Gloria didn’t know anything about the law. She had still been in hell when the Supreme Court had given gays the right to marry and then when the constitution had been changed to outlaw it again. Even had she been on earth, she doubted she would have cared. It was a human thing and her humanity had been surgically excised by the Masters.
“Do you love me?” Gloria asked.
“I do. Of course, I do. You are my goddess.”’
“Will you let us both go to hell alone?” Gloria asked, pointing to the feeble wound on Red’s thigh.
“I-I can’t. I’m afraid.”
The NYPD were closing in on them with their guns drawn.
“Stop! Stop right there!”
“Don’t you fucking move! You in the costume! Don’t fucking move!”
“Hands in the air!”
“Get down on your knees!”
“Come with me,” Gloria said, ignoring the cops swarming around her like gnats, reaching out her hand to the young lesbian.
The redheaded woman was still on her knees, smiling up at Gloria. On the bridge, it looked as if every cop in New York had assembled. There were hundreds of guns pointed at them.
The woman nodded. “Take me. Take me with you. I can’t do it myself.”
“Don’t do it! Hands in the air! Hands in the air! Don’t you fucking do it!”
Gloria raised her talons and slashed them across the redhead’s throat, severing her trachea, esophagus, and cervical vertebrae, sending her head spinning off the bridge to the concrete below, her long mane of crimson hair twirling into the darkness.
The bullets began to hail down, pounding into Gloria’s flesh. She took more than a hundred rounds before she finally dropped. A demon has so few vital organs, and nearly every part of her was expendable, replaceable. Except for that one tiny spot in the prefrontal lobe that housed her soul. Out of hundreds of rounds fired from the policemen’s semiautomatic guns, a single bullet found that sweet spot. There was a moment of darkness and then an explosion of flames as Gloria found herself hurtling toward hell.
Part IX
Gloria descended into hell, plummeting into the Lake of Fire, liquid fire burning her flesh without incinerating. The searing heat stung her skin as she swam to shore, where the beach for as far as she could see was filled with her followers. Vlad was nowhere in sight. So much for waiting for her. No doubt he’d run off to warn the Masters. She wondered if they had even needed his warning. They must have had some way of monitoring her movements on Earth.
The demons who usually preyed at the edge of these waters for fallen souls found themselves overwhelmed. The lake of hell had overrun its banks and millions upon millions of souls were emerging from the flaming sea.
The sky was black with souls hurtling into the boiling lake of protoplasm. Even the angels who normally patrolled the skies had retreated, as many of them had been pulled down into the Lake of Fire by the sudden deluge of souls. The lakes flooded hell with a tsunami of the damned. The humans were attacking anything they found that was not human, forcing those demons caught in the tide into the flaming waters. The war had begun.
Demons were pouring from the tunnels. They hacked through the human souls like scythes through wheat, but the humans were relentless. The demons attacked savagely, fighting with hatred and rage behind them, propelling them, giving them strength. Hundreds of thousands of demons attacked with studded clubs, planks of wood fitted with razors and knives, with carved-out skulls of past victims, bloody flesh still dripping gore, with anything they could grab and use as a weapon. But they were horribly outnumbered, and as Gloria herself had discovered during her tour in eternal torment, souls in hell regenerated.
There were millions of humans, and those who had just arrived with Gloria had not yet learned to fear the inferno and its masters. They were on a mission. They were determined to wrestle hell from the demon’s grasp in honor of their infernal lord, Gloria. And they learned quickly to attack the demons in hordes and relinquish them of their weapons.
The demons who wouldn’t give up easily, like those caught by the shore, were soon overrun by the masses of newly-dead humans engulfing them like toxic waves from the flaming sea. Those in the way were trampled, torn to pieces, disemboweled, dismembered, pulverized beyond recognition despite their remarkable strength. The overwhelming force from the sheer number of humans shattered the ranks of demons. But the destruction done to them was temporary, because like the humans they had attempted to annihilate, the demons were spirits and could not be permanently destroyed.
And some believed they would ultimately be triumphant, that Gloria’s insane coup was a temporary insanity. But those who fought back did so in vain. They quickly discovered there was no victory, not for hell, not for them. And maybe they were right, they figured, and this was temporary. But even so, it made no sense to stick with the losing side. When this entire mess was finished, they’d lick their wounds and pledge eternal loyalty to the victor. It didn’t matter to them who that might be.
The humans embraced them, converted them, made them loyal followers of Gloria. For now, at least. It suited the demons well to spend their days this way.
Those who refused to succumb were dragged off into the caverns deep within the bowels of hell.
Time to make an example of the non-believers, it was decided. One demon with a ring of baby skulls adorning its belt was dragged across the dirt, his claws digging into the ground in a feeble attempt to gain purchase. His enormous antlers, filed down into dozens of deadly points was torn from his head. He was knocked down and he crashed to his knees, roaring as he fell, his knotty forehead smashing into the cave wall, a tusk snapping off, the thick scorpion tail protruding from the center of his spine snapping and cracking wildly until it was chopped off with an axe.
The mob descended on him and at first he held them at bay, smashing in their skulls with swipes from his massive fists but they kept coming and coming and when they retreated they took pieces with them. Like biting insects, relentless, pervasive, taking at first nips of flesh to aggravate until they were retreating with larger pieces, and then with more vital pieces … gnawing, chomping, grinding away limbs, chunks of its distorted, freakish face, and they fled with these pieces, scattering them throughout the caves, dropping chunks of the demon into the bottomless pit of the Lake of Fire.
The armless, legless, dickless torso demon began the arduous task of searching for his stolen body parts, unable to regenerate without them. It wobbled uselessly, like a turtle flipped on its back, trying desperately to move through the cave. After some time, the demon realized he had moved maybe an inch. He wanted to scream his rage, to demand they bring back his stolen body, but they had ripped out his tongue and vocal cords as well.
Torso demon began his endless trek through the passages of hell and wondered who the fuck he was being loyal to and whether or not it was worth it.
*
Led by Gloria, humans and newly recruited demons, hell spawn, wraiths, fallen seraphim, fauns, nephilim, ghosts, the innocent and the damned thrown together in a stygian cesspool of primordial ooze seeping from the filthy walls swarmed the chambers, overtaking and overthrowing everything in their path.
The catacombs were soon littered with body parts of hell’s denizens torn apart in the fight, unable to find their own scattered limbs and organs to regenerate, and littered too with those too afraid to fight, too afraid to join the cause, swept up in the maelstrom and destroyed by the very force of it. Some feared the Masters more than they feared Gloria and her endless masses and they refused to succumb no matter what they were threatened with.
And some reminded Gloria what a fool she was, believing she could defeat the Masters—and Satan himself.
“Let Satan show himself!” Gloria exclaimed. “Let the almighty Morning Star join in the fight. Goddamned coward.” She spat in the dirt.
Buried deep within the passages of hell—a section Gloria had not seen before, not surprising considering the vastness of
Hades—she began to discover various rooms, each filled with tortured souls in various stages of experimentation.
She freed those willing to join her—or those at least willing to lie and promise their eternal devotion in exchange for their freedom from their current state of misery and torment. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe these converts were suddenly true devotees, but she had the strength and the numbers, and they would all fall into place or be destroyed. There was no third option, and she wasn’t concerned.
The few stubborn idiots too foolish to lie were left to their various tortures. A disemboweled demon forced to slowly eat his own intestines, pulling through the lanky length of fiber and muscle and tissue like sausage through a skinny casing, sucking it back, devouring the ruined meat. Beside him, a human man watched helplessly while strapped into a chair as the ebola virus slowly ate away his flesh, leaving behind gangrenous holes oozing diseased pus, the putrid smell making him gag, the sight of his flesh dissolving into puddles of blood and liquid tissue making him vomit. Others were stretched on racks until joints popped out of their sockets, until flesh tore; eyes were repeatedly gouged out with scalpels the moment they regenerated, flicking the base, slowly carving out the ciliary muscle until a slight pop! was followed by unremitting pain, blood flooding the cheeks, filling the nostrils. One eye, the other, regenerate, repeat. Face covered with gore, screams bursting from chests until exhaustion set in, until they’re unable to utter another sound. Orifices stretched to unrecognizable proportions by medieval instruments. And this still was the better alternative to joining Gloria, some believed. She found their stupidity, their lack of faith mind-numbing. When Satan got wind of this, they taunted through agonized moans and shrieks, all hell’s gonna break loose—so to speak.
And somewhere in the back of her mind this worried Gloria, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that now. She would face Satan when he finally decided to join this fight. She was quite surprised he hadn’t joined in by now. What the hell was he waiting for?
Down another deserted corridor Gloria led another contingent. The rest of the massive crowd had been instructed to wait. Traveling through narrow tunnels with a massive force behind her was beginning to get a bit claustrophobic. Besides, they weren’t actually getting anywhere. They had destroyed everything in their path that they hadn’t absorbed. As far as Gloria knew, the only thing left in her way were the Masters. And Satan. Maybe Vlad, depending on which side he was on now, but that didn’t worry her. Vlad was a spec in the grand scheme of things.
Beyond the antechamber a figure was outstretched as if in welcome, suspended from the rock walls like a monarch butterfly stretched out on a board. His face was contorted into an unnatural grimace. Here was a creature who had faced inexorable pain and suffering. Gloria couldn’t tell if it was a human or a demon, it was so badly disfigured. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of compassion for it. She was surprised she still felt any positive emotions and wondered if she should be concerned. Compassion was a human emotion after all, something she shouldn’t still experience? Did this somehow make her more human? No, she decided. She was a god and could experience any fucking emotion she desired. If she felt any twinge of compassion for another creature, so be it.
“Cut it down,” she instructed, but before anyone moved a rustle of air from the suspended figure made her look up.
The thing wasn’t dead, as she’d suspected it was. Slowly its eyes opened, and in them Gloria recognized something strange and beautiful: compassion. Impossible for a demon but this was definitely not a human. It was too big, too powerful. And just as slowly it began to move, slightly raising its badly beaten head. A delicate rustling began to grow in force, swelled from a gentle breeze to a gale force wind. Its gigantic wings expanded, until they were wrapped around the things horribly beaten body. The wings, once magnificent, were filthy, torn, shredded remnants of their former glory, streaked with dirt and piss and shit, trampled and stomped until they barely resembled wings anymore. This thing had once been an angel. The angel exhaled deeply, as if unfurling his wings brought him great relief.
“I know you,” Gloria whispered, stepping closer to the demon/angel, bringing her hand up until it touched his chin. “Is it you?”
He nodded slightly.
“Can you talk?”
He shook his head. No.
Gloria longed to hear his angelic voice, the enigmatic voice of her former tormentor. His hideous appearance could hide many things, but not his original nature. She remembered how radiant he had looked when he’d first shrugged off his infernal flesh and had reassumed his angelic form. It had obviously been a mistake, one he had been paying for ever since.
“Cut him down!” she yelled. “Gently.”
Half a dozen arms carefully supported the mutilated seraphim as they cut him down and lay him on the ground. Gloria knelt beside him. “We’ll take care of you,” she said, taking his clawed hand in hers. She owed him that much. He had saved her life once, had sacrificed himself so that she might experience some happiness. And this had been his reward: eternal torture and damnation. That was about to end. Gloria would see to that.
Gloria stood over the angel/demon and stared down at him. “Is he okay?” she asked no one in particular.
The woman beside her shook her head. “I have no idea. There’s no way to—”
Gloria backhanded the woman, sending her flying off her feet, sending her smashing into the wall several feet away. “Remember who you are addressing!” she snapped, whirling to face the group one at a time. “I am your god! Would you prefer Satan to me? Would you prefer the torments of hell to my love? Then address me as you would him!”
The group muttered apologies, and the woman Gloria had attacked slowly climbed to her feet, wiping the blood from her face and neck. “I’m sorry, Goddess. No disrespect intended.”
“And the angel?” Gloria asked again. “What can be done for him?”
Everyone looked at Gloria but no one spoke. She’d felt it was necessary to keep this group submissive, but now she wondered if that had been a mistake. None of her followers acted as if they would betray her. She wondered if spending time in hell had made her paranoid.
“Someone answer,” she said. Still no one did. “You may answer!”
“Well,” and this voice belonged to the same woman Gloria had struck. Gloria was beginning to gain respect for this woman. She had a set of stones on her. “It’s not like there’s an infirmary here. Is there really any way of knowing? I mean, the other demons don’t die … why would he?”
“Because he’s not a demon, not anymore.” Gloria said. “He’s an angel, was an angel … a fallen angel who became a demon. And then was redeemed … and so they did this to him, as punishment. He apparently became a pet project,” she continued, stroking his battered wing. “They’ve fucked him up pretty badly … I don’t know if he’ll be able to recover. But I owe him. Help him.”
Things had never been the same for her angel/demon, the one who had spent what had felt like an eternity torturing her, raping her, shredding the skin from her body over and over and over. Yet he had shown remorse, had set her free. Had tried to redeem himself from the pain he had inflicted, knowing that if he failed, he would be punished. And he had failed. Heaven still had not accepted him, and hell wanted him to pay.
“We’ll do the best we can, Goddess,” another follower said, stepping up from the shadows. “We can stay with him. Try to, I don’t know, nurse him back to health or something.”
“Fine,” Gloria said, nodding. “For now, the Lake of Fire will be our home base, until we can figure out better communications in this place. If you have any news you need to report, get to the lake. If I’m not there, someone will always be able to find me.”
“Yes, Goddess.”
The group dispersed, some carrying her angel/demon to the shores, others … she didn’t know where the others were going. She’d never asked, nor had she given directions. But they set out purposefull
y, as if on a mission, and she felt that if she asked, she would appear weak. How could she not know where they were going, what they were doing? To ask would be ridiculous. Still, this was unacceptable, this not knowing. Something she would have to fix.
She moved through the tunnels, watching the continuing slaughter, the onslaught of her people reducing hell to scores of helpless demonic creatures.
“Vlad!” she yelled. If he was still loyal, he would hear her. He would come. He was never far from her. Not unless he was with the Masters.
Vlad appeared seconds later, and to her surprise fell to his knees before her.
“Goddess,” he said. He stood up and grinned. “Have to make it look good for the others, now don’t I?”
“Take me to the Masters,” she said, shaking her head at his impudence. She was a goddess now. He should know better than to display such arrogance and sarcasm.
“That’s … not such a good idea.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion. I gave you a command.”
“Look, lover. Things really aren’t all that different. I don’t buy into your line of bullshit.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his elbows resting on his massive gut. “You may be their goddess, but you’re my bitch.”
Gloria backhanded Vlad and he went flying off his feet, smashing headfirst into the wall. “You got the better of me once, you fucking troll. Never again. I’ll have my people on you faster than you could possibly imagine.”
The corridor seemed to breathe on its own with the volume of humans spilling through the caverns. “I only have to say the word and they’ll have you in a thousand pieces, scattered all through hell.”
Vlad struggled to his feet and wiped the blood off the gaping wound on his crushed cheekbone. “Fine,” he said, pig eyes staring hard. “But you have to listen to me. It’s too soon to go after the Masters.”
Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II Page 22