The Devil's Detective

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

  “Thomas,” called Elderflower, “we have work to do.”

  “Yes,” called Fool over his shoulder. “I’m doing it.”

  It was a demon, and it had been torn to pieces. The arm Fool had seen was still attached to a shredded nub of shoulder, gray bone sticking out from ravaged flesh, and its torso was lying several feet away in a patch of trampled grass and foliage. Its head was lying on its side by the torso, and although Fool couldn’t see any legs, there were several long things like tentacles in the ripped clearing. The stench was terrible and made Fool’s eyes water and his belly roll.

  “Thomas,” called Elderflower again, his voice harder.

  “In a minute,” called Fool. There was something about the dead thing’s face, its head, that bothered Fool. Its mouth was open and black blood stained its lips. Despite the smell, lifting the edge of his jacket to cover his mouth and holding his breath, Fool approached the head. The open mouth was a dark cave, hundreds of needle teeth visible behind the lips. Its jaw was distorted, pushed out by the amount of teeth, but it wasn’t that; there was something else, something behind those teeth. Holstering his gun, Fool crouched. The head was as big as his own chest, the mouth wider than his clenched fist. The demon’s eyes were open but had started to rot, their surface furred with green mold; insects skittered away from the body. This thing had been dead for a while, he thought, several days at least. All around him was the sound of movement in the undergrowth, Hell’s tiny scavengers resenting his intrusion on their meal.

  Fool reached out very slowly. His finger came to the edge of the mouth, paused without him consciously wanting them to, and then carried on. Rumors, always rumors: that some demons could live in pieces for months, even as they decayed, still full of bile and sour hate. At any moment, he expected the mouth to snap closed on his questing hand, to sever his fingers.

  “Fool!” called Elderflower, the first time Fool could remember him not calling him “Thomas.”

  “In a minute,” Fool called. He had hold of it, the thing in the demon’s mouth. It was dry, scaly, hard. He tugged at it. The head shifted in the dirt but the thing didn’t come free. Fool pulled again, and this time it came loose, starting to emerge from the mouth. It caught on the teeth, which were curved back inward, and he had to pull again to get it free.

  It was a tongue.

  It was forked at the end, and barbed, and it had been torn out at its roots. Thick cables of muscle and tendon dangled from the torn section, dried and curling.

  “Information Man,” called Balthazar. “Do you need help? Is the dead demon exciting?”

  “No,” said Fool, dropping the tongue. It meant something, was another way station on the trail, but a trail to where? Was it even the right trail? It was so confusing, trying to know what mattered and what didn’t. Something had killed this demon, a feral thing that even the more violent inhabitants of the Pipe might have been wary of. Its tongue had been torn out and then crammed back into its mouth along with … along with dirt, Fool saw. Thick dirt also filled the demon’s mouth.

  “Thomas,” said Elderflower, and this time his voice was dangerously quiet.

  “Yes,” said Fool and stood. His legs ached, his head ached. At his feet, the demon’s head rolled back and stared sightless into the sky.

  The discussions took hours, and were difficult. Fool and Balthazar took their places by the windows and waited as Adam and Elderflower argued back and forth across the low table, not as they usually did about a range of people but about one person. It often got like this, toward the end of the delegation’s time in Hell, the final sifting through minutiae, decisions based on tiny things that Fool couldn’t hope to understand.

  There was no crowd outside the windows when they started, but by the time Elderflower and Adam were deep into their conversation, the Sorrowful were gathering. The first set of Elevations had subdued them, but as though reacting against their earlier behavior they were now restive. Currents of people moved through the rapidly growing mass, streaming in curling paths back and forth. Banners rose and then dropped again, only to reappear moments later somewhere else. Someone threw a batch of the leaflets up into the air and they fell like drifting snow.

  “We will take one,” said Adam.

  “Three,” replied Elderflower. They had finished the discussion about the sticking-point individual and were back to numbers again.

  “One,” repeated Adam, and so it went on. Fool watched the Sorrowful warily, not liking the way they moved. There was an edge to the shifting, the weave becoming a stutter. Scuffles broke out, visible as churning knots through the grimy panes.

  “We need three,” said Elderflower from behind him.

  “One.”

  Fool saw it in reflection in the glass, a blurred and pale shape that rose behind him, and by the time he had turned, Adam’s wings were open and extended, emerging from the back of his black robes like scythe blades. The angel rose, his voice echoing in the room as he said “One” again. Fool’s hand dropped to his gun, but he felt the heat of Balthazar’s flame at his throat as he grasped its butt.

  “Do you think you could draw before I remove your head? Do you think that it would harm us even if you could draw and fire?” said the angel at Fool’s side, his voice calm.

  “No,” said Fool. I only ever seem to speak in single words, he thought, little wordless, stupid Fool.

  “No,” repeated Balthazar. “Then let your hand drop from your weapon, Information Man.”

  “No,” said Fool and then the things at the corner of his eye moved.

  The shadows at the edges of the room thickened, streaming together and lurching forward. They weren’t demons, Fool didn’t think, not entirely. They were things of only partial substance, darkness coagulating into solidity for a few moments, part of Hell’s defenses. They lurched as they moved, their bodies irregular and uneven but fast despite that, forming a closing circle about the figures at the center of the room. They drew what little light there was with them so that thick shades pooled themselves around Fool and Balthazar.

  “Adam, please sit down,” said Elderflower. “There’s no need for tension. We need you to take three; we have need of the space.”

  “And we wish to take a single additional soul to those already agreed.” The angel’s wings stretched, if anything, even farther, their tips almost brushing against the shadow creatures. Fool’s hand flexed around his gun and Balthazar’s heat brushed more firmly under his chin. It stung, a thin line of pain against his skin. It pressed more firmly, the pain deepening, scoring itself against the underside of Fool’s jaw, and then vanished.

  “Leave them, little Information Man,” said Balthazar. “This is part of the game, I think, and not for us to be concerned about.” The column of his fire had gone and his hands were crossed over his smooth groin again.

  Adam shook his wings, knocking one or two of the shadowed figures aside, and then pulled them back in. In response, the figures melted back to the edges of the room, unknitting around the windows and releasing the dirty illumination that had made them. The room grew lighter again.

  “Excellent,” said Elderflower, who had not moved during the incident. “So, we’re back to where we were, yes? All is calm?”

  “Yes,” said Adam. “I apologize.”

  “No matter, Adam, no matter,” said Elderflower, and that was when the rock crashed through the window.

  It wasn’t a rock, Fool saw, but the remains of a statue, a weathered head of some guardian stonework from one of the buildings that lined the square. It reminded him of the tongueless demon’s head as it rolled across the threadbare carpet. In the time that he and Balthazar had been focused on Elderflower and Adam, the crowd had become more agitated, reached a flash point, and ignited. More missiles rose from the mass, began to bang against the walls of the building or fall short and land in the courtyard. Some bounced and sent sparks leaping when they landed; others skittered like insects. The crowd pressed forward against the fence, some beginn
ing to climb, clambering up toward the rusting tips of the metal posts.

  “Thomas,” said Elderflower, “please deal with that distraction.”

  “Distraction?” asked Fool and then realized that Elderflower meant the crowd. “How?”

  “You have troops, Thomas; they merely await your orders.”

  Troops? Fool looked and saw that it was true; ranks of demons were gathering in the courtyard, standing imperviously as rocks landed around them.

  “Quickly, please, Thomas,” said Elderflower. “We have work to complete. Take Balthazar with you.”

  “A fine idea,” said Adam. Another missile crashed through one of the high panes, showering glass down onto the floor. Neither Adam nor Elderflower responded, although the sudden noise made Fool jump. The sound of the crowd followed the rock into the room, voices calling and screaming. Still unsure of what he was supposed to do, Fool left the room and Balthazar followed.

  24

  The sound had weight when Fool left the building and entered the courtyard, a physical presence that crashed and roared around him. There were no voices in the melee, unless the crowd itself had become a single voice that gave vent to all the fears and anger of the individuals within it. Rocks hit the ground and walls, the sound of them a staccato wave, bouncing around him. One caught him on the elbow as it went past, sending a bolt of pain along his arm, followed by a shiver of numbness. The rows of demons looked at him.

  His troops looked at him.

  Members of the crowd had reached the top of the rails now, were trying to clamber over; those lower down were, Fool saw, being crushed by the mass of people pushing forward. Faces were being forced into the spaces between the bars, mouths open, eyes squeezed shut or bulging, blood flowing. Here and there in the air above them blue sparks jumped, and he suddenly understood it was fragments of their souls tearing loose and wondered whether he should simply allow it to happen, allow them to die and be released.

  No.

  There was no point in drawing his gun; there were more people than he could ever hope to shoot even if he wanted to, and they would never hear the sound of the shot if he fired above them. The Sorrowful were like a single living entity, huge and mindless and furious, and he needed something big enough for it to see, for it to understand. He needed to get its attention, to pull its eyes up and give it something to be in awe of, something bigger than itself. “Balthazar,” he said, “how much fire can you make?”

  The column was huge, a pillar of flame stretching up into the sky, towering above the shifting crowds and throwing its light down upon them. Masonry arced through the air toward it, entered it, and did not emerge, and the heat of it was a rippling, scouring thing. Arm aloft, Balthazar sent his fires upward as Fool sent the demons to knock people from the fence.

  “No killing,” he said, unsure whether he was talking to the demons or to Balthazar, whose face held an expression of fierce, violent joy. The first row of demons began to knock people from the fence, dropping them onto the backs and heads of those below them, poking through the railings to detach feet and hands and sending people falling.

  “Get them away from the fence,” said Fool, and the rest of the demons immediately began to climb the railings. Seeing them approach and driven back by the heat of Balthazar’s flames, the crowd began to shift, to change direction and move away. Screams rose, this time of pain, as streams of people began to move faster and faster away. Some of those who had been pressed against the base of the fence were unconscious or worse and fell away, blood frothing from their mouths and noses, their faces shiny with sweat, imprinted with the shape of the bars. In the fleeing crowd, lit by Balthazar’s fire, people fell and were lost to view.

  “Pull them out,” shouted Fool, “pull them out now!”

  Demons, his troops, waded into the crowds, dragging fallen humans loose and, in some cases at least, literally throwing them free. The screaming rose, the crowd’s voice terrible, and the roaring of demons joined it. The air was growing hotter, the sweat running down Fool’s face and across his body under his uniform, the rough material rasping at his neck. He couldn’t see what was happening farther back in the mob and he looked around for something to stand on. There was nothing, so he went to the fence and climbed, holding his gun in one hand and clambering awkwardly.

  The entrances to the square were small and huge clusters of people had formed around each, knotting tighter and tighter, pressing against the walls and buildings around the gaps. The air was hazy above the people, ripples of pale blue light fluttering here and there. As the demons made their way farther into the crowd, the Sorrowful tried to flee and the crushes became worse. The screams and roaring had blended, a morass of noise and pain, and Balthazar’s fire burned high and fierce and painted the crowd red. They’re dying, thought Fool. I’ve panicked them and they’re crushing each other and dying. This is my fault, little stupid idiotic Fool.

  Fires were burning in the square, although Fool had no idea how they had started. Could the demons’ own heat have escaped, he wondered, growing within them and stoked by the agonies they were surrounded by? Hadn’t Gordie said something to him about that once, that demons could sweat fire when they became excited or gorged? That it was why the wounds on the Genevieves and Marys rarely bled, because they were cauterized by the demon’s heat, by the excitement they felt as they fucked or fought or killed? Embers of burning leaflets rose into the air, dancing here and there. Banners lay on the ground, tangled and flaming; the fires caught at the pushing, terrified people, took hold of their thin clothing, and breathed itself larger. The thought Demons and fire and humans and pain and suffering, this must be what Hell used to be like flickered briefly across Fool’s mind and he heard closer screaming and realized that it was him.

  “Balthazar,” he was shouting, “do something!”

  “What is there to do, Information Man?” said Balthazar, his voice audible even over the screaming. He came to the fence, the column of his fire dwindling to nothing, his entire body gleaming, throwing light out, his wings open and flapping. With each flap, air barreled past Fool, shaking him, and Balthazar rose several inches off the ground and then drifted back down.

  “I control my own flames, not those of others,” the angel said, and then a vast blue glow leaped up from the crowd.

  It crashed across the square rapidly, expanding out from the tight presses of the Sorrowful at the exits, turning the fires into capering, shifting formless blue pools, turning the demons into cold nightmares and the Sorrowful into bleached, featureless things. It came at Fool fast, a wall exploding across the square, and hit him hard, tearing him from the fence. It sounded like a hurricane, like all the screams Fool had ever heard meshed into one stretched and ringing thunderclap, accompanying him along his brief journey to the ground, and as the jolt of impact slammed into him it shrieked louder. It burned his eyes, was visible even when he clenched them shut, raging into him. Images filled his mind, disconnected and multiplying, of Hell seen from above, from outside, of a wall that was the only wall, of countless souls pressed together in the oceans of Limbo with no breath and no self and no hope but that they might gain flesh and be Elevated, and Fool screamed and screamed and screamed.

  The light lasted only a moment; it was the worst moment Fool had ever had.

  When it was gone, when his eyes no longer burned and the pressure within his skull had dropped to something like normal, Fool stopped screaming. His throat was raw and he spat, seeing pink streaks of blood in his spittle, another injury to add to his list. He rolled over onto his back and then sat up. Balthazar was standing next to him, his head tilted back and his mouth open as though tasting the air.

  “Did you feel them, Information Man Fool?” asked Balthazar. “All those souls? All flying free together, all released?”

  “Was that what it was?” asked Fool.

  “Of course,” said Balthazar. “God was here, for just a moment, Information Man, traveling with the souls on their release.” Fool, rem
embering the images within the light, said nothing. Instead, he stood and looked across the square.

  Fires still burned, had spread into some of the buildings that lined the square and gave it its edges. Corpses littered the ground, some smoking, others alight. Not everyone was dead, though, and the silence that had followed the souls’ freeing was rupturing with screams and moans. Fool walked back to the fence, his body and head weary, and took hold of the railings; they were warm. On the ground near him, a charred banner read WE DESERVE BETTER. Yes, he thought, we do, but this is Hell, so we won’t get it. Looking up, he saw Elderflower at one of the windows. The little man nodded at Fool and then turned away and was gone, and the pane filled with silent shadows.

  25

  Clearing the square took the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon. Fool detailed some of his troops to help in the job, getting them to drag the mounds of burned and mangled flesh away from the exits. The corpses against the walls came loose with a terrible tearing sound, were bent in ways that humans should not be, their bones shattered by the weight of the crowd behind them. Some had suffocated and looked as though they were asleep when they were laid on the ground; others were only just recognizable as human, blackened and blistered, curled into tight balls by the heat. Those humans who were still alive and not too badly injured were pulled in to assist as well, stacking the bodies to make their collection and transport easier; even Balthazar helped, carrying corpses and piling them like cordwood.

  Porters ran carts, directed by Fool, taking pile after pile of bodies to the Flame Garden, ferrying them on wooden carts and carrying them in hammocks of gray canvas. The air was thick with the smell of charred flesh and burned hair and burning wood. Clouds of steam spat from the buildings aflame around them as demons sprayed them with water, streams of warmed liquid spilling across the square and washing the dead flesh it contained.

  When the square was finally empty of the dead, the ground covered in sodden ash and torn paper and clothing and banners and pools of blood and urine and dirt and water, Fool went and sat with his back against the fence. His uniform was filthy, but at least, he thought, he still had it. He had listened to Elderflower and obeyed, obedient Fool that he was, and this was the result; bodies ferried to the Flame Garden all day, souls torn loose by fear and pain, sent back to Limbo. Was he any better than the demon that killed the Genevieves? Or the one that had come to the Iomante to kill him and had slaughtered its way along the wards to find him? He looked at his gun, turning it in his hands. The barrel’s mouth stared solemnly at him, black and open and waiting to breathe. Was he any different? Any better?