Was he a demon? After all, he ordered demons about now—some, anyway—and they obeyed his instructions without complaint. What was he? He was an Information Man, the only one in Hell, a powerless thing that suddenly, apparently, had power.
Power. He looked at his gun again and then holstered it. Was he powerful? Really?
No; he was simply a fool, he told himself, was Fool, a man like any other in Hell, and he was tired. He was as powerless as the dead, as helpless as the Genevieves and Marys who lined the Houska’s streets and filled its brothels, but even as he told himself that, he knew he was wrong. He might not understand it, might want to back away from it, but he did have power, some power anyway.
The question was, if he had power, what could he do with it?
Later, in his rooms, Fool tried to work out where they had been and where he had come to. He had described what he was doing to Elderflower as “following a trail,” but what trail? It started with a body floating in Solomon Water and then traveled along past a body in the Orphanage, another in the farmhouse and a pit of dead Aruhlians. There were branches off the path, all stemming from its single root: a feather that glowed and wouldn’t hold blood, angels and Elevations and riots, the deaths of Gordie and Summer and the Man. Somewhere in this trail and its curling branches, there had to be hints as to the next steps, didn’t there?
Didn’t there?
Fool wrote notes to himself, questions and answers and more questions, and spread them out on the table in the offices’ small kitchen. Starting at the beginning, he tried to think through again each step he had taken so far, but there were so many, not all of them ones he had chosen. Right from the little demon at the lake, he had been as much moved as the one doing the moving; more, really.
The demon at the lake.
Fool looked at his notes about the first body. The demon had attacked them and tried to claim the body for itself, had battened onto it like a leech and then stopped. It had tasted its emptiness, hated it, but it had said something, hadn’t it? What had it said?
It had said, “What did he do?”
“He,” not “it.”
He.
There was something there, something Fool had missed all along but could see now, something that might be important. It had said “he,” not “it.” Did that mean it had seen who killed the first Genevieve? Could it tell Fool what the murderer looked like? He rose, suddenly awake and not tired, trembling.
It was as he stood that he remembered; there was another witness, maybe two. Morgan had them, had Summer and the body from the alley, and Summer’s flesh at least still housed her soul. Summer might have talked.
26
They were traveling through the industrial district, on their way to the Questioning House, and they were in a transport. The vehicle had been waiting outside his rooms as he left, idling on the street. There was a demon behind its wheel and Elderflower was sitting in its rear, holding the door open for Fool.
“This is quicker than the trains,” said Elderflower, “and the Bureaucracy wishes you to be fast on this, Thomas. This has gone on long enough now; it is upsetting the balances. Hell has not seen riots for years, still less humans attacking demons. Death on the scale that occurred today is almost unprecedented and the oceans of Limbo cannot afford to be flooded with that many released souls. They are already awash, and there is a risk of flooding.”
“A flood of souls?”
“A flood of souls, Thomas, is something you do not wish to ever experience.”
“I don’t?”
“No, Thomas, you do not. Trust me on this.”
Trust Elderflower? Did he trust him? “Why?”
“Because, Thomas, I am all you have to trust.” And in this, Fool thought sadly, Elderflower was right.
The journey took Fool through a Hell he had not seen before. The riots had spread, fires burning almost unchecked, some guttering behind the heavy stone walls and some raging, forcing their tongues out through broken windows and doorways in flickering leers. Humans no longer walked with their heads down, scurrying by themselves or in twos and threes; instead, great crowds of them patrolled the streets, blocking the transport’s passage on several occasions. Even when they parted, they did so slowly, hemming the vehicle in as it passed, peering in through the windows at Fool and Elderflower and their demon chauffeur. The Houska seemed emptier but the streets linking it and the boardinghouses fuller. They passed a train moving slowly toward the Houska; it was on fire, its rear two carriages burning brightly.
“What’s happening?” asked Fool.
“Hell is changing,” said Elderflower. “Being changed. Something has emerged, something of such power that it’s warping the things around it simply by being here. Slaughter isn’t unusual in Hell, Thomas, you know that, but these are not usual times. These deaths, these murders, have become noticeable, Thomas. Things are being seen, rising above the normal tide of pain and suffering, and so we shall be seen to do something. I am to give you what assistance I can to put this situation, and by extension all those things happening as a result of it, to rest. Hell will have its control, Thomas. It will have charge of the things that occur within its boundaries.”
The transport brought them to the House. “There are more Elevations planned,” said Elderflower as they exited the vehicle. “We have collected the lucky few and they will be shown the way upward tonight. There will be yet more tomorrow, as well as the last of our discussions. You have permission to miss tonight’s risings but will, of course, be there for the rest of our proceedings.”
“Of course,” said Fool.
“Go, Thomas,” said Elderflower. “Go and look, Thomas, and listen, and solve this mystery.”
“It’s not a mystery, though, is it?” said Fool. “You know who’s doing these things, you know what they are, where they are—you must.”
“Must I? I have told you before, Thomas. Your job is to investigate just as mine is to aid you where I can. We are tiny parts of the biggest picture, it is true, and we might see the fragment we inhabit and understand what it means or not. What I may see and know I cannot say; those are the rules that I have been given. Now, there is a body awaiting you, Thomas, as there are Elevations awaiting me. You must attend to them, as I must attend to Adam and Balthazar.”
The little bureaucrat turned and walked away into the night. Fool’s last glimpse of him was of his coat flapping behind him and his hair, bobbing like dry grass, and then the darkness closed around him. He walks through the darkness and light equally, thought Fool, and still had no idea what he really was.
Despite the hour’s lateness, the nearby industrial area was still noisy, the air full of smoke and grit, and his swallows were grimy and rough. Everything was rough, everything scratched, everything about him ached, but this was Hell and what else should he expect? This path he was on, supposedly on, following a demon whose appearance he didn’t even know, how could he hope to follow it when each turn seemed to be a dead end, an end filled with the dead, where each new trail looped back on itself? Did he really think that Summer would speak, could tell him anything? That the little thing in Solomon Water might have seen something? That it might tell him the something it had seen?
Yes, because otherwise he might as well lie in the mud at the lake’s edge and allow his lungs to fill with Hell’s earth, allow himself to be trodden away to nothing. That’s my tiny fragment of hope, I suppose, he thought, little hopeful Fool, wanting to catch a demon so powerful it can eat souls and that can slip between the spaces of Hell without apparently being seen. He thought of the demon that had come for him in the Iomante, about his escape. If he kept on, he’d end up back at the Heights, he supposed, and its inhabitants would notice him again, would move against him. Had they already sent something else after him? Or were they waiting, watching for his next move?
Could he stop? Simply climb back into the transport and tell it to drive him away? Return to the offices and pretend that the blue ribbons were no more import
ant than any other crime, stamp them DNI or Unknown, and then sit in his rooms and wait for Summer’s and Gordie’s replacements? Stay quiet, stay low, stay out of notice? He had come so far, but achieved so little other than the death of the people around him he cared about, other than the battery of his own body to the point where all movement hurt.
Could he stop? Could he?
He looked at the Questioning House; it was time to decide. Fool put his hand on the butt of his gun, felt its shape and solidity and how small it was compared to the terrors that Hell held, and looked down at his hand, scabbed and pale like some injured spider. He looked back at the house, with its thick covering of vines, and thought of the Man lying dead with holes torn in his back, his musculature exposed and manipulated. The demon could have killed me, but it didn’t, he thought. It sent me to Crow Heights so that others would kill me. It was playing with me, making me dance for its entertainment. Elderflower, the demon, the Man, Rhakshasas, and the rest of the Bureaucracy that find me so interesting to watch, they’re all playing with me, watching as I do what they want, dancing as they whistle. He glanced down at his uniform, wrinkled and grimy already, and remembered the taste of Summer’s blood in his mouth, the scent of Gordie burning and the sound of him screaming, the sound of the demon in the Iomante. I wonder if they found that interesting? If any of it bothered them? If they watched me as Gordie died, not murdered but still killed by that demon, whatever the fuck it looks like?
Fine, now they can watch me catch the bastard.
Even from the end of the path, Fool could see that the front door to the Questioning House had been torn off its hinges and was lying inside the wide hallway in a haze of splinters and wood. He drew his gun, looking at the jamb; the wards and runes that should have protected the Questioning House were still there. He ran his finger along one of them, a series of black shapes traced into a piece of thin paper pinned to the wood, feeling the tingle of them in his fingertips. They still had power, these spells against Hell’s more violent denizens, yet something had waded through them and torn its way inside. How powerful was this demon? he wondered. How strong, to be able to smash through the protections that the Bureaucracy gave the Questioners?
Fool went cautiously into the building. The broken door wavered under his feet as he stepped over it, splinters digging into his soles. It was bright in the building, the lamps still burning merrily in their sconces, making the shadows thin and weak. Apart from the shattered door, there was no sign of disturbance; the signs on the wall reading FLESH and ADMINISTRATION gleaming, the polished floor reflecting a blurred image of Fool as he moved carefully forward, the long desk where the corpses were signed in empty and neat.
Steps led off the main foyer up to the Questioners’ private rooms, the top of the staircase lost in gloom. Fool moved to the foot of the stairs and then stopped, knowing instinctively that upward wasn’t where he needed to go; it would lead only along another branch, a smaller one. The main trail, he felt sure, would lie in the Questioning Rooms, which were at the back of the House. He went to move away but a querulous voice came from above him.
“Has it gone?” Tidyman, emerging from the darkness. His white hair was haloed around his head and his hands were clasped in front of him.
“Did you see it?”
“Tidyman was too busy running,” said Hand, appearing from behind his colleague.
“Did you see it, then?” asked Fool.
“No, because I was running as well. We were in the foyer, Tidyman and I, discussing a new technique for questioning the dead when they are in pieces, when the front door was hit. Whatever it was sounded very determined, so we ran as the doors were hit again and came off their hinges. I didn’t look back.”
“Where’s Morgan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you try to help him? Find him?”
“No.”
“It’s not our fault,” said Tidyman as Fool looked up at them. “What could we do?”
“You could have tried,” Fool said.
“We could have died,” said Hand, looking at Fool as though he were an idiot. “Why should we put ourselves at risk for Morgan? Would he do it for us? Would you?”
“No,” said Fool. “I’d do what you did, I’d run and hide and not look and hope that I survived.” He was telling the truth, he thought, or at least, the truth that had governed his life until very recently. He turned from the men in disgust, unsure of where his disgust was aimed, and went back into the foyer.
He found the only other sign of disorder, a chair lying on its back, just inside the corridor toward the building’s rear. He went past it and continued down the hallway toward the doors that lined its far end, all of them closed.
The House was silent.
Call or not, Fool wondered, silence or noise? And then, If it’s here, it’ll know I’m here already. Call. “Hello?”
His voice echoed along the corridor. “Hello?” he called again, but no one replied, and nothing moved. He took another step, listening; silence. Another, so that he was almost at the first door, reaching out, still listening, still hearing only his own breathing and the Questioning House’s silence around him. “Hello?” he tried a third time, his hand closing around the door handle. It was warm, slippery.
The door opened easily, revealing an empty room. The table in the middle was bare, its metal surface and surrounding benches of instruments and bottles and scales covered in a thin layer of dust. Fool let out a long breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding. The room opposite was the same, the table set up for a Questioning but clean and unused.
That left two doors. The first was locked but the second was not and opened a little when Fool pushed it. It grated as it moved, wood rubbing against wood. Closer, he saw that its upper panel was marked, two impact points set into its paint at about head height. He pushed at it a little harder, felt slight movement and then resistance, and pushed again. Something behind the door shifted, bumped against it, and then fell into the growing opening. Fool jumped back, reflexes singing, as Morgan’s upper body appeared, the stump of his neck winking redly at him. A part of Fool, a part inside, screamed, but most of him was dispassionate, remained calm and silent.
Morgan hit the floor with a thick, glutinous noise, another dead body, another sack of ruptured and abused flesh like Gordie and Summer, and its interest to Fool was primarily in the story it could tell him and only distantly that it had once been someone Fool had liked. What am I becoming? he wondered, and the answer came on the thought’s heels almost instantly: An agent of Hell. He pushed the door open and entered the room, stepping over Morgan’s corpse to do so.
The room had been torn apart. The counter that ran the room’s length along the far wall had been ripped from its moorings and the tools of Morgan’s trade scattered across the floor. The air was filled with competing scents, of thick oils and rich blood and sharp chemicals and something else, something bitter and rank. A huge pool of blood had formed around the fallen counter, jagged sprays of it climbing the walls above the worktop like the silhouettes of distant trees. Morgan’s head was in the center of the pool, resting on its side and facing back into the room so that its open eyes peered at Fool owlishly.
There were footsteps across the floor, etched in blood. Some were the imprints of Morgan’s feet, smooth-edged, the blood still a rich cherry. Others were less distinct, the blood burned to a thick black crust, the prints uneven, some large, others smaller, distorted, looking not like feet but like clawed hooves. The heat of it must have been furious, Fool thought, looking at the burned smears of blood. Could he track the movements in this room, follow Morgan’s last steps by following the stains? Step into the demon’s tracks and chase Morgan’s ghost? What would he see if he did? Fear? Pain? Anger?
“Can we help?” said a voice from the doorway. Tidyman and Hand, both in the corridor and peering in from around the edge of the frame, were half hidden from the room and its contents.
“Yes,” said Fool
. “Go away. Go back to your rooms and stay out of my way. I’m working.” He turned away from them, ignoring them, and went to Morgan’s slumped corpse.
“I’m sorry, old friend,” he said and rolled him over. Blood had soaked into the man’s clothes; there was little of the gray material left clean on his top half, and his thighs were spattered with thick, whorled stains. When Fool lifted Morgan’s arms and examined them, not liking the way his flesh was still warm, he found several deep marks across his palms. Fool had a sudden image, a flash of Morgan backing away, holding his hands up and the demon lashing out, knocking the hands aside, tearing into them and then grasping Morgan’s head and twisting, sucking on the soul as it emerged, slurping at it greedily.
Sighing, he let Morgan’s hands drop and rose, looking around the rest of the room.
The Questioner’s table, usually positioned at the room’s center, had been tipped over and had skittered up to the far wall, its legs buckled around as though something had swept into them and torn the table from its fixings in the floor. A hand was just visible at the top edge of the table, the skin blanched and the fingers curled toward Fool as though in greeting. It was small and the edge of the wrist was marked by striations of red and black where it had been bound. Tied between two pillars, Fool thought. Summer.
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