by Edward Lee
"They're looking for someone?"
"Shhh! Just walk by."
Ruth loped ahead. Years of grifting and petty thievery had taught her to act inconspicuously, yet the priest's mysterious alarm was making her nervous.
"And don't be nervous," Alexander added. "They have Prism-Veils."
What the fuck! she thought.
She passed a large steepled structure fluffy with rot. It looked like a church but then she read the sign:
ST. BATHORY'S ABBEY OF CATHETERIZATION -JOIN ABBESS JOYCELYN FOR BLACK MASS & GENITAL TORTURE.
Ruth just shook her head again, but then, as she passed a sewer grate full of pleading, twisted faces, she became dreadfully aware of the squishy snap! of her flip-flops. Act cool, she thought. Don't blow this.
She began to cross the intersection, right in front of the Steam-Buggy and platoon of homed and helmeted soldiers.
In the carriage window, Ruth thought she saw a pallid, shiny shape leaning out. It's her! she guessed. And she's looking through ... a veil.... It was like the kind of veil women wore at funerals that only covered their eyes, only this one was glittery with bright, glassy colors.
Like a prism ...
Then a wet gargle cracked through the intersection. "Stop them. Investigate."
Fuck, Ruth thought.
"You two! Halt in the name of the Grand Duchess Vulgaressa."
Three of the Rot-Soldiers approached, their armor like sponges soiled by cleaning toilets. Their helmets, too, were but blobs of rot with a slit to see through. Instead of swords, they carried large, rusted boat hooks.
"State your business," the lead soldier demanded.
It was all Ruth could do just to look at him. "Oh, hi, sir. We were just, you know, bopping through town."
He stepped closed, and put the point of his hook right against her exposed navel. "So it seems. Why, then, did your aura indicate prevarication when viewed through an Occult Sensor?"
What the fuck does that mean! She guessed it meant they looked shifty. "Oh, yeah, sir, see, because my friend here told me that the buggy belonged to the Vulgaressa."
The hook turned up and cradled a breast. One twist and she'd be punctured. "And why should that make you nervous?"
Ruth struggled not to tremble. "Because, see, everyone knows that the Vulgaressa is a very important personone of the most important in all of Hell-and, well, I got nervous because I've never been so close to someone that great and important, sir."
There was a click, and in the corner of Ruth's eye she saw a figure getting out of the buggy. Then a mushy, wet gargle of a voice stated, "What an exemplary Human trollop to say such nice things about me."
"Yes, my Duchess!" the lead Rot-Soldier said. He lowered the hook and stood back at attention.
"So, what have we here?" came the splattery rattle.
"Newcomers, I'd say, my Duchess. A Human tramp and a torsoed priest."
The smell that approached with the figure almost knocked Ruth over, and when she got her first full look, she wanted to run away and jump into one of the canals.
"The only good priest is a torsoed priest," the strange voice continued. "And as for the tramp? Such an attractive one, I must say."
All that covered the Vulgaressa's body was a brassiere and a miniskirt fashioned from some manner of reptilian scales, and she wore a glittery headdress like Cleopatra. But the rest of her was indeed a containment of pus that had taken on the shape of a Human female. Her skin was clear as cellophane and through it Ruth could see bones and veins amidst a yellowish liquefaction. Blots of more infection comprised her eyes.
Then a hot, squishy finger stroked Ruth's cheek.
"Would you enjoy the honor of making love to me, pretty one?"
Ruth heard Alexander plead in the tiniest whisper, .Say yes!"
Ruth's teeth rattled but she managed to reply, "Oh, my great Vulgaressa, it would be the greatest honor!"
v A wet chuckle. "What delights I could show you in my Rot Parlor. You could be my Under-Duchess of disease and infection but ... lo, I haven't time. I and my security forces must embark on a problem. But please come back again." The pus-swollen face leaned close. "You will come back again, won't you?"
"Oh, you can bet I will, Vulgaressa." Ruth's stomach was turning itself inside out. "I can't wait to see you again. You're just so beautiful and important...
-"That I am," came the rattle. "You're a lusty sinful little sexpot, I can tell, and your sin, I'm sure, could treat me to many pleasures learnt in the Living World. So do return, and until then, go in torment to love and serve the Morning Star."
"Thank you, Vulgaressa!" Ruth babbled, and began to stride away. "Have a peachy day!"
From behind, Ruth heard the Vulgaressa say, "There's certainly no threat to be had from a whore and a dismembered priest. Aldezhor's missive must be folly. There's no trouble afoot in my District."
"No, Grand Duchess!"
"But we'll continue searching all the same, and maintain the current alert level."
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" Ruth almost shrieked when they were blocks away. "Did you see that woman?"
"Yeah, I saw her," Alexander said with a laugh from her back. "I thought we were cooked."
"Me, too. That fuckin' prism-thing!"
"But, Ruth, you did a fantastic job getting us out of it. I should've realized that-swindler, professional liar, and thief. Those traits will benefit us in Hell."
Ruth smirked. "Fuck."
"And remember, reclaim your Grace by toning down the foul language."
Ruth stalked down another rot-covered road, trying to avoid mites and worms feasting on the material that served as asphalt. "Now where are we going, damn it? I'm tired of walking around this shit hole!"
"You really are amped up today, aren't you? Period? Hormone imbalance?"
"Fuck off!"
"Just keep going down this road and take a left at Cadaverine Avenue."
"Peachy!" she grumbled and stalked on.
A block down a sign read CONSTRUCTION AREA - ALL WORKERS MUST NOT WEAR HARD HATS. A contemporarystyled house was being built on the corner. It almost looked ... normal.
"I thought everything here was built with rot?" Ruth questioned.
"Rot's the treatment, the finishing touch. The basic building materials here are similar to those in the Living World. In the Outer Sector North, there's a nearly limitless forest full of Bone Pine and Druid Oak, trees that grow a thousand feet. And there's plenty of stone and mud for brick-making, lime for cement."
"So ... where's the rot?"
"This is prime bloodfront property here, Ruth. Very expensive, like Naples in Florida. So only the best rotcultures are used." Alexander wagged a stump. "See those Trolls there?"
Ruth saw half a dozen of the squat, bumpy things applying paint rollers to the outer walls of the house.
"It's not paint. It's patented rot-culture. There are several Culture-Stations in the district. They just fill these big cauldrons with body parts, blood, fungus, mold, lichens, and any kind of filth you can name, and toss it in the vat. County Building Sorcerers cast Decay Incantations over the cauldrons, and then it all ferments for a while. When it's ready, they can it and ship it out. Just like SherwinWilliams. Watch what happens."
Ruth watched, all right. As the Trolls pushed their rollers back and forth, each streak of liquefaction began to bubble, then grow.
"Holy shit! The rot's growing on the wood!"
"Sure is," the priest said. Another block down, beside some trendy town houses swollen with decay, he said, "Take a look in there."
Ruth peeked into the splotched window. You gotta be shitting me.... Inside, she noted carpets of rot, couches and chairs and tables all fat with rot. Pictures on the walls were framed with rot, and even the books on the bookshelves were bound in covers meticulously crafted by thin boards of desiccated rot.
"You can fuckin' have it!" she snapped, then treaded on.
"Oh, and check that out up there."
In the center of the town square stood a column of rot a thousand feet high. Birds with leathery wings and dog faces flew circles around its peak, plucking smaller things out of the tinged sky. Ruth saw tiny windows at the very top, and from one of the windows, a gnarly figureprobably a City-Imp-jumped.
So much for him.
The body hit the street with a splat!
"Ever seen the Space Needle in Seattle? Well, that's the Rot-Needle," Alexander explained. "What do you think of that?"
"I think it's fucked-up."
"Hey, there's a public bench," the priest noted next. "Set me down a minute, will you? I'm tired."
Ruth wanted to laugh at his rudeness. I'm the one lugging his hypocritical ass, but he's the one who's tired ... ? She groaned and unshouldered the priest, setting his torso down on the bench.
"Ibat's better."
Ruth sat and stretched her shapely legs forward. She groaned again when she noted the area's details: trees covered with rot, sidewalks caked with it. In the small park before them, even the grass was rot, and the musky flowers were dumps of decay growing off stems. Something on a tree caught her eye and she jumped up. "Look! Coconuts! I'm starving!" and she reached up for the large, familiar seed. "We'd get these all the time in Florida after a hurricane."
Alexander chuckled. "That's no coconut, Ruth. It's an egg case for an Ova-Fluke. When it bites you, it releases eggs that swim through your bloodstream to your ovaries. That means any mongrel kids you have will be..."
Ruth glanced over in dread. "Fucked-up?"
"In a big way."
She rushed back to the bench. "Well, lemme tell you this, buddy. One thing I will never be in Hell is pregnant"
"Don't be too sure. Rape is the status quo here, so you have to be careful. Especially a Human woman with your looks. The way it works is two Humans can't reproduce, but other species? That's another story unfortunately. If you get raped by an Ogre, Imp, Gargoyle-anything Hellborn-you'll have a Hybrid kid. If you get snatched up by a Grand Duke to be in his harem, same thing. You'll be the vessel for his offspring."
"My ass!"
"And if an OP Squad gets a hold of you-"
"An Overpopulation Squad. They're select Conscripts who scour the streets for attractive females, then take them to do hundred-year tours at an FI Station."
"Forced Insemination. In the Living World, the big deal is stem-cell research and gene splicing. Here it's gene corruption. They keep you perpetually pregnant and experiment with what comes out. Overpopulation is a state law. Lucifer wants lots and lots of new births to keep the streets stuffed with turmoil and misery, and to keep the natural resource levels up. Blood's used for water, flesh is used for meat, bones for mortar."
Ruth's face twisted around. "That's hideous, man! It doesn't make sense."
"No, it doesn't. But remember, here everything is opposite. Everything that seems illogical and wrong in the Living World, like war, exploitation, addiction, violence, is logical and right here."
Ruth stared off. Crazy, she thought. Do I really deserve this? She reached instinctively into her pocket, then swore. "You don't have any cigarettes, do ya?"
"Sorry. I had to quit those, too. A penance."
"They don't even have cigarettes in Hell?"
"Sure, they do. Get some money from my top breast pocket, then buy yourself a pack. Get us some food, too."
Now you're talking! She fished in the torso's pocket and pulled out-
"Wow. Where'd you get this roll?"
"I stole it."
"Oh, that's super. A priest that steals."
"I told you, Ruth, I'm on an important mission here. I've been preparing for the equivalent of a year or so. Staking locations, marking routes, making connections. And ... procuring funds."
"How?"
"Same way you used to do it. Ripping people off. Mugging them, jacking them, and taking their cash."
Ruth laughed, dark and hard.
"But there's a difference," he added. "I rip off Demons, criminals, and scumbags. You ripped off the innocent."
"Oh, bullshit, man! It's all the same. You're taking what doesn't belong to you. 'Thou shalt not steal?' Ever hear that one?"
Alexander exhaled as if wearied. "Just go over to that convenience store and get the stuff."
Such a hypocrite ... Ruth sashayed to another rotwalled building, the door of which jingled when she entered. Everything's opposite, she recited, but some things never change. The man at the register wore a turban and looked Middle Eastern. But his beard was green rot hanging down to his sternum. A nametag said: HELlo! MY NAME IS ATrA. I AM UNHAPPY In SERVE YOU!
"Hi," Ruth said.
The man glared. "You-how you say?-fuck you! You get out my store! We do not serve infidels! Death to all infidels and all enemies of Islam!"
Ruth was appalled. "Hey, buddy, I'm no enemy of anything. I just want to buy a pack of smokes and some food."
"You look like treacherous American prostitute, just like those cunning wenches we paid for in Boston before we fly the planes into the heart of your evil economy which is the Great Satan! You dirty American whore! One day my great nation will bury you all."
Even though Ruth had indeed participated in countless acts of prostitution during her life, she did not like to be called a whore.
She pulled the flintlock pistol from her belt and put it right in the proprietor's face. "Listen, spinach-chin. I didn't start any shit with you, so you got no right to start it with me. Now get me a pack of smokes, some matches, and"-she looked behind the counter and saw a grill"are those sesame rice balls?"
The man shuddered with his hands up. "Yes, yes, miss. I get you all you want. Please no shoot me!"
+"Just get the shit, sparky."
The man fumbled to put her purchase in a bag.
Ruth pulled out the wad of cash. "How much?" But then she reflected. "No-how you say?-fuck you! I'm not paying and if you don't like it, do something about it."
She saw now that the man had wet his pants.
"All the money, too, dickstain."
Tears in his eyes, the man emptied the drawer into the bag.
Ruth leaned over, waving the clunky pistol, big breasts settling on the counter. "And don't you even think about calling the police-or whatever the fuck you have for police in this ridiculous Satanic circus you got going here, 'cos if I even hear one siren, I'll come back in here and blow your shit away before they get me. Got it?"
"Oh, yes, yes, nice American lady."
"My ass." Ruth reholstered the gun and paused to squint at the trembling clerk. A button on his shirt read DEATH TO ISRAEL!
"Can't you guys do anything except blow stuff up and work in 7-Elevens? Get a life!"
Ruth tramped out of the store, breasts jiggling.
When Alexander saw all the extra cash, he said, "How'd you get that?"
"Same way as you. I ripped it off from that asshole in there."
"Good work!" He seemed pleased. Ruth fed him the rice balls, which he ate with gusto.
"Not bad."
"You're right," she agreed, munching hers. "Not as good as the ones back home but they'll do." She mused. "We used to get the best sesame rice balls at this place in Clearwater."
"I hate to tell you this, but those things we just ate aren't sesame rice balls. They're Imp testicles fried in Hell-Sow fat."
Ruth stared at him. "Oh, thanks for telling me before I went into the fuckin' store!"
"Down here, food is food, Ruth. You'll learn."
Ruth paused before lighting one of the cigarettes. "And now I'll bet you're gonna tell me there's no tobacco in these, but something fucked-up, right?"
"Shredded corpseskin and ground up dragon hair," he said.
Ruth tossed the pack into the garbage can right next to the rotten bench.
"Shouldn't have done that," Alexander muttered.
Within a second a great shadow crossed over Ruth. She looked up at the nine-foot-tall thi
ng suddenly standing before her. It looked to be made of clay-like a giant Gumby, only the clay stank. All it had for a face were slits for a nose and mouth, and two thumb holes for eyes.
"Meet your first Golem, Ruth."
Holy shit ...
Gray-brown fingers the size of Johnsonville brats handed her a slip of paper.
By order of the Constabulary, you are hereby ordered to remit a fine of $50 Hellnotes. If you elect not to pay, you will face immediate unlawful arrest or be subject to a public squashing. Officer's choice.
Now it was Ruth's turn to wet her pants. She rummaged through the cash she'd just stolen and grabbed the first bill she saw with a 50 on it.
The Golem snatched it up and walked away, sidewalk rumbling.
"That's a cop?"
"One of them. Ushers and Conscripts are police, too, and certain Hybrids and Mongrels. You'll see them all in time."
"But what did I do? I thought he was going to bust me for robbing that store."
"You violated the citywide anti-littering law."
Ruth railed. "I didn't litter! I threw the damned cigarettes in the garbage can!"
"Ruth, here you're not allowed to not litter. Understand?"
"No. But that doesn't matter, does it?"
The priest chuckled. "You'll get the hang of it soon. Like I keep telling you, everything's opposite here."
Yeah, I guess it fuckin' is.
"Since we're taking a breather, check the gun belt," the priest said. "Make sure you've got some ammunition for the sulphur pistol."
Ruth frowned, fidgeting with the belt. She flipped up a leatherlike compartment. "Reefers!"
"They're not reefers, Ruth. They're powder cartridges. You pull the end off, dump the powder in the barrel, then drop in a sixty-nine caliber musket ball."
Just my luck. In the next compartment-"Holy shit! Are these giant pearls?"
"Yes, they are, Ruth."
She held one up, as big as the biggest marble she'd ever seen. "It's got to be worth a fortune!"
"It's worth one Antigonus piece."
"What's that? Like, a couple grand?"