The Rising

by Temple Mathews

  Twenty minutes later, she was agitated. Where was Natalie? In the old days, Emily and her sister used to strap on their iPods and run together in the afternoons. Emily was the one in better shape, because she swam, too. But since they’d arrived in Seattle, the only exercise she’d gotten was stick fighting with Natalie. She wondered if maybe Natalie had felt better during the day and had gone out for a jog. It was worth a shot. Except . . . Emily didn’t feel like running alone. So, reluctantly, she went looking for Rudy.

  They ran down Galer Street to First Avenue West and logged a mile. Emily was listening to some Beatles tunes on her iPod, which always cheered her up and chased nasty thoughts away. Early on Rudy had dropped back to jog behind her, letting her lead, his eyes magnets, her body like steel. She hated that she felt more flattered than creeped out. Emily ran where she thought Natalie would have run, but though she looked up and down every street, there was no sign of her sister. They passed a religious nut wearing sandals, a monk’s robe, and an Oregon Ducks baseball cap. He was spouting his ideology and handing out pamphlets. They ran past him, and when they backtracked fifteen minutes later, he was gone. But his pamphlets were blowing everywhere, and one flew up into Emily’s face. She grabbed it and was going to drop it, but she didn’t want to litter so she stuffed it in the pocket of her running shorts.

  After an hour, she gave up and jogged back to the mansion, Rudy still at her heels. Emily looked upstairs and downstairs, but no Natalie. She tried Natalie’s phone again, but there was still no answer. She wanted to ask Will if he’d seen her, but he was down in his lab and as far she could tell he hadn’t left it since they had come home from school. Natalie was probably avoiding him, anyway.

  She took the pamphlet out of her pocket, and was about to crumple it and toss it, but the image on the front caught her eye and she started reading it instead. It was about the story of Moses, when poisonous snakes beset his people and they were living in terror—something Emily knew plenty about—and the Lord told Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” The lesson was about fear and how to conquer it. Moses was being told that he should present to the people the very thing that they feared the most, and that by learning to face it directly and not shy away, they could turn that thing from an object of terror into something they could live with. That which you fear is the thing that can also cure you of your fears.

  The lesson was not lost on Emily as she watched Rudy dance around the kitchen, making a post-run snack. She knew she had to face her fear of demons head on. Learning to defend herself was one way to do that. But so was spending time with Rudy. She looked at Rudy. Strangely, he had become, in his own goofy way, her staff. Just by being there, and making her remember, he had become the key to her recovery.

  Natalie showed up after dinner, in the middle of a game of cards Rudy had talked Emily into playing to try to distract her from worrying. When Emily tried to talk to her and find out where she’d been, Natalie just shook her head and went upstairs. And when Will went to check on her before he left that evening, she wouldn’t answer the door. Emily wanted to ask Will if he knew what had happened, but it felt disloyal to her sister. Emily could feel Natalie’s despair, even stronger than it had been that morning, but this time she could tell that pushing wouldn’t get her answers any sooner. She’d just have to wait until Natalie was ready to talk. Emily just wished there was something she could do to help.

  At 10:30 that night, Will parked his Mitsubishi EVO downtown and met Loreli at the intersection of First and Yesler. She was wearing a long leather duster coat, which Will figured was where she stashed her alchemistic weapons. For his part, Will was traveling on the light side, with a small backpack containing two Variable Flamer Pistols with backup loads and a dozen Power Choppers. About the size of a child’s toy block, the Power Choppers were a particularly nasty and painful weapon, and Will loved using them on demons. He also carried his trusty Megashocker, though when he got to the Dark Lord’s body—This is the night it’s going to happen, he told himself, this night I will get my vengeance—he would call upon his Power Rod to do the deed.

  As usual, Loreli looked amazing, almost surreal in her beauty. She was one potent chick. Will couldn’t help but think that if they made it out of this Godforsaken mess alive, if they actually did the impossible and fulfilled their quest and were able to go on and live normal lives, Loreli was going to make some lucky guy incredibly happy.

  He took a closer look at her duster as he approached. It was definitely loaded down. “You look like you’re packing,” he said.

  She opened her coat just enough for him to see the plethora of stuffed pockets in the lining.

  “You, too. What’s in the backpack?” she said.

  “A little of this, a little of that. In case we need help getting in.”

  “Getting in won’t be a problem. Getting out might be another story.”

  They walked a few blocks down to the J & M Café but tonight it was silent. Rocco had moved his rave. They’d have to find another way to the Under City entrance. Loreli had an idea. They kept walking and came to a small storefront advertising Seattle Underground Tours. They entered, and the owner, Smiling Bob, was quick with a handshake. Once they’d bought their tickets and joined the rest of the group, he began his spiel, pouring the adults champagne and Will and Loreli some sparkling apple juice since this was the “Champagne on a Full Moon” tour, and regaling Will, Loreli, and the gaggle of tourists with tales of Seattle’s sordid “underground” past. He talked playfully about speakeasies and hookers and blue movies, cracking little jokes as he went, keeping everything PG-13 so as not to offend. Then he led them all past a gallery of old photos of Seattle, dating all the way back to June 6, 1889, the date of the Great Seattle Fire. The fire was supposedly started by a glue pot that boiled over, caught fire, and ignited some nearby wood chips. Since nearly all of the buildings in the area at that time were built of wood, the fire spread quickly, eventually ravaging twenty-five entire city blocks. Miraculously, only one human life was reported lost, but it was calculated that one million rats had burned to death.

  Will listened impatiently as Smiling Bob continued with his patter, leading the group through an arched doorway and down a long flight of concrete steps, into a basement that wasn’t a basement at all, but was actually the original street level for the underground city. When the old city had burned down, since it was near sea level and frequently flooded, the city fathers had simply decided to build the new city one level up, literally on top of the old one.

  Smiling Bob did his best to make the old underground Seattle seem spooky and intriguing, but it was mostly just a bunch of deserted rooms and passageways filled with dust and debris. Bob had dressed it up a bit, adding a few mannequins, and if you tried real hard you could imagine a city down here once upon a time. But there was nothing particularly scary about it. If these tourists only knew about the real Under City, thought Will, they’d no doubt get their butts back on their cruise ships and never visit Seattle again. Up ahead, the tour group had bunched up while listening to another of Smiling Bob’s tall tales, so Will and Loreli stopped at an old decaying mirror and pretended to gaze into it.

  When the tourist group moved on again, Loreli tugged on Will’s arm and they stayed back, then quickly peeled off from the group entirely, stepping over a chain barrier and moving through an old barbershop. Loreli found a narrow passageway that led to another set of stairs.

  Down they went, Loreli lighting the way with a Moon Stick she pulled out of her duster and held aloft. They talked quietly about their plan of action once they reached their destination. The walls were cool to the touch, and the bricks gave way to stone. The air surrounding them began to warm up. Will supposed that was only natural when you were going to Hell. They continued down and now heard faint music, the thundering bass beat of some industrial techno. They passed graffiti, much of it painted on the walls in blood. More Satanic stuff, symbols of goats
’ heads and pentagrams and crap like that. Will was so used to it he barely even saw it. Fighting demons for all these years, he’d seen it all. They walked down a long sloping embankment where human skulls had been impaled on stakes.

  “I love what they’ve done with the place,” said Loreli.

  They climbed down another flight of stairs, stepping over a demonteen writhing in agony—going through crank withdrawal, no doubt—and rounded a corner and moved down a passageway that became broader with higher ceilings. Torches dotted the walls, tossing bizarre shadows around.

  They approached a huge red door that at first looked to be built of wood, but, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be fashioned out of some sort of ghastly membrane. Probably the skin of prisoners, thought Will. Great. Gives us something to look forward to. As they got close enough to touch the door, Loreli reached out a hand to knock and the door recoiled, making a bleating sound like a baby goat. Then it was opened from the other side, and a diminutive blonde girl with sunken, unblinking eyes stood in the doorway.

  “Let’s see your mark,” she said.

  Loreli held out her wrist. The little female demon inspected it, then waved them through. Will’s skin crawled as they crossed the threshold. No turning back now. They went down more stairs, the music growing ear-bursting loud, industrial techno mixed with vintage Seattle grunge sounds: Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden. At the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves in an immense cavern teeming with demons: demonteens, shedemons, and mature demons. The massive hall was a rogue’s gallery of street thugs and runaways, scofflaws, pimps and hookers, addicts and killers—all fallen souls who had turned to the dark side and gone the demon way. This was the real Seattle Underground.

  As was their custom, the demons were clad in a vast array of black leather outfits and showed plenty of tattooed skin. The place was rocking, and of course, being demons, everyone was engaging in some form of vile debauchery. Will and Loreli passed demonteens drinking beer and vodka, hammering down shots of tequila, smoking crack cocaine and crank, frying their brains. They passed unclean kids tattooing each other and piercing every body part imaginable. They saw them knife fighting and playing Russian roulette. As Will and Loreli passed, an unlucky demonteen boy blew his brains out. What have you got to lose, thought Will, when you’re already dead? He saw demonteen boys beating a demonteen girl and his stomach turned. He loathed these creatures. In a way they were the spawn of the Dark Lord, just like he was. But he wasn’t one of them. He would never be one of them. He would rather die.

  Will and Loreli passed the kid from detention, the one with the freak hair who called himself Hawk. He wasn’t barefoot now; he was wearing some kind of snakeskin boots and tight leather pants with slits in the thighs. His was so baked his eyes were glazed over, but he managed to recognize Will and Loreli through his druggy haze.

  “Lookie who we got here. Ha! Rocco’s down at Fire Lake,” he said. Then he sidled up to a shedemon and put a move on her, whispering something in her ear. The shedemon wasn’t impressed. She pulled out a knife and cut his chin. He yelped in pain but smiled, thinking in his twisted brain that this was a positive reaction. Will shuddered with revulsion. He had half a mind to call down his Power Rod and start hacking these odious creatures to bits right then and there. But he restrained himself. He had a bigger goal tonight.

  They continued their descent and Will checked his watch, a modified altimeter that gave him readings not only on his altitude, but on how far beneath sea level he was. They were nearly six hundred feet down now. If Will’s hunch about the Dark Lord’s resting place was correct, they were getting close. Just a little further, and they’d be six hundred and sixty-six feet down.

  They reached Fire Lake, which was an expansive lagoon of filthy sludge dotted with patches of burning oil and God knew what other flammable liquids. Demonteens were romping to death metal riffs, slamming into each other, throwing fists and elbows, gleefully drawing blood. Pain was good. Pain was fun. It was all part of the madness down here in the Under City. Evil fed upon evil. Will imagined a serpent devouring itself, eating its own tail.

  Rocco was hanging out with his posse and some shedemons. They were having a knife-throwing contest. A beautiful shedemon was lashed to a slowly spinning wooden wheel, her limbs splayed. She was laughing and writhing erotically as Rocco threw knives that sank into the wood just inches from her limbs. Then Rocco decided to show off a bit and closed his eyes and threw hard. The knife whistled through the air and sank into the girl’s thigh. Blood spurted and her shrieks of pain were ear-splitting. Rocco’s posse laughed. The wounded shedemon yanked her wrists and ankles free, dropped to the ground, then pulled the knife out of her thigh. With eyes on fire, she hurled it back at Rocco, who ducked. The blade sank into the forehead of the demonteen behind him, who grabbed blindly at it before wailing and pitching over dead. Rocco and the others roared with laughter.

  And then Rocco spotted Loreli. He motioned to the demonteen DJ, who, along with his equipment, was perched on a rocky ledge above the throng. He was wearing a headdress of painted antlers glued to a retro skateboard helmet. When he saw Rocco’s signal, he amped up the music so loud the walls shook.

  Rocco moved quickly over to Loreli and grabbed her. Will folded back into the crowd. Using the same classy technique he’d employed in the hallway, Rocco licked Loreli from neck to forehead, sliming her good. She endured it, but tensed up. Rocco didn’t dig it and slapped her hard in the face. Will bristled, but continued to hang back.

  Rocco began dancing, a crude pelvic thrust, preening for Loreli as he hip-bumped her over toward the wooden wheel.

  “You want to play?” he asked, pointing at it.

  “Whatever you want, Rocco,” said Loreli. She was being docile, playing possum.

  “Alrighty then, let’s all play Wheel of Fortune!” shouted Rocco as the onlookers bellowed with laughter.

  Will watched for a few more seconds as Loreli was lashed to the wheel. This was his chance to get to the Dark Lord alone, without Loreli. But he was worried about leaving her alone like this, strapped down and surrounded by demons. She’d gone up there voluntarily, though, so it must have been part of her plan. If Will was going to act, he had to do it now.

  “Close your eyes!” said Rocco. Loreli complied.

  Will took three steps backward and was swallowed up by shadows. He looked around and saw an archway cut into the stone to his left. It was flanked by two immense demons wielding battle pitchforks. Will moved toward them, walking quickly, careful to keep his eyes cast downward as Rocco continued with the ceremony, yelling now at Loreli.

  “What do you hear, babe?” said Rocco, holding a hand to his ear. “Do you hear him calling your name? Do you hear the Dark Lord?”

  Loreli threw herself into the ceremony, clenching her eyes shut, writhing and making it look as though she was straining to “hear.”

  The demonteens began a chant. A whisper at first: “Hear him!”

  Then louder: “Hear him!”

  Then even louder: “HEAR HIM! HEAR HIM! HEAR HIM!”

  Will moved toward the sentries, closer, closer. The moment they began to react, he crossed his arms behind him and reached into the slits in his backpack. They stared at him dumbly as he whipped out his Variable Flamer Pistols. The demons were about to protest when he cauterized their eyeballs. As they screamed, so did Loreli, and Will seized the moment to garrote the sentries, shove their bodies aside, and race through the archway. Ten, twenty yards, bending time, down through the entry tunnel, and then he was in the vault.

  There, there it was! The Dark Lord’s body! He was lying on a raised marble altar, two massive battle-axes by his sides. There were dozens of urns of blood nearby, just like Rudy had described. The beast’s feet were enormous, and his bulky arms, legs, and torso were charred and held fast with sinewy tendons that writhed like worms. Will was trembling. The body quivered; the beast was still alive. His chest rose and fell slowly, but everything else, from
the top of the golden battle helmet he wore to the soles of his feet, remained still as stone.

  There were seven shedemons, led by Blue Streak, guarding the Dark Lord. Seeing Will, they turned in unison, hissed, and bared their fangs. They were big, they were strong, and their eyes blazed with madness. Two of them fired crossbows. Will bent time and ducked, evading them.

  A shedemon leapt across the room and slashed at him, leaving a nasty gash in his thigh. She clenched a hand around his neck and squeezed. Using his Megashocker, Will plunged an uppercut through her chin. Her brain fried and her comrades howled as she rolled off him and exploded, dead. Will knew the others would be on him soon, but this time he was heavily armed and better prepared. He grabbed a handful of Power Choppers from his backpack. He threw four Choppers, and two hit their marks. The small blocks hit the shedemons in their chests, then instantly opened and transformed into the monstrous killing machines that they were, blades whirring as they burrowed swiftly into the shedemons’ chest cavities. One second, two seconds, blam! They exploded. The afflicted shedemons were blown to bits, their bodies liquefying, obliterated into mere fragments. It was a terrible mess.

  Out on the wheel, Loreli very slowly opened her eyes, stared at Rocco, and nodded, indicating that she had heard the Dark Lord calling out to her in her mind, repeating her name three times. It was time for the second stage of infection: welcoming evil into your mind.

  “Now think of some bad, bad things, babe,” said Rocco.

  Loreli closed her eyes again as the crowd began to whisper: “Bad things . . .”

  And louder: “Bad things!”

  Now shouting: “BAD THINGS! BAD THINGS! BAD THINGS!”

  Loreli squirmed and tossed her head back and forth. Then she stiffened and grimaced, as though possessed by some unspeakable memory that brought her immense pain. Again she opened her eyes slowly and nodded at Rocco.