Adam.
Fool turned, trying to see something, anything, but his eyes were filled with multicolored lines and sparks. He blinked, seeing nothing beyond them but hearing screaming. Water spattered against him, trying to unsettle him, and he gripped his handhold more tightly. Blinking again, he began to clear the lights, leaving him staring at a maelstrom in the center of the cellar.
Adam was spinning rapidly, its wings beating up and down against the water, screaming. Its head was wreathed in light, crawling webs of blue and white. The rear of its skull was a hole, large and ragged, the upper portion of his head missing, and it was not healing. Its hands beat at the light, covering the hole, then forced away by the emerging colors. The water was whirlpooling around it, battered to violent foam. I’ve injured it, thought Fool wonderingly. It opened up to eat me, and I injured it. Good.
Good.
He raised his gun and then realized that he no longer held it. He looked down, the water bucking around him, seeing nothing but bubbles and blackness. Experimentally, he moved a foot about, feeling for the gun. Nothing. Adam was slowing now, the flow of light from its ruptured head slowing to little more than a trickle. It stood lopsided, shoulders tilted, one arm hanging loose and one wing drooping, trailing in the water. It came to a sloppy halt, turned too far, and then came back around to peer at Fool.
Fool had never prayed; no one in Hell did, he suspected, because they knew that God was nowhere to be found, but he prayed now. Adam took a lurched step toward him, one leg dragging, thick ropes of tarry liquid now spilling down its shoulders from its head, and said, “I’m glad you’re my first human meal, Fool.” Its voice was slurred and broken.
“I’ll eat you, and then I’ll heal. I’m already healing, I can feel it,” it said, its teeth clicking as it spoke. Fool didn’t know how to pray, had no idea whom to pray to or whether he was doing it right, but he prayed anyway, Help me, help me, helpme helpmehelpmehelphelphelphelp. Adam took another step, stumbled, used its good wing to right itself, and carried on. It was almost within touching distance; Fool tried to back away, but the thing behind him, a metal filing cabinet whose painted sides were thick with rust, refused to move. He pushed again as Adam made a noise that might have been slurred words but might have been simply a groan, and then his foot hit something.
He dropped to his knees and reached down helpmehelpmehelpmehelp and his fingers closed around his gun. He held it up as Adam took another shambling step and reached out. He heard screaming, realized it was him, pointed the gun, and fired.
The bullet took Adam in its left eye, spun the Fallen, and sent it crashing back across the room. It was still open, still vulnerable, and Fool followed it, bearing down on the thing that was no longer an angel and firing as soon as his next bullet formed.
This one took Adam in the shoulder, above its drooping wing, and tore a piece of flesh and muscle out. The edges began to knit, Fool saw, but slowly, sluggish and inefficient. Scraps of skin formed and then broke apart, but it was healing. Fool fired again, and then again.
Adam managed to push out across the room, the muzzle flashes painting it in stark shadows across the walls, and then fell against the stairs. Turning toward Fool, it hissed and lashed out with its good wing; the other one was starting to move again, twitching, rising. The wing hit Fool, not hard but enough to knock him sideways. He went into the water yet again, emerged as fast as he could and firing but missing, a chunk of stone leaping free from the wall near Adam’s head. In Adam’s depthless black eyes, Fool saw something new, and he grinned and fired again.
Adam was scared.
This bullet tore through a wing that no longer had feathers but was simply a piece of thick, jointed flesh, and Adam howled. It scrambled up the steps, fast, leaving behind trails of water and thick blood behind it, and then was gone through the entrance at the top.
Fool went after it, firing at the empty doorway in frustration. He stumbled on the steps as he came out of the water, his legs weak, and had to use the wall for support. How much more of this could he take? Not much, he didn’t think. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t hurt, that wasn’t throbbing or aching. He took another two steps up, his eyes coming level with the floor above, and that was when Adam reappeared and took hold of his head.
Fucking idiot Fool, he had time to think, and then he was yanked up and dragged through the entrance. Adam’s grip was loose but not loose enough, and Fool couldn’t shake it. He was dragged through the lobby of the house, brought his gun up but couldn’t bring it around far enough to fire without being sure of missing himself, and then decided he was likely to die whatever happened and fired anyway.
He felt the bullet roar past his ear, its wind tearing at him. Adam let go of Fool and fell, crashing against the entrance doors. It hissed, wordless and savage, and then rolled back and tugged at the doors. Fool tried to raise his gun, but his arm was loose and weak and he could not bring it up off the floor. Ghosts came and went in his vision as Adam opened its cavernous mouth, the hiss turning into a shriek, and opened the doors.
The first rock hit it on the head, the second on the shoulder, and then Adam was lost in a hail of rocks and bricks. It was forced back into the house by the deluge and through the space it left came a vast flow of the Sorrowful. Some held poles and clubs of wood or metal and swung them at Adam, others had more rocks that they threw or held tight and struck out with. Adam was driven to its knees, turning and hunching its back to his assailants. One of the Sorrowful darted forward and hit the back of its head with a chunk of rock, leaving it embedded in the already gaping wound there. More of them came forward, striking.
Adam lashed out, snapping its jaws closed around the nearest neck, and there was a brief spray of blood. The Fallen shook its head back and forth, tearing the flesh, spitting it out after swallowing what fear it contained. Someone stabbed at it with a broken piece of wood and it grasped them, its mouth opening wide and clamping around the man’s head. It lifted the man, slurping at his pain and terror, and then another Sorrowful hit it with a piece of brick.
Fool managed to sit up, the floor’s covering of broken stones and brick biting at his hands. “Don’t let him feed,” he said, trying to shout, but his voice came out as little more than a harsh whisper.
“Don’t let him feed,” he called again. This time his voice was louder but was still lost under the shouts of the crowd. More and more people were piling into the house, all of them trying to get close to Adam, to hit it. Fool lifted his gun, let it drop; his grip wasn’t secure enough to fire, and he couldn’t get a clear shot. Adam’s throat worked as it drank from the man, its wounds beginning to close as it took in sustenance.
“For fuck’s sake, stop him feeding,” Fool managed to shout and then slumped back. He was too tired, too damaged to do anything else.
The Sorrowful set about Adam again, hemming the thing that had been an angel in and preventing it from moving away. Someone within the mass swung a long, thick piece of wood, a section of the gate, and the blow shattered Adam’s jaw, dislodging the human from his grip. That’s right, thought Fool, that’s right.
One of the Sorrowful—a farmhand, Fool supposed—had a machete, its blade nicked and worn but its edge sharp, and he clambered onto Adam’s back, sawing and hacking at its wings. Adam reached behind, trying to spin, but its movements were slow and the man avoided the grasping fingers easily and carried on chopping. The mass of people was thickening now, kicking and punching, no longer throwing rocks but using them as hand weapons, using the edges to slash at Adam’s flesh.
Its damaged wing came loose first, was cast back into the crowd to a great cheer, and was rapidly followed by the other. Adam screamed, tried to fall and roll, but the sheer weight and mass of the crowd kept it at least partially upright, kept it a target for their fury. It was simply too great, too violent, to be stopped.
The Sorrowful raged, forming a caul about Adam, and the Fallen was soon lost to Fool’s vie
w.
EPILOGUE
By the time the Sorrowful had finished, very little of Adam was left. It had been torn to pieces, the pieces carried out into Crow Heights’ streets in a triumphant rally. Its head and wings were held at the head of the procession, their holders making swooping motions with them, nodding its head, and the crowd laughed.
Fool followed them, limping. He was tired, too tired to feel victorious even when members of the crowd came over to him and held him or shook his hand. He had caught the murderer, but at what cost? The Falling of one angel and the death of another? The death of his colleagues? Around him, the Sorrowful celebrated; they cheered and sang, but Fool had the impression things were gathering behind the Heights’ windows, taking note. This behavior would surely be punished. Nothing in Hell went unnoticed.
Eventually, Fool made his way back to the main gates and sat by the wall, leaning against one of the stunted trees that grew there, watching. More and more of the Sorrowful flooded in through the damaged entrance. Some were carrying banners, some the leaflets; all were cheering. A constant stream of them came over to him, shaking his hand or touching his face or shoulders and thanking him, although he wasn’t sure what for. One gave him a leaflet on which a barely recognizable version of himself was drawn over the words HELL NEEDS MORE OF HIM. He crumpled the paper after looking at it for a few seconds and put it in his pocket.
The crowd was spreading through Crow Heights. Fool heard distant shouts, the sounds of violence and things breaking, screams. You may have killed the Fallen, he thought, but don’t expect the rest of Hell not to fight. As if to prove him right, a group of the Sorrowful appeared, carrying an injured woman back through the streets and out of the Heights, her blood leaving a bright trail across the ground.
“It has been so wonderful,” said a voice from behind him.
“No, it hasn’t,” said Fool without looking around. He was too tired to accept any more compliments, too tired and sick and sore and hurt.
“Oh, but it has, Fool,” said the voice. It sounded dry and leathery, and when it laughed the noise was like two pieces of linen being ground together. This time, it came from above him.
Fool looked up; just branches and leaves. The tree had a vine curling through it, tiny orange flowers sprouting from it as he watched. No people, just plants.
Plants and flowers.
“That’s right, Fool, that’s so right!” said the Man, the leaves and flowers shaking as he forced his voice out through them. “Did Adam really think he could kill me? I live in the very smallest places, Fool, scattered throughout Hell’s lands, and no mere angel can best me! But now Rhakshasas and those other old fools think I am gone, and I have you to thank. You got noticed, Fool, and how simple it was to point you in the right direction, to keep you noticed by human and demon alike so that they might use you against me, and that I might use the situation against them. I no longer exist, Fool, but I am everywhere!”
“Why?” asked Fool, too exhausted to be truly shocked, asking the why not just of the Man but of everything, hoping for answers even though he knew they would not be forthcoming.
“Why? Why not, Fool, why not? Now I am free, the most free thing in Hell, and intend to have fun!”
“Fun?”
There was no reply; he didn’t expect one. Instead, the leaves shook above him one last time, as though in good-bye, and then the tree and the vine were still.
Fool sat for a long time, listening to the violence in the Heights, to screams and howls and roars and the sound of buildings falling and fires swelling, and eventually he thought he ought to move. He was just about to rise when he heard a second voice.
“You’ve done well, Thomas, very well,” said Elderflower. He had appeared at Fool’s side as silently as ever, as though he had stepped out of the air next to him.
“Have I?”
“Of course,” said Elderflower, looking around at the running, shouting humans. He sniffed deeply. “Can you smell that?”
“No.”
“It’s smoke, Thomas. Wood smoke. Crow Heights is beginning to properly burn. It has been set alight by the crowds in their anger. By tonight, it will be ablaze. Down in the Houska everything’s calm, but as word reaches the rest of Hell about today’s work it, too, will ignite. Then the factories, and the farms perhaps. The boardinghouses, definitely. Everything will burn, Thomas.”
Something was wrong. There was a new sound in the air, a rhythmic crashing, the roar of something mechanical. New sounds, like nothing Fool had heard before but somehow terribly familiar. Elderflower was right, Fool could smell it now: fires. Thick smoke was drifting toward them from somewhere in the Heights, black palls of it writhing and turning.
Elderflower was standing by Fool, his long coat flapping slightly, his hands clasped behind his back. He was facing into Crow Heights, watching the smoke, looking away from Fool. Fool lifted the feather from his pocket, looked at it and stroked it, marveling at its softness even after all it had been through, and then very carefully slipped it into Elderflower’s cuff.
“What’s going on, Elderflower?” he asked.
“Change, Thomas, change. Hell is changing.”
“Why?”
“Why not, Thomas, why not? Hell was once a place of absolute burning and is now a place of uncertainty, and both are terrible but people can get used to anything given enough time. ‘This is how it is,’ they say. ‘This is Hell. We will survive.’ We cannot have that, Thomas, no indeed. This is Hell, Thomas, and Hell is not somewhere to be used to, to be complacent about. So we allow and encourage Hell to change.”
“Change to what?”
“Can you hear it, Thomas?” said Elderflower, apparently ignoring Fool’s question.
“Hear what?”
“You can, Thomas, I know you can. That sound, the sound of your new force.”
“New force?”
“Demons, Thomas. Demons and humans all in uniforms as black as Hell’s darkest night. Hundreds of them, thousands, imposing the law upon the rest of Hell’s inhabitants. They’re yours, Thomas, to order and lead.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. His head hurt, his body hurt, but the worst was the feeling opening in his stomach as though it was hollowing out in increasingly large swathes.
“This is your reward, Thomas, because you played your role so beautifully.”
“Role?” he asked. “I didn’t play a role. I was investigating.” Even as he spoke, he knew, though. Knew.
“Each step carefully designed, Thomas. Each one set for you to move along. All of it, Thomas, from Adam onward, all to get us to this point. Unstable Adam, ready to fall, exposed to the right sights, scared Rhakshasas, fearful of the Man and wanting answers, the Man himself thinking he was at the center of the web when he was really only another strand in the grandest design of all. And you, Thomas, scared and hurt but moving onward anyway, given the feather so that you might see clearly and grow in stature and become what I needed you to be. You’re a hero, Thomas; people love you because you stood up to demons, because you issue orders and the demons obey, and they want more like you. More Information Men, more order, more control. And I will give it to them, Thomas, oh yes I will! And do you know the most wonderful thing? They’ll welcome this change, hold their arms open and say how it’s what they want, law and order and protection, and in a few months or years when the laws are suffocating them, and when the fear of being arrested and tortured and imprisoned on little more than the say-so of their neighbors is so huge they can hardly breathe, they’ll remember that they invited this in and they’ll hate themselves for it.
“And you, Thomas,” said Elderflower, removing the feather from his cuff and turning to face Fool, “will be its head, and they will see a human, not a demon, responsible for their pain and they will hate even more.” Elderflower looked down at the feather and he suddenly seemed huge, his face filling the sky and his eyes gleaming, his hair twisting into great curled horns emerging from his temples. The feather b
loomed to flame, burned briefly with a greasy smell, and then was gone apart from a smear of ash across Elderflower’s fingers that he wiped away on his coat.
“I have grown tired of Hell the way it is,” Elderflower said, “so I have changed it. You have changed it, Thomas, and for that you have my thanks. Great times are coming.”
Then the first of the new Information Men arrived, ranks of them jogging in step with each other, their feet crashing down in unison and making that pounding, roaring noise. There were demons and humans, men and women, all in black uniforms with silver buttons. Large transports rolled in behind them, and when they stopped the rears opened and more Information Men emerged and began spreading out across the square. They formed into a phalanx in front of Fool and stopped.
“They’re waiting, Thomas,” said Elderflower. “The first orders of the new Hell need to be given.”
Fool rose unsteadily to his feet, unable to speak. It was too big to hold in his head, too ungainly to fit his thoughts around. All of them, Balthazar and Adam and Diamond and the Man and Rhakshasas and Gordie and Summer and himself, all moving to the rhythms of Hell’s beat. Had he ever really been free? he wondered. Ever had a choice? Were there places he could have acted differently, gone in a new direction?
No, he thought, and the voice in his head seemed to be his and Gordie’s and Summer’s all at once. This was Hell, and that was its purpose, and he was simply another speck grinding within its huge and grotesque wheels. Elderflower smiled at him, nodded, turned, and walked away, leaving cloven prints in the mud.
Around Fool, the smell of burning grew thicker.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So I wrote this book, but I didn’t do it without the help and support of a huge number of people. There are, of course, too many to name, but a tip of the cowboy hat and a click of the boot heels have to go to:
Diane and Kurt, best parents I’ve ever had, for the love and the bed and the support;
The Devil's Detective Page 31