by Edward Lee
“But didn’t you say you were fugitives?” Cassie wondered. “Aren’t you afraid a Golem might come after you?”
“Naw. They can’t identify people, just criminal activity. XR’s like us are safe from them. Ushers are another story, though, and so are Conscripts. They have brains.”
“Ushers are Hellborn; they’re the most ferocious genus of demon, and Conscripts are hybridizations of Orges and Nether-Bats. But most of them are recruited into the Mutilation Squads,” Via added. “What XR’s and other fugitives most have to worry about are other humans who read the District Wanted Boards. The Constabulary is granted a large budget for squealers and spies. It’s a big temptation. Treachery is a way of life here.”
Several Polter-Rats scurried across the next street. They were larger than city rats, with vaguely human facial features. Cassie noted, too, that their feet looked more like a human infant’s hands. “Whenever a Spirit Body is destroyed to the extent that the Soul is transferred to vermin or proto-demons,” Xeke said, “some of the human physical traits are transferred as well.”
Via kicked a tin can—labeled VIENNA TROLL-BRAIN SAUSAGES—across the street. “Polter-Rats are probably the worst vermin. They have anesthetic in their saliva—so you don’t wake up when they’re eating you. It’s a real problem in the Ghettoblocks. One night you go to sleep as usual but when you wake up, your face is gone, or all the flesh has been eaten off your arms or legs, and all you’ve got left are bones. Bapho-Roaches are pretty gross too. They’ll lay eggs under your skin; the only way to get ’em out is to cut.”
Xeke kicked another can further, which read HUMAN SPAM. “And let’s not forget Hell’s most notorious pest, the Caco-Tick. They get into your hair and drill through your skull, and what they feed on is your spinal fluid. One tick can suck a human dry in no time. Fucks you all up. But don’t worry, our gemstones protect us all from most of that.”
Somehow, Cassie didn’t feel terribly secure.
Across certain intersections, she thought she could feel a rumbling beneath her feet, while smoke and licks of flame gushed out of the sewer grates. But then Xeke and Via explained that Hell’s bedrock was indeed sulphur, and subterranean sectors had been burning for centuries—firesthat would never go out. After another block, they crossed the street, and Cassie suddenly found herself walking ankle deep in some grotesque, warm liquefaction. “Yuck! What’s that?”
“Oh, sorry. Forgot to warn you.” Xeke’s boots plodded on through the muck. “Sometimes the fires underneath the street are so hot that the Physical Plant Department has to open a sewer line into the street.”
Though the potion she’d drunk prevented a reaction of disgust, Cassie still felt outraged. “You mean, we’re walking in—”
“Satanic sewage,” Xeke casually replied.
Lovely, Cassie thought, cringing at the wetness around her feet. Mental note: Don’t wear flipflops in Hell.
Hush tapped her side, pointing up. Past more buildings, Cassie saw a dingy Gothic clock-tower spiring up at least fifty stories. But the tower’s clock-face had no hands.
Xeke sounded jovial when he said, “Hey, everybody. Let’s set our watches!”
It was then that Cassie noticed the next oddity. Via, Xeke, and Hush all wore watches—but they were all like the clock in the tower. Blank.
“Watches without hands?” she queried, confused.
Via explained, “It’s one of the first Public Laws. You have to wear a watch that doesn’t tell time, and every city district has a clock-tower, like that one there. It’s so we never forget that we’re here forever.”
“Time is illegal in Hell,” Xeke said. “There’s really no way to keep track. It’s always nighttime here, and the moon”—he pointed up into the dark-crimson sky, where a black sickle moon hung—“is always in the same phase. Look at your own watch.”
Cassie glanced at the tiny Timex she generally wore. It no longer ticked, and its hands had stopped at several minutes past midnight, when they’d crossed the Deadpass.
Time ... doesn’t exist here.
Cassie grew more and more fascinated with every new thing she learned. Eventually, Xeke led them all into a broad brownstone. NEWCOMER’S POINT, the transom sign read; another sign deeper inside read, WELCOME TO THE POGROM PARK GALLERY! KNOW YOUR CITY! LOVE YOUR CITY! The long empty room walled by glossy photo-murals reminded Cassie of a tourist center, displaying pictures of local attractions. Frame by frame, then, she looked at photographs of Hell’s greatest landmarks:
The Industrial Zone and its hundred-foot walls of iron girders. Inside this vast complex lay the city’s Central Power Plant, the Foundry and Slag Furnace, the Flesh-Processors and Bone-Grinding Stations. One shot showed thousands of destitute workers cutting the flesh off of corpses. Endless conveyor belts then delivered the cuttings to the Pulping Plants for further food processing; more conveyors delivered the bones to be ground up for bricks and concrete. In the Fuel Depot, wheeled hoppers delivered large chunks of raw sulphur by the tons, to be manually chopped into smaller chunks by stooped laborers—the city’s endless fuel supply.
De Rais University extended over countless acres and appeared almost campus-like in its layout. Here, the finest Warlocks in the land taught their pupils in the blackest arts: divination, psychic torture, spatial transposition, and the latest in vexation.
The Rockefeller Mint provided the city with all its currency: brass and tin coinage featuring the embossed faces of all the Anti-Popes, and Hellnotes printed on processed demon skin.
Osiris Heights stood proud and posh, the residential district for upper-Hierarchals who lived an eternity of privilege in pristine highrises. A typical suite boasted the latest conveniences: harlot cages, skull-presses, iron-maidens, and neat personal-sized crematoriums. Television, too, powered not by electricity but by psychical theta-waves, offering up all the best torture channels.
Boniface Square encompassed whole city blocks in its leisure services. From the finest restaurants specializing in the best demonian cuisine to the most common street vendors pushing carts of flame-broiled meat skewers. Opulent nightclubs to rowdy hole-in-the-wall bars. From strip joints, bordellos, and peepshow parlors to the opulent Frederick the Great Opera House, all manner of abyssal entertainment could be found in the Square.
The J. Edgar Hoover Building existed in the Living World as well as in Lucifer’s; here, though, the immense Gothic edifice housed the million-occupant Central Jail, the Drug Perpetuation Agency, the Commandant of the Mancer Divisions (headed by an articulate gentleman named U. S. Grant), the Tamerlane Emergency Response Battalion, and, of course, Satan’s official police department—the Agency of the Constabulary.
Other landmarks included Tojo Memorial Hospital, the John Dee Library and Infernal Archives, St. Iscariot Abbey, and the infamous Office of Transfiguration and Teratologic Research.
And wealthier Hierarchals who enjoyed beach-combing could always open their cabanas along the beautiful blood-filled Sea of Cagliostro.
Cassie’s fascination didn’t abate. The gallery’s final mural occupied the entire back wall, showing different angles of the most spectacular skyscraper she could ever imagine. Monolithic and pale gray, the building must have spired miles into the smoky air, looking out on the city with hundreds of thousands of gun-slit windows. Gargoyles could be seen prowling the stone ledges of each level; Caco-Bats nested in the iron trestle that crossed to form the structure’s fastigiated antenna-mast. One shot from the highest ledge made Cassie dizzy just looking at the city’s panorama.
“The Mephisto Building,” Via identified. “That’s where Lucifer lives. It’s 666 floors straight up.”
Cassie squinted at a lower shot of the Devil’s metropolitan abode. The bottom of the building seemed to be surrounded by a perimeter of something shining and pinkish. “What is that?” she asked. “Around the building? It almost looks organic.”
“It is,” Xeke answered. “The Flesh Warrens, they call them. It’s a maze of connecting
city blocks that are alive. It’s like an organic security zone, a catacomb of manufactured living flesh that has its own immune system. Think of it as Satan’s home burglar alarm; it’s impossible to penetrate. Every once in a while, a terrorist group will go in, try to get to Lucifer. But they never come out.”
But this sparked another query. “Why would anyone want to attack Lucifer?” Cassie asked. “Isn’t he the god here in Hell? Isn’t he worshiped?”
“He’s worshiped by order of public law, but billions hate him. There are literally billions of humans and demons alike who’d love to get their hands on him.”
“But he’s a Fallen Angel. He can’t be killed.”
“No, but he can sure as shit be fucked up. Lucifer rules over this entire burg, but if you want to know the truth, he lives every second of his immortality in fear. Maybe that’s his own Hell. Anyway, that’s why he had the Flesh Warrens grown around the entire building. So no one gets in.”
The explanation made her think of what he’d said a moment ago. “And what did you just say? There are terrorists here?”
“Oh, sure. Most of them are pretty rag-tag, not very well armed or organized. They’re insurgents, rebel militias that wage a little guerilla warfare on Lucifer’s army and the Constabulary. There have been revolutionary movements in Hell for as long as it’s existed.” Xeke seemed downcast. “But the groups always get their asses kicked. There’ll never be a terrorist force that can stand up to Lucifer.” Xeke pointed to a sign on the wall right next to the mural. The sign read:WANTED:
EZORIEL, PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE (COMPOSITE NOT AVAILABLE)
“Ezoriel?” Cassie asked. “The name almost sounds angelic.”
“It is,” Xeke replied. “Ezoriel was Lucifer’s righthand man, the second Angel to be cast out of Heaven-by God. But he didn’t dig the way Lucifer was running the place, so he started a riot in Satan Park, and from there began to form his own rebel group. It’s called the Satan Park Contumacy, and it’s now the biggest terrorist organization in the city. Ezoriel swears that he’ll depose Lucifer some day, but all I can say to that is good luck. He’s launched a bunch of attacks on the Flesh Warrens, but they’re always repelled.”
Terrorists, Cassie thought. Revolutionaries in Hell. It all sounded marvelously fascinating. Then she looked again at the photos on the mural; she couldn’t even contemplate the sorcerous biological technologies that must’ve been involved to create such a thing as the Flesh Warrens. A labyrinth—made of flesh. “Jesus,” she muttered in awe.
Xeke laughed. “You won’t find Him here, but every now and then you’ll see Judas bopping around town. Come on. Let’s get out of here. We’ve got business in the Ghettoblocks....”
(III)
“God, I hate coming here,” Via complained. “Why do we have to come here?”
“I’ve got some moves to make,” Xeke replied. “I’m hip in these parts. I’ve got connections.”
“Oh, you’re such a player,” Via groaned. “Did you hear that? Xeke’s hip in these parts. He’s The Man.”
“You just wish you could be as hip.”
“Oh, right.”
The area they traversed now—the Ghettoblocks—smelled worse than anything yet. Endless drab highrises, many on fire or gushing smoke from shattered windows—lined the litter-strewn main drag. The starved and the hollow-eyed sat in desperate limbo on equally endless front steps. Haggard humans, wielding knives, chased Polter-Rats through alleys that reeked of urine and far worse. Others simply scraped up dirt or gutter filth with their hands, for food.
“This is where the poorest human residents live,” Xeke informed. “There are millions of apartments. No running water, no sewage or power—it ain’t Rodeo Drive, that’s for sure.”
They had to walk nearly in the middle of the street, for man-tall heaps of garbage consumed the sidewalks. Wet splattering resounded from all sides, wan residents emptying buckets of waste from high windows. From an alley, several mocha-skinned demons emerged and dispersed; moments later a human woman appeared, adjusting a soiled, threadbare skirt. Aside from dirty hair and flinty smudges on her skin, she could’ve been attractive. When she saw Xeke loping on the other side of the street, she whistled, “Hey, stud-muffin! Gotta penny-piece for the best action in town? Come on, let’s party! ”
Then she teasingly raised her rotten skirt.
“Uh, no thanks,” Xeke said.
Next, she showed an emaciated breast. “All right! For you it’s free!”
“Naw, gotta run. Next time, maybe.”
“Next time, maybe!” Via yelled at him. “You asshole! ”
Xeke scoffed. “I was just being polite. She’s a Zap whore. I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.”
The woman continued to wave her skirt. “Come on, cutie!”
Via glared at her. “Keep your trap shut, you demon sperm-dump! I’d come over there and kick your ass, but you’re not worth getting shit on the bottom of my boots.”
“Fuck you, bitch!” the prostitute yelled back.
Via’s rage exploded. She took off across the street, hate in her eyes.
“Aw, Via, just leave her alone,” Xeke groaned.
Via continued to sprint across. The prostitute squealed and ran off back down the alley.
“Yeah, you better run, you whore!” Via shouted. “Next time I see you, I’ll mop all the shit up off this street with your face!”
“Was that really necessary?” Xeke complained when she came back. “She’s got it bad enough.”
“She won’t have it bad until I get my hands on her,” Via sputtered. “Damn street whores. And you just make it worse by flirting with them.”
“I wasn’t flirting with her!” Xeke objected.
“Bullshit. You love it. All you do is walk around thinking you’re some Don Juan from Hell. Yeah, you’re hip, all right. Even the street whores are whistling after you.”
Xeke smiled to Cassie. “Women are so jealous.”
But the notion seemed alien to Cassie. I’ve never been jealous over a guy, because I’ve never HAD a guy. The sudden thought instantly depressed her.
The only boy she’d ever even kissed had been Radu—that night at Goth House. The act that had triggered Lissa’s suicide....
She refused to think about it any further.
They passed more massive slums, more fire and smoke. In another few minutes, Xeke was leading them into a place called THE GHOUL’S HEAD TAVERN.
“Great,” Via continued to complain. “Now we’re going into a bar. Let’s see how many girls put the make on Xeke here.”
“Women don’t menstruate in Hell,” Xeke said. “Then how come you’ve got PMS all the time?”
Via responded, “I wish I had a dick so I could tell you to blow me.”
Hush smiled up at Cassie, shaking her head as if to say Situation normal.
As they were about to enter through the two cliched swing doors, a thin, sharply dressed man was coming out, whistling “The Summer Wind.” Billiard balls could be heard clicking within. In Hell’s ghetto, Cassie didn’t expect much, but she found the taper-lit darkness inside to be comforting. Upholstered benches lined one side; a long brass-railed bar stretched across the other. In the back, she saw two shabby men playing pool, and in a high corner, a television flickered with the sound off.
“This place almost seems normal,” she remarked.
“Does that look normal to you?” Via pointed to a high mantle over the bar. The severed head of a monster had been propped there on a spike. Bottles on the glass shelves behind the bar all seemed to be full of muck rather than liquor, and then there was a sink full of green mold over which a sign read: EMPLOYEES MUST NOT WASH THEIR HANDS.
A chalkboard announced the day’s specials: HUMAN CHILI (SPICY OR MILD), HUMAN SAUSAGE, HUMAN MEAT LOAF WITH FIXIN’S.
“Those are the specials?” Cassie questioned.
“Sure. In the Ghetto, Human meat is rare. It’s usually shipped to the ritzier districts, which me
ans this place has some mob ties. Nine times out of ten, you’ll only find demon meat in the Ghettoblocks.” Then Via gestured toward the pool table. “The balls are kidney stones from a Nether-Pig. Oh, and check out the tube.”
Cassie looked closer at the oval tv screen in the corner. It was a boxing match between two demons. Instead of boxing gloves, the contestants held carpenter’s hammers in each hand.
Via reached up and changed the channel, a game show where a cadaverous host in a tuxedo spun a great clicking wheel. Wedges on the wheel bore words: TOTAL DISMEMBERMENT, LUXURY SUITE, BONE-REMOVAL, $50,000 CASH, and the like. A giddy She-Demon watched as the wheel spun. “Here’s your chance, Magnolia!” the host celebrated. “Will it be riches, or will it be the end of the line for you?” The wheel slowed, ticking. The pointer turned through a wedge that read LUXURY CRUISE FOR TWO ON THE SEA OF CAGLIOSTRO, but—
One more click and the pointer stopped on: HEAD-PRESSING.
“Oh, no, that sure is some bum luck, huh, Magnolia?” the host said, and at once the woman was dragged off the stage by tuxedo’d demons. Her head was forced into a metal box with a hand-crank on it, and soon the woman’s arms and legs were flailing. One demon was vigorously turning the crank, crushing the woman’s head. The audience cheered as blood and pureed brains began to run out of a tap in the box.
Where’s Wheel of Fortune when you need it? Cassie thought.
“And you wouldn’t believe the soap operas they’ve got here,” Via added.
Behind the bar a handsome man with a pompadour was polishing highball glasses with a blood-stained cloth. “Xeke, my man. How goes it?”
“Like half a dog, Jimmy D.,” Xeke answered.
“Half a dog?”
“Veah, I’m still standing on two legs so I suppose I’m doing all right.”
The barkeep leaned over. “The heat’s been up around here lately. Keep an eye out for the Constabs. Oh, and the meat supply’s down; they’re trolling hard for XR’s and Plebes on the wanted boards.”