by Tad Williams
“Whatever,” said Jimmy, refusing for once to be baited. “Why do you think he transferred out of the advocates back to Painting Rainbows Division or wherever he wound up? He met up with her on a job, and she ripped him up so bad he never got over it.”
“You are entirely full of shit,” said Walter Sanders from behind his beer in the corner. “Never happened.”
“Screw you, I was there!” said Jimmy, and half a minute later they had forgotten all about the rest of us and were happily insulting each other in a way that an outsider would think was deadly serious. Some combination of the Table, Walter Sanders, and young Elvis were always arguing about some stupid thing, but I didn’t mind. You spend a lot of time passing time when you’ve got Eternity on the clock.
“I’ve heard of her,” Monica told me when the rest of the Whole Sick Choir had finally eddied away. “Jimmy’s right about one thing—everything I’ve heard about that bitch is bad news.”
“Doesn’t matter to me,” I said. Actually, I couldn’t stop thinking about Hell’s fixer and her slender pale legs and fairy-tale face. Even for the most confirmed Hell-haters among us heavenly sorts, it’s hard to remember sometimes what’s underneath the exterior if the bodywork is good enough. Of course, I wasn’t stupid enough to admit that to Monica. “I’m done with it. Filed my report with the minister and another one with the Mule. And if this missing-soul thing is real, it’s way out of our league, anyway. I doubt any of us will ever hear about it again.”
It’s amazing the stupid things I say sometimes. I mean, you could start an entire branch of scientific research about the stuff I say that gets proved wrong while I’m still busy saying it. Because less than an hour later, Sam and young Clarence walked in, which at the time I thought was a very good thing, because Monica and I were sharing a table and I was having trouble remembering why we stopped doing those things we used to do together. Yes, I’d had a few. Anyway, Sam and his pup angel walked in, and I took one look at young Clarence and knew I didn’t want to hear it. He had that excited-rookie look on his face—the kind of thing that never brings anyone any good. At the cheap end it only steals a few priceless hours of your immortal life, but the cost can and often does go much higher.
“You remember Grasswax the prosecutor?” Clarence asked.
“Just saw him a few hours ago. In fact, I see more of him these days than I do you guys. What of it?”
Clarence’s eyes were big. “He’s dead.”
I stared at him and wondered if I had ever been that new. “Nobody dies, kid. At least nobody like us. You mean his body got killed?”
The rookie blushed. “I guess so.”
Like our side, the bad guys hand out mortal forms to those who do their earthly work; if lost to accident or actual malice those bodies can be replaced. But trust me—getting killed can still be extremely unpleasant, even when you don’t permanently die from it. I turned back to Sam, who seemed unusually grim. “I just saw the red bastard an hour or two ago. Is this real?”
“Real and real bad,” Sam said, nodding. “And real messy, apparently—they found him at the scene of that last death, the weird one with the vanishing soul everyone’s losing their shit about. We just got interrogated by a minister because we won that Martino case against him yesterday.”
Which explained where Sam and the rookie had been, at least for the later part of the day. I realized I still hadn’t told Sam what Temuel had said about the kid, but I didn’t want to get distracted now. “Oh, man,” I said, “Grasswax got killed at the Walker house? It must have happened right after I left.”
“Then I’m surprised you haven’t been questioned about it yet, actually.” Sam’s tone was a little odd, but I put it down to the circumstances. Not that one of the Opposition getting rubbed out was unheard of, but it wasn’t common, and on top of the inexplicable case of Edward Lynes Walker, it had clearly been a day for strange stuff.
“I already got put through the mill on the suicide guy, so maybe they don’t need…” was all I had time to say before I felt a presence in my head, a dazzle of power and a sounding ring like trumpets.
Angel Doloriel, You Are Summoned, it said. Come With All Haste.
Come where? Why, back to the Walker house in Palo Alto. Scene of the crime.
In fact, the scene of both crimes, now that I thought about it.
four
the bloody net
I LIKED MY situation less and less by the moment—in fact, the whole thing stank. Why was I being called back to the Walker house? If my bosses wanted to quiz me beyond what the fixer/minister had already done, why not just summon me to Heaven? Temuel had called me in for nothing more important than chatting about young Clarence, so something like this obviously rated a visit to the House.
Another question that was still itching me: Who had called in the shock troops so quickly? As soon as Edward Walker’s soul turned up missing, worker bees from both sides had descended on the scene before either Grasswax or I could check in with our bosses—or at least that was how it had looked. My team and the Opposition are both very into procedure, as I had learned many times to my sorrow. What happened this time?
And to muddy the waters even further, only hours later Grasswax was dead and I was apparently wanted back on the scene for more questioning but I was the one who had questions that needed answering. Who had bothered to kill Grasswax’s mortal form? It’s not like it would shut him up about anything—earthbound employees of both sides wound up dead all the time. I’ve been there myself. We get debriefed about what happened and then decanted into another body.
Altogether, the affair had more loose ends than Swinger’s Night in a bucket of worms, so I had a lot to think about as I skittered down the Bayshore through a canyon of glowing high-rise windows to the Palo Alto district, then made my way along the tree-lined streets until I was back in front of the Walker residence.
I parked as close to the house as I could. The street was still full of police vehicles and news trucks even though the death had happened this morning and by now the streetlights had come on. I’d already heard the story on the car radio—“Scientist and Philanthropist Takes His Own Life,” was the basic gist, featuring several quotes from Walker’s friends and family about how they had no idea he was despondent or even worried, although there were also unsubstantiated rumors that he might have been ill with something serious.
Anyway, it wasn’t the real-world version of the Walker place that I wanted (although I was beginning to have a few questions about that as well). I opened a Zipper and the few police technicians still lingering around the open garage tented with white plastic froze into immobility as I stepped Outside, but I scarcely noticed because what I stepped into on the far side of the Zipper was your basic hive of activity. Opposition minions were everywhere, dozens of types, some indistinguishable from deformed humans, others so unpleasantly different I couldn’t look at them for very long.
Only one member of our team was waiting for me there, but he was enough all by himself. I think it was the same fixer as before—certainly the bizarre plague mask seemed the same—but it’s hard to tell with the higher angels since they can manifest in all kinds of ways. Outward appearances only seem to be important to earthbound types like me, staggering around in meat bodies all the time, living mostly in three dimensions.
Anyway, the minister was waiting for me and he didn’t stand on ceremony, either. I scarcely had time to get both my feet on the Outside ground before he started asking me questions. The first were the obvious ones, many of which I’d already answered for him—what had happened here earlier today, what had I seen, what had Grasswax said, and so on. But then he started asking me what happened after I left him, and about The Compasses crew, especially Sam and his new pup, Clarence, all of which made me a bit uncomfy. I answered everything as honestly as I could, of course: I don’t even know if it’s possible to lie to a minister at work, and I certainly wouldn’t try it under any remotely normal circumstances.
When the
fixer had grilled me for what seemed like most of an hour he suddenly clammed up, then after a pause long enough that it seemed he might be conferring with someone else I couldn’t see, he said, “Come With Us.”
He led me along the side of the house, me walking (even Outside it’s hard to make a human body do anything but act like a normal body) and him sort of gliding in front of me like an upright floor polisher with no one holding the handle.
“What We Are About To Do Is Irregular, Angel Doloriel, But So Are The Circumstances,” he said. “Remember, You Will Give No Answer Until We Indicate You May Do So.” I had no idea what he was talking about since he’d already asked me dozens of questions. Then we stepped into the Outside version of the Walker back yard, and I got the shock of my afterlife. I definitely owed Clarence an apology.
See, normally what I’d told him was right—people like us don’t get killed, only our earthly bodies do; the Opposition is just as good as we are at plugging the disembodied soul into a new sack of meat, then voilà! Instant resurrection! Like I said, I’ve been through it a few times myself, leaving a corpse behind each time. And here was Grasswax’s mortal body, the earthly flesh-and-blood version of him, lying beside the pool in a puddle of chlorinated water, covered with a police blanket. And normally that would have been all—just a defunct carcass, and the real Grasswax’s slimy but immortal soul off to the Opposition’s Tijuana-style tuck and roll body shop. But as I stood looking through the frame of a little ivy-covered arbor in Edward Walker’s backyard, I could also see the Other Side version of Grasswax—the real Grasswax, just like it’s the real Doloriel talking to you now—and what had happened to him was a lot less pretty than just drowning in a suburban pool. In fact, it was disgusting and horrifying.
The ancient Norsemen used to have a punishment for traitors called the Blood Eagle, where they chopped through a guy’s back ribs and pulled his lungs out through the holes to make bloody wings. That would have been an unpleasant way to go, but the bullyboys of Hell had an even better method they called the Bloody Net. I won’t go into details, but it has to do with carefully pulling out the victim’s nerve bundles and blood vessels with sharp tools—while he’s still alive, of course—then hanging him up by that network of shrieking tissue and dumping nasty little things called Nerve Chewers on him to gnaw on the exposed bits until the lucky fellow finally expires. I’d heard of it, but I have to admit I never dreamed it was real. I also don’t understand how you do that to someone’s supposedly immortal form, but damn me if these guys hadn’t managed.
The real Grasswax had been mostly reduced to fibers strung between two trees at opposite ends of the yard, a sagging, shiny red hammock. What was left of the most important bits—and remember, this was the real Grasswax, the Outside Grasswax—still hung there, and I will never forget the expression on the remains of his face. I had never felt sorry for a minion of Hell before, but I did then. Remember, there’s no time Outside—it might have taken him days or even weeks to die.
“Shit,” I said quietly. The minster was standing behind me, staring imperturbably at the ghastly mess as though he saw worse all the time. Maybe he did, and if so, I was definitely scratching “fixer” off my list of potential career moves.
“Remember What We Told You,” the angelic thing with the white mask told me. “Answer Each Question Only After We Give Permission.”
I barely registered what he was saying because at that moment something very tall and unpleasant tottered out of the Walker house. It was dull, shiny black all over, like a beetle’s shell, and trailed sticky black fibers from every limb. It had quite a few limbs. Its eyes looked like clots of blood illuminated from inside. I was assuming they were eyes, because they were side by side in the lump on the top of its body. Basically, it was altogether ghastly, the more so because every now and then it moved in an almost human way. Almost.
“Thizzz izzz the advoc-c-c-cate Doloriel?” it asked. If you recorded a shrieking chain saw, and then slowed it down until it sounded like it was playing through syrup, you’d have the voice, pretty much. The buzzing got into my bones and guts; just standing next to it made my stomach try to climb up my esophagus and flee the vicinity—I mean, it felt bad. This was no ordinary employee of Hell.
“Yes, Chancellor.” The minister said it politely, but I don’t think he liked being outranked by the Opposition. “We Are Pleased To Cooperate In Your Investigation. You May Ask Your Questions.” The minister’s voice floated into my thoughts. “This is Chancellor Urgulap of the Second Hierarchy. He is investigating the murder of Prosecutor Grasswax. We are extending him a professional courtesy.”
I don’t remember much of what the buzzing thing asked me, to be honest—just standing in front of it was one of the most unpleasant things I’d ever experienced (and I’ve seen a lot of nasty). Most of the questions seemed fairly ordinary, though, not that different from what the minister had just asked me. I looked to the fixer each time before I answered, and each time he gave me a little mental nudge that meant, “Yes, you may.” It was only after one question that he seemed reluctant to give his permission.
“And have you zzzzzpok-k-ken to any of your masterzzz or comradzzz about thizz matter?”
The heavenly minister hesitated at this one—I could feel it. He relented a moment later, but now I was a little spooked. I didn’t want to drop anyone else into danger, certainly not Sam or even his rookie tagalong. “Not really. Just my supervisor, Temuel.” After all, it would have been weird if I hadn’t discussed it with the Mule, and it sure wasn’t my job to protect middle management.
The chancellor stared at me with those squashed neon berries as if sensing my incomplete honesty. At last it turned and limped away. It must have opened a Zipper but I never saw it. One moment the Chancellor was there, a thing like a giant, melted bug standing upright on the patio beside the pool, then it was just gone. I can’t begin to describe the physical relief that came with its absence.
“Thank You For Your Assistance, Angel Doloriel,” the masked fixer said. “As You See, We Are Cooperating With The Opposition In All Ways Possible In This Matter. If Anyone Else Contacts You About This, Or In Any Way Shows Inappropriate Interest, You Will Immediately Alert Us. God Loves You. You May Go.”
And go I did. After all, Grasswax’s hideously mangled form was still hanging between the trees, the sightless eyes watching me with what seemed like disappointment.
Don’t know what you were expecting from me, Brother Demon, I thought as I stepped back into the world of time. I don’t want anything to do with the heavy hitters, either my side’s or yours.
Before I got to the Walker house I had been pretty certain I would drop by The Compasses on my way back, but now I felt unsettled right down to the soles of my feet, and I just wanted to go home and bathe myself in holy water. Since I didn’t have any holy water, vodka would have to serve, and the bath would have to be on the inside rather than the outside. I kept a bottle of 42 Below in the freezer for just these kinds of spiritual emergencies.
Monica had left a message on my phone wanting to know how things had gone, and I also had a reminder from Sam that we were getting together after work tomorrow for our monthly dinner (an old custom of ours I’ll tell you about another time) but I didn’t really want to talk to anyone. I wanted to get quickly and quietly blotto because I felt like a garage full of car alarms right after a major earthquake.
When I got through the door of my apartment I pulled out the vodka, cracked the cap, then poured myself a couple of fingers in a glass and put on some Miles as thinking music. As “So What” began to curl around my living room like cigarette smoke I took a fiercely cold swallow and tried to make sense out of everything that had happened in the last day, from the unprecedented absence of Edward Walker’s soul to the sudden passing of Prosecutor Grasswax in the grisliest fashion imaginable.
My old boss Leo used to say that when you’re working for any gigantic and corrupt bureaucracy, whether it’s the British East India Compa
ny, the Politburo, or the NCAA, the first lesson is this: Don’t wait to find out exactly how they’re going to screw you before you start protecting yourself—get to work when you spot the first signs of trouble. This whole Walker thing was full of holes, and from long experience I felt sure more weird things were going to be crawling out of those holes very soon.
In fact this particular little clusterfuck, with its missing souls and dead demon-prosecutors, had all the warning signs of one of the worst snafus in recent memory, and if I wasn’t smack in the middle of it I was close enough to feel the heat most unpleasantly. It was time to start the counter-offensive—if I could do so without making things worse for myself, that is.
I poured myself another glass of numbness and thought about where to start.
About an hour later I noticed I had finished my third drink but had never poured myself a fourth. I got up to rectify that, noted that Miles had gone quiet, and put on some Robert Johnson. “Me and the Devil Blues.” Seemed like an appropriate night for Mr. Johnson and his crossroads bargain.
Early this mornin’, when you knocked upon my door
Early this mornin’, ooh, when you knocked upon my door
And I said, “Hello, Satan, I believe it’s time to go.”
Even in a body that wasn’t one hundred percent my own, I couldn’t repress a shiver. It looked like I’d be doing a lot of things I wouldn’t much like in the next few days, including having a conversation with my best friend Sam about why he wasn’t being entirely honest with me. Alice in the office had said when she gave me the case that Edward Walker was supposed to be Sam’s client, and if our situations had been reversed I certainly would have explained to my old buddy by now why I missed taking a client that landed him deep in the shit.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I needed more information about everything—about dead Mr. Walker, even about Grasswax. But information about Hell’s labor force wasn’t easy to come by through regular channels. I was going to have to pay a visit to Fatback.