The Devil's Detective

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

  The stairs stretched up above them, rising to another floor; a stairwell fell away from the far wall, dropping down toward the house’s foundations. There was another weak pulse of light, so pale as to be almost invisible, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Slivers of illumination rippled across the floor, leaving faint scorch marks, and then faded.

  “We have to hurry,” said Balthazar. “Whatever’s happening is nearly complete. If it has an opportunity to get used to its new state, we’ll have little chance against it.”

  Fool looked up. Adam had come in through the roof, would probably be on one of the upper floors. Ghosts filled his vision, were gone again. He wished they could speak, could tell him where to go, what to expect, but they were little more than pictures that moved. Upward?

  He looked into the stairwell. Its bottom was lost to shadows, only ripples of shifting light escaping the dark’s grip in a pattern Fool recognized.

  “Balthazar, you said you were one of Michael’s angels, a thing of fire. What was Adam?”

  “He was one of Gabriel’s, one of the water kind, but he is not Adam anymore. Whatever it is that’s Fallen, it is not the same thing that ascended, and it’s not made of the same flesh nor does it belong to that family now.”

  “I know that and you know that,” said Fool, starting down the stairs, “but does it?”

  The stairs led them down to a flooded cellar, dark water swirling over the last four risers, so that by the time Fool’s feet were on the floor, he was standing in mud and the water was up to his waist. Balthazar stepped down next to him and waved one hand over the water, which began to recede, slopping back toward the distant walls to reveal an earth floor that had liquefied to thick, oleaginous slime.

  The space about them was cluttered. Pillars were scattered haphazardly about, holding up the building above; old chests and tangles of rusted machinery and buckled and drawerless cabinets filled the shadowed corners. The water formed two high walls, reaching above their heads, and things floated in it: paper and torn material and other, less identifiable detritus. The exposed mud was uneven with half-submerged, unidentifiable shapes. Fool stepped forward, using Balthazar’s glow to see by, his gun outstretched. His feet sank into the floor, made suckling noises as he pulled them free. Something glimmered ahead of him, something in the water that peered out at him. Fool took another few steps, approaching it slowly.

  “Hello, Balthazar. Hello, Fool,” said a quiet voice, and then the wall of water collapsed.

  It hit Fool hard, spinning him and slamming him into the wave that came from behind him as the other wall came down. He caught a glimpse of Balthazar being buffeted sideways but not falling, and then Fool was underwater. It was foul, thick and stagnant in his nose. He hit something, or something hit him, and then he broke the surface and gasped for air. He was battered, objects crashing into him, and then a hand grasped him, yanked him upward, and held him. Balthazar gestured with his other hand, but the waters, swirling violently, did not part again.

  “Did you think you were strong enough to stand against me?” said the quiet voice again. It sounded almost like Adam, like Adam speaking through a mouthful of cotton or dirt.

  “Show yourself,” said Balthazar. Fire curled down from his hand, looping around Fool but not coming close enough to burn him. Where it touched the water, it hissed and spat.

  “Certainly,” said the voice, and a pale arm reached out of the darkness and slapped Balthazar across his face and then was gone. A second later a fist at the end of a pale, stretching arm came from the darkness in a different part of the room and crashed into Balthazar’s temple, knocking him sideways. The angel let go of Fool and he dropped. Currents in the water caught him, sent him staggering until he crashed into one of the pillars. Fool clung on, realized he was still holding his gun, and raised it, peering into the grimy air.

  “Ah, little Fool,” said Adam and a hand emerged from the darkness, reached for Fool’s gun; it was slow, as though playing, and Fool avoided it easily, still holding on to the pillar. “You came to arrest me?”

  “Yes,” replied Fool. Something white shifted in the corner of the room and he fired at it. The bullet whined off far brickwork and sent a noisy splash up from the surface of the water. The white thing was gone.

  “Do you think you can hurt me?”

  “Yes,” said Balthazar and sent a writhing twist of fire around the room. Fool ducked, dropping into the water, as it sliced through the air above his head, burning through the brickwork of the pillar and sending sparks and steam out around itself.

  “Oh, Balthazar,” said Adam, as audible under the water as above it, its voice almost pitying, and another pale fist crashed into Balthazar’s head as Fool rose. Adam’s arm seemed huge, an elongated streak in the darkness, but when Fool tried to work out where it came from, he could not; it was too fast. Balthazar stumbled and went to one knee and another attack came, this time from behind him, driving him into the water. The white thing moved again, streaking through the thick liquid, creating a bow wave that crashed against Fool’s legs. He fired at it but the bullet splashed harmlessly where it had been and then it was on Balthazar and the water exploded as Adam rose out of it.

  Falling had distorted the thing that had been an angel. Whereas before he had been a smooth, handsome male with a beard and salt-and-pepper hair, it was now entirely bald and his skin had chilled down to the color of frigid alabaster. His wings had lost their delicacy and become shredded, dark shapes that hooked away from his back like great, curved fangs. As it rose from the water, sending spray up around him and Balthazar, its wings thrashed, jerking open and cracking against the wall and one of the pillars.

  Balthazar lashed out at Adam, fire leaping from his hands, but Adam knocked the flame aside and clasped Balthazar’s head. Its hands swelled, the fingers gnarled and clawed, locking around Balthazar’s skull and clenching tight. Balthazar grunted and opened his own wings wider, beating them. The pressure drove him forward and the two disappeared into the water with another splash.

  For a moment, there was stillness, and then the water’s surface roiled and ruptured as Balthazar broke through and carried on rising, held aloft by Adam and then flung against a pillar. The angel crashed off it and landed heavily on a huge wooden tallboy, splintering it. Fool fired at Adam and hit him, a black hole opening in the Fallen’s shoulder. It swung toward Fool, the hole knitting closed as it turned. Its head had stretched and narrowed, becoming angular, and its eyes had become black orbs. They gleamed as he said, “In a moment, Fool. In a moment.”

  Fool fired again. Another hole opened, this time in Adam’s neck, and then closed up. Adam spat, and a metallic lump arced into the water between them.

  Balthazar came up behind Adam and wrapped the Fallen thing in fire, steam pouring from its flesh as the heat danced across it. It screeched and took hold of the flame, yanking it hard. Balthazar lurched and then Adam was spinning him, holding his flame and pulling him in a spraying, staggering circle. Balthazar screamed and tried to pull back, to stop the movement, but Adam yanked harder and the flames tore loose from Balthazar in a twitching, scorching ball. It flung them aside; they hit the water and hissed, writhing and fading as they sank.

  Balthazar shrieked, holding his hands out before him, spinning and dropping to his knees. Adam took hold of Balthazar’s wings, one hand enclosing both the wings close to Balthazar’s back, and began to jerk them up and down. Balthazar shrieked again, and then the stems of both wings snapped. Fool heard the crack of them breaking, heard the wet snap, saw them bend to an unnatural angle, and then Balthazar’s scream was beyond hearing and comprehension and Adam had cast him to one side and turned back toward Fool.

  Adam’s mouth opened, huge, its teeth curved and triangular, its lips lines of cracked gray that snaked across his cheeks and back toward his ears. Behind him, Balthazar floated facedown, shifting in the swirling water, wings loose and broken.

  “It was so simple,” it said, “so very, very simple
. All those sinners needing absolution and I provided them with it, loosing the souls of the damned. How easy, to leave the rooms and venture into Hell when Balthazar believed me to be resting, to stalk through a riot, to kill a man made of little more than foliage and to use him against you. And you, Fool, little Thomas Fool blundering along, always behind, always late. I have been doing God’s work, Fool, in the place where it is needed most, and if I have had to take on the mantle of sinner to do so, then so be it.”

  “God’s work?” said Fool, unable to stop himself. “And yet here you are, Fallen. Maybe God didn’t want his work done like this?”

  Adam shrieked, its mouth opening wider, hands flexing out. Fool took in its claws and maw, imagined the teeth tearing into him, took a deep breath, and dove under the water.

  He used the pillar to kick off, trying to drive himself in the direction of another pillar, his hands out in front of him. Things in the water banged against him, paper draping around him, more solid items striking him. The water felt thick, like liquid rock, and he struggled to move through it, kicking his feet. It was black, impossible to see anything except blurs as objects emerged to strike his face and outstretched hands. Finally, he hit something that didn’t give and he pulled himself to it, breaking water, gasping and trying to get behind whatever it was in one clumsy move.

  Without Balthazar’s gleam or fire, the room was much darker. Flickers of blue came from all around him, fracturing and dancing over the water but doing little other than giving the shadows depth.

  “Where are you, Fool? Do you think I won’t find you?” said Adam. Something splashed in the water on the far side of the room and Fool took a cautious step along the shape he was behind; it was wooden, had handles. A cupboard? Not big, certainly. He crouched, submerging himself to his chin, and tried to spot Adam.

  A pale shape flitted in the distance, there, then gone. There was another splash and then a wave broke over Fool’s nose and he choked. Something gripped him under the water, lifted him, and threw him. For a moment he was airborne, out of the flood, and then he hit the surface, felt it beat against face and shoulders and he was under again.

  He came up disoriented; where was the wall? The pillar? He lifted his gun, still gripped tight in his hand, and looked around, wiping the water from his eyes.

  “Where am I, Fool?” said Adam, and for a second he was in front of Fool. As Fool fired, Adam dropped out of sight, disappearing under the water soundlessly. A moment later, something hit Fool in the small of the back and pushed him forward. He went to his knees, twisted, and fired. In the muzzle flash, he saw the bullet tear through Adam’s terrible smile, saw the flaps of skin knit together, and then Adam was gone again.

  “It’s almost done, Fool,” said Adam. “I am almost made again.” Worms of light fell from the ceiling, writhing in through the gaps in the boards above them to land in the water, where they extinguished, glimmering.

  “Time for you to die, I think. I may eat your soul, though, rather than let it go, and become the thing you believed me to be. I’m hungry.” Adam rose from the water in front of Fool, ignoring the shot Fool placed into his belly, and grasped him around his head. The pressure was immense, waves of pain and sound crashing through Fool. Adam’s hand stank of blood and shit and something older and fouler, and Fool’s eyes felt like they were swelling, filling with blood. His vision swirled black, and at first he thought that the movement behind Adam was his own death coming, roaring across the room toward him, but it was not.

  It was Balthazar.

  The angel had managed to stand, his wings hanging bedraggled behind him. He limped toward Adam, and as he did so he reached behind himself and grasped one of his torn wings and yanked a handful of his feathers out. He raised them above his head and then plunged them down into Adam’s back, groaning as he did so.

  Adam howled and threw Fool aside, spinning where he stood, trying to reach around to pull the feathers free. Water scythed up in a silver curtain, spraying into the walls. He crashed into one of the pillars and the shafts of the feathers snapped off, leaving a part of themselves buried in his flesh. His questing fingers couldn’t reach them, Fool saw as he pulled himself up from the water, using a wardrobe on its side for support. Balthazar had fallen and was floating away, this time on his back, his face a mask of agony. The water in the cellar churned as Adam thrashed, his clawed fingers finally reaching the broken feather barbs. He pulled one loose, dropping it into the water with a satisfied grunt. Black liquid spilled from the wound, trickling down his back and soaking into his own feathers. When he had pulled the others out, Fool knew, he would finish what had been interrupted and Fool would die.

  Feathers. What had Balthazar said about his feathers? He reached into his pocket, found the feather that he now thought of as his own, and gripped it. Feathers. Balthazar had thrust his feathers into the Fallen’s flesh. Why? Because it was the only weapon he had? A last desperate gesture?

  No, no, there was something else, something more. Something about what the feathers did.

  Adam pulled another shaft free and dropped it. Another. How many more were left? One or two, maybe? Certainly no more than three.

  Another one went into the water and now Adam looked up, glaring at Fool. Its mouth twisted into a shape that might have been a grin, revealing those bleak triangular teeth again, and it said, “Are you ready, Fool?”

  Another one fell. Adam flexed his hands and reached back over his shoulder, but he was already rolling his shoulders and flexing his torso; this had to be the last one. What was it? Fool gripped the feather tightly, hoped, and suddenly thought, Truth.

  “How do I kill you?” he shouted.

  “Wait until I’m open, Fool; that’s your only chance.”

  “Open? I don’t understand. What do you mean?” asked Fool, but it was too late. Adam pulled a last piece of Balthazar from his back and let out a long, satisfied sigh.

  “Now, Fool,” he said, “I’m growing hungry.”

  34

  Fool was pressed back against a piece of broken furniture, the water swirling around his legs and feet, its sharp edges digging into his thighs. His head ached, the muscles of his legs were trembling, and his hand was cramping from keeping hold of his gun. He was cold, shivering, water dripping down from his hair, getting into his eyes and making them sting, and Adam was little more than a blurred ivory shape as it slipped down into the water and vanished.

  Fool moved, keeping his back pressed to whatever it was behind him. Fragments of it dug at him, caught in his clothes, and held him, and he heard something tear. He was lost in the room, unsure where the stairs were. His only hope was to follow the wall around and try to find them. Was Balthazar alive, still floating on the water’s surface, or had he died? Fool wondered about trying to find the angel and dismissed the idea; he had to get out.

  Where was Adam?

  There—a white shadow slipping through the water. Fool fired but the shape twitched away and the plume of water that rose from the bullet’s impact was nowhere near it. It turned back on itself, zigzagging across the space, growing faster, the waves it made buffeting against the walls and echoing back into the center of the room in disrupted patterns. Fool fired again, the noise bouncing off the damp brickwork, and another plume of water leaped up. The shape didn’t stop, didn’t slow.

  Sped up.

  Adam’s wings broke the surface of the water, dark triangles creating wakes behind them. It was still warping, its shape changing, now longer and thinner, less human. Was this a distortion of its true angelic shape, or something new? It veered again, was heading directly at Fool, and was rising up from the water. The surface broke around his now-conical head, its mouth open wide and wrenched into a wide grimace. It covered the distance between them incredibly quickly, finally exploding out in a froth of spray, silent. Fool tried to run, felt his jacket tear farther but couldn’t get loose from the grasp of the furniture, and then Adam was on him.

  Light was streaming from Adam’s bl
ack eyes and out of his mouth, from the wounds in its back, the last of his angelic self untethering. It filled his nostrils and mouth, making the teeth vast against the swirling blue. Its arms came around, hands hooked, light bleeding from the fingertips and from the beds of his claws. Fool yanked up his gun, fired, and then Adam crashed into him and they both fell back into the water, crushing the piece of furniture under them. Fool could move again, tried to kick away, but Adam’s arms had caged around him and its wings were curved, forming a hood over them. Its mouth stretched wider, a bolus of light forcing its way out from behind the teeth. The mouth opened wider still, the teeth gleaming, and its head descended. Farther and farther down it came, the mouth still stretched, lips pulling back from gums that had become pale and pitted and it was inches away and He’s open! Fool thought wildly and jammed his gun into Adam’s mouth and fired again.

  For a brief instant, the muzzle flash and Adam’s own light were in conflict in its mouth, and then it screamed and thrashed back. One wing came down and cracked into Fool’s head, knocking him sideways and pressing him farther under the water. Liquid filled Fool’s mouth and he breathed it in, his throat closing and then convulsing, ragged strings of air and vomit pushing out as he coughed. He dug upward with his hands, drew in another breath of water, and coughed again violently. His heart yammered, his lungs trying to suck as his mouth tried to close. Which way was up? Where was down? He rolled, still reaching, lost in bubbles and blackness, and then his hand was out, feeling air, flailing.

  Fool vomited and coughed as he came into the air, emitting nothing but strings of bile, trying to suck in something other than water. He whooped inward, his lungs forcing his throat open, managed to draw one ragged breath, and then was coughing again. He caught hold of something, pulled himself into a crouched upright position, and then bent, hacking and breathing and spitting all at once.