,” someone said, although they stretched the word out so that it sounded more like a weary exhalation than his name. He dropped his gaze from the city above him, trying to persuade himself that the blurring of vision was a result of staring at its brightness rather than tears gathering in his eyes, and looked around. He could see no one, but the sound came again, stretched long and thin and rasping oddly.

  Fool pulled his gun free, holding it out before him. Something in the overgrowth rustled and the voice called out again, this time a greeting that was soft and sibilant. “Hello, Fool.”

  Fool didn’t reply. He didn’t like the way the voice sounded, dark and rough, and he was acutely aware of the attention Elderflower had told him he was generating. How many more demons had he killed in the Orphanage? Two? Three? Was this when those dues were called in?

  “Fool,” said the voice again, the rustling in the plants growing more vigorous. The voice was stronger, and in a moment of clarity, Fool knew who it was; not someone in the bushes, but the bushes themselves. The Man was calling him.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Come to me, Fool. I have news.”

  “News?”

  “Of bodies and soulless things, Fool, bodies and soulless things. Tomorrow, Fool.”

  “Fine,” said Fool, slumping back against the wall and holstering his gun. Waves of tiredness, kept at bay by activity and fear, surged over him and he wanted to sleep. “After serving the delegation and attending the Elevation meeting. I’ll come then.”

  “Yes. And Fool?”

  “Yes?”

  “Bring the feather.”

  9

  The Flame Garden swallowed the body with little fuss. Around its blackening form, for a moment, the fires leaped more wildly and then faded back down, glaring orange. No blue flames appeared, but Fool hadn’t expected them to; the blue flames that danced around the bodies they fed into the Garden were the souls of the dead being released and returning to Limbo to wait before being called to fill more flesh, and this body had no soul to burn.

  “And what happens now?” asked Balthazar.

  “Nothing,” said Fool. “It burns.”

  They were standing on an observation platform that jutted out from one of the thick stone walls that snaked their way through the Garden. Even this far above the flames, Fool found the heat uncomfortable and he was sweating heavily. Adam and Balthazar were both dry, their skin unmarked by perspiration or by the ash that drifted down from the skies and settled on everything else. They had been here for only a few minutes and already Fool was covered; he knew from experience that there was no point in brushing it off until he left the Garden, as more would simply fall in its place. Below them, in the flames, dark shapes moved, clumsy figures searching for the treasure the Garden irregularly gave up.

  “Purification,” said Balthazar, leaning out from the edge of the platform to look down into the flames. His toes curled as he leaned, clenching into the stone with a noise like the grinding of metal against granite. He kept his body straight, pivoting out at a seemingly impossible angle. “This is what Hell should be, of course, what He intended. These are the fires that give you release, are they not? Where the damned can achieve absolution?”

  Fool didn’t reply. He had no desire to contradict Balthazar, but the angel was wrong; the Flame Garden offered no release, no absolution, at least not in the sense that Balthazar meant. The souls were burned free of their fleshy shackles, yes, but only to disappear beyond the wall and float in Limbo until they were called and found their way into some new body. The only absolution, the only release, was Elevation. In a funny way, he suddenly realized, the soul that had occupied the body they had just dropped into the flames was freer than most; it had already been released, although to what he wasn’t sure. Perhaps the blue flash that West had seen meant the soul, or some part of it, had escaped being eaten by whatever demon had attacked it. It was a nice thought.

  As he thought about that first body at Solomon Water, Fool remembered the nameless one that had attacked him and Gordie. What had it said? It nagged at him, made him think that there was more there he should have done, but he couldn’t work out what. He would ask Gordie later, when he returned to the office; the younger man would remember and they could work it out from there.

  Ah, but no. Gordie was dead.

  “What are they doing?” asked Balthazar, pointing at the shapes that crawled through the flames.

  “Things appear in the Garden, and sometimes they have enough solidity to be useful,” said Fool. “Furniture, tools, other things. The workers collect what they can and bring it to the shores.” As they watched, one of the shapes started back to where the flames began to fade and the earth rose from them in scorched patches. Fool could not identify what the figure was carrying, but it was large and ungainly. Between that and the suit the human wore to move among the flames, the worker looked less like a human and more like some warped and distorted demon.

  “Where do the things come from?” asked Balthazar, turning toward Fool but still leaning out at that impossible angle.

  “I don’t know,” replied Fool. “The things simply appear. The demons that manage the Garden may know. I could find a supervisor fo
r you to ask, if you like?”

  “I think not,” said Balthazar, dismissively. “There is no guarantee of truth from a demon.” Again, Fool resisted speaking, pointing out Balthazar’s error. Demons rarely lied; they had little need to.

  “Perhaps the things that appear are the remains of things burned in the worlds around Heaven and Hell,” said Adam quietly, “the ghosts of things lost to the flame of house fires and arson and bombs and accidents? Finding their way here through destruction and pain? It is a sobering thought, is it not? That even the simplest things in Hell are born of pain and loss and fear? We should go on, we have more to Elevate today, and I am keen to see more of Hell before we attend to that pleasant task.”

  They made their way back to the transport that the Bureaucracy had provided them with that morning, the same small and dented thing that Fool had been given on that first day of escort duty. Balthazar had seen that it was the same and bristled, but he had climbed in silently, and he did so again now. His wings scraped against the doorframe as he folded himself into the seat, which Fool suspected was a deliberate act, a point being made. Adam, as ever, slipped in silently, a small and patient smile never leaving his face. The scribe and archive climbed in after him, ever quiet, ever obedient.

  The farmlands started not far beyond the Flame Garden. The number of buildings they passed fell, replaced by vast fields covered in thin, stunted crops. The plants were a sickly green color, and the earth below them a dark gray. Dust hung in the still air, shifting as they passed. Here and there, people worked the fields, lines of humans picking the crops or weeding while demons, singly or in pairs, looked on disinterestedly. As they drove, Adam asked infrequent questions and Balthazar muttered to himself like a chattering kettle.

  “Stop,” said Adam suddenly. “Stop. Stop now.”